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]
by Roseanna White | Mar 23, 2015 | Word of the Week
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| My not-so-fabulous shot of the earth as seen at FSU’s planetarium |
Last week, we were super excited to get to visit a local university and see the planetarium with our homeschool group. And of course, this being my family, the night before we were talking about the word.
Rowyn (7) said, “Hey, I know why it’s called it called planetarium. Because we see planets!”
“But what about the arium part?” Xoe (9) asked.
“Hmm,” I said. “What do we think it could mean?”
Yes, I’m raising nerds, and I’m proud of it. 😉 They reasoned that –arium must mean something about an area. And we came up with some other words that have it, like aquarium (see, an area that holds water!), terrarium (an area that holds…terra? [Me: that means earth]), solarium (an area for solar? Oh wait, solar power means the sun–how can a place hold the sun? Ohhhhhh…I get it).
But just to be sure, we looked it up when we got home–that conversation had taken place in the car on the way home from ballet. Sure enough –arium is Latin for “a place for.” And planterium has been around since 1734!
Yep, we felt pretty darn smart. And thoroughly enjoyed our time at the area for planets. 😉
by Roseanna White | Mar 16, 2015 | Word of the Week
Yesterday, my parents were describing a relative, and they said she was “feisty.” Naturally, I had to pipe in with where that word came from (click here for that Word of the Week), and how I just haven’t been able to use it ever since discovering its origins.
So my mom asked, “Well then, what about spunky? What are its origins?” I didn’t know. So of course, I had to look it up. 😉
Spunky is a word from 1786 meaning “courageous, spirited,” coming directly from spunk, which dates from 1773 with the meaning of “courage, pluck, mettle.” But the word itself is from the 1500s, its original meaning being that of “a spark.” It’s a Scottish word that has its roots in tinder, and I rather like that origin–that courage comes from a word used for what starts a fire. Muuuuuuch better than feisty. 😉
by Roseanna White | Mar 9, 2015 | Word of the Week
This one made me go, “Ha! Take that, everyone who uses the word I don’t like!” 😉
See, I was always a
normality girl. But more and more often I’d begun hearing
normalcy. And it drove me batty. Here, my friends, is why.
Normality itself is a relatively new word, entering the written world of English in only 1849. It most likely came from the French normalité, which became a borrowed word in 1834. Meaning exactly what you’d expect.
Normalcy, however, dates from 1857. And what, you ask, did it mean? “Being at right angles.” It’s a mathematical term! In the 1920s President Harding used it in place of normality in a speech describing the political situation and was liberally made fun of for his incompetency with speaking. Since then it has edged its way in more and more, but “the word prefered by purists [read: Roseanna, LOL] for “a normal situation” is normality.”
So there. 😉
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.