# Your favorite unexpected etymology **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 22, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641 "2013-06-22T17:12:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/141 "2013-07-02T17:06:49Z")
> [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > A _Mamba_ is a deadly, poisonous snake, while a _Mambo_ is a rather festive Carribean dance. “Marconi plays the mamba…” So, how does one play a poisonous snake? What kind of musical instrument would that be? A flute? A stringed instrument? > [@Andy\_L](#): > > This reference to “sourstuff” reminds me of Poul Anderson’s “Uncleftish Beholding” - a description of atomic (“Uncleftish”) theory (“Beholding”) with all those naughty Greek and Latin derived words replaced with their Germanic equivalents. Reading that is probably a good indication of what a non-science-inclined person feels like trying to read about chemistry. “What’s with all those goofy words? Wait, was an uncleft an atom or a molecule? Which word was an element?” > [@Nava](#): > > Hey, now that I have you guys here, a question. > > The color brown is called _marrón_ in Spanish, _marroi_ in Euskera, _marró_ in Catalan. RAE very helpfully if a bit redundantly tells is it comes from the French _marron_, “a chestnut-colored edible chestnut” (that’s the _marron_ in _marron glacé_). Does the English maroon come from the same or a different root? At least when I’ve heard Americans describe something as “maroon”, it was a different color. Same root, according to [Search 'maroon' on etymonline](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=maroon&searchmode=none) I would say that the color maroon is more reddish than brownish, but it is a darker red. Google image searching chestnuts, it would be fair to call them maroon, at least the redder images. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/142 "2013-07-03T03:25:29Z")
“Tabernacle” and “tavern” both come from the same Latin root word, _taberna_. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/143 "2013-07-03T10:25:24Z")
Hot dog > **[World Wide Words: Hot dog](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hot1.htm)** > > What is the origin of 'hot dog' as in a sausage in a roll? “~ around 1894-95, students at Yale University began to refer to the wagons selling hot sausages in buns as dog wagons. One at Yale was even given the nickname of “The Kennel Club”. It was only a short step from this campus use of dog to hot dog, and this fateful move was made in a story in the issue of the Yale Record for 19 October 1895, which ended, “They contentedly munched hot dogs during the whole service”.” ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/144 "2013-07-03T10:41:53Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > “Tabernacle” and “tavern” both come from the same Latin root word, _taberna_. Before the phantom of False morning died, Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, "When all the Temple is prepared within, “Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?” ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/145 "2013-07-03T11:56:37Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > Office workers trade scuttlebutt by the water cooler. That has a long history because on sailing vessels, the scuttlebutt was literally a barrel of fresh water with a hole punched (i.e., scuttled) in its butt. It was the supply of drinking water for the crew, and presumably a good place to trade gossip about the ship. Not quite right here: A butt was just another name for a barrel (The poet laureate in England traditionally receives a “butt of sack” — about 600 bottles’ worth of sherry, annually) A scuttle was a hatch, probably from the Old French _escoutille_, meaning a hatchway. Therefore a scuttlebut was a barrel with a hatch, the top or lid, open for scooping a drink from. They would not have damaged the barrel by punching a hole. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/146 "2013-07-03T12:24:23Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Hamlet: Or did you think I meant country matters? > Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord. > Hamlet: That’s a fair thought, to lie between maid’s legs. And of course “country” was a reference as well. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/147 "2013-07-03T12:42:51Z")
> [@Greg\_Charles](#): > > Office workers trade scuttlebutt by the water cooler. That has a long history because on sailing vessels, the scuttlebutt was literally a barrel of fresh water with a hole punched (i.e., scuttled) in its butt. It was the supply of drinking water for the crew, and presumably a good place to trade gossip about the ship. Ah, you mean a Furphy. From the portable water tanks used by Australian troops in WWI ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/148 "2013-07-03T14:48:32Z")
The names of Ashtabula, Ohio and the Ashtabula River come from the Lenape phrase _ash-tepi-hele_ meaning ‘always’ (_ash_) ‘enough’ (_tepi_) ‘to go around’ (_hele_), meaning the river always had enough fish for everyone to share. The name of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania comes from Lenape _punkwes-utenay_ ‘mosquito town’. The word for small biting insects, sandflies or mosquitoes, comes from a diminutive form of _punkw_ meaning ‘dust’, which is also the source of the word punk (a stick of compressed wood dust). The name of the Monongahela River comes from Lenape _Menaonki-hela_ meaning ‘the high riverbanks are washed down; the banks cave in or erode’, from _menaonke_ ‘it has a loose bank (where you might fall in)’ + -_hele_, a verb referring to any kind of motion (same as in \*Ashtabula \*above). Indian place names were always [practical](http://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/4658) like that, giving people an idea of what to expect if they went there. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/149 "2013-07-03T15:13:36Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Indian place names were always [practical](http://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/4658) like that, giving people an idea of what to expect if they went there. Including those stinky fish-smelling Winnebago jagoffs . . . ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/150 "2013-07-03T17:06:15Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I’m guessing that “bao” – Cantonese for a bun (filled with, say, sweet minced pork) – comes from the Portuguese word for bread. Am I right? I don’t think it’s from Portuguese. The word _baau_ (包) means “wrap” or “package”, so I guess the buns got their name because of the way the dough is wrapped around the filling. However, the Japanese word for bread, _pan_ (パン) **does** come from the Portuguese _pão_. Other Japanese words to come from Portuguese include: - - Cup / _koppu_ (コップ) / _copo_ - Button / _botan_ (ボタン) / _botão_ - Tobacco / _tabako_ (タバコ) / _tabaco_ ---
**Author:** ![Ksnook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ce7236/32.png) [@Ksnook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ksnook)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/151 "2013-07-05T10:21:46Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Before the phantom of False morning died, > Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, > "When all the Temple is prepared within, > “Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?” +10 for quoting one of Omar’s more obscure quatrains. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/152 "2013-07-05T11:44:39Z")
> [@Kiyoshi](#): > > I don’t think it’s from Portuguese. The word _baau_ (包) means “wrap” or “package”, so I guess the buns got their name because of the way the dough is wrapped around the filling. > > However, the Japanese word for bread, _pan_ (パン) **does** come from the Portuguese _pão_. Okay, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/153 "2013-07-05T23:55:27Z")
The word noon derived from the Latin word none, for the ninth hour of the day. But the ninth hour used to be around three pm, not twelve. The old system used to be the day started at dawn and was divided into twelve hours of daylight (which meant hours had a different length through the year). The middle of the day was sext - the sixth hour - not none, which was supposed to be three quarters of the way through the day. What supposedly happened was that a lot of monasteries had a rule that the monks couldn’t eat before the ninth hour. But with clocks being only an approximation, there was a natural tendency to make an early estimate of when it was the ninth hour of the day. As time went on, the ninth hour bell that signaled meal time kept getting rung earlier and earlier in the day. So the joke arose that the none bell was signalling mid-day. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/154 "2013-07-06T07:39:47Z")
_Dress_ comes from the same Latin word as _direct_. \*Diregere \*in Latin means to set up something correctly, from _dis_- (‘apart’, originally ‘in two pieces’ because it’s related to the number two, like _duo_ or _di-_) + \*regere \*(‘to guide, rule’, related to Latin _rex_ and English _right_). I tend to make sense of the original meaning by thinking of building a house, which needs to begin with two parallel upright posts set up correctly, or a railroad made of two rails that have to be parallel with each other. At least I guess that’s the sense that was intended, in concrete terms. After that, it gets pretty abstract. This garment I’m wearing that combines a skirt and bodice in one is a _dress_ at the far end of one area of semantic development from _diregere_, meaning to clothe oneself properly. My dress is pretty far afield from the various senses of _direct_, like ‘straightaway; immediate/unmediated’ or ‘to guide the course of’ a project or movie, etc. A \*director \*provides _direction_, which also means a particular orientation like the compass points, or the orientation of any kind of movement, travel, or even thought. Then there’s _dressage_, to make a horse go correctly. \*Diregere \*‘to set up two things straight’ got so abstract that it has spawned vastly different semantic areas… in all different directions, one might say. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/155 "2013-07-06T07:52:17Z")
The town of Conneaut in the northeastern corner of Ohio, the Juniata River in central Pennsylvania, and the Oneida Nation of Indians in New York State all derive their names from the same Iroquoian root that means ‘standing stone’. Conneaut \< _g-anęyot_, Juniata \< _onoyutta_, and Oneida \< _onę’yote_, all mean ‘standing stone’ in different Iroquoian languages. The Juniata tribe who lived on the Juniata River had a tall monolith inscribed with symbols set up at their sacred meeting ground in what is now Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Before the place got renamed, it was known in English as Standing Stone, the literal meaning of the tribe’s name. When they had to leave and move west, they took their monolith with them; what became of it after that is unknown. _Conneaut_ was once a general word for standing stones before it was used to name the town in Ohio. The Oneida people got that name from their origin legend, when their enemies could not find them because they’d become like standing stones. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/156 "2013-07-06T09:51:49Z")
I find _Christian_ –\> _cretin_ somehow amusing. [QUOTE=[Search 'cretin' on etymonline](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=cretin)] cretin (n.) 1779, from French crétin (18c.), from Alpine dialect crestin, “a dwarfed and deformed idiot” of a type formerly found in families in the Alpine lands, a condition caused by a congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones, from Vulgar Latin \*christianus “a Christian,” a generic term for “anyone,” but often with a sense of “poor fellow.” [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/157 "2013-07-06T10:54:21Z")
If we’re going to do “these words all ultimately come from the same root,” then the obvious example is “disk,” “disk,” “discus,” “dish,” “desk,” and “dais,” all of which come from the Greek “diskos.” ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/158 "2013-07-06T11:06:21Z")
Hardly _unexpected_, though, I’d say. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/159 "2013-07-06T14:09:03Z")
I wrote: \> . . . example is “disk,” “disk,” “discus,” “dish,” “desk,” and “dais,” all of . . . I meant: \> . . . example is “disc,” “disk,” “discus,” “dish,” “desk,” and “dais,” all of . . . ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641/160 "2013-07-06T15:00:25Z")
> [@flatlined](#): > > [Javalina](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peccary) got named such because the Romans liked to hunt wild pigs with javelins. I don’t think so. It’s a New World animal that the ancient Romans could not have ever seen. It comes from Spanish _jabalí_, from Arabic _jabali_, meaning ‘of the mountains’ (_jabal_ means ‘mountain’), i.e. ‘wild swine’. One of the many Arabic words in Spanish. Whereas \*javelin \*is from the French diminutive of the Old French word _javelot_, which came from ancient Celtic, cognate to Irish _gabhal_ ‘fork, forked branch’. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-unexpected-etymology/661641.md?page=9)