Etymology for the Writer or Artist

A few will be aware I have been known to speak on various subjects over the years. Fundamentally these all revolve around my favourite subject of etymology. Have always enjoyed bringing this fascinating subject to others. It’s not for me to say whether the audiences have, although many have asked me to return.

Thought it might be worthwhile sharing a snippet or two from these etymological presentations, continuing with Etymology for the Writer or Artist. Every artist knows the names of the techniques and methods used to produce that painting, sculpture, or moulding, while writers are well-acquainted with parts of speech, tenses and grammar. But how many artists really know how a technique, style, or even a colour got its name? Are writers aware of why a noun, verb, or adjective is known as such? And very few will understand just why tenses are known as they are - I mean who ever though the 'pluperfect' sounded remotely useful as a term? Not simply a lesson in etymology this is a very different way of looking at history and how the English language developed over several centuries.

Created for the many writing groups I have spoke to, it made a change for them from the usual guests who either tell them about themselves or attempt to inspire their writing. A couple of examples from the origins of our alphabet.

A – derived from the Greek alpha. Used in the modern sense to mean ‘the first’ dates from the 17th century. The Greeks got it from the Hebrew and/or Phoenician aleph (greek not permitting the use of consonants at the end of words so they added the ‘a’) and this, in turn, from the Semitic group of languages where eleph literally meant ‘ox’. It is thought the character represents the head of an ox.

O – from the Greek omicron and a meaning of ‘small o’, this from the Proto-Indo-European word smik or ‘small’ as this is a notably small vowel. As a letter it is derived from the Phoenician ayn or ‘eye’, itself taken from the Egyptian hieroglyph of an eye. O is also represented by omega, a comparatively late addition to the Greek alphabet and not seen until around 2,800 years ago. It is related to omicron and means ‘great o’ as in literally ‘o - mega’. If you want to know the diffidence between omicron and omega simply look at the word ‘lotto’, where the short version is near the beginning and the longer at the end.

P – comes from the Greek pi and itself from the Phoenician pe which, in turn, comes from the pictogram of a mouth.

Z – comes from the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet zeta and it is also the basis for our modern letter Z. Derived from the Hebrew zayin, literally meaning ‘weapon’ and likely a reference to its shape resembling a jagged edge.

G – if you’ve ever wondered why we have two pronunciations for the letter G – as in Gary and George – it is purely down to source. The hard G in Gary is Germanic, the softer G in George is from Latin and prior to that Greek. In fact the latter G did exist in the Latin alphabet but was written as a Z (try saying George with a Greek accent but spelling it with a Z, it works).

If you think you know someone who would like to hear me speak on this subject, drop me a line.