etymology

He/She/It: They all Float Down Here

Niall O'Donnell 16 Comments

I saw IT last week, only it was actually Ça, considering I saw it in a cinema in Liège. English-language films are generally dubbed here, but as it was a somewhat arty cinema, they were proud to offer the VO (version originale) with French and Dutch subtitles. Having two sets of subtitles taking up space on the screen is quite distracting, but it’s an interesting opportunity to compare English, French, and Dutch at the same time.

Watching a film with subtitles in a language you know is always a little odd, as they never translate things exactly, largely because such a thing is basically impossible. Even so, there are always one or two choices the subtitler makes which boggle the mind. I don’t recall anything like that in this case, but there was one necessary difference in translation that intrigued me.

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Hold the Cilantro

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

The differences between American and British English are of course numerous, and I’ve touched on them before. One area that’s always intrigued me though is food. 

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A Parliament of Owls

Niall O'Donnell 31 Comments

While watching the news yesterday, I was suddenly struck with an epiphany about the etymology of the word parliament.

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Groovy

Niall O'Donnell 8 Comments

I’m not sure what made me think of the word groovy this morning. Lord knows it’s not a word you hear often these days. But as I thought about it, I considered how it’s odd how we can refer to the rhythm of a song, as well as channel cut into a surface, as a groove. Sure, sometimes two different words can arrive at the same spelling and sound from different sources, but I assumed that groove in a musical sense was too modern not to be related to the already-existing groove.

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Envision and Envisage

Niall O'Donnell 11 Comments

There’s a good chance you only use one of these words, if you use one at all, and it’s probably envisage. And that’s all you really need. Both can basically mean the same thing: to imagine something, specifically to conjure up a mental image.

There is a slight distinction between the two though, if you want to know exactly how to use them to impress a language nerd.

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Petrol or Gasoline?

Niall O'Donnell 7 Comments

It’s probably pretty well-known that gasoline and petrol are the same thing, being the American- and British-English terms respectively for the same fuel.

It’s not unusual for their to be such marked differences between the words for the same thing in both varieties of English. But I’ve always been curious as to why the words are so different, especially considering that petrol has a fairly logical etymology.

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Stranger Things

Niall O'Donnell 26 Comments

Strange can be a strange word. If I asked you to explain it, you’d probably have no problem. It means weird, unusual, not normal. Easy.

Now though, think of words related to strange.

You can probably think of strangely, stranger, and estranged. OK, strangely is the adverb form of strange, but what’s the link with the other two words?

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