The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-12-24
SOME COMMON WORDS.

They Have Come into General Use n
| Curious Ways.
| One need not search far in the diction-
AIRY to find curious words. Most words
have an interesting history as to de-
yclopment and change of sense, and tho
regular process of formation by COM
/ pounding different elements into one
new vocable are very interesting as .
study.
One of the most interesting discov.
cries made by the student of etymology
will be the unaccourtable origin, or
rather the utter absence of systematic
origin, of some of the commonest of
words. Thus, gas is a name that has
never been explained, beyond the mere
statement that it WIS invented by
Berlin chemist named Van Helmont.
Guesses have been made about what
suggested it to him, but he gave no in
formation as to its source, but merely
wrote in Latin: This vapor, hitherto
unknown, 1 call by new name, gas"
Caucus and teetotal are common
words without satisfactory explana-
ton, but with very interesting his
tories.
Certain snakes are called sdders. Is
it not a curious fact that the name
adder originated simply through er-
.roneous understanding of sound? The
.Anglo-Saxon word was naedre and the
German is natter. Adder comes from
misunderstanding madden as an
adder, and the Century dictionary says
that apron, anger, orange and umpire
arose through similar mistake.
Just opposite to this peculiar change
from madden to adder is that which
gives us the name newt for what used
10 be ewt.
A common saying is that surprised
person is taken aback. This is said TO
have originated from the same expires,
sion used nautically, as in saying that |
sails are taken aback against the mast. |
Probably it would be hard to prove that |
either of the sayings had its origin in |
the other, for they both use the word |
aback in its literal sense-backward. |
Aback and similar words disclose a |
curious fact in their etymology, name
ly, that the first syllable IS merely q |
letter that stands for the original |
Anglo-Saxon word on, which meant not |
only what our present ION" means, but |
also at, to, in, into or almost anything
of that kind, according to circum-
stances.
| Accord, concord and discord come
from what seems queer thing to sug-
lgest such words for the sense in which
they have always been used. In each
the second syllable is from the Latin
word for heart. Accord in its elements I
means ito the heart" Real agreement
OF harmony must have been considered
so sweet and SO rare that the only fit
ting name for it must contain that of
the heart as the seat of human affec-
ton.
Caprice and capricious seem to arise
from the fact that people could find no
better comparison for certain actions
than the capering of goat. The ety.
pm ology of these words that connects
them with the Latin word for goat is
questioned by the Century Dictionary,
but there is no doubt that caper is from
that Latin word.
Pilgrims were so called for a very
queer reason, and the word was made in
a queer way. They walked through
the land, and as this was their promi-
nent characteristic, it suggested the
name for them, which is made from the
Latin words per, meaning through,
and agra, meaning land.-Philadelph
Times.