by Roseanna White | May 9, 2011 | Word of the Week
Today I’m tickled pink to announce the debut of a new group blog called Colonial Quills. About, you guessed it, authors and books focused on early American history! I’m proud to be a contributor to the blog thanks to my upcoming Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland that’s set in 1783, and in awe of the beautiful site Carla Olsen Gade put together for us. Stop on by and have some tea, get to know the ladies, and admire the beautiful artwork!
And in honor of this fabulous event, I thought I’d explore the word “debut” for this week’s word. I think we all know it’s French, right? And Fowler (the grammar expert associated with the OED) says:
“Début can only be pronounced as French, and should not be used by anyone who shrinks from the necessary effort.”
Tee hee hee. So don’t try to say it day-BUTT. Interestingly, debut came to us from France in 1751 to mean “first appearance” as a shortened form of “debuter,” which means to make the first stroke at billiards. I don’t know about you, but I had no clue it was a billiards term! The verb didn’t come to be until 1830. Pretty neat, huh?
So hop on over to http://colonialquills.blogspot.com and celebrate this particular debut with us!
by Roseanna White | Apr 25, 2011 | Word of the Week
I can’t say as I’ve ever understood why, when we comprehend something, we stand under it. So this week we’re working to understand the word understand. =)
According to the wonderful world of
www.etymonline.com (one of the best resources IN THE UNIVERSE!), this word, which has been in the English language pretty much since the English language has been, carries an old sense of “standing in the midst of.” And if you’re in the midst of it, you get it.
Now, the “under” is the tricky part. Etymonline quotes a few different expert opinions on why it’s “under.” They all agree it isn’t “under” as in beneath, but rather as in “between, among.” Take, as a modern day idiom that has survived with this meaning, the example “Under such circumstances.” We don’t mean we’re literally under these circumstances, but rather in the midst of them.
Some other Germanic languages have a word that means “stand before” rather than “stand under,” but ultimately the idea comes back to truly comprehending something when you’re very near it.
Understand? 😉
by Roseanna White | Apr 18, 2011 | Word of the Week
Every night, the family gathers around for bedtime prayers. I start off with a prayer of thanks for the day, for protection that night, for a good day following, and for anything else pertinent to that particular day. Then Xoe adds her bit, Rowyn either cheerily says “To you!” (don’t ask me why . . .) or else goes, “Nuh uh.” And we all say “Amen.” (Rowyn adding “And Rowyn!” . . . again, don’t ask me why, LOL.)
But it occurred to me the other night, after Rowyn’s addition to “amen” that I really had no idea how the word came to be used as it is and, for that matter, what it actually means other than “the end.” So I looked it up. =)
Here’s what I found. “Amen” is a direct translation from a Hebrew word that literally means “so be it.” That makes a ton of sense–when we end a prayer, we’re asking God to make whatever we prayed for be. But until the 13th century, it wasn’t tacked onto the end of prayers, but rather at the end of texts, carrying the meaning of “verily” or “truly” and carrying with it a meaning of agreement. (Think, “Amen to that!”)
Jesus revolutionized the “amen” by using it at the beginning of speech without referring to the words of another speaker. He used it instead to claim the truth of what he was about to say. Pretty cool. =)
As Holy Week gets under way, my prayer is that each of us takes the time to stop and consider what Jesus really did for us, what he went through, what it means. I pray that as we seek him this week, we find him in new, unexpected ways. I pray that each of us find a blessing where we thought there was none, and that the truth of our Savior blossoms in our hearts all over again. And all say it with me: Amen.
by Roseanna White | Apr 11, 2011 | Word of the Week
You can tell I’m longing for my first cup, right? Yes, this week we’re looking into the wonders of coffee. I mean, of the word. 😉
Word of the Week – coffee
The best guess of the awesome
www.etymonline.com is that our word
coffee came from the Italian
caffe, which came the Turkish
kahveh, which in turn came from the Arabic
qahwah. Which, they think, got its name from the
Kaffa region in Ethiopia, where most historians say coffee originated.
God bless those Arabians in Ethiopia!
Coffee was introduced in England by 1650, and within 25 years, over 3,000 coffeehouses dotted the country. (I heard a theory saying that the English moving from ale to coffee is why there was a great expansion in their empire, LOL.)
What I didn’t realize is that by 1774 one could use the word coffee to refer to a small meal where the drink was served, much like tea. Who knew?
And on that note, I’m off to have some. The smell has been wafting in here for the last five minutes . . .
by Roseanna White | Apr 4, 2011 | Word of the Week
I was actually going to talk about the word “fiance,” and how it entered (or perhaps re-entered after British folks stopped speaking French in the middle ages) English surprisingly late, but I mis-typed, got curious, and discovered that “fiasco” is way more interesting, LOL.
So. The definition of “fiasco” is failure. It began as a theater term for an onstage flop in 1855, but since we’re always looking for new ways to describe our blunders, it only took 7 years for this word to transcend the fourth wall and make it into the speech of the audience.
Its roots, however, are mysterious. In Italian, “fiasco” means
bottle. So, um . . . what does that have to do with a failure of epic proportions?? The OED makes vague references to long-forgotten theater incidents in Italy (bottle over the head, maybe?), but the compilers of
www.etymonline.com found a far more likely reason in an Italian dictionary. There they found
fare il fiasco, the notion of a game in which the loser is expected to buy the next bottle (of wine). So the mistake causing the loss–a costly mistake, one might say–could easily have earned the shout of “fiasco!”
Works for me. 😉
As a side note, tomorrow is my 500th blog post, so I’m going to be cooking up a fantabulous giveaway of some sort. =) See ya then!
by Roseanna White | Mar 28, 2011 | Word of the Week
My best friend Stephanie put in a word of the week request, so today’s dedicated to her. 😉 Today’s word of the week is . . .
Adorable.
And Stephanie brings it up for a good reason. As modern parents, we use the word adorable a lot. And usually for our cute little kids. If I were to define “adorable” off the top of my head, it would mean something like “cute, a delight.” But when you look at the word . . . “adore”? Hmm . . . so maybe add “lovable” to the definition?
I looked this one up in three different sources to try to get an idea of how it’s evolved. Here’s what I found. At its origins, “adorable” meant “worthy of divine worship” just like one might think. So really, only God was called adorable. But as time went on, it became applied to others and took on the meaning of “worthy of passionate attachment.” From there it softened still more to “very attractive or delightful; charming.”
So there you have it. From only applied to God to mostly applied to kids and puppies (do a Google image search for the word, LOL), adorable has softened over the years from something divine to something delightful. Not a total change of meaning, but definitely a noteworthy shift. Thanks, Stephanie, for bringing it up. =)
Anybody else have a word you’d like me to look into for ya? Leave a comment and I’ll add it to the roster. =)
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.