... or at least etymologically speaking. The word "nice" has one of the most interesting etymologies in the English language, as its meaning has completely changed over the centuries.

The word "nice", like many words in the English language, came to us through Old French and ultimately from Latin. The Latin word nescius means "unaware," "not knowing," or "ignorant." We can see this more clearly when we dissect the word into its parts; ne- means "not" and scire means "know, understand." The latter is the root that we also find in the word science. So, at least etymologically speaking, the word nice means ignorant, which itself comes from the from two Latin roots i- “not” and gnarus “to know, be acquainted with.”

Thus, the original usage of the word nice in the English language had the approximate meaning of "ignorant, silly, foolish." The meaning of the word continually evolved – over time having the following senses: timid, fussy, wanton, dissolute, showy, ostentatious, dainty, elegant delicate, careful, refined, respectable, decent, agreeable, delightful, kind, and thoughtful. Read More...

Tags: etymology, nice, English, Latin, language

The "brew" part of the names Brewster (pronounced /bruːstər/) and Brewer (pronounced /bruːər/) allude to their relationship to the brewing trade. The "-er" suffix of Brewer is similar to that found in many professions in English, such as baker, painter and runner. By combining a verb and the suffix "-er" we can convert them into a noun that describes what a person does. Many of the etymologies of the name Brewster point to "-ster" being a suffix denoting a female profession. However, this is not completely true. Indeed, "-ster" (also found in other surnames such as Baxter and Webster) was first used to donate female professions. Some sources suggest that -ster eventually came to be used to denote a full-time profession, while -er was often used to describe an occasional participation in an activity. Particularly, in northern England and in Scotland the suffix "-ster" began to be used indiscriminately for both male and female professions, while in the south of England "-ster" was still used predominately to describe a female profession. Indeed, modern censuses reveal a clear north-south divide, with Brewster being most commonly seen in the north of Britain and Baxter being found further south. Read More...

Tags: Brewster, Brewer, names, pronunciation, etymology, origin, English

There are many words in English that come from Arabic by way of Spanish. Many Arabian words made their way into the Spanish language during the Arabian occupation of Spain. I have included a list of words in English with their Spanish counterparts in square brackets and a little background about the etymology of the words.

zero [cero]
Those of you have thought that the Arabian language gave us nothing are right, well kind of. The word zero comes from the word sifr which has same meaning.

alcohol [alcohol]
From Arabic al-kuhul fine powder of antimony sulfide used as eye makeup. Possibly related to the distillation process involved in extracting these substances.

sugar [azúcar]
From Arabic sukkar of the same meaning.

coffee [café]
Comes from the word Qahwa, itself probably referring to Kefa, Ethiopia, where the plant originated. Read More...

Tags: etymology, language, English, Spanish, words

Two of my interests are word etymologies and photography. So I thought it would be fun to explore the origin of some of the more common photographic terms.


Photography: Comes from two Greek words that mean to write (graphos) with light (photos).

Lens: The shape of a lens and a lentil are quite similar. In fact the word lens comes from the Latin word lenticula, which means lentil.

Aperture: The aperture is the hole that allows light into the camera and the Latin word for an opening is apertura.

Camera: We could think of a camera as a type of chamber and as it happens these two words have the same etymologies, originating from the Latin word camera which means a arched room.

Focus: This word originally meant fireplace or hearth in Latin. The f in photographic words such as f-number and f-stop means focal, the adjectival form of the word focus.

Pinhole: My family namesake Sir David Brewster is credited with coining the word pinhole in his 1856 book The Stereoscope.

Film: Filmen is an Old English word meaning membrane. It shares an Indo-European root, which is seen in the Latin word pellis (skin or hide). As a matter of fact, this root is seen in the Spanish word for a film (in the movie sense of the word) película, which comes from the diminutive form of pellis (pellicula), literally meaning little skin.

Expose: From the Latin verb exponere, meaning to set forth.

Frame: - The Old English framian meant to be useful. The word evolved in Middle English to mean "make ready for use" and came to mean "to prepare timber for building" and ultimately to the modern sense of the word as a wooden structure.

Panorama: - Comes from the Greek roots pan meaning "all" (as in pandemic or pancreas) and horama meaning "view."

Matte: Came to English from French where the word originally meant "curd."

Digital - The Latin word for a finger or toe is digitus. I suppose this is because digital technology means that we don't have to make calculations by counting our fingers and toes!


Related Links:
Etymonline
The Oxford English Dictionary
Etymologically Speaking...
Podictionary
The Language of Photography
History of Photographic Words and Slogans

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Tags: etymology, words, English, language, photography, linguistics

Anyone who knows me will know that I'm a bit of a word nerd and find word etymologies (the origin of words) infinitely fascinating. Since we use some 16,000 words a day I think that they deserve some attention. Here are some of my favourites.

1. Salary - You have probably learned that Roman soldiers were payed in salt. The Latin word for salt is sal, from which we get the word salary.

2. Robot - Comes from the Czech word robota meaning "forced labour." It appeared in a 1920 play by Karl Čapek entitled R.U.R. ‘"Rossum's Universal Robots’" in which the machines take over and implant wiring into humans turning them into robotic slaves.

3. Assassin - During the Crusades the Muslims employed an army of trained killers called the hashshashin who would smoke hashish before going into battle.

4. Quarantine - Comes from quarantina, the Italian words for forty. When a ship was thought to be infected with disease the crew were not permitted to make contact with the shore for 40 days.

5. Slave - A reference to the Slavic people, many of whom were subject to slavery during the ninth century.

6. Orang-utan - From the Malay orang huan meaning "forest person."

7. Hazard - This is a word that comes from the Arabic word zar which meant "dice." The word can be traced back to Moorish Spain and is related to the Spanish word azar, which means "chance."

8. Lucifer - Curiously means "light bearer." This is a reference to the morning star, i.e. the planet Venus. In Isaiah in the Old Testament a passage compares how the light of the morning star pales in comparison with the light of the sun (a metaphor for God).

9. Quintessential - Literally means the "fifth element" in Latin; that essence that was much sought after by alchemists. The fifth element, also known as the Philosopher's Stone, was supposed to have metaphysical powers and was composed of an unknown combination of the other four elements: rain, fire, wind and earth.

10. Whisky/Whiskey - Comes from Irish Gaelic words uisce beatha meaning "water of life." What more can I say?


Etymology sources: Etymonline
The Oxford English Dictionary
Etymologically Speaking...
Podictionary
Meriam Webster Word of the Day


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Tags: words, etymology, English, language

Over at yourdictionary.com there is a list of the most commonly mispronounced words in the English language. I was bowled over by the number of words that I personally mispronounce. Here are my top ten list. Find many more examples at http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html.

Tags: English, language

It's amazing how somethings that should be second nature change so dramatically by living in a foreign country. Today I was getting into a car when I had to stop and think about what side of the car I had to get into. This may sound ridiculous but having living my life between Ireland (where we drive on the correct side of the road) versus the United States and Spain (where they drive on the right side of the road - here I use right in the directional sense of the word only) getting into whichever side of car is no longer a no-brainer.

You really know when you've lived in a country too long, not when you speak that other country's language, but rather when you start forgetting your mother tongue. Having lived in the US for so long I have moments where I need to stop and think. . . hmmm do we say elevator or lift in Ireland? This is for the most part forgivable since both languages are English at their core (although I am quite open to arguments to the contrary).

A while ago I had to go to the dentist to get a filling. Afterwards, I was chatting to my mum and I started telling her "so I went to the dentist today to get a . . . a . . . " I couldn't think of the damn word filling. Such a simple, obvious word that somehow got lost somewhere along the synapses. The only word that would come to mind was empaste (the Spanish word for a filling). Finally, I had to resort to the method used by my English students - "you know, that thing that a dentist put in your tooth when it has a hole!" My mother's tone of voice reeked of disgust as she said quizzically "a filling?" I can still hear the sound of my mother's voice as she quickly quipped:

"Ciarán you're losing the art of speaking."

Tags: English, Spanish, language, culture

Most of us don't sit around considering the ins and out of the English language. It is only after all that thing that we speak. That is of course if you are not an English teacher. One thing that you realise when you take a closer look at our mother-tongue (or the language of the oppressor for all you nationalist out there) is that our pronunciation make very little sense whatsoever.

For those of you who have studied a language such as Italian or Spanish that has a phonetic pronunciation you will already have learned to appreciate the logic of their orthography. For example, the pronunciation of -iel in Spanish is always the same, whether the word is fiel, piel, miel, etc. On the other hand consider the pronunciation of -ough in English, which is pronounced "oo" in the word through, "ou" in bough, "oh" in though and even "uf" in enough. Starting to get the picture. We even have words that are spelt differently but are pronounced the same: there, their, and they're; two, to, and too; bite, byte, and bight; wheel, we'll and weal; isle, I'll and aisle. And how about those words that are spelt the same but pronounced differently. I'm looking at you read (present tense or past tense?), wind (are you referring to the weather phenomenon or what you do to a clock?) and minute (60 seconds or very small?). And why do the words eight and night have a -gh in them if we never pronounce it? And anyone remember that oh so useful mnemonic rhyme, "I" before "E" except after "C" and neighbour, weigh, seize, protein, height, sleight, poltergeist, seismograph, heir... Below is a poem which demonstrates just how absurd our language is. Enjoy!



English is tough stuff
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Tags: English, language

After much procrastination (and nagging...you know who you are) this site has finally been updated. Some of the most notable changes are the change in the appearance of the site, the removal of the (extremely) out-of-date Eircom League table, and the removal of the contact page which never worked anyhow. For those of who don't know, I'm working in Madrid as an English teacher. I'm enjoying teaching the subtleties of the English language such as the meaning of the word "craic", the difference between the words "beach" and "bitch", and the typical idiomatic Irish phrase "does be"! I am living a 10 minute bus ride from the Atletico Madrid stadium. And while I'm on the subject, did anyone see the 6-1 trashing Real Madrid got at the hands of Zaragoza last week. Specatular to say the least. I'm a twenty minute metro ride from the academy where I work and another fifteen minutes from where I teach. I'm also taking Spanish classes, which I get for free from my academy. Nice, huh? The classes themselves are pretty interesting. Spanish can be a fairly difficult language to understand, but try and understand Spanish spoken by French, German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian and Russian classmates. Goodluck! Beyond that I'm working on editing my thesis for publication. I've set a deadline of March 16th to submit it. We'll see how that works out. This weekend I had the opportunity to visit Segovia; an hour-and-a-half bus ride outside of the city. I can say without doubt that it is the most beautiful city I've every seen (sorry Erie!). I've started a section on the website about Spain, which will include facts, pictures and stories from here. If you click on the tab for Spain and then click on the sub-tabs I've posted pictures from this weekend's day trip to Segovia. ¡Hasta luego!

Tags: Spain, English, teaching