Word of the Week – Greg (That’s Right, Greg)

Word of the Week – Greg (That’s Right, Greg)

by | Oct 12, 2020 | Word of the Week

Did you know that greg is Latin for “flock or herd”? Yeah, neither did I. 😉 But that then makes sense when we look at some of the words that have greg as their root:

Congregate – to come together as a group
Segregate – to separate from a group

And then the one that got my attention – gregarious. I wouldn’t have thought that one so closely related, I admit. Until we consider that it means “someone who enjoys being with a group of people, the company of others.”

So there we have it. And now you can start calling that Greg you know “flock” or “herd” and see what he says. 😉

Word of the Week – The Dickens

Word of the Week – The Dickens

by | Oct 5, 2020 | Word of the Week

A phrase from the archives today…Original post published 2/20/2017
Another special request today, though there isn’t quite as much information on it as there was on last week’s . . .
The question was where the expression “the dickens” comes from.
Well, the answer’s a bit unclear. What we know is that it’s an English last name, taken from Richard. We’re not sure which Richard, or why the name became an exclamation; Shakespeare used the expression “I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.” (“Merry Wives of Windsor” Act 3, Scene 2), in which it’s clear that it’s a substitute for “the devil.” As for why? [Insert shrug here] Best guess by the Oxford English Dictionary is that it’s simply because it sounds similar.
There’s another bit of history surrounding it too, to account for some of its early uses. Apparently, in the 1500s there was a maker of wooden bowls who was rather infamous for losing money, to the degree that much literature of the 1500s would refer to bad investments as “bad as Dickens.”
Whatever the why, modern readers can be assured it has nothing to do with the Dickens with whom we are most familiar–Charles–as it predates him by several hundred years. 😉
Word of the Week – Decimate

Word of the Week – Decimate

by | Oct 4, 2020 | Word of the Week

So let’s look at the word decimate. We all know what it means–“to utterly destroy.” Right?

Well, as it turns out, yes–but. There’s always a “but,” right? LOL. Decimate actually has a much more precise meaning that I was completely unaware of.

If we look at the root of the word, we see dec in there, which is Latin for “ten.” And decimus is “one-tenth.” So decimate, which is a verb form of “one-tenth,” actually gives us a little history lesson. If a Roman legion mutinied or showed cowardice, they could be decimated as a punishment. Which is to say, one out of every ten soldiers would be executed. (!!!) Originally, then, decimate meant that an army would be reduced in strength by 10%. But over the years, the word began to be applied more loosely to any big loss.

Word of the Week – Myriad and Million

Word of the Week – Myriad and Million

by | Sep 28, 2020 | Word of the Week

When we think about  numbers, we don’t often consider that once upon a time, they didn’t go very high. But in fact, in ancient days, there weren’t words for anything greater than “ten thousand.” In the Ancient Greek and Roman eras, this was the largest number known, and myriad was the world used for it.

It was in fact because this was the largest named number that myriad also came to mean “countless, innumerable, vast amount.”

So what about million? It literally means “great thousand” and didn’t come along in any language until the 13th century. Even once it had taken on a more precise meaning, it was used only by mathematicians up into the 16th century!

 

Mock Latin Words 5

Mock Latin Words 5

by | Sep 21, 2020 | Word of the Week

I hope you’ve enjoyed the Mock Latin series! This is my final installment, and only one is mock Latin. The other two are just “mock” in general, but they were fun, so I thought I’d include them. 😉

Asquatulate – This is another word meant to poke fun at the person who speaks it, this time Londoners making fun of Americans. The word first appeared in a play, meaning “to make off or run away,” meant to be the opposite of the Latin squat, “to settle.” The closest synonym is actual skedaddle, go figure, LOL.

Rudesby – This is a mock surname, actually, meant to be applied to people who are, well, rude. Since so many last names were created by addding -by to the end of a place name, this construction is natural but simply meant to be a clever insult. It originated in 1560!

Panjandrum – I find this one totally hilarious. Not only is it a fabricated word from the 1880s, it’s an insult (meant to be “a pompous person of power and pretension”), and also a test. Samuel Foote actually made up this word as one of many nonsense words in a long passage he gave to actor Charles Macklin to memorize when the actor said he could repeat absolutely anything verbatum after hearing it once. (I wonder if Macklin succeeded!?)

 

And there we have my mock–and mocking–word list. Hope it’s been fun!

Mock Latin Words 4

Mock Latin Words 4

by | Sep 14, 2020 | Word of the Week

Nearly through our Mock Latin series! I just have one more week of them after this one. 😉

Today we begin with a word I have used all the time, never realizing it was one of these “fake” constructions!

Discombobulate – So obviously this is a fun word, which is why I use it all the time. But I didn’t realize it was made up to sound Latin! This word dates from 1834 and means “to upset or embarrass. The original form was actual discombobricate, which I didn’t know.

Confusticate – this one is not only mock-Latin, it’s also meant to mock the people saying it, which could open a whole other can of worms. Meant to imitate confound or confuse, this word first appeared in 1852 in a passage of a book as “Negro dialect.” I do find it interesting that this one was meant to make fun by implying that the speaker thought it was a real, intelligent word, while it’s in the pattern of so many other mock-Latin words that were funny because everyone knew they were fanciful and fabricated. Just goes to show how intent matters…

 

Come back next week for the final installment!

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