word origins

duuurr...etymology!

I love etymology, but I'm not too sure that extends to Word Origins* by Anatoly Liberman. Now, a quickie peruse roun' the internet tells me that Anatoly Liberman is not, as I suspected, an English dude, but!, ah the plot thickens my dears, he is, in fact, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia. Okay, okay, I thought I was going crazy there for a bit, because I had the distinct impression that Liberman is an English language fan-boy, big time, but he wasn't speaking American English. His name, and maybe the Oxford Press made me think 'British', but this guys lives and teaches in Minnesota.

Here's a little taste:

"A search for words somehow connected with the word whose origin was being investigated lost its character of a ramble among look-alikes, and a surprising realization came that look-alikes are deceptive"

'Of a ramble,' brother?

Word Origins is a love letter to the English language from a life-long enthusiast. Liberman is quietly amusing and entertaining throughout while he carefully traipses over some rather boring etymological ground, namely; how etymology is done correctly--and how it isn't.

Word Origins traces the history of etymology through the ages, touching on the major advancements -- and setbacks -- in etymological studies. All the while, giving examples of how words and roots can be traced and connected via their 'cognates' in English and in other languages; with examples that have stood the test of time, and those that have proved to be somewhat less than correct wrong.

A very interesting section on 'folk-etymology' and its impact on the language illuminated a lot of  mistakes that have made it into pop culture and haven't ever made it out. Like where the f-word comes from. spoiler: unknown. not some trumped-up acronym for adulterers in the stocks.

Where else are you going to hear gems like this:  Ju-piter is actually a compound word consisting of an old version of god (dieu-) pronounced dyew- as in soldier, and a variant of the word pater, from which we get father. So Jupiter is literally, the father of the gods. 

The problem, my dear man and here's where I address the 'open-letter' portion of my blog to the author himself, like I'm some kind of big ass New York Times editor, and he may actually read this, is that the stories are a bit rambling, and the thoughts slightly disconnected. Many of your passages read like experiments in free association, which can be a little hard to follow. You skip from examples of correct etymologies, to stories of incorrect etymologies, and I don't discover this until you finally tell me, "...myeh, but that was wrong." I'm paraphrasing

So a little slow, but interesting if you love it. It took me a month or so to pound through this one, and I ended up reading three other books at the same time.  and I wouldn't recommend that unless you're Sybil by-the-way.


* Full title: Word Origins ... and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone. 

anathem i

I just past the halfway point of Anathem, by Neal Stephenson (509/937). I'm sure I've read some similar things--when I was younger I read a lot more fantasy and sci fi--but I don't recall anything quite like this. Speculative Fiction is probably the best description I can come up with and 500+ pages in, I'm still not sure what exactly is going on. Anathem is built around a mystery, of sorts, and surrounded by more mystery. Sounds complex, but it isn't really. Stephenson takes the time to allow the story to unfold, and allow his readers to catch up.

This idea of allowing the reader to catch up is actually an integral part of the story arc, and the writer-reader relationship in this book; maybe dialog is a better word. The frontmatter includes a note to the reader, along with a timeline. The backmatter includes a glossary, and an appendix which I thought was helpful. The chapters, and many of the scene changes in the text are punctuated by glossary entries that either explain a term that was just used, or, more often, explains a term the reader will need in the coming scene, which acts as a foreshadowing tool, and fortunately, is not as clunky as it seems.

Anathem seems to take place on a world very much like Earth. So similar that we could be related to its inhabitants somehow. Are they descendants? A parallel universe? I'm not sure, but a lot of their habits, and lifestyles are similar to ours, if only exaggerated or simplified. As is there language. Many of the terms included in the glossary entries are very similar to English words, and seems as though they could have evolved from a common root language. I love the language related stuff: etymology, definition drift. But what does it all mean?

Not sure, yet.

By the way, aren't these cover images weirdly similar? Thanks for the book Dad!

incunabula

Check it. According to the collections page of the Wagenhein Room, at the San Diego Public Library: "Books printed from 1456 up to and including 1500 are called incunabula, the Latin word meaning cradle because they were printed during the infancy of printing."

That's cool right. I hadn't heard that before, and I love word origins baby. I'm a etymology geek from way back. So I checked my favorite etymology site, the Online Etymology Dictionary, and I find this:

incunabula - “swaddling clothes,” also, figuratively, “childhood;” 1824, from L. incunabula (neut. pl.), ultimately from cunae “cradle.”

incunabulum - 1861, singular of incunabula; taken up (originally in German) as a word for any book printed late 15c., in the “infancy” of the printer’s art.

Nice. According to Dictionary.com, the origin is as follows: "1815–25; < L: straps holding a baby in a cradle, earliest home, birthplace, prob. equiv. to *incūnā ( re ) to place in a cradle ( in- + *-cūnāre, v. deriv. of cūnae cradle) + -bula, pl. of -bulum suffix of instrument; def. 1 as trans. of G Wiegendrucke I don't know who G Wiegendrucke is, but I assume its a person, of the German persuasion, who did the translation.

I stole the pic by the way. [What? It goes with the quote.] This particular incunabulum is an Augsburg edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle (or Liber Chronicarum) from 1497, and goes on to note that the printers used 645 different wood blocks to produce the 1,809 illustrations.

But... according to University of Maryland Library's Rare Books Collection, the Augsburg edition was a later, less expensive and unauthorized copy of the original due to its popularity. (Click on this link, yo. Some nice pics and info on this book.)

damp squid

Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare is written by Jeremy Butterfield, editor of the Oxford A-Z of English Usage. Butterfield writes in a scholarly, but natural style that is easy to read, and its clear that he knows the subject. The book is set up in a series of chapters that could probably stand alone as essays on the oddities of English, and how it evolves, contrary to those who would lock the language in a state of dormancy, if they could.

Butterfield bases his reasoning and his conclusions on research. He argues that usage guides and dictionaries can only guide writers and speakers of English, but never restrain them from using language as they see fit to express themselves. There are a numbers of processes by which the language evolves,