Word Origins

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Mos Eisley

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
2,912
Reaction score
784
Location
Kansas City, MO
I've always found this subject interesting and educational.

Tonight I was filling out a ticket to do some training at work and it got me thinking of the word "train".
Train - Middle English (as a noun in the sense ‘delay’): from Old French train (masculine), traine (feminine), from trahiner (verb), from Latin trahere ‘pull, draw.’ Early noun senses were ‘trailing part of a robe’ and ‘retinue’; the latter gave rise to ‘line of traveling people or vehicles,’ later ‘a connected series of things.’ The early verb sense ‘cause (a plant) to grow in a desired shape’ was the basis of the sense ‘educate, instruct, teach.’

Here's one for the masses:
Gun - Middle English gunne, gonne, perhaps from a nickname for the Scandinavian name Gunnhildr, from gunnr + hildr, both meaning ‘war.’

A topical one:
Hillary - is a given and family name, derived from the Latin hilarius

Add one of your own as you think of them...or not. Maybe I'm the only word nerd.
 

dennishoddy

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Dec 9, 2008
Messages
84,556
Reaction score
61,836
Location
Ponca City Ok
Not a word freek, but one of phrases.
Colder than the balls of a brass monkey. As I've read, in the old sailing warships, cannon balls were stacked on a rack called a monkey made of brass.
 

NikatKimber

Sharpshooter
Staff Member
Special Hen Moderator
Joined
Jan 2, 2006
Messages
20,771
Reaction score
1,492
Location
Claremore
Along with DH, some phrase mean a whole lot more after living on a farm.

IE:

"running around like a chicken with your head cut off"

and

"you eat like a pig"

both mean something after seeing the real thing.
 

donner

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Messages
5,864
Reaction score
2,061
Location
Oxford, MS
There is a great book out there called The Professor and the Madman.

From wikipedia, "It tells the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, Dr. W. C. Minor, a retired United States Army surgeon. Minor was, at the time, imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, near the village of Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. The 'professor' of the American title is the chief editor of the OED during most of the project, Sir James Murray. Murray was a talented linguist and had other scholarly interests, and he had taught in schools and worked in banking. Faced with the enormous task of producing a comprehensive dictionary, with a quotation illustrating the uses of each meaning of each word, and with evidence for the earliest use of each, Murray had turned to an early form of crowdsourcing (a word not coined until the 21st century)— enlisting the help of dozens of amateur philologists as volunteer researchers."

It covers a lot about how words came to be defined in many ways.
 

Mos Eisley

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Apr 14, 2009
Messages
2,912
Reaction score
784
Location
Kansas City, MO
While many people will shun the fact that the Bible is truth, About 208 common "idioms" are rooted in scripture.

Funny you should mention that. I was reading about this one last night. It is rather long but I found it interesting.

Hypocrite - The origin of the word, an actor on a stage, changed even in Greek to the negative connotation it carries today. In the book of Mark, hypocrite is the word Jesus uses to describe those who trumpet their faith and, he implied by the use of “hypocrite,” acted. Without recognition of this context, his comment “They have their reward” (Mark 6:5) is confusing; their reward is applause, recognition from others of their holiness. Jesus’ condemnation of hypocrites rests on the idea that they seek earthly, and not divine, standing. With the growth of Christianity—fully instantiated in England by the 13th century first use of “ipocrite”—“hypocrite” became the word it remains: “One who falsely professes to be virtuously or religiously inclined; one who pretends to have feelings of beliefs of a higher order than his real ones; hence, generally, a dissembler, pretender” (OED 2nd ed. s.v “hypocrite”).

How much are Shakespeare’s two uses of “hypocrite” in Hamlet informed by these definitions? Arguably, Hamlet’s first use of “hypocrite,” has much to do with acting and the normal rhetorical connotation. (The distinction here is that often hypocrisy is noted as saying one thing and doing another whereas the older criticism outlined by Mark’s Jesus is of seeming one way and being another, that is, acting.) Hamlet says: “I will speak daggers to her, but use none; / In this my tongue and soul be hypocrites” (Hamlet 3.2.396-7).
 

Cohiba

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Oct 3, 2007
Messages
3,977
Reaction score
894
Location
Part time Vegas, Galveston, Oklahoma
This one is really about misusage of these two words. I have to attend a lot of conferences and I usually hear this at least twice a month.........

"And now Mr. Jones will take the podium, lecturing on the newest regulations about coal fired power plants". Nooooooooooooooo, the coordinator meant......LECTERN...LECTERN!!!!!!!


Podium and Lectern:




lectern(from the Latinlectus, past participle oflegere, "to read") is a reading desk, with a slanted top, usually placed on a stand or affixed to some other form of support, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud. To facilitate eye-contact and improve posture when facing an audience, lecterns may have adjustable height and slant. People generally use lecterns while standing.

A podium(pluralpodia) is a platform that is used to raise something to a short distance above its surroundings. It derives from theGreekπόδι(foot). In architecture a building can rest on a large podium. It is used to raise people, for instance the conductor of an orchestra stands on a podium as do many public speakers.

Lectern:
www.ampli.com_images_products_505_505_StraightModel.jpg



Podium:
2010_Olympic_ladies_podium.jpg




**********
Don't even get me started on the mispronounced word............. zoology.

No: zoo-ology

Yes: zo-ology





Unless you're British...........then you can pronounce and spell it any freakin' way you like. Just listen to them pronounce aluminum or zoology.


Rant off..............time to have a cold one or two or...............along with some menthols!!!

Cheers
:sunbath:
 
Last edited:

Decoligny

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Jul 13, 2016
Messages
352
Reaction score
394
Location
Outside of Slaughterville, OK
Wouldn't taking a basic speech class require you to take the lectern before the podium (before the lectern again)?

Seeing as you would step up onto the podium and then speak from the lectern, it should correctly be step onto the podium and up to the lectern then step away from the lectern and down off the podium.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom