#wordorigin — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #wordorigin, aggregated by home.social.
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This feels like one of those things I already knew and just forgot about.
"When retired British army captain Charles Boycott, acting as an agent for an absentee landlord, tried to evict tenant farmers for refusing to pay their rent, he was ostracized by the [Land League] and community. [...] Boycott’s fate was soon well known, and his name became a byword for that particular protest strategy"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boycott
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This feels like one of those things I already knew and just forgot about.
"When retired British army captain Charles Boycott, acting as an agent for an absentee landlord, tried to evict tenant farmers for refusing to pay their rent, he was ostracized by the [Land League] and community. [...] Boycott’s fate was soon well known, and his name became a byword for that particular protest strategy"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boycott
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This feels like one of those things I already knew and just forgot about.
"When retired British army captain Charles Boycott, acting as an agent for an absentee landlord, tried to evict tenant farmers for refusing to pay their rent, he was ostracized by the [Land League] and community. [...] Boycott’s fate was soon well known, and his name became a byword for that particular protest strategy"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boycott
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This feels like one of those things I already knew and just forgot about.
"When retired British army captain Charles Boycott, acting as an agent for an absentee landlord, tried to evict tenant farmers for refusing to pay their rent, he was ostracized by the [Land League] and community. [...] Boycott’s fate was soon well known, and his name became a byword for that particular protest strategy"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boycott
-
This feels like one of those things I already knew and just forgot about.
"When retired British army captain Charles Boycott, acting as an agent for an absentee landlord, tried to evict tenant farmers for refusing to pay their rent, he was ostracized by the [Land League] and community. [...] Boycott’s fate was soon well known, and his name became a byword for that particular protest strategy"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/boycott
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I remember the first time I heard the word decimate used to mean “lots of a population killed/destroyed.” A newscaster in the 1990s was saying a salmon population had been decimated. I thought, oh shit. 10% gone. That’s bad. Then I found out he’d meant almost all of them had been killed, and I was extra confused. Until then, I’d only known it as the egregious Roman military punishment where a squad of ten soldiers had to kill one of their own. #syntax #LoadedWords #decimate #Latin #WordOrigin
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I remember the first time I heard the word decimate used to mean “lots of a population killed/destroyed.” A newscaster in the 1990s was saying a salmon population had been decimated. I thought, oh shit. 10% gone. That’s bad. Then I found out he’d meant almost all of them had been killed, and I was extra confused. Until then, I’d only known it as the egregious Roman military punishment where a squad of ten soldiers had to kill one of their own. #syntax #LoadedWords #decimate #Latin #WordOrigin
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I remember the first time I heard the word decimate used to mean “lots of a population killed/destroyed.” A newscaster in the 1990s was saying a salmon population had been decimated. I thought, oh shit. 10% gone. That’s bad. Then I found out he’d meant almost all of them had been killed, and I was extra confused. Until then, I’d only known it as the egregious Roman military punishment where a squad of ten soldiers had to kill one of their own. #syntax #LoadedWords #decimate #Latin #WordOrigin
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I remember the first time I heard the word decimate used to mean “lots of a population killed/destroyed.” A newscaster in the 1990s was saying a salmon population had been decimated. I thought, oh shit. 10% gone. That’s bad. Then I found out he’d meant almost all of them had been killed, and I was extra confused. Until then, I’d only known it as the egregious Roman military punishment where a squad of ten soldiers had to kill one of their own. #syntax #LoadedWords #decimate #Latin #WordOrigin
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I remember the first time I heard the word decimate used to mean “lots of a population killed/destroyed.” A newscaster in the 1990s was saying a salmon population had been decimated. I thought, oh shit. 10% gone. That’s bad. Then I found out he’d meant almost all of them had been killed, and I was extra confused. Until then, I’d only known it as the egregious Roman military punishment where a squad of ten soldiers had to kill one of their own. #syntax #LoadedWords #decimate #Latin #WordOrigin
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FUN FACT all you wifmans and wermans!
"The word Man derives from Proto-Germanic and it meant literally “person”, that is, it could refer to both man and woman. Woman, on the other hand, derives from wif or wifman. What was used to refer to man with its sense of today is wer or werman. That this hits the right spot is confirmed by the survival of wer in werewolf (literally man-wolf)."
But now I want to know why there isn't a wifwolf....
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FUN FACT all you wifmans and wermans!
"The word Man derives from Proto-Germanic and it meant literally “person”, that is, it could refer to both man and woman. Woman, on the other hand, derives from wif or wifman. What was used to refer to man with its sense of today is wer or werman. That this hits the right spot is confirmed by the survival of wer in werewolf (literally man-wolf)."
But now I want to know why there isn't a wifwolf....
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FUN FACT all you wifmans and wermans!
"The word Man derives from Proto-Germanic and it meant literally “person”, that is, it could refer to both man and woman. Woman, on the other hand, derives from wif or wifman. What was used to refer to man with its sense of today is wer or werman. That this hits the right spot is confirmed by the survival of wer in werewolf (literally man-wolf)."
But now I want to know why there isn't a wifwolf....
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FUN FACT all you wifmans and wermans!
"The word Man derives from Proto-Germanic and it meant literally “person”, that is, it could refer to both man and woman. Woman, on the other hand, derives from wif or wifman. What was used to refer to man with its sense of today is wer or werman. That this hits the right spot is confirmed by the survival of wer in werewolf (literally man-wolf)."
But now I want to know why there isn't a wifwolf....
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Turns out that the #WordOrigin of #Mastodon is what you might guess. #BreastTooth.
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Canadian Word Origins: Keener!
Describing someone who is eager, or a brown-noser, in the classroom, the origin of the word is pretty mysterious. There are several theories, but none are for sure the origin.
#etymology #wordorigin #canada #canadian #History #Histodon #Histodons
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Canadian Word Origins: Keener!
Describing someone who is eager, or a brown-noser, in the classroom, the origin of the word is pretty mysterious. There are several theories, but none are for sure the origin.
#etymology #wordorigin #canada #canadian #History #Histodon #Histodons
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Canadian Word Origins: Keener!
Describing someone who is eager, or a brown-noser, in the classroom, the origin of the word is pretty mysterious. There are several theories, but none are for sure the origin.
#etymology #wordorigin #canada #canadian #History #Histodon #Histodons
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Canadian Word Origins: Keener!
Describing someone who is eager, or a brown-noser, in the classroom, the origin of the word is pretty mysterious. There are several theories, but none are for sure the origin.
#etymology #wordorigin #canada #canadian #History #Histodon #Histodons
