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. =)
by Roseanna White | Mar 21, 2011 | Word of the Week
Can’t say as I’ve ever looked up the etymology of “giddy” before, but since I’ve been using it to describe my emotional state all week, I decided it would be an appropriate Word today. =) (For any who haven’t yet heard why I’m giddy, check out my “Woo Hoo!” post.)
In Old English, the word that’s very close to giddy meant “insane, mad, stupid, possessed by a spirit.” But for whatever reason, that questionable madness, by the 1540s, had come to describe the happy, elated feeling we associate with the word today. I suppose those who are insane can demonstrate it, which would account for the move of meaning, but I sure hope my behavior this past week didn’t make anyone think “Is she possessed?” LOL.
Honestly, I find it pretty surprising that a bunch of other meanings haven’t sprung up in that amount of time, but I consider this one of those words that gets to keep its nearly-original meaning because it sounds like it means. Giddy–doesn’t it just perfectly convey the happy, bubbling euphoria of its meaning with those quick syllables? (Contrast with “quagmire,” which is so long and sluggish in sound, much like the marshy mire of its meaning . . .)
Here’s to continued giddiness all week!
by Roseanna White | Mar 14, 2011 | Word of the Week
I don’t often pause to examine the etymology of words like “handsome,” which have meant what they mean for centuries, and so I can use freely in all my manuscripts.
But once in a while, it’s fun to see how it came to mean what we know all those hundreds of years ago. =) “Handsome” is a good example. When we break it down, it’s “hand” and “some.” Now how in the world did that come to mean “good looking”??
Well, first it meant “ready at hand or easy to handle” in the 1400s. Literally hand + some. By the mid/late 1500s the meaning had been extended to mean “considerable, of fair size.” And then within ten years, that became “of fine form,” which easily becomes “good-looking.” Then it extended further to mean “generous” (i.e. a handsome reward) a hundred years after that, in 1680.
Fun, eh? Who knew?
by Roseanna White | Mar 7, 2011 | Word of the Week
First of all, I’d like to say I think about this phrase for my books ONLY. 😉 It recently came up in a manuscript I’d read, where a character says, “He cheated on me.” Obviously, we all know what she meant. “Cheat,” is in fact the most common way these days to say someone was unfaithful to a spouse or significant other.
But you know what? That phrase wasn’t recorded until 1934. So all those historicals that have a character accusing another of cheating . . . well, they must mean at cards, right? 😉
There have been a few occasions in my own books where I had this situation too, and my gut told me to look up the usage of the word. When I discovered it was so very modern, that obviously forced me to find the alternate ways of saying this. “Be unfaithful to” was a little wordy, but “betray” always worked well.
I know, I know, what a note to start the week on! LOL. But it’s one of those surprisingly-modern things, so I thought I’d share. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
by Roseanna White | Feb 28, 2011 | Word of the Week
Perhaps I ought to start with a pronunciation guide of this one, eh? 😉
Schadenfreude (SHAHD-en-FROY-de) is something we’ve all probably felt, and felt the sting of. Loosely defined, it’s a noun meaning ‘malicious satisfaction taken at the misfortune of others.’
When I discovered this word, I got quite a kick out of it, because a joke between David (then fiance) and my family was “It’s funny when it happens to somebody else.” Though schadenfreude is on the negative side of that, it was nevertheless a perfect one-word way to say the same thing. =)
There, see, you learned a fun new word today. (Unless you already knew it, but . . .)
Happy Monday, everyone!
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, 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, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.