by Roseanna White | May 18, 2015 | Word of the Week
So, duh moment. Did you know that the noun fence–like, you know, the thing around your yard–is from defense? Yeah. Duh. I’d never paused to consider that, perhaps because the spelling has ended up different, but there you go! It has been a shortening of defense with the same meaning since the 14th century. Then sense of that enclosure followed in the 15th century.
It had a similar verb meaning at the same times too, with the “to sword-fight” way of defending oneself arising in the 1590s.
But the reason I looked it up was for the meaning that has a fence being someone who buys and sells stolen goods…and to fence being to sell those stolen goods. I expected it to be a pretty modern use, but no! As the verb, it’s been around since 1610, and it was then applied to the person doing it right around 1700–all from the idea that it’s accomplished under “the defense of secrecy.”
by Roseanna White | May 11, 2015 | Word of the Week
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| My kiddos on a field trip to a one room school house last year |
Since someone asked me about this over the weekend, I figured, hey–already looked it up, might as well share! 😉 Especially appropriate since this is our last week of school. Oh yeah. Right about now the kids are mighty glad we didn’t take a bunch of snow days! 😉
Field trip comes from the idea of field…not as in “an open piece of land, often cultivated” (which dates from time immemorial) but from the idea of field being a place where things happen. This is a slightly newer meaning that began evolving in the 1300s. (I said slightly newer, not new, LOL.) By then it could mean a battleground. And by mid-century, a “sphere or place of related things.” By the mid-1700s people would refer to field-work as anything that took one out of the office or laboratory and into the world, where things take place.
Field trip, then, is a natural extension of this meaning. It’s a trip into the field, going out of the classroom and into the world where the things you’ve been learning about can be found. Though an actually-new phrase (from the 1950s), it has its foundation on a nicely aged idea. =)
by Roseanna White | May 4, 2015 | Word of the Week
So, cute story. Way back when Xoe was just a little miniature thing (as opposed to now, when she’s quickly closing the gap between our heights and wearing my shoes!!!!!), I read her the Little Quack books. In one, Little Quack is playing hide and seek with his brothers and sisters, but he can’t think of a place to hide–so he hides behind Mama Duck, swimming right behind her, in her blind spot, while she finds everyone else. But she can’t find him, until finally she calls out for him, and he says, “Here I am, Mama!”
Ever since I read her that book when she was two, Xoe has liked to play “duckling.” She would try to hide behind me as I moved around, usually ruining her stealth with giggles…and with the fact that I’m not a duck with that particular blind spot, LOL. But she still does it–and I knew well she didn’t remember why, given how long it’s been since we’ve read Little Quack. I was telling her about the origins of that particular playful habit on Friday night, explaining that’s why I call her “my little duckling” when she does it. She didn’t remember the why, but Rowyn sure thought it was hilarious that his sister was acting unknowingly like a duck…and then asked why in the world we call them ducks.
I, in my wisdom, said, “I don’t know. Maybe because they duck and dive under the water?”
Rowyn: “Well not always, Mommy. Only when they’re eating.”
Smart little fella. 😉 Anyway, naturally I went and looked it up. And happily, I was right! Duck is from the Old England ducan, which means “to duck, to dive.” So the verb really did come first, and then it was applied to the waterfowl. For hundreds of years it carried that water-associated meaning only. You ducked under the water, but you didn’t duck to avoid a ball flying at your head. The “to bend, stoop quickly” meaning didn’t come until the 1520s–several hundred years after the “dive” meaning.
by Roseanna White | Apr 27, 2015 | Word of the Week
Many many moons ago, well before I discovered www.etymonline.com (for that matter, well before my daughter was born…I believe I was in college…) I was writing a story in which the heroine accused the hero of being a fanatic about football. He replied that he was merely a fan. Her response?
“Where do you think fan comes from? It’s a shortening of fanatic.”
I totally made that up. It made sense to me, but I didn’t actually, you know, look it up. But as it happens…I love it when I’m right. 😉
Fan, with the meaning of “devotee,” appeared in English round about 1889 in America, in reference to baseball fans, and there are two possible sources. The first is indeed fanatic, and etymologists think it the most likely explanation. But it may have also been influenced by fancy, which could apparently mean a collective group of followers of a sport of hobby, especially boxing.
Still trying to wrap my head around a “boxing fancy.” Does not compute, LOL. But apparently it was used in such a way since 1735!
So what are you a fan of? (I ask, wondering if chocolate and coffee count…)
by Roseanna White | Apr 13, 2015 | Word of the Week
Since I wrote on the origins of hello last time, my daughter said that I had to look up hi for this week. =) So here we go! Far simpler than hello, LOL.
Hi is most assuredly an Americanism, a greeting whose first recorded reference is from 1862. Interestingly, it’s recorded in the speech of a Kansas Indian.
But before becoming a standard greeting, it was used as a way of attracting attention–such uses have been recorded as early as the 15th century. It was probably a variant of Middle English’s hy, hey. The extended form hiya is from the 1940s.
Coming This Week
We have some fun coming on the blog this week, so I thought I’d clue you in! On Wednesday, I’ll be sharing some of the oh-so-interesting history I’ve been learning about Russia in preparation for my Russian spy character, Kira Belova. So. Much. Fun.
But then on Thursday, beginning at noon mountain time, I’ll be participating in the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt, which will visit 34 authors for a chance at some AWESOME prizes. (The blog will be live before the hunt begins as we all update links and make sure all information is where is should be.) In addition to the huge grand prizes, most of the authors are also offering prizes of their own–including me, who will be offering a signed copy of A Soft Breath of Wind. You really don’t want to miss this, and will have a long weekend to put all the clues together!
by Roseanna White | Mar 30, 2015 | Word of the Week
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked up the etymology of hello…but for some reason, I’ve never shared. Obviously time to remedy that!
So the life of hello began with Old High German’s hala, hola. It was an imperative form of halon, holon, which meant “to fetch.” It was what people cried out to ferry boat captains to get them to pick one up.
English adopted it as early as the 1400s, using it as an exclamation meant to attract attention, spelling it holla, or hollo. But they didn’t stop there–they also came up with a “bewildering” amount of other forms, like:
halloo
hallo
halloa
halloo
hello
hillo
hilloa
holla
holler
hollo
holloa
hollow
hullo
Hello didn’t catch on among the British for most of history. Hullo became the standard there, while in the 1880s, America adopted hello as their standard form. It rocketed to the forefront of American speech with the advent of the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell and his cohorts agreed there should be a standard greeting when answering the phone. Bell wanted “ahoy” (which I think is super fun, so I’ve been known to answer like that when it’s my hubby calling), but “hello” won out.
And now hello is quite common in Britain:
Hello, formerly an Americanism, is now nearly as common as hullo in Britain (Say who you are; do not just say ‘hello’ is the warning given in our telephone directories) and the Englishman cannot be expected to give up the right to say hello if he likes it better than his native hullo. [H.W. Fowler, “A Dictionary of Modern English Usage,” 1926]
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.