Cold Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘snow’ and now look at ‘cold’. Note nobody suffered from a ‘cold’ until the 1530s.

Left out in the cold is not used prior to 1861.

Cold has been used as in ‘unmoved by strong feeling’ since the late 11th century.

Cold as a synonym for ‘dead’ is first used in the 14th century.

Cold is used in the sense of a lost trail, as when hunting, is seen from the 1590s.

Cold is used when speaking of games as in hide and seek since 1864.

Cold fronts have been on the weather map since 1921.

Cold sweats have been around since the 1630s.

Cold calls have been made since 1964.

Cold comfort is first seen in the 1650s.

Nobody threw cold water on anything in the figurative sense until 1808.

Cold cream, as a cosmetic, has been around since 1709 – this a translation of the Latin ceratum refrigerans and a preparation of oil, wax, and water which was first used by the Greeks in the second century by the physician Galen.

People have been cold-blooded since the 1590s, but was not applied to creatures relying on the sun to heat their bodies until 1828.

Nobody was given the cold shoulder until 1816, this in the writings of Sir Walter Scott.

In the 19th century, cold pig was a term used to describe throwing cold water on one sleeping to wake them up.

Cold wars were first fought in 1945, when it appeared in the writing of George Orwell.

Cold turkey, as in withdrawal symptoms, appears in 1910.

Nobody had cold feet before 1893.

Cold-hearted is first seen in the early 17th century.

Synonym Etymologies G

Continuing the look at synonyms through the eyes of the etymologist, this time it is the letter G and gas. This I found a little more difficult as there are dozens of synonyms for 'gas' but this is because 'gas' has so many uses - but, as ever, I will give it a try. In the most basic sense it is a state of matter (along with solid and liquid). It is first used in English around the middle of the 17th century and taken from the Dutch. This, in turn, came from the Greek khaos which did not mean 'chaos' but 'empty space'.

Excellent or exciting (it's a gas) was first used in 1953, derived from the earlier hipster term 'gasser' and with the same meaning. But there is a rather earlier use of the term, albeit in the phrase 'everything is gas and goiters' by none other than Charles Dickens in 1839. Note, as I've said so many times, just because a word first appears in print with a certain meaning on a certain date, it does not mean it is the first use of same - indeed, it is safe to assume the vast majority of apparently 'new' words were already in use before they appeared in print, otherwise the reader would likely not have a clue what the writer was talking about. And, let's face it, that would be quite diabelisimilitudinal.

The American use of 'gas' as a shortened form of 'gasoline', first used in the USA in 1864 and itself first used as 'gasolene' in Britain the year earlier. It may come as a surprise to learn it began as a trade name, the fuel burning as a vapour, with the addition of -ol- to denote 'oil' and -ine as a chemical suffix.

Petrol, as the British would know it, is a shortened form of 'petroleum' which, once again, uses 'the -ol- or 'oil' with a perceived chemical suffix -eum. The first element shows it was extracted from rock, for it uses the Latin petra 'rock'.

Vapour, having already mentioned the word and it also once being used in the sense of 'gasses', comes from Old French where it was used to mean 'moisture' as much as 'vapour'. Note the idea of 'the vapours', used from the middle of the 17th century and a reference to anything from fainting to hysteria to fitting, was the then idea it came from exhalations from internal organs of the torso which would be affecting the brain.

Air and, having got away from the gasseous meaning, come back to the original sense. It came to English from Old French air and Latin aer, both with the same meaning, and Greek aer which more often spoke of 'mist, haze, clouds' and later 'atmosphere'. It seems the word originated in Proto-Indo-European aeirein which was used to mean 'raise' and also 'windpipe' and a third meaning of 'artery'. Indeed, this last meaning has also given us the name of the body's major artery the 'aorta'.

Atmosphere seems to be the next logical step, an obviously Greek origin where atmos spoke of 'steam, vapour' and sphaira or 'sphere' combine to describe what the Greeks saw as the contaminated part of the lower part of the air as opposed to the pure and untainted upper air where the gods resided.

Talk is another sense for 'gas', albeit in a negative and slang sense meaning 'empty talk'. It is first seen in print in 1847 and is likely the reason it became used to mean 'joke, funny' as it was by James Joyce in 1917.

Babble is, like many words which describe language difficult to comprehend, imitative of whatever they reference - in this case it is baby talk. Other words which similarly ridicule the speaker are: 'gobbledegook' or imitative of a turkey; 'cuckoo' another suggesting a person is bird-brained; 'jargon' is derived from a phrase meaning 'to twitter like birds'; 'barbarous' tells us they are 'non-Greek speakers' (how atrocious); and 'bafflegab', probably the best of the lot and one which should be brought back into general use.

Wind, which comes from the Proto-Indo-European root we 'to blow', is listed here as it is also used as a slighter more polite term for 'gas' as used to refer to air trapped and/or released by the body. Most often, at least in Britain, it describes air trapped in the upper digestive tract - dyspepsia is another term - and thus rather badly named as the discomfort caused in down to trapped air and thus not moving (or windy) in the usual sense. Research revealed the word 'wind' had been used to rhyme with 'hind, rind, behind' until as recently as the 18th century. Even I, who is known for not appreciating poetry, sympathise with poets (the real poets, the rhyming ones) as it severely limits potential rhymes.

Heartburn and, having mentioned dyspepsia/indigestion, clearly confuses the associated pain/discomfort with a cardiac problem. Yet that has only been the case since the 15th century, prior to that the term was used to describe 'anger' or 'bitterness' (1400) and to refer to 'lust' (13th century).

Fart, and if I omit this four-letter offering I'll only be deluged by emails again (thankfully not from Mrs Trellis), has gone almost unchanged since language has been recorded and has never meant anything else. Interestingly, if farting could ever be classified as interesting, until at least the Middle Ages there was also the term 'clatterer' which described one known for their 'clatterfarts', which is an onomatopaeic word refers specifically to audible farts, tending to suggest that other farts around this time were silent farts.

Hungary Place Names Explained

Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest Hungarian cities.

Budapest is, as many will know, two places on opposite sides of the Danube named, unsurprisingly, Buda and Pest and first combined as a hyphenated name as recently as 1831. While the combination is well within recorded history, the origins of the two names on opposite sides of the river have never been adequately explained. Of course, that does not stop suggestions and there are suggestions aplenty. Buda has been suggested as coming from a personal name Bod or Bud of Turkic origin and meaning 'twig'; a Slavic personal name Buda and short for Budimir; a Germanic root of boda meaning 'water'; and the traditional founder Bluda, brother of Attila. Similarly Pest could be the name of the Roman fortress Pession; the Slavic word pestera or 'cave'; or pest 'limekiln'.

Danube comes from a Proto-Indo-European root danu used to mean both 'fluid' and 'drop', the root giving the river its name in many European languages. It has also given us the Scythian and Avestan generic word for 'river' (these spoken in and around modern Iran); for the Greeks it was Istros or 'strong, swift' and related to the Sandskrit isiras 'swift' - these seemingly very different forms do have the same root but appear different in our eyes as the western languages speak of the river as masculine while further east they are feminine. For reasons unknown the Phrygian name (the language spoken in Asia Minor or much of modern Turkey) was very different, and Mataos meant 'the bringer of luck'.

Debrecen is probably from the Turkic word debresin meaning either 'live' or 'move' and also used as a male name, although others will point to a Slavic origin meaning 'well-esteemed'.

Szeged is from the Hungarian for 'corner' for it stands on a bend in the river Tisza.

Miskolc is simply the Slavic form of Michael, also used for the name of the Miskolc clan who first settled here.

Pecs is difficult to see unless we go back to its earliest name, this from the Celtic sop 'marsh' and giving the Roman version of Sopianae. Note this refers to the region and not a single settlement, for not until 871 do we find the first name of the city itself as Quinque Basilicae or 'five cathedrals', this also found in German and Slovak translations of the name. This enables us to see why the root is the Turkish bes meaning simply 'five'.

Gyor was known as Ara Bona 'good altar', shortened forms of Raab and Rab are still used respectively in German and Slovak for this city. Not until the Magyars arrived, settling in the area recently vacated by the Romans, does the Hungarian name, itself a personal name. During the Ottoman occupation the city was under Turkish rule and known as Yanik kale 'burnt castle' for the Turks arrived to find the town burned to the ground by the locals before they left it to the advancing army.

Nyiregyhaza is a composite of two Hungarian words nyir 'birch' and egyhaz 'church'.

Kecskemet is from a Hungarian root keckse meaning 'goat'.

Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.