| The etymology of words can be equally fascinating as the context they are used in.
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| English is the lingua franca of the world today for one simple reason: It has borrowed freely from all the languages of the world, including several from Sanskrit and Hindustani, and made it its own through usage in the spoken and written form. Of course, the Empire helped spread the language but more than the Empire (and the Bible and Shakespeare) it was the readiness to accept new words from different languages that made English the universal language for communication and commerce. And the World Wide Web has led to its exponential growth in recent years.
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| True, there are different versions or Englishes — Indian, American, Australian, African and so on — but it is English all the same. Which is what makes the origins of words or its etymology so fascinating — “its parents, where it was born, which corners of the world it travelled, and what twists and turns it took to reach where it is today.”
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| This is what Anu Garg, an Indo-American scholar, has done in The Dord, The Diglot, and an Avocado or Two: The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-so-Common Words (Plume Paperback, Special Indian Price, Rs 225) — in other words, written the biography of mostly obscure words in use today.
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| There are seventeen chapters in the book, some of which are: Hidden Lives of Everyday Words; Tasty Words; People who Became Words; Fictional Characters who Come Alive; How do You measure the Warmth of Clothes. The Story of Indo-European is followed by an Index of Terms that lists all the words explained in the book. Each chapter, or a section of chapters, is followed by a quiz that tests the etymology of words, with answers provided at the end.
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Here is a sampling culled at random:
1. Pupil: The two senses of this word — a student and the part of the centre of the eye — are related. The origin is Latin, pupus meaning ‘a boy’ and pupa ‘a girl’. The centre of the eye through which light enters can be understood when you see your reflection in someone’s eyes — how tiny it appears.
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| 2. Window literally means the ‘wind’s’ eye. It originates from Old Norse in which it means to ‘let the wind in.’
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| 3. Stationery, which means ‘writing material’, originated from shops that were ‘stationary’ as opposed to peddlers who moved from place to place.
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| 4. Plagiarism, which means kidnapping words of another, comes from the Latin, plagium (kidnapping).
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| 5. Nausea originates from the Greek naus meaning ‘a ship’. The motion of a ship causes many people to feel sick in the stomach.
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| 6. Companion was someone with whom you broke bread. It comes from Latin com (together) and panis (bread). Panis also gave pantry.
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| 7. Avocado originated in the Aztec language Nahuatle, where it was called ahuacatl meaning ‘testicle’ because of its shape. Other food-related words that came to English from Nahuatle are chili (from chilli), tomato (from tomatl) chocolate (from xocolatl, xococ:bitter and atl: water).
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| 8. Meat means food. Earlier, meat was any food, not necessarily animal flesh. That’s why sweetmeat is a sweet delicacy, not made of animals.
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| 9. Many inventions, diseases, countries, products, plants, mountains, planets and more are named after people’s names. For instance, the elementary particle, boson, is named after the Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose. Here is a glimpse:
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| ‘Potemkin Village’ is a showy façade to mask existing reality is named after Catherine the Great’s lover, Prince Grigori Potemkin, who put up elaborate cardboard houses to present a picture of splendour in Russian villages;
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| ‘Gresham’s Law’ that bad money drives good money out of circulation is named after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-1579), a financier and founder of the Royal Exchange in London. Gresham had written to Queen Elizabeth 1, “good and bad coin cannot circulate together.”
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| ‘Goldwynism’ named after Samuel Goldwyn (1879-1974) are humourous statements resulting from the use of contradictory words, situations, idioms, etc. For example: When I want your opinion, I will give it to you; If I could drop dead right now, I would be the happiest man alive; In two words, im-possible.
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| Here is infotainment at its very best! Read it for fun and to be better informed. |
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Content Guide
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