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Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast

Words for Granted is a podcast that looks at how words change over time. Host Ray Belli uses etymology as a way of examining broader changes in history, culture, religion, and more.
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Words for Granted - An etymology and linguistics podcast
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Now displaying: Page 4
Jul 17, 2018

The word ‘the’ is the sole definite article in the English language. It's also the most common word in our language. However, for such a grammatically fundamental word, its history isn't as straightforward as one might think. Old English had a whopping twenty different forms of the definite article, all of which collapsed into the single, versatile word ‘the’ by the time of Modern English. We discuss some of these older forms and their evolutions.

Jul 6, 2018

In this conversation, Steve and I discuss the linguistic influence of the King James Bible and some common English idioms that have Biblical etymologies. 

Jun 30, 2018

Adverbs ending in the -ly suffix are all contractions hiding in plain sight. -ly is cognate with the word ‘like,’ and indeed, it literally means … ‘like.’ Sadly is literally sad-like. Madly is literally mad-like. Amazingly, both ‘like’ and ‘-ly’ derive from a root word meaning ‘body or corpse.’ Over the course of this episode, we try to make sense of this semantic evolution.

Jun 14, 2018

To be or not to be? Well, if you're conjugating the verb, you're most likely using a form that does not sound like ‘to be.’ ‘To be’ is the most irregular verb in the English language, and in today's episode, we explore why this is the case.

Jun 4, 2018

Grammar is one of the defining features of language. In today's episode, we look at some of the fundamentals of grammar in general, and then take a brief tour through the historical evolution of English grammar itself. Part 1 in a five-part series. 

May 5, 2018

Today's episode serves as an epilogue to the series on Biblical etymology. Secular means ‘unaffiliated with religion,’ but originally, it was a word used to describe the measurement of long spans of time. Roughly equivalent to a century, the saeculum, as it was known in Ancient Rome, was celebrated with pagan rituals (ironic), theater, and games. Over the course of the episode, we trace the development of the saeculum from antiquity to the 19th century philosophical movement of secularism.  

Apr 24, 2018

The word ‘God’ is not derived from the original Biblical texts. Rather, it’s a term from Germanic paganism that was adapted to Christianity. In the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, God is called by many names, and these diverse titles don't necessarily translate clearly into English. In today's episode, we dissect a handful of Hebrew terms for God that are used in the original Hebrew of the Bible.

 
 
 
 
Apr 1, 2018

In the Bible, the word Hell is a common English translation of three Greek and Hebrew words, but the meanings of those words hardly resemble Hell as we know it today. In addition to the etymology of ‘hell’ itself, this episode explores the doctrinal implications of those original Biblical terms.

Mar 6, 2018

The letter J is a direct descendent of the letter I. Based on their dissimilar sounds, it's an unlikely genetic connection, and today's story explores how this development took place. To keep the theme of Biblical etymology going, we examine this development through the evolution of the name Jesus.

Feb 20, 2018

Greek gods. Golden Age heroes. Our conscience. Guardian angels. Evil spirits. All of these things and more were once associated with the word daimon, the Ancient Greek predecessor of the Modern English ‘demon.’ Originally a neutral term that did not imply good or bad, today's episode looks at how this pagan Greek term became the embodiment of evil spirits.

Jan 26, 2018

On average, the word ‘church’ appears in English bibles 115 times. However, kuriakon, the word from which ‘church’ derives, only appears in the original Greek text twice, and its usage has nothing to do with a place of worship. The word ‘church’ is a translation of ekklesia, a different Greek word meaning ‘assembly.’ In this episode, we examine the long and complex history of how the translation of how ekklesia was codified as ‘church’ and how this translation probably isn't correct.

Jan 14, 2018

Up until Modern English, the English language distinguished between its singular and plural second-person pronouns. Thou was the singular, and ye was the plural. Today, these have been replaced by a single pronoun, ‘you.’ Thou and ye are common Biblical pronouns in English, but there's more to their usage in the Bible than just preserving an old linguistic tradition. In today's episode, we examine the semantic implications of these archaic pronouns in English translations of the Bible.

Dec 31, 2017

Today's episode serves as an introduction to an extended series on Biblical etymology. In it, we discuss the difficulties of translating ancient texts--particularly holy texts--into modern languages. Over the course of this series, we’ll gain insight into the overall development and evolution of Judaism and Christianity from the unlikely perspective of etymology. 

Dec 15, 2017

When compared to the other numbers between ten and twenty, the words for eleven and twelve stick out like a sore thumb. If they followed the construction of the rest of the teen numbers, they'd be called one-teen and two-teen, but of course, this isn't the case.

Dec 1, 2017

The emergence of the words algebra and algorithm can be traced back to the life of one man, an Arabic mathematician named Al-Kworizmi. Today's episode looks at the history of Al-Kworizmi's works and their impact on the Western world, particularly on European languages.

 
 
 
Oct 27, 2017

Chemistry as we know it is a rational science. However, both the word chemistry and the science of chemistry itself evolved out of the pre-scientific practice of alchemy. In today's episode, we look at the origins of alchemy, a few theories regarding its etymology, and how medieval Arabic plays into Europe's inheritance of this word. Finally, we consider the circumstances under which alchemy became chemistry as we know it today.

Oct 11, 2017

Unlike most Arabic loanwords, the word serendipity was not borrowed from a foreign language, but invented by an eighteenth century Englishman. It's based on Serendip, an old Arabic word for the nation of Sri Lanka, and was inspired by an Italian folk tale originally composed in Persian. The odd coinage of ‘serendipity’ is an international story that spans many cultures, languages, and time periods.

Sep 24, 2017

Today's episode serves as an intro to a series on Arabic loanwords in English. As a Semitic language, Arabic is very foreign to English. We take a look at some of the basic linguistic and cultural features of Arabic that make it stand apart from the rest of the languages discussed on this podcast thus far. 

Sep 11, 2017

At last, the finale in the Words for Granted series on days of the week! ‘Saturday’ comes from a root that literally means ‘day of Saturn.’ Unlike the rest of the English names for the days of the week, it’s a direct etymological descendent of the original Latin word for Saturday. And Sunday—you guessed it—literally means ‘day of the sun.’ We also compare and contrast these English names with their Romance language equivalents.

Aug 19, 2017

Part four of the days of the week miniseries! This time, we investigate Thursday and Friday, or Thor's Day and Frigg's Day. Like the other days of the week discussed thus far, the names ‘Thursday’ and ‘Friday’ are loan translations of the Latin names for the days of the week.  

Aug 2, 2017

In Old English, the word for Wednesday was Wodnesdaeg, which literally meant ‘Woden's day.’ It comes from a loan translation of the Latin dies mercurii, which literally meant ‘day of Mercury’ (Woden was the Germanic god associated with the Roman god Mercury). This much is for certain. But how did the O in Wodnesdaeg shift to the E in ‘Wednesday?’

Jul 14, 2017

In today's episode, we begin our investigation of the etymologies of each day of the week. Both Monday and Tuesday are ultimately loan translations of the Latin words dies lunae (Luna's day) and dies martis (Mars's day). Luna, the Roman moon goddess, was identified with Mani, the Germanic moon god; Mars, the Roman god of war, was identified with Tiw, the chief deity in the original Germanic pantheon. But that's just scratching the surface. Both ‘Monday’ and ‘Tuesday’ contain unexpected stories that reveal to us the cultures of our linguistic ancestors.

Jul 5, 2017

The days of the week are part of the core vocabulary of any language. In English, their etymologies are rooted in ancient pagan mythologies. In this episode, we trace the history of our modern calendar back to ancient Rome. As the seven-day week was transmitted from the Romans to the Germanic tribes that would eventually produce the English language, a series of loan-translations took place.

Jun 13, 2017

The Latin verb, secare, meaning ‘to cut,’ has produced English derivatives such as ‘section,’ ‘sector,’ and ‘insect,’ among others. One root word, many derivatives. So, how exactly can a single root word produce so many offshoots? In attempt to answer to this question as deeply as possible, we discuss linguistic topics such as morphology, semantics, and more.

May 29, 2017

The word scene has always had close ties to the theater, but it did not always refer to ‘subdivisions within in a play.’ The meaning of the original Greek skene was ‘tent or booth.’ It's an odd etymology, and today's episode explores multiple theories that seek to explain where this original sense may have come from.

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