The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1963-05-10

as pal nelghDor or guy
"Pap is a gypsy word meaning
brother-or accomplish. In America
a "guy" is any human male, but to
Britons "guy'' is an odd, funny
looking character. The word goes
back to Guy Fawkes, who in 1906
tried to blow up Parliament.
"Neighbor' literally means 'the
boor who lives nigh usp' "Boor" car
ried no stigma in olden days; it
meant simply farmer.
Many common words have changed,
even reversed, their meanings
amusing results. "Silly" once meant
good or happy, in the sense of inno-
cent, while mice" meant what "fas-
tidious" now means: overly fussy
and finicky. ("Fastidium" is Latin
for loathingD Call woman hussy
today and she'll slap your face-but
few centuries back 'hussy" was
just the shortened form of ''house-
wife,.
Believe it or not, a gossip" was
once a "God-sib", or a relative in
the sight of Godp' The term was ap-
piled to godparents who were ex-
pected to form close and intimate
relationship with the family whose
child they sponsored. From this mood
of confiding intimacy, it's hard to
see how the present meaning of "gos-
sip" evolved.
Words come into being in fasci-
mating variety of ways. Some are imi-
tative of sounds-like ''his", "bank' t,
''gurgle", "giberish''. Some words
are named after men like DR.. Guillo-
tin, who suggested the "guilotine".
According to Webster's Third New
International Dictionary, am Irish
landlord named Boycott gave us that
worldly being so harsh and down.
right ornery that his tenants finally
"boycotted" him.
Many words, especially the scien-
tific ones, are made up to fit a need.
Feeling that the octane method of
rating gasoline should be improved
because it measures only two attrib-
utes. scientists developed the mega
tame rating system to measure all
21 of the qualities that are important
in gasoline. The system, which any
gasoline manufacturer may use, was
named from the Greek 'mega", many
or much, and tame, the suffix nor
mally applied to hydrocarbons, of
which gasoline is one. Thus the mega
tame rating system measures the many
qualities of total gasoline perform
ance.
Less logical was Belgian chemist
Van Helmont, who in the 18th CEN
fury saw a mysterious vapor in a
glass cylinder and christened it "gas".
What led him to originate this name,
he couldn't say-except that the
formless puffs vaguely reminded
him of the Greek word "chaos".
The word 'foxygen" was born of
a scientific mistake. Because Antoine
Lavoisier, the French discoverer of
oxygen, thought it was an essential
component of all acids, he named the
substance from the Greek "oxys",
shary, and 'ignesthai'', to be born.
One of our most commonly used
words was originally a made-up nom
sense syllable! The story goes that a
man named Daily, manager of Dub
hin playhouse, bet friend that with
in "a hours he could have the whole
town talking about a meaningless
word. He won the wager-by chalking
all over Dublin's walls the letters
@ u q.
Some words are literally nick
names for other longer words. In
this category is the sports "fan"
(short for fanatic) the tough |
''cuss" (for customer) /. the old
CHAP (for chapman, an ancient
English word for merchant) and the
mob, am abbreviation of the Latin
phrase mobile vulgus", tickle crowd.