Tag: etymology
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How the “sausage” is made
Last post, I took the word bacon, well, “back” to its roots. As long as we’re on the subject of processed meats, just how is the sausage made? Sausage, of course, is seasoned meat stuffed into animal intestines. Delicious, no? The secret ingredient is salt, at least etymologically speaking. Sausage According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), English…
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Bringing home the “bacon”
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) caused many to flinch about flitch when it declared bacon and other processed meats carcinogenic. The actual report, of course, is more complicated than just that – unlike the etymology of bacon, which is fairly straightforward, even if a bit backwards, shall we say. Bacon English has been enjoying bacon since the early 1300s,…
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“Lemurs” and “larvae”: creatures of the etymological night
Vampires, witches, demons, and zombies? The Halloween season spooks us with many ghouls and goblins, but you might want to watch out for two other creatures lurking in the etymological dark: lemur and larva. The origins of lemur and larvae Zoologically, lemurs and larvae have little in common, but etymologically, they have several interesting connections. First, both words were first…
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Home is where the haunt is
For word nerds, the real candy of Halloween is all the great words it gives out: werewolf, jack-o’-lantern, samhainophobia. But, as we so often see on this blog, sometimes it is the less unusual and more everyday word that can be the sweetest treat. Let’s have a look at just such a seasonal one: haunt. Its etymology really hits “home,” we might say. Haunt The word haunt has…
Mashed Radish 