by Roseanna White | Jun 24, 2013 | Word of the Week
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| Allegory of Justice by Gaetano Gandolfi |
“You’ll get your just deserts!”
Okay, confession. Because that phrase pronounces the final word as one pronounced the word for the delightful confections that make life worth living, I never once realized it’s spelled with one ‘s’ like an arid area. Hadn’t a clue. But it is. One ‘s’ but pronounced like desserts. And…why?
Well, that’s the interesting bit. =) Apparently it’s from a whole different word that either a sandy desert or a sweet dessert–it’s from deserve.
Ah!
Okay. So the word deserve is from French, and back in the day when it was entering English (as in, the 13th century), desert was used to mean “that which is deserved.” So you deserve your deserts. Which makes total sense, right? And yet it’s fallen completely out of use except for in that one phrase about just deserts. (Probably because of the confusion with sandy ground and chocolate, LOL.)
Pretty fun, eh? Happy Monday!
by Roseanna White | Jun 17, 2013 | Word of the Week
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| Sir Sumbras at the Ford by JE Millais, 1857 |
Hello, m’lovelies! I’m back from the beach and back to business. =) And while I was gone, a friend sent me a link to some awesome word etymologies, so I thought I’d share one with you today.
So. We all know the word “wend,” right? We wend our way through crowds and other things that make us take twisty paths and whatnot. But apparently back in the day wend and go were synonyms. Used interchangeably. You could wend anywhere you could go and vice versa.
In those days (of Middle English), the past tense of wend was went and the past tense of go was gaed. Then round about the 15th century, people started to like go better for whatever reason. Only, the past tenses of the synonyms got mixed up. Hence one of our most crazily irregular verbs–it’s actually a mix-up of another verb! Pretty fun, huh?
I’ll be bringing you more of the words from this list over the next couple weeks. =)
by Roseanna White | Jun 3, 2013 | Word of the Week
First, have you grabbed your free copy Fairchild’s Lady yet? If not, check out Saturday’s post for all the links to your choice of retailers!
Now onto the Word of the Week. =) This will be short but sweet. Carnival. I confess that when I see the word, I mostly think of a fair. But carnival in fact has its roots far more firmly in the famous Brazilian celebration–meaning literally “goodbye, meat!” in Latin, it has been a time of merrymaking before Lent since the 1540s.
Color me surprised. I really had no idea the pre-Lent festival was so old! The more generic “fair” meaning didn’t actually come around until the 1930s.
Have a lovely Monday, all! We’re heading back to Johns Hopkins today for Xoe’s follow-up. Prayers appreciated that her arm is healing up perfectly! =)
by Roseanna White | May 27, 2013 | Word of the Week
I love these words with a long history. =) To mix things up today, I’m going to present this one as a
list. Wanna take a guess as to which one I was looking up for the end of my spy story? LOL
Primary use (you know, the part of your face) – Old English
Used of any prominent or projecting part – 1530s.
To say something is under (one’s) nose “in plain view” – 1540s
(verb) to perceive the smell of – 1570s
something obvious – 1590s.
Pay through the nose (bleed) – 1670s
(verb) to pry, search – 1640s
To turn up one’s nose, “show disdain” – 1818 (earlier hold up one’s nose, 1570s)
Odor, scent (the nose of a perfume) – 1894
Many extended meanings are from the horse-racing sense
of length of a horse’s nose, as a measure of distance between two
finishers – 1908
(verb) to look down one’s nose – 1921
by Roseanna White | May 20, 2013 | Word of the Week
I’m in a sprint toward the end of Circle of Spies (woo hoo!), and in my marathon writing these last few days have been looking up a lot of words’ etymology. This is the first time in a good while I’ve had a historical character prone to slang, and slang is so tricky! Good thing I enjoy learning this stuff. 😉
So from my bushel of new-found knowledge I have chosen
snap for today. =) Because Slade really, really wanted to tell Marietta to “snap out of it” during the scene I was writing last night. I mean,
really wanted to. But I
knew that wouldn’t work, so I had to prove it to myself.
Snap became a verb in the 1520s, meaning “to take a quick bite” and taken directly from the noun of the similar meaning, which dates from the 15th century. These two meanings were related to animals–a critter snapping its jaws around prey. The meaning of “to break suddenly” came along in the early 1600s (and I had no idea it was nearly a century after “bite”!) “To snap” mentally might be literally from that “break” meaning, but it came way late to the game–as in, 1970s.
Football move? 1887. Sound fingers make? 1670s. (See, I probably would have guessed that one came first. Shows what I know, LOL.) The turtle? 1740s. And then, aha! Snap out of it. My target phrase was a bit older than I thought but still of no help to my 1865 story, joining the party in 1907.
On an unrelated note, I discovered this weekend that
Fairchild’s Lady, the FREE novella sequel to
Ring of Secrets, is available for
pre-order on Amazon! I have a post set up dedicated to it on its release day, June 1, but thought I’d mention it today too. 😉
And just for the fun of sharing, today begins our last week of our school year! Woot!!! =)
by Roseanna White | May 13, 2013 | Word of the Week
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| Gänsefütterung by Alexander Koester, 1890 |
On the road last week, silly conversation led us to the word gander. And I started to wonder whether the two meanings I knew of–a male goose and to look around–were from the same root, or if it were one of those cases where they had nothing to do with one another.
So off I went to etymonline.com the next day to find the answer. =)
Gander has meant “male goose” since the days of Old English. Apparently for a while in the 19th century it was used to mean single men (like “stag”) too–which I didn’t realize! Fun!
In 1680 gander became a verb meaning “to walk aimlessly.” Kinda akin to a wild goose chase in that. Then in 1886, the verb arose that we’re more familiar with, “to take a long look,” from how a goose cranes its head around. So yep, definitely connected! In 1912, that verb became a noun–the look itself.
Always love discovering these things. =)
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.