Ever wonder where a word came from? Some words barely have an 100 year history, while some have over a thousand year history. Like most things, words have history as well. Here are some words I’m sure you’re familiar with and a brief summary about their origins.
TEMPURA
Origin: “Neither a native Japanese dish, nor a Japanese name. When the Portuguese arrived in the 17th century, the Japanese noticed that at certain ‘times’ (Portuguese, tempora), notably Lent, they switched from meat to fish. With typical subtlety the Japanese concluded that the word meant a variety of seafood.” (Remarkable Words with Astonishing Origins, by John Train)
MANURE
Origin: “From the Latin manu operati, ‘to work by hand.’ Farming was constant manual labor, especially the fertilizing, which required mixing by hand. Genteel folks who objected to the word dung, the excrement of animals, were responsible for its euphemistic displacement with the more ‘refined’ manure.
“Even manure became objectionable to the squeamish; they preferred fertilizer. According to a famous story about Harry S. Truman, the president was explaning that farming meant manure, manure , and more manure. At which point a lady said to the president’s wife: ‘You should teach Harry to say “fertilizer,” not “manure.”‘ Mrs. Truman replied, ‘You don’t know how long it took me to get him to say “manure.” ” (The Story Behind the Words, by Morton S. Freeman)
JACKPOT
Origin: “The term goes back to draw poker, where stakes are allowed to accumulate until a player is able to ‘open the pot’ by demonstrating that among the cards he has drawn, he has a pair of jacks or better.” (Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, Vol. II, by William and Mary Morris)
DOPE
Origin: “This word was originally a Dutch word, doop, meaning a sauce or liquid. Its first association with narcotics came when it was used to describe the viscous glop that results from heating opium. Then, by rapid extension, it came to mean any narcotic.” (Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, Vol. II, by William and Mary Morris)
DOOZY
Origin: “The word comes from Duesenberg, an eminently desirable motor car of the 1920’s and 30’s. The Duesenberg featured a chromed radiator shell, gold-plated emblem, hinged louvered hood, stainless-steel running boards, beveled crystal lenses on the instrument panel, Wilton wool carpet, and twin bugle horns. Magazine ads for the luxury car carried the slogan: ‘It’s a Duesie.’” (The Secret Lives of Words, by Paul West)
ADMIRAL
Origin: “This is an artificial spelling of the French amiral. The Arabian word amir, commander, is commonly followed by al, as in amir-al bahr, ‘commander of the sea,’ from which amiral resulted.” (More About Words, by Margaret S. Ernst)
CALCULATE
Origin: “In Rome 2,000 years ago, the merchant figured his profit and loss using what he called calculi, or ‘little stones’ as counters. So the Latin term calculus, ‘pebble,’ not only gave us calculate but . . . our word calculus . . . one of the most complicated forms of modern mathematics.” (Word Origins, by Wilfred Funk, Litt. D.)
Good stuff, especially tempura and manure. I’ve always loved learning word origins, along with the origins of sayings. Stuff like “Hoist with his own petard” fascinates me. Yeah, I know, what a babe magnet I must be.
Nick wrote:
I agree with you on that one. The origin of words is always interesting. I’ll post some more here soon.
What fun! I also enjoy learning the origins of words… I felt it my duty, though, to make you aware of what seems to be a more widely accepted explanation for ‘doozy’:
“You might think etymologists are slipping their mental gears if I tell you that they’re fairly sure that it comes from the flower named daisy. But that was once English slang, from the eighteenth century on, for something that was particularly appealing or excellent. It moved into North American English in the early nineteenth century and turns up, for example, in Thomas Chandler Haliburton’s The Clockmaker of 1836: “I raised a four year old colt once, half blood, a perfect picture of a horse, and a genuine clipper, could gallop like the wind; a real daisy, a perfect doll, had an eye like a weasel, and nostrils like Commodore Rodgers’s speakin’ trumpet”.
Experts think that that sense — which was still around at the end of the nineteenth century — might have been influenced by the name of the famous Italian actress Eleonora Duse, who first appeared in New York in 1893. Something Dusey was clearly excellent of its kind, and it is very likely that it and daisy became amalgamated in people’s minds to create a new term.” (Michael Quinion, from worldwidewords.org)
Maybe the Duesenberg slogan played off existing slang?
Problem with word origins is sometimes they are sometimes embellished stories. I know in my recent post about curse word origins, I came across a lot of information that later I found out wasn’t true.
Thanks for that information though. Glad to have another perspective about that word.
I know what you mean.
The Duesenberg explanation was the first I ever heard, and it’s still my favorite– even if it doesn’t give us all the information about the origin of ‘doozy’. Duesenbergs were such beautiful cars.
Keep the word histories coming!
Another would be salary, as in an annual/monthly wage. It originates from the roman word sal, meaning salt. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt as at the time it was a valuable commodity.
damn forgot to mention one of the most controversial words…
Hamburger
It originates from… (you choose)
a) the german city of the same name
b) the american city of the same name
c) the name of a patron of a restaurant in New York
d) the meat it is made of
e) a slang phrase for a lump of ground beef (burg)
oh yeah, the first ‘hamburgers’ were served on toasted bread not in buns fyi