by Roseanna White | Nov 16, 2015 | Word of the Week
This one is quick–but interesting!
Anyway dates from 1560, though it was traditionally two words until the 1830s. And up until modern history, it was quite literally “any way.” As in, Is there any way I can help you? I’ll get there any way I can. It quite literally meant “in any manner.”
It wasn’t until 1859 that it took on the sense of “regardless” that it now often has. So, historically, no “I’m going anyway!” unless you mean “by any path.”
Yeah, pretty sure I may have used that one incorrectly at some point or another, LOL. But now we know!
by Roseanna White | Oct 26, 2015 | Word of the Week
About a month ago, a lady at our church volunteered to teach knitting classes. Having been crocheting since she was 9 and then knitting as well when she moved to our area and began working in a yarn store, Ms. Judith knows her stuff!
I joined mostly because Xoe has taken a few classes and needed a few more, LOL. And I figured, this way I could help her. I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with it, but boy have I!
So today, our word of the week is knit.
The word has been around since Old English, meaning “to tie with a knot, bind, fasten.” And while the art of knitting has been around so long no one knows exactly when it started, the word has been in English with the particular meaning of “to do knitting” only since the 15th century. (Only . . . LOL)
Interestingly, referring to a piece of knitted work as “knitting” is quite new! That only joined the English language in 1848. (Wondering now what they called it before…)
(Those are my knitting projects thus far in the photo – starting at the left, we have a stitch I just wanted to try so did something that ended up the size of a pot holder, LOL. Didn’t like the yarns though so stopped. Then I decided I’d do a cable knit scarf. I still had lots of the yarn, so I made a cable-knit hat to match [it’s finished, but I didn’t take a finished photo yet]. Those are the same yarn in the two middle pictures, just different lighting, LOL. And finally, I’m trying some toy patterns, so I did a star fish. Just finished that this weekend, and am currently working on a bat!)
by Roseanna White | Oct 12, 2015 | Word of the Week
Last week, Rowyn was reading Amelia Bedelia, who classically misunderstands commands that include words with more than one meaning. Early on in the story, she’s working on a list of chores from her employer, who instructs her to “draw the drapes.” Naturally, she sits down with a marker and paper and draws those drapes.
I’m totally raising my kids up right–Rowyn asked, “Why does that word mean both things?”
So Mommy the Lover of Etymology replied, “I think it’s that draw means, ‘to pull across.’ So you draw the drapes closed, along their rods…or your draw your pencil across the page, which eventually got shortened just to draw. It’s also why drawers are called that–because you pull them out.”
Score one for Mommy, who was right on. 😉
Draw dates from about 1100, its meanings including both those things, plus to “draw a weapon.”
As a noun (specifically, when something like a game has no winner), it has existed since the 1600s, and in the sense of “something that will draw a crowd” from about 1881. To draw a blank is an expression that came about from the lotteries and dates from 1825.
by Roseanna White | Oct 5, 2015 | Word of the Week
At church this week a slight variation in translations of 2 John made us wonder at the difference between the nouns command and commandment. These different translations were using the words interchangeably, but then…why are there two different words?
Both have a very long history in the English language. Interestingly, commandment is the oldest, dating from the 1200s. It was taken immediately from the French comandement, which is taken in turn from Latin commandamentum, which was a noun form of commandare. And carried a very particular meaning–“and order from an authority.”
The verb command then came into English right around 1300. Pretty interesting in my mind that the verb was at all behind the noun!
Then we have the noun version of command. Also old, but they date it to the 1400s, which makes it a couple hundred years newer than commandment. And at the time there was a slight variation in the meaning–this was any order, not necessarily from an authority.
So while translators today no doubt use them interchangeably, any time it’s coming from God I daresay the original translations would have taken care to use that -ment ending. 😉
by Roseanna White | Sep 28, 2015 | Word of the Week
Romance writers are often looked down upon by those who read “serious literature”–and have generally never even picked up anything labeled “romance,” yet judge them anyway. And as much as we romance writers rail against that, it’s a tale as old as–well, as popular fiction.
Back–I’m talking way back–in the day, all “serious” work was written in Latin. That would include medical, scientific, philosophical, religious, and political works. But then people started writing more fun stories. Stories of adventure and love, of chivalrous deeds. (If you’ve read Don Quixote, these are the tales of chivalry that it was mocking.) These stories were meant to be accessible to the common man, so rather than being written in Latin, they were written in the common language.
Now, I daresay everyone has heard the term “romance language.” These are the languages descended from Latin (Roman). French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian. Back in these middle-ages days, people would refer to things written in the common languages as “romances.”
In many of the romance languages today, some variation of romance still just means “novel.” Not a particular kind of novel, just a novel.
So why did it take on meanings of love in English? Well, we extended the meaning to include the type of story told in common vernacular–a love story. This had become a solid meaning by 1660. By 1800 or so, it could mean “an adventurous quality.” It didn’t actually mean “a love affair” until 1916! And the term “romance novel” as a whole separate genre is quite new indeed–from 1964.
So really, all these genre snobs need to get off their high horse, because they are reading romances…unless, of course, they only read works written in Latin. 😉
by Roseanna White | Sep 14, 2015 | Word of the Week
Back from vacation, but not quite ready to let go. 😉 And so, today’s word of the week will bring us a bit of the beach…
Surf began its life as a noun meaning “waves coming ashore” in about 1680, though it was quite likely a variation on suffe, from the 1590s. Where did it come from? No one’s quite sure. But it was originally used to describe the coast of India, so speculation points to it being borrowed from an Indic word. It could also be a variation of sough, which means “a rushing sound,” which is an Old English word.
The verb meaning “to ride the crest of a wave” dates from 1917. Surfing as an activity and surfer both date from 1955. And of course, the internet usage is first recorded from 1993.
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.