Animal Myths

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 Animal Myths. This examination of some of (what seem to us today) the quite ludicrous ideas our ancestors once attributed to our animals. For example the giraffe is the result of a cross between a leopard and a camel; barnacle geese are so-called because nobody had ever seen them lay an egg and they were thought to hatch from the barnacles found on rocks and the bottom of boats; and the hare, a particularly odd creature according to our ancestors, where the female carried eggs on its back (hence eggs being associated with Easter) while the genitalia of the male hare were worn on the belt to ward off infertility. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required. There is a PowerPoint presentation to accompany this talk if required.

Barnacle geese hatch from barnacles – as the geese migrate to breed, nobody have ever seen a barnacle goose hatch from an egg.

Otters are fish – spread by Carthusian monks so they could eat meat at Lent.

Butterflies are witches flying by day.

Magpies carry a drop of the Devil’s blood under its tongue.

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

Homonyms, Etymologically Speaking: S

Many words have two meanings, sometimes more, which are often very different. Such words have identical spelling and pronunciation, they are known as homonyms. Here I continue an A to Z list of such words and look at how that word came to have two different meanings.

S is for spring, be it the coiled metal or the season. The coiled metal, or any spring material, is seen in Old English springan 'to leap' and, along with related words in other languages, is derived from Proto-Indo-European sprengh 'to move, hasten, spring'.

The season following winter was named for the same reason. In the early 16th century it was said to be 'the spring of the year' and when the plants began to rise from the earth. But surely, I hear you ask, there were seasons before 1520? Of course, these were simply known by another name. Old English this was lencten 'Lent'; other Germanic languages used 'fore-year'; and French and Latin (the latter tempus primum) meaning 'first time, first season'.

Some spring expressions include 'spring fever', first recorded in 1843; spring upon, is first recorded in 1878; spring (used in freeing from imprisonment) not seen until 1900; spring chicken, first seen in 1780, really did refer to a chicken cooked in spring, and nobody was known as such until 1906 (and today is mostly used as a negative ie 'no spring chicken'). Spring cleaning, first recorded in English in 1843, began in Ancient Persia as Adukanaisa, literally 'irrigation-canal-cleaning month'.

Christian Feast Days

With this being the first week of October and, as far as I could gather, no religious festival whatsoever, I thought I'd look at the names of Christian feast days.

Ash Wednesday - derives its name from the practice of blessing ashes made from palm branches blessed on the previous year's Palm Sunday, these placed on the heads of those present in the form of the cross.

Quadragesima - the first Sunday of Lent, traditionally the first of the Sundays when fasting is suspended. It is Latin for 'fortieth' as it is exactly forty days between then and Good Friday.

Palm Sunday - commemorates Christ's entry into Jerusalem, where the crowd scattered palm branches on the path before Jesus as he rode through the streets.

Good Friday - not, as is often said, a corruption of 'God' Friday but uses 'good' in an earlier sense of 'pious, holy'.

Easter Day - comes from an Old English goddess Eostre, a dawn goddess which can be traced in numerous cultures many centuries before Christianity and Easter. Her name comes from Proto-Indo-European h'ews 'to shine'.

Ascension Day - the day on which the risen Christ is said to have risen to heaven. It is always a Thursday and the fortieth day of Easter.

Whit Sunday - the eighth Sunday after Easter, the day on which the Holy Spirit is said to have descended upon Christ's disciples. It is a contraction of White Sunday and is also referred to as Whitsun and Pentecost, itself from the Greek for 'fiftieth day'.

Trinity Sunday - is the first Sunday after Whit Sunday or Pentecost, marking the Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Corpus Christi - Latin for 'the Body of Christ', it is celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.

Advent - the period from the fourth Sunday before Christmas up to, but not including, the day itself. Its name comes from Latin and means 'to come'.

Christmas - literally 'the mass of Christ', where 'mass' comes from mittere 'to let go' and 'Christ' is a translation of the Hebrew mashiah to Greek khristos 'the annointed'.