Month: June 2014
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*sekw- (part ii)
Last post, we saw how *sekw-, a Proto-Indo-European root for “follow,” makes for a surprising connection between such words as soccer, sectarian, and second. This root still has some tricks up its sleeve, though, for it weaves the thread between medieval fabrics… …and the classic board game Clue. Scarlet has many associations: letters, fevers, pimpernels, Johansson’s, cardinals, royalty. But I…
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*sekw- (part i)
What could the World Cup possibly have in common with the conflict raging on in Iraq? Screens have been streaming soccer and headlines have been screaming sectarian, and both words, unlikely as their connection may seem, ultimately go back to the Proto-Indo-European root *sekw–. Consequential Social Sects In soccer, we saw university slang at work on association. If we it…
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soccer
Fast Mash According to the OED, soccer originates in 1875 at Oxford University, but borrowed from Rugby School, as university/school slang for “association football,” named for the Football Association that first codified universal rules for football in England The slang is called the Oxford -er, which abridged a word an added –er; other examples include rugger for “rugby,” footer…
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norm
We might not be done with this *gno- just yet. Norm Many centuries ago in ancient Rome, a norma was a carpenter’s square, a tool used to measure out angles, especially right ones. Something normalis, then, was “made according to a carpenter’s square” (Klein). Even in antiquity, though, this norma was metaphorical, naming a “standard,” “pattern,” or “rule,” and hence we have the…
Mashed Radish 