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Discussing the origins of words and phrases, in English or any other language. Powered by @r_channels @reddit2telegram
What are some of the oldest words in the English language that remain unchanged from its oldest known pronounciation to date?
This doesn't necessarily have to include strictly Indo European words or germanic words as many other older words from other language families have entered our vocabulary since then. Excluding obvious words like mama or baba what comes to mind?
https://redd.it/13so9pe
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Why Hinduism have similarities with Judaism?
In Judaism, there's a man called Abraham has a wife called Sarah, and Hinduism have brahma, he also have a wife, she called Saraswati
https://redd.it/13sdpkm
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Wtf happened to plussed/nonplussed
Plussed is supposed to mean the opposite of nonplussed, but they mean the same thing. And the use of nonplussed that IS opposite of plussed is called informal by dictionaries. Where did this word go wrong?
https://redd.it/13s19j0
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Etymology of soneira
I am wondering the etymology of the Galician word soneira ("slumber")
I'm guessing that it comes from Latin somnus ("sleep") + -aria, and thus somnaria. But it seems that word doesn't exist.
https://redd.it/rcljx7
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Does the word to rob, like stealing, come from Robin Hood?
Or is it the other way around? I’m curious as this is a very old tale
https://redd.it/rcf68n
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Map of English words originating from Latin "cavea"
https://redd.it/rc1u07
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Is there a connection between Customer, Custom, and Customisable?
Never really thought about it before, and had only ever seen custom as short for customisable, but the other day I saw "thank you for your custom", as in thanking customers. Wondered if this is just a weird coincidence or if there's actually a connection between the two? There probably is, but I can't seem to think of one at the moment.
https://redd.it/rbsbqv
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Abate vs Abjure
Not able to remember these words meaning any logic behind them
https://redd.it/rbq48w
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Etymology of the first part of pillicock?
I just saw this page:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pillicock
Which also lists Scots "pillie", Danish "piller" as synonyms for penis. Not listed there, but German also has a colloquial word "Pillemann", meaning the same.
It would seem that prefix is rather old then, if it spans so many languages. Anyone have any idea what the etymology of that first part is?
https://redd.it/rbikye
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Are there any known examples of Classical Latin words containing "c" referring to "k"/"i" referring to "j" being mistaken for "g"/"i" or vice versa?
https://redd.it/rb9o96
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The phrase "Now wait just a cotton picking minute!" seems to be somewhat racist. But is it really? Or is "cotton picking" actually a reference to "Cotten picking", the fingerpicking style for guitar popularized by the Seeger family's promotion of Elizabeth Cotten, circa the 1950s?
I've searched the internet and haven't found a response from someone I'd consider qualified to give one.
To me, "Now wait just a cotton picking minute" strikes me as a minced phrase where "cotton picking" is used as an intensifier instead of a curse, e.g. "Now wait just a god damn minute." Put to any of my friends, they'd say "cotton picking" refers to plantation slavery. But I'm not so sure.
The term "cotton picking", as far as I've found, isn't a common term the American lexicon when in reference to actually picking cotton, while the term "Cotten picking" very much is, because of the Seeger family's promotion of Elizabeth Cotten. Her song "Freight Train", written when Libba was just a teen, became a hit over in England and was played by literally every big name in American folk music history. The song was actually popularized by Peggy Seeger, who learned it from Libba as a child and played it during a tour in England. There it was misappropriated, copyrighted, and recorded by a skiffle singer named Chas McDevitt. The picking style she used (using her thumb for the melody and fingers for the bass lines, then became extremely popular in the folk music community.)
It was then re-recorded by McDevitt as a duet with Nancy Whisky, and the song then became a hit.
It was even popular with a band called The Quarrymen, who performed it a fair amount before rebranding. Subsequent to them, it's been covered by Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Doc Watson, Peter Paul & Mary, Taj Mahal, Laura Veirs, and countless others.
So it seems to me "cotton picking" might actually just be a mistake due to a homonym. Does anyone here know better?
https://redd.it/raq2st
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Why is the letter Z pronounced Zed in Britain and Zee in America?
My reasoning has been that the Alphabet Song was made in America to help kids remember it (using the same tune found in nursery rhymes like Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star) and teachers decided to change to pronunciation of Z so that it could rhyme better with V. Am I right or wrong with this theory?
https://redd.it/rb3g19
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Store vs shop
I've noticed that here in the states we call a place where you buy things a store. In Britain, they call it a shop. It seems to be something to do with America being very business centered as in "this is a place for our retailers to store their items to sell", whereas in Britain it would be more "this is a place for our population to shop for things that they need".
Any thoughts?
Edit : Not that Britain isn't business centered. Of course they care about that.
https://redd.it/rajlv8
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Interesting bald Eagle origin
https://redd.it/rahv4s
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A great write-up on the etymology of "foo", used alongside "bar", "foobar" and other "metasyntactic variables" as examples and placeholders in programming documentation
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3092
https://redd.it/rac8it
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Any relation between 'kodokushi' and 'khudkhushi'?
Today I got to know that the Japanese word for 'lonely death' is 'kodokushi' which sounds very similar to 'khudkhushi' which is the Hindi word for suicide.
I couldn't find any etymological connections on google.
Do they share a history or it's a coincidence?
https://redd.it/13skht4
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Why is it that some countries use 'cha' or anything like that for tea, whereas others use 'te' and stuff like that?
https://redd.it/rcnczl
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How to start studying etymology?
Do you guys have any recommendations?
How do I even start it?
https://redd.it/rcerjf
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Are the terms "hot garbage" and "dumpster fire" related, etymologically speaking?
Genuinely curious, just occurred to me to ask and didn't know where else to go!
https://redd.it/rc1wy7
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Questions on the Etymology of "Godan" and Odin
I've done quite a bit of reading on the etymology and other names of the mythological figure Odin, and this stuck out at me and struck me very odd that **"Godan"** was a spelling given for this god in recordings about the origins of the Lombards, and that the word god might be a contraction of that word. [Contraction Source](https://books.google.com/books?id=gZFOAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA140-IA2&dq#v=onepage&q=godan&f=false) Unfortunately I can't find a good link to a source for the usage of "Godan" in specific relation to the Lombards can only find specific book pages mentioned as a source.
Now looking up the etymology of Odin it suggests the origin of the name is derived from Proto-Germanic *\*Wōđanaz* from *\*wōđaz* ('possessed, inspired, delirious, raging')
This left me questioning how did the Lombards come to using a G sound at the beginning of Odin?
All of the spellings and ways I can imagine pronouncing them would require pronouncing the beginning of the name/word at the front of the mouth or lips, but G as used in the word "God" in English starts at the back.
Looking up the etymology for "**God**" and things didn't get any clearer, unhelpful that I can't find many good online sources and looked at several sites mostly pulling this info from wikipedia, but other online sources didn't vary much from this... Second question of where can I find good online sources for this?
derived from the Proto-Germanic \**ǥuđán* thought to derive from a root *\*ǵʰeu̯-* "to pour, libate" and offers this as a potential Proto-Germanic *\*ǥuđánaz* name/epithet for Odin which I'm unsure of how to pronouce
There's also mention an abbreviated "God" in a silver bible written in the Gothic Script as "[𐌲𐌸𐍃](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_(word)#/media/File:Detail_of_Codex_Argenteus.jpg)" which seems to be missing vowels so probably "guþ" or "gudis" which I would imagine would be pronounced similar to goth or gothis.
Along with mentioning the names of the Geats and Goths are likely derived from the same meaning which those groups based their names on another name for Odin Gaut/Gautr (Grimnismal stanza 54)
Summarization of the questions
* How did the Lombards come to using a G sound at the beginning of Odin?
* Where can I find good online sources for etymology?
* How do you pronounce *ǥuđán?*
* What is the correct etymology of God and of Odin or are those still debatable?
https://redd.it/rbvtfl
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"Hell" appears to be a word much older than Christianity, yet is used to describe a Christian afterlife in nearly every Germanic language. Why?
Wikipedia says that the word dates back to the anglo-Saxon pagan period, and just some quick google translating shows pretty much every Germanic language from Icelandic to Frisian uses a variance of "hell" or "hell+punishment". Except Yiddish but that uses a word based on "Gehenna" which would only make sense.
Was this more a matter of Catholic missionaries having a set manner of talking to Germanic pagans in a certain way, or would the word have already been in everybody's mouths?
https://redd.it/rbrh8h
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Is there any connection between the term 'data' (information) and 'date' (time)?
https://redd.it/rbp219
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Books about ethnolinguistic
Does anyone know any good books about ethnolinguistic? I know it's a strange question but I have been really into it lately. Help would appreciated
https://redd.it/rb8etu
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Why are "Raspberry" and "Put up your dukes" the Only (?) Cockney Rhyming Slang in American English?
First time posting here. Needless to say I am a "word origins nerd".
In the course of my reading, I learned that the term "raspberry" (as in "blowing a raspberry") and the expression "put up your dukes" are both Cockney rhyming slang. Or at least use the same concept.
Raspberry is rhyming slang for "fart" ("raspberry tart") and "Put up your dukes" is based on a complicated rhyming slang ("Forks" was slang for "Fingers" so "Put up your dukes" is rhyming slang for "Put up your Duke of York(s).).
Anyway though, what's unusual about these expressions is that they are or at least were used in American English, which generally doesn't use rhyming slang.
So, I'm curious how/when they entered American English. And also if there are any other terms of rhyming slang used in American English.
https://redd.it/rb9cfv
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Is there any relationship between the word inchoate and the phrase in cahoots?
https://redd.it/ras50d
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Etymological coincidence(?)
The Portuguese word *grávida* means pregnant (from Latin gravidus). After some research I found out that it’s formed from Latin *gravō* (I make pregnant), from PIE *gʷréh₂us (heavy) + *-idus*.
But this also made me remember of PIE *gʰreh₁ “to grow” and the Latin *vīta* (life), coming from Proto-Italic *gʷītā (life), resulting in “to grow life”. It would make way more sense if the etymology was this one I pointed out, but analysing the presence of *d* in *gravidus* instead of *t* makes me think it is just a coincidence. Anyway, just wanted to share.
https://redd.it/rap2mc
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Are icky (english) and eklig (german) related?
My googling says they are not related, but it feels like they should be?
https://redd.it/rahhzh
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The origin of selected words relating to untrustworthy people
https://redd.it/ragsgc
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Renounce Vs denounce
I feel like both have same meaning any etymology that prove different meanings
https://redd.it/ra2zfo
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