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the only Weekly Word-origin Webzine | |
Issue 64 |
December 13, 1999 |
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In ancient times, all manner of things
were imagined to foretell future events. In classical Rome, the Rome also had a special class of Etruscan priests called haruspices who foretold the future by examining animals' entrails. The official who did the actual examination was called an extipex. Interestingly, the Etruscan language has not been deciphered and we don't know quite where it fits in the general scheme of Indo-European languages. However, there may be a clue in that the haru- of haruspex resembles the Sanskrit hira, "entrails". Apart from these official state oracles there were many other forms of divination practiced informally by ordinary folk. There is a gloriously obscure word for "a method of divination" - fatidency. For most of these ancient fatidencies we know little more than their names. These names are usually formed by attaching a Greek prefix to -mancy (from the Greek manteia, "prophesying"). Here is an abbreviated list of some of these obscure but splendid words. (All derivations are from Greek unless otherwise stated.)
Scapulomancy is a particularly ancient practice which was know to widely separated groups. Certain Athabascan tribes in North America use it to predict the location of caribou herds. In ancient China it was used for more general questions: a query would be engraved on a sheep's shoulder blade and a red-hot poker pressed against it. The type of crack which resulted determined whether the question was answered "yes" or "no". The type of writing which was used is known as "oracle bone script" and is one of the earliest forms of Chinese writing. Many of the divination methods listed above were used medically as diagnostic aids. Oneiromancy was practiced by the Greek cult of Asklepios. The sick would present themselves at an Asklepian temple with an animal for sacrifice, usually a sheep. The animal would be slaughtered, then skinned and the patient would be given a sleeping draught, then sewn into the skin of the slaughtered beast. Next morning the patient would report any dreams to an attendant who would interpret them to find the cause of the disease. These attendants were known as therapeutae and it is from this that we get our words therapeutic and therapy. Anthracomancy was practiced in
Northern England at least until the 19th century except that it was called ash-riddling
and was practiced only on St. Mark's eve, You will see from the derivation
that the One thing puzzles me: just how do you perform divination with cheese? |
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From Anna:
Well, the Old English word for
"grape" was wineberige "wine berry". Old
English had only two words As was often the case, a French word usurped the Old English form in the Middle Ages. Grape originally meant "a bunch of grapes". It was a derivative of the verb graper "to gather grapes", which was formed from the Old French noun grape "hook". The implication here is that bunches of grapes were gathered by hooks. Some relatives of the latter grape are grapple, cramp, cripple, creek, crutch and crimp. These all derive from the Indo-European root ger- "curving, crooked". |
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From Bill Walsh:
Aisle
entered English as ele, which came from Old French ala
"wing", a word that applied to wings of Old French ala came ultimately from the Indo-European root aks- "axis" (with the notion of something turning on the axis), which is the source of several other English words, such as axis, axle, axilla, and axon. Isle comes from a different source: Latin insula "island", via Old French ile. English insulate comes from the same source; the notion is one of an isle being insulated by water. That s was added in the English form in the 15th century as a nod to its Latin roots. You may be surprised to learn that island does not come from Latin insula. Instead, it derives from the Germanic root aujo- "thing on the water". The source of aujo- is the Indo-European root ak(w)a- "water", source also of Latin aqua and all its derivatives. Aujo entered Old English as ieg, to which land was soon appended. In Middle English it became iland. It was in the 15th century that, by influence of isle, the s was added to form island. |
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From Tracey:
This one's short and sweet. Tauto means "the same" in Greek, and logos is, of course, Greek for "speech, discourse, reason", derived from a verb meaning "to say". A tautology is therefore a repetition of the same statement, or saying the same thing using different words. It entered English in the late 16th century, arriving via late Latin tautologia. |
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From Ann Thu Nguyen:
This American term for a quack remedy doesn't appear in the written record until 1927, in S.V. Benét's John Brown's Body: "Crooked creatures of a thousand dubious trades,...sellers of snake-oil balm and lucky rings." Clearly the term had the same meaning then as it does now. Christine Ammer indicates that it refers to the age-old belief in the ability of snakes to deceive, which dates back all the way to the time that the Old Testament was written. It may be that, but it may also be simply that people knew from experience that a medicine made of snake oil wouldn't do anything for them, and so anyone trying to sell it was trying to pull the wool over their eyes (which is another expression originating in the U.S.). |
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From Anisha:
Word is a very old term, coming from Old English and not having changed a bit since then. The first written record of it comes from Cynewulf's Juliana, c. 900: "gif þas word sind soþ." Word may be the only word you can recognize in that excerpt! It derives from the Indo-European root wer- "to speak", which also gave Latin verbum "word" (which gave English verb and adverb, among others) and Greek rhetor "public speaker" (source of English rhetoric) and eirein "to say, speak" (source of English irony), along with Sanskrit vratám "decree, law". |
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From Joel Hettger:
Neither of us had the pleasure of seeing the television show, but we have heard of it; you are not alone in thinking highly of that program. Malcom Muggeridge was editor of Punch, the humor magazine, at the time. He later "got religion" and turned extremely prudish, publicly denouncing "Monty Python's Life of Brian" as blasphemy. Oh, well! As for searching the OED on CD-ROM, that is yet another reason that all logophiles should own a copy of it! |
From Ann Hogan:
The Norwegians actually ended up choosing either a patronymic surname, or a place name. Our friend Doug Lynner's family chose the name of the farm that they lived on as their surname. He tells us that 50% of the population chose place names and the other 50% chose patronyms as their surnames. |
From Angela:
See Issue 26, where we discuss the intent of the speaker determining whether any word should be construed as offensive. Our intent in using squaw was not derogatory, as Melanie is of Cherokee and Comanche descent. It was similar to a black person calling another black person nigger. As for squaw deriving from Algonquin roots meaning "female genitalia", there is absolutely no proof of this, as discussed in Issue 41. |
From Kaa Byington:
Thanks, Kaa! That reminds us of the practice in Wales, where, once the English required the Welsh to take formal surnames (they were patronymic up to that point), there were so many Johns that the most common surname in Wales became Jones, from Ap Siôn "son of John" (another form of Ap Siôn is the surname Upjohn). Well, with so many Joneses, the Welsh had to find additional ways to tell them apart. Therefore, Mr. Jones the barber became "Jones the hair" and Mr. Jones the butcher became "Jones the meat". Mongolia recently passed a law stating that everyone should henceforth use their family names on official documents. Unfortunately, most Mongolians don't know their family name and an official government department had to be set up to inform people of their own names. |
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