Interesting Etymologies, Part One of Ten Thousand

I love etymology. It is one of my many favorite language-related things. It helps that I love almost everything about languages, except for the fact that I only speak two.

Etymologies of words that are very interesting (to me, but maybe not to you):

1. America. This one might not be etymology, but is still really interesting. The name "America" first appeared on the Waldseemüller map in 1507 (and it's just a really interesting world map and I might do a post on it). "Sure, Winona," you might be saying, "and now you'll remind me that it was in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, and that's kind of weird, I guess, but that's not really at the level of the delightfully awesome things that I've come to expect from you." And I will laugh, because that totally wasn't all I had to say. Yes, so you know it was in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, an explorer. But what you don't know is that the name "America" might be a pun.
Now, if you're me, at the word pun, you are already in love with whatever comes next, but if you're not, you really should be very excited. Because you have been, every time you say the word "America", been committing an act of unintentional wordplay, which as we all know, is the best kind. And you might even have been born into a commission of unintentional wordplay, which is so cool. Anyway, the wordplay is (and it might seem a bit anticlimactic after all that) that it is a multilingual pun similar to Thomas More's "utopia" (which is also on this list), meaning both "born anew" and "no place". I don't know what the languages are that make up this pun, and I can't even guess because Waldseemüller probably spoke WAY more languages than I do (see: This for my rant on how many languages I don't yet speak).


2. cliché. This one is one of my favorites, probably. I was sitting one day, minding my own business and reading the Internet, when one of my friends IMs me and says "cliché is an onomatopoeia" which is just the perfect kind of thing to say to me out of nowhere. If you do not know what an onomatopoeia is, it is a word that sounds like a sound (that is a weird way of phrasing it, Winona), like "buzz", "splash", "murmur", "spelunk" or a million other neat words. "Cliché" is a word that dates back to the time of printing presses, and stereotypes. In printing language, cliché was actually another name for a stereotype, if I have any reading comprehension at all, which was the cast phrase of movable type. It made sense to cast entire phrases (as opposed to individual letters, then arranging the letters into the desired phrase) if the phrase was going to be very commonly used. The name "cliché" came from the sound the matrices (the negative letter molds which would be cast into the letters used for printing) made when dropped into the hot metal that would form the letters used.
Apparently there is doubt about the etymology I have explained, but I cannot check my desired source, the OED, because I am poor. So I say that this is correct, because it is excellent. If it isn't, I don't care unless the real etymology is even more excellent.

3. scruples. This is the first word on this list where I can point to a specific word and say "that's the source of this word", so I will. Scruples derives from "scrupulus" (i, m.--I am a Latinist at heart), which in turn is the diminutive of "scrupus" (i, m.). Scrupus means "rock" or "stone", and "scrupulus" means "pebble". "What?" you might be saying. "Etymology makes no sense and is dumb. I am out of here." "Wait," I might say if this were actually a conversation, "let me explain how awesome this is." And you would perhaps wait. Or leave. I actually have no way of telling. Anyway. A scruple was a stone you would keep in your pocket, and touch to remind you of things like "be honest" or "be kind". I personally think they would have been more effective if they were in your shoe, but that is just me. So the word scruple came to mean the thing represented by the stone, instead of the stone itself, which is another cool figure of speech that might be metonymy or "reverse-metonymy". I do not know. Until about last year, I could not tell the difference between metonymy and synecdoche because they are very similar. (Also, I was very concerned because the computer would tell me that it did not know this word "synecdoche" and I thought I was a failure at spelling so I looked up that movie because I knew I had looked it up on this computer when I was learning about existentialism and then I found out that I was right and the computer was wrong. That is the best kind of vindication.) [I now know that it is actually synecdoche or possibly reverse synecdoche, but I thought my confusion was amusing so I will leave it.]

4. zeugma. A zeugma is a figure of speech (I think I will do a post on figures of speech because I like them. More than any normal person does.) where a verb is used with two different objects, or an adjective with two different nouns (in English. In Latin, there isn't really a name for the adjective-noun usage.) where the use is idiomatic in one case and literal in the other, or where the verb or adjective can only be properly used with one of the two. Examples are in order. Verb-object zeugma: "She made up her face and her mind." "She left in a tizzy and a sedan." and so forth. Adjective-noun zeugma: I cannot find or think of examples because I am terribly lazy. Just know that it might actually be a thing, or it might be something I made up because I thought it would be interesting.
Anyway. This is also an etymology that I didn't find out on my own, because I don't speak Greek (as I have previously complained). But I have friends who appreciate etymology and tell me these sorts of things. Zeugma comes from the Greek "ζεῦγμα", zeugma, meaning, "to yoke". That is neat, for one, because it describes exactly what a zeugma does, or rather, what the verb in the zeugma does, as it yokes together two differing parts of the sentence. Another reason this is cool is that there are some other words in English that also derive from "ζεῦγμα". Like yoga, because you're yoking your body and mind, I imagine. So, I find that neat.

5. logodaedaly. This is a word I learned reading a book by one of my favorite authors of all time, Vladimir Nabokov. He had synesthesia and also spoke at least three languages, French, Russian, and English. So, there are two reasons right there I am envious of him. (I originally wrote "jealous" but I think you can only be jealous of something you own or otherwise possess. Except Fowler's Modern English Usage is silent on the issue and I have heard everyone use them interchangeably so I do not know what is what.) Anyway. I was reading Lolita, and discovered that it is the kind of book you have to read with a good dictionary and also a working knowledge of French (or the Internet) nearby, so that made it difficult. As did, of course, the subject matter, but I digress. So there was a point in the book where Nabokov used the word "logodaedalist". I was impressed (but not surprised, because I had encountered many such words in that book), because I can generally sort out words by context but this one stumped me, and also it is a beautiful word. Logodaedaly derives from the Greek "λόγος", "word", and "Δαίδαλος", "Daidalos". Yeah, of Daedalus and Icarus. So basically, if you are a logodaedalist, it means you are a "word-craftsman" (and good at it too, of course) or, if you are all for things that sound awesome, a "word-sculptor". That is what I am putting on my business cards.

6. utopia. This is Thomas More's Greek pun (I wish I could make a Greek pun, or any foreign language pun. But not yet.), and also the title of the book he wrote coining this word, and the name of the country wherein it takes place (Possibly an incorrect use of the word "wherein". I guess it depends on how you use "takes place", and if it needs an "in" to go along with it. But I digress). The book is so full of wordplay (all Greek-based, and also the book was written in Latin so that is two more awesome things) you will explode in a pun-filled explosion (not as clever an ending as I hoped). I would always tell people that this is cool, because it is a pun, and no one cared as much as I did. Then again, no one really cares as much as I do about puns anyway, because they are losers who will have normal-person lives. Utopia comes from "οὐ", a negation indicator (or "not"), and "τόπος", place. "That's kind of boring," you might say, "So the word we use to mean a perfect place actually means nowhere. Tell me something I don't know already." Then I go on to explain how this is a pun (you are really very impatient sometimes, implied reader). "οὐτόπος" is very similar in spelling to "εὖτόπος", which comes from "εὖ", "good" and "τόπος" again (it seems silly to tell you what it means twice). So, it sort of looks like "good place" which is how people use it anyway because they care nothing for etymology. Plus, bonus points, because "utopia" and "eutopia" are pronounced the same way in English, so. There you have it.

I enjoy doing these kinds of posts so I will probably do several more (though I doubt I will do nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine more). I hope you enjoyed reading this.