As usual for the last etymology
post of the year, I’m going to do something different. Once again I’m going to
look at the weirdest etymology I’ve gone over this past year, because there’s
been quite a bit of it.
Warp means transport these days because of astrophysics, and mostly Star Trek.
Nacelle, defined as the cockpit of an
aircraft (or other similar structures) comes from the Latin word navis, ship,
for the stupidest reason possible. Navis then Late Latin made it a diminutive navicella, Vulgar Latin made
it a, naucella, then Old French made it nacele. It came to English
meaning a small boat, and then, in 1901, because a “gondola of an airship”
looked like a small boat, we started calling parts of metal things that fly in
the air a small ship.
Inward and outward are not related to award,
reward, or anything else with ward in it. The former two are in- or out- +
ward, which means toward and from wer-, a PIE root that means turn or bend. The rest
are from a different PIE wer-, this one meaning perceive or watch out
for, and is the origin for guard and words ending in -gard.
Kaput. Just kaput. It definitely wins the stupid prize here.. It’s from
German, but it’s actually a misused form of the phrase capot machem,
which is a translation of the French phrase faire capot, which was used
to say you won all the tricks in an old card game. The phrase’s literal
translation is “to make a bonnet”. What the hell.
Warp means transport these days because of astrophysics, and mostly Star Trek.
To make a bonnet became kaput? Yeah, that's pretty out there.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see kaput, I think of a photo of Canadian soldiers looking at a newspaper on VE Day with that one word headline. It's at our War Museum.
ReplyDelete