upworthy

etymology

Pop Culture

Think the weird way we save contacts to our phone is new? A language nerd says guess again.

Turns out a common phone habit is connected to the way last names were created thousands of years ago.

@etymologynerd/Instagram

Suddenly "Joanna Math Class" in our phone makes a whole lotta sense.

It might seem like a very modern concept to label contacts like “Richard Chiropractor” or “Sarah Pilates,” but as one self proclaimed etymology nerd explains it, this way of naming people is actually a time honored tradition for western languages.

Adam Aleksic, a 23-year-old linguist and content creator from New York City, broke down exactly how western surnames were created using this very method.

“Before the 12th century, everybody just had first names,” Aleksic began. But as England’s population began expanding, more record keeping was needed.

This introduced four different types of surnames—occupational, toponymic, adjectival, and relationship descriptor.

An occupational surname categorizes a person by their profession, much like today you might save someone as “A.J. Plumber” or “Leo Finance” in your phone, Aleksic explained.

Toponymic surnames, on the other hand, are linked to the place a person is from or where you met them. Aleksic used "Joanna Math Class" or "Raina Minnesota” as examples.

Then there are the adjectival surnames, referring to a characteristic or behavior. Aleksic’s examples included "Dylan DO NOT ANSWER" and "Steph (stoner)."

“Imagine ur last name is ‘do not answer’ lol” quipped one viewer.

Finally, there’s relationship descriptor names, which Aleksic said represent someone’s personal connection to another person—think "Johnson," meaning "John's son." This might be the most common way we categorize our contacts today, with an additional layer. "Ina Bestie" or "Sam Tinder," for instance, both reveal our own unique connection to this person.

So all this to say—this new thing really isn’t all that new.

And that’s a major reason why Aleksic makes videos about linguistic fun facts in the first place. In an interview with Buzzfeed, he said, "A common theme in my research and videos is that we're constantly playing out old linguistic patterns in a new medium. I find that comforting because it means you don't have to be alarmed by language change. Rather, you can be aware of how language holds power and then use it wisely."

On his account, you can find all kinds of fascinating language and/or history tidbits—from how certain colors got their names to dissecting Gen Z slang terms to breaking down how fonts hit differently. If you’re looking for fun an educational scroll give Aleksic a follow here.

From Your Site Articles
interesting
Education

Shampoo, nightmare, muscles, jumbo — the unexpected origins of 11 everyday words

The etymology of "dog" remains a strange mystery.

Photo by Lisa Therese on Unsplash

The word "jumbo" literally comes from an elephant.

The evolution of language is fascinating, and the etymology of specific words can be a fun little trip through human history as well as human creativity.

Many English words are derived from Greek and Latin, but other European languages make up a good chunk of our language as well. The roots of some words can surprise us, and so can the way certain words came to be. And in some cases, what we don't know can be just as surprising as what we do.

Enjoy diving into the history of 15 words we use every day.

1. Dog

Dog is often one of the first words babies learn to say, and it's one of the first kids learn to spell. But don't let its simplicity fool you. This word is truly a mystery.

The word "dog" comes from dogca, a very rarely used Old English word, but how we started using it as our everyday name for canines, no one knows. "Its origin remains one of the great mysteries of English etymology," according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

Even more interestingly, no one knows the origins of the Spanish word for "dog" ("perro"), nor do they know the origins of the Polish ("pies") or Serbo-Croatian ("pas") words for our canine friends, either. Who knew dogs were so enigmatic?

2. Nightmare

It's obvious where "night" comes from in "nightmare," but what about "mare"? Surely, were not referring to a female horse here.

Horse, no. But female, yes. Female goblin, to be precise. In Old English, mare means "incubus, nightmare, monster; witch, sorcerer." And "nightmare" started being used around 1300 to refer to "an evil female spirit afflicting men (or horses) in their sleep with a feeling of suffocation." Yikes. Thankfully, now it's just any old bad dream.

3. Jumbo

We've all seen animals named for words with certain meanings, but here we have the opposite. The word "jumbo" came from a large elephant who lived at the London Zoo. Zookeeper Anoshan Anathjeysari named him "Jumbe," the Swahili word for "chief." But his status as one of the largest African bush elephants in Europe in the 19th century caused his nickname, Jumbo, to become synonymous with enormousness.

muscular man exercising

Run, little mouse, run.

Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

4. Muscle

The Latin word musculus means "little mouse." As hilarious as it sounds, they thought the movement of muscles looked like little mice scurrying under the skin, hence the origin. Kinda ick to think about, but also logical, so here we are.

5. Quarantine

Ah, a word with which we are all familiar, thanks to COVID-19. But do we know what it really means?

If you understand roots, you may guess that "quar" might have something to do with the number four, and you'd be right. In Latin, quadraginta means a period of 40 days. Our usage of "quarantine" to mean isolation from others comes from the Venetian policy of ships coming into port from plague-stricken countries in the late 1300s to remain in port for 40 days before letting people off. The usage to mean any period of time in isolation began being used in the 1600s.

6. Mortgage

Most of us grow up not really understanding what a mortgage is until we buy our first house, but even then, most of us don't know what the word literally means. It comes from Old French, mort gaige, literally meaning "death pledge."

HAHAHAHAHA. Death pledge. Mortgage. That's funny.

However, it doesn't mean you're tied to the debt til you die, even if it feels like it. The death part means the deal dies either when you pay it off or when you become unable to pay. Doesn't really change the fact that it feels a bit like you're signing your life away when you buy a house, though.

ball of yarn

What does a ball of yarn have to do with "clue"?

Photo by Philip Estrada on Unsplash

7. Clue

Oddly enough, "clue" comes from a misspelling (or alternate spelling from before standardized spelling was a thing) of the word "clew," meaning a ball of yarn.

The word itself comes from German, but its usage points to the Greek myth in which Ariadne gives Theseus a ball (or clew) of yarn to help him escape the labyrinth. Now we use it to refer to anything that helps us solve a mystery.

8. Nice

The word "nice" is nice and simple, right? It's the most basic word we use for "pleasant," a definitively positive word. But this seemingly simple word has been through quite the trek in its etymology.

From the Latin nescius, meaning "ignorant, unaware," it was used to mean "timid" or"faint-hearted" before the year 1300. A couple hundred years later, it had morphed to "fussy, fastidious" or "dainty, delicate." In another 100 years, it changed to "precise, careful." Tack on another few hundred years and we're at "agreeable, delightful," and from there it was only short jaunt to "kind, thoughtful."

What a nice journey from insult to compliment.

9. Shampoo

I would have bet money that the word "shampoo" was French in origin, but nope. It's Hindi, coming from the term champo, and the original meaning was "to massage, rub and percuss the surface of (the body) to restore tone and vigor." It's only been used to refer specifically to lathering and washing out strands of hair or carpet since the mid 1800s.

10. Torpedo

Literally Latin for a stingray. As in the marine animal. That comes from the root word torpere, which means "be numb," since a ray's sting can numb you. It doesn't become the word for a propelled underwater explosive until the last couple hundred years.

11. Ambidextrous

We know that left-handedness was seen negatively throughout much of human history, but even the word that means "able to use both hands equally" has a right-handed bias baked into it. The medieval Latin ambidexter literally meansliterally means "right-handed on both sides."

Isn't English fun?


From Your Site Articles
language
Joy

Viral song hilariously imagines naming other things the way we named 'pineapple'

A clever, catchy and slightly chaotic take on the English language.

@thejazzemu/TikTok

Would you like to slice some hotdoglemons into your morninggravel?

The way words get added to a language is an endlessly fascinating topic. Most English root words originate from Latin and Greek, but we also excel at borrowing from languages around the world.

Some of our words are just weird, though. For instance, "pineapple." Rather than calling the delicious yellow fruit with pokey leaves "ananas" like most of the world, our ancestors apparently took a look at one and decided, "Eh, kinda looks like a pinecone. But it's clearly a fruit. How about we call it a 'pineapple'?"

A video creator who goes by @thejazzemu made a hilarious song exploring what would happen if we named other words the way we named "pineapple"—by combining two words with "minimal conceptual link"—and it's a silly feast of musical and etymological brilliance.

Take the word "curtain" and change it into "windowwink." So much more fun and descriptive. What about calling a banana a "hotdoglemon" instead? Utterly delightful.

Watch how the Jazz Emu pineapple-izes several English words in a clever, catchy and chaotically over-the-top song:

@thejazzemu

The most OFFENSIVE word in the English Language? #offense #word #language #cancelculture #pineapple #linguistics #fyp #foryou #help

People have tuned in millions of times to view the video, and the comments on YouTube explain why.

"Morninggravel almost made me spit out my morninggravel," wrote Steve.

"This is my favorite sound-dance. When I'm on the poop-throne, in the rain-box, or at my money-slaver, I enjoy listening to it. Gets the meat-paddle-tips tapping," wrote Joshua Shupe.

"'When every other language said ananas English panicked and mentally combined the concept of a pine cone with frikkin’ apple' is a structurally-delicious sentence," shared Ashanna Redwolf.

"Damn....why is this song so catchy? Also, why am I so entranced by this 'dance' that goes along with it?" wrote ChrisJMP88.

Seriously, though. We need a full-length version on Spotify, please.

Believe it or not, the actual history of the word "pineapple" is even weirder than what is relayed here. According to Merriam-Webster, the seeded part of a pine tree that we now refer to as a pinecone actually used to be called a "pineapple." Yes, really. So the word pineapple actually predates pinecone—it just happened to stick to the fruit.

Why would a pinecone be called a pineapple in the first place? Merriam-Webster explains that the practice of calling any foreign fruit, vegetable or nut an "apple" stems from ancient times. For example, a peach was first known as a "Persian apple," and a pomegranate's initial name meant "an apple with many seeds." So even though a pinecone wasn't technically a fruit, it was still referred to as a "pineapple"…that is until it became a pinecone and the fruit forever claimed "pineapple" for itself.

Words are just so wacky. I vote that we just call things whatever we want and let people figure out what we mean.

You can follow the Jazz Emu on YouTube and TikTok.

From Your Site Articles
Videos

The surprisingly interesting history behind the phrase 'dead as a doornail'

Malcolm P.L./YouTube

A doornail really is deader than a regular nail.

"Old Marley was as dead as a doornail."

Charles Dickens' line from "A Christmas Carol" is probably the most famous example of the phrase "dead as a doornail," but it's certainly not the only one. Shakespeare used it in Henry IV Part 2: "Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more." An unnamed poet used the idiom for the first time in print in a poem published in 1350, but it's still not uncommon to hear it used today.

"Dead as a doornail" obviously means dead, deceased, definitively not alive. But why a doornail and not just a nail? All nails are dead by their nature of being metal, right? So why even use a nail at all? Why not "dead as a door" or "dead as a rock"? Those are dead, too. What makes a doornail specifically deader than other dead things?

There's a surprisingly interesting answer to that question. As it turns out there really is a good reason for specifying a doornail to convey being really, truly dead.

YouTube creator Malcolm P.L., who mostly makes videos about the history of armor, shared an explanation as well as a demonstration of what a doornail actually is:

So it turns out that a doornail isn't just a nail in a door, but a nail that cannot be removed and reused. Way back when, nails were made by hand and quite valuable. People would salvage and repurpose nails whenever they could. The way doornails were bent and driven into the backside of a door made it virtually impossible for them to be reused as a nail.

So not only are doornails dead simply because they're nails, but because their future potential for any other use is also dead. They are doubly dead, if you will. Extra deceased.

How many other idioms do we commonly use without knowing their full origins? Let the cat out of the bag? The whole nine yards? Spill the beans? Get someone's goat?

Language is so fascinating. Time to do some Googling.


From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
culture
Trending Stories