{"id":759,"date":"2012-02-15T00:41:07","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T00:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2012-06-15T16:47:21","modified_gmt":"2012-06-15T15:47:21","slug":"rules-of-the-etymology-playground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"Rules of the Etymology Playground"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Linguists in academia don\u2019t seem very fond of word origins. They like to focus on the tiny phonological bits of languages [p,t,k] or the grand syntactic structure that binds sentences together. Somehow, the very juicy goodness of language, <strong>the words<\/strong>, are either too big or too small to care about. BOO. I<strong> love<\/strong> word origins. I don\u2019t know how important they are, but I want to spend all my time paying attention to them. <em>But!<\/em> Before we have fun, there are some ground rules that we need to agree on before we can safely and happily play together in the sandbox of word origins. This is our first negotiation on this subject, this should continue as a dialogue (probably in the comments). I&#8217;ll start: Here are 3 rules to counteract misconceptions I often encounter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><strong>The origin of a word is not the true or right meaning, just the literal one.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WRONG: \u201cThe true meaning of hippopotamus is river horse.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>RIGHT: \u201cThe literal meaning of hippopotamus is river horse,\u00a0 how cute is that? You can see these word-parts in other words you already know. Meso<em>potamia<\/em> is the land between rivers, and a <em>hippo<\/em>griff is made of a horse and an eagle.\u201d <em>(See <a href=\"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/?p=160\">Best Monday Comic Ever<\/a>)<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><strong><!--more-->2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><strong>The literal meaning of a word is interesting, but should not affect the modern usage negatively.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WRONG: &#8220;Don\u2019t use the word podium when you mean lectern. Podium literally means place where your feet stand so if you\u2019re not standing on it, it can\u2019t be a podium.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>RIGHT: \u201cThe &#8216;pod&#8217; in &#8216;podium&#8217; literally refers to your feet, the same root as pedestrian and podiatry, but the use of this term has expanded to include any speaking station one stands behind, like a lectern.\u201d (Sorry, mom)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>3. Don\u2019t fall for folk etymology<\/strong>. \u00a0Folk etymology is a false story about the history of a word with no evidence. Based on a shallow information, someone invents a story in their head, (rarely for malicious reasons), and it catches on as bland trivia in mass emails and causes people to think they know things, and makes them break rules 1 and 2. <em>Do not feed the folk etymology trolls.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WRONG: \u201cI used to use rule of thumb before I learned it refers to how thick the stick could be to beat your wife. You should stop using it too. Misogyny is bad.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>RIGHT: \u201cThe origin of rule of thumb is unclear, but probably dates back to a time when body parts were useful units of measurement. You might want to avoid using the term, because many fools believe it has to do with domestic abuse and will try to talk to you about it which gets very dull. Misogyny <strong>is<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/linguisticali.blogspot.com\/2012\/01\/letter-to-almost-teenage-boy.html\">bad<\/a>, but is not relevant to this idiom.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now that those pitfalls have been identified, we can immerse our ticklish toes in the sandbox and play on&#8230; and studying word origins is more than play, it becomes useful bonus information in many scenarios. Etymology helps you win <a href=\"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/?p=228\">spelling bees<\/a>.\u00a0Etymology helps you make sense of SAT words.\u00a0Etymology can help you find cognates in other languages you are learning or at least trying read road signs in.\u00a0Etymology often uncovers a concrete object which has been abstracted into a grander concept. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Boustrophedonic<\/em> writing alternates the direction of the writing every line from left to right, then right to left. The \u2018boustro\u2019 in boustrophedonic literally means oxen. \u201cstrophe\u201d is the same root as \u2018apostrophe and catastrophe, which means \u2018to turn.\u201d The visual image of the turning of oxen evokes the plowing of a field, methodically zig zagging from one side to the other.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-760\" title=\"boustro\" src=\"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/boustro-300x190.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/boustro-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/boustro.jpg 523w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Knowing the component parts of a word makes the abstract meaning easier to remember, and turning a word into a story creates stronger and more satisfying connections in your mind, making you (me) more likely to use that word in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The history of words is worth studying. Have a good time, giggle about euphemisms, try on many language hats, I just ask that you play nicely in the sandbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Linguists in academia don\u2019t seem very fond of word origins. They like to focus on the tiny phonological bits of languages [p,t,k] or the grand syntactic structure that binds sentences together. Somehow, the very juicy goodness of language, the words, are either too big or too small to care about. BOO. I love word origins. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572,402,253,252,486,443,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career","category-english","category-etymology","category-etymonline","category-history-of-language","category-morphemes","category-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tankhughes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}