Domain: etymonline.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to etymonline.com.
Comments · 342
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Re:Eugen Fischer
Are you joking? "Eugenics" comes from Greek. 'Eu' meaning good, like euphoria, euphemism, or utopia. 'Genic', dealing with birth, breeding, and production, like in genetics, generate, or hydrogen.
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Re:Eskimo?!
Just you wait till it hits you that in most languages that take their word for "slave" from Latin, it comes from a word used to describe half the people in Europe - including yours.
And let's not even get into slavish or slovenly and what those mean. -
Re:Should it even be called a "car"?
The word "car" really just means a "wheeled vehicle". There is no requirement for turning.
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Re:You make it...
It has nothing to do with "ten years."
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=tenure&allowed_in_frame=0
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Re:Not necessarily hate ...occasional Polyandrous
The NiceUsageGuy sez:
A polygamist may me married to multiple men or women (or both). One who is polyandrous is married to multiple MEN. One who is married to multiple women is engaging in POLYGYNY. (the gender of the referred-to 'ONE' does not seem relevant)
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygyny
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polyandry
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/polygamyBy the way, "Nice" didn't always mean what it does today
http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice- NiceUsageGuy
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Re:A big missing something
5 robots are approximately, by my calculations, 10 times the price of 10 humans in the restaurant business. I don't see Chili's doing that any time soon.
Really, for as long as waitresses are free -- which they are, because they work for tips -- and for as long as there are an infinite number of people looking for waitress jobs -- which there are, because actresses, artists, comedians, writers, and just about every career path involved in generating content has zero income for the first decade -- robots won't be the choice of restaurant owners.
Regarding the "decimated": http://www.etymonline.com/inde...
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Re:Everyone is a potential criminal in L.A.
The online etymology dictionary states that using "mall" in the sense of "an enclosed shopping gallery" dates from 1963. Calling that part of DC "The Mall" dates from a map made in 1802.
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Freedom of "The Press"
A lot of people (most people, actually) tend to believe that the usage of the term in the First Amendment implies the "fourth estate," a characterization of the 'professional' journalistic media; however, according to etymonline.com, the term "the press" was not used in reference to professional journalistic endeavors (i.e., the 'fourth estate') until the mid-1820's, long after the Constitution was written and ratified. Prior to that, the term "press" in literary reference was commonly accepted to mean the printing press.
Thus, it stands to reason that the freedom our founding fathers were protecting in the First Amendment is not the freedom of the fourth estate, but rather the freedom of the common man to disseminate information freely, be it in blog, newspaper, or other format.
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Astrology is science... originally
The literal translation of the latin origin of 'Astrology' is 'stars logos' which roughly translates to "explanation of stars" or "account of stars". (The literal meaning of Astronomy is from "numeratus" or the counting stars and adopted with accurate measuring devices).
http://www.etymonline.com/inde...
It was the study of the movement of stars, it is the modern popular semantics of the term that is bunkum.
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Re:Modern civilization?
Apparently the word originated in the 1500's, so it's only silly from our perspective now.
http://www.etymonline.com/inde... -
Re:Total letdown
Women are men, with wombs. In the past (1000+ years ago) the word "man" was a gender neutral word simply meaning "human being".
Although, here's a question... When "man" stopped being gender neutral, did female humans stop being men?
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Re:What?
Yes it is not the be-all-end-all. And you're the wrong one not me.
"to cheat, swindle," 1889, American English, probably derived from the colloquial shortening of Gypsy (cf. gip). Related: Gypped. As a noun, "fraudulent action, a cheat," by 1914.
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Re:Its
You don't use "it's" when talking possessive pronouns for the same reason you don't write "her's" or "your's" or "hi's" - the word is a standalone pronoun in modern English. Various online etymology sources claim that it was once "it's" (e.g., http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=its) but over time it lost the apostrophe.
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Re:Fireworks in 3...2...1...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw
You may also want to do some actual research about marriage and where it came from, instead of quoting what you've been told by other people that also haven't bothered to research it.
Try starting with the words etymology.. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=marry
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Re:Verbification
You're a little late to start complaining now. It was already verbed by 1792.
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Re:Genomics?
About 27 years too late in fact.
I don't know why GP thinks "economics" or "genome" are such sacred words that shouldn't be bastardized anyway. Biology has changed rapidly in the last 50 years and the rate of change appears to be increasing. New words and phrases to cover new concepts effectively are going to have to be made up. -
Re:i don't get it
Are you kidding? Never head the term "genuine leather" etc.? Genuine has meant "really proceeding from its reputed source" since the 1660s, what did you think it meant??
That's a different case. Is "genuine leather" as opposed to something that isn't leather. A pirated copy of Windows is still "genuine Windows", not something that "isn't Windows". What the disk isn't is a "genuinely pressed by a Microsoft contractee" disk. The distinction is clear, but Microsoft's effort a few years ago was in the direction of muddling the distinction to the point that one'd consider a "non-genuinely pressed by a Microsoft contractee" disk as also being a "non-genuine Windows". It's this kind of confusion that needs solving.
I agree with your remaining points.
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Re:i don't get it
're incorrect. It's unchanging the meaning back to something that makes sense. "Original" only has meaning in a crafts and arts context
Now you're just nit-picking over semantics. Discs created and sold by movie studios' authorised sellers are selling them on the original creators' behalf, so money from the sale is going back to the original creators. The discs themselves aren't literally original works themselves, but they are sold for the original creators.
Genuine is another term whose actual meaning was distorted by copyrightists' marketing efforts. In the case, Microsoft. And it took them years and millions of dollars to ingrain in the minds of the unsuspecting sheep this new meaning. It's another word that needs rescuing.
Are you kidding? Never head the term "genuine leather" etc.? Genuine has meant "really proceeding from its reputed source" since the 1660s, what did you think it meant??
Nope. They'd be genuine copies of the copies of the original made by the 1st party.
If they were expressly sold as copies not created by/for the original creators of the film then that would be a genuine 3rd party copy, likewise now any illegal copy sold explicitly as pirated would be a genuine pirate copy. It's when something is sold as something else (eg. a copy made independently from a studio but sold as coming from that studio) then it is, by definition, no-longer genuine.
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Re:Depends on what you do via Gaypal
Niggardly and the other word are false cognates.It's not a good choice of word these days because it will most likely be mis-understood by a significant number of people.
Gay is interesting since it's use for homosexual is just as much slang as it's use for bad. meanwhile, bad==good and many years ago it was noted that you gotta be hot if you wanna be cool.
While it certainly was a slur against homosexsuals to use gay for bad at one time, it's not clear that the association is intended anymore, though like niggardly, it may be best to choose another word to avoid mis-understandings.
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Re:Depends on what you do via Gaypal
Niggardly is spelled with and a and has a completely different etymological history.
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Re:English is Hard
The etymology of the word traces back to the Latin adamantem, the singular of adamas meaning unbreakable or hardest iron. The Greeks apparently used it figuratively to describe someone's character. Source
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Re:Carbyne != Carbine
From the non-chemistry side of the etymology, it is apparently not known with certainty why a short rifle is called a carbine in the first place:
short rifle, 1580s, from French carabine (Middle French carabin), used of light horsemen and also of the weapon they carried, of uncertain origin, perhaps from Medieval Latin Calabrinus "Calabrian" (i.e., "rifle made in Calabria"). A less-likely theory (Gamillscheg, etc.) connects it to Old French escarrabin "corpse-bearer during the plague," literally (probably) "carrion beetle," said to have been an epithet for archers from Flanders.
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Re:Is everything currency, then?
As a note, salt was never used as a currency. It’s a common myth, but it isn’t true.
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Re:Oh for the love of fuck...
The word saboteur is French, I think.
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Re:Scare tactics
Pretty much. It wasn't exactly a nobility/peasant distinction as a cuisine/non-cuisine split. The French had good cooks (even then) and so the terms for the dishes "mutton," "pork" and "beef" come from French while the terms for the animals, "sheep," "pig" and "cow" retained the terms from English/German. The cuisine/non-cuisine breakout probably had elements of a high/low language thing, but if the Anglo-Saxons were better cooks we would probably be eating SLT's (sheep, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, where the sheep is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe), pig chops, and ground cow.
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Re:Scare tactics
Pretty much. It wasn't exactly a nobility/peasant distinction as a cuisine/non-cuisine split. The French had good cooks (even then) and so the terms for the dishes "mutton," "pork" and "beef" come from French while the terms for the animals, "sheep," "pig" and "cow" retained the terms from English/German. The cuisine/non-cuisine breakout probably had elements of a high/low language thing, but if the Anglo-Saxons were better cooks we would probably be eating SLT's (sheep, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, where the sheep is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe), pig chops, and ground cow.
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Re:Scare tactics
Pretty much. It wasn't exactly a nobility/peasant distinction as a cuisine/non-cuisine split. The French had good cooks (even then) and so the terms for the dishes "mutton," "pork" and "beef" come from French while the terms for the animals, "sheep," "pig" and "cow" retained the terms from English/German. The cuisine/non-cuisine breakout probably had elements of a high/low language thing, but if the Anglo-Saxons were better cooks we would probably be eating SLT's (sheep, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, where the sheep is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe), pig chops, and ground cow.
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Re:Scare tactics
Pretty much. It wasn't exactly a nobility/peasant distinction as a cuisine/non-cuisine split. The French had good cooks (even then) and so the terms for the dishes "mutton," "pork" and "beef" come from French while the terms for the animals, "sheep," "pig" and "cow" retained the terms from English/German. The cuisine/non-cuisine breakout probably had elements of a high/low language thing, but if the Anglo-Saxons were better cooks we would probably be eating SLT's (sheep, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, where the sheep is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe), pig chops, and ground cow.
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Re:Scare tactics
Pretty much. It wasn't exactly a nobility/peasant distinction as a cuisine/non-cuisine split. The French had good cooks (even then) and so the terms for the dishes "mutton," "pork" and "beef" come from French while the terms for the animals, "sheep," "pig" and "cow" retained the terms from English/German. The cuisine/non-cuisine breakout probably had elements of a high/low language thing, but if the Anglo-Saxons were better cooks we would probably be eating SLT's (sheep, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, where the sheep is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe), pig chops, and ground cow.
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Re:Scare tactics
Pretty much. It wasn't exactly a nobility/peasant distinction as a cuisine/non-cuisine split. The French had good cooks (even then) and so the terms for the dishes "mutton," "pork" and "beef" come from French while the terms for the animals, "sheep," "pig" and "cow" retained the terms from English/German. The cuisine/non-cuisine breakout probably had elements of a high/low language thing, but if the Anglo-Saxons were better cooks we would probably be eating SLT's (sheep, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches, where the sheep is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe), pig chops, and ground cow.
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Not quite on the radius there...
Or the radicle.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=radius
radius (n.) Look up radius at Dictionary.com
1590s, "cross-shaft," from Latin radius "staff, stake, rod; spoke of a wheel; ray of light, beam of light; radius of a circle," of unknown origin. Perhaps related to radix "root," but Tucker suggests connection to Sanskrit vardhate "rises, makes grow," via root *neredh- "rise, out, extend forth;" or else Greek ardis "sharp point."The geometric sense first recorded 1610s. Plural is radii. Meaning "circular area of defined distance around some place" is attested from 1953. Meaning "shorter bone of the forearm" is from 1610s in English (the Latin word had been used thus by the Romans).
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Not quite on the radius there...
Or the radicle.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=radius
radius (n.) Look up radius at Dictionary.com
1590s, "cross-shaft," from Latin radius "staff, stake, rod; spoke of a wheel; ray of light, beam of light; radius of a circle," of unknown origin. Perhaps related to radix "root," but Tucker suggests connection to Sanskrit vardhate "rises, makes grow," via root *neredh- "rise, out, extend forth;" or else Greek ardis "sharp point."The geometric sense first recorded 1610s. Plural is radii. Meaning "circular area of defined distance around some place" is attested from 1953. Meaning "shorter bone of the forearm" is from 1610s in English (the Latin word had been used thus by the Romans).
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Re:Start here
Your post made me question what tied "noon" to 12:00 in the first place... The Internet says that noon originally meant 15:00, as the ninth hour of daylight (noon ~ nine). Contrast that with "high noon" which refers to the sun being directly overhead.
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Re:As another interesting little aside...
Because "yes" and "no" are very recent words, they were not present in Latin or Ancient Greek for example. Usually they're shortcuts for expression like "so it is" or "it is not"; in Latin "sic" means "so", hence "sì" in Italian, Spanish and so on (even French). "Yes" and "yeah" are related to German "ja", take a look here: etymonline.
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Re:chicken or egg?
You need to compile this compiler with a compiler which begs the question....
Sigh. It raises the question. To "beg the question" means something completely different. Here is a simple rule of thumb of when that phrase should be used: never.
Nice comment.
Language evolves. This makes it nice and raises the question of what I mean by "nice comment" From http://etymonline.com/?term=nice,
nice (adj.) Look up nice at Dictionary.com
late 13c., "foolish, stupid, senseless," from Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (see un-) + stem of scire "to know" (see science). "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] -- from "timid" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (late 14c.); to "dainty, delicate" (c.1400); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830). -
Re:Really!?
Bullshit: The sentence 'That's so gay' to mean something is bad, only showed its head at the end of the 90's. I'm willing to be proven wrong, so waiting for you to provide some actual proof.
Hell, if something was gay in the olden days, it used to be merry/cheerful.
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Re:"Submarine cable"?
Or perhaps using the word submarine as a noun is the interesting concept.
submarine (adj.)
1640s, from sub- + marine (adj.). The noun meaning "submarine boat" is from 1899. The short form sub is first recorded 1917. Submarine sandwich (1955) so called from the shape of the roll. -
Re:Precedent?
Latin got the word from Greek, and it goes back further still.
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Re:Why bother?
pirate (n.)
c.1300 (mid-13c. as a surname), from L. pirata "sailor, corsair, sea robber" (source of Sp., It. pirata, Du. piraat, Ger. Pirat), lit. "one who attacks (ships)," from Gk. peirates "brigand, pirate," lit. "one who attacks," from peiran "to attack, make a hostile attempt on, try," from peira "trial, an attempt, attack," from PIE root *per- "try" (cf. L. peritus "experienced," periculum "trial, experiment; attempt on or against; enterprise;" see peril). Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701; sense of "unlicensed radio broadcaster" is from 1913.http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pirate&allowed_in_frame=0
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Re:Was it justified
Not much of an eggcorn, since it's precisely etymological.
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Re:Was it justified
Not much of an eggcorn, since it's precisely etymological.
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Re:Threatened easily, I see.
If you don't understand what gifted means, I suggest you look up its etymology.
I did. So what? It's not related solely to weddings anymore.
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Re:and salon
But, if it is a case of ignorance of the listener ("niggardly" is not a racist term),
I've seen racists (where the racism is clearly and unambiguously established by things they've said in other contexts) deliberately using this word as cover. E.g., talking about a black guy, "This man is so niggardly", followed by "Don't you know what the definition of niggardly is? Ha Ha I'm Not Racist" when called on it.
Language is not set in stone. The whole reason we have the study of etymology is that words pick up new connotations and uses over time. In this case, we have one somewhat out-of-fashion mildly negative word which sounds very similar to another word with incredibly potent racist connotations. We also have a group of racist people who know they'll be ostracized if they express their racism openly. It was inevitable that they'd start punning on the mild word.
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Re:and salon
What exactly is the problem with calling a racist a racist?
Nothing, if the person the label is being applied to has actually said something truly racist deliberately.
But, if it is a case of ignorance of the listener ("niggardly" is not a racist term), or someone helpfully trying to "decode" a "keyword" for us, or assuming because one party to some event was white and the other black that the event must have been racially motivated (e.g., the white cop who made a black congressman who had just broken into his own house show ID), there's a lot wrong with trying to permanently stain someone with the accusation. This would include the case of someone who, nine and a half years previously, while working with a Hollywood script writer to create dialog for a cop show, suggested that the bad cop being portrayed might use 'the N word'.
Adding to it by posting true identities and physical locations just makes it worse.
Now, I haven't seen the tumblr stuff so I don't know if the person who was doing this limited himself to clear-cut unambiguous things, but I'm responding to your simple question "what's wrong with".
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Re:The court didn't ask for an apology...
A horse-carriage is not the same as a modern automobile -- after all, it does not have a steering wheel or other amenities -- yet people always saw it as enough of a prior art to call it a car; short for horseless carriage.
(emphasis mine)
car (n.)
c.1300, "wheeled vehicle," from O.N.Fr. carre, from L. carrum, carrus (pl. carra), originally "two-wheeled Celtic war chariot," from Gaulish karros (cf. Welsh carr "cart, wagon," Breton karr "chariot"), from PIE *krsos, from root *kers- "to run." Extension to "automobile" is 1896. Car bomb first 1972, in reference to Northern Ireland. -
Re:hypocracy?
...Homo Sapien - the name, more or less, means "of the same wisdom/intelligence".
Minor nit - you're mixing Greek ("homo" as "of the same") with Latin ("sapien" as "wise/intelligent"). In Latin, "homo" means "man"; see this online etymology dictionary, for example.
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Re:8 year old's question
more correct than you know? etymology of galactic
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Re:GPL Kerfuffle
Seems you are correct: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=kerfuffle&searchmode=none ~ At least according to a dictionary of etymology
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Re:Shit Editors
Here's your fucking link.
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Re:You already eat bugs; get over it
Maybe not intentionally, maybe a lower percentage...
Not intentionally? I'm surprised neither the article nor any of the comments has mentioned Carmine
Carmine is a red colorant used in food, especially juice, ice cream, candy, yogurt, and others. Carmine is made from either ground bugs or boiled bugs, depending of the method. See Cochineal for a drawing of said bug.
Since carmine is a natural colorant, if a product is advertised as containing "no artificial additives", and is red-colored, chances are almost 100% that it will contain carmine. (in other words: ground bugs)
Carmine is also used in cosmetics. In spanish "carmín" means both "lipstick" and "carmine" since traditional red lipstick is made from carmine. And the word "carmine" itself means "insect-produced"