Advertisement
Confession: I'm an OED addict. I love looking up the etymologies for common words. But what this thread is about is . . .
You know how sometimes you'll just suddenly realize the likely etymology of a common term? Like, "disaster." Literally, bad stars. (The "aster" being the same as in astrology, astronomy, etc.) So, a disaster occurs when our stars are badly aligned.
Similarly, "disoriented." Being so confused that you don't know where the east is. "Companion"--someone you eat bread with. And so forth. Helps to have a good grounding in Greek and Latin but then, what word geek doesn't!?!?!
Who else has had good etymology moments? Share! If you're tragically OED-less and want me to look them up, make sure they're accurate, you know I'll be happy to. Because I am, well, a big dork . . .
You know how sometimes you'll just suddenly realize the likely etymology of a common term? Like, "disaster." Literally, bad stars. (The "aster" being the same as in astrology, astronomy, etc.) So, a disaster occurs when our stars are badly aligned.
Similarly, "disoriented." Being so confused that you don't know where the east is. "Companion"--someone you eat bread with. And so forth. Helps to have a good grounding in Greek and Latin but then, what word geek doesn't!?!?!
Who else has had good etymology moments? Share! If you're tragically OED-less and want me to look them up, make sure they're accurate, you know I'll be happy to. Because I am, well, a big dork . . .
posted by:
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Etymology moments
Mon, January 12, 2004 - 11:02 AMTragically, I am OED-less...
Question for AD: I would like it confirmed that 'Cretan' (inhabitant of Crete) has no etymological relationship to 'cretin' (mentally deficient).
Bein a huge fan of artistic pre-Iron iage cultures, I've enjoyed travelling to Crete (Palace of Knossos, etc) and would like to be sure that when I next insult someone, I not inadvertently call them "you stupid descendant of otherwise brilliant Minoan artists"
As far as I know, 'cretin' is from French/Swiss Frech 'creitin.'
'much obliged! -
-
Re: Etymology moments
Sat, January 17, 2004 - 10:11 PMInterestingly enough, the etymology (per OED) goes back (through, as you note, the French/Swiss creitin) to the Latin Christianum, meaning Christian. Again, to quote the OED "The sense being here that these being really are human, as distinguished from the brutes, despite being so deformed mentally and physically."
Apparently, in certain valleys of the Alps, dwarfism & mental deficiency was so common to inspire the need for a term. Creepy commentary: An Italian friend of mine once really casually commented on the fact that he was from a really small village in the Alps where the wnters were really long & family were snowed in for months, "so, lots of retards were born." Yikes! -
-
Re: Etymology moments
Fri, March 5, 2004 - 10:35 PMIn Romanian, crestin and român were synonyms meaning, more or less, "dude". This is supposed to be from Late Latin to contrast with the heathen barbarians swarming in. If the locals were still calling each other a variant of this word up in the Alps, it could have become a term for said locals, and would be most often applied to the most visibly rustic of them, much as has happened to "Bubba" over here.
-
-
