Language Of Confusion: Feeling Strapped

There are so many weird words related to this one. You’re in for a time.
 
First of all, strap, a band of leather, showed up in the early seventeenth century from Scottish, of all languages. It’s thought to be from the Old French estrop, strap, and before that the classical Latin stroppus, which means strap like part of a slingshot. That’s actually from the Greek strophos, rope, from the verb strephein, to turn, from the Proto Indo European strebh-, to wind or turn. So because rope is twisted/turned, we have strap.
 
And that little word gives us so much weirdness. You know what’s from there? Catastrophe. Seriously! It showed up in the mid sixteenth century meaning a reversal of what’s expected, not meaning a disaster until 1748. It comes from the classical Latin catastropha (a reversal or catastrophe), and Greek katastrophe, disaster or undoing. The kata means down or against, and the rest is from strephein, so a catastrophe is turning against. Somehow that makes sense.
 
And from the same place is of course apostrophe. It showed up in the mid sixteenth century, a bit after catastrophe, from the French apostrophe, (same meaning, obvs), from the Late Latin apostrophus and Greek apostrophos prosoidia, which means apostrophe and literally translates to “the accent of turning away”. Yeah, somehow that meant a mark to show that a letter is missing—like it is being shortened to it’s, the apostrophe shows the missing i. Apo- means off or away from, and the rest is to turn, so an apostrophe is a mark that takes a letter away.
 
All right, how about strobe? It didn’t show up until 1942, but it was short for stroboscope, which showed up in 1896. That’s scope with the Greek strobos, twisting or whirling, which is obviously from strebh-. A strobe is a constantly whirling light! And there’s one more we’re going to look at: streptococcus. Yes, it’s from the same place. It showed up in 1877 as the bacteria genus, with the strepto- used by scientists when they wanted to say “twisted” but wanted to use Latin so they sound academic. It’s from the Greek streptos, twisted, which is from strephein. Fun fact, the cocco- part of the word means berry or seed, which is from kokkos, agranule or seed in Greek. Streptococcus is a twisted granule. And it sucks to come down with it.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Orbis Latinus

Language Of Confusion: Disasters

Disasters, AKA life constantly these days.
 
Disaster
Disaster showed up sometime in the late sixteenth century, coming from the Middle French désastre, which is from the Italian disastro, which of course is just disaster. The prefix dis- means ill here, and astro literally means star. A disaster is an ill (as in bad luck) star.
 
Catastrophe
Catastrophe actually showed up a bit earlier, in the early sixteenth century, although back then it meant “reversal of what is expected”, generally referring to the turning point in a drama. It actually didn’t mean a disaster until 1748! Catastrophe is from the classical Latin catastropha, a turning point or denouement, and is from the Greek katastrophe, which could mean a disaster as well as a sudden end. It’s from the verb katastrephein, to destroy, overturn, or trample on, a mix of kata, down, while strephein is turn, from the Proto Indo European strebh, wind or turn. A catastrophe is a down turn!
 
Cataclysm
Speaking of cata, cataclysm showed up in the early-mid seventeenth century, where it meant a deluge or flood, particularly in relation to the bible. It’s from the French cataclysme, which is from the classical Latin cataclysmos, which again, means a deluge. That’s of course from the Greek kataklysmos, which also just means deluge. Like I said before, kata means down, and the rest is from klyzein, to deluge. A cataclysm is deluging down on you. Klyzein is also from the Proto Indo European kleue-, to wash or clean. Weirdly enough that’s also the origin word for cloaca.
 
Calamity
Calamity showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning damage or a state of adversity, then meaning a great misfortune about a century later. It’s from the Old French calamite, from the classical Latin calamitatem, disaster. It’s origins before that aren’t really known. People used to think it’s related to the Latin calamus, straw, in the sense of damage to crops being bad, but now it’s mostly thought that’s not true. Thought B is that it’s related to incolumis, which means uninjured, but there’s no evidence of that either. Basically, no one knows where calamity is from and there are no good guesses.
 
Tragedy
Finally today, tragedy showed up in the late fourteenth century meaning a play/work with an unhappy ending, and a tragedy in general in the sixteenth century. It was from the Old French tragedie, from the classical Latin tragedia, tragedy, and that one’s also from Greek, the word tragodia, also just tragedy. And here’s where things get weird. See, in Greek, the word is a mix of two words, tragos and oide. Oide means ode or song, yeah, makes sense, and tragos means tragedy… or possibly goat. Yeah. One theory is that tragedy means “goat song”, because a “satyr play” (as in, satyrs are goats) was a happier play than a traditional tragedy. I mean, the goat connection might not even be real, but still. Wow.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Encyclopaedia Britannica
University of Ottawa, Canada