What’s the Word: Some words have intriguing origins
We often hear it said these days that we live in the information age, and most of us would agree that’s true. Indeed, at no point in history has so much pure information been available to the general population. And, as we all know, one of the main things that has fueled this dissemination of knowledge is the evolution of the Internet.
So it should be no surprise that, to those of us who love words, the Internet is a veritable wonderland of linguistic lore, which has brought about a new, or maybe not so new, type of Internet denizen – the word nerd. A group to which I, unashamedly, admit I belong.
In fact, there are so many delightful Web sites dealing with words and language it would take quite a while to explore them all. But since I spend a fair amount of my time doing exactly that, I thought I would pass along some of my favorites so anyone who shares my love of words can enjoy them as well.
One of my discoveries is a site called “The Origin of Words and Names,” found at www.krysstal.com/wordname.html. (Note: I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information on this, or any other, Web site.)
This simply designed site is a wellspring of linguistic trivia. After pointing out that English developed from an Anglo-Saxon base of common words, the site’s authors go on to state that most modern words have developed from five other sources.
Herewith those sources.
Words created from nothing. Examples of words that just appeared in the language, according to the site, are byte, dog (replacing the earlier hund), donkey, jam, kick, log, quasar, google and yuppie.
The site also credits famous writers with creating an amazing variety of words as well. Shakespeare, for instance, is credited with coining over 1,600 words including countless, critical, excellent, lonely, majestic and obscene. Ben Johnson came up with damp, and Isaac Newton with centrifugal.
Words created in error. Words that fall into this category include the verb laze, incorrectly created from the adjective lazy. The site also claims the word buttonhole was created from a mis-hearing of button-hold.
Borrowed and adopted words. One interesting example of this is the word orange. Originally the Sanskrit name of the fruit was naranj, but since words ending in J are not common in English, the spelling was changed to narange. Mis-hearing of that name changed it further to arange, and over time the initial A became an O to give orange. Whew! Not really that much of a jump when you think about it though – naranj to orange. They probably sounded pretty similar when spoken.
Changes in words. This is a fascinating one for me. I have always been interested in how words evolve to represent something totally different from the original meaning. Some of the words listed at the Origin of Words and Names site include awful, which originally meant deserving of awe. Supposedly girl originally designated a young person of either sex. Guess meant to take aim. Neck was a parcel of land (as in neck of the woods). And notorious simply meant famous.
Words created by subtraction or addition. Of course most of us know new words can be created by adding suffixes, like -able and -ness, or prefixes, like dis- and anti-. Words like brightness and pavement. Also of interest to me are words that have been shortened from the original term. Words like bra from brassier, bus from omnibus, exam from examination, and one some might find amusing, knickers from knickerbockers, but it probably wouldn’t be proper to try to get into that here.
(Charlie Johnson is news editor for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)