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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… Read more.
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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… Read more.
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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… Read more.
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*gno- (part ii)
In Part 1, we studied the origins of the English know–cnaw–rooted in the Proto-Indo-European *gno-, “to know.” As we saw, down the Germanic line, this *gno– eventually parented the English can, could, cunning, couth/uncouth, canny/uncanny, a sense of the word con, and keen. In Greek, it produced gignoskein, with the derivative gnostos. This yielded diagnosis, prognosis, as well as good old gnosis, in all of its mystical and… Read more.