Word Facts for Jan. 29-Feb. 4, 2011
Word origin for the weekend of Jan. 29-30, 2011: cramp one's style - "Dude! You're cramping my style!" So a surfer, or at least a would-be surfer, might howl at a bothersome neighbor. The term is much older, though, first turning up in the writings of the English essayist Horace Walpole in 1781: "The shackles of translation have neither cramped your style, nor rendered it obscure."
Word origin for Jan. 31, 2011: thimble - In medieval English, the suffix -le often turns up as a means of indicating that something belongs or is relative to something else. In this case, the "thimble" means an instrument that belongs to the thumb, as indeed it does.
Word origin for Feb. 1, 2011: February - To a Roman, "February" would have been a month for fever, the word februum underlying both modern terms. More specifically, a februum was a kind of ritual purification held each year on the fifteenth of the month, involving fasting - sensibly, for food supplies were often short in the last half of winter.
Word origin for Feb. 2, 2011: chow line - The "chow" is a dog bred in China - sometimes as a food source. English-speaking sailors visiting Chinese ports came away with the thought that dogs figured in every meal, and "chow" entered military jargon to refer to any kind of food. "Chow line" is still used in military slang today to indicate the kind of food served in a mess hall, another suggestive term.
Word origin for Feb. 3, 2011: e.g. - In Latin, exemplia gratia means "a freely given example." Shortened to e.g., it is used as a replacement for the phrase "for example." It is often confused for i.e., the abbreviation for the Latin phrase id est, "that is."
Word origin for Feb. 4, 2011: heinous - Something "heinous" is downright nasty. The word comes from the French heine, "hate," and is therefore equivalent to - but somewhat stronger than - our word "hateful." The word is often paired in the expression "heinous crimes." It is pronounced "hay-ness," not (as is often heard) "he-knee-us."
Word origin for Jan. 31, 2011: thimble - In medieval English, the suffix -le often turns up as a means of indicating that something belongs or is relative to something else. In this case, the "thimble" means an instrument that belongs to the thumb, as indeed it does.
Word origin for Feb. 1, 2011: February - To a Roman, "February" would have been a month for fever, the word februum underlying both modern terms. More specifically, a februum was a kind of ritual purification held each year on the fifteenth of the month, involving fasting - sensibly, for food supplies were often short in the last half of winter.
Word origin for Feb. 2, 2011: chow line - The "chow" is a dog bred in China - sometimes as a food source. English-speaking sailors visiting Chinese ports came away with the thought that dogs figured in every meal, and "chow" entered military jargon to refer to any kind of food. "Chow line" is still used in military slang today to indicate the kind of food served in a mess hall, another suggestive term.
Word origin for Feb. 3, 2011: e.g. - In Latin, exemplia gratia means "a freely given example." Shortened to e.g., it is used as a replacement for the phrase "for example." It is often confused for i.e., the abbreviation for the Latin phrase id est, "that is."
Word origin for Feb. 4, 2011: heinous - Something "heinous" is downright nasty. The word comes from the French heine, "hate," and is therefore equivalent to - but somewhat stronger than - our word "hateful." The word is often paired in the expression "heinous crimes." It is pronounced "hay-ness," not (as is often heard) "he-knee-us."
Labels: 2011, chinese, food, greg, history, languages, page-a-day, teunis, visitors, words
posted by Flami at 5:23:00 PM
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