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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram
@alliterative.bsky.social
1.7K followers 240 following 950 posts
Interdisciplinarian, historical linguist, philologist, medievalist; I make videos & podcasts about words, history, and literature. Married to @AvenSarah.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 1d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HARVEST/SCARCE #wotd #harvest #scarce #thanksgiving #CanadianThanksgiving #ThanksgivingCanada
Thanksgiving is all about the harvest, but for many people food can be scarce even at this time of year. The word harvest comes, through Old English hærfest “harvest, autumn” and Proto-Germanic *harbitaz, from the Proto-Indo-European root *kerp- which means “to gather, pluck”, and the Latin word from this same root, carpere “to pick, gather”, also through Old French gives us the English word scarce which develops from the sense of being “plucked out” and therefore “rare”. That Latin word is perhaps most famous from the phrase carpe diem, usually translated as “seize the day”, but the metaphor at work there is really a harvesting metaphor, like “harvest your crops when they’re ripe before they go bad”. And this PIE root *kerp- goes even further back to the form *(s)ker- which means “to cut, shear”, eventually giving us many English words, including share from the idea of a division or portion — so sharing gets around scarcity. This root also leads to the Latin word caro/carnis “flesh, meat”, as in the English word carnivore, which might bring to mind your Thanksgiving turkey.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 4d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
The surprisingly connected origins of "in" and "inn".

#etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #inn #innsofcourt

youtube.com/shorts/QlrKO...
In/Inn #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 4d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 15d
Today is Goose Day when geese are often eaten for Michaelmas, so the #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is GOOSE/SMORGASBORD #wotd #goose #smorgasbord #gooseday #Michaelmas
Etymologically speaking you should find goose served in a smorgasbord. Goose has a pretty straight forward history, from Old English gos, Proto-Germanic *gans-, and Proto-Indo-European *ghans- meaning “goose, swan” and is probably imitative of the honking sound the bird makes. Unsurprisingly Swedish has the word gås “goose”. What is more surprising is the Swedish compound word smörgås, which is literally “butter-goose” but is used to mean “slice of bread with butter”. The first element smör, related to English smear, is Swedish for “butter” and in this context gås means “lump of butter” by way of comparison to goose fat. Smörgåsbord then, with bord (related to English board) meaning “table”, came to refer to food served buffet-style, and entered English as smorgasbord eventually gaining the figurative sense of “medley, miscellany”.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 4d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 6d
The surprisingly connected origins of "climate" and "lid". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #climate #climatechange #lid
youtube.com/shorts/eaCWn...
Climate/Lid #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 4d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 8d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FURLOUGH/LOVE/LIVELONG #wotd #furlough #love #livelong #Shutdown2025 #GovernmentShutdown
No one loves a furlough of government workers, but hopefully it won’t last a livelong time. Furlough, the temporary layoff of workers, originally meant a “leave of absence”, with the first element related to the English intensifying or negating prefix for- meaning “away, opposite, completely” and the second element related to the English noun leave meaning “permission” (from Old English leaf “permission” and not at all related to the verb leave meaning “to go away, cause to remain”). It was borrowed into English in the 1620s from Dutch verlof meaning literally “permission” from Middle Dutch ver- “completely, for” + lof “permission”, which comes from Proto-Germanic *laubo, ultimately traceable back to *loubh- the o-grade form of Proto-Indo-European *leubh- “to care, desire, love” from the notion of “pleasure, approval”. The zero-grade form of this root *lubh- in the suffixed form *lubh-a- came into Germanic as *lubo which became Old English lufu “love” and Modern English love. As for the somewhat old fashioned word livelong meaning “very long” most often seen in the phrase livelong day, the first element is completely unrelated to the word live, but in fact comes from the PIE root *leubh-, specifically the suffixed form *leubh-o-, which came into Germanic as *leubaz, becoming Old English leof “dear, beloved”, which not only gave us the now archaic word lief “dearly, gladly, willingly”, but was also used as an emotional intensifier with the word long in Middle English to give us livelong literally “dear long”.
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 6d
The surprisingly connected origins of "climate" and "lid". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #climate #climatechange #lid
youtube.com/shorts/eaCWn...
Climate/Lid #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 8d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FURLOUGH/LOVE/LIVELONG #wotd #furlough #love #livelong #Shutdown2025 #GovernmentShutdown
No one loves a furlough of government workers, but hopefully it won’t last a livelong time. Furlough, the temporary layoff of workers, originally meant a “leave of absence”, with the first element related to the English intensifying or negating prefix for- meaning “away, opposite, completely” and the second element related to the English noun leave meaning “permission” (from Old English leaf “permission” and not at all related to the verb leave meaning “to go away, cause to remain”). It was borrowed into English in the 1620s from Dutch verlof meaning literally “permission” from Middle Dutch ver- “completely, for” + lof “permission”, which comes from Proto-Germanic *laubo, ultimately traceable back to *loubh- the o-grade form of Proto-Indo-European *leubh- “to care, desire, love” from the notion of “pleasure, approval”. The zero-grade form of this root *lubh- in the suffixed form *lubh-a- came into Germanic as *lubo which became Old English lufu “love” and Modern English love. As for the somewhat old fashioned word livelong meaning “very long” most often seen in the phrase livelong day, the first element is completely unrelated to the word live, but in fact comes from the PIE root *leubh-, specifically the suffixed form *leubh-o-, which came into Germanic as *leubaz, becoming Old English leof “dear, beloved”, which not only gave us the now archaic word lief “dearly, gladly, willingly”, but was also used as an emotional intensifier with the word long in Middle English to give us livelong literally “dear long”.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
Excellent! You’re quite welcome!
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
It should be available by ILL if your library doesn’t have it. It does all the legwork of finding the passages, and I believe Boethius is in there
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
Actually an easy way to find parallel passages is The English Language: A Historical Reader by A.G. Rigg (my thesis advisor)
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
How about Boethius?
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
Well there are lots of other biblical passages you could use, the opening of Genesis for example
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 13d
The surprisingly connected origins of "in" and "inn".

#etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #inn #innsofcourt

youtube.com/shorts/QlrKO...
In/Inn #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 15d
Today is Goose Day when geese are often eaten for Michaelmas, so the #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is GOOSE/SMORGASBORD #wotd #goose #smorgasbord #gooseday #Michaelmas
Etymologically speaking you should find goose served in a smorgasbord. Goose has a pretty straight forward history, from Old English gos, Proto-Germanic *gans-, and Proto-Indo-European *ghans- meaning “goose, swan” and is probably imitative of the honking sound the bird makes. Unsurprisingly Swedish has the word gås “goose”. What is more surprising is the Swedish compound word smörgås, which is literally “butter-goose” but is used to mean “slice of bread with butter”. The first element smör, related to English smear, is Swedish for “butter” and in this context gås means “lump of butter” by way of comparison to goose fat. Smörgåsbord then, with bord (related to English board) meaning “table”, came to refer to food served buffet-style, and entered English as smorgasbord eventually gaining the figurative sense of “medley, miscellany”.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 18d
Thanks!
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 18d
Yes, tender is indeed from the same root! It comes into English via Latin and Old French
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 18d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 20d
The surprisingly connected origins of "thin", "tent", and "tension". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #thin #tent #tense #tension

www.youtube.com/shorts/JbMGW...
Thin/Tent/Tension #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
www.youtube.com
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 18d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 22d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FREE/AFRAID/FRIEND #wotd #free #afraid #friend #FreeSpeech #JimmyKimmel #StephenColbert
The Trump regime crackdown on free speech, cancelling late night hosts, might have some afraid, but no fear my friends, I don’t think they’ll be that easily frightened off the air. The word afraid was originally the past participle of the now rare verb affray “to frighten, terrify; to fear, be afraid of” (related to the noun affray “public fight, quarrel, brawl”). Affray, which surprisingly is not etymologically connected to either fear or fright, with the three all coming from completely separate origins, came into Middle English from Anglo-Norman French afrayer, Old French esfreer “to worry, concern, trouble, disturb”, ultimately from Vulgar Latin *exfridare literally “to take out of peace”, made up of the Latin prefix ex- “out of” + the Frankish word *frithu “peace”, from Proto-Germanic *frithuz “peace, consideration, forbearance” (also the source of the Old English word friðu “peace”), ultimately traceable back to *pri-tu- a suffixed form of the Proto-Indo-European root *pri- “to love, like, feel well-disposed, friendly”. The suffixed form of this root *priy-o- also came into Old English as freo becoming Modern English free, from the notion of those in your family or clan, whom you therefore “loved”, who were were “free” as opposed to the servants or slaves who were not “free”. Also the suffixed participial form of this same root *priy-ont- “loving” came into Old English as freond becoming Modern English friend.
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 20d
The surprisingly connected origins of "thin", "tent", and "tension". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #thin #tent #tense #tension

www.youtube.com/shorts/JbMGW...
Thin/Tent/Tension #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
www.youtube.com
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 22d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FREE/AFRAID/FRIEND #wotd #free #afraid #friend #FreeSpeech #JimmyKimmel #StephenColbert
The Trump regime crackdown on free speech, cancelling late night hosts, might have some afraid, but no fear my friends, I don’t think they’ll be that easily frightened off the air. The word afraid was originally the past participle of the now rare verb affray “to frighten, terrify; to fear, be afraid of” (related to the noun affray “public fight, quarrel, brawl”). Affray, which surprisingly is not etymologically connected to either fear or fright, with the three all coming from completely separate origins, came into Middle English from Anglo-Norman French afrayer, Old French esfreer “to worry, concern, trouble, disturb”, ultimately from Vulgar Latin *exfridare literally “to take out of peace”, made up of the Latin prefix ex- “out of” + the Frankish word *frithu “peace”, from Proto-Germanic *frithuz “peace, consideration, forbearance” (also the source of the Old English word friðu “peace”), ultimately traceable back to *pri-tu- a suffixed form of the Proto-Indo-European root *pri- “to love, like, feel well-disposed, friendly”. The suffixed form of this root *priy-o- also came into Old English as freo becoming Modern English free, from the notion of those in your family or clan, whom you therefore “loved”, who were were “free” as opposed to the servants or slaves who were not “free”. Also the suffixed participial form of this same root *priy-ont- “loving” came into Old English as freond becoming Modern English friend.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 25d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 27d
The surprisingly connected origins of "astrology", "stellar", "disaster", and "star".

#etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #astrology #disaster #stellar

youtube.com/shorts/wypsy...
Astrology/Stellar/Disaster/Star #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 25d
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 29d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is KAREN/SURE/WORK #wotd #karen #sure #work #phillieskaren
We’ve all encountered Karens before: an entitled middle-aged white woman who is overly sure of herself and is quite a piece of work. The name Karen is a Danish shortened form of Katherine, from Medieval Latin Katerina, ultimately from Greek Aikaterine. The etymology of this Greek name is uncertain and much debated, but it might either come from the Greek word hekateros “each of two, each singly”, which itself comes from hekas “far off”, from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronoun *s(w)e “self”, which has many other English derivatives including sure from the Latin reflexive pronoun se “self” + cura “care” coming into English directly as secure and through Old French seur as English sure, or from the name Hekate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft and crossroads. The etymology of Hekate is itself uncertain, but it might come from Greek hekaergos, an epithet of Apollo meaning literally “far-worker” from that same word hekas “far off” + ergon “deed, work” from the PIE root *werg- “to do”, which also became Old English weorc and Modern English work.
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 27d
The surprisingly connected origins of "astrology", "stellar", "disaster", and "star".

#etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #astrology #disaster #stellar

youtube.com/shorts/wypsy...
Astrology/Stellar/Disaster/Star #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · 29d
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is KAREN/SURE/WORK #wotd #karen #sure #work #phillieskaren
We’ve all encountered Karens before: an entitled middle-aged white woman who is overly sure of herself and is quite a piece of work. The name Karen is a Danish shortened form of Katherine, from Medieval Latin Katerina, ultimately from Greek Aikaterine. The etymology of this Greek name is uncertain and much debated, but it might either come from the Greek word hekateros “each of two, each singly”, which itself comes from hekas “far off”, from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronoun *s(w)e “self”, which has many other English derivatives including sure from the Latin reflexive pronoun se “self” + cura “care” coming into English directly as secure and through Old French seur as English sure, or from the name Hekate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft and crossroads. The etymology of Hekate is itself uncertain, but it might come from Greek hekaergos, an epithet of Apollo meaning literally “far-worker” from that same word hekas “far off” + ergon “deed, work” from the PIE root *werg- “to do”, which also became Old English weorc and Modern English work.
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alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · Sep 12
ICYMI
alliterative.bsky.social
Mark Sundaram @alliterative.bsky.social · Sep 10
The surprisingly connected origins of "bureaucracy" and "pyrotechnics". #etymology #wordnerd #linguistics #HistoricalLinguistics #language #words #lingcomm #bureau #pyrotechnics #bureaucracy

youtube.com/shorts/xl3f-...
Bureaucracy/Pyrotechnics #Etymology
YouTube video by Alliterative
youtube.com
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