Tessera

The surprisingly connected origin of "opera", "manure", and "maneuver". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #opera #opus #manure #maneuver #manoeuvre youtube.com/shorts/1FhHy...

Opera/Manure/Maneuver #Etymology

YouTube video by Alliterative

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Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 5h ago

The surprisingly connected origin of "opera", "manure", and "maneuver". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #opera #opus #manure #maneuver #manoeuvre youtube.com/shorts/1FhHy...

Opera/Manure/Maneuver #Etymology

YouTube video by Alliterative

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Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 16h ago

Please consider speaking out against this:

Aven@avensarah.bsky.social · 19h ago

This made it easy, if you want to have your say on Tim Hortons' very upsetting HP tie-in. affirmingconnections.com/tim-hortons-...

A brown box with text: "I sent mine. I asked TIm Hortons and Restaurant Brands International to end the Harry Potter campaign -- and to say publicly why. Your turn. It takes five minutes."
tinyurl.com/THtoolkit affirmingconnections.com

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 2d ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HOSPITALITY/HOST/GUEST #wotd #hospitality #host #guest #TheOdyssey #odyssey #ChristopherNolan

In his movie The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan focuses on the theme of hospitality, what he calls Zeus’s Law, known as Xenia in Ancient Greek, which sets expectations about the relationship between guests and hosts, a cultural value which is in fact much older, going back to Indo-European society. Guest comes from Old English gæst or giest “stranger; guest; enemy”, from Proto-Germanic *gastiz, traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ghos-ti- “stranger, guest, host” or as explained by Calvert Watkins, properly “someone with whom one has reciprocal duties of hospitality”. This root comes into Latin as hostis “enemy” (from the sense of “stranger”), giving us words such as hostile, and also had the compound *ghos-pot- “guest-master”, one who symbolizes the relationship of reciprocal obligation (with the addition of the PIE root *poti- “powerful; lord”), becoming Latin hospes, which has the genitive form hospitis and thus the stem hospit-, which became Old French oste or hoste “guest, host, landlord” giving us English host, and also produced the Latin word hospitalitas “friendliness to guests” and Old French ospitalité “hospitality” giving us English hospitality. Furthermore, the PIE root *ghos-ti- had the suffixed zero-grade form *ghs-en-wo- which came into Greek as xenos “guest-friend, host, stranger, foreigner” and xenia referring to that important guest-host relationship, also leading to the English word xenophobia. So avoid xenophobia and always treat strangers and foreigners as guests, lest they become enemies instead.

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 5d ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · 6d ago

We talked to @korystamper.bsky.social, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours. www.alliterative.net/podcast/2026...

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 5d ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · last wk.

The surprisingly connected origins of "beat", "debate", and "refute". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language # words #lingcomm #beat #debate #refute youtube.com/shorts/maHkh...

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 5d ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · last wk.

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is ODYSSEY/ANNOY #wotd #odyssey #annoy

Some people were already annoyed with Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey movie even before it was released because of its supposedly “woke” casting, and I guess that was etymologically inevitable. The English word odyssey of course comes from the Ancient Greek epic poem The Odyssey and its eponymic hero Odysseus, and though the etymology of this name is far from certain, some Ancient Greeks (including in the poem itself) connected it with the verb odussomai “to be wroth against, to hate” because Odysseus was said to be “hated by gods and men” — though many modern etymologists now say the name must be from some pre-Greek substrate language. But the word odussomai can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root *od- “to hate”, which came into Latin as the verb odisse “to hate” and the noun odium “hatred, grudge, ill-will, animosity, enmity, aversion”, with the phrase in odio literally “in hatred” becoming the Late Latin verb inodiare “to make loathsome”, becoming Old French anuier and enoier “to be troublesome or irksome to”, borrowed into English to eventually become annoy. Incidentally, the Roman form of the name Odysseus, Ulysses, has that /l/ sound instead of the /d/ sound because of the so-called Sabine -l-, a dialectal difference in Italy in the ancient Roman times, which can also be seen in the pair of Latin words odor “odour, smell, scent, stench” (giving us English odour) and olere “to emit a smell, smell of, smell” (giving us English redolent and olfactory), which themselves happen to come from a homonymous PIE root *od- meaning “to smell”, and it has been suggested that these two roots *od- are one and the same with the original sense “to sting”. But unlike what some people say, Nolan’s movie doesn’t stink.

Aven @avensarah.bsky.social · 6d ago

New podcast episode! We talked to Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours. One of my favourite recent reads! www.alliterative.net/podcast/2026...

Episode 126: True Color, with Kory Stamper — The Endless Knot

We talked to Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours and wrestle the kaleidoscope of our social, scientific, artistic, sartorial...

alliterative.net

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 6d ago

We talked to @korystamper.bsky.social, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours. www.alliterative.net/podcast/2026...

Episode 126: True Color, with Kory Stamper — The Endless Knot

We talked to Kory Stamper, lexicographer and author, about the unexpectedly gripping story of the struggle to define colours and wrestle the kaleidoscope of our social, scientific, artistic, sartorial...

alliterative.net

Aven @avensarah.bsky.social · 7d ago

Help us support the cause. share.nwmd.social/s/tn1TGZ0V

House of Commons: Conduct an Inquiry into Human Rights Violations in Alberta

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Aven @avensarah.bsky.social · last wk.

The surprisingly connected origins of "beat", "debate", and "refute". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language # words #lingcomm #beat #debate #refute youtube.com/shorts/maHkh...

Beat/Debate/Refute #Etymology

YouTube video by Alliterative

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Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · last wk.

The surprisingly connected origins of "beat", "debate", and "refute". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language # words #lingcomm #beat #debate #refute youtube.com/shorts/maHkh...

Beat/Debate/Refute #Etymology

YouTube video by Alliterative

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Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · last wk.

I’ll certainly be boycotting @timhortonsofficial.bsky.social going forward, and I encourage everyone I know to do so as well www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Critics slam Tim Hortons Harry Potter promotion as anti-2SLGBTQ+ | CBC News

Tim Hortons has announced a new Harry Potter promotion, but the reaction online has been anything but magical.

cbc.ca

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · last wk.

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is ODYSSEY/ANNOY #wotd #odyssey #annoy

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

ICYMI

Aven@avensarah.bsky.social · 2w ago

We haven't had a chance to see the new movie yet, but for anyone looking for more Odyssey content (if there isn't enough out there already!) we interviewed Emily Wilson about her translation when it first came out, on our podcast. www.alliterative.net/podcast/2017...

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

The surprisingly connected origins of "frail", "fragile", and "break". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #frail #fragile #break youtube.com/shorts/P45qN...

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is CLIMATE/LID #wotd #climate #lid #climatechange #wildfires #smoke

The climate change predictions are in and the message is clear: we need to put a lid on our carbon emissions if we want to survive. The word climate comes ultimately from Greek klima “region, zone”, literally “an inclination, slope” in reference to the “slope of the earth from equator to pole”, since ancient geographers divided the earth into zones based on the angle of sun on the slope of the earth’s surface and the length of daylight. Over time, as the word was borrowed into Latin as clima “region; slope of the earth”, then into Old French as climat “region, part of the earth”, and finally into English, the sense gradually shifted to “a distinct region of the earth’s surface considered with respect to weather” and “combined results of weather associated with a region, characteristic condition of a country or region with reference to the variation of heat, cold, rainfall, wind, etc.”. Greek klima can be traced back to *kli-mn- a suffixed form of the Proto-Indo-European root *klei- “to lean”, which also came into Proto-Germanic, as a result of Grimm’s Law, as *hlid- which means literally “that which bends over” and thus “cover” which became Old English hlid “cover” and eventually Modern English lid. So no matter which way you lean (also from the same root), you should be inclined (also from the same root) to do something about climate change now.

Aven @avensarah.bsky.social · 2w ago

We haven't had a chance to see the new movie yet, but for anyone looking for more Odyssey content (if there isn't enough out there already!) we interviewed Emily Wilson about her translation when it first came out, on our podcast. www.alliterative.net/podcast/2017...

Episode 50: Translating the Odyssey, with Emily Wilson — The Endless Knot

We interview Emily Wilson, whose new translation of the Odyssey for Norton was published in November to great acclaim and critical praise. She tells us about some of her choices in the areas of metr...

alliterative.net

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

The surprisingly connected origins of "frail", "fragile", and "break". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #frail #fragile #break youtube.com/shorts/P45qN...

Frail/Fragile/Break #Etymology

YouTube video by Alliterative

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Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 2w ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is CLIMATE/LID #wotd #climate #lid #climatechange #wildfires #smoke

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 3w ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · 3w ago

The surprisingly connected origins of "champion" and "champagne". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #champion #champagne #worldcup #final youtube.com/shorts/H6Few...

Marcie Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 3w ago

ICYMI

Marcie Sundaram@alliterative.bsky.social · 3w ago

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is SOCCER/PURSUIT #wotd #soccer #pursuit #association #FIFA #WorldCup #football

The FIFA World cup is soon coming to an end, and the remaining teams are in hot pursuit of soccer glory, and etymologically that makes sense. The word soccer was originally British university slang, shortened from Assoc., an abbreviation of the word association from the term Association football, so called because it was played according to the rules of the Football Association, distinguishing it from the game Rugby football (which was so named after Rugby School in Warwickshire where during a football game in 1823 a boy named William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it). The full term Association football can still be seen in the acronym FIFA, standing for the French name Fédération Internationale de Football Association meaning “International Association Football Federation”. The -er ending on the word soccer is a common jocular speech pattern in British upper-class schoolboy and university slang, as in the parallel words footer for “football”, rugger for “rugby”, brekker or brekkers for “breakfast”, preggers for “pregnant”, and so forth. The word association comes from Medieval Latin associatio “association (of persons), enlistment, fellowship, company”, from the past participle of associare “to join or unit with”, made up from the prefix ad- “to” + sociare “to join together, combine, unite, associate, hold in common, share”, from the noun socius “companion, ally”, ultimately traceable back to *sokw-yo- the suffixed o-grade form from the root *sekw- “to follow”. This root also led to the Latin verb sequi “to follow”, which when combined with the prefix pro- “forward” led to the verb prosequi “to follow, accompany, attend, follow after, escort”, which became Old French porsivre “to chase, pursue, follow; continue, carry on” and the noun form porsuite, leading to English pursuit.

Dr Danny Bate @dannybate.com · 3w ago

Supremely chuffed to make an audio appearance on Because Language – the show is a gift to linguistics and language lovers. Recording with Daniel was fun from start to finish, and you can hear I'm enjoying myself. Lend the show your ears! pod.link/436133392?vi...