61–70 of 85 posts
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Also, the use of "rooster" in the US instead of "cock" or "cockerel" which is still common in UK/Commonwealth English.
Living near the University of South Carolina (Gamecocks), always tickled my inner twelve year old to see a constant stream of garnet hats with "Cocks" on them.
> the word whose usage is considered so offensive that it has caused the decline of its unfortunate near-homophone ‘niggardly’ That's not exactly a unique phenomenon. For example, it's how "rabbit" replaced "coney".
The one that gets to me is that the anglosphere is still calling a fairly common crop [cooking product] “rapeseed [oil]”. And why is that etymologically connected to the latin for ‘turnip’? This seems as strange now as the fact “mincemeat” (no space) in mince pies is vegetarian (the answer: because “meat” used to mean any food not just animal flesh, but it’s still strange to see that today).
And of course it still does, in a way - suet.
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Living near the University of South Carolina (Gamecocks), always tickled my inner twelve year old to see a constant stream of garnet hats with "Cocks" on them.
As a non-English speaker, I am amazed by the fact that people named "Richard" are happy to be called "Dick".
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As a non-English speaker, I am amazed by the fact that people named "Richard" are happy to be called "Dick".
Just in case you don't know, it's rhyming slang that stuck around. Richard -> Rick -> Dick. William -> Will -> Bill.
This said, I am still amazed that someone is fine with that (some "Richards" I discussed with presented themselves as "Rich", and some willingly as "Dick")
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I've heard that one for "naff", allegedly from "not available for f--", which is probably bogus but the etymology is very unclear: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1648,0... The suggestion that it comes from Polari is far more interesting, as Polari was incorporated into the great British tradition of using innuendo to get past unimaginative censoriousness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_an…
A propos of Polari, when I mentioned to someone who used the word "carsey" (often spelt "khazi") that it was gay slang, ultimately derived from Latin "casa" meaning cottage, he insisted that no, it wasn't, and that it came from an Indian language. I double-checked this with a native Hindi speaker who couldn't think of any Hindi cognates but I couldn't get him to change his mind.
A similarly spelled word comes from Urdu for example https://www.etymonline.com/word/khaki
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The one that gets to me is that the anglosphere is still calling a fairly common crop [cooking product] “rapeseed [oil]”. And why is that etymologically connected to the latin for ‘turnip’? This seems as strange now as the fact “mincemeat” (no space) in mince pies is vegetarian (the answer: because “meat” used to mean any food not just animal flesh, but it’s still strange to see that today).
Rapeseed oil is usually referred to as canola oil these days.
It's amazing how many people still fall for the 'fuck-as-acronym' myths. I've literally argued with people convinced that FUCK stands for Fornication Under Consent of the King, or (as Van Halen apparently believed) For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. No, none of the above. Nope.
The author (one Evan Morris) always reminded people that acronyms were extremely rare before about WW2, and so acronym etymologies for old words are virtually always made up (Morris blamed tour guides for keeping them circulating).
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Knowing the more likely etymology, it's a little awkward when I see the billboards for a dentist in my area named Dr. Ficker.
Speaking of misread signs, there's a Chinese restaurant on San Vicente in Los Angeles named Hunan Taste. More than one person has mistaken that first n for an m.
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Interesting maybe that Coinín (sp?) is rabbit in modern Irish/Gaeilge and is pronounced in the former manner. Presumably it has some indo European roots, that didn’t spread into common English usage.
Rabbits were introduced to Ireland, so the word for them was probably borrowed from English or French.
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A propos of Polari, when I mentioned to someone who used the word "carsey" (often spelt "khazi") that it was gay slang, ultimately derived from Latin "casa" meaning cottage, he insisted that no, it wasn't, and that it came from an Indian language. I double-checked this with a native Hindi speaker who couldn't think of any Hindi cognates but I couldn't get him to change his mind.
India has many languages other than Hindi. A similarly spelled word comes from Urdu for example https://www.etymonline.com/word/khaki