A Speed Date With Etymology
(Seven-minute read)
If you’ve known me for any longer than a day, you’ll know how much I love words. I write them, ramble with them and occasionally straight-up make them up. But this isn’t a piece about how powerful language is (my usual angle); it’s a speed date with words. It’s intended to give you an insight into the magic of etymology and get you hooked on your own marvellous vernacular.
So, without further ado, here are my five current favourite etymological gems.
1) To Lick Something Into Shape
This gorgeous phrase was born in the early 1400s when many Europeans believed that bears were born as tiny shapeless blobs that had to be licked into bear-shape by their parents. As so often happens with language, this idea was gradually repurposed and generalised; the phrase can now be used to describe urging anything or anyone into better condition through persistent work.
English isn’t the only language that has held onto this medieval belief. Ours mal léché (badly-licked bear) is a 17th century French expression used to describe people who “Know little of the ways of the world”, implying they weren’t given a generous upbringing – their parents didn’t adequately lick them into shape.
2) Alphabet
The word alphabet gets its name from the first letters in the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. Many other writing systems are named in a similar way: abugida comes from the Ge’ez (Ethiopic) ä, bu, gi, and da; abecedary is from the Latin a, be, ce, and de; and Abjad is from the Arabic a, b, j, and d.
3) Plumb
Okay, so this is really three fun facts in one:
1) Plumbum is the Latin word for the metal we know in English as lead (that’s why its chemical symbol is Pb).
2) Hundreds of years ago, many water systems were made primarily of plumbum (lead), so the people working on these systems quickly gained the name plumbers.
3) Across the world, trade workers have been using plumb bobs to establish straight vertical lines for millennia. A plumb bob is (basically) a string with a weight on the end of it; let the weight hang and, tah dah! You have a perfect vertical line! The weight (or bob) has historically been made of – you guessed it – lead! Hence, this eloquent instrument gives us plumb as in straight.
4) Unfathomable
Fathom comes from Old English Fæthm, meaning ‘outstretched arms’.
It was also used as a verb (to fathom) which meant ‘to embrace’ – you fathomed someone by wrapping your arms around them.
The sailors amongst you might also be familiar with the fathom’s nautical history. A fathom is a unit which was primarily used through the 1600s to measure water depth at sea. This unit is said to have been based on the average fathom – the average armspan – of an adult. Fathoms were used exclusively to determine depth, which was measured at sea by dropping one end of a rope into the water, feeling it hit the seabed, and then counting the fathoms of wet rope.
Though these uses are now virtually obsolete, they do linger in our bewilderment. If something is unfathomable, we might say we can’t get to the bottom of it, or that it cannot be grasped.
5) Electricity
If you’re lucky enough to own any amber jewellery, you might have noticed how easily it picks up an electric charge when rubbed with another material such as wool. This static charge enables your amber ring to attract light objects, such as paper.
The Ancient Greeks noticed this little superpower, and attributed it to the amber, even when observed elsewhere. Their word for the yellow-red stone was elektron, so this is what they called the phenomenon. The rest is history.
…At this point, the timer on our speed date goes off, and I gulp, realising I haven’t given you a word in edgewise.
Want more? I’ll pop a few more etymologically fantastic words below with links to further reading. Before following each link, take a moment to consider the word. How would you expect it to be broken down? Can you think of any other words with similar sounds or letter combos?
Do you have other favourites? Please get in touch, I’d love to hear them!