Manser Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-4264-4
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Why do we describe something as 'A-1', 'a lame duck', or 'straight from the horse's mouth'? Why is someone's behaviour said to be 'beyond the pale'? What is the original meaning of the word 'treacle'? This book explores the intriguing origins and development of about 800 words and expressions in English. The story of the development of English provides an endless source of fascination not only for native speakers but also for students of English as a foreign or second language. I hope therefore that something of the rich heritage of the language will be discovered and enjoyed in these pages.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Manser, Martin

Leseproben

A

A-1

If something is A-1, it is in the best possible state. The term was originally an abbreviation in the Register of Shipping of the insurance company Lloyd’s of London and was used to describe ships in first-class condition. As the Register noted: ‘The character A denotes new ships, or ships renewed or restored. The stores of vessels are designated by the figures 1 and 2.’ So A-1 meant that the hull was in excellent condition, as was all the ship’s equipment.

A-1 is combined with OK to give A-OK. The term was first used by Colonel John A. (‘Shorty’) Powers, a public relations officer of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the splashdown of the first US suborbital flight in 1961. Powers was reporting the words of the US astronaut Alan B. Shepard that everything was working perfectly.

aardvark

An aardvark is an African mammal with a long snout that it uses to delve into termite mounds and eat their insect inhabitants: Aardvarks in the wild are usually only active at night. The word came into English from Afrikaans, the variety of Dutch spoken in South Africa, from aard, meaning ‘earth’ and vark, meaning ‘pig’ (essentially ‘earth-pig’). Although the first Europeans to observe the creature must have thought it resembled a pig in some ways, it is in fact related not to the swine family but to the armadillos. Another name for it is the ant-bear, which again shows the confusion it generated in the minds of strangers seeking for something familiar to compare it with.

aback (be taken aback)

Someone who is taken aback is very surprised or shocked, and has to stop for a moment. The expression comes from the language of sailing-ships. A ship was taken aback when a strong gust of wind suddenly blew the sails back against the mast, causing the ship to stop momentarily. Naturally the sailors were greatly surprised at the unexpected event – hence the modern meaning of the phrase.

abacus

In ancient Greece an abacus was a slab or tablet (Greek abax) covered with a thin layer of sand. Calculations were traced in the sand and could then be erased. Later, strings of pebbles (Latin calculus, pebble) were used for this purpose. Pebbles were moved backwards and forwards along grooves to make calculations. The wooden frame of beads on wires that we call an abacus probably originated in China more than 5000 years ago. See also CALCULATE.

abracadabra

The word abracadabra is used by magicians when they are performing conjuring tricks. The word goes back to the Greek abrasadabra, a ‘charm word’ used by members of the Basilides, a Gnostic sect, when seeking divine help. This word may in turn derive from abrasax, originally a charm or amulet made up of Greek letters, believed to have magical powers and, from the 2nd century AD, the deity worshipped by this Gnostic sect. The name contains the number 365, the number of heavens, and their spirits, that emanated from this deity.

An alternative explanation is that the word derives from the first letters of three Hebrew words: Ab, Father, Ben, Son, and Acadsch, Holy Spirit.

academy

This word is connected with teaching in various forms: it can mean a school that specializes in some way, such as a military academy or a driving academy; it is also used to denote a secondary school, such as Glasgow Academy, while the British Royal Academy is an organization originally founded as a school of painting. The origin of the term dates back to ancient Greece, where the philosopher Plato conducted his school of philosophy in a garden or grove of olive trees near Athens that was known as the Akademeia. An Academy Award is another name for one of the statuettes given annually for excellence in the movie industry by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, more popularly known as an Oscar®.

Achilles’ heel

An Achilles’ heel is a weakness, fault, or vulnerable spot in a person or thing that is otherwise strong: The party knows that its group of political extremists might well be its Achilles’ heel. The expression derives from Greek mythology, when Thetis, the mother of Achilles, dipped him into the River Styx to make him invulnerable. His one weak spot was the heel by which Thetis had held him during the dipping and which had not been touched by the water. It was during the siege of Troy that Achilles was mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow that was shot into his heel.

acid test

An acid test is a decisive way of proving whether something is true or valuable: The acid test is not whether consumers like our new product, but whether they will actually buy it. The expression derives from the use of nitric acid to prove whether a metal is gold or not. If the metal was not gold, the acid decomposed it, but if it was genuine, the gold remained undamaged.

add insult to injury

To add insult to injury is to offend someone further after one has already harmed him or her in some other way: To add insult to injury, only a small amount of money was offered as compensation. A version of this phrase originated in the fables of the Roman author Phaedrus (?15 BC–50 AD). He quoted a fable by Aesop in which a bald man swatted at a fly that had bitten him, missed the fly and hit himself on the head instead. The fly then comments, ‘You wanted to kill me for a mere touch. What will you do to yourself, now that you have added insult to injury?’ The phrase in English comes from the play The Foundling (1748) by the English author Edward Moore (1712–57): ‘This is adding insult to injuries.’

adder

In Middle English the viper now known as an adder was a naddre. The words a naddre were run together so that people thought that the words were an addre. The first sound of the original word naddre was wrongly attributed to the preceding indefinite article a. Other instances of this ‘wrong’ shortening include an apron, originally a napron – like our modern napkin – and an umpire, originally a noumpere. The reverse process has also taken place: a newt is a ‘wrong’ version of an ewt, a nickname a ‘wrong’ version of an ekename.

aegis (under the aegis)

If something is done under the aegis of a person or institution, it has their support or backing. The origin of this expression lies in Greek mythology. Aigis is the Greek word for goatskin, in this instance the skin of the goat Amalthaea that suckled the Greek god Zeus in his infancy. Later, the skin was used to cover the shield of Zeus, and since this shield represented the power of this supreme Greek god, someone who acted under his aegis enjoyed the security of divine protection.

agnostic

It is rare that the coining of a word can be exactly dated and attributed to one individual, but this is the case with the word agnostic. The word was created by the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95), who was a leading British exponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Huxley coined the word in 1869 when a member of the Metaphysical Society. He wanted a word to describe someone who would neither acknowledge nor reject the existence of a God, since he considered that such a matter could not be proved. Believing that nothing was knowable beyond the material, Huxley combined the Greek a (not) with gignoskein (to know) to give the word agnostic. In modern use the meaning of the word has changed slightly: an agnostic is someone who doubts the existence of God (rather than Huxley’s original sense of someone who believes that the existence of God is not knowable) or, more generally, someone who is sceptical about a certain matter.

agony

Agony, meaning extreme mental or physical pain, comes from Greek agonia, contest, particularly an athletic contest. Agonia itself comes from agon, the arena or stadium where the contests took place. Since each contest was a fight between competitors, the word agonia came to refer to any struggle and from this came the sense of mental anguish.

aisle

An aisle is the passageway between areas of seating in a church, theatre, etc. The 14th-century English word was originally ele, borrowed from French and ultimately from Latin ala, meaning a wing or the part on either side of the nave of the church. The spelling of the word in English became changed to aisle, however, through confusion with the English word isle, an island, and under the influence of French aile, wing, and allée, alley. The English word also acquired the additional sense of passageway.

alarm

Alarm is a feeling of fear caused by an awareness of danger (The radiation leak caused great alarm) and a device that gives a warning signal (sound the alarm). The word comes from the Italian all’arme, to arms!, the call to equip oneself with weapons in preparation for battle.

Amazon

In modern English usage, an Amazon means a particularly strong or powerful woman, and the term cannot shake off a certain pejorative, sexist taint, suggesting the oddity of such a person. The word comes from ancient...