Surprising Doublets: Grime, Christ, and Ghee

Grime, Christ, and ghee share the same Indo-European root! The word “grimace” is also cognate, coming from French “grimace”, from Frankish *grima (mask), from the Proto-Germanic *grīmô. Greek Khristos is a calque of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ‎ (māšīaḥ), also meaning “anointed”. Māšīaḥ was also borrowed into Greek and Latin, eventually reaching English as the word “messiah”. […]

Surprising Doublets: Cow, Beef, and Bovine

Yet another surprising etymology graphic:“Cow” and “beef” are related words.After the Norman invasion of England in 1066, the country came under the rule of a Norman French speaking nobility.This lead to a situation where the live animals were handled by Middle English speakers, while the cooked animal was eaten by theirNormal French speaking lords.The result: […]

Etymological Tree of Sker

I started making an image showing how “skirt” and “shirt” are from the same origin, but got a bit carried away with all the other words also related. So here are 23 English words all from the Proto-Indo-European word “*(s)ker-” (‘to cut’). As a general rule: if a PIE word started with “sk”, and it […]

Reborrowings

Words that were borrowed, and then returned What we call “borrowed words” aren’t really borrowed. When English took the Japanese word “tsunami”, there was no intention to return it. They’re more like “stolen words”. Actually, since the original language keeps them, they might better be labelled “pirated words”. Anyway… in a few cases, the words […]

The difference between Britain, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and the British Isles

…and how to talk about them without offending people The history of Britain and Ireland is long, complicated and horribly messy, and as a result, lots of people get the words that describe the region mixed up. As well as being inaccurate, misusing these words can cause a lot of offence, so it’s important to […]

Indo-European Words For Two

Why are all these words related? The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language was spoken around 6000 years, somewhere on the border between Europe and Asia. Since then, the language has spread and split up into many different languages in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia. Now, nearly half the world speaks an Indo-European language. Because all […]