English is said to be one of the hardest languages to learn if it’s not your native tongue, and for good reason. The words we use are a confusing mishmash of what must seem like nonsense to non-native speakers. Why doesn’t laughter rhyme with massacre? Why does the word “set” have 430 ways usage according to the dictionary? You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure this out. Even looking at the origins of words can be confusing, as many words don't come from where you might think.
10. Credit sharks are not named after sea creatures.
A loan shark sounds potentially dangerous even if you have no idea what the term means. And once you know, it still sounds dangerous. Simply put, a loan shark is someone who will lend you money on very unfavorable terms. There may be high interest rates or dangerous penalties for not paying on time. Usually, it means something illegal, like breaking your legs. You want to avoid a loan shark.
The shark connection seems obvious. A shark is a predator of the seas, a loan shark is a financial predator. Oddly enough, the loan shark doesn't get his name from that. They have nothing to do with sea creatures, and, for that matter, the animal called a shark only shares that name by coincidence.
Sharks were actually called once upon a time sea dogs . There are also species we call dogfish, which are small sharks. But pawnbrokers get their name from the word "shark," which has long meant a deceitful or dishonest person. The name predates the pawnbrokers and may be of Dutch or German origin, such as the word " schorck ", meaning scoundrel.
9. Shells were named after geese.
If you know much about boats, you know about barnacles. These little crustaceans form on the hulls of ships, as well as rocks and almost anything else in the water, and can accumulate until whatever they cover is nearly invisible. There are several types, and some are even edible.
In Europe there is a bird known as barnacle goose , which is a bit like a Canada goose and it is no coincidence that it bears this name.
Geese were not named after crustaceans, but it happened the other way around . Barnacles were named after geese because back then people thought geese came from barnacles. They were baby goslings. Go figure.
Geese are black, white and grey. The shells, attached to wood and other floating debris, were attached to a small gray-black paw , very similar to a goose's neck. And that's all it took. It all goes back to the 11th century.
8. The Caesarean section was not named after Caesar.
One common and easy to understand etymological myth is that Julius Caesar was the origin of what we know today as the Caesarean section or C-section. This is easy to believe since the names are very similar and there is a common story that Caesar was born by C-section. Why not name it after him? Well, for one thing, he no way was not the first child born thus, as was known, among others, in Hindu, Chinese, Egyptian and Roman texts. There was even a law on the books before he was born about their implementation. Also, it is quite possible that Caesar was not even born by cesarean section.
In Caesar's time, cesarean sections were most often performed to save a child when the mother was dead or about to die, because she probably would not survive the procedure. But Caesar's mother lived for many years.
So why the name Caesar? It probably comes from the word caedare , meaning "to cut." Pliny the Elder even suggested that Julius Caesar's name was actually derived from an ancestor born through this procedure, meaning he was named after the operation, not the other way around.
7. Call the Police Five-O is taken from the show Hawaii Five-O
If you're into street slang, you know that "Five-O" refers to the police. The question then becomes, why? What does Five-O have to do with the police? The answer to that question is in Hawaii, or at least in its fictional version. The series Hawaii Five-O dates back to 1968 and was one of the first popular police procedurals.
Throughout the 70s the term "Five-O" became popular slang for cops and still survives in some circles. It helps that the show was remade and is still on TV. But unlike some of the police jargon that makes its way onto TV, including police codes for crimes like the infamous " 187 ", which was supposedly the Los Angeles police code for murder, Five-O meant nothing. So the show was source of the term . I didn't borrow it from real police or even pop culture. In the show, it simply refers to the unit the police worked in at the 50th Precinct, as well as a nod to Hawaii being the 50th state.
6. Soy sauce is not named after soybeans.
The fact that we know that soybeans and soy sauce exist seems like we know two things that are related. And it makes sense that soy sauce is made from soybeans, so it’s called soy sauce. But we can’t make assumptions when it comes to the origin of words. Soy sauce is not named after soybeans. Instead, soybeans got their name from soy sauce, which was the first to have that word.
Soy sauce has its roots in China, but the name is Japanese. Soyu or shoyu — these are Japanese terms for sauce, derived from the Chinese shi-yu. Does this mean that soybeans are shoyu beans? Not at all. In Japanese soybeans are called daizu .
John Locke wrote about soy sauce, which he translated into Dutch as saio, and which eventually became soy sauce, then soy sauce. Since the Dutch and then English speakers knew the sauce before they knew the beans, the name went backwards, and soybeans evolved from soy sauce.
5. The orange fruit was named before the color.
There have been many jokes over the years about the man who first saw an orange growing on a tree and gave it the most uncreative name he could think of. But calm down, because that story can’t be true. The fruit wasn’t named after the color; the color was named after the fruit.
The orange as a fruit appeared in England in the 1300s It comes from French, which comes from Arabic, which comes from Persian, which comes from the Sanskrit word n?ranga, or orange tree.
Incredibly, the color was not mentioned in the letter. before 1500s Before that, people probably just called anything orange “yellow-red.” Once the fruit became widely available, its description became simpler. In fact, very few languages have a specific term for the color orange, rather than a mixture of yellow and red.
4. The Canary Islands are not named after birds.
Canaries are known for several things, such as their yellow color, known as canary yellow, their singing, and their use to test the air safety in mines. There is even a chain of islands named after them, but they are not named after the birds. The birds were named after the islands. The islands were named after the dogs.
The original name of the islands was I Canaria nsula, which means "Island of Dogs". It has the same root as the word canine. The Romans, for some unknown reason, called it the Island of Dogs. There is a legend that the native inhabitants of the island worshiped dogs. But there is also a possibility that the population of monk seals, which the Romans called sea dogs , was responsible for this. Thus, the birds were named either after dogs or after seals.
3. Good, derivative of OK
The word “OK” is common in English and even other languages. You can say OK to express agreement. It’s a reliable term for describing how you feel, and it works well with sarcasm and displeasure if your tone is right. But it can be confusing if you think of it as OK, as in the letter O and K combined, and the four-letter word OK spelled OK. Why the difference?
Although it is counterintuitive, the two-letter version is the original word, just as it is. The four-letter version came later. English has many abbreviations and contractions, so it seems that the four letters could be shortened to a two-letter word, since they sound phonetically the same.
The two-letter OK is considered a phonetic abbreviation for "everything is correct", which as a joke could be translated as " everything is correct ". Around this time, Martin Van Buren was running for president and using his nickname, Old Kinderhook, in slogans urging everyone to "Vote for OK ".
Several decades passed before the four-letter "okay," a phonetic extension of the original term, appeared on the scene.
2. Bikini is named after the Bikini Atoll.
The bikini remains one of the most popular swimsuit designs ever created, and is now nearly 80 years old. Some consider it scandalous, others sexy, but it was designed to make a splash when a French designer introduced the two-piece in 1946 Of course, there had been plenty of two-piece swimsuits or other garments long before that—a bikini is little more than a bra and panties, after all—but the idea of someone wearing such a thing in public in that place and at that time in history caused a stir. Plus, it was given a name people would probably remember: the bikini.
The name of the swimsuit did not come out of nowhere. It comes from the Bikini Atoll, which had a name long before the two-piece suit was invented. The atoll was famous, or perhaps infamous, for its nuclear weapons testing. It was here was dropped for testing 23 nuclear devices . But when the bikini was released, these tests had only just begun, meaning that the awesome and terrifying power of a nuclear weapon was completely new. No one had ever seen anything like it before, and at the time, no one knew the implications. They just knew it was big. So the bikini capitalized on all that awe. It was the bombshell of swimwear, if you will. Something explosive and never seen before.
1. The word "escalation" comes from escalators
Almost every major shopping mall in the world has a feature that many other types of buildings don't have - an escalator. Offices, like apartment buildings, typically use elevators. But an escalator is pretty limited in what it can do. An escalator works best in places with lots of space and lots of people. Unlike an elevator, it doesn't require waiting and has no capacity restrictions. So it works well in places like shopping malls or maybe airports and stadiums. And what does an escalator do? It escalates! Sort of.
As the name suggests, this is a device that escalates. The way the English language works can help you differentiate words. Anything ending in -or or -er is often a noun, demonstrating the action of a verb. A runner runs. A driver steers. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s a good guide. And since escalate is a word, it makes sense in this case.
That being said, the word "escalation" only exists because of escalators. It dates back to 1922 and is reverse formation from the word escalator. The word simply means to rise or reach by means of an escalator. Only in recent years corporate speech has taken over the word, and you'll find it used when customer service needs to pass your problem on to a manager. It's also used to describe the tension that runs high during wartime, and both feelings have been adapted to simply standing on moving steps.
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