211–220 of 346 posts
It sounds like the ancient Indian word for fate/consequences, but it is a synonym for normal household gas heater, and the etymology is KarMa = Karel Macháček, name of the engineer whose corporation produced them in former Czechoslovakia. This guy (Czech only):
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karel_Mach%C3%A1%C4%8Dek_(kons...
The generic Hungarian word for trash cans, 'kuka', unexpectedly originates from the names of German industrialists Johann Josef Keller and Jakob Knappich. The story is quite involved, to the extent that one would be tempted to dismiss it as a folk etymology, if it wasn't ridiculously well-attested. Keller and Knappich founded an acetylene factory in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898. They named it Keller und Knappich Augsbur…
My favourite is the verb mesmerize, which is named after physician Franz Mesmer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
...named after Tantalus, the son of Zeus who was condemned to stand in water under a fruit tree, but the fruit and water were always just out of reach. He had a daughter, Niobe, and son, Pelops.
Tantalum, the material, was named because it could not be easily dissolved in any acid, unlike most other metals. Despite knowing of the element's existence, researchers could not isolate the chemical in tantalite samples for decades, as it was always bound to this other material---later called niobium, although one guy thought there were two or more other metals and wanted to call the other one pelopium. Nope; all niobium!
Sadly, tantalum became something of a semi-professional metal outside of capacitors, and even there ceramics and aluminums are preferred for one reason or another---usually cost. It was good for bulb filaments until tungsten displaced it. It was great for fountain pen nibs but not as great as iridium and osmium. It doesn't help with alloying because it embrittles. Other biologically inert materials are usually chosen over tantalum for implants. It could be a refractory ceramic but tantalum carbide is not as heat resistant as hafnium carbide.
It also has weird nuclear properties, where someone will probably look back in a the distant future and remark, "damn, that awesome commercial application of nuclear tantalum evaded us for centuries! What a fitting name!"
I never connected until just now that I should probably avoid breathing in any of the magic smoke when a tantalum capacitor explodes.
The generic Hungarian word for trash cans, 'kuka', unexpectedly originates from the names of German industrialists Johann Josef Keller and Jakob Knappich. The story is quite involved, to the extent that one would be tempted to dismiss it as a folk etymology, if it wasn't ridiculously well-attested. Keller and Knappich founded an acetylene factory in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898. They named it Keller und Knappich Augsbur…
The most common word in Japanese for “stapler” is hochikisu or hotchikisu , which seems to come from the name of the E.F. Hotchkiss Company [1], an American manufacturer whose staplers were imported to Japan in the early 20th century. Some Japanese sources [2] say that the word comes from Benjamin Hotchkiss [3], an inventor of machine guns, and that is what I learned many years ago, but that etymology apparently has…
You might think Morgan Hill, California was named because of a prominent feature of the landscape. Nope, named after a guy named Morgan Hill. (And the hill you see in Morgan Hill, CA is actually named El Toro — the Spanish word for "lawnmower". Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here for one more night.)
What is the relationship between the word "toro" (bull in Spanish) and lawnmowers?
Ford Charcoal was made from recycled Model T scrap lumber and sold in Ford dealerships. It was bought out in the 50s and renamed to Kingsford Charcoal after the name of the town where the plant was located (the town named after Henry Ford's cousin who helped supply the lumber to Henry Ford). (Another fun fact, the charcoal process was developed by none other than Thomas Edison)
> Thomas Edison designed the briquette factory
Charlemagne: word for 'king' in many European countries derive from his name (german 'Karl', polish 'Krol', Lithuanian, ...)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...