Fun w/ Etymology: The thread for having fun w/ etymology

[Jeff Lebowski]

Essays - Pat Madden at BYU is a rising star in the world of creative nonfiction. The New Yorker is creative nonfiction. David Sedaris is a really famous one who works within the genre.

Faux News will never give me any money. I'd rather be homeless.

I love David Sedaris.

[CardiacCoug]

When I think of creative nonfiction the prototypical writer to me would be Bill Bryson. I like his stuff.

[HauteCoug]

I love David Sedaris.

When I think of creative nonfiction the prototypical writer to me would be Bill Bryson. I like his stuff.

Sedaris is one of my favorites - his polar opposite is Brian Doyle, whose work is also witty, just in a very different (and religious) way. Phillip Lopate is who I consider to be the father of the personal essay in creative nonfiction. It's such a wonderful genre.

This is a great example of why essays are awesome: http://oregonhumanities.org/magazine...e-and-divorce/

[Tim]

I love David Sedaris.

:rockon2:

I'm a big David Sedaris fan. Just saw a production of The Santaland Diaries on Saturday, actually. Not as good as when he reads it, but still fun.

[wuapinmon]

Perhaps wuap or someone else with access to the OED can check the entry?

The noun form is still too jargony for Oxford to have picked it up yet. However, if the war and the use continue, I think it won't be long. I just wonder how useful this word will be outside of the military lexicon.

embed | imbed

v.
Draft additions December 2006

Categories »

trans. orig. U.S. Mil. To attach (a journalist) to a military unit to report on a conflict. Also intr.: (of a journalist) to be attached to a military unit in this way. Chiefly with with. Also in extended use.

1995 Los Angeles Times 23 Dec. a13/1 In the jargon of the Army, I'm ‘embedded’ with the troops: I go where they go, share their quarters, eat their meals‥. Before the trip, Army officials said only a small number of reporters were being allowed to ‘embed’.
1996 Washington Post 8 May a24/5 We are facing some resistance to embedding reporters in units‥. It was not reasonable to expect sergeants, privates‥, anybody in this unit, to be on guard and talking on the record, 24 hours a day.
2004 N.Y. Mag. 7 June 36/1 Just before the bombs began falling on Baghdad, Miller embedded with Mobile Exploitation Team (MET) Alpha—the unit charged with scouring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction.
2005 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 11 Sept. 17 In future hurricane alerts, expect journalists to be ‘embedded’ with the National Guard like they were in Iraq.

[HauteCoug]

:rockon2:

I'm a big David Sedaris fan. Just saw a production of The Santaland Diaries on Saturday, actually. Not as good as when he reads it, but still fun.

Go Carolina is one of the funniest stories ever written. That and any story he writes about his partner and their time in France. He's just incredible.

[oxcoug]

"Bob's your uncle."

Bob's your uncle is an expression commonly used mainly in Britain and Commonwealth nations. Typically, someone says it to conclude a set of simple instructions to mean, "And there you have it", or "You're all set". For example, "To make a ham sandwich, just put a piece of ham between two slices of buttered bread, and Bob's your uncle". (Cf. voilà and presto.) It is sometimes elaborately phrased Robert is your father's brother or similar for humorous effect.

One theory is that the phrase refers to Lord Frederick Roberts (1832–1914. 1st Earl Roberts, Roberts of Kandahar).[citation needed] Roberts was an Anglo-Irish soldier, born in India, who fought and commanded in India, Abyssinia, Afghanistan, and South Africa. Roberts was one of the most successful commanders of the 19th century and was cited for numerous acts of gallantry. His finest hour was perhaps the ending of the siege of Kandahar in 1878, when he marched a force of 10,000 men more than 300 miles from Kabul, winning a battle, and ending the siege. Well respected amongst his men, Roberts was affectionately referred to as 'Uncle Bobs'. Generally meaning 'all will be well', and often used to indicate a successful outcome, the phrase "Bob's your uncle" is said to have been a term originally used by Roberts's men to increase confidence among the ranks and imply that all would be well.

Another explanation is that the phrase dates to 1887, when British Prime Minister Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury decided to appoint Arthur Balfour to the prestigious and sensitive job of Chief Secretary for Ireland. Lord Salisbury was Arthur Balfour's uncle. The difficulty with that explanation is that—despite extensive searching—the earliest known published uses of the phrase are from 1932, two from 1937, and two from 1938. (See these and other quotes in American Dialect Society list archived posts by Stephen Goranson.)[1][2]
Another theory is that it derives from the slang phrase "All is bob," meaning that everything is safe, pleasant or satisfactory. This dates to the eighteenth century or so (it’s in Captain Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of 1785). There have been several other slang expressions which included the word "bob," some associated with thievery or gambling, and from the eighteenth century on it was also a common generic name for someone one did not know. Any or all of these might have contributed to the genesis of the expression.


[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob%27s_your_uncle"]Bob's your uncle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

[oxcoug]

Not technically "etymology" but this fascinated me.

I'd heard that the American accent is more like Elizabethan English than modern Brit English, but here's some substance on it

http://eliingraham.visibli.com/share/raAvzO

That introduced me to the terms "rhotic" and "non-rhotic" which led to an interesting read at Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_...rhotic_accents

[wuapinmon]

avocado, n.

Pronunciation: ( /ɑːvəʊˈkɑːdəʊ/ , now /æv-/ )
Forms: Also 16 avogato, 17 avocato, 18 avigato.
Etymology: < Spanish avocado advocate, substituted by ‘popular etymology’ for the Aztec ahuacatl (Tylor), of which a nearer form in Spanish is aguacate ; French aguacat and avocat , in English also avigato and, corruptly, alligator (pear).

aguacate.
(Del nahua ahuacatl, fruto del árbol del mismo nombre; testículo).

That's right, avocado comes from the Aztec (Nahuatl) word for "testicle."

[LA Ute]

That's right, avocado comes from the Aztec (Nahuatl) word for "testicle."

Aguacate. That what everyone called avocados in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala back in the day.

[USUC]

Not technically "etymology" but this fascinated me.

I'd heard that the American accent is more like Elizabethan English than modern Brit English, but here's some substance on it

http://eliingraham.visibli.com/share/raAvzO

That introduced me to the terms "rhotic" and "non-rhotic" which led to an interesting read at Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_...rhotic_accents

Wow, this blew my mind for some reason. I'm horrible at learning a second language but linguistics is absolutely fascinating. I guess Hollywood had me believing that Queen Elizabeth sounded like she was from 20th century Liverpool.

[falafel]

Aguacate. That what everyone called avocados in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala back in the day.

Isn't that just the spanish word for avocado?

[Surfah]

Isn't that just the spanish word for avocado?

That's what the good Spanish speakers of the Colorado Denver South Mission called it.

[falafel]

Not technically "etymology" but this fascinated me.

I'd heard that the American accent is more like Elizabethan English than modern Brit English, but here's some substance on it

http://eliingraham.visibli.com/share/raAvzO

That introduced me to the terms "rhotic" and "non-rhotic" which led to an interesting read at Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_...rhotic_accents

Very interesting ox.

I remember learning that the accents of New England and the American South were non-rhotic because, as coastal areas, they had the greatest continued interaction with the Brits and thus retained most of the old accent. But I suppose that I learned it backwards. It probably makes more sense that the rest of the county kept the "original" non-rhotic pronunciations while the areas that were more exposed to the British shift to a non-rhotic accent picked up some of that pronunciation.

The page you linked also probably explains why the Irish and Scottish accents remained mostly rhotic, since those countries would probably not be too keen on trying to sound like Brits.

[Surfah]

Very interesting ox.

I remember learning that the accents of New England and the American South were non-rhotic because, as coastal areas, they had the greatest continued interaction with the Brits and thus retained most of the old accent. But I suppose that I learned it backwards. It probably makes more sense that the rest of the county kept the "original" non-rhotic pronunciations while the areas that were more exposed to the British shift to a non-rhotic accent picked up some of that pronunciation.

The page you linked also probably explains why the Irish and Scottish accents remained mostly rhotic, since those countries would probably not be too keen on trying to sound like Brits.

That was interesting. So now all those period piece movies are bullshit.