Legend

It is quite unusual to find a word with two quite different meanings when it is not a mono-syllabic or simplistic word. Legend is one such word and, in order to discover why, we will look at the etymologies.

Most often we see ‘legend’ used as a synonym for myth or folklore; but it is also used to describe a title or banner.

First coming to English in the early 14th century it referred to ‘a narrative dealing with an event.’ This came from Old French legend, itself from Medieval Latin legenda, most often these stories would have been those related to saints and would have been read in religious places.

These religious readings saw the use tweaked a little and the meaning seen as ‘things to be read’. Such reflects the root of Proto-Indo-European leg ‘to collect, gather’ and later ‘to pick out words’.

This then leads to the other meaning of ‘writing or inscription’, which has been seen since the 1610s when referring to the wording on maps – such as those produced by John Speed.

No change or developments for centuries until, around 1958, the phrase ‘legend in one’s own time’ (and variations on same) appears.

Road Idioms

Several words have found themselves used in a number of phrases. We looked at 'bread' last time and this time it's 'road'.

Road test (of a vehicle) is first recorded in 1906, but not as a verb before 1937.

Road hogs, rather surprisingly, have been around since 1886.

However, road rage has only been seen since 1988.

Road maps have only been around since 1786, or at least the term has.

Road trip, still more often used in the USA but gaining popularity in Britain, was first used in 1950 but originally only of baseball teams. (Presumably when they were heading for an away game.)

Road runner, the Warner Brothers cartoon character dates from 1948, was first recorded in a document dated 1847. Of course the bird has been around for much longer – it is also known as a ‘long-tailed crested desert cuckoo’ or ‘the chaparral-cock’.

Nothing ran ‘off-road’ before 1949.

By-road (or side road as we would say in Britain) appears as early as 1670.

Post road, this a road on which there are stations used by post horses in a relay system to transport the mail, is first described as such in 1650.

The ring road, that which annoys so many when they are built on green belt land, is first seen in 1928.

Crossroad is first seen in the modern sense in 1808. Before then, and since the 1680s, it referred to a road which connects one main road to another. When roads were just tracks, a crossroad would be a single road with a marker on it showing where a meeting would take place.

Railroad is an American term and first seen in 1757 when referring to rails laid to allow heavy waggons to pass and used in mining operations. It was not applied to trains in the modern sense until 1825.

Roadkill is first seen in 1962.

Roadside is first seen in 1744, but not used as an adjective until 1810.

Roadblocks were not put up until 1940, prior to that they were known as something else – keep this in mind when the military in that First World War film put up a roadblock!

Roadwork is first seen in 1765 when it was used to refer to repairs or even making roads. This makes perfect sense as it coincides, more or less, with the turnpike roads. Surprisingly the sense of ‘to exercise’ comes as early as 1903.

To make inroads is first seen as 1540, when used to describe a hostile incursion.

The Four Corners of the Earth

An expression which is often said to refer to early maps which tended to fade away around the edges. However the term 'the four corners of the Earth' dates from much earlier, it is found in the Coverdale Bible, translated from Revelations 7:1 as "And after that sawe I foure angels stode on ye foure corners of the earth, holdinge ye foure wyndes of ye earth." Similarly found in Isaiah 11:12 with "And he shal set vp a toke amonge the Gentiles, and gather together ye dispersed of Israel, yee and the outcastes of Iuda from the foure corners of ye worlde." Not that these truly refer to the world being flat, although many would have found it difficult to believe otherwise, although flat or spherical it was always seen as round and thus there were no corners. Hence here the reference can only be to compass points.