I listened to a great NPR program today as I drove home from my Dad's home in Wisconsin. It was a about a book written by James McCuen (or something...I wasn't sure of the spelling, but from his accent he seemed to be from Scotland or thereabouts). It was about early Rome, and there were a lot of references to language, words and etymology. One that I enjoyed was the etymology of " muscle ." It comes from the Latin word "little mouse"...because the movement of some muscles (notably the biceps) resembles little mice running up the arm.

What are some other interesting etymologies?

I was amused to learn that the coccyx, the bone at the base of the spine (often called the tailbone), comes from the ancient Greek word for cuckoo, from a resemblance of the bone to the shape of a cuckoo's beak.

mouse, muscle, mussel, musk, nutmeg

I recently discovered that miniature is from Latin miniāre "to make red".

I love anatomical names. One of my favorites is the sella turcica, or Turkish saddle, the little saddle-like structure of bone in which sits the optic chiasm.

Uvula sounds slightly dirty.

And I love its etymology...from the Latin meaning a "small bunch of grapes."

The amygdala is from the Greek for "almond".

This is a fun Web site, though our linguists here will probably say that it's not accurate. Link

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Originally posted by Proofreader:
Uvula sounds slightly dirty.

The vuvuzela, the noise-maker blown incessantly by crowds at the FIFA World Cup, also sounds a little naughty.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
This is a fun Web site, though our linguists here will probably say that it's not accurate. Link

The etymology for "coconut" is interesting and seems to basically be true. I don't think it's from a Latin word meaning "skull", but it might be from Portuguese "coco" ("grinning face, grin, grimace", also "bugbear, scarecrow").

quote:

Does the word "over" indeed come from the Hebrew "avar"?
y. The Hebrew word "avar" which means "past" or "over" might also be the source of the name Iberia, the end of the know world, and of the Japanese word "awari."

wait, what?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy, June 16, 2010 04:37

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
Uvula sounds slightly dirty.

Vagina is from the Latin for "sheath". The same Latin word is the source of the sheath-shaped vanilla bean.

The Hebrew word "avar" which means "past" or "over"

The trouble with this is that there are clear cognates in other Germanic languages, so it's not English that might have borrowed the word from Hebrew, but Proto-Germanic or Proto-Indo-European. Of couse, the transcription of the Hebrew word does make it look similar to the English one. Hebrew עבר (ʕbr)'to pass, pass over, cross over', cf. Arabic ʕabara 'he passed over, crossed over', Akkadian ebēru 'topass over, cross over'. Two problems I see are the ayin (pharyngeal fricative) which would have been pronounced as such in the past (though today only Yemeni Hebrew speakers keep the distinction, the rest pronounce it the same as aleph, a glottal stop). When a b can be spirantized as a v is something to look into also. The verb may be connected with the demonym עברי (ʕivri) 'Hebrew, Jew' and there could be a connection with the toponym Iberia as there were Phoenicians in Iberia, although there is another Iberia in the Caucasus that might need explaining. Off hand, I'd say it's not a site whose etymologies I'd have much confidence in.

cheese as in the big cheese is probably borrowed from Urdu or Persian چيز cīz "thing".