Follow up on surprising word origins. If what you find when you look into the etymology of a particular word does not make obvious sense today, do some research to figure out why its original meaning is what it is.
Recognize related words. Now that you know the origin of a particular word, you can use it to identify words with similar histories and therefore with related sounds and meanings. Method 3. Get an etymology app. You can make studying etymology part of your daily routine by downloading a related app on one or more of your devices.
That way, you can carry your hobby with you wherever you go. These apps can also help you understand how words have evolved from their origins and provide you with new perspectives. Etymology Explorer gives you engaging visual maps of word origins that are complete with full definitions, linguistic histories, and links to related words.
Take a related MOOC. Sometimes there are free Massive Online Courses available on etymology. It explores etymology alongside lexicography. Go to the library. That way, you can expand your knowledge of the complex subject without paying lots of money to build your own collection of etymology books since academic books tend to be expensive.
University libraries will probably have more etymology-related resources available than public libraries. This is also a great opportunity to delve into specific types of etymology that may interest you. For instance, you can get an etymology book associated with a specific language or dialect or with a particular field, like geography or medicine. Do Internet research.
A quick Internet search can yield tons of results about the etymologies of various words. You might even find some interesting discussion threads on the topic.
You could also post a question to a forum site, like Quora, for more information. Follow a related blog or podcast. There are many popular blogs and podcasts where you can read and listen to stories about etymology. Both offer a fun and informative way to keep up your hobby of studying etymology. Method 4. Take a course for credit. Many colleges and universities offer traditional and online courses related to etymology.
There will not be a broad array of related courses available, but there is likely to be one or two at most higher education institutions. The best place to look for classes related to etymology are in the Classics, English, and Linguistics departments.
Keep in mind that you will have to be enrolled at a college or university in order to take a course through them. The word disaster has been passed around Europe like a hot potato. The pejorative prefix dis- and aster star can be interpreted as bad star , or an ill-starred event. The ancient Greeks were fascinated by astronomy and the cosmos, and believed wholly in the influence of celestial bodies on terrestrial life.
For them, a disaster was a particular kind of calamity, the causes of which could be attributed to an unfavorable and uncontrollable alignment of planets. The players would present two possessions they would like to trade. The owner of the lesser object would make up the difference with money, and then all three participants would place forfeit money into a hat. If they disagreed, they would pull out their hands clenched in a fist.
The word handicap is still used in many sports today, such as golf and horse racing. This notion of being burdened or put at a disadvantage was carried over to describe people with a disability in the early 20th century. We also notice that the German for thu mb is Dau m en and wonder why the English word has b at the end. Such questions can usually be answered quite well. It follows that an etymologist has to be informed about the properties of the things whose names are being discussed.
Sometimes the answer is almost on the surface, but more often it is not. This is a fairly complicated problem.
The trouble with one is typical. Scholars collected all the forms related to it. The search presupposed the existence of certain nontrivial rules. They asked how people counted at the dawn of civilization and, to do this, traveled all over the world. The result is a mass of conflicting hypotheses, and a method is needed to decide which of them are especially promising. Hundreds of pages have been written about the origin of numerals. Other words are late. They too are the product of human creativity, but, even while dealing with recent coinages, we often fail to discover their sources.
It may amuse non-specialists to see how many people have tried to find the origin of jazz and how uncertain even the best results are. Bigot the subject of a recent post , like jazz , must also have arisen as a slang word. The circumstances in which a certain word comes into being may be so inconspicuous that we have little chance of discovering them.
Unfortunately, too little is known about their history. Does junk belong with them? One should tread gingerly , that is, gently on this marshy ground. Otherwise, I may have proposed a profound theory of jixi being related to the jink words.
In fact, it is a blend of Joynson and taxi still not jaxi! So what are the qualifications of an etymologist? There is a thin layer of late words like jixi that requires no expertise in linguistics. Quite naturally, journalists prefer to write mainly about them, though the history of slang is often irritatingly opaque capricious coinages, borrowings, and so forth.
Work with the other words presupposes familiarity with historical phonetics, historical grammar, and historical semantics. This Blog Includes: What is Etymology? Job of an Etymologist How to Become an Etymologist? Who invented the word etymology? Why is etymology useful? What is the synonym of etymology? Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.
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