I know I’m probably taking
something away from Why we Say It Wednesday but I’ve always been fascinated by
the story or origin behind common everyday words. For example the word, echo
has quite a story behind it. First off, the word echo is reverberation of sound
due to sonic reflection from hard surfaces. Its origin is believed to come from
the Greeks who had no way to explain the phenomenon of this reverberating
sound. Therefore, like every other time you need to some reason or story to
justify a phenomenon they turned to religion. The story goes that Echo was the
name of a nymph who accompanied Zeus and his wife Hera. Hera, who was a not a
fan of the nymphs to start out with, disliked the chatterbox. Zeus charged Echo
with the responsibility of keeping Hera busy while he was doing things he ought
not to. Enraged by this deception, Hera cursed Echo with the ability only to
speak when spoken to, she could not keep silent when spoken too and she could
only repeat that in which was spoken to her. After having this curse, she fell
in love with a self-absorbed youth and later had her heart broken. It is said
that Echo died in a cave, however, her voice is still present with us today and
from this the word echo.
Another word that I found very
interesting was the word, snob. A snob is a person who believes that some people
are inherently inferior to them. The word snob was first believed to be used in
the 1820’s in England but started in Scotland to describe a shoemaker or a
shoemaker’s apprentice. In England, it is believed to come from the phrase sine nobilitate which means without nobility.
This phrase was abbreviated s.nob and it was put next to ordinary people’s
names to help distinguish them from the aristocratic peers. Then this term
began to be used to mean a person with no breeding, both the honest laborers
who knew their place and the rude social climbers who imitated the manners of
the upper classes. Due to this change, the word or abbreviation snob began to
mock people who acted in this way.
Etymology of words just fascinates me because I
think it’s very interesting to know the stories of some of the common everyday
words we use. It’s weird to think about how words came to be because we are so
used to saying them so often that we tend to believe that they have always been
used when in reality they haven’t been. I wonder what new words we are going to
create in our lifetime and what stories they will have behind them.
It's really cool how much a word can change over time and how commonly we use a word without knowing its origins. I thought it was a little weird that "snob" first described the "honest laborers who knew their place" and now it describes those who are, well, for a lack of a better word, snobby.
ReplyDeleteEcho is such an awesome word, so it's only fitting that it has an awesome background. It's funny that the Greeks were mystified by a concept that we find so simple, and the only way they could explain it was through the gods.
And like you said, who knows how we can develop and change words throughout our lifetime. We're probably doing it everyday and we don't even realize it. Maybe one day, our slang and dumb sayings might become famous in another culture's language.
I'm glad that you've found an interest in the stories behind words -I never know the story behind snob.
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