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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...bowords126.xml
A-Z of English words with surprising origins Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 26/11/2008 Award-winning etymologist Henry Hitchings thought he did, until he studied the origins of English When I set out to write a study of the history of words, I thought I had a decent grasp of where even the most curious English ones originate. Those with the prefix al- - as in alchemy and alcohol - often have Arabic roots, and many seafaring terms - skipper, schooner, land-lubber - are Dutch. Many words in common usage, like dachshund, flamenco and tattoo, have foreign origins But there were plenty of surprises. Who knew that marmalade, for instance, while eternally associated in my mind with Paddington Bear, is in fact Portuguese? So here is an A-to-Z of some of my favourite English words that have been absorbed from and inspired by other languages. A is for… Avocado, which comes from Nahuatl, a language spoken by the Aztecs. Their name for it, ahuacatl, also meant ''testicle". B is for… advertisement Bonsai. Although we think the tree-cultivating art is Japanese, it originated in China. C is for… Coleslaw. Supposedly eaten in ancient Rome, it comes from the Dutch kool-salade (''cabbage salad"). D is for… Dachshund, a compound of the German Dachs (''badger") and Hund (''dog"). Originally the breed was known in Germany as Dachs Krieger, or ''badger warrior". E is for… Enthusiasm. From the Greek entheos, which means ''to be within energy", suggesting being spiritually ''possessed". F is for… Flamenco, from the Spanish name for a Fleming (i.e. someone from Flanders). G is for… Goulash, an invention by Hungarian herdsmen whose name derives from gulyas. H is for… Hotchpotch, used in Norman legal jargon to denote property collected and then divided. I is for… Intelligentsia, a collective term for the intellectual class which derives from Latin but came to us from Russian. J is for… Juggernaut, Sanskrit for a giant carriage used to transport an image of the god Krishna. K is for… Kangaroo, from gangurru, the large black male roo in the Guugu Yimidhirr language. L is for… Lilac, which comes from the Persian nilak, meaning ''of a bluish shade". M is for… Mandarin. The name of the fruit feels as though it ought to be Chinese, but may well have come from Swedish. N is for… Namby-pamby. Nickname of the 18th-century poet Ambrose Phillips, coined by the satirist Henry Careybecause of his sentimental verses O is for… Onslaught, from the Dutch aanslag - related to a word in Old High German for a shower. P is for… Penguin, a compound of two Welsh words, pen and gwyn, which mean ''head" and ''white" - even though penguins have black heads. It is likely that 'penguin' was at one time the name of similar, now extinct bird which had a white patch near its bill. Q is for… Quack can be traced to the Dutch kwaksalver, literally someone who hawked ointments. R is for… Regatta, from Venetian dialect, it originally signified any kind of contest. S is for… Sabotage. Supposed to derive from the tendency of striking workers to damage machinery by throwing shoes into it - sabot being an old French word for a wooden shoe. T is for… Tattoo, Captain Cook saw Polynesian islanders marking their skin with dark pigment. Long before that the word signified a signal or drumbeat, a Dutch expression for 'Close off the tap', used to recall tippling soldiers. U is for… Umbrella, appeared in English as early as 1609 (in a letter by John Donne). In the middle of the 18th century the device was adopted by the philanthropist Jonas Hanway as a protection against the London rain. V is for… Vanilla, ''little sheath" in Spanish. W is for… Walnut, a modern rendering of the Old English walhnutu ('foreign nut'), so known because it grew mainly in Italy. X is for… Xebec, a little vessel with three masts, from the Arabic shabbak, a small warship. Y is for… Yogurt, a mispronunciation of a Turkish word. Z is for… Zero, whose immediate source is French or Italian, but its origins are in Arabic - and before that in the Sanskrit word sunya, which meant both ''nothing" and ''desert". • 'The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English' by Henry Hitchings (John Murray Publishing, £16.99) is available from Telegraph Bookshop for £14.99 + £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0844 871 1515 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
On 27 Nov, 11:24, Miles Vaches wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...08/11/26/bowor.... A-Z of English words with surprising origins Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 26/11/2008 Award-winning etymologist Henry Hitchings thought he did, until he studied the origins of English When I set out to write a study of the history of words, I thought I had a decent grasp of where even the most curious English ones originate. Those with the prefix al- - as in alchemy and alcohol - often have Arabic roots, and many seafaring terms - skipper, schooner, land-lubber - are Dutch. Many words in common usage, like dachshund, flamenco and tattoo, have foreign origins But there were plenty of surprises. Who knew that marmalade, for instance, while eternally associated in my mind with Paddington Bear, is in fact Portuguese? So here is an A-to-Z of some of my favourite English words that have been absorbed from and inspired by other languages. A is for… Avocado, which comes from Nahuatl, a language spoken by the Aztecs. Their name for it, ahuacatl, also meant ''testicle". B is for… advertisement Bonsai. Although we think the tree-cultivating art is Japanese, it originated in China. C is for… Coleslaw. Supposedly eaten in ancient Rome, it comes from the Dutch kool-salade (''cabbage salad"). D is for… Dachshund, a compound of the German Dachs (''badger") and Hund (''dog"). Originally the breed was known in Germany as Dachs Krieger, or ''badger warrior". E is for… Enthusiasm. From the Greek entheos, which means ''to be within energy", suggesting being spiritually ''possessed". F is for… Flamenco, from the Spanish name for a Fleming (i.e. someone from Flanders). G is for… Goulash, an invention by Hungarian herdsmen whose name derives from gulyas. H is for… Hotchpotch, used in Norman legal jargon to denote property collected and then divided. I is for… Intelligentsia, a collective term for the intellectual class which derives from Latin but came to us from Russian. J is for… Juggernaut, Sanskrit for a giant carriage used to transport an image of the god Krishna. K is for… Kangaroo, from gangurru, the large black male roo in the Guugu Yimidhirr language. L is for… Lilac, which comes from the Persian nilak, meaning ''of a bluish shade". M is for… Mandarin. The name of the fruit feels as though it ought to be Chinese, but may well have come from Swedish. N is for… Namby-pamby. Nickname of the 18th-century poet Ambrose Phillips, coined by the satirist Henry Careybecause of his sentimental verses O is for… Onslaught, from the Dutch aanslag - related to a word in Old High German for a shower. P is for… Penguin, a compound of two Welsh words, pen and gwyn, which mean ''head" and ''white" - even though penguins have black heads. It is likely that 'penguin' was at one time the name of similar, now extinct bird which had a white patch near its bill. Q is for… Quack can be traced to the Dutch kwaksalver, literally someone who hawked ointments. R is for… Regatta, from Venetian dialect, it originally signified any kind of contest. S is for… Sabotage. Supposed to derive from the tendency of striking workers to damage machinery by throwing shoes into it - sabot being an old French word for a wooden shoe. T is for… Tattoo, Captain Cook saw Polynesian islanders marking their skin with dark pigment. Long before that the word signified a signal or drumbeat, a Dutch expression for 'Close off the tap', used to recall tippling soldiers. U is for… Umbrella, appeared in English as early as 1609 (in a letter by John Donne). In the middle of the 18th century the device was adopted by the philanthropist Jonas Hanway as a protection against the London rain. V is for… Vanilla, ''little sheath" in Spanish. W is for… Walnut, a modern rendering of the Old English walhnutu ('foreign nut'), so known because it grew mainly in Italy. X is for… Xebec, a little vessel with three masts, from the Arabic shabbak, a small warship. Y is for… Yogurt, a mispronunciation of a Turkish word. Z is for… Zero, whose immediate source is French or Italian, but its origins are in Arabic - and before that in the Sanskrit word sunya, which meant both ''nothing" and ''desert". • 'The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English' by Henry Hitchings (John Murray Publishing, £16.99) is available from Telegraph Bookshop for £14.99 + £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0844 871 1515 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk Part of what makes English such a beautiful language. |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
Miles Vaches wrote:
B is for… advertisement I don't think it is... |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...bowords126.xml When I set out to write a study of the history of words, I thought I had a decent grasp...... • 'The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English' by Henry Hitchings (John Murray Publishing, £16.99) is available from Telegraph Bookshop for £14.99 + £1.25 p&p. To order, call 0844 871 1515 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk The author of this (sad) piece probably never even thought to look at these two sites:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...foreign_origin http://www.krysstal.com/borrow.html Gerry |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
On Thu, 27 Nov 2008, Miles Vaches wrote:
Regatta, from Venetian dialect, it originally signified any kind of contest. I may just repeat what I said a while ago (april 2008) in another thread on r.t.e. As a native speaker of Italian, a language where double consonants are significant, I'm always puzzled by the fact in English you write "regatta" with 2 t's, while in Italian we write "regata" with one t. The reference to Venetian does not help, because Venetian is very well known for its trend to REMOVE doubles present in the corresponding italian word. They do not pronounce (nor write) doubles at all. The enquiries I did in april showed that "regata" derives from Latin "re-captare" i.e. "to catch again" or "to CAPTure again". Now the Latin nexus -pt- renders in Italian as -tt- (compare Latin "captivus" with e.g. English "captive" or Italian "cattivo" ... which however means "bad, nasty" not "prisoner" ... from "captivus diaboli", "prisoner of the devil"). So one could imagine an hypothetic italian *recattare from recaptare (with participle "recapta", irregular). In Venetian the c becomes g, and the double is systematically eliminated. Hence "regata". It would be interesting to know when the word was imported in English. In Venetian it should be documented at least from the XIII century. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- is a newsreading account used by more persons to avoid unwanted spam. Any mail returning to this address will be rejected. Users can disclose their e-mail address in the article if they wish so. |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
On Nov 27, 10:24*pm, Miles Vaches wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...08/11/26/bowor.... A-Z of English words with surprising origins snip D is for… Dachshund, a compound of the German Dachs (''badger") and Hund (''dog"). Originally the breed was known in Germany as Dachs Krieger, or ''badger warrior". The sausage dogs my aunt had couldn't tackle a large mouse, let alone a badger. Warrior? Compared to what? A chihuaua? Higgs |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
"Miles Vaches" spammed the world ... Snipped a load of spam. So Bill Tong, which you are because you use the same email address any particular reason you are spamming this group under another sock puppet alias? |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
"Giovanni Drogo" wrote in message news:alpine.LSU.1.00.0811271328100.25919@cbfrvqba. ynzoengr.vans.vg... On Thu, 27 Nov 2008, Miles Vaches wrote: Regatta, from Venetian dialect, it originally signified any kind of contest. I may just repeat what I said a while ago (april 2008) in another thread on r.t.e. As a native speaker of Italian, a language where double consonants are significant, I'm always puzzled by the fact in English you write "regatta" with 2 t's, while in Italian we write "regata" with one t. The reference to Venetian does not help, because Venetian is very well known for its trend to REMOVE doubles present in the corresponding italian word. They do not pronounce (nor write) doubles at all. The enquiries I did in april showed that "regata" derives from Latin "re-captare" i.e. "to catch again" or "to CAPTure again". Now the Latin nexus -pt- renders in Italian as -tt- (compare Latin "captivus" with e.g. English "captive" or Italian "cattivo" ... which however means "bad, nasty" not "prisoner" ... from "captivus diaboli", "prisoner of the devil"). So one could imagine an hypothetic italian *recattare from recaptare (with participle "recapta", irregular). In Venetian the c becomes g, and the double is systematically eliminated. Hence "regata". It would be interesting to know when the word was imported in English. In Venetian it should be documented at least from the XIII century. Is there a reason you think it's not derived from "rigare"? Think ships of the line, lines of battle... |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
On 27 Nov, 14:04, "Road_Hog" wrote:
"Miles Vaches" spammed the ... Snipped a load of spam. So Bill Tong, which you are because you use the same email address any particular reason you are spamming this group under another sock puppet alias? yes, its called 'culture'....... ;-) |
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A-Z of English words with surprising origins
Giovanni Drogo wrote:
I may just repeat what I said a while ago (april 2008) in another thread on r.t.e. As a native speaker of Italian, a language where double consonants are significant, I'm always puzzled by the fact in English you write "regatta" with 2 t's, while in Italian we write "regata" with one t. The reference to Venetian does not help, because Venetian is very well known for its trend to REMOVE doubles present in the corresponding italian word. They do not pronounce (nor write) doubles at all. Spelling in English is not so regular. We spell "sonata" thus. My favourite example of English spelling changing is that "butterfly" was once "flutterby". The enquiries I did in april showed that "regata" derives from Latin "re-captare" i.e. "to catch again" or "to CAPTure again". Now the Latin nexus -pt- renders in Italian as -tt- (compare Latin "captivus" with e.g. English "captive" or Italian "cattivo" ... which however means "bad, nasty" not "prisoner" ... from "captivus diaboli", "prisoner of the devil"). Like rhyming slang. "Trouble: wife, From 'trouble and strife'" So one could imagine an hypothetic italian *recattare from recaptare (with participle "recapta", irregular). In Venetian the c becomes g, and the double is systematically eliminated. Hence "regata". It would be interesting to know when the word was imported in English. In Venetian it should be documented at least from the XIII century. -- Probably eighteenth century which I believe Italians call something else - e.g. 1770. |
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