{"id":6760,"date":"2024-05-08T00:53:54","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T00:53:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6760"},"modified":"2024-05-08T00:55:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T00:55:49","slug":"word-of-the-day-etymology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2024\/05\/08\/word-of-the-day-etymology\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Etymology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of The New York Times<\/em>, is etymology<\/em>, which is also one of the features of this blog. The Times defines it as \u201ca history of a word\u201d or \u201cthe study of the sources and development of words\u201d (https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/06\/learning\/word-of-the-day-etymology.html<\/a>). It gives the pronunciation as \\ \u02c8\u025bd\u0259\u02ccm\u0251l\u0259d\u0292i \\. Dictionary.com includes \u201ca chronological account of the birth and development of a particular word or element of a word, often delineating its spread from one language to another and its evolving changes in form and meaning\u201d and \u201cthe study of historical linguistic change, especially as manifested in individual words\u201d as definitions (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/etymology<\/a>). It provides this–\/ \u02cc\u025bt \u0259\u02c8m\u0252l \u0259 d\u0292i \/–for the pronunciation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we move to the etymology of etymology<\/em>, let\u2019s talk about the pronunciation. The two suggestions are both just a bit off, in my opinion. The first puts the primary emphasis in the wrong place and closes the first syllable with a d<\/em> sound. The second has the primary emphasis on the third syllable, which is correct, but it closes the first syllable with a t<\/em> sound. You might say, \u201cBut Dr. Schleifer, the letter in the word is a t<\/em>, so why shouldn\u2019t it be pronounced as a t<\/em>?\u201d And my wife would agree with you; she pronounces Doritos<\/em> with the last syllable being toes<\/em>. But in medial placements (between two syllables), the sound that is actually pronounced by most people is a voiced alveolar flap: \u027e<\/em>. The sound is made \u201cwith a single contraction of the muscles so that the tongue makes very brief contact\u201d with the alveolar ridge, the part of your mouth just above the upper teeth. It actually sounds like something between a d<\/em> and a t<\/em>. So the correct pronunciation would be \/ \u02cc\u025b\u027e \u0259\u02c8m\u0252l \u0259 d\u0292i \/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The etymology website has a really long entry for etymology<\/em>. It entered the language toward the end of the 1300s, around the time of Chaucer, spelled \u201cethimolegia<\/em> \u2018facts of the origin and development of a word,\u2019 from Old French etimologie<\/em>, ethimologie<\/em> <\/em>(14c., Modern French \u00e9tymologie<\/em>), from Latin etymologia<\/em>, from Greek etymologia<\/em> \u2018<\/em>analysis of a word to find its true origin,\u2019 properly \u2018study of the true sense (of a word),\u2019 with -logia<\/em> \u2018<\/em>study of, a speaking of\u2019 (see -logy<\/strong><\/a>) + etymon<\/em> \u2018<\/em>true sense, original meaning,\u2019 neuter of etymos<\/em> \u2018<\/em>true, real, actual,\u2019 related to eteos<\/em> \u2018<\/em>true,\u2019 which perhaps is cognate with Sanskrit satyah<\/em>, Gothic sunjis<\/em>, Old English so\u00f0<\/em> \u2018<\/em>true,\u2019 from a PIE *set-<\/em> \u2018<\/em>be stable.\u2019 Latinized by Cicero as veriloquium<\/em>\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=etymology<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The website continues, \u201cBy late-14c. a sense had developed meaning \u2018the conjugation and categorization of words,\u2019 apparently from a misunderstanding of etymology being the past history of the word to mean that it designates tenses. Often listed along [with] prosody, orthography<\/em> and syntax<\/em> <\/em>as an element of grammar. OED considers this sense to be \u2018now historical\u2019\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this date in 1915, Babe Ruth hit his first home run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Herman \u201cBabe\u201d Ruth (1895-1948) was the grandson of German immigrants. He was born in Baltimore where his father worked several different jobs before becoming the owner of a saloon. The business kept him very busy, too busy to keep up with young George, and the boy became a bit of a delinquent (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Babe_Ruth<\/a>). At seven, he was sent to a reformatory, St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, where \u201cwas mentored by Brother Matthias Boutlier of the Xaverian Brothers, the school’s disciplinarian and a capable baseball player\u201d (ibid.). \u201cRuth stated, \u2018I think I was born as a hitter the first day I ever saw him hit a baseball.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was 19, he signed with the International League\u2019s (a minor league) Baltimore Orioles, perhaps after begin scouted by Jack Dunn, the club\u2019s owner\/manager and a former major league player himself. Ruth was signed as a pitcher, and he became a star with the Orioles, but the O\u2019s were a minor league club, and the Federal League (a major league at the time) had established a franchise in Baltimore that year (the Terrapins), and attendance at the Orioles\u2019 games was very low. As a result of the financial problems Dunn faced, he sold his best players, including Ruth, to major league teams, and Ruth\u2019s contract was bought by the Boston Red Sox. He joined Boston midseason, won his first game but lost his second, and was little used after that. Then he was sent to the minor leagues, specifically to Providence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1915, he was again with the major-league club, although the manager didn\u2019t plan to use him much. Injuries and ineffectiveness by some of the Boston pitchers gave him a few opportunities, and one of those opportunities was a start against the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Matt Kelly, writing for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, writes, \u201cThe game was scoreless and the bases were empty in the top of the third inning when George Herman Ruth stepped up to the plate against Yankee right-hander Jack Warhop. It was only his 18th major league at-bat, and while he had notched three doubles earlier that season, surely few people at the Polo Grounds expected much pop from a hitting pitcher\u201d (https:\/\/baseballhall.org\/discover-more\/stories\/inside-pitch\/babe-ruth-clubs-first-major-league-homer<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly continues, \u201cBut when Warhop wound up and delivered his first offering, Ruth smacked it with a sound that made the 8,000 in attendance gasp.
\u201c\u2018In the third inning, Ruth knocked the slant out of one of Jack Warhop’s underhanded subterfuges,\u2019 wrote Damon Runyan in the next day\u2019s New York American<\/em>, \u2018and put the baseball in the right field stands for a home run.\u2019
\u201cRuth\u2019s slam cut through the chilly spring air and landed in the second tier of the Polo Grounds\u2019 right-field grandstands. It was a left-handed swing that the young Ruth would later employ, ironically, to christen the original Yankee Stadium and repeat many times over in the Bronx.
\u201c\u2019Mr. Warhop of the Yankees,\u2019 wrote Wilmot Giffin in the New York Evening Journal<\/em>, \u2018looked reproachfully at the opposing pitcher who was so unclubby as to do a thing like that to one of his own trade. But Ruthless Ruth seemed to think that all was fair in the matter of fattening a batting average\u2019\u201d (ibid.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boston continued to use Ruth as a pitcher until 1918, when they began to use Ruth at first base and in the outfield on days when he wasn\u2019t pitching. In 1919, Ruth\u2019s pitching was limited while he played most of his 130 games in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then he was sold, again for financial reasons, to the New York Yankees. And the rest, as they say, is history, not etymology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image is of Babe Ruth pitching for the Boston Red Sox (https:\/\/worldhistoryedu.com\/babe-ruth-greatest-achievements\/<\/a>). BTW, if you are impressed, as you should be, with the accomplishments of Shohei Ohtani as both a pitcher and hitter, go back and look at Ruth\u2019s entire career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, courtesy of The New York Times, is etymology, which is also one of the features of this blog. The Times defines it as \u201ca history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[689,158,238,395,284],"class_list":["post-6760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-babe-ruth","tag-baseball","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-linguistics","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6763,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6760\/revisions\/6763"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}