I was looking at the etymology of Éire (Irish name for Ireland) and I found out that the initial É is unexplained. Does anyone know where it could come from?

For example, the phrase “bada-bing” was an improvised line from The Godfather that’s come to mean something that’s accomplished quickly.

Or the acronym BFF, which originated from Phoebe on Friends

Edit: Thank you to the commenters that corrected me on the BFF thing. That was my mistake. From what I could find, they popularized the phrase rather than invented it!

Interesting consequence of this etymology: the silent 'g' in 'reign' and 'right' was originally the same sound, split into two branches and re-introduced after thousands of years apart. Sources: in blog post

I want to learn more about the root concepts behind different languages' use of being and becoming.

Specifically, self-change or self-becoming. Etymylogically, English's word "becoming" literally insinuates the arrival of the self to a state of being. It's used as a catch all term to talk about anything from becoming a doctor, becoming sick, becoming angry, becoming handicapped, or becoming a stronger person over time.

Meanwhile, Spanish, for example, requires the use of specific verbs for each of these examples. I have also read some things about how Japanese tends to prefer a passive unfolding conceptualization for becoming with "naru". I vaguely read something about Arabic's sisers of Kanna, but it was hard to understand without context.

I got interested in the ways different languages conceptualize being and becoming. I read something about how the etymology behind Chinese's word for "be" is related to the sun, while Russian's word for "be" is related to standing.

Let me know if there is a better sub to explore this question. Any insight is appreciated!

This all originated as a shower thought, but I was theorizing on where the word “draconian” came from. For those who don’t know, draconian refers to exceptionally harsh, strict, and brutal laws or rules.

I thought the word root looked a lot like “dracul” or “dracula” which is a name given to the warlord Vlad the Impaler, who infamously ran a state with rules so harsh you could leave gold unattended in the street and not have it stolen. Vlad’s favorite punishment, hence the name, was death by impalement, even for petty crimes. This is a textbook draconian society.

Here I was thinking I was so smart with my elite 15th century Romanian warlord pull, only to then look it up and discover the word is named after Draco, a 7th century BC politician who supported the death penalty for petty crime.

Just an interesting historical parallel and utter coincidence.

Hello everyone =)

In Germany, there exists the river "Linnepe". I suspected a link to "Lippe", a bigger German river as well as a closely located region.

However, I found that the etymology for "Linnepe" is unknown and that its suffix "-epe" is speculated to being derived from Old Germanic "-apa" from Proto-Germanic "\apō"* for a river or a small creek.

Now, since it is speculated to being of Proto-Germanic origin, I would have guessed there were instances of similar terms in other Germanic languages. Sadly, the German wikipedia only provides 2 such cases:
The Norwegian town of Oppedalen
Swedish dialect "afse", referring to a small creek as well

Would y'all happen to know of other instances?

The German Wiki: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/-apa

My grandmother surname was Moundreas. She was from Kardamyli specifically. It’s a very unique Greek last name and the only other people I’ve seen with it other than my family is some wealthy shipping family back in Greece. I do know Greek last names from the Mani peninsula can end in -eas but I can’t figure out what the first half of the name means at all. Ik -eas can be mean “son of.” Could anyone Greek or anyone who is an expert of Greek etymology help me out?

The Latin word was candidatus, literally ‘clothed in white’ from candidus, meaning bright or shining white.

Men seeking public office in ancient Rome wore a toga candida, whitened with chalk, when meeting voters. So a candidate was originally just someone very visibly trying to get picked.

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/candidate

(Hope this post is ok!)

Hey all, I’ve built a mini game where you can guess how words traveled to the English language and what their origin was, alongside some explainers on the words origin and how it ended up in the English language. The game has two modes: free quiz that you can play as long as you want, featuring a short history of each word after your response and a time trial where you need to guess as many origins as possible in 60s. Would appreciate feedback from you guys, it’s a work in progress and a small (but fun) hobby project!

Link:

https://wanderwort.artgto.com

Not sure if this counts as etymology, feel free to take it down if you need to. Any languages have words for ‘with’ that are much longer than just 3-4 letters?

Despite being commonly mistaken with each other, the etymology of these words suggests that they have been recognised as completely different wading birds since Proto-Germanic (hraigrô for heron, kranô for crane, and sturkaz for stork). Therefore, have they always been considered as different birds in English and is this also true for other European languages?

This is a bit of a weird one, but i've heard this would be the right place to ask this question.

Multiple characters in media that deal with their Afterlife/Go to hell all have the common name of charlie:

There's a literal song called charlie's inferno.

Charlie from smiling friends dies and goes to hell in season one.

Charlie from Hazbin Hotel lives in hell.

And I remember in an old movie called "All dogs go to heaven" which deals with the afterlife and the main character just so happened to be named Charlie.

I don't know if this is a coincidence or if there's a meaning to it.

image courtesy referencesgame.com

For example, you could say “she’s a lesbian” but you can’t say “he’s a gay” grammatically. And homosexual is gender neutral

Image courtesy referencesgame.com

hey etymologists! I've been working on a personal app to trace etymology. I've decided to make it public for people to use. It's still in beta, but I thought I'd share it to start getting real-time feedback. please be kind & hope you find it useful!

https://etymon-ai.com/

I‘ve been making a game called References for more than a year, it’s wordplay and trivia but I end up doing a ton of etymology and word origins. I’d posted some snippets last year, but the design wasn’t well received (mostly because it was really very cluttered) — I ended up redesigning it a lot since then though. Don’t know if any of you had seen the OG design (and I don’t want to spam by posting it again) but I’m really happy with the current one and would love for you to critique it as well (constructively).

The game‘s available at referencesgame.com

Open to feedback!

Here’s this week’s etymology question from 3Roads.xyz.

The idiom X is said to originate with early 18th-century dramatist John Dennis, who devised a machine to simulate thunder for his unsuccessful 1709 play Appius and Virginia. When he later heard the same effect being used in a production of Macbeth, he reportedly exclaimed: “Damn them! They will not let my play run, but they X!” What X?

X - Steal my thunder