Case File #013.11.27: TURKEY

English speakers started using the word turkey circa 1541, but back then they applied it to the guinea fowl, a domesticated bird imported from Madagascar by way of Turkey. When the American bird we now refer to as turkey was introduced to England in the latter half of the sixteenth century, the Brits mistook it for a variety of guinea fowl not only because it somewhat resembled the other bird but also because the Spanish were using the same Turkish trade routes to export the animals from Mexico to England via Africa. By the time 1575 rolled around, however, the American fowl had become England's most popular main course for Christmas dinner, and it was about then that it also became the sole bird to which the moniker turkey was applied. Much newer are the senses of the word in which it refers to a failed artistic endeavor, such as a play or movie, or to an inept or stupid person. Both first appeared in American English during the early twentieth century, presumably coming about because the turkey was perceived as an unintelligent and rather docile animal. The bird's reputation for stupidity and tractability is also behind the neology of the phrase turkey shoot, which is used in reference to a task that takes little effort to accomplish.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.11.25: MEAL

Here in the Western world, we English speakers have a time-honored tradition of getting together with family and friends at holiday time and indulging a large, extravagant meal. Even older than this tradition is the word meal, which can be traced back all the way back to the time of the original Anglo-Saxons. The word's Old English form, however, was m æl, and it meant not only “an act of eating a portion of food” and “an appointed time for eating” but also “a portion or measure (especially of time).” When Old English gave way to Middle English in the mid-twelfth century, the word's form became meel (also sometimes spelled mele or mel), and a century or so later, its spelling finally changed to the contemporary meal and its association with measurement was ultimately jettisoned. (Remnants of the noun's sense of “a portion or measure” are still around today, though, in both the adjectival and adverbial senses of the word piecemeal.) But the sense in which meal refers to ground grain has an entirely different etymological family tree. It ultimately traces back to the Indo-European root mel-, which meant “related to grinding” and later became the basis of several Proto-Germanic verbs and nouns. The Anglo-Saxons borrowed one of these Germanic words—etymologists and linguists do not all agree on the specifics—and used it as the basis for the Old English noun melu, which meant “ground grain” or “flour.” When melu passed into Middle English, its form initially changed to melewe (sometimes spelled melowe) but later became meale (sometimes spelled maile), and when Middle English gave way to modern English in the late fifteenth century, meale became the now familiar meal.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.10.21: TARANTULA

For many people, the mere utterance of the word tarantula raises goosebumps aplenty, most likely because it conjures up mental imagery featuring a vast array of giant arachnids both real and fictional. But when the noun first appeared in the English lexicon circa 1591, it referred not to just any eight-legged terror but only to a specific European wolf spider, Lycosa tarentula. Now, this info probably doesn't surprise you if you're already aware that the English noun is a direct borrowing of the Medieval Latin, that the Latin derived from the Old Italian noun tarantola, and that the Italian evolved from Taranto, the name of a seaport in southern Italy where the aforementioned wolf spiders are commonly found. However, you may be surprised to learn that it wasn't until the late eighteenth century that tarantula was first used in reference to Theraphosidae, the family of large hairy spiders native to the tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. And its use as a generic term for any monstrous spider is an even more recent phenomenon, having first appeared in American English around the middle of the twentieth century.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.10.17: GHASTLY

Although ghastly means “intensely unpleasant, horrible, or terrifying” and is even occasionally used to mean “pale, pallid, or otherwise resembling a ghost,” it has no palpable etymological relationship to the word ghost. The adjective is actually a descendant of the Old English verb gæstan, which meant “to frighten or torment,” and when it first came into use at the end of the thirteenth century, it was spelled gastlich or sometimes gostlich. The form evolved to gastli within a scant quarter of a century or so, but the current ghastly didn't show up until 1590—its first published appearance was in Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene—which was also around the time the word's adverbial senses (“in a macabre, gruesome, or terrifying manner” and “with a deathlike quality”) came into use.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.10.10: FREAK

Now, don't freak out over this, but when the noun freak first appeared in the English lexicon circa 1563, it meant “a capricious notion or a sudden change of mind.” And not only that, but etymologists are freakishly divided over the word's possible antecedents: some believe it descended from the Old English verb frician, which meant “to dance”; some claim it evolved from the Middle English noun frekynge (sometimes spelled freking), which meant “impulsive or erratic behavior”; some think it grew out of the Middle English adjective frek, which meant “eager, bold, or zealous” but was also sometimes used to mean “fast or speedy”; and still others argue that it came from something else altogether. But whatever the case, by 1785, freak had come to mean “an eccentric desire or whim,” and by the mid-nineteenth century, it had acquired its now familiar and primary senses of “a thing or occurrence that is notably unusual or irregular” and “a person, animal, or plant that is physically abnormal or grossly malformed.” The sense in which the noun refers to an ardent enthusiast—as in, for example, nature freak or sports freak—dates to around 1910, and the informal senses of “illicit drug user,” “member of the counterculture,” and “sexual deviate” are even newer, all having first appeared around the late 1950s. The common but informal contemporary verb sense of freak, which is often followed by out and means “to act or cause to act in a distressed, irrational, or uncontrollable way,” is also relatively new and first came into wide use during the 1960s, yet the less common verb senses of “to fleck or streak randomly” and “to alter or distort” date back to the early seventeenth century.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.10.07: WITCH

In the era of Old English, wicca was the word for a male magician or sorcerer, and wicce was its feminine counterpart. Although both were derivatives of the Old English verb wiccian, which meant “to practice divination and magic,” they generally suggested something much more nefarious than mere fortune-telling or spell-casting and were often used to label men and women who were suspected of having dealings with the devil or of cavorting with evil spirits. When Old English gave way to Middle English during the twelfth century, wicca and wicce became more or less interchangeable, and by around 1250, both had evolved into the single word wiche (sometimes spelled wicche). The noun's current form, witch, finally popped up around the mid-fifteenth century, and its verb senses, “to influence or affect by or as if by magic or devilry” and “to enchant or beguile,” came into use about fifty or so years later. (Some etymologists believe that the verb witch is not a derivation of the noun but rather a back-formation from bewitch, as the two verbs are essentially synonymous and bewitch actually entered the English lexicon first.) But the now common though informal noun senses of witch—that is, “old woman,” “ugly woman,” and “mean, spiteful, or overbearing woman”—are relatively new, having first appeared around the beginning of the nineteenth century.

©2013 Michael R. Gates

Case File #013.10.03: BOO

English speakers have used the interjection boo to startle or frighten people since at least the early fifteenth century, but information about the word's origins is as nebulous as the ghosts whose utterances it supposedly mimics. It was once believed that the word developed as a corruption of Boh, the name of a tyrannical Medieval general whose brutality struck terror in the hearts of his enemies and allies alike, but not a shred of evidence exists to support this idea, and it has thus long been disregarded as mere folk etymology. More recently, some etymologists have suggested that boo may have evolved from the Latin boare, which meant “to cry aloud or bellow,” yet even the extant data supporting this theory is tenuous. Now, while the source of the frightening interjection may still be a mystery, there is no doubt about the origins of the word's contemporary noun sense. Meaning “a shout of disapproval or contempt,” the word first appeared circa 1800 as an onomatopoeia suggestive of the lowing of oxen, and the utterance of such a boo was meant to imply that the person or object of derision was no better than a mere farm animal. Surprisingly, though, the related verb sense, “to deride or express disapproval by uttering a prolonged boo,” didn't show up for another eighty years or so. And the informal use of boo in which it means “any sound or word”—as in, for example, You didn't say boo to me about your plans—appeared no earlier than 1890.

©2013 Michael R. Gates