CHS BackWords Blog

Just the Fax, Ma’am

2011-02-15T18:55:00.000-08:00

We’re going on a wild one today. Buckle up! The IE Root dhe- carries a meaning of to set or put. Let’s start with a modern word that is pretty straightforward – do. When you do something, you take action to set or put. Think of a “hair do” or getting your hair “done” – the stylist sets it or puts the hair in a certain way. It appears that abdomen belongs in this group – it is a thing that is put or set inside the body. Another clearly related word is deem. When deem a matter concluded you put or set judgment on it. Closely related is doom, when a person or thing’s fate is set. Another word fits in here – condiment. “Com” means together. The “di” in condiment is our root dhe-. A condiment is something you put together with the main thing you are eating – such as putting mustard together with on a hot dog.

The rest of our words today are going to do a little “sliding sideways”. If you’ve read my prior SS posts, you’ve discovered how letter sounds can shape shift occasionally – a dh sound (where the h is often silent) becomes a ph/f sound. (And see this post where we saw bhel- become phel-) If something is said to be a fact, it is set, like “set in stone”. A factory is a place that puts things together. Not surprisingly, the idea “to make” is one the most common ideas in language. A benefactor [bene (good) + factor (make)] is someone who makes (or gives) something good to someone else. A malefactor [mal- (bad)] is one who makes bad for others. A facsimile [simile (same)] machine sends the same image somewhere else. An artifact [art (skill)] is something made, usually implying made long ago.

This idea of make goes much, much further. Suffixes like –fice, -fect, and –fy tip us off to make words. If something suffices, it makes (-fice) up to (sub) expectations. Watching “The Opfice” sounds funny, so we change the p to another f and watch people working (making) together [op (work) + fice (make)]. An effect [ex (out of)] is a result that is made out of something else – think sound effect. Perfect [per (completely or thoroughly)] means to set or put something all the way, lacking nothing, and reaching the intended effect. Affection [af (a variant of ad-, to)] suggests making toward someone else (uh, sorta like “making out”… sorta). Oddly enough, a confection is the same word formula as condiment (together + make), but has a much sweeter meaning. When you satistfy [satis (enough) + fy (do)] you do or make enough to meet the expectations of others. When you amplify [ample (large)] you make something louder / bigger / larger. When you do something stupid and you try to justify yourself, you are trying to show how your action was just or right. Many other words such as feasible, feasance / malfeasance, notify (make notice), manufacture (make with hands - like manual labor), orifice (make an opening - like oral), qualify (make an amount), and rectify (make right) all point back to the idea of “make”.

A faction is a gang made out of a larger group. Fashion means to make something and has come to refer to clothing (and more) that has been fashioned. A face reveals the form of something – facet, façade, facial, deface, and surface all carry this sense. A faculty is a group of people who facilitate learning experiences – hopefully their classes are not to difficult [dif (from dis meaning away or negative) + fic (from fac… make)].

Now, did you ever mistake hearing a d for t*? That’s another way letters in words can slide sideways. Let’s roll all the way back to our root dhe- and make it the- as in theme or hypothesis where you make or put forward an idea. Do you remember ever hearing the wonderful word apothecary. Literally, apothecary means "put away" [apo (away, as in apostasy) + the- (put)]. In Latin, an apothecary is any shopkeeper (who puts away the wares in their stores – “store” itself meaning a place of holding / keeping), but especially those who deal with herbs and other medicinals. The apothecary didn’t put away his medicines because they were dangerous, but because they were perishable and needed to be stored carefully. The t/d sound in boutique and bodega (also meaning store) come directly to us from this ancient root for set or put.

*As if anyone cares, d and t are very similar phonetically. D is voiced alveolar plosive. T is a voiceless alveolar plosive. Don't worry, I'm not going to start a blog on phonic sounds and relationships, but their similar sounds explains why bodega and boutique look quite different but sound similar and mean very similar things.

Snowbound and Thinking of Blooms

2011-02-09T12:27:00.000-08:00

As I write, the Heartland of all America is buried under about 15” of globally warm snow. Three major storms in the last month have layered up quite nicely on the World’s Breadbasket. Although “certain people” love snow, many are looking forward to the Spring when blooming flowers signal a new and welcome season. Although Winter is essential for the life cycle of all living things, we perceive Spring as a time when life thrives again.

The idea of a thriving life anchors the IE Root bhel-2 meaning to bloom. (Before we go further, be sure you have read two prior posts – one has to do with how these roots wind up with different consonant sounds, the other is a closely related root bhel-1 meaning to swell, not far off the idea of blooming.) Like a ball swells when it is inflated, a flower swells when it blooms. As in other cases, the b in bhel-2 can occasionally flip upside down making a p for a ph_l sound. A blooming flower is one of the best indicators that a plant, and an environment, is thriving. Floral and florist are clearly in the same word family. Healthy foliage is also an indicator of thriving. One of my favorite plants is the five-leafed Virginia Creeper vine, or as it is fantastically known technically – parthenocissus quinquefolia. Quinquefolia = quinque (five) + folia (foliage / leaves). (Although words sometime flip consonant positions, leaf is not related to folia.) Think of that roll of aluminum foil in your kitchen. It’s metal, but the foil is as thin and flexible as a leaf. (In fact, “gold leaf” is foil that is very, very thin for applying as a decorative outer layer of an object.) A folio is a sheet of paper folded once to make two leaves. A portfolio is a folio that is portable.

In the bhel-1 post we discover what the word phallus meant; now, bhel-2 gives us the sounds-familiar name Phyllis (altogether different meaning, foliage).
Interestingly, the words blood and bleed also seem to be related here. Etymologists suppose that, at a cut, blood “blooms” out. It could also be related to the idea that blood is associated with a thriving life. Bless is related, originally meaning to mark with blood, to consecrate.

Let’s wrap up with blade. We don’t call grass foliage “blades” because they look like little knives, but because knives look like blades of grass foliage. (Confused? Just think about which came first - grass or knives.) In fact, one particular blade of foliage is quite famous. Those powerful, fierce gladiators carry a short sword with strong, sharp blades. In Latin, the sword is called a gladius… because it looks like a blade of foliage, most similarly resembling a gladiola plant. Isn’t that cute; rough, tough gladiators are really just florists at heart.

The following is purely for my own amusement - as if the rest of this is not! A thousand years ago, my college Latin professor, Dr. Anthony D'Amico, enjoyed telling the following story about a colleague - Dr. Foley. Foley happened to be just a tad hefty and suffered name calling because of it - Roly-Poly Foley. Like D'Amico, Foley was always studying one topic or another and preparing folios on various topics - Roly-Poly Foley Folios. Once, he became fascinated with butter-substitutes and prepared a paper on the topic - Roly-Poly Foley Oleo Folio. Alas, even in academia, opposing voices rise to be heard and Foley was challenged on some assertions made in paper (perhaps that margarine is non-fattening). Foley countered with defensive argument and so the argument grew - Roly-Poly Foley Oleo Folio Embroglio. Thus ended the tale, perhaps, I surmise because D'Amico couldn't append more rhyming words. Or because he decided to move on to childish puns about entomologists.

A World Map for Word Nerds

2011-02-04T09:14:00.000-08:00

Interesting way to look at the world - by what the nation names mean. (Click on the map to jump to it on the web and take a closer look.) Political map for comparison.

There is some dispute over how accurate the place names are. One of the problems with this kind of effort is how far back to go in determining the meaning. For example, "United States of Amerigo"... yes, the name derives from a prominent Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. But, let's note the meaning of Amerigo (in German: Emmerich) is a compound word: work + rich, powerful, ruler. United States of Rich & Powerful Rulers by virtue of our Work. Let's hear our American president brag about that on his next apology tour!

We Gather Together

2011-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

During a prior phase of my life I was considered gregarious – I loved a crowd and wanted to be in the middle of it. These days, I’m virtually agoraphobic – I don’t like crowds and I’m most comfortable when I’m alone or with just a few people. In fact, about the largest group of people I’m usually around is my church, SouthWoods, which is pastored by a great guy and my friend, Greg.

Oops, it appears I did it again (again). Gregarious, agoraphobic, and even Greg all flow out of a IE Root ger-1 meaning “to gather”. (I believe the gr in group comes from this root.) One of the first words I learned in Latin was grex – a herd of sheep. Gregory (sounds oddly like gregarious) means “watcher”… of the grex – a shepherd.

I just finished a funny little book on the first chili cook off in Terlingua, Texas (H. Allen Smith’s The Great Chili Confrontation). Smith is a great writer, duh!, and uses some seldom-seen words. One in particular caught my eye – panegyric. I’ve seen it before, but want to make sure I understood it’s meaning clearly. You would call the long speech introducing a political candidate a panegyric. It is a eulogy (a good word) or praise of a person made publicly – in front of a group of people, a crowd, a herd of people. So when I called Greg “a great guy” in a public internet post, that was a panegyric – and I meant it!

Boldly Going Bawdy, Super Bawdy!

2011-01-26T08:36:00.000-08:00

I'm going to keep this legit, but this post deals with some big boy topics which could cause some tittering among the children. So if you feel the tittering, go ahead and get yourself on over to something more your speed.

Indo-Europeans had an surprising fascination, and thus many words, with two categories of things: a) things that shine, and b) things that appear blown up, like your cheeks when you are blowing out birthday candles. The root word bhel-2 carries the meaning “to blow, swell; referring to various round objects" The word also has a more intimate meaning, "the notion of tumescent masculinity”. "Tumescent masculinity"... do I need to break that down for you?

First things first. From bhel-2 we get such familiar words as bowl meaning just that, a pot or bowl. Bulk refers to cargo, literally a “rolled up load”. Closely related is bale – rolled up bundle. And again, boulder, a rounded stone continues with the physical imagery.

Both ball and balloon resemble a blown up, inflated object - like your cheeks. You know that piece of paper you mark on to vote, the ballot? The ballot derives it's name from an ancient form of voting - dropping small balls in one container or the other to signal your preference. If you've ever been out to the farm and seen a full-grown bull in all his glory you'd agree the shape is full and rounded. Of course, there's another indication you're looking at a bull, right? I mean, that's not an udder under there. A seldom used term, bullock, refers to castrated male bovine... which now has nothing hanging around... down there.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, sometimes the b in bhel-2 can flip vertically when it goes traveling and we wind up with a root something like phel from which we get folly and fool puffed up, but still empty inside. Turn that b back up and you'll recognize bellows has the same meaning.

Leaving the seat down... I mean leave the p down and we have the root for phallus. And phallus is not just a reference to the male apparatus, it specifically refers to swollen, erect penis - which is the difference between Michelangelo's David sculpture being phallic or not. Ironically sounding like bullock, bollix is how the Brits refer to testicles, and no surprise that they're referred to as balls. That metaphor is technically appropriate and not really a bawdy term. Speaking of bawdy speaking, that term derives from comments about phalluses, balls, and other matters best left “private”. Let's get this out there as well... if someone acts bold, what do we say? Yup, they've "got a lot of balls".

As it often happens, we're kind of back where we started. I love the college football bowl season and a month after that concludes we finally get the Super Bowl (yeah, I used the term without permission - come and get me Goodell). We refer to these significant sporting events as "bowls" because that is simply the shape the facility in which they play - the football stadium is bowl-shaped. Originally, end-of-season games were played in famous structures - the Cotton Bowl, the Rose Bowl - and so the game itself came to be called by the structure in which it was played*. (Wouldn't it sound odd, now, if we looked forward to the Cotton Arena and the Rose Stadium. Same thing really.) Isn't it ironic that our modern day bowls are filled with young bulls in their prime - all swollen and bold. At one point in the tormented history of sport, it is rumored that athletes would shoot themselves up with the stuff their balls were supposed to make naturally. You know, to ensure that they earned a ticket to the big bowl, the Super Bowl (oops, I did it again).
[Thanks to Mike Pearce for the extraordinarily great bowl mashup.]

Nice to Mete You

2011-01-18T13:14:00.000-08:00

Shakespeare said, among a few other things, "therefore it is meet that noble minds keep ever with their likes". He means it is appropriate that like minds stick together. (We rarely use "meet" this way anymore. To "meet" someone for an appointment is from an altogether different IE root.) Shakespeare's meet comes from the root, med-, meaning "to take appropriate measures". In fact, measure also comes from this root. The English root of measure is mete. Although seldom used in common conversation, I am gratified to see that "mete out punishment" (deliver the right amount) gets well over 100,00 hits on Google.

What do we ask doctors to do if not take appropriate measures to heal us? Wonder why we call it the medical profession? Hopefully, before Sawbones prescribes arsenic for a hangnail, he will meditate (consider what is appropriate) on his options for treatment. Some docs are accused of arrogance when we wish they'd be more modest (taking accurate measure of their abilities). On the other hand, many parents have wished docs would prescribe less moderate-strength antibiotics when the little ones are suffering an ear infection. (Moderate means, well, the appropriate measure - neither too much nor too little.)

If you are working on a project - whether a work of art, an essay, or a batch of cookies - and the result is not quite right, you modify it. If something is not the right shape, put it back in the mold and press harder! Again, we are dealing with the idea of finding the appropriate measure.

If you want to meet (remember, unrelated) someone who lives in a castle, you must measure up to their expectations or they won't let you cross the mote (literally meaning to be permitted). If the castle is empty, well, you need to find modify your plans for accommodation. ("Empty" comes from an Old English word æmettig meaning "not occupied" - having nothing to measure. "Accomodation" is based on the root mode generally referring the measure of the thing.)

Let's conclude with a personal favorite - Diomede. A native Alaskan, I grew up hearing about the twin Diomede Islands. (Only two miles apart and connected with an ice-bridge in the winter, Little Diomede is a part of Alaska; Big Diomede is Russian.) Diomedes is a personal name with a fascinating etymology. The man Diomedes was a hero of the Trojan Wars. Because of his excellence as a warrior, it is said that Diomedes received counsel (as to the right mode and measure of battle to employ) from Zeus (please read that post!). Dio (Zuess / God) + Mede (appropriate measure) literally means "he received counsel from Zeus".

Sliding Sideways Part II

2011-01-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, I like to talk about subjects tangentially related to word origins and relationships - topics I call "Sliding Sideways". Lookie here, we got another one.

I'm reading a funny little book by H. Allen Smith entitled The Great Chili Confrontation. This book chronicles the events culminating in the first famous chili cookoff in Terlingua, Texas in 1967. Accordingly, Smith (no relation) waxes authoritative and humorous about all things chili. At one point, Smith treats us to a real etymological delight regarding how chili was once referred to in Los Angeles:

Mr. Beck tells me that chili was once called “size” in the town known to him as Lil-ole-ell-ay. “Size” came into usage by way of one Ptomaine Tommy, once proprietor of the largest and best known chili parlor in the city. Ptomaine Tommy served straight chili and an epical Southwestern variation, a hamburger smothered with chili. He had two ladles, a large and a small. When a customer ordered straight chili, he got out the large ladle. When he wanted the other, he usually said “Hamburger size.” So Ptomaine Tommy put up one sign that read HAMBURGER SIZE 15¢, and another that read CHILI SIZE 20¢. Other chili joints followed suit and before long chili was know throughout Los Angeles as “size”. They’d say, “Just gimme a bowl of size.” source

The actual thing, chili, came to be called something related to its portioning, size. When I read this section of the book, I was immediately reminded of a prior post here at BackWords Blog on the word ambulance. Originally, an hôspital ambulant (walking hospital), the term became shortened in English "ambulance" - just the walking portion was kept, with the actual thing, hospital, getting dropped altogether. Just like chili in Los Angeles, the primary thing - chili / hospital - came to be referred to by an incidental thing.

Let's return to the food world to get one more example. Cheese is one of the most ancient and common foods in the world. Across Europe this substance is called queso (Spain), cacio (Italy), Käse (Germany), queijo (Portugal). These words come from the IE root kwat meaning age, ferment, or sour. Fitting. Did you notice I didn't mention France among that list of countries and their words for cheese? All those words look and sound like "cheese", but oh no, not the French. The French do a little sliding sideways themselves and call cheese fromage. Like size and ambulance, fromage refers to the fact that cheese is formed into brick, wheels, blocks, and other shapes. The French don't refer to the food itself, but to the process of how it is handled. (Ironically, here is a page discussing the Forms of Cheese.)

These are just the three words that strike me as related at the moment. But I'm sure I'll be sliding sideways again soon when I discover more sideways words.

Lighten Up!

2010-10-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I recently read The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It’s a fascinating book about the influence of improbable and unpredictable events. I recommend it. The author is from Lebanon which he frequently refers to as “the Levant”. I’d never heard that term before, but when I looked it up, I realized that I regularly used a lot of words related to it.

Our ancient root for this word family is legwh meaning light, to have little weight. (The other word "light", as in illumination, comes from the IE root leuk from which we get lux, lucid, and leukemia - too many white, or light colored, blood cells.) Before we get to Levant, let’s look at some other words flowing downstream from legwh.

If something is light, it is easy to elevate. If it’s not light enough, you can always use a lever. If a conversation is getting heavy, you can always try a little levity to lighten the mood. If you relieve someone of their cash, their wallet is lighter. If you like your dinner rolls fluffy and light, you’d better use the proper leavening agent. It turns out that even lung is related because a lung is light, right? It’s full of air, after all. And my personal favorite, leprechaun, is related – a wee leprechaun is light, smaller than “normal” people.

Now, the Levant. Look back at my post on “star” and other things to the “east”. Remember that Austria is to the east (of most of Europe) and that’s where the sun rises - lifts up as if it were very light. The Levant literally means “the rising place” – the place where the sun rises. While Austria got its name from a compass point, Levant is related to what happens in the east. By the way, in Germany, the Levant is called Morgenland - the morning land.

Tripping the Light Fantastic

2010-05-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

I hope you have read my overview for this blog. What I am doing here is showing the connection modern words have in their ancient Indo-European roots. It fascinates me and hopefully my readers from Sydney to San Francisco. Imagine you were one of those old-timey Indo-Europeans, likely residents of Mesopotamia about the time and place of the Bible’s Tower of Babel. What would be the first words you’d articulate. My guess is the words I’d speak would be about food, family, and common elements of the word around me. It turns out that some of the largest groups of words in language today do indeed flow out of those kinds of core ideas. A while back I blogged about the IE root aus – to shine. Today, I’m going to refer to a different root, bha1, which also means “to shine”. Apparently shiny, shining things were quite important in ancient times – as they are now.

Before I jump into the modern words, let me remind you that writing came along long after speech. “Bha” may look like it should be pronounced “bah” as in bah humbug? But turn that b upside down, you have p – pha, pronounced “fa”. Consonants often do gymnastics like that over time. All the words we're considering today have that f/ph sound.

Now, imagine you are in a dark or dimly lit room. All is quiet until suddenly there is something moving not too far away. You can’t make out the form, but there is light shifting, dappling such that you suppose another “thing” is there near you. After you stop quivering and hyperventilating, you call for help. “What is it?” “I don’t know. I don’t think it was a person, it was like a phantom.” That’s just what it means, a shining thing that lacks description otherwise. Closely related is the word fantasy – something visible (if only to the mind’s eye), but lacking substance. Isn’t it interesting that fantastic also comes from this root, but now is an adjective describing something in a very positive way?

One of my favorite words, epiphany, is also related. It means “to show” or to become visible and is used in reference to the discovery of Jesus by the magi. It can also mean something like coming to a new awareness - "a moment of epiphany". What do we say, “that’s when the light bulb came on.” A light shining – how apropos.

Bha1 also gives me another favorite word – diaphanous. Dia- means "through". Add that to light or shine and you basically have idea see-through and is often used to describe fabric. When a wife is hoping for her husband to give her some snuggly, warm flannel pajamas for Christmas to keep her warm in the winter, how surprised she is to discover a skimpy, diaphanous little sumpin-sumpin. And so it goes when people come from two different planets.

In doing my research for this post, I discovered that Tiffany derives from this same root word. In the 1500s and 1600s, Tiffany was a term used to describe diaphanous fabric. Interestingly, in Medieval Europe, the given name Tiffany was often bestowed on girls born on Epiphany Day (usually about January 4, my birthday). This name is special to me because my first daughter-in-love is named Tiffany. Her beauty and sincerity definitely shine through in her character!

Theophany is yet another related word. It means something like “God-appearing” and is commonly used to note instances the Bible’s Old Testament where God (or better, the pre-incarnate Christ) appears to people (as in Genesis 18 or Daniel 3).

Next post we’ll look at several more modern words that come from this ancient root.

High Praise

2010-04-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

I read through Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy a couple times in my late teens. For the younger generation who has only seen the movies, you owe it to yourself to discover the incredible way Tolkein crafted his legendary legends. Tolkein wove everyday words into fantastic adventures. One of the most vivid images still fixed in my mind is the shrewish Gollum hovering over his ring murmuring, “My Precioussss”. Eventually, dear little Gollum pays the ultimate price – his life – for the object of his praise.

Oops, I did it again, Precious, Price, Praise. All related to the IE root per5 meaning to traffic in or to sell. Today, all these ideas relate to assigning value to something. When my beloved wife says she does not appreciate my sense of humor, she means she doesn’t find much value in it. (What’s up with that?) When you appraise an object, you establish its value or selling price. Over time, most things lose value - they depreciate. When you praise something, you are literally celebrating its value by devoting your energy to acknowledging that value. Gollum sought to possess the precious ring even at the cost of his own life. That’s about as high praise as you can give!

A related word is interesting. Preciosity means extreme meticulousness or over-refinement. Use it in a sentence? The owner of the antique store had an air of preciosity to him; always fussing over the smallest detail in his collection.

Think about this family of words the next time you go about buying and selling. Does the price truly reflect the object’s value?

The Pope's Dentures

2010-04-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

Most people of prominence wind up having several titles (e.g. President, Commander in Chief, POTUS) so I didn’t worry too much about the Catholic Church’s Pope also being called the Pontiff. That is not until I saw a dental term that seemed strangely similar – pontic. Yes, the Pope often wears a hat that looks like a giant tooth, but that’s not usually the way words work.

First let’s take notice of the word Pope, itself. Pope, comes simply from papa, daddy. (In fact, in Italy, the Pope is called Il Papa.) Many religious titles relate to father because of their leadership, mentoring role, including the Jewish rabbi. So, is Pope related to Pontiff? No chance.

Pontiff, the leader of a religious organization based in Rome, is related to another word you see all over Italy – ponte. One of the most famous of these ponte is the Ponte Vecchio – the Old Bridge in Florence. (Ponte means bridge, vecchio means old – they say their words backwards in most of the world.) It’s a fascinating structure you should look into. Pontiff means something to the effect of “bridge maker” or way-shower – a religious concept of helping people find a connection to God. By the way, to pontificate (one of my favorite words) means to speak as one in authority - the way the pope would speak.

Now, maybe you are getting out ahead of me on the word pontic. If you have one or two teeth missing with healthy teeth on either side, your fantastic dentist with solve the problem with what? A bridge. Technically speaking, the pontic is the artificial tooth fashioned into a dental bridge.

Our IE root is pent meaning to tread or go. A bridge is a very important structure that helps us go farther. Path derives from this root as does find (you have to go to find what you are looking for). Another memorable word from the youth of Baby Boomers is also related – Sputnik, which means "fellow traveler".

Throw Another Blog On The Fire

2010-04-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today’s word family comes from the IE root leg1. (The 1 means there are other leg roots that are not related to this one.) The root leg1 means to collect. (The -lect of collect comes from this root). Now follow this – the root also leads to the meaning of “spoken”. Think about it. Hopefully, when we speak or write, we bring together the words that will effectively communicate our meaning. First example: legal. See, over thousands of years, the root leg is still intact. Legal matters are based on law (a collection of spoken words). Related words include lecture, legislature, elect, neglect, and select.

Continuing with the idea of words, all those school subjects like biology, geology, psychology actually mean “words about _____”. The Greeks had the word “logos” which just means words. It strikes me as funny that today a company develops a symbol (like MacDonald’s golden arches) so they don’t have to use words to express their company identity. What’s that called? A logo. (Ever heard "a picture is worth a thousand words"?)

Remember the era of discovery and captain's notes we find in the ship’s log? That kind of log is like a diary where words are collected. But what about that good old tree log? Trees are cut down and gathered for firewood or for building purposes. Fire logs and captains’ logs come from the same root and meaning – to collect. Right now, you are reading my word blog – a collection of words, in this case, about words. Where do you think blog came from? Blog is a contraction of "web log" (a log on the internet). It will be interesting to see where blog goes from here.

Consider that log could mean either a piece of wood, a diary of sorts, or even to “log on” to software or website. Today, a Google search of “log” get’s 751 million hits. Pretty impressive and that represents the far-flung uses of the word. “Blog” is a far more limited word, really pretty peculiar. The word "blog" is only about 12 years old (first used in 1998). How many hits do you think it will get through a Google search for “blog”? 2.7 billion!!! Almost four times more hits for “blog” than “log”. [By way of comparison, the word "love" get's 1.48 billion hits on a Google search.] Why does blog get more hits than log? A blog is something that exists on the internet. If you use the internet to search for an internet-related term, you’re going to get a lot (A LOT) of hits. But if you walk through a neighborhood, you won’t see many blogs, but you’ll probably see thousands of logs patiently waiting for the fireplace. That’s a good example of the peculiarity of words and how meanings and uses change over time and circumstance.

Other words related to this root include logic, lesson, legend, dialect, dialogue, and legitimate. The word privilege is also related. What is a privilege? A word or law spoken privately, to just one or a few people.

Of Marbles and Marriage

2010-04-01T07:36:00.000-07:00

This time of year, folks up north are getting excited about warmer weather. In central Alaska, the sporting kind are laying down wagers on the Nenana Ice Classic - when the ice pack on the Tanana River will break up and start flowing out to sea. Back in the day, the Spring thaw also signaled a sport of another kind to school kids all across town. When the snow turned to mush and the pussy willows started budding, young’uns dug through their dressers to find that old sock full of marbles that has lain dormant for ten months.

Puries, clearies, cat-eyes, steelies, and boulders get their game on in a seasonal celebration that is dearly memorable – if only a memory. We played marbles one of two ways, “keeps” or “no keeps”. “Keeps” meant the winner kept his marble and took mine. “No keeps” meant we were just having fun. Yeah, some “fun”. My God-fearing parents cautioned me sternly that playing for keeps was the same as gambling. Hmmm. One thing was clear, if you agreed to “play for keeps” at the start of the match, then no whining when you lose. To renege on the terms at the end of the match, depending on outcome, meant well-deserved social ostracism. The best way to get a bad rep on the playground was to go back on your pledge.

Across the Northern Hemisphere, springtime is a celebration of bunnies and flowers and abundant new life. The word May itself is tied to an ancient goddess of fertility. ‘Tis true.

Now Is the Month of Maying (lyrics by Sir Thomas Morley)

Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing!
Each with his bonny lass, a-dancing on the grass.
                 Fa la la la la!
The Spring, clad all in gladness, doth laugh at Winter's sadness!
And to the bagpipes’ sound, the nymphs tread out the ground!
                Fa la la la la!
Fie! Then why sit we musing, youth’s sweet delight refusing?
Say, dainty nymphs and speak! Shall we play barley break?
                 Fa la la la la!

Sweet delight refusing? Of course, all those merry lads, bonny lasses, and dainty nymphs lead to one thing… er, uh, true love and a desire to get married. That’s the ticket. Thus, June is the most popular month for weddings. Now, as things go, two can live as cheaply as one, it just costs twice as much. So, hubby and/or bride will be ensure they have an income with which to feather the nest.

Turns out that betting (either on the ice pool or marbles), getting married, and making a living have one IE root in common – wadh. This root has the core meaning of “pledge”. Everything we’ve talked about revolves around the idea of making (and keeping) a pledge. What is a synonym for betting? Wagering. When you bet, you pledge money (or marbles) against a certain outcome. If you don’t get your outcome, you lose your money. Wager… wages. An employer pledges to pay wages for certain work. It’s just a pledge until you do the work and get paid. As for marriage, clearly it is a social arrangement based on a pledge, or vow. I hope you can see that wed is close in sound to wage. Like any other proposition (that’s a pun), marriage is a forward-looking pledge. From my perspective; however, unlike not knowing when the ice is going to break up, marriage is a wonder-filled relationship, the outcome of which can be impacted by the earnestness of our pledge to our spouses and our daily decision to follow-through on that pledge. Marriage is playing for keeps! Fa la la la la!

Gee, My Shirt Smells Terrific!

2010-03-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

Growing up, my parents thought I was anemic so they forced me to eat liver. It was (almost) enough to drive me to vegetarianism. My efforts to avoid eating the wretched meat were clever, but often ill-fated, the result of which was a confrontation where I was defiant and my folks were just plain livid. Oops, I did it again. Liver. Livid. Guess where I’m going with this?

Our IE root today is (s)leiә. (The ‘(s)’ means the s sound often gets lost in words downstream from the root.) It means blue or plum colored. The liver organ is strikingly plum colored or at least it was before I flushed it down the toilet. To be livid means that you are “yelling ‘til you’re blue in the face” or at least that’s how I remember the scolding* I got for flushing the liver down the toilet.

Want a word where the (s) hung aournd? Sloe gin is made from juniper berries which happen to be blue.

The last word to mention is lavender, a bluish or plum colored flower. Its name derives from its color, but there is an “association” with another word. When we want to wash our hands, we go to the lavatory (and use lava soap?). When we wash our clothes we go to the laundry. Laundry and lavatory derive from the IE root leu(ә), close to (s)leiә (blue), but very different meaning. Lavender often gets associated laundry because has long been popular to add the fragrant flower to the wash… which is why my t-shirt smells so good.

*We patched things up, I’m not anemic, and my mom is 95 and happily lives in my home today.

Corned Beef in My Cornucopia

2010-03-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

At about age 14, I reported to our country doctor that I had an enflamed lymph node. Dr. Grumpy looked back at me and said, “Why don’t you just say you have a swollen kernel?” If I wasn’t such a mild, mannered, temperate, and thoughtful lad I would have shot back, “I don’t know Doc, why don’t we just call you a barber and pay you what you’re worth.” Like I say, I would never have smarted off like that. But every time I hear, "there’s a kernel of truth in every lie”, I get this funny feeling I need a haircut.

That said, I’m posting this in the shadow of St Patrick’s Day and I’ve got several pounds of corned beef out on the smoker. I love me some corned beef. A few years ago I even learned how to take a fresh brisket and make corned beef. To my great surprise, the recipe calls for absolutely zero corn. I wondered if country doc was responsible for this misnomer as well.

As most of us know, corn is actually called “maize” by the Central American natives who first cultivated it. I don’t know nuthin about Aztec / Mayan etymologies so we’ll leave maize at maize. As well as being an amateur physician, I was an inveterate etymologist early on. I always thought Thanksgiving’s cornucopia was where the Native (North) Americans kept their veggies including that fabulous multi-colored corn. Not so much.

So what’s up with “corn”? Let’s go back to my love of the savory Irish treat – corned beef. The recipe calls for a special variety of salt and pickling spices which is basically aromatic herbs and various kernels of… hey, did you notice that? Kernels! Corn derives from the IE root, gre-no which clearly refers to grain, specifically the business end of plant which consists of small seeds or kernels. No maize is used in the preparation of corned beef, but I love the flavors those little spice kernels impart.

That clears up the corned beef controversy, but what about cornucopia and unicorns and let’s throw in my beloved trumpet (aka: cornet)? If corn means kernel, what do all these other corns mean? There is another IE root ker1 which means horn. Does that make sense? A cornucopia means “horn of plenty” (-copia as in copious, plenty). A trumpet / cornet entered the orchestra as a humble horn. Unicorn is a horse with… you get it. By the way, rhinoceros and my beloved dinosaur, triceratops also feature horns on their head and in their names.

So, after Doc and I dealt with the swollen kernel, I asked him about this corn on my foot.

Epilogue: Disappointed in my search for a great local deil with even greater corned beef sammiches, I am not left without options. My motto is "cook what you like to eat" and I did! For purists, a traditional corned beef is boiled, a pastrami is smoked. However, traditional pastrami is cured with juniper berries (kernels of which I have none). So, please allow me the privilege of introducing you to my hybrid exclusive Smoked Corned Beef Sammich on Perfect Panera Thick Sliced Rye. Oh MY!!!!!

Italian, French, Mexican... Is There No Pirate Food Category?

2010-03-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: I am not a food paleontologist and by all observations I am an extremely amateur etymologist. Here, in this post, I will prove my incompetency in both disciplines and likely muddy the waters altogether.

I love to travel and eat so I enjoy reading restaurant reviews. When it suddenly dawned on me that I was not the only person in the world with these preferences, I began contributing my own reviews. When the subject of barbeque arises there are always strong opinions voiced in all directions about what makes for the best bbq. I have some experience on the subject, although again, I'm going to hide safely behind my claim of rock amateur, I mean rank amateur.

Since this is a blog about words and not food, I'm going to try and break down the origins of the word barbeque for us. There is general agreement that "barbeque" is a term indigenous to Central America (primarily Mexico) and the Caribbean Islands. Generally speaking, historic barbeque is most similar to the way whole hogs are prepared at a Hawaiian luau. Pit + Fire + Meat is the general formula. Variations in amount of moisture, spices, time, heat, and meat types add to the diverse character of the genre. Remember, we’re talking about aboriginal food preparation not the technical method for making crème brûlèe. Barbeque methods evolved over time based on local preferences and local resources so it is really not plausible to say there is only one way to prepare barbeque.

The word “barbeque” derives from barbacoa – a word which is related to barber (a person who cuts hair and shaves beards). French, Spanish, and Italian all have words which refer to the beard with words beginning barb-. How do we get from beards to burnt ends? Unless you are grilling (which is NOT barbeque!), you want to keep the meat and the heat source at a reasonable distance from each other, typically by suspending the meat at some distance above the (rising) heat source. I think it would be fair to define the origin of barbacoa as specifically referring to cooking meat slowly over an indirect heat source. In the native home of the barbacoa, the preferred wood for separating the meat from the fire is the ficus barbata – commonly known as the Bearded Fig. This wood is dense and somewhat heat resistant – great for standing strong between meat and fire. The Spanish word for this tree is Los Barbadoes – from which Barbados* (an island in the Caribbean) gets its name. Is this all coming together? Barbeque is a 800-1000 year old word from south of the border that means throw some meat on a rack over a fire.

I spent my teen years in the Lone Star State and now feather my nest in the land of Sunflowers and Oz. As for my personal eating and cooking style, I prefer a hybrid of Kansas City style BBQ spice and Texas BBQ sweet. Texas is the northern apex of the Barbacoa Triangle. In 1800s Texas, in the Hill Country to be specific, four worlds collided and brought us the delectable savor that we all argue about today. Cutting the history lesson as short as possible, let’s weave these four strands together.

First, Texas turns out to be a great place to raise cattle (before they were unceremoniously herded north on the Chisolm trail).
Second, proximal to Mexico, Texas received significant food influences from its southwestern cousins (hence: Tex-Mex), although that whole Alamo thing didn’t help relationships.
Third, proximal to the Gulf and Caribbean, Texas was the point of entry for many thousands of African slaves who often laid-over in the Caribbean Islands (before being herded unceremoniously to the Continent) and they brought those Caribbean food influences with them.
Fourth and not to be overlooked, Texas strangely became a popular destination for large numbers of Germans who just happened to know a thing or two about meat preparation (and beer to go along with the bbq). Throw all these influences together and you have a “manifest destiny” that changed the culinary landscape of America. You could say, and some have said, that barbeque was born in Elgin, Luling, and Lockhart.

Now about that Pirate Food category… Barbacoa is the term deriving from the type of tree used to separate the meat from the heat. But there is another word that refers specifically to the rack of the barbado wood that the meat was placed on. That rack of wood was called a buccan and it lent its name to those festive young men who enjoyed a hearty, smoky meal followed by a wee bit o’ pillaging and piracy. Our beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Pittsburg Pirates (nicknamed the Bucs - short for "buccaneer") are first and foremost BBQ enthusiasts and despicable humans second. It's all true.

* The ficus barbata is featured on the Coat of Arms of Barbados. The ficus family is notable for the manner in which the trees drop "aerial roots" which look like beards. You see these beards dangling below the bottom limbs on the tree in the coat of arms. You also see a dolphin.

A Transient Feeling of Wounded Vanity

2010-03-05T12:09:00.000-08:00

Until I decide otherwise, the title of this post is the best dictionary definition I've ever read.

If you google "in a fit of pique" you'll find an odd assortment of rash things people did, wrote, or said at a moment of, well, "wounded vanity". If you search "piqué" at clothing merchant Land's End, you'll find some lovely polo shirts made of an oh-so-soft fabric. So w here do we go with this? Does pique mean upset or soft?

You guessed it (you know me so well), it means neither. To completely clarify matters, let's add in another variant: picante as in picante sauce - America's favorite condiment. Did that help? No? Then let's add in another Mexican restaurant staple: pico de gallo. Yes, that should clarify everything.

Let's get to work here. Picante sauce and pico de gallo are made of similar ingredients (tomato, onion, peppers, yada yada yada). Pico is chunkier than picante and is served as a topping or side to some dishes whereas picante sauce (aka: salsa) is a chip dip or condiment. As far as I can tell, the main difference between the two is the size of component ingredients. Remember the peppers? What category do they fall into - spices. And that's our first real clue. Spice and picante and pico share a common core - pic. I'll deal with the s- part of the story in another post. And you're probably running out ahead of me, yes, pick and spike are also related words.

Now, at this point of the story, I usually bring in some obscure old word that some people, somewhere, thousands of years ago used and I demand that all the words are related because of that one word. (We're really getting to know each other aren't we?) Well, that's just what I'm going to do. The IE root is (s)peik. (Remember we'll deal with the mysterious s- later.) Let's break down pico de gallo to understand this. Do you remember any Spanish? What does "gallo" mean? Right, rooster. What do you think pico refers to? Pico is the beak (s/peik) of the rooster. A beak is sharp, like a spike, like spicy foods. Salsa picante or "piquant sauce" has a sharp, spikey taste thanks to those spices. Just like a bird pecks at the ground with its sharp beak to find food, the spice in piquant foods pecks at your taste buds - hopefully in a pleasing way.

What about those polo shirts? It has nothing to do with the oh-so-soft material the shirt is made from, but rather the process by which it is made. Ever watch your mother knit or crochet? What did she use to weave that oh-so-soft yarn together - hard, sharp spikes, needles. The fabric is thus called piqué (pee-kay) in reference to the process.

Now, where the heck was I, oh yes, "a fit of pique" (pronounced: peek). Let's say you're on a first date, you're trying to get to know the other person, but you don't have a lot invested in the relationship. The date hasn't been going well anyway and then the other person hauls off and says something utterly rude / stupid / suggestive. That's it. Grab the water glass, drench the fool, and storm out "in a fit of pique". Pique is a transient feeling of wounded vanity. Your pride (vanity) feels like it got pecked by a rooster, jabbed with a knitting needle, yada yada yada.

It's all true. I wouldn't make it up.

Orthodox Rocks - Part III

2010-02-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

Before your very eyes, I am building a post in three installments dealing with the roots and meaning of "orthodox". This is Part III - the fin de siècle, whatever that means.

The Blog In Review, parts 1 and 2: Dox refers to things that are acceptable. Ortho means straight or upright.

I can remember being a young lad and deliberately working through "orthodox" in my mind, breaking it down and testing meanings against other words. We used to sing "The Doxology" in church. It was a statement, of sorts, of things that we believed in (things that are "acceptable" from the IE root deks). I thought of orthodontists and orthopedics - doctors who made things straight (from the IE root eredh). I eventually arrived at the notion that orthodox must mean something like "straight beliefs". In retrospect, I wasn't far off.

I am somewhat amused that orthodox is either a misnomer or a contradiction in terms. There are as many "orthodox" beliefs as there are people who believe them. In terms of churches, the Orthodox flag is flown by the Greeks, Russians, Serbians, and many more - and since they all differ somewhat in their beliefs, it can only be observed that each group thinks their beliefs are straighter than the others. And so it goes.

That is my story of noodling around with words based on word roots. If you haven't read it, I hope you'll take the time to read the "Foreword" to this blog and get the big picture of what the blog is about. I've also added a very few resources on the right. Stop by these sites every once in a while and see if you don't find something that piques your interest - like how "pique" relates to "America's most popular condiment".

Orthodox Rocks - Part II

2010-02-26T20:21:00.000-08:00

Before your very eyes, I am building a post in three installments dealing with the roots and meaning of "orthodox". Here now is Part II.

Johnson County, Kansas is proud home to the first family of orthodonture - The Frys. My youngest son (not pictured here) is only months away from flashing a dazzling smile thanks to Dr Jeremy (remember "doctor" from my last post?). A few lazy teeth have been set on the straight and narrow. Orthodontics, Orthepedics, Orthoepics* and the like all share this common IE root, eredh, which means high. But clearly we were not going after "high teeth" when we went to the orthodontist. That vampire look is really getting old.

Imagine a row of people; let's pretend they are new military recruits. They're all the same height, all standing, but some are slouching over, some are leaning over on their buddy, some are standing upright. The slouchers and leaners would clearly appear shorter than those standing upright. In walks the drill sergeant and shouts "Ten Hut, Stand up straight you lousy maggots!" (Drill sergeants are surly like that.) Now, everyone is the same height - all "high", none shorter thanks to the drill sergeant's verbal orthodonture, so to speak. That's what an orthodontist does, only without all the yelling insults and with more wire and rubber bands. Ortho has morphed from meaning "high" to indicating that a thing is "straight or upright".

Another word related to ortho is arduous. Imagine that mean drill sergeant ordering those maggots, I mean recruits, on a double-time "harch" up a high, steep mountainside. I think there would be unanimous agreement, among the survivors, that such a exercise would be arduous. And so it should be.

* Some years ago, the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee had to skip a word that none of the judges could confidently pronounce. The word? Orthoepy. The meaning of the word? Orthoepy is the correct (straight) pronunciation of words. It's all true.

Orthodox Rocks - Part I

2010-02-24T19:56:00.000-08:00

Before your very eyes, I'm going to build a post in three installments dealing with the roots and meaning of "orthodox". This is Part I, of course.

At the same time we moved into our current home a new Greek Orthodox church was being built nearby. While the rest of the family was looking forward to the baklava at the annual Greek food fest, I had my eye on more substantive fare. Being a devout believer in the supremacy of Kansas City Barbeque, I devoted myself to building a mammoth backyard smoker. I habitually scouted for construction areas where large flat slabs of Kansas limestone were exposed. The good Greeks had unearthed a truckload for me a half mile from my house. A hernia and a knee replacement later, I have myself a killer smoker in which I can smoke a drawn and quartered pig or 120 racks of ribs, more or less.

Now that I have established this scintillating prologue to my blog trilogy, I should prolly get to work. Orthodox, ortho + dox. Let's focus on the dox part today. Our IE root is dek1 with the meaning of "to take or accept". A direct descendant is decent - something that is acceptable. How do we learn what is decent or acceptable? Well, experience is a great teacher, but history is full of the value of teachers who instruct what is acceptable across the wide range of human endeavor. The Latin word docere means to show or instruct (to teach) and it is the headwater of all our doc- words like doctor, orginally a religious term meaning scholarly teacher. Over time, doctor became applied to anyone having earned the highest college degree. A doctor then teaches doctrines or dogma and points out paradoxes to his disciples (those who are learning what is acceptable through discipline). (The use of the term doctor to refer to a medical profession is really just the tip of the iceberg.)

As noble a word as doctor is, isn't it interesting that when you alter or change something with an attempt to deceive, it is said that you "doctor" it. That's not acceptable at all!

Next post: we'll tackle the ortho side of the equation.

While not quite a googlewhack, "orthodox rocks" only gets 160 hits on a Google search.

The Dolphin Brothers

2010-02-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

In the late '80s I was busy building a family, watching Thirty Something, and figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I totally missed the musical phenomenon known as The Dolphin Brothers who are described as having the sound of a "Fashion-era David Bowie" featuring the "classic simplicity of a nice piece of plodding liquorice and some good old plain sherbet." [I wish I could write like that.]

But enough about me, this is a blog about word roots and relationships. One of the first words that I learned was decodable was Philadelphia - the city of what? That's right "brotherly love" (phila = love + brother = delphia). Isn't it odd that a city famous for booing Santa Claus is called Brotherly Love. I wonder if they like dolphins there? They could rename the town to Philadolphia.

That actually wouldn't be much of a change. The Greek word for brother, delphos, is interesting. The IE Root, gwelbh, actually means womb. Somewhere along its travels the g morphed to a d and picked up the delph sound. Since brothers are from the same mother, they can be said to be womb-mates. Get it? Womb-mates, like roommates... oh never mind.

Okay, brothers are from the same womb. But what about those cute dolphins? Believe it or not, someone decided that a dolphin was shaped like a womb - an area of expertise that exceeds my knowledge base.

So here's to you, The Dolphin Brothers. You named yourself after basically the same thing - a womb. That's why I miss the '80s.

A State of Inactivity or Insensibility

2010-02-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

Today we'll look at a family of words built around the IE root ster1. which comes to us with the meaning of stiff. Before we're done, we'll see this word relates to barbeque and weapons of war.

How do you describe someone who is stiff and sour - stern comes to mind. Of course, people like that tend to stare a lot - also from ster1. Until recently I didn't know how to make great mashed potatoes. I used to add cold milk which made the mash stiff and it more or less froze the starch in the potatoes. (The key is to use warm milk!)

Start and startle both derive from ster1. How "start" relates to "stiff" was pretty difficult to me until I remembered how I start the day - rather stiff, my joints wake up about 30 minutes after I get out of bed. If some loud noise awakens me in the middle of the night, I bolt upright in bed, stiff as a board.

Oddly, the word stereo relates stiff. I thought it simply meant "two" - you know, the opposite of mono as all you audiophiles know so well. Stereo is a Greek work meaning "solid". Who knew? Perhaps more oddly the stork bird gets its name from ster1 apparently because of its stiff posture and jerky movements. I'm no authority on the subject so I guess I'll have to go with tradition.

Kansas City's third worst BBQ joint features a dude struttin' with some barbeque in his up-to-date finest outfit. I have no idea why they use this motif, but that dude a'struttin' sure looks stiff. Of course, I guess if times are stark and you're about to starve any kind of vittles is better than nothing, even stiff potatoes. These words describe conditions that clould lead to you being very stiff and very room temperature. A seldom used word, torpor - a state of mental or physical inactivity or insensibility, describes lifeforms in a stiff state. I initially thought it was the definition of teenagers when Saturday chores have to be done. Guess I was wrong. (Notice how after all those st- words, the s suddenly disappeared. This is the kind of thing I was trying to explain in my prior post, Sliding Sideways.)

Now, all this brings us to our last word as illustrated to the right. I have recently become word buddies with a real creative New Yawker who has a fine gift of illustrating words. This is his interpretation of a torpedo - stiff as can be, piercing through something that looks like my mashed potatoes made with cold barbeque sauce. (Be sure to check out his blog every Monday when he posts a new image.)

Sliding Sideways

2010-02-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when I write my little posts about words, I imagine you, my reader, kicking the slats out of your bed and screaming, "What? Those aren't even close to the same ________ (words, letters, sounds, whatever)." So this post is for all of you with broken beds and sore throats.

Are too!

Let's see if I can school ya a little bit on this one. Did you read my post on "Our Father..."? Let's look at the words for father in several different languages.
              Ancient Indo-European root: p'ter
              Latin: pater (pronounced pot-air)
              Old Irish: athir (pronounced AH her)
              Old English: faeder (pronounced fy-der)
              German: fadar (pronounced faw-der)
Clearly these are all related in terms of sound qualities, but there are also quantitative differences that create distinct languages. Notice the difference in pronunciation between Old Irish and Old English. That's quite a difference. In English, we grabbed the Old Irish th, but we actually pronounce it.

A friend of mine does a little doodling under the banner of Pez Martillo. Ah, Pez. I know Pez - that little candy thingy, right? Not unless it is fish-flavored candy!
               Ancient Indo-European root: peisk
               Latin: pisces (like the zodiac sign)
               Old English: fisc
               Spanish: pez
Fish < > Pez. On their face, there is little similarity between the English and Spanish variations. But when you look at the whole group together, you see a lot of similarity. That's how linguists go about figuring out the connections and conjecturing what the Indo-European root was. By the way, Pez Martillo is the Spanish name of the... hey, you look it up, I had to.

And by the way, I didn't pick the image above just for the perky spokesmodel. Look at what she is sitting on. No, not her bum, the package. Notice the flavor. In German, that would be spelled pfefferminz. How is that for changing the letters around? Hey, wait a minute, pfefferminz. PfeffErminZ.

I wonder...

Armadillo World Headquarters

2010-02-18T14:48:00.000-08:00

Once upon a wonderful time, I frequented a place perfectly named Armadillo World Headquarters. It was sort of a cross between Woodstock and your neighborhood block party. If you scan the list of artists (and if you're old enough) you'll see that some of the greatest names of the Rock'nRoll era also frequented the place. This army of musicians created harmonies that still waft around in my head today. AWHQ only lasted a decade, but what a decade it was!

But this is a blog about words, right? Alrighty then, let's go back to that first paragraph and find a family of words to work with. How about these: armadillo, army, artist, harmony. To that list we could add arthritis and aristocracy. Pretty diverse family, eh?

What do these words all have in common? Let's start with our mascot, the armadillo. I've caught a couple of these suckers in the wild. Trust me, it isn't easy and holding onto them is almost as tough as catching them. Armadilloes have a shell-like armature (hmmm) that fully protects them when they roll up into a defensive ball. I would imagine that getting the design just right took a lot of work. If any piece of the shell doesn't fit perfectly, it could be pretty uncomfortable in there. And that's the key: fit.

Our IE root today is ar - to fit. Armadilloes have an armature that fits. If you are in the army, you'd better have good fitting armor which you pick up at the armory*. An artist fits sounds or colors or shapes together in some sort of harmonious way. Our joints are where our body parts fit together and where arthritis can develop. Aristocracy? Oh I don't know, I guess they think they are the only ones who fit in!

I'd like to list a few more words, but right now I'm going back to the AWHQ artist list and continue my walk down memory lane. Maybe I'll find additions to my greatest songs list.

* When I started this post, I had no idea that AWHQ found its residence in a former armory. Note this from the wiki article on AWHQ: The name for Armadillo World Headquarters was inspired by the use of armadillos by a local poster artist and from the building itself. In choosing the mascot for the new venture, the founder and his partners wanted an "armored" animal since the building was an old armory. The nine-banded armadillo was chosen because of its hard shell that looks like armor.

Matters of Heart and Home

2010-02-17T16:59:00.000-08:00

This one is sweet and simple... well sort of.

A building is called an edifice. When you build someone up, you edify them. So you, a rational person, would suppose that the ancient root leading to edifice / edify has something to do with building or structure, right? No chance.

In this case, our IE root is ai and I'm telling you the truth, it means "to burn". (Ember and Sicily's Mt Etna volcano are also related.) Edifice and edify get their e- sound from the ai root. But that still doesn't explain how we get from burn to build.

Maybe this will help. I confess that I grew up watching Little House On The Praire. (I had a crush on Melissa Gilbert). I remember Pa Ingalls getting up from the dinner table, grabbing his pipe, and lighting it with an ember (hey, remember ember!) from the fire. Then, standing there at the hearth, he would talk to his wife and children in ways that edified them. And that's it. (Notice what is behind the girls in the picture.)

Well, let me unpack this for you. For millennia, the most important part of the home was the fireplace where the home is heated and food is cooked. Nowadays, there is some demon-possessed machine in the basement that does the heating job and our fireplaces are primarily decorative - but those are only recent "improvements". The house (edifice) was literally built up around the fireplace or hearth. And Pa Ingalls vividly demonstrated that family is built up (edified) there at the core of the home - the fireplace or hearth.

Ready for this? The Latin word for hearth is eides - clearly growing up from our ancient root ai. There where the burning happens, the core of the edifice is formed and family members are edified. It's all true.

Grist for the Mill

2010-02-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

Did you ever wonder if “Christ” was the last name of Jesus - as if Joseph and Mary Christ had a baby named Jesus? Or why is *He* sometimes referred to as Jesus and sometimes as Christ. It really is understandable that there would be some confusion abouth this conspicuous person and name.

There is an important word in the Bible in both the Old and New Testament: Anointed. Think "ointment" - you put it on your body. To be anointed is to have olive oil (the ointment) placed on you, typically on the forehead. Tradition holds that prophets, priests, and kings were anointed as a way of marking that they were set apart for their special role. Most Christians believe that Jesus was all three: prophet, priest, and king, but that's another subject altogether.

The Old Testament (Hebrew) word for "the anointed one" is Messiah. The New Testament (Greek) word for "the anointed one" is Christ. Okay, so the Messiah or the Christ is anointed with olive oil. How is that oil obtained? By pressing or grinding the olive until the the oil runs out.

Historically, we process wheat similarly – by grinding it between heavy stones in a mill. The term “grist for the mill” refers to the grain which is poured into the mill and ground. I think you can see that grist is directly, and obviously, related to Christ. In fact, the ancient IE root is ghrendh - not a lot of distance between ghrendh and grind, is there? The word Christ, as noble a name as Christians believe that it is, simply refers to the process by which the anointing oil is obtained.

It is noteworthy that Jesus' most difficult moment was in a place called Gethsemane on the night before His crucifixion. There He felt like He was being figuratively ground between the stone of God's will His own human inclination to avoid suffering. (In Luke 22:42 we hear Jesus expressing His conflict, "Not my will, but Thine be done.") Did you ever look up what Gethsemane means? Olive press. It is your host's opinion that in every way, Jesus lived up to the title Christ.

Both Sides Now

2010-02-16T19:18:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this entry during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The opening ceremony on Feb 12 featured a song that takes me back forty years - more or less. I can't find video from the Olympics, so please check out this wonderful performance by the song's writer and first voice - Joni Mitchell. Joni says she has come to see both sides now of love and a good many other things. An important perspective.

The idea of considering both (or all) sides is deeply rooted in language. The IE root is ambhi meaning "from both sides" or often meaning "around". What do you call an animal, say a frog, that can live in both water and on land? Amphibios (both + biomes / habitats). What do you call an offical that represents one side to the other? Ambassador. (An interesting cousin of ambassador is "ombudsman" - a person who represents the interests of one side to the other. Colleges, newpapers, etc have ombudsmen to make sure that the little people are not getting steamrolled by the institution.)

Sometimes words wind up with almost the opposite of their original meaning. Some day I'll talk about "apologize" - a great example of words taking a permanent Opposite Day. Today, let's focus on ambivalent. Usually, if you like to use big words, you would say you were ambivalent if you didn't have a preference between two options. It almost means apathetic. But, at its heart, ambivalent means to be "valiant" (strong) for both sides. If you are ambivalent, you could fight for either side with equal vigor.

One word in this family that you'll probably never hear (and definitely never use) is perambulate (per = through + amb = both + ulate = walk). It means simply to walk around on all sides. Although you may never use the word, if you were British you'd use a contraction of it all the time. When you're ready to take the baby for a walk all around the park, you'd get out the pram (serious contraction!).

Now, I've got one more for you and it's a doozy. Take a couple deep breaths, splash your face with cold water, maybe get a jolt of joe, and let's do this. Hmmmm, let's see how shall we do this? Okay, if you get real sick or need an operation, you go to the... hospital. That's a cool word related to host and hospitality; you see that. If you can't make it to the hospital what do you do? You ask the hospital to come to you. Nowadays, we have fantastic motorized hospitals with tandem rear wheels and flashing red lights. But before Karl Benz invented the automobile (and named it after his daughter, Mercedes), the hospital came walking to you. The French call it the hôspital ambulant - the walking hospital. Now isn't that the way words work? Hospital is the key part of the phrase hôspital ambulant, otherwise it would just be a pram. But when we shorten phrases, especially foreign terms we don't understand, we often drop the important part and keep the details. The next time you get passed by an ambulance going 70 miles per hour, stick your head out the window and laugh haughtily, "Ha, you should be walking." On second thought, don't.

Fables of Famous Fairies and Blasphemous Bandits

2010-02-16T10:47:00.000-08:00

To start this post, I'm going to try and teach just a moment about how one ancient sound (root) can wind up going so many different (and apparently unrelated) directions. Take the root: bha(2). Before we discuss its meaning, let's consider what this root could wind up sounding like. Drop the h and you have the ba sound. Keep the h and turn the b upside down to p (happens all the time) and you have pha / fa. Of course, the vowel sounds are always complete wild cards. Regional accents usually mess with the vowels. For example, In Texas, if you want your iced tea all the way to the top of the glass, you say "feel it up", but you mean "fill". So keep an eye on the consonant sounds and just let the vowels come and go as they please. Our IE root today, bha, will clearly demonstrate this kind of sonic ADD.

At it's heart, bha is a real big talker - it means "to speak". We speak to tell a fable and sometimes our fables speak of the antics of fairies (characters in spoken fables). Fables often tell lessons through the fates of the actors (fate meaning a spoken outcome). A baby just learning to speak is an infant, a guy who talks a lot is called affable, and some people (especially among the elderly) suffer aphasia - the inability to speak. I think you can see that famous (spoken of far and wide) and fabulous (spoken highly of) fandangoes (no clue!) are also downstream cousins of ancient bha.

When we speak of our beliefs we confess what we believe. If we speak against what others believe they say we blaspheme.

If we don't like something and want to run it out of town, we ban it and bannish it (see, we dropped the h). Even though it got banned, some people still seek contraband with reckless abandon. If those naughty boys call (speak) a bunch of their kind together, we call them bandits.

If we hold onto the ph/f sound and listen for the o sound, we'll discover the very core of spoken word sounds - phonics and phonetics. Of course, to speak at a distance we need a telephone (far + sound). If musical instrument sounds all come together just right we enjoy the symphony (together + sound).

Let's Rename The Place After Our Guests

2010-02-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

It strikes me as humorous that England is named after an obscure piece of land 400 miles from it's own shores. Do you remember your world history class in high school (it was the one with the overly flirtatious girl in it - yeah, that one)? Remember tales of the Jutes, Angles, Saxons and other historic clans of derring-do? These folks lived in Northern Europe and had eager aspirations to export their culture to distant lands. The Angles lent their name to a newly conquered colony we now call... wait for it... England.

No small contribution, England and English are two of the most common proper nouns on the globe. The word "English" gets 1.8 billion hits on a Google search (by way of comparison, "love" only got 1.4 billion hits). The English language is the second most commonly spoken language in the world with 480 million tongue-waggers. (China is most common with about 1 billion speakers, but English is the most common second language learned adding another 600 million speakers. So, yeah, English is a pretty big deal.)

But this isn't a blog about language, this is about word roots. Let's get to the botton of it, where did those ambitious old Angles get their name. Stop right there! Did you notice something? "Angles" That's like "angle", right? You know, the corners of a shape. Right? Right!

The Angles of yore got their name from the shape of their homeland (which is now part of Germany, at the northern tip on the Baltic Sea). That's it. Note this image of the ancient Angle homeland. Apparently, the original land was mapped from Flensburg to Schleswig to Kappeln, creating an angular (there it is again) shape on a map. The people who lived in an angle-shaped land were called Angles. It's funny really. One of the most common words and languages on the planet comes from a quirky shape of land roughly the size of New York City. (It's kind of like asking people from Michigan where they live. They hold up a hand and say, "I'm from right here" and point to a knuckle on their ring finger. Michigan is shaped like a mitten - we should call the place Mittenland. They act like it, after all.)

That's it. England is named for the people who live on a piece of land shaped like a angle. But we can take this just a little further - that's the fun of it! Look at the map again, look just north of Kappeln. Notice that little bay that is formed by the hook of land on the east? Hook... Hey, what's that fancy word for fishermen? Angler, that's it. Why are fishers call anglers? Because of what is at the end of their line - an angle. That little angle-shaped hook lent its name to the whole sport.

Let's see what's left in the botton of the barrel here. Oh yes, can you think of an angle-shaped part of your body? Let's stay on task, think about the bottom of your leg - your... wait for it... ankle. Yup. Same deal. Your leg turns an angle to get to your foot, so just call it that.

All these words, from England to ankle, derive from an ancient IE root ank meaning angle. Pretty straightforward, pardon the pun.

We Have Seen His Star In The East

2009-06-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

The magi who came to see the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem announced that when they were in the east, they saw His star. In a way, they were a little redundant. Let's break this down. There is an IE root meaning to shine - aus. Now ask yourself what shines brightest in our world? The sun - a star. aus is at the heart of star. But how were the wise men redundant? In what direction does the sun rise? The east. aus is also at the heart of east. (Over the course of these posts we'll discover many words that derive from "the place where the shining thing rises".)

Would it surprise you to learn that Austria derives it's name from the fact that it lay to the east of most of Europe? (Wait 'til I tell you how England got its name!) It is very clear that our old friend aus didn't have to put on any verbal make-up at all to take the starring (oh, pardon the pun) role in Austria.

Aurora also is a glowing thing and derives from aus.

To wrap up this short post, let's go back to the baby Jesus. The story unfolds that Jesus lived until he was about 33 years old and then was crucified in Jerusalem and was then resurrected three days later. In the Christian world, the annual celebration of His return to the living is known as Easter. Easter is a hopelessly pagan term. It derives ultimately from aus, but more recently from Austron, a goddess of fertility whose feast was celebrated at the Spring equinox (roughly at the same time as the annual celebration of Christ's resurrection). It was the habit of early Christianity (specifically Catholicism) to take pagan celebrations and infuse them with Christian content, meaning, and symbolism. In this case, Resurrection Sunday got re-labelled Easter.

Christmas and Easter are both tied to the same IE Root: aus.

Our Father Who Art

2009-05-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

Among the most common IE roots I've come across, root words for "shine" and "blow" seem to be very prevalent and have a lot of modern words that have swum to us across the ages. This post deals with some words for "shne" which come from a peculiar little IE root: dyeu. (You'll notice I don't try to offer a pronunciation for these root words. Why? Two reasons primarily, I don't speak Indo-European fluently and the whole point is that there are root stubs and we're more concerned about the down-stream words they turn into.)

I think you can see that from dyeu we get diary (a record of our lives which happen daily - when the sun is "shining".) Journal also comes from this root. Similarly the French say "bon jour" (good day) and we adjourn our business at the end of (the shining part of the) day. One of my favorites, circadian (about daily), owes it di to dyeu. But this wonderful root takes us much, much further afield than words about life under the shining sun.

The movie, Dead Poets Society, taught us to Carpe Diem (seize the day). Some enterprising Christians modified the term only slighty and printed a popular t-shirt proclaiming Carpe Deum (literally "seize God", meaning, I hope, get connected with God). This shows how similar our words are for (the shining) day and for diety (which also comes directly from dyeu). World travelers will note that the Spanish may wish us "buenos dias" (good day) or they may offer a blessing by saying "adios" (go to/with God). The French say "adieu" (which did little more to the thousands-years-old root than add a meaning "to/with" and turn the original y into an i. Pretty straight forward path.

How do we get from day to diety? The Judeo-Christian tradition starts out by God creating the world in a matter of days. If God creates all that shines, he must - of necessity - shine even moreso Himself. That is the essence of the common religious world "glory". Most religions have a sense of deity and, more often than not, those ideas include references to light, shining, glory, etc.

We have a handful of other god-names in our modern vocabulary that swim down from dyeu. As I said, deity is there and so, too, is divinity and diva (because she acts like she's a god). The old Norse Tyr (change d to t - it's easy to hear, and add an r) is not common to us, but once a week we honor him with a day I like to call Tues-day. Of course, it is not hard to see and hear Zeus in dyeu - he was the chief Greek god. But what about the Romans who come later and gave the weary Greek gods an extreme makeover? The Romans bowed in reverence to their chief god - Jupiter. Do you see how easy dyeu can be written and sounded out as ju? What about the last part, "-piter".

We have a houseful of words with the ancient root p-ter. Maury Povich has found his groove doing paternity tests to determine who is someone's baby daddy. We like to call our soldiers patriotic because they defend the father-land. And orginally, a patron was someone who provided support to artists and craftsmen as if he was their father. Oh my, yes, change the p to an f and, very clearly you have "father". So the Romans told us a lot about themselves when they called their god "God the Father" - or maybe they told us something important about God!

Eager To Make My Point

2009-05-14T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'm addicted to but a few things and bicycling is one of them. (I should clarify that I'm addicted to watching bicycling on TV, although I do enjoy touring around my local trails on my Specialized RockHopper trail bike, too - I'm just not addicted to it.) Specifically, I love watching the Tour de France each July.

A couple years ago, Versus network's play by play announcer, Paul Sherwen, said some words to the effect, "Now these boys are turning up into the sharp teeth of the mountains, and trust me, they didn't come here to just go half way up."

In those few words he nailed one of the most fascinating subsets of words that have flowed to us from the mother-tongue. It all starts with the IE root, ak meaning "sharp". Now think of all things you refer to as sharp. From "sharp dresser" to "sharp cheese", it can mean different things. Sherwen was accurate (accurate is an ak word itself meaning "right to the point") when he described Europe's Alps mountain range as sharp (one peak is even called a "horn" - now that's sharp). Are you familiar with America's Sawtooth mountain range? What could be sharper than a blade of sawteeth?

Acid is often described as being sharp and this certainly includes fods with acidic ingredients (lemon juice or vinegar) which we say have a "sharp taste". In the early days of chemistry, scientists found that all acids had one component in common so they named the element that made acids acidic: oxygen (ak - sharp + gen - making (as in generate)). If something has a very bitter, sharp smell we describe it as acrid, like acid, just with an extra letter picked up somewhere along it's long life.

Of course, an axe is sharp. An acute pain is very sharp! Even the word ear derives eventually from ak - think of an ear of corn, not that soft round thing hanging on the side of your head. Eager has an ancestor in aks, meaning someone who is "sharp". In times past, eager has also meant "keen or sharp-edged". Remember that Wile E. Coyote was always trying to capture (or blow up) Road Runner with one contraption or another from the Acme Co? Acme means "highest" - the sharp point, the top, only the best. Oh, and by the same reasoning, acne also means "point" - I think the reasoning is clear.

But there's one more word that includes ak and I think it speaks to the wonderful color lying beneath the surface of everyday words. My pal, Paul Sherwen assured me that Lance Armstrong and all his followers (literally) hadn't come to the sharp mountain points of the Alps to stop at half-way. Thank goodness! But what if they had. What word would we use to describe a person who stopped half-way (medi) up the mountain (ak)... medi+ak, or as we know the word today: mediocre. Yes, every time you say, write, hear, or read mediocre, you are engaged in a literal word-picture of someone (something) that had the ability or desire to go to the top, but stopped half-way. What a disappointment!

And welcome back to the Tour, Lance!

Going Where No Man Should Ever Go

2009-05-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

A century and a half ago, there was a television personality named Art Linkletter (who, by the way, turned down Walt Disney's generous offer for Art to commercially develop the land surrounding a little amusement park Walt was planning to build in the orange groves of out-lying Las Angeles). Linkletter had a schtick called "Kids Say the Darndest Things". Art asked one little shaver how many people lived in his home. The tyke answered, "One adult and one adultress." This simple statement (whether fact or faux pas has never been investigated) riveted my attention for years. What is the difference between adult and adultery and why is it so desirable to become one and not the other?

Throughout BackWords we're going to deal with many prefixes and suffixes, most of which came to us from Latin and Greek. Our first prefix is one of the most common: ad- meaning "to". The second part of adult is, obviously, ult - does that ring a bell? ult derives from an IE (remember, Indo-European) word for "beyond". You see it in words like "ultimate", "ulterior", and even "alter" and "alternate". An adult is "to beyond" or better, has grown to (an age) beyond (childhood). Similarly (in terms of meaning) an adulterer is someone who has gone to (someone) beyond (the marriage partner). We have here identical word parts with dramatically different meanings. That happens a lot!

BONUS WORD: Hidalgo is a given-name in Spanish cultures. See the al part of the word? It also derives from the idea of "beyond". The hid part was originally fid... that we see in in words like "fillial" and "affiliate" with a core meaning of "family". Hid, in this case means son. The al part in this word means "beyond you and me". Hidalgo mean "the son who is beyond (belonging to) me or (belonging to) you, but is the son of all of us." We have a term "favorite son" that has this same idea - because a popular or accomplished person is from our home town, we can all claim ownership of him.

A Tower's Long Tale

2009-05-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to suggest to anyone that they really should read Calvert Watkins' essay on the Indo-European language group, but if you're feeling adventurous, I recommend you at least give it a scan. Basically, Watkins discusses the idea that the vast majority of modern languages derive from the common tongue of one ancient people. Think of it as verbal evolution. This is idea is held by the majority of linguists.

If you read Watkins' essay, or if you trust me implicitly, you'll note that the Indo-European (IE) root stock is traced back in time to several thousand years BC. The most common date range assigned to the known existence of the mother tongue is around 2000-3000BC. Several derivative, daughter languages are firmly dated 1500 to 2000BC. There is also general agreement as to the location of this mother-tongue culture. The name says it all, Indo (as in India) and European (as in, don't make me do this, Europe). The IE origin language-culture spread from some central point in time and place and spread out from there. If you were to visit your favorite cartographer's shoppe and ask for him to point to a place, oh say, between India and Europe, he would take his long wooden pointy thing and whack the parchment smack dab in what we call the Middle East, home of present day Iran, Iraq, etc.

Now this get's my attention, because back in elementary school, one of my favorite words was Mesopotamia. I liked it for two reasons. One, because it sounded funnier if you said "mess o' potatoes", but also because the word was a description meso (middle / between) + potamia (the rivers - potable water). Mesopotamia was the "cradle of civilization" springing up between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern day Iraq (ancient Babylon) - in fact, in the very plain where Baghdad is today.

Now also back in elementary days, I learned a fantastic story about a tower built in Babylon. In fact, the name Babylon (well attested and not challenged by anyone as to its existence) derives from the tower built in that area - Babel (as discussed in the Bible's book of Genesis, chapters 10-11). Now, many people object to taking the Bible literally and certainly many, many people object to taking the first 11 chapters of Genesis literally. Hey, this blog is NOT about theological debate so, lean (like another famous tower) whichever way you like on the finer points of theology / Bible history.

But isn't this interesting. Calvert Watkins and his colleagues have determined that most modern languages derive from a specific time and place that, as legend has it, was famous as the time and place where one group of people had a common language until their one language became multi-lingual and all the people of that time and place spread out from there to the uttermost parts of the earth. I'd say that there's some awfully strong circumstantial evidence to reckon with here. The Tower of Babel may be just the opening chapter of a long and beautiful biography of hundreds of languages flowing out upon the surface of earth.

Foreword to BackWords

2009-05-13T12:44:00.000-07:00

I have been to the zoo. I didn’t make the animals that live there. I didn’t capture and cage them. I didn’t design the grounds and the systems that support the zoo. I didn’t even drive the little train that travels throughout the zoo and holds up pedestrians trying to get from bear canyon to the monkey pavilion. I just went there. And now, I want to tell you what I saw. In this case, the animals are made of letters and sounds and their native habitat is the mother tongue of a hundred languages. I saw words.

I owe 99.9% of the credit for this work to Calvert Watkins, a brilliant man who traveled to the remotest swamps, darkest jungles, driest deserts, and steepest mountain sides of language and captured word-species that reveal an ancient genetic code that still flows in the life-blood of words that we see roaming about us daily. That ancient font of genes flowed from a people group called the Indo-Europeans. From that root-stock DNA of all living words, most of the languages from India to Ireland were formed.

One of the hardest things to understand about words is primarily that they are only sounds representing ideas. Only in the last 600 years has the printed word prevailed over language. Since then, the evolution, or better, the mutation of language has been slowed because when a word is in print, we have a reference point for the correct spelling, pronunciation, and meaning of that word. (The first English dictionary was published in 1604.) Prior to the printing press – a veritable verbal corral – words were free to roam. In the same way that Atlantic salmon taste different from Pacific salmon, words picked up new “tastes” as they wandered about. As they roamed, they picked up the characteristics of their habitat – they often changed sounds, they often changed spelling, and they usually gained new shades of meaning (and sometimes the genetic mutation was so profound, words changed their meaning entirely - that's "pretty" "terrific").

By way of example: It is said that Eskimos have several dozen words for snow. In English, most of those words have become extinct – we didn’t feed them through our use of them. Conversely, not many aboriginal peoples have the word “byte” which in technological language means 8 bits, each bit being a 0 or a 1 that magically means something when it’s electrified. But many languages have a word for “bit” which simply means a small amount of something – data, money, food, rain, etc. But an electronic “bit” doesn’t derive from that small amount “bit” – it’s a contraction of binary digit – b+it, bit. “Byte” is a word which was invented (by IBM) to distinguish it from “bit”. We don’t know where these two words may go from here into future languages, but their meaning, and their spelling, has been created in our presence and shall usher forth from here. We have in our language today, what in the future may be a considered a missing link– we have seen in our time an evolutionary step in language. Ain’t it cool!

Consider the difference between the sounds of a single common word when spoken in English or Spanish. In English, we pronounce “j” as a soft “g” sound – as in juice. The Spanish-speakers pronounce “j” as an “h” as in house. English say juice, Spanish say jugos (who-goes). Our word for liquid from fruit also sounds almost exactly like our word for the Semitic people – Jews. I wonder if this suggests to Spaniards that we think Jews are the source, or the personification, of delightful nectar? Such is the nature of migration and evolution of words in language. For 5000 or more years, words had free range to wander almost aimlessly, picking up new characteristics and meanings as they roamed.

As you scan the contents of this work, please also bear in mind that while consonants changed frequently in the evolution of words, vowels are complete wildcards. An “a” in one word in one language at one time has absolutely no obligation to be an “a” in the next appearance of that word. Sometimes vowels hitch a ride with the original consonants, sometimes they take a permanent vacation. That leaves the consonants to fend for themselves and make new words that barely resemble their grandpas and great, great uncles. As I have worked through source materials, I have had to repeatedly chastise myself for expecting that “a” stay an “a”, “b” stay “b” and so on. (Here is a helpful table that reveals, in part, how a consonant in one language is represented by a far different consonant in another.)

Another way to think of the sounds that comprise words is to consider colors. Blue can refer to everything from a baby’s eyes to a turquoise stone, from the deep sea to the sky at twilight. I have seen “blue” cows that were nothing but white cows speckled with gray hairs. Blue even refers to a feeling which has nothing to do with color. There is no rule that blue has to be a finite portion of the color spectrum. Similarly, the “b” sound in one language can readily become a “p” or even “f” / “ph” sound in another. If you mumble the word “bush”, someone may think that you said “push” – excluding context. As the BackWords blog progresses, we’ll discover the sense of the relationship between “buckle” and “pucker”, between “beacon” and “phantom” / “fantastic”.

Consider how different the words “curl” and “circle” sound alike (especially the consonant sounds – k-l, s-k-l). The words mean virtually the same, but the sounds that represent them have begun to diverge. It doesn’t take a Roget scientist (that’s a pun) to see how the words relate in origin to one another, but we can also see that they are evolving in different directions – another missing link before our eyes. Darwin should be so lucky!

I’m fascinated with the word-part “chester”. Consider for a moment one of our favorite condiments – Worchestershire sauce. How do the folks in your household pronounce that mouthful of sounds? Heaven forbid that you tackle each syllable out loud. Knock off the “-shire” for a moment, the folks in England pronounce Worchestireshire as “Wooster”. The folks up in Massachusetts dropped “shire” and threw away the “h” and spell it “Worcester”, but still pronounce it “Wooster”. Finally, our sober Ohioans gave up on the whole deal and just spell it like it sounds, “Wooster”. Thank you. We’ve come a long way from Worchestershire to Wooster. There it is, in sounds and letters, the evolution of language unfolding before our eyes… and ears.

By way of another example: When my brother and I were in elementary school, I was probing him about an alleged girlfriend. I had a friend whose last name was Kimball. He reminded me of that name and said his friend’s name was like that, but with three letters different (and those different letters were all together). Aha!, my suspicions were confirmed, he did love what’s-her-name Kendall – so similar, but three letters different from Kimball. In print, the difference is clear – Kimball / Kendall. To the ear, the difference is very subtle. If I speak French and you speak Russian, I don’t understand most of what you say anyway. If you say your name is “Kendall”, I’ll go home and tell my wife I met a guy named Kimball or Kendall or something like that. I could call you “Kimball” to your face, but since you don’t understand most of what I am saying, you’ll never know that I am mispronouncing your name. And so, for generations, my kin will call you by a name that is not your name, until, to us, that is your name.

Calvert Watkins looked at meanings, not letters. By considering the symbols that represent those words, he reconstructed the grammatical history of the words and the letters that may have been at the heart of these words we see around us today. That’s when he (and fellow linguo-anthropologists) discovered the common threads that link together a strand of pearls that make a glorious necklace of words (is anyone keeping count of all these metaphors??).

To sum it all up, words played The Gossip Game for over 5000 years. One sentence, whispered in relay through twenty different people, will usually wind up with a far different meaning than it had at the beginning. Gutenberg fouled the whole thing up. If you write down a sentence and pass it on a piece of paper through twenty people, the sentence is exactly the same at the end as it was at the beginning. Well, Gutenberg made the world more sensible and accessible, but let’s go BackWords, before the printed word fenced in our wild word species and see who is related to whom.