I was originally very excited when I saw the title of this article: Top 10 Words with Remarkable Origins. I know, strange to be excited by this, but I’ve been working with my head down on our client conference, so this was like a tasty treat. As I read through the list, I found some things that I liked, but I also noticed that the writer wasn’t confident about several of the stories. “According to the theory,” “probably,” “the most likely theory,” and phrases throughout the article made me a little less certain about its accuracy. I like things that are verifiable!
In any case, I’m including the link for you, and some of the words. Let’s hope these are accurate.
Fiasco
The story here involves the original Italian word fiasco, which means "glass bottle."
According to one theory, when Venetian glass blowers realized a beautiful piece was flawed, they turned it into an ordinary bottle.
When that happened, a would-be work of art was downgraded into a mere fiasco – which is, according to the theory, how that word came to mean "complete failure."
Eavesdrop
Originally this word had nothing to do with snooping.
Eavesdrop started off literally: first it referred to the water that fell from the eaves of a house, then it came to mean the ground where that water fell.
Eventually, eavesdropper described someone who stood within the eavesdrop of a house to overhear a conversation inside.
Over time, the word obtained its current meaning: "to listen secretly to what is said in private."
Muscle
Imagine a statue in ancient Rome. Its muscles, to an audience of that time, may have suggested something very different from what they do today.
Muscle comes from the Latin musculus, which means "little mouse."
Why? Probably because a flexed muscle (a bicep, for example) was thought to resemble a mouse – with a tendon for a tail – moving beneath the skin.
Trivia
In ancient Rome, a trivium was an intersection of three roads (tri, "three" + vium, road).
When people met at a trivium, what did they tend to do? According to the Romans, they would shoot the breeze and discuss trivialis ("inconsequential things") – which eventually helped give trivia its modern meaning.
Enjoy your day!
Kara Church | Technical Editor, Advisory
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