Why Is It Called America and not Columbusia?

from dictionary.com

Amerian place names can sound pretty confusing even to native English speakers. From Philadelphia (Greek for “loving brother”) to Chicago (Algonquian Fox for “place of the wild onion”), the map of America is an etymological hodge-podge. For a clear example, take three adjacent states in New England. Vermont is an inverted, rough translation of the French for “green mountain,” mont vert. Massachusetts is derived from the name of the Native American people who lived in the area, the Algonquian Massachusett. The word meant “at the large hill.” New Hampshire comes from a county in southern England. 

But what about America itself? Why aren’t the continents of North and South America called “Columbusia” after Christopher Columbus? The word America comes from a lesser-known navigator and explorer, Amerigo Vespucci. Who made the decision? A cartographer.

Like Columbus, Vespucci traveled to the New World (first in 1499 and again in 1502). Unlike Columbus, Vespucci wrote about it. Vespucci’s accounts of his travels were published in 1502 and 1504 and were very widely read in Europe. Columbus was also hindered because he thought he had discovered another route to Asia; he didn’t realize America was a whole new continent. Vespucci, however, realized that America was not contiguous with Asia. He was also the first to call it the New World, or Novus Mundus in Latin, in his books.

With the discovery of this “New World”, maps were being redrawn all the time. No one really knew what land was where or how big it was. Because of this confusion, maps from the 1500s are incredibly inaccurate and contradictory. (They also often feature drawings of mythical sea creatures.) In 1507, a German cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller was drawing a map of the world–a very serious map. He called it the Universalis Cosmographia, or Universal Cosmography. Comprised of 12 wooden panels, it was eight feet wide and four-and-a-half feet tall. He based his drawings of the New World on Vespucci’s published travelogues. All countries were seen as feminine (like her lady Liberty today), so Waldseemüller used a feminine Latinized of Amerigo to name the new continents, “America.” Cartographers tended to copy one another’s choices, so Columbus was left off the map. The rest is history.

Today, an original of Waldseemüller’s map is permanently on display at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Trick or Treat

It’s one of a kid’s favorite parts of Halloween. There’s no feeling quite like waiting for a stranger to open his or her door so you can scream the words “trick or treat.” 

But why do we say it? What does it actually mean?

The practice of dressing in costume and asking for treats from your neighbors dates back to the Middle Ages. But back then it wasn’t a game. 

During the medieval practice of souling, poor people would make the rounds begging for food. In return, they offered prayers for the dead on All Souls Day. (What does the “een” in “Halloween” mean exactly? The answer lies here.)

Modern trick or treating is a custom borrowed from guising, which children still do in some parts of Scotland. Guising involves dressing in costume and singing a rhyme, doing a card trick, or telling a story in exchange for a sweet. The Scottish and Irish brought the custom to America in the 19^th century.

The earliest reference of the term “trick or treat” in print was in 1927, in Alberta, Canada. It appears as if the practice didn’t really take hold in the U.S. until the mid-1930s, where it was not always well received. The demanding of a treat angered or puzzled some adults. 

Supposedly, in a Halloween parade in 1948 in New York, the Madison Square Boys Club carried a banner sporting the message “American Boys Don’t Beg.” 

Trick or treating today is now practiced in northwestern and central Mexico. But instead of saying “trick or treat,” children ask, ¿me da mi calaverita?, which means “can you give me my little skull?”

Finally, who is the “Jack” in “Jack O’ Lantern?” Be warned; this tale might give you the chills.

This week thousands of Americans will scoop out the flesh of a gourd, crudely carve a haunting face into its rind, and stick a candle inside. Then the jack-o’-lanterns will proudly be displayed on porches and stoops. Who or what is this wacky tradition named after?

The British can claim ownership of the original use of the phrase “jack-o’-lantern.” In the 17^th century, it referred to a night watchman, a man who literally carried a lantern.

But it was also a nickname for strange, flickering lights seen at night over wetlands, or peat bogs, and mistaken to be fairies or ghosts. This natural phenomenon is also called ignis fatuus, which means “fool’s fire,” and will o’ the wisp.

Eventually what was called a “turnip lantern” became known as a jack-o’-lantern. Young boys used these hollowed-out and lit-up gourds to spook people.

Legend has it that this use of jack-o’-lantern was named after a fellow named Stingy Jack, who thought he had tricked the devil. But the devil had the last laugh, condemning Jack to an eternity of wandering the planet with only an ember of hellfire for light.

Irish immigrants brought the jack-o’-lantern custom to North America, which is where pumpkins were first used to make the Halloween decorations.

Impress fellow partiers this weekend with this fact: a jack-o’-lantern is also the name for an orange fungus. The mushroom Omphalotus olearius is found at the base of hardwood tree stumps. It is extremely poisonous.

(from dictionary.com)

Halloween Word Origins

Halloween can be traced back to Samhain, the ancient Celtic harvest festival honoring the Lord of the Dead. Observed on November 1 in the British Isles and parts of France, Samhain also marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year. Because it was a time of transition between the old and the new, the Celts believed that the souls of those who had died during the previous year gathered to travel together to the land of the dead and it was also a time when those who had died before that returned to visit their homes. November 1 was also considered the end of the summer period, the date on which the herds were returned from pasture and land tenures were renewed. People lit bonfires to scare away evil spirits and "sacrificed" fruits and vegetables, hoping to appease the spirits of the deceased. Sometimes people disguised themselves in masks and costumes so that the visiting spirits would not recognize them. Charms, spells, and predictions of the future were all part of the eve of Samhain. In the old Celtic calendar, that last evening of October was "old-year's night," the night of all the witches.

When Christianity burgeoned, starting in the fourth century, pagan festivals like Samhain were very much frowned upon. However, the Celts would not give up their ancient rituals and symbols — so the Christian church gave them new names and meanings. November 1 became All Saints' Day (All Hallows' Day in England), by proclamation of Pope Boniface IV in the 7th century, a celebration of all the Christian saints. The evening before All Saints' Day, October 31, became a holy, or hallowed, eve and thus All Hallows' Eve (later Hallow-e'en, Hallowe'en, Halloween). Despite the name change, this holiday's association with the supernatural persisted.

Halloween came to be accepted in America with the influx of Irish immigrants in the 1840s. Their folk customs and beliefs merged with existing agricultural traditions. The early American Halloween, therefore, was not only a time to foretell the future and dabble in the occult, but was connected with seasonal tasks of the fall harvest. Over the years, the holiday's agricultural and harvest significance faded and it became primarily a children's holiday — one where they dressed up as the spirits (ghosts and goblins) that their ancestors at one time feared.

Bonfire comes from the words bone and fire ("fire of bones") and originally indicated a large open-air fire on which bones were burnt, either as a ceremony (like a funeral) or for burning heretics or banned books. The Halloween bonfires were lit to scare away evil spirits. Nowadays, bonfires are also celebratory — after a day at the beach or for a homecoming football game.

The word costume came to English via French from Italian for "fashion" or "custom, habit," from Latin consuetudo/consuetudinem meaning "custom." Mask also made a trip through French (masque) from Italian maschera/mascara, perhaps from Latin masca, "evil spirit, witch."

Ghost comes from an Old English word gast/gost, "spirit, soul" and has related forms in other West Germanic languages. These related words appear to be connected with Sanskrit hea, "anger, fury." Goblin is from French and it may be related to the GermanKobold, a mythological spirit who haunted homes and lived underground in caves and mines. Etymologists believe it may be related to Greek kobalos and to Latin Gobelinus, mischievous spirits. The goblin carries the connotation of being grotesque and ugly, evil and malicious. The ghost is just downright scary, being the supposed soul of a dead person.

A jack-o'-lantern (also jack-a-lantern) is a hollowed-out pumpkin, originally a turnip, carved into a demonic face and lit with a candle inside. Light from a candle inserted inside can be seen flickering through the jack-o'-lantern's cutout eyes, nose, and usually grotesquely grinning mouth. The custom originated in the British Isles, with a large turnip or other vegetable rather than a pumpkin. The original meaning of the word jack-o'-lantern was "night watchman" or "man with a lantern," but it took on the Halloween sense by 1837, first in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales.

Pumpkin — the large fruit of the plant Cucurbita Pepo — is a word evolved from the original English spelling of pompeon or pumpion or pompion to pumkin and finally topumpkin. The word pompion came from Latin pepo/peponem from Greek pepon, "large melon, edible gourd," from another word pepon, "cooked by the sun; ripe." Another spelling variant is punkin.

In Old English, witch was actually wicca and originally (c 890) was a man who practiced magic or sorcery, which we now call wizard. By the year 1000, witch came to be defined as "a female magician or sorceress."

The colors associated with Halloween are black and orange. Orange, the color of the jack-o'-lantern, is a symbol of strength and endurance as well as of autumn and the harvest. Black is primarily a symbol of death and darkness. The black of a witch's cloak and the black cat are reminders that Halloween was once a festival of the dead.

Columbus Day Word Origins

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on San Salvador in the Bahamas, sure that he had reached the East Indies. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain sponsored his trip west to search for a faster trade route to the Orient. Up until the end of his life (1506), Columbus believed that he had found that route. The anniversary of his landing was formally celebrated for the first time by the Society of St. Tammany, also known as the Columbian Order, in New York City on October 12, 1792. Columbus Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October (since 1971) and it is a tribute to the revelation of a New World. Columbus himself, a native of Genoa, Italy, is a hero of Italian-Americans. On the 400^th anniversary of his landing, a presidential proclamation made it a national holiday. The landing of Columbus also came to be commemorated as a holiday in Italy, and in most of the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas it is celebrated with fiestas as Día de la Raza (Day of the Race) — because many of the Spanish settlers who followed Columbus married native peoples and created a new "race."

America is named for navigator Amerigo Vespucci who followed after Columbus and extended his discoveries. Vespucci (1451-1512) was Italian explorer who navigated the coast of South America in 1501.

The word discover goes back to Latin dis- and cooperire, meaning "to remove the covering; completely uncover." By 1553, it was used to mean "seeing or gaining knowledge of something previously unknown" and "finding out; bringing to light."

Navigation first described the action of traveling on water and is traceable to Latinnavigare, "to sail." Navigate originally meant "to go from one place to another in a ship" from navis, "ship" and igare/agere, "drive, lead."

Voyage first described a "journey by sea or land," from Latin viaticum, "provisions for a journey." The phrase boon voyage ("prosperous journey") was altered to bon voyage late in the 17^th century.

There has been much debate about both the accomplishments and the destruction caused by Columbus's voyages. The view of Columbus as a hero has been countered by the study of the impact of the slave trade and the ravages of disease brought by the visitors upon the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean region and the Americas. Columbus himself was not greatly revered by his companions or the natives he encountered. Still, Columbus is regarded as a hero for accomplishing the four voyages, for bringing great material profit to Spain and other European countries, and for opening up the Americas to European settlement.

from dictionary.reference.com

Autumn Word Origins

Autumn or Fall is regarded as the third season of the year, from the descending or autumnal equinox to the winter solstice, approximately September 21 to December 21. Chaucer first used the word autumn c 1374, which is derived from Latinautumnus/auctumnus. The use of fall to mean autumn in North American English comes from the phrase fall of the leaf and it came into use by 1545 for this time of year when the leaves fall from the trees. The term autumn is still preferred in British English.

An equinox, literally 'equal night' from Latin aequinoctium, occurs twice a year when the Sun crosses the equator and day and night are equal in length. The autumnal equinox is actually the moment at which the Sun crosses the equator, usually on September 22 or 23.

The word foliage first appeared in late Middle English, was spelled foilage, and meant 'a design resembling leaves' though quite quickly it took on the collective meaning of 'leaves of a plant or tree.' The word traces back through French to Latin folium, 'leaf,' which influenced the later spelling change. In the fall, there are many foliage tours and leaf-peeper trips to see the spectacular changes in leaf colors.

Leaves are green because of pigments called chlorophylls. When chlorophylls are abundant in the leaves' cells during the growing season, the chlorophylls' green color dominates and masks the colors of any other pigments in the leaves. Thus, the leaves of summer are characteristically green. But as autumn approaches, certain influences both inside and outside the plant cause the chlorophylls to be replaced at a slower rate than they are being used. The "masking" effect slowly fades and the other pigments that have been present begin to show. These are called carotenoids and they give the leaves colors of yellow, brown, and orange. The reds, the purples, and their blended combinations come from another group of pigments in the cells called anthocyanins. These pigments are not present in the leaves throughout the growing season but develop in late summer in the sap of the leaf cells due to complex interactions both inside and outside the plant. The formation of anthocyanins depends on the breakdown of sugars in the presence of bright light as the level of phosphate in the leaves is reduced.

Harvest is from an Old English word haerfest which meant 'autumn' which had Germanic origins and shared an Indo-European root with related forms like Latin carpere and Greekkarpos. Harvest's original meaning in English was 'autumn' and then came to refer to the season for reaping and gathering grain and other grown products. The full moon nearest the autumnal equinox is called the Harvest Moon. Near the time of the autumnal equinox, the angle of the moon's orbit relative to the Earth's horizon is at its minimum, causing the full moon to rise above the horizon much faster than usual. Because the harvest moon, like any full moon, must rise near the hour of sunset, harvest workers in the Northern Hemisphere may be aided by bright moonlight after sunset.

A common autumn phenomenon in the central, eastern, and northern United States and in Europe is Indian summer, a period of unseasonably warm and dry weather that sometimes occurs in late October or November. The name may come from this phenomenon having first been noticed in the region occupied by the Native Americans (Indians) in North America.

The names of the months September, October, November are rooted in Latin.September is from septem 'seventh month' of the early Roman calendar - though it is now the ninth month in the Gregorian calendar. October (octo) is Latin for 'eighth month' (now tenth) and November (novem) is Latin for 'ninth month' (now eleventh in the Gregorian calendar). In Old English, September was called 'harvest month.'

from dictionary.reference.com

Labor Day Word Origins

In 1882, Peter J. McGuire, a leader of the labor union the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (joiner being "a craftsman who constructs things by joining pieces of wood" or "a worker in wood who does more ornamental work than a carpenter") proposed a day to honor laborers. Laborers were considered a new class that worked in the factories and plants created by the Industrial Revolution. Labor Day became a national holiday on which workers in the 1890s and early 20th century used to call attention to their grievances. There were often parades, political speeches, fireworks, and a picnic. Today, Labor Day, celebrated on the first Monday in September (as of 1894, by law), simply honors anyone who works. The date has no traditional or historic significance but was picked because it filled a gap in the schedule of legal holidays. Canada also celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday in September; many other countries observe this on May 1. The word laborcomes from Latin laborem, "distress, toil trouble; drudgery, labor," and first referred to work that was compulsory or painful. The meaning changed with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. The first labor unions or trade unions came with the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the 18th century.

Employ comes from a French word employer, which first meant "to apply or make something for a specific purpose." The French word traces back to Latin implicare, "to involve or engage." By the late 16th century, the sense of "to use the services of a person in a business or professional capacity" was recorded. The word employer was coined by Shakespeare (c 1599) and he also used employ and employment. Employee was first recorded in 1850 according to the Oxford English Dictionary, though previously it was spelled employé and was used by 1834 for "one who is employed." The word payroll is a combination of pay and roll as in "list," i.e. "a list of employees to be paid."

A factory was originally a place where traders did their business in another country. The word is based on Latin factorium "an oil press" (for olive oil). As a place for manufacture of goods, the word was first recorded in 1618. According to Wikipedia, the world's first factory was the Venice Arsenal (1104) in Italy, where ships were mass-produced on assembly lines using manufactured parts.

from dictionary.reference.com

Hello - Howdy - Hi

We use hello several times a day to greet people or attract attention. But as prevalent as the word is, “hello” is relatively new. 

Hello came into existence in the mid-1800s. It is an alteration of hallo, which was an alteration of holla or hollo. These words were used to attract immediate attention and demand that the listener come to a stop or cease what he or she was doing.  Hallo was used to incite hunting dogs.

Hello gained widespread usage though the increased use of the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell had originally suggested the telephone greeting ahoy. But the greeting that stuck was hello, which may have been suggested by Thomas Edison. Hello-girls were the name for the the central telephone exchange operators.

Hullo is the interjection used in Great Britian. However, hello has become just as common.

A more modern use of the word calls into question the common sense or comprehension of the person being addressed. For example, “You’re actually going to eat that rotten peach?!Hello!”

One might assume that hi is an abbreviation of hello. In fact, the first recorded use of hi as a greeting comes from an 1862 speech given by a Kansas Indian. It is also thought that hi is probably a variant of the Middle English hy.

The upbeat greeting howdy was first recorded as a contraction of “how do you do” in 1632. An earlier version comes from “how do ye.”

from hotword.dictionary.com

Summer Word Origins

Summer is the warmest season of the year and starts at the summer solstice and runs till the autumnal equinox. The word summer derives from Old Norse sumar, but ultimately is from Proto-Germanic. By the late 1500s to early 1600s, it locked into its current spelling. The term midsummer actually refers to the day of the summer solstice as well as the "middle of summer." Its formation was patterned on words like midday, midnight, andmidwinter.

Bonfire comes from the words bone and fire, referring to an open-air burning of bones or funeral pyre. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the use in Scotland of the formbane-fire and also to the annual midsummer banefire or bonfire in the burgh of Hawick, for which bones were collected and stored regularly until around 1800. Lighting bonfires was one of the most universal of ancient midsummer rites and one that still survives in some northern European countries. The solstice bonfires were believed to prevent cattle disease and were also associated with human courtship and fertility.

The phrase dog days is said to have originated in Roman times as canicularis dies, 'days of the dog,' referring to the dog star Sirius or Procyon. The Romans thought the rising of the most brilliant star of the constellation Canis Major contributed to the heat of summer.

The word humidity is from Latin humidus, from humere 'to be moist.' Humidity was found in English c 1400.

The solstice is one of the two times of year when the Sun's apparent path is farthest north or south from the Earth's equator. In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solsticeis on June 21 or 22, the longest day of the year. The situation is exactly the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere, where the summer solstice is on December 21 or 22. The wordsolstice is from Latin solstitium, from sol 'sun' and sistere 'to stand still,' as it is regarded as a point at which the Sun seems to stand still. The word was first used in English around 1250.

Though modern observances of the summer solstice are rare, there were celebrations in ancient times in Europe, the British Isles, China, Egypt, North Africa, and Scandinavia. These include the celebration in ancient Egypt at the Temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak, starting around 3700 B.C.E., where a beam of light would illuminate a sanctuary in the temple's interior for about two or three minutes on the day of the solstice. A similar phenomenon was observed at Stonehenge in southwest England. If one stands at the center of the monument and faces northeast along its axis, the 35-ton Heel Stone appears 256 feet away, marking the approximate place on the horizon where the sun rises on the summer solstice. Astronomers have discovered at least two dozen other solar and lunar alignments that the ancient builders of Stonehenge incorporated into its structure.

Vacation is a word coming from Latin vacation/vacatio, from vacare 'to be free, empty; to be at leisure.' Around 1395, this term entered Old English, meaning 'rest and freedom from any activity.'

(from dictionry.reference.com)

Fourth of July Word Origins

Independence Day or Fourth of July is the annual celebration of the United States' "birthday," the date of the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The first celebrations included bell ringing, bonfires, processions, and speeches. In some towns, these celebrations also had a mock funeral for the king, symbolizing the end of America's rule by the British monarchy. It was not until 1941, however, that Congress officially established the Fourth of July as a legal holiday. The date could easily have been July 2, the day on which the Continental Congress approved a resolution for independence, or August 2, the day on which the members of Congress actually signed the document. But it was on July 4 that the final text of the Declaration, which had been drafted by Thomas Jefferson, was ratified. By 1788, the Fourth of July also commemorated the U.S. Constitution as well, which had recently been approved by ten states.

Feasting has always been part of Fourth of July celebrations. In the beginning there were banquets, but this has evolved into outdoor barbecues and picnics. Barbecue was originally a word for a wooden framework for sleeping or for drying or storing meat or fish. The word derives from Arawak or Haitian or Taina barbacoa and became Spanishbarbacoa, "wooden frame on posts" or "framework for meat over fire." Barbeque is the variant spelling. In English, the word's first meanings were the framework and the animal roasted on it; the usage of "social entertainment" is not recorded until 1733. Picnic is from French pique-nique, but that word's origin is unknown. Picnics started out as social occasions (the word first recorded in English in 1748) to which each participant brought comestibles.

The bald eagle (also called the American or white-headed eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is the national bird of the United States and one of the largest birds in the world. "Bald" in this instance means "white," not "hairless." Eagle comes from the Latin word aquila, "black eagle," from aquilus, "dark-colored," which it is until it gets the white head plumage as an adult. The eagle has been a symbol of freedom and liberty and power since ancient times. Some people, like Benjamin Franklin, did not agree that the eagle was an appropriate symbol. Franklin thought the turkey was a better choice for the national bird.

The term for a combustible or explosive or pyrotechnic ("pertaining to fire art") projectile was "rocket" until fireworks was used in 1777 to describe these in connection with the first Fourth of July celebration. "Rockets" are still the most popular form of firework. Rockets are lifted by recoil from the jet of fire created by the burning ingredients — and they are designed for maximum combustion and maximum thrust. Fireworks originated in ancient China. The word firecracker refers to those that make loud sounds and sparklers are those that send off a shower of sparks. The very first Fourth of July celebrations in 1777 included fireworks as a part of the festivities.

A flag as a piece of cloth used as a standard, signal, or symbol in English dates to the late 15th century. The word may be an onomatopoeic representation for such a cloth flapping in the wind, but the origin remains obscured. As far as the American flag goes, there are many theories about its origin, with the story of Betsy Ross being the most famous.

The first Fourth of July parade took place on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. when President John Quincy Adams led a boat procession up the river. Parade comes from a French word meaning "a showing" or "action of stopping a horse," originating from Latinparare, "to prepare."

(from dictionary.reference.com)