Religious terminology: the etymology of “god”
A few days ago, I received a letter from a well-educated reader, who asked me whether the English words “god” and “good” are related.
A few days ago, I received a letter from a well-educated reader, who asked me whether the English words “god” and “good” are related.
“Understand” is a teaser: each of the two elements of this compound is clear, but why does it mean what it does?
English verbs show tremendous variety. Some have a lot of semantic content and serve as the main predicate of a sentence—as transitive or intransitive or linking verbs.
In this month’s round-up of questions from readers, the Oxford Etymologist tackles “see”, “echo”, “Baba Yaga”, “masher”, and more.
Today I’ll try to say something about the verb “see.” Once again, we’ll have to admit that the more basic a word is, the less we know about its remote history.
The etymology of the word “hear” is especially tough – but life would be a dull thing is everything was clear.
The phrase in a/the twinkling of a bedpost (with the archaic variant bedstaff) means the same as in a twinkling of an eye, that is, “very quickly,” because twinkle, when used metaphorically, refers to a rapid movement. Agreed: eyes and stars twinkle, but bedposts don’t, and here is the rub.
Any large organization or bureaucracy is likely to have a style guide for its internal documents, publications, and web presence. Some organizations go a step further and develop what is known as a control language.
The Oxford Etymologist is out of hibernation and picks up where he left off in mid-December. It may be profitable to return to the origin of “star”, but from a somewhat broader perspective.
Nothing is known about the origin of the phrase “Milky Way.” By contrast, the origin of the word “star” is not hopelessly obscure, which is good, because stars and obscurity have little in common.
If you are a writer, you’ve probably gone down a rabbit hole at one point or another. The idiom owes its meaning to Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, in which Alice literally does that.
Words, as linguistics tells us, are conventional signs. Some natural phenomenon is called rain or snow, and, if you don’t know what those words mean, you will never guess. But everything in our consciousness militates against such a rupture between word and thing.
Both “thank” and “give” deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I’ll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
Both “thank” and “give” deserve our attention! And it is those two outwardly unexciting words that I’ll offer today as part of our etymological feast.
English (uncharacteristically) has two, if not even three, words for the sphere above us: sky, heaven, and firmament.
What do we call the world in which we live? The specifically Germanic noun “world” is perhaps the most puzzling word known in this area.