Etymology - Tumblr Posts
Tannen etymology
An English surname with the meaning of leather tanner. The name also has roots the the German word Tanne, or Fir tree.
I fucking hate languages.
The Greeks had this word, right, we have no idea where it came from, it just kinda popped up out of nowhere, and it could mean either apples, cheeks, or boobs. Problem is it looked and sounded *exactly* like another, unrelated word which could mean sheep, goat, or any animal in general really, which must have got confusing if you were a farmer talking about your livestock, but anyway…
Then the Romans, having stolen practically everything else from the Greeks, thought they’d nick this word too, because Latin isn’t confusing enough without throwing in a bunch of loan words. And they adopted it to mean a pumpkin.
Then the English came along and were all like “when in Rome”, and stole it, where it became our word ‘melon’. Which has now come back to mean boobs.
How do you like them apples.
I love love love etymology because it's like every word has a back story intertwined with so many other words and through that you see ideas and culture and history and people and it's so beautiful okay I love word stories
Pantaleon was his name before he was baptized. It means “all-strong” or “a lion in everything.” (Pan-ta-leon)
He was a physician who was martyred in the 3rd-4th century after his pagan captors found out that he was healing fellow Christians who were imprisoned with him. They tortured him and before they successfully beheaded him, his executioners struck his neck with their weapon and the sword bent like wax.
The executioners were dumbfounded by the miracle so they knelt before the saint as he was tied to an olive tree, repenting and asking for forgiveness. But the Saint knew that martyrdom was a gift from God so he forgave them and implored them to continue with his execution so he can win the crown of martyrdom and implore God to allow his executioners to have a share in the joy of Paradise with him.
For this reason, he is venerated as Saint Panteleimon (ΠΑΝΤΕΛΕΗΜΟΝ / ПАНТЕЛЕИМОН) meaning “all-merciful.” (Pan-t-eleimon)
It's insane that pants were named after a fictional character who wore pants
I love love love etymology because it's like every word has a back story intertwined with so many other words and through that you see ideas and culture and history and people and it's so beautiful okay I love word stories
not to be sappy on main BUT one thing that i really loved when studying linguistics was that the more important a word is, the earlier the concept of this thing was given a word. for example, the word water is similar in many similar languages (aqua, agua, água). so, the more important a word is, the more languages it’ll be similar across and the older this word will be, theoretically and generally speaking (many other things also affect this)
AND SO in my years studying linguistics, there was one word that was nearly identical across so many regionally different languages (though there are outliers of course), from europe to most of asia to subsaharan africa to indigenous languages. across nearly all languages this is the first word people learn how to say and maybe the first word humans in general officially named and defined:
mamãe - portuguese
妈妈 (māmā) - chinese
ਮੰਮੀ (mamī) - punjabi
mamah - mayan (yucatec)
мама - bulgarian, russian, ukrainian
ماں (mäm) - urdu
মা (mā) - bengali
mẹ (may) - vietnamese
ママ (mama) - japanese
అమ్మ (am'ma) - telugu
mama - quechua
મમ્મી (mam'mī) - gujarati
അമ്മ (am'ma) - malayalam
amá - navajo
엄마 (omma) - korean
eme - native hawaiian
onam - uzbek
aana - yupik
mema - tagish
μαμά (mamá) - greek
mama - swahili
أمي (umi) - arabic
mayi - chichewa
माँ (ma) - hindi
mam - dutch
ម៉ាក់ (ma) - khmer
แม่ (mæ̀) - thai
அம்மா (am'mā) - tamil
අම්මා (ammā) - sinhala
amai - zulu
ama - basque
आमा (āmā) - nepali
အမေ (amay) - myanmar (burmese)
mamá - spanish
mom/mum- english
this isn’t actually the first word because we teach babies this word (most likely), but because the “mama” or “ama” sounds are the easiest things for babies to say, and it’s nearly always the only thing they can say at first, and adults across all languages defined their language around that.
babies all over the world for thousands and thousands of years all started out blabbering sounds like “mama” and mothers everywhere were all like Oh Shit That’s Me! I’m Mama!
I've figured out a potential reason! (let's be honest though this is just rationalization of a weird human thing)
Lagomorph is "hare form" in greek! the bunnies and pikas and whatever are donning this unfitting title.
I've gotta say.
the word Lagomorph feels a lot better on hares than bunnies
(Possibly) Fun fact: A surprising amount of words originated from christianity. Goodbye? God-be-with-ye. By jove? Jove was another name for Jupiter, the main Roman god, and the olden days "don't take the lord's name in vain" folks thought it was ok if you called him by another name. Zounds? God's wounds. Look it up, these are all true.
I use them without religious meaning though, just think etymology is cool
Ready for a two-for-the-price-of-one on that first fact? Peas were pease, and that was the singular. But then enough people assumed that it was plural it became such. Meanwhile, oranges had the reverse situation to newts. They were called naranjas by the time they got to certified Language Misunderstanders, who thought people were saying 'an aranja,' as opposed to 'a naranja.'
As for reptiles, there's a group of snakes called Leptotyphlopidae. They're blind, eat ant larvae, and I don't know if this is all of them or just the first one I heard of but they're exclusively female, reproducing solely via parthenogenesis
Fun fact: dodos were big pigeons.
Do with that what you will
femused is when you’re being entertained by skeletons, particularly their leg bones
gemused is the mild frustration felt when none of your crystals are charged
Theres amused and bemused which implies the existence of 24 more undiscovered muses, the forbidden emotions
had a thought about german (which I speak literally not a single word of) did a very small amount of research (two (2) google searches) and came to the conclusion that "darling," the english-language term of endearment, essentially just means "lovely" in the most literal sense possible and I like that a lot
Ohh, okay, you got me there. I'm one of those.
The word 'cum' used to make my skin crawl. At first because it was just a misspelling/shorthand (it isn't correct that one is the noun and one is the verb, and it doesn't seem to have much of an etymological root other than "it showed up in the 1970s"), and I was more hung up on that shit when I was younger. Then as I got a little older, it was something I associated with immature teenage boys and sleazy older guys writing in various formats (graffiti, texting, online chat), so the impression got even worse/less sexy. Plus it didn't hold truck with me as a reasonable form of the word for use in storytelling (like if people started using 'ur' instead of 'your' in fanfic).
These days, it's so common in fic that my feathers only faintly twitch when I see it. It doesn't throw me out of a sex scene, thankfully. I no longer hold it against anyone who uses it either (my BFF for whom I beta does, for one; I understand it's just a preference), and I suspect there'll come a time where I don't even blink at it.
But if I was asked which I think is correct, I'm still going to say 'come'. I won't bother dying on the hill, but I'll think it. 😂
I really do not understand the problem with spelling it "cum" instead of "come." They're just letters, why are some of y'all so bothered? Is this like the "moist" thing? Because I really don't understand that either. I want to study y'all under a magnifying glass. If anyone can explain it, I would love to know why it bothers you so much though. But please don't just tell me it's because it's crass or whatever, we spend most of our time writing and reading porn, crass should not be a crime.
Mind. Blown. I did not know that.
Idk who to ask this question, whether a linguist or an etymologist, but where did kk come from as an affirmative? I know it probably went something like okay —> ok —> k. So where did the second K in kk come from??? I know sometimes people say “okay okay” so when shorting that it might have became kk but it doesn’t have the same vibe. Like saying “okay okay” feels like I’m trying to calm someone down while when I say kk it’s very positive like kk is k’s cooler more popular sister. If anyone knows the answer please tell me
these are to die for
These little cuties are very cool, but I still don't see 'lobster'... I'd be really curious about the provenance of the origin of the common name (which seems to date back to at least the early 1800s, from the little information I've been able to uncover).
The adults seem unusual in that, in their normal resting position, their hind wings protrude from beneath the fore wings. Almost like... the tail of a lobster? Hmm...?
Definitely on my big list of bugs I would love to see in the wild at some point!
Of course, in Dutch, they also have a common name based on the appearance of the caterpillars; they are known as Eekhoorn (squirrel!)
Lobster moth caterpillars, pupa, and adult moth, Stauropus fagi, Notodontidae (Prominent Moths)
This species is named for the crustacean-like appearance of the caterpillar. The arching pose shown in many of the photos above is their threat display. Found throughout Europe and much of Asia.
Photos 1-3 by ramune_vakare, 4 by martinbishop, 5 by jonatan_antunez, 6-10 by sskorpio
Found an amazing one for y’all: the Latin word for “binder”, as in “a thing that binds or holds something in place”, is
Alligator
(Etymologically unrelated to the animal, whose name is an English corruption of Spanish “el lagarto” meaning “the lizard”)