Where did that come from?

Some of our most common words have strange and colorful origins. Betcha didn't know these ...

Aug 17, 2024

Most people know the origin of the word “sandwich” came from John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, an eighteenth-century English aristocrat. It is commonly said that Lord Sandwich, during long sessions of cribbage and other card games at public gambling houses, would order his valet to bring him salt beef between two pieces of toasted bread.

Hey, it’s a lot more than the 3rd Earl of Sandwich ever contributed.

Almost all of our lexicon comes from somewhere else. English is the 15-bean soup of languages; we’ve never been shy about linguistic appropriation. Though it’s considered a “Germanic” language (via Dark Age Britain), English has adopted and adapted vocables from all points on the globe, even “dead” languages like Latin and Sanskrit. You can trace these origins — a study known as etymology — in any legitimate dictionary.

However, the evolution of vocabulary sometimes requires a little more context. Some of our commonly used words and phrases have unusual and fascinating origins. As a practitioner of this amalgamated tongue, I’ve come to appreciate it and strive to use it wisely.

So here’s a quick plunge into the history of just a few words that all of us have used in everyday conversation … plus a few that Shakespeare gave us.

Checkmate (Persian)

In chess, the term “checkmate” is voiced when the player’s king is attacked, and there is no way for the king to escape being captured.

The term is said to have derived from the Persian phrase “shāh māt.” Originally, the phrase was understood as “the king died.” In chess, the king doesn’t die but is placed in an inescapable position. Instead, the king (“shah”) should be understood as “at a loss” or “defeated” (māt).

Any wonder chess has often become analogous with war?

Genius (Latin)

In Ancient Rome, a “genius” was a guardian deity or spirit that protected each individual throughout their life, particularly in Roman aristocracy.

The word stems from the Latin “gigno” meaning to “give birth” or “produce” since the guardian spirit was believed to appear as an individual was born. In Roman culture, that person would end up being intellectually gifted.

Nice (Latin/French)

It’s curious that “nice” originally meant something completely different.

“Nice” comes from the Latin word “nescius,” which means “ignorant” or “unaware.” “Nescius” was adopted into Old French as “nice” and was used to describe someone simple or foolish.

Over time, the meaning of the word evolved. By the 14th century, “nice” was used in Middle English to describe someone pleasant, kind, or good-natured.

“Robot” was first used in the play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” by Czech writer Karel Čapek in 1920. The word “robot” comes from the Czech word “robota,” which means “forced labor” or “drudgery.”

In the play, the term “robot” is used to describe artificially created beings that are designed to perform menial tasks for their human masters.

Now they’re smarter than us and hopefully not planning our demise.

Sarcasm (Greek)

Sarcasm is a branch of humor that uses acerbic comments that mean the opposite of what they are saying to criticize or mock someone.

The word “sarcasm” derives from the Ancient Greek “σαρκασμός” (pronounced sar-kas-mós) as in to sneer/taunt, or from the verb “σαρκάζω” (pronounced sar-káz-o) as in “to gnash” or “tear the flesh.”

As a teacher, I used sarcasm frequently. Once, I returned an easy quiz to a notably lazy student who scored a 45 out of 100.

My words: “Good job.”

“σαρκασμός!”

Tantalize (Greek)

The word “tantalize” originates from the Greek myth about the punishment of Tantalus for his crimes against the gods. One version of the myth states that Tantalus — among the first mortals invited to dine with the gods — abused this honor by stealing their ambrosia and nectar.

Tantalus is also known for hosting a banquet where he served forbidden food to the gods. Horrifically, this food was revealed to be his son, who he had slaughtered and cooked into a stew to test the omniscience of the gods. The gods recognized the atrocity and were not fooled.

Furious at Tantalus, Zeus enacted the most terrible of punishments. In the depths of the Underworld, Tantalus was made to stand in a pool of water under the low branches of a fruit tree. If he reached down to quench his insatiable thirst, the water would drain away. When he reached up for an apple, the branches would rise away from his grasp.

Serves him right. FAFO.

Whiskey (Irish/Gaelic)

Dedicated to Jerry O’Malley, my lifelong friend and brother-from-another-mother

Funnily enough, the English word ‘whisky’ derives from the Gaelic “uisge beathe” translated as “water of life” referring to a distilled spirit. This classical Gaelic phrase was most likely borrowed from the Romans, who referred to alcohol as “aqua vitae” (Latin for “water of life”).

Tattoo (Polynesian)

The “tattoo” gets its name from the Polynesian word “tatau” which simply means “a mark made on the skin.” The term in this form developed out of the Samoan word ‘tattow’ meaning ‘to strike.’

Hooligan (Gaelic)

We have many words for troublemakers in English: ruffian, thug, hoodlum, lout… the list is endless. Each word not only has its nuanced meaning but also often suggests something about regionalized U.K. accents and dialects.

But if you’re called a hooligan, the origin is less clear. According to the Oxford English Etymology Dictionary, the name originates from the surname of a raucous Irish family – the Houlihans – mentioned in an old song from the 1890s.

Another theory is that back during the 1745 Jacobite rising, an English commander misheard the Scots’ Gaelic word for an insect midge – “meanbh-chuileag” – and created the word “hooligan” to express his frustration at all the pesky midges.

Today, hooligan usually refers to unruly, drunken English football fans.

Funny Origins

All dictionaries contain funny-sounding words like cattywampus and skulduggery.

But there are also lots of words with wacky beginnings.

Take fizzle … “to make a hissing or sputtering sound, especially one that dies out weakly.” But in the 16th century “fizzle” meant “to pass gas” — probably in that manner where you’re trying to stifle it.

Phony is a word that means “fake” or “made up.” Although the exact origins of phony are unknown, it’s likely the word comes from an old con known as the “fawney rig” Fawney is from an Irish word for “finger ring,” and rig, an old term for a “trick” or “swindle.”

Here’s how it worked: the swindler would “accidentally” drop a piece of cheap jewelry in front of their mark, or target. Then, they would pick it up while expressing relief that they hadn’t lost such a valuable ring, pretending it was worth a lot of money (as if made of gold).

By the 20th century, the spelling of the word was eventually modified from fawney to phony and came to refer to anything fake or counterfeit.

No Fear Shakespeare

The early modern English language was less than 100 years old in 1590 when Shakespeare was writing. No dictionaries had yet been written and most documents were still written in Latin. The Bard contributed 1,700 words to the English language mostly because he was the first author to write them down.

He also minted completely new words and used existing words in inventive ways. To that end, Shakespeare was a “neologist.” Neologisms are newly coined words, or to imbue an old word with a new meaning.

We do that a lot these days, don’t we?

For example, he was the first writer to use friend as a verb, as in ‘to friend’ somebody, or ‘unfriended’ (Twelfth Night). From the noun gloom, he invented the adjective 'gloomy' (Titus Andronicus).

Here are some other everyday words that The Bard gifted to our common tongue: lonely (Coriolanus), critic (Hamlet), swagger (Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), bedazzled (The Taming of the Shrew), bedroom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), obscene (Love’s Labour Lost), assassination (Macbeth), addiction (Othello), fashionable (Troilus and Cressida), and many more.

**Henry V: The “swagger” king. Played by Timothée Chalamet in the** **The King** **(2019)**

Shakespeare also gave us these famous colloquialisms and idioms: All’s well that ends well … break the ice … eaten out of house and home … fair play … good riddance … heart of gold … laughing stock … love is blind … wild-goose chase … vanish into thin air … naked truth … fight fire with fire … what’s done is done … seen better days … too much of a good thing … a sorry sight … heart of hearts … and dead as a doornail.

So, until next time friends, I leave you with this …

And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
For ever, and for ever, farewell, [my friends]!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made. — Julius Caesar

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