Word Origins
A lot of English words have Latin and Greek origins, but when you look in a dictionary you often find that the Latin and Greek is derived from something else even older! This page is dedicated to those words with interesting origins!
What else can you monger other than war, iron and fish?!
Saturday 14 June 2008
From last night's News Quiz on Radio 4:
"What else can you monger other than war, iron and fish?!"
They then also came up with rumourmonger and costermonger. The latter is someone who sells fruit and veg from a cart in the street although I preferred their own definition of someone who sells timeshares on the Spanish coast!
This is what the Free Dictionary has to say on the matter:
1. A dealer in a specific commodity. Often used in combination: an ironmonger.
2. A person promoting something undesirable or discreditable. Often used in combination: a scandalmonger; a warmonger.
The word's origins are through Old English from Latin 'Mango' - a dealer in slaves (probably of Greek origin).
A quick trawl of Google also yielded:
Scaremonger
Newsmonger
Fearmonger
Doom-monger
And numerous people whose surname is/was Monger. I guess their ancestors sold stuff.
Looks like you can probably stick it at the end of most things that can be sold!
I did find Hopemonger as well, but that seems to go against the second definition of promoting something undesirable. Maybe they need to look up the definition!
Belisha Beacon
Sunday 20 April 2008
We were driving home last night when I spotted that one of the lights at zebra crossing wasn't working. Tim said "Belisha beacon. I wonder where that word comes from?". I wondered if it was named after a person.
So I looked it up on Wikipedia and it says this:
They are named after Leslie Hore-Belisha (1895-1957), the Minister of Transport who introduced them in 1934.
So there you go! I was right, but I still wondered where his named originated. He's got his own page on Wikipedia and apparently his father was Jewish. I never did manage to find the real origin of the name because there are too many entries on Google for Mr Belisha! There are also quite a lot for a footballer and a pop group by the same name.
I don't want a 'wedding breakfast', I want a proper dinner!
Monday 24 March 2008
Last time I looked my breakfast consisted of cereal, maybe toast and very occasionally, various fried products. It DID NOT consist of a three course meal with wine, champagne etc!
Breakfast, according to my dictionary is "the first meal of the day". So unless people who go to weddings aren't allowed to eat anything in the morning then a Wedding Breakfast IS NOT BREAKFAST.
Maybe it's called that because guests and participants have to get up early, have the ceremony at about lunchtime and are usually so hungry by 4pm that they are "breaking their fast".
According to Answers.com the origin of 'wedding breakfast' could be one of two things:
a) the bride and groom will have been fasting before the wedding (why?!)
b) it's the first meal of a married couple's life, just as breakfast is the first meal of the day.
Now the second one is beginning to make sense, but I still don't like it! It doesn't appear to be American in origin though.
I want some lunch before our wedding, or at least a snack! I can just imagine the registrar saying "Does anyone know of any reason why these two should not be wed", and my stomach rumbling rather loudly in answer!