yet another language thread inspired by Blanket Fort
battery ← comes from a nursery of bats
restoration ← rest-o’-ration, nothing like a good night’s sleep on a filled tummy to feel better
proposal ← corruption of porpoisal, porpoises can recognize human speech and are always on the lookout for an opportunity to exchange goods and services
franchise ← coined as such by 1800s european philosophers because “only the french could’ve come up with such a dastardly scheme”
cemetery ← what do you think all those graves and boxes are made of? cement of course, this was a place to preserve the bones until they could be reanimated, after all (why else go to such lengths as encasing them in stone?)
ability ← from “a bee lit it”, that was a very skilled bee that invented the lightbulb and we rember them to this day
horse ← [REDACTED]
sheep ← she eep. these animals eep a for a considerable duration of the day, and the noun is feminine in romance languages. incidentally, this is where the act of counting sheep to eep also comes from
monkey ← this one is unknown, admittedly some of them do look like tiny monks, but most likely it comes from old french when someone important got their keys stolen by one of these
transport ← the place where trans people embark and disembark from ships, duh
sordid ← “a sorcerer did it”, common excuse in the middle ages in europe for all sorts of bad stuff (note: the sorcerers were actually nice, and were unjustly scapegoated)
Garden ← Portmanteau of Guard (with the U dropped) and Den. Literally meant to be the “Guard of the Den”, who were humans who stayed at home to protect their young. However as human shelter became threatened less and less by natural predators, it instead made more sense to guard any crops (or, as we use it now, flowers) from pests and animals. Through repeated incorrect usage, the sentence gradually warped into the word we use today:
on the topic of shower thoughts, it might not be a great surprise to some but they were actually named as such due to how enlightening the water is (similar to that one tale of the coining of the phrase “Eureka”, being in them tends to deliver answers). “the one who shows” is a very straightforward origin of their name, but whether it’s an anthropomorphism of the structure or belying something more spiritual is still up for debate last i checked.
this is fun!!! reminds me of some of pratchett’s in-universe footnotes in his writing :3
“Also” - originally meant to introduce the conclusion of a topic in a dramatic way, coming from ‘all so’ - “I set up this party also it could be ruined”.
“Fraternity” - portmanteau of ‘for eternity’, colloquiallized into “f’r eternity”, symbolizing the bond of a house of such members, such that it would last ‘for eternity’
“Platinum” - when English traders observed the first plates made of silver, they remarked that they must be made of some special sort of metal to be able to withstand so much without changing the taste - they named it Platinum, after its properties and what it was used for, and though later discovering it was a metal they were familiar with, they repurposed the name to fit another alloy.
“Number” - originally pronounced ‘nummer’, the word comes from the mindnumbing experience of deciphering mathematics in the eyes of the monk that coined it, saying ‘nothing could make me number’.
“hello” was initially “hell”, but with a “o” added at the end to make it sound nicer. It sounded so nice it actually became a word to greet people.
“wardrobe” is actually the french word “guarde-robe” but horribly mispronounced
“tires” : one day a mechanic got tired of constantly having to constantly change tires at the pit lane during endurance races, that’s tires are named like that nowadays
“ethymology” actually don’t have an ethymology because it doesn’t need one, it already explains the ethymology of every other word
“welcome” is the contraction of “well come”
I was inspired by the Yemma palace entrance in DBZ for this one
You left out the best part!
Just by coincidence, his name was Jerry tyre, and (reportedly) when he’d start complaining (as he was known to do) his coworkers on pit crew mocked him to basically just keep doing tire changes over and over anyway by saying “Jerry Tyre, just re-tire”. He quit on the spot and never came back and it became an inside joke that when someone left the job permanently, they re-tired!
Cute - Cuttlefish are not fish, so a bunch of awesome nerds scientists did an awareness campaign to try to change their name. They failed at doing so, but the adorable drawings in their posters labelled “Cuttlefish” inspired the adoption of the word.
Adorable - This one used to be just “Dorable”, but due to the popularity of the word as an username, A streamer had to disambiguate it as “a_dorable”, they got very popular worldwide, and it just stuck.
Dorable - Comes from the very old descriptor “door-a-blew” from the 2010s, Referring to the practical effect of overwhelming cuteness in a confined space (Incidentally, always make sure to always have an escape valve for excessive cuteness, as according to OSHA regulations).
Friend - Comes from Fries + End, because the person who lets you have the last fries is someone who truly wishes the best for you, and that’s just beautiful!
