“Emoji is from Japan. The word in Japanese breaks down into “picture character”
It’s also where the root of the phrase “Worth Their Salt” comes from, it means they’re worth the Salarium (now Salary) you pay them!”
“The word “sniper” and “to snipe” come from the act of hunting the water snipe, which is a very erratically flying and easily startled bird, so as such you would need to be stealthy and quite a good shot.”
“To bring something to a head, actually refers to squeezing a pimple.”
“Taser was originally an acronym for Tom A. Swift’s Electric Rifle. Tom Swift is a character from a series of sci-fi novels. He didn’t have a middle name, so the A was arbitrarily added to make the acronym look more like a word.”
“In the Southern US at least (not sure about elsewhere), “another” is often analyzed as “a nother”, hence the phrase “a whole nother”
"‘Butter someone up’ from a religious act in India where they’d throw balls of butter at statues of gods for luck.“
“Simplified cute version – “spatula” means little sword, and we get the french word épée from the same root!”
“Muscle and mouse come from the same origin. Apparently someone thought it looks like a mouse is running under your skin.”
“Dependability – a word invented by Theodore MacManus, one of the giants of the advertising industry.”
“Bear comes from the old English Bera which means brown one, they had a word for bear but it was considered bad luck to say it and it was completely forgotten, being replaced with the euphemism.”
“Sinister means left handed. Sinister meaning evil derived from this. The devil was often portrayed as left handed. Sinister is Latin for left. Dexter is right. Dexterous is derived from this. It is possibly to do with the right hand of god. “
“Bunk, debunk, bunkum and buncombe (less used than the others) all have the same root — a county in the North Carolina mountains.A US Representative whose district included Buncombe County, North Carolina, where Asheville is located, gave an intentionally long-winded, pointless speech in Congress. His goal was to simply to make news back in Buncombe.
So buncombe came to mean a meaningless speech, which got shortened to bunkum and bunk, and eventually gained the broader definition of a false explanation, and hence debunk.”
“Willy-nilly comes from “will ye or nill ye”, or “whether you like it or not”.
“The word “true” and the word “tree” have the same root (pun absolutely intended). They both come from an Indo-European word “deru” meaning strong or steadfast, which then evolved into the protogermanic “treowe” meaning firm, real, rooted in the ground. The word “true” was an evolution of the figurative meaning while “tree” was an evolution of the literal meaning.”
• Don't insult other visitors. Offensive comments will be deleted without warning.
• Comments are accepted in English only.
• No swearing words in comments, otherwise such comments will be censored.
• Your nickname and avatar are randomly selected. If you don't post comments for 7 days, they both are reset.
• To choose another avatar, click the ‘Random avatar’ link.
I was dubious about a couple of these. Looked them up. Glad I did, because I learned a couple new word histories today. Thanks Iz!