Word Facts for Jan. 22-28, 2011

Word origin for the weekend of Jan. 22-23, 2011: outback - In Australian English, the "outback" is the vast stretch of continent that extends between the cities on the country's costs. More colloquial, but largely unknown to Americans, is the expression "back o' Bourke," meaning the country that lies beyond a town in the northwestern corner of New South Wales.

Word origin for Jan. 24, 2011: firmware - "Firmware" is software that controls the lower-order behavior of a computing machine, a sort of analog to the human autonomic nervous system. A computer scientist named Ascher Opler coined the term in 1967. He wrote, "I believe it worthwhile to introduce a new word into our vocabulary: firmware. I use this term to designate microprograms resident in the computer's control memory."

Word origin for Jan. 25, 2011: Wal-Mart - In 1950, an enterprising businessman named Sam Walton set up shop for himself after having worked as a retailer for J.C. Penney, Ben Franklin, and other chain stores. In the next dozen years, he built a chain of a dozen Walton's Stores. In 1962, an assistant, Bob Bogle, suggested that the stores be rebranded with the name "Wal-Mart." Walton liked the idea, and the company's more than 6000 stores around the world carry it today, now branded "Walmart."

Word origin for Jan. 26, 2011: wombat - "Wombat," the name of a curious Australian marsupial, probably comes from a now-defunct language spoken by native people who lived near present-day Melbourne. It first turns up in an English explorer's notebook in 1798 referring to the animal, but its exact meaning is unknown. English-speaking Australians also called it "badger" after the unrelated European mammal.

Word origin for Jan. 27, 2011: posh - Something "posh" is fancy and shiny, and it usually bespeaks wealth. Many dictionaries speculate that the word is an acronym for "port out, starboard in," referring to the location of the most expensive cabins on a ship. Much likelier is that the word is merely a London East Ender's pronunciation of the word "polish."

Word origin for Jan. 28, 2011: Astana - "Astana" is the capital of the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. Its name, in the Kazak language, simply means "capital." The city became the nation's administrative headquarters in 1997, a few years after the former Soviet republic became independent. The former capital was Almaty, whose name means "father of apples," after the hundreds of apple varieties grown there.