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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
The Finnish word for "to marry" also means "to fuck". Apparently the meaning for fucking was the first one? And the couple gained the right to fuck once they had successfully completed a wedding ceremony.
It works about so that "I want to fuck the you" means "I want to marry you" and "I want to fuck you" without the definite form is an invitation to mere copulation.
"Helicopter" isn't heli - copter
It's helico - pter.
Helico: Greek for helix or spiral.
Pter: Greek for wing, like a pterodactyl.
Ooooooh great one!
Thanks ☺️! I'm glad you like it! It blew my mind when I first learned it.
Tried and True.
To you it probably means "tested and found to be reliable/trustworthy." An example, a few days ago the topic of a car without hydraulic brakes made the rounds. Hydraulic brakes on passenger cars are "tried and true," we trust them, and are skeptical of a vehicle without them. But that's not where the phrase originally came from; it's a centuries old woodworking term.
This is a try square. An OLD tool; examples survive from ancient Egypt. It's such a basic tool that it's often used as the symbol of the carpentry trade. "Try" in this case means "examine" rather than "attempt", more like how a judge "tries" a case than a jedi trainee "tries" to lift an X-wing out of a swamp. A try square is used to examine a board. For squareness, and possibly also straightness and flatness. A board that passes this exam is said to be "true."
"True" meaning straight, flat, parallel or even concentric is still in use to this day; "truing" a surface means to flatten it.
Side note about the brakes reference: that thread was frustrating because the headline readers were assuming the mechanical brakes were being deleted and relying solely on regenerative braking. They weren't. It was replacing the hydraulic portion of the mechanical brakes with electronic sensors and actuators. While I naturally have concerns about electronic failure, it's not like hydraulic brakes are immune to problems. I've had lines rust out and leak, pistons leak, pistons seize, lines clog, and slides seize. Very anecdotally, no failures of electric parking brakes.
Anyway, very neat etymology for both a term and tool I use. I never really considered "try" to be separate meanings between "attempt" and "test" because I took an "attempt" to be a "test" of ability.
In Russian the days of the week are mostly numbers, e.g. Tuesday is the second day, so Tuesday is Вторник, which comes from второй (second) and the suffix -ник for day. But Monday is not перник as you would expect (первых + ник), instead Monday is Понедельник. This is short for после (after) не (not) делать (doing) -ник (day), i.e the day after not doing anything (Sunday).
In Finnish a tietosanakirja is an encyclopedia, this is a composed word made from tieto (knowledge) and sanakirja (Dictionary). But also sanakirja is a composed word made out from sana (word) and kirja (book). So an encyclopedia is a book of words of knowledge.
In English, the days of the week are named for Norse gods (or the pantheon)... All except Saturday. Sunday... The sun Monday... The moon Tuesday... Tew/Tiw, Norse god of war and justice Wednesday... Wodin (Odin), the all father Thursday... Thor, God of lightning and thunder Friday... Freyja, the lady, goddess of love.
Except Saturday. The Norse called Saturday laundry day. Laugerdagr. Great word actually....
But the English wouldn't have it so they went with the roman God Saturn for Saturday.
But the English wouldn't have it so they went with the roman God Saturn for Saturday.
And what makes this even weirder is that in the Roman languages all days are Roman Gods EXCEPT Saturday and Sunday. But there is an explanation for both these things, and it becomes quite clear when you know the days in some Latin language, e.g. in Spanish it's:
The interesting is the obvious conversion:
Wednesday should have been Hermsday for Hermod who's the God of messages equivalent to Mercury, but I think they thought it was bad not having a day for the allfather and gave him Wednesday.
What about the weekend? In Spanish (and most other roman languages) they are:
As you can see at some point Latin languages started using their new christian religion to name days, but before that those days were:
So as you can see the days of the week in English are mostly the days of the week from ancient Rome, just adapted to a different culture.
But why didn't they change Saturday and Sunday? My guess is that because the equivalent of Saturn is Freyr the name would have been too similar to his sister's day Friday. As for Sunday, in earlier Roman history the Sun wasn't an important god so Sunday might actually reference the sun and not the deity so no need to convert it. And in later periods the Sun represented Roman imperialism and centralized power so they wouldn't want that one changed. But these are just guesses from my part, if anyone knows the real reason I would love to hear it.
Very cool!
Lørdag is bath day. The vikings would bathe on Saturdays. Also laundry. I suspect it needed to be a tradition in order for people to get into the cold water without complaining.
The English Saturday is from latin, roman god Saturn.
Either „tea“ or „cha/chai“ exist in some form in virtually every language that has encountered tea, and the distinction between which was adopted generally has to do with whether it was first traded with the country by land (cha) from China or by sea (tea) from Malaysia.
So “chai tea” was invented when a very confused importer received two different shipments for the first time on the same day?
A hassle is a foreign inclusion in a wool top (what is spun into yarn), which is a real hassle to remove.
A skanky fleece is a wool fleece that is matted and infested with maggots.
The terms date back to the 19rh century.
Not sure if this is semi-common knowledge or not, but:
I'm sure everyone is familiar with at least one of the geographical adjectives for the cardinal directions: Oriental, generally meaning eastern.
Similarly, you can probably see the connection for the North: Boreal. As in Aurora Borealis.
Known to a lesser degree, there is Occidental, meaning western. I don't have a connection for this one off the top of my head.
And finally, for the sake of this comment, there is the term for the South: Austral. Of course, this is where we get "Australia."
As such, the magnetic light show of the Antarctic is not aurora borealis. It is, in fact, aptly named aurora australis.
Another fun side note: There was allegedly support for the idea of naming Canada Borealia. I personally like this idea, because it tickles my inner 12 year old.
Muscle comes from latin and means little mouse.
The word 'dog' is interesting because it essentially has no etymology. It has no known cognates in English/Germanic/other Indo-European languages. It first showed up in Old English as dogca, referring to some sort of mastiff, but other than that nobody really has any idea at all where it came from.
Bear is a bit similar. It is not known what the actual name of that animal was. The term "bear" refers to brown scary thing that people called it instead because it was thought that saying it's name would summon it. Kind of like Voldemort.
Care means 'heart' in french Coeur.
