Word Origins - Basic Etymology
Today we have more fun and interesting facts about word origins, and you're going to be fascinated. Fascinate comes from the Latin word fascinum, which means, literally, to cast a spell. So, a long time ago they believe that you could literally cast a spell by using your evil eye. So, up until about middle of the 15th century, that’s what they believes that when you fascinated, someone was casting a spell on you. But now, it’s come to mean more that you are attracted and just couldn’t, you know, take your eyes off something. So, if your girlfriend catches you staring at another girl, she gets mad, if you said, I was just fascinated, then that would mean that you literally couldn’t take your eyes off of her, because she had cast a spell on you. Have you ever wondered where the word jinx comes from, well the word jinx comes from the Greek iynx, however, iynx and jinx are both used to describe a certain bird. Now this bird is really weird, it has weird eating and mating habits and its neck is twisted and very grotesque looking. Also, when the bird does its migration, it sends out this shrill, loud, crazy sound, and what’s weird about this bird is that for the rest of the time, the bird is completely silent. So a lot of people started to associate this bird with being of the occult, or having to do with black magic. And people who are into this kind of stuff would actually use the birds feathers to either grind up to make love potions or use the feathers to make charms. So this bird became associated with black magic and casting spells, so the word jinx means to cast a spell on someone. Do you think that secretaries are attractive, where did the word secretary come from in the first place? Secretary comes from the Latin word secretary, which means secret. And it was first used in medieval Europe to describe an adviser, in the 14th century, secretary was used to describe a political official and it wasn’t until the 19th century that secretary became known as a personal assistant. But one thing about the word secretary that hasn’t change is that a secretary is still the person that keeps your secrets. Abyss, have you ever seen the movie Abyss? Well, let’s look at the word abyss for a moment, what’s interesting about the word abyss is that it’s one of the few words in the English language to have been derived from the language of Sumerian. Now Sumerian is the first written language to ever be in this world. So, abyss was originally from the Sumerian language, however we picked it up from the Latin word abisis, which means deep. So, originally it was the Sumerian primordial sea, absu. Howdy partners? I’m from Texas, and the phrase howdy is use a lot here, but where did howdy come from? Well, let’s face it, howdy is just a lazy way of saying how do you do. Howdy’s a typically a southern expression and it was first recorded in 1840. In a future video, more fun word origins to fascinate you. And in another video, fun facts about dogs. Thanks for watching, please rate my video and remember, subscribe or I’ll cast a spell on you. Hey, you, you know you wanna subscribe, we have so many more videos coming up, so many more fun facts, hit the yellow button.