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8天攻克8000词汇教材修订_部分4

court,” who was so named because he stood ad cancellos, “at the lattice.”

CAPITAL: from the human head

The word capital in the sense of wealth comes ultimately from the Latin caput , “head”. The Latin root of caput appears in scores of English words in various forms depending upon whether it came to us through the French or directly from the Latin. Both of our words capital and cattle, for example, are from caput, for in the earliest days a man’s wealth, or capital, was reckoned in cattle, and we still speak of a herd of a thousand “head”. A chattel mortgage is really a “cattle” mortgage, and up to the 16th century the English spoke of “goods and cattals” instead of “goods and chattels”.

CHARGE: from a Roman chariot

When you charge a customer for a purchase you owe a debt to Rome for the term you are using. The Latin word for the four-wheeled baggage wagon that Julius Caesar used in his campaigns was carrus. In later Latin carrus developed the verb. Carricare which meant“to load on a wagon，”and the French took this over as chargier. A “charge account,” of course, “loads” a person with the obligation of paying. We charge, or burden a man with his crime. You charge or “load” your mind with a responsibility. And in the olden days, they used to charge a musket with powder and sot. They “loaded” it and when they discharged it they “unloaded” it. Beyond this the Roman chariot carrus gave other words. Our car came up through the North French word carre, and the carriage we used to ride in came through the Old Norman French cariage. Cargo is another great-grandchild of carricare, ‘to load.” Cargo is “ loaded” on a cart. But most curiously of all we inherit the word caricature from carricare which sometimes meant to “over-load” and so o exaggerate, as caricaturists are supposed to do.

CHAUFFEUR: stoked the fire

A French word that used merely to mean a fireman or stoker and that eventually goes back to the Latin calificare, “to make hot.” Around the year 1900, in the first days of the automobile when it often was a steam-driven vehicle, the French gave the bantering name of chauffeur of “stoker” to the professional who drove the car. The term chauffeur derives from chauffer, “to heat,” and this contributed another word to English. The Old French form chaufer went into English as chaufen, “to warm,” which finally changed into our present word chafe which used to mean “to make warm by rubbing,” but now is most commonly used by us in the sense of making the skin sore or sensitive by rubbing. The chafing-dish is the only modern use that retains the original meaning of “heat.” And the chauffeur is no longer a “fireman.”

COAL: first a glowing ember

The word coal, spelled col in Old English, meant at one time a piece of carbon glowing without flame. Later coal took on its modern meaning; and confusingly enough, the word charcoal means something that has been “charred” and so reduced to coal. One of the earliest mentions of coal is found in the Saxon Chronicle of the abbey of Petersborough in the England of 852 A.D. The abbot had let some land to a certain Wulfred who was to send to the monastery in

return, among other things, 60 loads of wood, 12 loads of coal, and 6 loads of peat. The type of hard coal known as anthracite owes the beginning of its name history to the Greek word anthrax, meaning “coal,” which was described by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus in a script he wrote on Stones aboyt 371 B.C. Bituminous, or soft coal, got its name from he Latin word bitumen, a mineral pitch found in Palestine and Babylon that was used for mortar. In the Douay Bible of 1609 we read: “Thou shalt pitch it (the arke) within and without with bitumen.” The coal called lignite is so imperfectly formed that it still has the brown look of decayed wood. Hence its name from he Latin lignum, “wood.”

COBALT: a devil

A tough, steel-gray metallic element, valuable to certain steel alloys, and useful in some of its compounds as a pigment. Its lustrous sheen often made the miners think they had discovered a more precious meal. Because of this, and also because the arsenic and sulphur it often contains was harmful to those working over it, this meal was regarded as the demon of the mines and was nicknamed from the German Kobalt, a variant of Kobold, meaning a “goblin.” The miners chose a similar name for nickel. In German it used to be Kupfernickel, “copper demon,” because this tricky ore looks copper and isn’t. We took the word nickel from he Swedish kopparnickel, dropping the first half of the name in transit. Nickel, then, is just a bit of he Old Nick.

COMPANY: eats bread with you

The term company corresponds to companion and this in turn derives from he Latin words cum, “with,” and panis, “bread.” A companion, then, is one who eats bread with you, a “messmate,” and when you have company at your house they share your hospitality. In its business use he romantic associations of the word company are drained off.

4. Word Histories of Your Garden

MISTLETOE

It’s too bad to rob the mistletoe of any of its delightful associations, but the beginnings of the word are anything but romantic. When we trace mistletoe back to its origin, we find it spelled mistiltan, and mistily comes, of all things, from a word meaning “dung,” and tan means “twig.” So here we have a “twig of dung.” This all grew out of the popular belief that this plant sprang from bird droppings, In a 17th-century essay we read that mistletoe “come onely by the mewting of birds . . . which feed thereupon and let it passé through their body.” The ancient Druids thought that the mistletoe of the oak was a cure for the various ailments of old age, and William Bullein, writing in 1562 in his Bulwarke of Defence Against All Sickness and Woundes said: “The miseln groweth . . . upon the tree through the dounge of byrdes.” We regard the plant as an invitation to a kiss, but the American Indians, being on the practical side, didn’t trifle with it in this way. They chewed the stuff for toothache.

NARCISUS

The history of this flower-name leads us into an involved love story of the Grecian gods which eventually contrituted three useful words to the English language. Echo, daughter of air and earth, was an attendant on Gera, queen of the heavens. She happened to offend her mistress, however, and for punishment was deprived of all spech save the power to repeat such word echo. In spite of her handicap, she fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful youth Narcissus, son of a river god, but he spurned her love and as a result Echo faded away until only her bone and her voice were left. In order to punish Narcissus for his crime Nemeses, goddess of vengence, made the youth fall in love with his own reflection in the waters of a fountain; and since such love as this could never be consummated, Narcissus pined away and finally changed into a flower.So from this we have our word echo, the Freudian term narcissism, and narcissus itself, with its handsome and usually white or yellow flowers.

NASTURTIUM

The pungent smell of these flowers caused them to be nicknamed “nose-twisters ” by the ancients. You see, the word nasturtium was made up of the Latin words nasus, “nose,” and torqueo, “twist.” It was the Roman naturalist Pliny who said, in the 1st century, that this flower “received its name from tormenting the nose.” And if you chew one of the seeds the bitter taste will make the meaning of the name more obvious.

ORCHID

The lovely and expensive orchid holds in its name the Greek word for “testicle,” orchis. Even Pliny the Elder, Roman author and naturalist, said,these 2,000 years ago, that the orchid was remarkable in that, with its double roots, it resembles the testicles. These are his Latin words:”

Mirabilis est orchis herba, sive serapias, gemina radice testiculis simili.” The word orchis now survives in English only as a botanical and medical term. The meaning proper has disappeared along with the study of Greek from the general ken.

PANSY

Some poetic mind fancied that this dainty flower had a thoughtful face, and so named it pensee, French for “thoughtful,” which turned easily into our word pansy.

PASSION FLOWER

So named because its parts resemble the instruments of Christ’s passion. The corona is the crown of thorns; the flower, the nails or wounds. The five sepals and five petals are the ten apostles. Peter and Judas were not counted.

PEONY

These striking, heavy-headed plants so characteristic of early summer wereonce widely used in medicine so they were named after Paion, a personage of Greek mythology who was the physician of the gods.

PETUNIA

The botanists saw a resemblance between this small tropical plant with its white and violet flowers and the tobacco plant so they took the American Indian word petun, “tobacco,” and put a Latin sounding ”ia” on the end.

PHILODENDRON

A tropical Amirican plant that likes to climb trees, among other things, and so takes its name from the Greek philodendros, from philos, “loving,” and dendron, ”tree,” that is, a “tree-loving plant.”

PHLOX

The solid and variegated colors of the phlox glow like flames. Why shouldn’t they, since phlox, in Greek, means “flame”?

POINSETTIA

The Honorable Joel Roberts Poinsett of Charleston, South Carolina, was adistinguished diplomat, Secretary of War in President Martin Van Buren’s cabinet, author, congressman, authority on military science, Union leader in the Civil War, but for all that he would probably gave been forgotten had he not been appointed as a special minister to Mexico. It was while there that he became attracted to the large, flaming flowers that we now know so well. He brought some of the plants back to the States and his name Poinsett gave us poinsettia. RHODODENDRON

A rose tree,from the Greek rhodon, “rose,” and dendron, ”tree.”

SALVIA

The oldsters knew something of the mystical healing powers of sage tea. This idea is contained in the Latin name salvia, which is from salvus, meaning “sound” or “in good health.” In Old French this same Latin word became sauge which eventually gave us sage. But the scarlet

variety of sage is an ornamentai plant, and it retains its stylish Latin name of salvia. SCABIOSA

A thoroughly unromantic Latin name, a derivation of scabies , “the itch,” from scabo, ”scratch,” which is what you do when you have the itch. The plant was called this because it used to be thought of as a cure for certain skin diseases.

SHAMROCK

From the Irish seamrog, the diminutive of seamar which means “clover.” Therefore the shamrock is a “little clover.” The plant was used by St.Patrick to illustrate the Trinity because of its three leaves, and it became his symbol. It is for this reason that it comes in order on St.Patrick ’s day “to drown the shamrock” by way of a drinking celebration.

SYRINGA

This ornamental shrub with its sweet-scented white flowers got its name from the Greek syrinx, syringes, which meant “reed.” This name is said to have been chosen because the stems of the plant were used a good deal in the manufacture of pipes.

TRILLIUM

This flower of many colors with its whorl of three green leaves derives its name from the Latin tri-, which means “three.”

TULIP

Again among the descriptive names is the tulip which, with its showy colors and velvet texture, has somewhat the appearance of a turban. The word comes to us through the obsolete French word tulipan, from tulbend, the Turkish way of saying”turban.”

VERBENA

To us the verbena is a fragrant perennial with spikes of broad flat clusters of white, red, and lilac flowers, but to the Romans the word verbena meant “sacred bough” and applied to the sacred boughs of myrtle, cypress, and what-not carried by the heralds who declared war, demanded redress for wrongs, grievances, and all.

WISTERIA

A high-climbing shrub with flowers that run the gamut of white, pink, and violet, a plant that is especially popular in Japan and in the southern United States. It also grows in the northern states, but southerners usually refuse to recognize this fact. These flowers were named wisteria in 1818 for Caspar Wistar who was one-time professor of “anatomy, midwifery, and surgery” at what was then the College of Pennsylvania.

ZINNIA

A plant, with striking, highly colored, but rather coarse blooms. Native toMexico and the Southwest, but for some reason adopted as the state flower of Indiana. The name zinnia comes from that of J.G.Zinn, an obscure 18th-century German botanist who seems to have no other claim to fame than this.

5. Word Stories About Your Dining Table

BREAD: merely a fragment

If you had gone into an English bakery around 700 A.D. and had asked for a loaf then meant bread, and their word bread meant “a little piece,” “a fragment.” So when you spoke of a loaf of bread, the clerk would have understood you to have said “a bread of fragments,” than which nothing could have sounded sillier. Finally, however, bread came to mean “a piece of bread;” later “broken bread;” and in the end bread and loaf took on their present meanings.

CANDY: broken bits

Until quite recent times we said, not just candy but sugar candy, and the derivation of these words indicates that our confection must have always been on the hard side for candy is ultimately from the Sanskrit khanda which meant a piece of something, or lump sugar. These two words sarkara khanda are represented in Italian to form zucchero candi, our familiar sugar candy.

CAROUSE: bottoms up

Sometimes a party that starts innocently and pleasantly will end in a wild carouse. When we pronounce this word carouse, we are coming as near as we can to saying gar aus which is the German word for “completely finished.” When a celebrant is drinking in a tavern and his glass is gar aus, or “completely finished,” it is empty, and if it is gar aus too often he is starting to carouse. And when we drink we are usually hob-nobbing with other people, that is, we are chatting socially and being convivial. But in the 12th century when the English cried habban-nabban they were saying “have”-- “have not,” which was a sort of take or leave it invitation to a drink.

CEREAL: named for a goddess

When you are eating your morning cereal, you are paying a small tribute to an ancient goddess. In 496 B.C. the Roman countryside was cursed by a terrible drouth. The priests of the day turned to the Sibylline oracle for help. As a result of this divine consultation. The priests reported that a new goddess, Ceres, must be adopted, and they recommended that immediate sacrifices be made to her so that she would bring rain to the land. In the end, Ceres became the protector of the crops. The caretakers of her temple were the overseers of the grain market, which, however, the goddess controlled since it was her influence that determined the harvest, and to insure a good harvest the first cuttings of the corn were always sacrificed to her. The Latin adjective cerealis, which meant “of Ceres,” gave us our word cereal. CHARTREUSE: from a monastery’s name

The name derives from La Grande Chartreuse, an old Carthusian monastery, where this cordial was originally made. In the early 17th century the Marechal d’Estréss gave the monks a recipe

for the liqueur which consisted of fine herbs and brandy. But in 1880 the Order was expelled from France and they set up their distillery in Spain at Terragona. Connoisseurs claim that the cordial is not right now because the herbs are gathered in an alien spot. It is reported that the monks are using legal action to get back to their original spot so that the cognoscenti can have their chartreuse with the right flavor.

CHOWDER: named after a pot

In the little villages of Brittany, on the north coast of France, it has long been the custom for each fisherman to toss a bit of his catch into a common mess of fish and biscuit that cooks in a community pot or chaudière. This dish was so good that its fame spread to Newfoundland and so to the east coast of the United States, and the name of the pot was soon applied to the contents, and the spelling chaudière was restyled as chowder.

COFFEE: decoction of berries

It is said that back somewhere in the year 850, a goatherd named Kaldi became puzzled at the strange way his flock was acting. He noticed that they were nibbling on certain berries, so he decided to try the berries himself. He did, and was so excited at the feeling of exhilaration he got that he rushed off to tell the other goatherds about the bush. The Arabs soon learned how to dry and boil the berries, and they called the brew qahwe. Its use immediately stirred up a great ruction among the orthodox Mohammedans.Some of the faithful drank their qahwe to keep awake during the interminable religious services,but for that reason others thought that qahwe should be barred as an intoxicant.Turkey took up the brew qahwe,and this gave France her cafe,hence our word coffee.

COGNAC:named for a town

When guess sip their after dinner cognac,they are tasting a liquor that has been in the world for more than 400 years.The name cognac is short for Eau de Vie de Cognac,“water of life of Cognac,”a town in southwest France where brandy-marking is the main industry.It was a Dutchman who discovered brandy they say,a sharp businessman who was worried because more grape-wine was being produced in Cognac than they could ship out.Sohe thought if he distilled the water from the wine there would be less bulk and more of the product could be transported. The idea was that the customer could pour the water back in when he received the stuff.It was a good idea at that,but for some reason it didn＇t work.Brandy as we know it seems to havebeen introduced into France from Italy at the time Henry,then Duke of

Ⅱ

Orleans,married Catherine de Medici.This was in 1533,and soon after cognac became one of the most famous Frence brandies.

COLLATION:began with the monks

In the Benedictine monasteries the monks used to gather in the evening and read aloud from the Collations,or lives of the saints.Then they would talk about these things and eat a light meal the while .Later this came to be called a collation,or a light meal that was eaten on fast days in place of supper.Finally in later days,and with the laity,it was used to mean a meal,and

sometimes an elaborate one.

COOK:just means cook

The word cook itself holds little inerest for us.It traces back to the Latin word cocus or coquus,from coquo,“cook.”But the derivatives from it may be worth our attention.A biscuit,for instance,is “twice-cooked”or“baked”out of the French bis, “twice,”andcuit,“cooked,”which is similar to “zwieback,”from the German zwie,“twice,”and backen,“bake.”If you should concoct

a story or a soup,you cook the ingredients together(Latin con-,“together”)until you＇ve made up

a good one.Both of the words kitchen and cake come by different routes from coquo. CORDIAL:close to the heart

Should you ever in your life have sipped a cordial,it warmed your heart,didn＇t it? And it properly should,for the word cordial comes from the Latin term cor,cordis,“heart.”Likewise a cordialhandshake is a “hearty”handshake.When we are in accord(Latin ac-,“to”)with a neighbor,our “hearts”and minds are in harmony.But should there be discord(dis-,“awayuote ),our hears and minds are apart.A man of courage is a man of “heart,”for courage comes to us though French from the Latin cor.Again,the record that is kept divides into re-,“again,”and cor,cordis,“heart,”because in former times,when writing was not such a simple art,the records were often passed on by word of mouth and had to be leaned by“heart.”

DATE:like a finger

The fruit of the date palm was once thought toresemble the human finger,and hence our word date comes ultimately from dactylus,the Latin term for“finger.”As all Bible readers know, the date palm was common in the Mediterranean region long ago.Its introduction into America was due to the efforts of Spanish missionaries in the 18th century who started seedlings in Mexico and elsewhere.

DISTILL:drop at a time

When a substance is distilled it is vaporized in a retort,passed into a receiver,and condensed drop by drop.The Latin term distillo suggests this process when we split the word up into de,“down,”and stilla,a“drop.”And when we instill the young with wisdom,that,too, is poured“into”their minds“drop bydrop.”

EGGS BENEDICT:resulted from a hangover

In the year1894 a certain Samuel Benedict,man-about-town and member of New York＇s cafe society,came into the old Wal-dorf-Astoria on 34th Street with a wicked hangover.He knew precisely what he wanted for his breakfast.He ordered bacon butter toast,twopoached eggs,and

a hooker of hollandaise.Oscar,famous maitre d＇hotel ofthe Waldorf was impressed with the dish,and put ham and a toasted English muffin in place of the bacon and toast,and christened the whole affair Eggs Benedict in honor of the genial rake.

EPICURE:should be moderate

If you are a lover of good food and wine and if you take a fastidious and sensuous delight in

your pleasures,it would be correct to call you an epicure,although the use of the word in this sense is a gross slander on the hight in your pleasure,it would be correct to call you an epicure,although the use of the word in this sense is a gross slander on the original Epicureans.TheGreek philosopher,Epicrueans, taught moderation in all things.Pleasure,he advised,is acertain quota of pain,and so he instructed his pupils in temperance.When the English-speaking people took over the word,however,they seized upon the single idea of“pleasureand”and now the words epicure and epicurus and his followers so deplored. GOUT:just a drop

This disease,down through the years,has been the honored ailment of oldgentlemen who lived high and drank large quantities of port after dinner.There may now be a medical doubt about the cause,as today gout is ranked under the vague and general term of rheumatism.But,be that as it may,gout goes back thourgh Frech to the Latin gutta,"drop." The notion was that morid matter"dropped"from the blood and settled about the joints,and so caused them to swell and become painful.In the 19th century folks had gout stools that were made to hold one foot. GRAPE: a hook for gathering fruit

The original Old English word for this was winberige form the Germanic win,"vine,"and berige,"berry";literally,"berry of the vine." But in the 11th century William of Normandy conquered England and with his victory the fancier Frech words came in at a great pace.It is true that the humble farmer went on saying winberige,but his lords were now saying grappe,which really meant a cluster of fruit growing together,and this latter word ultimately comes form grape,the vine hook with which they gathered the grapes.By this route the word grape came to us,and also the lusty word grapple that you use when you grapple with a problem.

HERMETICALLY: a god-given name

When a housewife hermetically seals her jars of preserves,she would hardly guess that she was dealing with the magic of a Greek God. Hermes,an Olympian god, was a messenger like the Roman god Mercury,a god of magic,alchemy,and the occult.Our word hermetically is formed form the name of Hermes,possibly because the process of sealing wounds or jars hermetically seems to have to do with the mystic and magical powers of the gods.

INTOXICATE:poisoned arrows

The modern meaning of this word came about in a simple and logical fashion.The Greek word toxon meant"bow."The poison with which the soldiers tipped their arrows was calld toxikon(pharmakon) which led to the Latin toxikum,a more general word covering any poison.We then turn to the late Latin intoxicatus from the verb intoxico,"poison,"the base of our word intoxicale.And so we have taken a trip down through the centuries from the Greek warrior who poisoned his arrows to the intoxicated chap who says,"Name your poison!" Of course in our medical word toxic we have retained the ancient meaning.

JULEP:merely rose-water

Here is a name poetic as a Kentucky colonel. The origin lies in the Arabic word julab which meant"rose-water."This innocent potion became alcoholic in the good old U.S.A.As early as 1787 records show that the landlords of Virginia started the day at six in the morning with a julep as an eyeopener.

JUNKET:originally a basket

We have here a strange tie-up between a rush basket and the pleasure junket that a group of congressmen take,we'll say, to the Philippines, and the junket that we feed to children.In old France the custard that was made there of"cream,rose water,and sugar"was taken to market in the jonquette,or basket of rushes,and this custard soon took on the name of the basket in which it was carried and was respelled junket.These baskets suggested a picnic and the junkets the congressmen go on certainly have the character of a picnic,and received their name because of this.So there we are,except that this all stems from the juncus of the Romans which was their word for "rush."

LUNCHEON:a lump of food

The origin of this common word is so old that it has become somewhat clouded.Lunch first meant"a lump"and lunshin,an English dialect word,meant"a lump of food."But there also existed the dialect word nonschench which splits into anon,"noon,"and schench,"a drink."High authorities claim that these two words nonschench and lunshin blended to form the word luncheon which could then roughly mean"a lump of food with a noon drink." Of course,when you have breakfast,you merely"break the fast."Dinner is from the French diner,"to dine,"and supper is"to sup,"which is really to "sip"either food or drink.And a morsel is a"little bite"since it comes from the Latin term morsum,"bitten."

MANHATTAN:origin unknown

Of course the name Manhattan,whether applied to the drink or the city,belonged to the tribe of Indians who originally inhabited Manhattan Island.The Manhattan cocktail came into vogue toward the end of the last century,and the year 1894 is the earliest recorded use of the name,but as yet there is no further explanation of the origin.The history of the martini is equally obscure.

NAPKIN: first a little tablecloch

The tiny paper napkins that we use at times would never have done in the old days when knives,and spoons were limited,or nonexixtent.Then you needed a tremendous linen square to mop up with.These enormous napkins were a sign of elegance long after flat sliver came in,and even in the 1890's large napkins were an important part of any top-drawer dinner.We have the word napery now for table linen,and in this term is buried another word,nape,which once meant tablecloth.In our language when we say napkin we mean a little nape,which is an Old French word,and so "a little tablecloth."In Old French the derivative of nape was naperon.This was borrowed into Middle English as naperon and an apron was first called a napron,but by error

the initial n became joined to the a and an apron took the place of a napron.In similar fashion the snake,an adder,used to be called"a nadder."And all of this finally derives from the Latin word mappa which also meant napkin or"cloth."

OMELETTE:originally a thin blade

The history of this word is just as mixed up as a modern omelette.The term came to us by a series of absurd blunders.The Latin word lamella,"a thin plate,"entered French as la melle,and later the word was reinterpreted as l'alemelle.But the French already had a word alemette which meant the thin blade of a sword,and before we know it l'alemelle is being spelled l'alemette,and later on,omelette.So,if you have followed through this labyrinth,you will see that an omelette is really a thin blade and has practically nothing to do with eggs.And while on the subject of omelette the word yolk comes quite understandably form its color.It is a derivative of the Middle English word yolke through Old English geolca,from geolu,"yellow."

ONION:related to a pearl

In Latin there is a word union which is translated as "oneness"or"union".The word onion is derived form this Latin term.It rates its name because it consists of a number of united layers.There is also another interesting analogy between union and onion.The rustics about Rome not only used the word unio to mean onion,but they also thought it a suitable desigation for a pearl.And even today a cook will speak of "pearl onions"when she means the small,slivery-white variety.

ORGY:meant secret rites

Dionysius was a god and giver of the grape and the wine.The grateful Greek held night festivals in his honor,and these often turned into drunken parties where the boys and girls danced and sang and violated all the sex laws.The Greek called

6. Political Terms and Their Origins

BALLOT: why we “cast” a ballot

The ballot we cast and the bullet we shoot were both balls at the beginning, but are descended from widely different parents. Bullet comes down to us through the French boulette, “a small ball,” from the Latin bulla, a “bubble,” “boss,” or “stud,” while ballot traces to the Italian ballota. “a little ball,” a word of Germanic origin. With us a ballot is sheet of paper we put a cross on and drop in a box on election day, unless we are dealing with voting machines. But the ancient Greek dropped a white ball of stone or metal or shell in a container when he favored a candidate, a black ball when he was against-which explains why the undesirable are still “blackballed” in our clubs. The ball we throw and bat around in our games has a closely related parentage as it comes from the same Germanic source as the Italian ballotta.

BALLYHOO: from county cork, Ireland

When you raise a lot of ballyhoo you are making a general fuss and pother. This all is thought to have grown out of a village called Ballyhooly, that lies east of Mallow in Cork County, Ireland. As the congressional Record of March, 1934, says: “The residents engage in most strenuous debate, a debate that is without equal in the annals of parliamentary, or ordinary discussion, and from the violence of these debates has sprung forth a word known in the English language as ballyhoo.”

BRIBE: a piece of bread

Many of the words that concern themselves with the idea of companionship or conciliation (including these two words themselves) have to do with the sharing of food. Bribe is such a word. In modern French, and in the plural, bribes means bits, odds, ends, and leavings, but in Old French it meant a lump of bread, or, as an olden-time author said: “A peece, lumpe or cantill of bread given unto a beggar.” The development of bribe seems to have been along the following lines: first a piece of bread, then begging, then living by beggary, then theft, and finally blackmail and bribery in the modern sense.

BUNK: a speech for Buncombe County

Around the year 1820 a debate was in progress in the House of Representatives on the complicated question of the Missouri Compromise. In the middle of the discussion a member from Buncombe County, North Carolina, arose and started a long, dull, and completely irrelevant talk. Many members walked out. Others called for the question. Finally the speaker apologized with the now famous statement: “I’m talking for buncombe,” which meant, of course, for his constituents in Buncombe which was a county in his district. According to the Niles’ Weekly Register, published in Philadelphia from 1811 to 1849, the phrase “talking to (or for) Bunkum” was well-known in 1828. We clipped the word to bunk, which now means

inflated and empty speech or pretentious humbuggery. A colorful and expressive derivative of this word is debunk which came into use in the early 1920’s. The debunkers were first a school of historians in the years between Wars I and II who were popular for the straightforward and outspoken ways in which they stripped some of our heroic figures.

CANDIDATE: clad in white

When a Roman politician went campaigning he took care that his toga was immaculately white so that he could make the best impression possible. The Latin word candidates first simply meant “a person dressed in white” but later it took on the meaning that our word candidate has, a seeker after office. The root of candidates can be recognized in our word incandescent which means “white and glowing” and in candid, for a candid person, in the figurative sense is white and pure, and therefore frank and honest.

CARTEL: originally a chart

Here is a word that has gone through dramatic changes of meaning. It originated in the Latin term charta which meant “paper” and gave us our English word chart. A cartel was originally a written challenge to a fight. Then later it meant a libelous statement in writing. By the 17th century it was an agreement concerning the exchange of prisoners in a war. And now it has the dignified meaning of “an agreement in restraint of trade,” or one of those international combines that makes such an agreement about the fixing of prices and output.

FASCISM: based on a bundle

If you will look on the back of the American dime, you will see the mark of the Fascist. The term Fascism comes from the Italian Fascismo and this in turn is built on the Latin fascis which meant a bundle, usually a bundle of sticks or rods. This bundle, with the ax protruding, was the symbol of official power that was carried before all Roman magistrates. Benito Mussolini resurrected it ofr his own use.

FILIBUSTER: once a freebooter

The buccaneers who infested the West Indies and the SpanishAmerican Coast in the 17th century were called filibusters and freebooters. The word freebooter come from the Danish vrijbuiter, vrij, “free,” and buit, “booty,” but vrijbuiter gave us another word by another route. It passed into French as filibuster, then into Spanish as filibustero, and so into English as filibuster. The word came to mean anyone who waged an irregular sort of warfare for his own gain. And now a filibuster is conducted by a sometimes irregular sort of congressman who speaks interminably to delay legislation.

GERRYMANDER: child of a salamander

Coined around 1812 and infrequently used except in politics. At that time the Massachusetts legislature ingeniously contrived to rearrange the shape of Essex County so as the better to control elections. When they got through with their redistribution it was noticed that this county resembled a salamander. The governor of the state at that time was Elbridge Gerry and a smart newspaper editor used his surname and the last half of salamander to create gerrymander. Such

a redistribution of boundaries today for the purposes of political advantages is still called gerrymandering.

GOVERNOR: he directed a ship

When we speak of the “ship of state” we are more accurate than we know, for to the Greeks their word kybernao meant to “direct a ship” and, also, even in those days it had the figurative meaning to “direct the ship of state.” Kybernao isn’t too far in sound from governor. The Romans borrowed the word as guberno, passed it on to the French; then it crossed the channel to England as governor. The president of the United States, however, is actually a presiding officer, for the word president comes from the Latin praesideo, “sit in front of” or “protect”; and the Premier of England should really be the first and topmost citizen of his country because Premier is from the Latin word primaries which means “belonging to the first rank.” The Czar is another story, for it traces back to the old Slavic word cesare which obviously owes its beginning to Caesar, the name of the Roman emperors. The title Tsar was first used in Russia in the 15th century and was adopted as his official title by Ivan the Terrible in 1547. INAUGURATE: they studied the birds first

In modern days when we inaugurate a president, we induct him into office with solemn and suitable ceremonies. But in olden times such important affairs were not left to chance. The Latin Word inauguratus splits up into in-, “in”, and augur, “diviner.” The augurs and prophets of those days studied the flights and habits of birds, and from their findings told the emperors and governors what the future held in store. And the advice of the soothsayers was usually followed. The Emperor Claudius, however, became impatient during the Punic Wars. When the sacred birds refused to come out of their cage, he tossed them into the sea, declaring: “If they won’t eat, they must drink.” In modern days our presidents and governors receive no help from the diviners when they are inaugurated and are forced to take their own chances.

LOBBY: began as an arbor

The word lobby that describes the operations of the political pressure groups in Washington shows us that some words have moved from German to Latin to English. We are wont to believe that Latin is always original in its contributions. In Old High German lauba meant a shelter of foliage. This term entered the Latin of the Middle Ages as lobia and in the 16th century was adopted by English as lobby, “a cover ed walk,” which meaning was modified to a “passage” or “anteroom.” In 1640 it was first applied to the anteroom of the House of Commons, and here the lobby began and the lobbyist went to work.

MACHIAVELLIAN: from a stateman’s name

In the days of the wicked Lucrezia Borgia, there lived a famous statesman and diplomat by the name of Niccola Machiavelli. Even the characteristics of his face and manner suggested his practices. He was thin-lipped, with an aquiline nose; his was vulgar in his humor, feverishly active in his ways, and acidly sarcastic. Machiavelli had a mind that was startling in its brilliance and keen in its analytical powers, and he was thought of as “the idea man” for the

politicians of early 16th-century Florence. In time he lost favor with the ruling Medici family. For this reason he was forced to stop his active practice of politics, and started to write down his theories about them instead. Through his book Il principe he has become known as the founder of political science. Unfair critics have maligned him, claiming that he believed a ruler to be justified in using any means, no matter how unscrupulous., to maintain his power. For this reason a machiavellian policy now means a policy of craft, cunning, and bad faith. MUGWUMP: great man

In 1884 there was a split in the Republican party, and a large number of members refused to support James G. Blaine for president. They were accused by the regulars of assuming a superior attitude and such epithets as “Pharisees” and mugwumps were hurled at them. Apparently mugwump, or mugquomp as it was spelled in one of the Massachusetts dialects, was an Algonquian Indian word meaning “great man” or even “chief.” Today the word is applied to anyone who takes a position independent of “the party line.” Albert J. Engel is reported to have said in the House of Representatives in April, 1936, that a mugwump has “his mug on one side of the political fence and his wump on the other,” although this joke is thought to be older than Engel.

PLATFORM: it’s flat

In French plat means “flat,” so a platform is really a “flat-form.” Since the 1800’s the word platform, in the political argot of the United States, has signified the basis of a party’s appeal to the public. The party leaders carry on endless arguments about the “planks” that are to be put in the platform, and these “planks” take us right back to the broad pieces of sawed lumber that make up the familiar speaker’s platform.

POLL: first a human head

Poll is a term that has a meaning quite different from the one it began with. In Middle English the word was spelled polle and meant “head,” or more particularly, the “top of the head,” for that was the part of a person that could be seen above the crowd when a count of “heads” was being taken. In this way the word came to mean the registering of votes. A poll tax, of course, is a “head” tax.

PROTOCOL: first concerned glue

We are familiar with the sharp protocol of diplomacy that determines what official shall call on whom first, and where the ambassador’s wife shall sit at a formal dinner party. The word protocol itself travels back finally to the Greek term protokollon. Which was the first leaf glued to the front of a manuscript with an index of the contents written on it. The elements of the word are protos, “first,” and kolla, “glue.” Our word protocol from which an official treaty or document was eventually drawn. Then the meaning was extended to the rules of etiquette of the diplomatic corps and others.

RADICAL: to the root of things

This word now is not much more than a general term of abuse, although it started off

innocently enough. It comes directly from the Latin radicalis from radix, “root.” This same word radix gave us the name of our homely vegetable the radish which is nothing more than an edible “root.” Therefore a radical, essentially, is merely a person who likes to go to the “root” of a matter. In its original sense, radical meant “fundamental” or “primary.” But around the end of the 18th century, a group of English politicos came to be known as radical reformers because they wanted to go right to the root of things and revamp the existing political set-up. No one called them “reds,” however, because their special badge happened to be a white hat. They were soon a hated crew, for folks don’t like change, and the word radical eventually became a name of low reproach.

SENATE: a group of old men

Our sometime comment about the “nine old men” of the Supreme Court indicates that our young nation doesn’t look upon old age with as much respect as the Romans did. For their word senatus, “senate,” derived from the Latin senex, “an old man,” and their senate, thus, was a revered council of elders. We Americans are more apt to look upon old age as senile, which also is a derivative of senex.

TAMMANY: an Indian saint

Tammany Hall was founded in New York City as a private social club in 1789. It was said to have been sharpened into a political weapon by Aaron Burr, and with its new power practically swung the political election to Thomas Jefferson. People were indignant and complained about a private club playing politics. So Tammany split up. One half took out a charter as a social and benevolent outfit, bought a meeting-place called “The Hall,” and rented the space to the other and political half. They borrowed the name for their association from a Delaware Indian chief of the 17th to 18th centuries called Tammany or Taminy. Chief Tammany was described as a friend of George Washington, and may have been the Indian with whom William Penn had his famous negotiations for the land which became Penn’s woods, or Pennsylvania. Later on the Delaware chief was facetiously canonized as the patron saint of the republic, and so for more than 160 years New York City has often been ruled by the loyal Sons of Saint Tammany.

7. War Words and Their Histories

ADMIRAL:a Saracen chief

Originally an admiral was an amir, or a Saracen chief. The amir-al-bahr was commander of the sea.Amir,"commander," al,"the ,"bahr,"sea."This was his official title in the early days of Spain and Sicily.The first tow parts of the Arabic word were taken into French as amiral which was later reinterpreted as admiral due to the equivalence of Old French a-and Latin ad-.This word passed into English and was associated with the navy as early as the 13th https://www.wendangku.net/doc/8f12647264.html,ter,a flagship was called the Admiral which led to the word's application in modern English to a sea commander.

ALARM: to arms'

If we are alarmed at any time, we should spring to arms for that is what the Italian cry all'arme meant.In later years the Italians combined the two word s into allarme and the meaning was extended from the military command itself to the emotion was fright that had been felt on hearing it shouted.Now,very often, alarm has only to do with the warning of the morning alarm clock.The word had even reached this low point at the time of Samuel Pepys who noted in his Diary on July 15,1665, after a hard day at the Exchequer:"And so to bed,to be up betimes by the helpe of a larum watch,which by chance I borrowed of my watchmaker today which my owne is mending."

AMNESTY:loss of memory

When a lawyer begs amnesty for his client, he is actually asking the judge to have and attack of amnesia.The first person in history to grant amnesty was reported to have been a Greek general who said that he would forgive his enemies and " not remember"(Greek a-,"not,"mnasthai,"to remember")their misdeeds.And from this we inherited our two English words, amnesia,"loss of memory ,"and amnesty ,"a pardon for offenses."

ANNOY:once a military term

In the 16th century the English had a Jury of Annoyances to deal with such public nuisances as the "slaughter of bestes within the cyte."The word annoy was much stronger then.An attacking enemy would "annoy a town."This term ternm traces back by changes of spelling to the Latin phrase in odio which meant "in hatred."The French took the Latin word over in the derived form enuier,"displease,"and from this term we inherited in English the tow words annoy and ennui,the fist meaning "to displease"and the second,"the act of being bored by unpleasantness,"or just boredom in general.Another useful English word comes from the same Latin parentage.The word could have been annoy-some but we reduced this to the less awkward word noisome,meaning"disgusting," "offensive,"which is the extremity of annoyance. BASIN:a soldier's helmet

You dont't have to tell a soldier that his helmet is often his only wsbasin or soup bowl. This word basin started in Roman days with the Late Latin term bachinus,"an eating lowl."In the Middle Ages, the knights of Charlemagne, king of the Franks wore cone-shaped metal caps or helmets.This word for this helmet was bacin, actually ,"a bowl for the head." Bacin slipped into English,then became basin. These words of ours proiferate, and before long we had bassinet or"little basin," that beriboned crib in which we put babies.

BESIEGE:sitting by a towm

This word traces through the Old French sieger,"to sit,"ultimately from the Latin sedeo,plus the English prefix be-, "by."When the enemy besieges a town,it sits by"it until somebody sives up.Or it used to ,at least,in the days before atomic fission.The Lation roots sed,sid ,and sess,form sedeo, came to us directly,without the changes incurred by passing through the French language.Therefore we have the session of Congress during which our legislators "sit";and those sedate paople who "sit"gravely in their chairs. Then there is the sediment that "sits" on the bottom and the sedentary jobs of the clerks.Or a nice, fat subsidy that lets you "sit" for the test of your life.

BOOTY:your share

The modern word booty comes from the Middke Low German word bute which meant a distribution or a sharing .When bute entered our language it began to mean booty as we understand it,something takenillegally and then sharedin the fashion of the pirates and freebooters of those days.Its spelling was influenced by the English word boot which meant profit or advantage. This we now use in such an expression as:"He sold him his camera and then gave him a couple of films to bot";that is , something besides, or in addition to,the article bough.But the word boot that applies to the covring that yu wear on your foot is merely a corruption of the Hindustani word lut,meaning "something plundered."

8. Terms of Science and the Professions

ACADEMY: named for a Greek farmer?

This is a pleasant story about a Greek farmer. It seems that a Spartan maiden, named Helen, was kidnapped by the legendary hero Theseus. Her twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, who are now in our heavens as two bright stars, searched for their sister without success until they met the farmer, Akademos, who seems to have given them some hint as to the whereabouts of the kidnapper and his victim. As a reward for his alertness the grove of Akademos was eternally watched over by the gods. It was in this grove that the great philosopher Plato held his classes. The grove was called Academeia, and for many years after his death his pupils and followers met in this same spot for their discussions. Plato never did verify the story of the farmer, but he gave us the word academy that now means a place of learning.

ALGEBRA: bone-setting

The ancients had to borrow a medical term to christen this branch of mathematics. They took the Arabic words al jebr, with the meanings al, “the,” and jebr, “reuniting what is broken.” Sometimes these words were used to mean “bone-setting.” Out of this they built a really impressive phrase for the new science, ilm al-jebr wa’l-mup-abalah, which meant “reduction and comparison by equations.” The Italians mercifully took the second and third words of this phrase and combined them to form algebra. Even as late as the 17th century the word algebra kept its original Arabic meaning and still referred to surgical treatment. For instance we read in the historian Halle: “This Araby worde Algebra sygnifyeth as well fractures of bones as sometime the restauration of the same.” But to the school-child today, it’s just a mathematical headache.

ANESTHESIA: no feeling

Sir Humphry Davy first accomplished artificial anesthesia in 1800 and in that period medical men would have had enough Greek to know that Plato used the word anaisthesia to mean “insensibility” from an-, “not,” and aesthesis, “feeling.”

CHEMISTRY: a search for gold

The early alchemists spent most lf their time trying to find a way to turn baser metals into gold; and atomic fission is showing Us that they weren’t as stupid as we thought . When the Arabs invaded Europe , they brought with them the idea for their type of research and also introduced the name of it , al-kimia , which eventually became alchemy . The word chemist was coined by shortening alchemist , and the term chemistry followed .

DEAN: he led ten

The dean of your university is a descendant of the Roman decanus who was a commander of a division of ten . Late on this became a church term and was the title of the ecclesiastic who was

at the head of ten monks in a monastery . By the time the colleges borrowed the title decanus , it was spelled dean , and now he can be the head of as many as he wants . Decanus is derived from decem , the Latin word for ‘ten’ .

DISSECT: cut it apart

When a biologist dissects a frog he dis-, ‘apart,’ and seco , ‘cut,’ or ‘cuts’ it ‘apart .’ In geometry we bisect a circle ,or ‘cut’ it in ‘two .’ A road that intersects another ‘cuts’ ‘in between .’ And a section is something ‘cut off .’

ELECTRICITY: the beaming sun

The Greeks knew that when you rubbed amber, it would become magnetic and begin to draw feathers and strings and other light objects to it. Little more than this was known about electricity until comparatively recent times. The ancients used to make love amulets out of amber, and guaranteed that the wearing of one would attract a lover . Since friction can make amber give off sparks , the Greeks named it electron , from elektor, ‘the beaming sun.’ This word into Latin as electrum, was turned into the adjective electritcus, whence our electric and electricity.

ELIXIR: of magic powers

With us an elixir is usually a panacea or life-giving potion, as: ‘The book is full of a veritable elixir of spiritual vitality.’ In the earliest days, Eastern alchemists continually tried to turn base metals into gold.There was an imaginary substance that they thought would do the trick, and they called it al-iksir, literally ‘the dry power.’ This entered Medieval Latin as elixir,still a word of magic, for in medieval times the boys were looking for an elixir vitae or ‘elixir of life’ that would bring eternal youth . Ponce de Leon sought the elixir in Florida , and Faust searched for this imaginary cordial in his laboratory . Even today elixir retains a magic meaning . ENTOMOLOGY: cut up

This is the branch of zoology that treats of insects. The word is based on the Greek entomos which means ‘cut up.’ If we examine an ant or a similar insect, we will see that their bodies are indented and appear to be ‘cut up’ in to sections. The word ‘insect’ from the Latin insectum, ‘cut up,’ is simply a Roman rendering of the Greek idea.

INOCULATE: a gardening term

When the doctor inoculates you, he ‘plants’ in your body a small seedling of the virus or germ that causes the disease in order to make your immune to attack. But at first the word inoculate was a purely horticultural term and meant to insert an eye or bud in a plant for propagation. It came form the Latin in, ‘into,’ and oculus, ‘eye.’ Its present use dates form the time of the first inoculate against smallpox.

LAW: something laid down

When we lay down the law to someone, we are almost saying the same thing twice over. In the early days of our language law was spelled lagu in the pural and lagu is so closelyrelated to the word ‘lay’ we can safely say the law was something ‘laid down.’ A statute, on the other hand ,is

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