Thanks in large part to the impassioned activism of the #NeverAgain movement, the news hasn’t moved on from the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, as it has too often in recent massacres in the US. The pressure is staying on gun control, keeping the Second Amendment to the US Constitution in the hot seat.
The Second Amendment is also in this post’s etymological hot seat. I’m not debating its constitutional interpretation, though. I’m debating why we say second and not twoth.
One of the most moving responses to Parkland, Florida, site of just latest mass school shooting in the US, has been a single word: please.
David Hogg, 17-year-old survivor of the massacre at his high school, has emerged as a forceful voice of a burgeoning youth movement for gun reform. Speaking to CNN, Hogg exhorted: “Please! We are children. You guys are, like, the adults. Take action, work together, come over your politics, and get something done.”
Lori Alhadeff lost her 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, to the gunmen. Before CNN’s cameras, her unimaginable grief boiled into a stirring admonition: “President Trump, please do something! Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now!”
These are powerful pleas of please—and two words joined together by a common root.
It’s Mardi Gras, or the “dense, shiny meat removal,” as I’ve etymologized in the past. I trust many observers people won’t be giving up TV for Lent, what with the Winter Olympics going on.
Speaking of the Olympics, ski down some archives with my old posts from the 2014 competition in Sochi, Russia. I explored the roots of winter sports words, including skate, ski, luge, sleigh, curling, and hockey. (Lots of Old Norse and origins unknown.) I also looked at the histories of the winning medals: gold, silver, and bronze. (Lots of Indo-European, with a surprising place-name behind bronze.)
The 2018 games kicked off last week in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and besides the astonishing athleticism, inspirational stories, and show of global unity, there’s some very exciting…yes,etymology.
Maybe in some parallel universe it wasn’t the Philadelphia Eagles who won Super Bowl LII. No, not the New England Patriots but the Philadelphia Ernes. For erne was the usual word for “eagle” in Old English, and in my hypothetical Twilight Zone, French and Latin didn’t sack Anglo-Saxon like so many blitzing linebackers.
Mashed Radish 