by Roseanna White | Dec 30, 2013 | Word of the Week
First of all, I’d like too announce that next Monday will mark a pretty cool milestone around here–1,000 posts! Woot! I’ll have to think up some fun way to celebrate. Ideas welcome. 😉
And now, a word of the week. =)
I was designing a book cover with a bustle on it, which inspired me to look up the word. Not surprisingly the verb bustle dates back pretty far–all the way to 1570. It meant “be active,” and actually came from bustling, which is from the century before as an adjective. The adjective meant “noisy activity.”
The noun form followed by 1630 with the expected meaning of “activity, stir, fuss, commotion.”
So then, how about the padding in a skirt? Well, that arrived on the scene in the 1780s, though from where and how no one’s quite sure. Speculation is that its rustling sound inspired the name bustle, but it’s also possible that it came from the German buschel, which means “bunch or pad.” Either way, it was a key part of women’s fashion for well over a hundred years.
by Roseanna White | Dec 16, 2013 | Holidays, Word of the Week
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| Christmas throughout Christendom, 1873 |
I thought it would be fun to examine some Christmas traditions this week and next. So while this isn’t exactly etymology, it’s still looking at origins. 😉
The legend of mistletoe goes all the way back to Norse mythology. Baldr, grandson of Thor, had a troubling dream in which all living things were trying to kill him. His wife and mother saw how troubled he was by this and so went out to procure promises from all living things that they would not injure their beloved Baldr. They got these promises from everything from oak trees to cows…but not from the mistletoe. Some stories say they overlooked it, others that it seemed too young to give such promises. Whatever their reasoning, they failed to get its word–and then an arrow made of its stem pierced Baldr and killed him.
Mistletoe, therefore, became a reminder to remember and treasure what one loves, hence why couple kiss under it.
In Celtic traditions, mistletoe was considered a sacred plant, symbolic of fertility. The reasoning actually gets a bit explicit, but suffice it to say that this culture also held it as holy, and when Christianity spread, they integrated it into the Christmas tradition.
Kissing under mistletoe has been around for longer than we can accurately say, referenced in some European writings as early as the 17th century. The first English mention of it seems to be in the 1820s, though the mention implies it’s a longstanding tradition.
Whatever its origins, it’s always been a popular one, with young couples quite eager to lure a special someone under the berries and greens. And I daresay few care too much about why they’re doing it, LOL.
Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!
by Roseanna White | Dec 9, 2013 | Word of the Week
I was looking through a website called “You Can’t Say That!” last week, which is dedicated entirely to words like I feature here. One of the entries that surprised me–and sent me scurrying to my latest manuscript to see if I used this when I shouldn’t have, was fix.
Fix has been around since the 14th century. But only in the meaning of “to set one’s eyes or mind on something.” It comes from the Latin fixus, meaning “fast, immovable, established, settled.” By about 1400, it added the meaning of “fasten, attach.” So early on, we could fix our eyes upon someone or fix a button to a coat. But not until 1737 could we fix something that was broken.
And according to the website above, that meaning was considered slang and not in use by any but the lowest classes until the late 1800s, and then only in America. Hence why I went flying to my galleys of Circle of Spies…where I was relieved to see that there was only one use of fix as “repair,” and it was used by my hero, who isn’t exactly from the highest echelon of society. 😉
Oh, and we mustn’t forget the meaning of “tamper with.” That joined the fray in 1790. Not, I daresay, that people did not fix fights or juries before then…
I hope everyone had a great weekend! We enjoyed seeing my daughter’s ballet studio perform The Nutcracker on Saturday night–and were supposed to enjoy it again yesterday, but it got snowed out. So we enjoyed our first winter storm instead. 😉
by Roseanna White | Dec 2, 2013 | Word of the Week
Hello, all! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving week (for all you Americans out there. For all you internationals, I hope you had a lovely week too, even if it wasn’t a holiday for ya). 😉 You may think I was just relaxing and taking the week off from the blog, but really I was hard at work on the galleys for Circle of Spies, the final installment to the Culper Ring Series.
Today said manuscript is ready to go back into the hands of FedEx though, and so here I am back to blogging. =) And today I bring to you…
Swell. We think of it as a tiny bit old-fashioned these days (as in, more of The Greatest Generation than mine. Whatever my generation is. I think I shall dub it Generation Sarcastic), but not old. Right? It’s a swell party sounds decided ’40s or ’50s. But as a matter of fact, the meaning of “elegant or fashionable” dates back to 1810! And by 1897, it could mean generally “excellent.” American slang made it an exclamation that could stand alone in the 1930s.
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| These ladies look to be having a swell time at a South African beach in 1944 |
The adjective comes from a noun applied to a person with a distinguished style–so a swell could make or break a gathering, I suppose. Said noun dates to 1786.
And all of these come from the more literal meaning of “puffed up,” i.e. “arrogant.”
So there we go. Hope everyone has a swell day. =)
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And while I have your attention–the next FREE novella/short story (not sure which it technically is at 11,000 words, LOL) in the Culper Ring Series, A Hero’s Promise, is up for pre-order! Click now and it’ll be delivered to your device on January 1. (It will also be on iTunes and B&N, but those links aren’t live yet.)
by Roseanna White | Nov 18, 2013 | Word of the Week
First of all, I did do the drawing last week for the winner of the digital of one of the Ellie Sweet books, and the lucky duck was
Kirstin Whitener!
Congrats, Kirstin! I know you’ll love them!!
This week I’ll be starting a giveaway for a signed paperback of The Unlikely Debut of Ellie Sweet, so if you were holding out for the hard copy, stop back by later!
And now on to our word of the week. =)
Any historical writer knows that a big challenge in writing authentic dialogue is trying to find era-appropriate exclamations…especially when writing for the Christian market and wanting to avoid any that venture toward cursing. And one can only use “blast it” so many times, LOL. I’ve looked up a lot of these over the years, and figuring out their etymology is always fun.
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| The Broken Vase by Harry Watrous, circa 1900 |
Today, we’re taking a look at dash, which I have used a time or two. The verb dash dates from about 1300 and comes from a Danish word that means “to beat, to strike.” And so, the oldest English sense is of something getting “dashed to pieces”…including the metaphorical “dashed hopes.” Around the same time, it also took on the transitive sense of “to move quickly,” which lead to the noun by the late 1300s.
Round about 1726, it began being applied to hurried writing (to dash a letter to someone…), but it took until 1881 for it to be applied to a race, originally one run in one heat.
And now back I go to dash a few more words into A Soft Breath of Wind before it’s time to start school. 😉
by Roseanna White | Nov 11, 2013 | Word of the Week
Last night my poor little Rowyn had a toenail come off (ouch!), and his papa said that that surely deserved as much consideration as losing a tooth. So Rowyn got to pick dinner. Hence how the White family ended up eating waffles, macaroni and cheese, and grapes, LOL.
And hence why I thought to look up waffle this week. 😉 It’s pretty interesting!
The waffle we know, love, and eat comes directly from the Dutch wafel, which comes in turn from a very, very old German word, wabila, which means “web, honeycomb.” It made it into English by 1744–and waffle iron in 1790! I had no idea they were that old.
But then there’s the verb, the one that means “to vacillate.” I’ve always wondered what in the world that had to do with a tasty breakfast food. Turns out, NOTHING. They’re from completely different roots. Waffle, the verb, came around in the 1690s as an imitation of a bark or yelp (like “woof”). By 1701, it meant “to talk foolishly.” That’s the meaning that led, a hundred years later, to the one we use today. It was first used in Scotland and northern England…while the Dutch deliciousness was making
its way to us from a different direction. 😉
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Now onto some business! The Veterans Day Sale on
Ring of Secrets and
Whispers from the Shadows will be over on Tuesday, November 12, at 11:59 p.m., so if you’re looking for that perfect time to buy a digital, it’s here!
And don’t forget that I’m running a giveaway for a few more days of one of my favoritest books, The Unlikely Debut of Ellie Sweet (or the first book, The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet, if you haven’t read that one yet). These books are amazing! Check out the giveaway here.
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.