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Hello all! Thought it would be fun to have a thread where we discuss words/phrases we use today and how they came about. I'll start us out with one that has a fascinating beginning: "goodbye."

Per Vocabulary.Com, the first use of the word "goodbye" was in the 1570's. It started as a contraction (historical chatspeak) at the end of someone's letter and looked like: godbwye, which actually meant "God be With you." Eventually people began reading the contraction godbwye as Goodbye and a new word was born! Kinda makes you wonder if modern day chatspeak like "Lol" will impact language in a few hundred years. blaugh

One more to go over today: "Add insult to Injury."

Per GrammaristThe origin of this one goes back to Roman times and was writting of in Aesop's fables (620-564BCE). It's from the story of "the bald man and the fly" where a bald man swats a fly that has bitten him, hitting himself on the head. The fly then says, "What will you do to yourself now that you have added insult to injury?”

Amazing that a phrase so old can hold such meaning today! biggrin

One more on the positive side: "Silver Lining"

The source Ginger Software says that this phrase comes from John Milton's masque Comus written in 1634. The quote appears as “Was I deceived or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?”

Here's a phrase I like: "cut me (or them) some slack."

This is a fun one. From Writing Explained we learn that its meaning comes from the 1700s in reference to a loose part of the sail/rope. So cutting it to get rid of a restriction.


To go with this, I thought I'd also go over the actual word "Slack" or "slacking off."

Ironically enough, the word slack -as reference on Etymology - has many meanings depending on the era. In the 1300's it meant indolent/lazy, but could also mean loose parts. It evolved many times (slack jawed, slacking off, etc) to the point the verb became the noun "Slacker" in 1994. Slack off actually started being used in 1806!

"Hang in there" has an amusing (and shoert) origin story.

From Writing Explained this slang term came about in the 1970's from a popular poster that featured a Siamese cat hanging onto a bamboo pole, looking determined to stay stuck on there. The poster was created from a super popular photo in a book. You can see the original photo below that created the phrase!



I wonder if any of our cat memes will one day become regular slang that everyone uses. xd

Let's go over the history of the English names for the days of the week! For this round of words, we'll be referencing English Live and I'll also be making references to Japanese/Sailor Moon because why not? Prepare for a long history, nerdom, and more history nerdom post.

As funny as it seems, the English version days of the days of the week has them named after celestial bodies and mythological figures (gods) from history. The original order of the days, between the 1st and 3rd centuries, was Sun, Moon, Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronos- so named for the heavenly bodies that could be seen over the first daylight hour of each day, from Hellenistic astrology. It began in ancient Greece with the planetary week names, which then passed to the Romans. It also changed from Latin to other languages of southern and western Europe with other languages later influencing the names.

The Romans named the days of the week after their gods’ names for the planets because they saw a connection between their gods and the changing face of the nighttime sky. Back then, the planets they were able to see in the sky each night were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Those five planets plus the moon and sun made seven major astronomical bodies so it was natural to use these seven names when the seven-day week arrived.

Now for specifics...

Sunday:dies Solis – day of the sun in Latin and later Sunnon-dagaz in old Germanic. The influence of the sun even appears in other languages like Japanese, where it is日曜日 (nichiyoubi) With Kanji for Sun/day at the beginning.

Monday: Dies Lunae in Latin, becoming Mon(an)dæg in Old English. In Japanese it is 月曜日 (getsuyoubi) with the moon Kanji in front

Tuesday: In Latin Tuesday was named for the Roman god of war-Mars, and was called dies Martis. However, that eventually got a little changed up and instead the Germanic god of war- Tiu - was used for the Enligh version. First it was spelled as Tiwsday and eventually Tuesday. In Japanese you can see the same influence, but instead of war the Kanji for fire is used. 火曜日 (Kayoubi) Guess that's why Sailor Mars has fire attacks? xd

Wednesday:The Germanic equivalent of the Roman god Mercury was the equally fast Woden (Odin). And so this day, which started out in Latin as dies Mercurii became Woden’s day in old Germanic, eventually becoming Wednesday in English. Funny enough, in the Sailor Moon series Sailor Mercury has attacks dealing with water. I've never understood the connection, but in Japanese Wednesday is represented by the water Kanji 水曜日 (suiyoubi).

ThursdayJupiter is the Roman that created thunder and lightning. This was eventually changed out for Thor the Norse god of thunder. The Latin "dies Jovis" (day of Jupiter) become Thor’s day and eventually Thursday. In Japanese the Kanji used for Thursday is tree- 木曜日 (mokuyoubi). Doing another nerdy Sailor Moon reference, Sailor Jupiter starts out with electric attacks and eventually has tree based attacks.

Friday: Originally for Venus the Roman goddess of love and beauty, Known in Latin as dies Veneris. It got swapped in history for Frigg, the Norse goddess of love and the heavens, and may possibly reference Fria, the Teutonic goddess of love and beauty. In Germanic we have Frije-dagaz, which later became Friday. With a day of beauty no wonder we love this one so much. In Japanese, the Kanji used for Friday is gold 金曜日 (kinyoubi) which I'd agree, Friday is good as gold.

Saturday:Saturn is the Roman god of agriculture, which was swapped from the Ancient Greece god Cronos. In Latin it starts as dies Saturni and it’s not too different from Saturday. In Japanese, they use the Kanji for dirt 土曜日 (doyoubi). I guess planting things in dirt for agriculture?


And that concludes my day of the week rant with hints of Anime nerd-dom. Hope the references in Japanese did not bore y'all, I just thought it was funny that ancient god references can even be seen in other languages not directly connected. xd

For a little bit of fun today we're going to go over the Mary Sue trope! As many who read fanfiction know, Mary Sue is a character who is: overly perfect, everyone adores them, can do no wrong, the story totally revolves around them, etc etc. But where did we get the name Mary sue from? Fittingly enough, it comes from fanfiction - or at least - a story made to make fun of the trope that was being seen in fanfiction!

This little story today is being pulled from the Smithsonian Magazine. Back in the 1970's there was a fan magazine where people would write in fan-fiction stories - the one we're looking at was specifically meant for "Star Trek." The writers/editors of the magazine who would pick the stories to be published found that certain tropes kept repeating, so they made a parody of those stories that looked like this:



Keep in mind that the "perfect woman" trope has been around for a long time. Back in the 1910's it was represented by a character named Pollyanna who was the unfailingly optimistic protagonist from Eleanor H. Porter’s children’s books. We also have something similar from recent history in the 2010's of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope.

Long story short, Mary Sues/Manic Pixie Dream girls have been around for a long time under many different names. The trope will probably just update evey few decades with a slightly different name to keep up with the times. 3nodding

Kinda funny to think about what generic name will be the new Manic Pixie Mary Sue in another 30 years. xd

Thanks for the update on Mary Sues! Perfectly imperfect sounds as pretentious as the trope. xd

...And since you've brought up a lovely word I just had to research the history of it! I've always liked Ragamuffin as a term of endearment for a young rambunctious child. It also apparently has a fun history. If we look at the website Wonderopolis it shows that the word apparently started sometime in the 14th Century. It was spelled Ragamoffyn and was a demon's name in a poem called Piers Plowman. There's a debate as to where the muffin's meaning comes into play, with guesses being the Middle Dutch word "muffe," (mitten) and the Middle German word "muffe," (cupcake). The middle German one only makes sense if you look at the description of the word in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable which goes: "A muffin is a poor thing of a creature…so that a ragamuffin is a sorry creature in rags."

A little bit of extra history of Ragamuffin- in the late 1800's-early 1900s there used to be Ragamuffin Parades! Per Merriam Webster those parades happened around Thanksgiving. It was called "Thanksgiving Masking" and the children would dress up as Ragamuffins to beg for treats/handouts for their Thanksgiving meal. Children would normally receive fruit, pennies or candy - and the practice was done so many places that Thanksgiving was also called "Ragamuffin Day." Unfortunately, by the mid 1900's the ragamuffin parades were a thing of the past, but the tradition of that somewhat lives on with what became Halloween. whee


Thanks for the fun word to research! We might have to start a fun history of holiday/other traditions thread. 3nodding