River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1896-01-09
SOME COMMON WORDS.
They Have Come into General Use In
Curious Ways

Curious Ways.
One need not search far in the diction-
Ary 10 find curious words. Most words
have an interesting history as TO de-
sclopment and change of sense, and the
regular process of formation By COM
pounding different elements into one
new vocable are very interesting as a
study.
One of the most interesting discov-
cries made by the student of etymology
will be the unaccountable origin, or
rather the utter absence of systematic
origin, of some of the commonest of
words. Thus, gas is name that has
never been explained, beyond the mere
statement that il was Invented by a
Berlin chemist named Van belmont
Guesses have been made about what
suggested il TO him, but he gave no in
formation as to its source, but merely
wrote in Latin: This vapor. hitherto
unknown, call by new name. gas"
Caucus and teetotal are common
words without satisfactory explaua-
ton, but with very interesting his
tories.
Certain snakes are called adders Is
it not a curious fact that the name
adder originated simply through err
roneous understanding of sound? The
Anglo-Saxon word was naedre and the
German is natter. Adder comes from
misunderstanding a 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 10 adder is that which
gives us the name newt for what used
IL be ewt.
A common saying Is that a surprised
person is taken aback. This is said 10
have originated from the same express
sion used Dautically, as in saying that
sails are taken aback against the mast.
Probably it would be hard to prove that
either of the sayings had it's 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
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-
gest 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
means Ito the heart" Real agreement
Oh 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 atfec-
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.
mology 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
queer way. They walked through
the land, and as this was their promi-
nent characteristic, il suggested the
name for them, which is made from the
Latin words per, meaning through.
and agra, meaning land.-Philadelp
Times.