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List Of Common False Etymologies Of English Words
:''This incomplete list is not intended to be exhaustive.'' This is a list of common contemporary false etymologies for English words. Profanity *Crap: The word "crap" did not originate as a back-formation of British plumber Thomas Crapper's surname, nor does his name originate from the word "crap", although the surname may have helped popularize the word. The surname "Crapper" is a variant of "Cropper", which originally referred to someone who harvested crops. The word "crap" ultimately comes from Medieval Latin ''crappa'', meaning "chaff". *Fuck: The word "fuck" did not originate as an acronym of "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", either as a sign posted above adulterers in the stocks, or as a criminal charge against members of the British Armed Forces; nor did it originate during the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt as a corruption of "pluck yew" (an idiom falsely attributed to the English for drawing a longbow). The word did not originate in Christianized Anglo-Saxon England a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longbow
A longbow (known as warbow in its time, in contrast to a hunting bow) is a type of tall bow that makes a fairly long draw possible. A longbow is not significantly recurved. Its limbs are relatively narrow and are circular or D-shaped in cross section. Flatbows can be just as long, but in cross-section, a flatbow has limbs that are approximately rectangular. Longbows for hunting and warfare have been made from many different woods in many cultures; in Europe they date from the Paleolithic era and, since the Bronze Age, were made mainly from yew, or from wych elm if yew was unavailable. The historical longbow was a self bow made of a single piece of wood, but modern longbows may also be made from modern materials or by gluing different timbers together. History Europe A longbow was found in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps with a natural mummy known as Ötzi. His bow was made from yew and was long; the body has been dated to around 3300 BC. A slightly shorter bow comes from the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cracker (pejorative)
Cracker, sometimes white cracker or cracka, is a List_of_ethnic_slurs, racial epithet directed towards white people, used especially with regard to Poor Whites, poor rural whites in the Southern United States. Although commonly a pejorative, it is also used in a neutral context, particularly in reference to a native of Florida or Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia (see Florida cracker and Georgia cracker). Etymology The exact history and etymology of the word is debated. The term is "probably an agent noun" from the word crack. The word was later adopted into Scottish Gaelic, Gaelic as the word craic meaning a "loud conversation, bragging talk" where this interpretation of the word is still in use in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern England today. The historical derivative of the word craic and its meaning can be seen as far back as the Elizabethan era (1558-1603) where the term crack could be used to refer to "entertaining conversation" (one may be said to "crack" a joke or to b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman (a relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. As the Germanic settlers became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Earth makes it an economically attractive fuel, although capturing and storing it poses technical challenges due to its gaseous state under normal conditions for temperature and pressure. Naturally occurring methane is found both below ground and under the seafloor and is formed by both geological and biological processes. The largest reservoir of methane is under the seafloor in the form of methane clathrates. When methane reaches the surface and the atmosphere, it is known as atmospheric methane. The Earth's atmospheric methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases. It has also been detected on other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manure
Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the Soil fertility, fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are utilised by bacteria, fungus, fungi and other organisms in the soil. Higher organisms then feed on the fungi and bacteria in a chain of life that comprises the soil food web. History According to a Byzantine tradition attributed to Cassianus Bassus pig dung was generally not usable as fertilizer, except for almond trees. Similar views recorded by Columella were unrelated to the Islamic taboos of later centuries, though the medieval Al-Andalus, Andalusian writer Ibn Bassal and some later writers from Yemen also recorded negative effects of pig dung "burning" plants. Ibn Bassal described a sort of mixed manure with straw or sweeping mixed in as ', implying that was not composed of only manure. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shit
''Shit'' is a word considered to be vulgar and profane in Modern English. As a noun, it refers to fecal matter, and as a verb it means to defecate; in the plural ("the shits"), it means diarrhea. ''Shite'' is a common variant in British and Irish English. As a slang term, ''shit'' has many meanings, including: nonsense, foolishness, something of little value or quality, trivial and usually boastful or inaccurate talk or a contemptible person. It could also be used to refer to any other noun in general or as an expression of annoyance, surprise or anger. Etymology The word is likely derived from Old English, having the nouns ''scite'' (dung, attested only in place names) and ''scitte'' (diarrhoea) and the verb ''scītan'' (to defecate, attested only in ''bescītan'', to cover with excrement); eventually it morphed into Middle English ''schītte'' (excrement), ''schyt'' (diarrhoea) and ''shiten'' (to defecate), and it is virtually certain that it was used in some form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Germanic Language
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branches during the fifth century BC to fifth century AD: West Germanic, East Germanic and North Germanic, which however remained in contact over a considerable time, especially the Ingvaeonic languages (including English), which arose from West Germanic dialects and remained in continued contact with North Germanic. A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law, a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. As it is probable that the development of this sound shift spanned a considerable time (several centuries), Proto-Germanic cannot adequately be reconstructed as a simple node in a tree mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Conjugation
In terms of linguistics and grammar, conjugation has two basic meanings. One meaning is the creation of derived forms of a verb from basic forms, or principal parts. It may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, mood, aspect, voice, or other language-specific factors. The second meaning of the word conjugation is a group of verbs which all have the same pattern of inflections. Thus all those Latin verbs which have 1st singular -ō, 2nd singular -ās, and infinitive -āre are said to belong to the 1st conjugation, those with 1st singular -eō, 2nd singular -ēs and infinitive -ēre belong to the 2nd conjugation, and so on. The number of conjugations of regular verbs is usually said to be four. The word "conjugation" comes from the Latin , a calque of the Greek (''syzygia''), literally "yoking together (horses into a team)". For simple verb paradigms, see the Wiktionary appendix pages for first conjugation, second conjugation, third conjugation, and fourth conju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flen Flyys
Flen flyys (Middle English: "Fleas and flies") is the colloquial name and first words of an anonymous, untitled poem, written about 1475 or earlier, famous for containing an early written usage in English of the vulgar verb " fuck". In fact the usage was "fuccant", a hybrid of an English root with a Latin conjugation, and was disguised in the text by a simple code, in which each letter was replaced with the next letter in the alphabet of the time (so that ''fuccant'' is written as ''gxddbou''). Written half in English and half in Latin, the poem satirised Carmelite friars in the English county of Cambridgeshire. The poem takes its name from the opening line ''Flen, flyys and freris'' meaning "fleas, flies and friars". The famous line reads "Non sunt in coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk." meaning "They he friarsare not in heaven, since ..." followed by words that when decoded, taking in account the alphabet of the time (where u and v were interchangeable, as were i and j, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Norman Language
Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman French ( nrf, Anglo-Normaund) (French: ), was a dialect of Old Norman French that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period. When William the Conqueror led the Norman conquest of England in 1066, he, his nobles, and many of his followers from Normandy, but also those from northern and western France, spoke a range of langues d'oïl (northern varieties of Gallo-Romance). One of these was Old Norman, also known as "Old Northern French". Other followers spoke varieties of the Picard language or western registers of general Old French. This amalgam developed into the unique insular dialect now known as Anglo-Norman French, which was commonly used for literary and eventually administrative purposes from the 12th until the 15th century. It is difficult to know much about what was actually spoken, as what is known about the dialect is restricted to what was written, but i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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