Word of the Week – Schedule

by Roseanna White | Sep 11, 2017 | Word of the Week

I’ve just returned from a week of vacation in the beautiful Outer Banks of North Carolina . . . which means my schedule is bursting with things that need done.

Now, as it happens, I knew from some of my writing projects that schedule would not have been a word used in such a way until fairly recent history. So I thought I’d share some of that today, while I’m battling to get mine into order. 😉

Schedule comes to English via French (“strip of paper with writing on it”), Latin (“strip of paper”), and originally Greek (“splinter or strip”). So even in those moves from language to language we see a progression of the idea, right? When it joined the English tongue in the 14th century, it meant “a ticket, label, or slip of paper with writing on it.” This sense is still preserved in our tax system–the “schedule” being a piece of paper attached to the main document, an appendix.

So how did it come to mean “a plan of procedure”? Well we have the railroads to thank for that. They would employ schedules–slips of paper–with their timetables written on them. Hence, everyone soon called the timetable schedule rather than the paper it was on.

Interestingly, even the pronunciation has changed a lot over the centuries! For hundreds of years, everyone pronounced it “sed-yul.” But the British modified it to “shed-yul” in imitation of the French at some point, while Americans–at the insistence of Webster and his dictionary–reverted to the Greek pronunciation of “sked-yul.”

Now back I go to mine. 😉

Word of the Week – Amused

by Roseanna White | Sep 4, 2017 | Word of the Week

Short and sweet–and funny!–word today. =)

Amused. We all know what it means, right? “Entertained. Aroused to mirth.” And today, that’s true. But did you know that the word originally meant “distracted, diverted, cheated”??? Truth!

When amused entered the language around 1600, that was its meaning, and it continued as such until around 1727, when that sense of “distracting someone, playing a trick on them, cheating them,” took on a more positive connotation–that we were instead “pleasantly diverted.”

Amusing to see how words change over time, isn’t it. 😉

Word of the Week – Tween

by Roseanna White | Aug 28, 2017 | Word of the Week

So this has been a debate in my house in recent weeks.


Xoe will say something about being/looking up pictures of/something geared at a tween. Rowyn will reply with, “I hate that word. It’s not even a thing. I’m not a tween and I’ll never be a tween.”

To which Xoe will retort, “It is so a thing!”

Cue the “Mooooom!” shouts from both of them. I’ve already been called upon to referee this particular argument no fewer than 3 times, which neither ever being satisfied, LOL.

So, tween.

It’s been a shortened form of between since around 1300, which is obviously not the way it’s being use in the debate above. 😉 No, we’re talking about “a child nearing puberty, between the ages of 9 and 12.” Not quite a teen, but not always wanting to be grouped with the little kids. Well, this use can be traced to 1988, apparently–just a couple years before I would have been termed one, though I don’t recall ever hearing the word until I was in my 20s. It’s thought that this use is mostly linked to its nearness to the spelling of “teen,” but it may also have been influenced by J. R. R. Tolkein using tween in The Lord of the Rings to refer to a period of irresponsible behavior in the Hobbit life-cycle.

Interestingly, before tween was used for this age group, there was apparently the word subteen used for the same, in the 1950s.

In earlier days, the word tween or tweenie was also used for a maid who served two others.

Word of the Week – Eclipse

by Roseanna White | Aug 21, 2017 | Word of the Week

Figured I’d jump on the eclipse bandwagon today and talk about a part of it I haven’t seen anyone else mention–the word itself! 😉

Eclipse has been in English since around 1300 (since, you know, there was English), taken from French, which was taken from Latin, which is taken from Greek, all sounding like the original ekleipsis. But what did that original word assigned to the phenomena mean?

Quite literally, it means “an abandonment, a failing, a forsaking.” Ek is “out” and leipein is “to leave.” So when something abandoned its spot and went out, much like the sun and moon sometimes appear to do . . . there you go!

Are you planning on (safely) viewing the eclipse today? It’s our first day of school, and we figured that was a pretty sweet science lesson for day 1. =) We bought eclipse glasses for the family last year when we were studying our astronomy unit and will be breaking those out today for sure!

Word of the Week – Galumph

by Roseanna White | Aug 7, 2017 | Word of the Week

Yesterday, my family and I went hiking at Seneca Rocks. On our way there, we passed a sign that said Watch for West Virginia Wild Life. “I’ve already seen it,” I said. “I saw that groundhog galumphing along.”

Later last night, my husband was finishing up the first draft of An Hour Unspent (Shadows Over England, Book 3) and started laughing. I looked over at him from the pages of The Sign of The Four (Sherlock Holmes–I’m finally reading some!) and asked what was funny. “Galumph,” he said. “You just had an elephant galumphing in here. That’s twice in a day. It needs to be your word of the week.”

And so, here we are!

If you consult Merriam-Webster on the meaning of galumph, it reports “to move with a clumsy or heavy tread.” Which is certainly how I was using it. But did you know that it originally meant something far different?

Lewis Caroll coined the word in 1872, in “The Jabberwocky.” In his version, the word is a combination of gallop and triumph, describing how the vanquisher of the dread Jabberwocky returned home. His contemporary writers apparently quite liked the word and immediately began borrowing it…but in a different way. Etymologists assume that the shift in meaning from “triumphant” to “clumsy or heavy” is simply a reflection of the way the word sounds. Say it a few times. Galumph conjures up an image, doesn’t it? And it isn’t one of triumph. 😉

Here’s hoping there’s minimal galumphing through your day in the new sense, but plenty of it in its original! Have a great week, everyone!