I was reading recently (Word Histories and Mysteries) about the word “gremlin,” and here is what they have to say: “Said to have been invented by members of the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, gremlin is used in works written in the 1940s for ‘an imaginary gnomelike creature who causes difficulties in aircraft.’ The word seems likely to have been influenced by goblin, but accounts of its origin are various and none are certain.” As if to emphasize this last point, the Wikipediaarticle on “gremlin” vaguely relates that “one authority in folklore states that ‘some people’ derive the name from the Old English word gremian, ‘to vex.’”
Now, I understand that one could apply “accounts of its origin are various and none are certain” to a great many (most?) word histories. But how many words seem, like gremlin, to have popped into common usage without much evidence of a long, arduous transformation from a thousand-plus year old root?
To put it another way, are there any “etymological isolates” (similar to how Basque is a language isolate) that cannot readily be traced to any relatives?
Yeah, I tried to get this in on edit, but missed the window. I’m looking for words that generally stump etymologists. We know what the acronyms LASER and RADAR mean, and we can even point to the scientists who first used them. There are also portmanteaus, such as the word chortle (chuckle + snort), and we know that Lewis Carroll came up with it (or at least ripped it off from a close friend and gets credit for being the first to publish it).
But I want words that, like I said, stump etymologists, where the best they can offer is, “Hmm, ‘griffle’ looks like the Sanskrit root ‘griff-,’ but I don’t see anything similar in Hindi or Bengali or Greek or anything like that. So I’m not sure why the word ‘griffle’ first started being used in the 1920s to refer to a wallet.”
There are cases where a plausible etymology is steadfastly refused. Consider Jeep, the Army WWII vehicle.
A lot of people used to claim that the name derived from “GP”, for General Purpose vehicle, or Government Purpose, or some sort of non-abbreviation code, supposedly the Army designation for the thing.
But many held that it was named after the creature Eugene the Jeep, who appeared in the Thimble Theater/Popeye comic strip. Eugene was a fourth dimensional creature who could effectively teleport anywhere (Elzie Segar wrote some pretty sophisticated stuff), which pretty much characterized the Army’s feelings about the Jeep. (You get the same sense from reading WWII cartoons about the vehicle )Jeep. R. Lee Ermy certainly feels this is where it camre from. Consider that Popetye was, and had been, incredibly popular in both the strips and the cartoons (where I think Eugene showed up, once), and it makes for a compelling case.
Only the makers of the present-day Jeep vehicle arent buying it. They pay it lip service only to deny the connection. Maybe they’re afraid that the folks holding Popeye’s trademark are going to try and squeeze them for royalties. So as far as they’re concerneed, there is no official etymology for Jeep. And they’ve influenced general opinion.
There are literally hundreds of words for which we cannot find an easily explainable etymology. (Well, some people like to suggest plausible ones, but they usually aren’t provable)
[Of obscure origin: possibly a fanciful coinage, but it is doubtful whether any reliance can be placed on the anecdote of its invention by Daly, a Dublin theatre-manager. Senses 3 and 4 are app. from quiz v.1 1.
The anecdote is given by Smart in his Walker Remodelled 1836, but is omitted in the ed. of 1840. The very circumstantial version in F. T. Porter’s Gleanings & Reminiscences (1875) 32 gives the date of the alleged invention as 1791; but this is later than the actual appearance of the word and its derivative quizzity.]
Not just words but phrases. There must be dozens of threads asking about the origin of common phrases, clichés, and sayings, almost none of which we could answer.
Huh. I thought that this one was fairly well known. It was first used as a weather term in the 1800s by a newspaper to describe a massive storm. Previously it had referred to a flurry of punches in boxing, and also something about shooting that I don’t recall off the top of my head.
To give just one example, search for all the threads we’ve done on the origin of the phrase “the whole nine yards.” It’s apparently less than fifty years old, and no one is certain where it comes from. The first uses in print are in the 1960’s. It’s a major etymological discovery whenever someone finds an earlier use. Our own samclem was one of the people who recently found an earlier use. There are dozens of theories about where it came from, all of which have flaws.
Those in love with vocabulary and etymology will want to read Treasure-House of the Language: The Living OED, by Charlotte Brewer. It’s a bit dry in spots, well, arid, but overall it’s a tremendously interesting look backstage at the making of the OED and its supplements.
Brewer has sifted through the extensive archive of memos from a century to get at the arguments, debates, prejudices, and fiats of the lexicographers who put the OED together. She demonstrates that thousands of words have faulty histories or poor definitions, and that correspondents and even some of the insiders have pointed these out over the years, but only a fraction of the necessary changes have ever been made.
The whys are understandable. The first part of the OED, the A’s, was put together 40 years before the Zs. Huge advances were made in knowledge and practical application over that time with the full knowledge that the past was literally fixed in an era of fixed type. The sheer inconsistency of what had been sent in by random people, even if correct, would mean that thousands of equally valid changes would be overlooked, leading to more chaos. The supplements required far more work than anyone conceived just to get in new words and meanings without trying to go back and make corrections. At several points the Oxford Press overseers were ready to throw in the towel at the time and expense and just declare the bloody thing over with.
Finally, with this age of computers and a legion of typists and proofreaders who have re-entered every entry, a third edition of the OED is being prepared that will go over every entry and try to get it right. It’s a monumental task and who knows when or if it will ever finish.
While Brewer is careful to praise the accomplishments of the OED at every turn, she’s made me scared to ever quote from it to settle an argument. Too much is just plain wrong and far more is hopelessly outdated and provincial.
I have the exact opposite reaction of the OP. It doesn’t surprise me that there are words we don’t know the etymology of. It surprises me that there are *any *words we think we can be sure about.
It was first used as a weather term in the 1800s by a newspaper to describe a massive storm. Previously it had referred to a flurry of punches in boxing, and also something about shooting that I don’t recall off the top of my head.