by Roseanna White | May 22, 2017 | Word of the Week
This isn’t one of those words I expected to be surprised by–but I was.
So. Waaaay back in the day, in the 1300s, the word boss was in English. But it was a noun meaning “a protuberance, a button.” It came from the French boce, which meant “something swollen or protruding.”
For nearly 350 years, that was the only boss in the English language…until American English adopted the same word in imitation of the Dutch baas, which means “overseer.” Americans, you see, had an interest in a word other than “master” for someone in charge of a workplace, especially to distinguish between slave and paid labor. So around 1640, boss became the American term for an overseer, especially on a ship.
It wasn’t until 1856 that boss is recorded as a verb. And not until 1882 that bossy became a word. (Though back in the Middle Ages, bossy was used to mean “something decorated with buttons.” Wee bit different meaning there!) So all in all, a much newer word than I thought, with a far different meaning before the familiar one came about!
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D O N ‘ T F O R G E T !
TONIGHT –
I’m going live on Facebook at 7 p.m. EDT to talk about
A Soft Breath of Wind. Which has some of my all-time favorite elements and characters in it, and I’m so excited to chat with you about Zipporah and Samuel and Benjamin and Dara!
TOMORROW –
The 2nd Annual British Books and Blooms will go live!
by Roseanna White | May 15, 2017 | Word of the Week
So last weekend when we were still in Charleston, WV after watching one of the last shows of Ringling Bros and Barnum & Baily (AWESOME), we had the news on in the hotel room. A reporter was interviewing two basketball players after they’d gotten in a fight. Here’s the abbreviated form of the report
Reporter: So do you have anything to say about last night’s kerfuffle?
Player 1: That is a word right there. Say that again.
Reporter: Kerfuffle?
Player 2: Kerfuffle. I like that. Good job, dude.
Insert me and my children rolling in laughter. And Xoe exclaiming, “There’s your next Word of the Week!”
So, here we go. Kerfuffle.
At first glance, this word that means “a fuss or commotion” is really new. As in, from 1970. Which really shocked me. But as it happens, that’s just that particular spelling. The original spelling of the word was curfuffle, and it dates to 1813, first appearing in works by Scottish writers. Still newer than I thought, but that’s because it’s taken from a Scottish word.
Fuffle is a Scottish verb dating from the 1500s (muuuuch better!), which means “to throw into disorder.” The ker/cur was added to make it a noun in the same way that we see it on words like kersplat and kersplash–an onomatopoeia prefix meant to imitate the sound of something having fallen.
So there you have it, combative sports players–kerfuffle.
by Roseanna White | May 8, 2017 | Word of the Week
No, that is not a picture of my dresser. I don’t think . . . 😉
So this is another one of those words that is a big part of our everyday language, but which has some surprisingly late additions to it!
As a noun, mess has been around since about 1300–as a word for “food for one meal.” It’s from the Latin, via the French, meaning literally “a course of food.” By 1530, it had been extended to the military use of “a communal place for eating” and then “the group of people eating.”
It wasn’t until the 1730s that it became “mixed food,” especially for animals. But that meaning is what led people to apply mess contemptuously to any “jumble or mix” of things in the 1820s, which quickly took on the metaphorical sense of “state of confusion” or “untidiness” (by 1850s).
The verb form largely mirrors the noun; first it meant “to serve up portions” or “take one’s meal,” extending into the metaphorical senses as the noun did. So in the 1850s we got make a mess, and mess with, as in “interfere with” is from 1903. Mess up, however, didn’t come along until 1933! Which is, of course, the one I wanted to use in my book and couldn’t, LOL.
A N N O U N C E M E N T S
First of all, don’t forget that I’ll be doing my next live chat tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern on my Facebook Page!
Next, as I was chatting with my friend on our writing retreat, she shared an idea I think I’ll start instituting–namely, pulling old articles from my archives and reposting them once a week or so, since I have nine years’ worth of ’em. I’ll probably do this on weeks when I don’t manage my three posts on M/W/T and will create “Fridays from the Archives.” Categories may vary, but it should be fun to revisit!
by Roseanna White | Apr 24, 2017 | Word of the Week
Not happy inspiration here, as I thought to wonder about the word as I was typing it into a description of what happened to my computer for the second time in a week–thoroughly and completely went kaput on me [grumble, grumble, growl, growl].
But the word itself is rather interesting!
It traces its first appearance in English back to the 1890s but really entered common usage during WWI–it being taken from the German kaputt. (I had no idea it was that old.) It means “to utterly ruin or destroy,” and it’s said that in the early days of the war and German victories, “everything enemy was kaput.”
The German word, however, is actually presumed to be borrowed from the French. As early as the 1640s, the Germans took the French phrase faire capot–taking all the tricks in a card game–and flipped it, so that it reflected the negative rather than the positive side of winning/losing so completely.
So all in all, a very interesting word. And a terrible thing to happen to one’s computer. 😉
Don’t forget that tonight is my last Facebook chat on the Ladies of the Manor Series! I’ll be taking next week off while on my writing retreat, then pick up again May 8.
by Roseanna White | Apr 17, 2017 | Word of the Week
Perhaps it’s no surprise on the Monday following Holy Week that forsake has come up–I daresay many of us heard again in the last few days Jesus’ lament upon the cross. It was some silly wordplay, however, that made me wonder as to the word’s etymology. Yesterday in the car, I said something about “For your sake” to my husband, and he replied with “You’re forsaking me?” with an exaggerated pout.
First time I’d ever really paid attention to the two parts of that word! So this being me, I immediately wondered if they’re from the same root.
The amazing part being that I remembered to look it up this morning. 😉
So first off, forsake and sake are indeed from the same word. Both are present in Old English, and probably came from Norse, as there are similar words in other Nordic languages. Sake has always meant “purpose,” the original form being sacu. It was actually originally applied to a legal cause or case. So to say “for someone’s sake” would mean for their cause, for their case. (Interestingly that phrase is pretty much the only one in which the word has been preserved.) But it would also take on the other side of the legal coin and mean “accusation, blame, dispute.”
Forsake then combines that opposition sense of sake with Old English for-, which meant “completely.” Forsacan, the Old English word, literally meant “to object to, deny, refuse, give up, renounce.” At some point in time it came to be used not just in a legal sense, but in relation to those who have turned their back on something to which they ought to be loyal.
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Don’t forget that tonight is my second Facebook Live event, at 7 p.m. eastern! I’ll be chatting about The Reluctant Duchess, answering your questions, and reading a snippet. I’ll be starting with one of last week’s questions about my favorite authors too. =) Hope to see you there, either live or afterward!
by Roseanna White | Mar 27, 2017 | Word of the Week
As a mom of primary/middle schoolers, cursive writing is a part of our day. But as my kiddos were being their usual snarky selves last week (I’ve raised them well, what can I say), the question arose of why certain letters look the way they do in cursive. Because yes, my kids question everything. Even things as innocuous as a Z. I choose to view that as a good thing, LOL. 😉
But Xoe then insisted that I look it up today for my word of the week. So here we go!
The word itself, cursive, comes from the Italian corsivo, which means “running.” The entire purpose of it is to allow speed in writing, especially in the days of quill pens, which are fragile and finicky compared to the pens we use today. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that cursive writing has been around for thousands of years. The word, however, has only been in English since 1784. Previously it had been called “joining-hand.”
Though most languages and alphabets have a form of cursive, I’ll focus on the English version. Apparently there was no standardization in the early days, with two predominant styles: what we’d call italic, with no loops for ascenders and descenders, and looped, where things like p and d have a loop to allow for easy flow into the next letter. By the 16th century cursive had come to look more or less like what we recognize today. Styles still varied here and there, and everyone didn’t always connect every letter, but standardization was probably helped along by businesses employing trained clerks to write in “fair hand” (easily readable script) for all their correspondence.
In more recent years, a few different techniques have arisen, which vary the method of learning to write the letters, but the letters themselves still end up looking largely the same. And of course, then we all leave school and write however we please anyway. 😉
Do you have opinions on cursive handwriting? Do you use it in your own handwriting?
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.