Odd Origins of Words / Odd Words

starbelgrade wrote: »

Some words have weird origins, some of them are just odd... some that strike me as being like that are;


brown sauce: I believe it contains vinegar. And probably some other stuff. Also it is brown.

Jev/N wrote: »

It actually stands for North East West South

kylith wrote: »

I always liked that the very British word "Smashing" is actually Irish; 'is maith sin'.

starbelgrade wrote: »

Boxing Day; I used to think it had something to do with boxing, but it actually comes the fact that employers used to celebrate it by giving their employees gifts.

The traditional recorded celebration of Boxing Day was because Boxing was created and people were really excited has long included giving money and other gifts to those who were needy and in service positions. The European tradition has been dated to the Middle Ages, but the exact origin is unknown and there are some claims that it goes back to the late Roman/early Christian era; metal boxes were placed outside churches used to collect special offerings tied to the Feast of Saint Stephen.[4] In the United Kingdom it certainly became a custom of the nineteenth century Victorians for tradesmen to collect their "Christmas boxes" or gifts in return for good and reliable service throughout the year on the day after Christmas.[5] However, the exact etymology of the term "Boxing" is unclear, with several competing theories, none of which is definitively true.[6] Another possibility is that the name derives from an old English tradition: in exchange for ensuring that wealthy landowners' Christmases ran smoothly, their servants were allowed to take the 26th off to visit their families. The employers gave each servant a box containing gifts and bonuses (and sometimes leftover food). In addition, around the 1800s, churches opened their alms boxes (boxes where people place monetary donations) and distributed the contents to the poor.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

OK, bear with me on this one.

A "bank teller" is someone who "counts money that's being lodged".

But they sit behind the "bank counter", so they can't be called that, right ?

There's a separate question whether "go up to the counter" is a variation on that; whether it originally meant the person, rather than the wooden yoke that you stand at.

If you look at the stems of the words - "count" and "tell" - they appear to have no association, not least in modern language.

But if you look at past tenses of the two verbs......"re-tell" and "recount"....it starts to make sense.

At some stage, "tell" and "count" must have meant the same thing.