I was on another thread and got deep into learning about the history of certain words and thought I’d post here. What word history origins / facts do you know?
I’ll start with two that I recently came across:
-
“‘Wer’ (meaning ‘man’) came from Old High German with the Anglo Saxons 1,500 years ago, and was part of Old English. It then became ‘were’ in Middle English and remains as part of werewolf (‘man wolf’) in modern English.” (Source: BillTongg@lemmy.world)
-
“Sculptors in antique Rome could fix mistakes they made by mixing marble dust with wax. If a sculptor was especially gifted and made no mistakes that needed fixing, they would market their art as “sin cera”, which means “without wax”, which is where the word “sincere” comes from.” (Source: Pooptimist@lemmy.world)
Am I the only one who gets slightly triggered when people describe more than 10% of something being destroyed as “decimated” because they think it’s a superlative, when it’s really an understatement?
Well I will be now. So there’s at least one other person!
Maybe a little, and I personally try to reserve it for times when it means damaged to a significant degree but well under 50%, but then I also try to remember that language changes, English moreso than most, and I probably use a hundred different terms in ways that are inconsistent with past usage.
That said, I get a stronger sensation of that when people overlook the awfulness that should be inherent in the word “enormity.” 😂