by Roseanna White | Mar 20, 2017 | Word of the Week
This might seem like an odd word of the week until you consider I’m a writer, LOL. One who, as it happens, is indeed brainstorming a plot that involves a kidnapping.
And yet, I actually read about this word from pure happenstance. 😉 Go figure!
Anyway. It’s kinda of interesting, so let’s take a look.
First of all, though sometimes moderns think kid, as applied to a child, is terrible slang that was never used in historical days, that’s simply not true. The word for “a young goat” since 1200, it was extended to children in the 1500s–first written record is the 1590s, but no doubt it was used it speech before that. It was slang at first, yes, but had lost that “slang” stigma by the 1840s (though it was still considered an informal word).
So then kidnap comes to us by the 1680s–part of thieves’ language. It was originally used for when they stole children to ship them to the American colonies as servants or laborers! Who knew? The kid part is therefore obvious. Nap is a variant of nab. But interesting is that kidnapper was in use at least a decade before kidnap, leading experts to believe the verb is a back-formation of the noun.
Now off I go plot out a story in which my hero kidnaps my heroine and gets way more than he bargained for, LOL.
by Roseanna White | Mar 6, 2017 | Word of the Week
Another lesson learned at Colonial Williamsburg. =) Well, I’m pretty sure I’d learned this before, but not with a nice visual handy…
So since the mid 1800s, people have referred to capital letters as upper case and small letters as lower case. This is a direct borrow from printers’ type cases, where they keep the metal letters with which they build their work. Since small letters are used far more often than capitals, these were stored more handily in the lower case. Capitals, which are used rather sparingly in comparison, were kept in the harder-to-reach upper case.
The simple names (upper and lower) for the type case have been used since the 1500s. I’m a bit surprised it took 300 years for the names to be transferred to the letters kept in the cases!
Interestingly, setting type was the job of the lowest (and generally shortest, ha ha) apprentice, so younger boys learning to be a printer might have a hard time reaching those capitals at all. (Now what’s the excuse of my 9-year-old for hating to use them when writing with a pencil? That’s another question altogether…)
by Roseanna White | Feb 27, 2017 | Word of the Week
Happy Monday from Colonial Williamsburg! It’s Homeschool Days down in CW, so my family and I are here on a 2-day pass. Yesterday we had great fun visiting many of the trade shops and enjoying the early spring weather and flowers (daffodils! In February!).
And it’s from one of these trade shops that I got the inspiration for this week’s word.
We visited the milliner and mantua maker just before lunch yesterday and had a lovely time chatting with the ladies who make the dresses and hats (I know just enough to know what questions to ask, as my hubby pointed out). One of things they showed us was an 18th century clout–the word at the time for a diaper.
As she showed us the clout, she pointed out that diaper was in fact the name for the sturdy weave of cloth they used in the clout (under the cover) originally (similar to the image I use above, though that’s just a digital pattern). Diaper signified a very tight, patterned weave that is far more absorbent, as it happens, then a normal weave. The word itself comes from Latin originally–dia meaning “thoroughly” and aspros eventually meaning “white” but first meaning something more like “textured” or “rough.”
The word began to be used to for the clout itself, rather than the pattern, by the 1830s.
I know, I know–I spent two days in Colonial Williamsburg and talk to you about diapers, LOL. Just goes to show that you never know what might impress me when it comes to words. 😉
~*~
Don’t forget that today begins the 40 Days of Jesus Bible study! If you’re going to be reading along, start today with the first chapter of the Gospel of John.
by Roseanna White | Feb 20, 2017 | Word of the Week
Another special request today, though there isn’t quite as much information on it as there was on last week’s . . .
The questions 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; Skakespeare 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. 😉
by Roseanna White | Feb 13, 2017 | Word of the Week
Another Word of the Week request! (Love those–keep ’em coming!) This week for frank as an adjective–made by someone of that name. 😉
Frank is taken directly from the people group, the Franks, who took over Gaul in the Middle Ages and named it for themselves (hence, France). At this time in history, you were either free, captive, or slave–so in this area, the only free people were the invaders, the conquerors. The Franks. Therefore, frank came to mean free.
By about 1300, the word had entered English, still carrying the meaning given it by the tribal group in Europe–“free, liberal, generous.”
So if you want to be frank with someone, or to speak frankly, it’s all because a group of people who called themselves the Franks invaded Gaul in the 400s, defeating the Huns and taking over part of what had recently been the Roman empire.
Side note on Paris–in the Roman days, there was a fort along the Seine called Lutetia Parisiorium. When one of the Frankish kings, Clovis, decided he would unite all the tribes into one nation, this is where he set up his capitol in 481. He simply shortened the Roman name of the fort to Paris and called it his city–and it’s been the capital of France ever since!
by Roseanna White | Feb 6, 2017 | Word of the Week
My daughter asked about this one as she was cutting up some paper doilies for valentines she was making. It was a quick answer, but one I’d certainly never investigated before, so I thought I’d share.
So doily as we know it is a shortening of doily-napkin, and dates from 1714. It refers to the light, lacy item made from doily–a thin, woolen fabric. It’s supposedly named for a dry-goods dealer in London. The surname comes from Normandy, and before it was specific to thin, lightweight woolens, it was used to mean “genteel and affordable woolens.” So whoever the Doily [d’Oilly] family was, they apparently carried textiles worthy of fame!
Now, stay tuned! Tomorrow I’ll be participating in a fun scavenger hunt to kick off the release of The Lost Girl of Astor Street!
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.