#odd etymology

Skipping to the good part, 'Accent' is ultimately from the Latin 'accentus' which comes from 'ad' and 'cantus' basically 'to add music'. Like many Latin words it entered English from the French. Interestingly it seems to have entered English twice with slightly different meanings (both still in use today). The first time in the 14th century from 'acent' in Old French, this being the Noun form (so in the meaning of 'regional accents')

The second time in the 1500s from the Middle French 'accenter' (obviously from the Old French 'acent') this time in the Verb form (so with the meaning 'to stress words or vowels') .

(N.B. it seems that it was first introduced earlier in the 12c with a meaning like the verb form though about markings that indicate the stress, but dropped completely and re introduced, slightly fuzzy timeline)

Source1 Source2 Source3

As interesting as entering English twice, that isn't why I wanted to do this one.

Rather it is because of the common phenomenon of accents disappearing when singing (Yes I know technically it is impossible for an accent to disappear, it is simply replaced by another one, stop being pedantic.).

For those of you who aren't sure what I am talking about look up Susana Boyle talking vs her singing, or listen to an interview with Robert Plant (the lead singer of Led Zeplin who is British).

This phenomena is well known and it boils down to: accents are mainly caused by how one naturally stresses a sylable shortens it, or lengthens it, but when singing one stresses in response to the beat/tune etc. so your natural cadence is lost. (For an in depth/ more accurate description read up on it here and here which are the 2 articles that all the others cite).

I recently learned the etymology of ‘Macabre’, and it is too great not to share.

‘Macabre’ comes from ‘Maccabee’. As in the ones from Hanukah.  Y’see, back in the day people put on shows/plays about the events in the book of Maccabee. Part of that play was a dance sequence depicting the Greeks torturing the Maccabees (Not for anti-Semitic reasons, just because it occured in the story and for some odd reason they thought it should be a musical scene).

In France this scene was called  “dance Maccabee” or “danse macabre” (spelling not being crazy important in medieval france). Possibly the first use of the term was in Latin “Machabaeorum chorea”. 

In any case the sequence was relatively horrifying, and so the term ‘macabre’ came to mean anything horrifying or gruesome.  

This gives 3 takeaways:  1) Goth Chanukah makes perfect sense 2) The ‘R’ in ‘macabre’ should be silent (both pronunciations are officially acceptable). 3) Etymology is fun! (but that is a bit of a given.

Also: Source1 Source2 Source3

'Weird' (meaning odd) comes (in the 1800's) from the 14th C. word 'Wierd' meaning 'Having the ability To control Fate', from Old English 'wyrd' (meaning several variations on the word 'fate' including The Fates).

Ultimately (like 90% of English) from PIE 'wert' meaning 'To turn or Bend'.

Now, that itself is fairly common knowledge, the odd bit is how the meaning changed from 'fate' to 'odd'.

The answer, as with many things, belongs in Shakespeare.

In Macbeth there are the 3 Witches. who cackle and predict, and control fate. They are aptly described as 'The Three Weird Sisters'.

The makeup and costumes for them was, surprising absolutely no one, odd and unsettling. So the term was used to describe things that were unsettling in a similar way.

Oddly that meaning is not known to be used until 1815! (ish) Though that was mainly for appearance, and full use in the modern sense seems to have cropped up about 5 years later).

So, as with many words, we can blame Shakespeare, but this time it was not really his fault.

(source1, source2, source3)

Yup, I’m doing another one. ‘Nice’ comes from the Old French ‘nice’ (shocking I know)  meaning ‘stupid’, ultimately from Latin ‘ nescius ‘ meaning ‘ignorant’.

‘Alright’, you say, ‘A bit odd, perhaps cynical saying that only stupid people are kind, but not *that* interesting.’ Were that the route that ‘nice’ took to get to it’s current meaning, I wouldn’t bring it up. But the route is odder than that.

When ‘nice’ entered English, the meaning kinda remained the same, ‘foolish’ ‘stupid’ etc.  (possibly ‘cowardly’ as well), but then it began to refer to clothing. a ‘Nice Person’ would be someone who dressed foolishly, possibly spending too much effort on clothes. Then, possibly through ironic usage which is way too common, it became a pseudo compliment. ‘Nice’ was someone who dressed with precision (though possibly a bit fussy). At which point you get the meaning of ‘Nice’ as in accurate. Because it is always good to be accurate and careful, ‘Nice’ soon took it’s final few steps over 100 years to hit its current meaning ‘kind’, or ‘good’.

This took place, by the way, from the 13thc until the 1800′s

N.B.: I skipped a few steps for the sake of brevity, and added some of my own supposition.  

Y’all know that if I started making a habit of talking about etymology, I would have to do rust.

It, of course, means the study of bugs.

Interestingly, the root is slight different than what I had expected. I assumed that it would be based on the word ‘Dust’, but it is not,

‘Rust’ Comes more or less directly from proto Germanic ‘ rusta ‘ meaning red.

No interesting by lines, or odd influences. Just... Iron rust is red. Slightly disappointing tbh.

Bolt is one that I chose due to my love of contranyms (words that mean 2 opposite things).

The etymology at the core isn’t that surprising, but the divergence is.

Bolt comes from the comes from old English ‘Bolt’ (shocking, I know), meaning crossbow arrow or similar (you can trace the line back to German, and a bit older, but it is pretty much turtles all the way down).

Now, we get 2 evolutionary lines: Form and Function.

Form: Wooden cylinder with metal tip-> metal cylinder ins similar shape-> huh we use those for fastening stuff -> bolt stuff down. (a bolt of cloth is called so as it looks like a bolt)

Function: Arrows move quickly! Hence all associated meanings.

I know that overall this isn’t a huge revelation, but I did find it fun.

Source1, Source2, Source3

Alright, lets be honest.  The etymology of ‘Cyan’ isn’t that weird. It came to English in the 1800s (admittedly a bit late) from the Greek ‘ kyanos ‘, probably from the Hittite ‘ kuwanna ‘ meaning copper blue. The only really interesting thing about ‘Cyan’ is that ‘Cyanotic’, ‘Cyanide’, and ‘Cyanosis’ are all recorded as proper English predating the first use of Cyan as a standalone.

But those are the words I want to talk about. As anyone who knows Colour Theory (tumblr joke inserted here), has tried to use a colour printer, took grade 9 art class, or just generally has a decent grasp of English is aware: Cyan is a shade of blue. 

Now anyone who watched shitty medical T.V. has heard someone scream out  “HE’S GOING CYANOTIC!!” Which means he’s...turning blue. Because he can’t breathe. “Cyanide” is a poison that stops you from breathing, which turns you .... blue. The ‘Blue’ Poison.

It’s just so.... silly that I felt it deserved a post.

‘Villain’ is descended from the French ‘vilain’ ultimately from the Latin ‘ villanus ‘ meaning ‘one who works at a villa’ [which at this point was a farm, so just a farmer].

Now when villain entered English (and I am going to ignore the spelling changes that have occured over the last 700 odd years), it did just mean farmer, or commoner. 

At this point it began to take on the slightly more negative connotations. Referring to someone who has the manners of a villager, a harsh insult to nobility. Then ‘Vile’ enters the stage, and stuff kind of gets murky.

‘Vile’ (meaning evil, disgusting, worthless etc.) comes from the old French ‘vil’ meaning almost the same thing, if slightly less harsh (vile being a -10, vil is -8). This comes from the Latin ‘vilis’ meaning ‘cheap, inexpensive’ and/or ‘worthless, base’. Ultimately (probably) coming from proto-indo-european ‘weslis’ meaning ‘something you can buy’. (Source1, Source2, Source3)  (I am not 100% sure what it says about society that a word meaning ‘something that can be bought’ became ‘evil/disgusting’, but definitely something).

Now anyone can see that vile and villain are similar words, despite having nothing to do with each other. So it is strongly theorized that the word ‘vile’ influenced the perception of the word ‘villain’, giving it even more negative connotations.   At the same time (or within 200 odd years) ‘villain’ began more strongly speaking to the (perceived) behavior of commoner vs nobility. Instead of just being manners, and probably began to referring to people who were not chivalrous in all forms of conduct (damn those evil peasants!).

With those 2 influences acting in concert, villain took on its modern meaning (probably in the 1800s for the final shift).

Source1 Source2  Source3 Source4