The Origin of Everyday

Sunday

While using a handshake as an everyday greeting may go back several centuries to the Quakers, evidence of the practice to seal an alliance dates back nearly three millennia to a sculpture of Assyrian and Babylonian kings. Homer mentions handshakes in both “The Illiad” and “The Odyssey” to indicate trust and pledges, and handshake illustrations also appear on artifacts from ancient Rome.

Monday

“Hippie” derives from the word “hip,” which likely first indicated something current and vogue during the 1930s and 40s jive music scene. “Hip” was later applied the to Beat poets and thinkers, and soon after “hippie” was used frequently by San Fransisco journalists to describe members of the city’s 1960s counterculture before the word was adopted broadly.

Tuesday

The term “bury the hatchet” has a very literal origin. In this Iroquois ritual, warring tribesmen would meet and mark the end of hostilities by ceremonially burying a hatchet or other battle weapon in the ground. Non-Iroquois tribes later practiced this ceremony as well.

Wednesday

A ploughshare is part of a harvesting plow, and the word often appears in reference to the scriptural passage that the nations “…shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” from the books of Isaiah and Micah. This also inspired the name of the bronze statute in the United Nations garden entitled “Let Us Beat Swords Into Plowshares” as well as similarly-named peace-promoting movements and foundations.

Thursday

The dove as a symbol of peace has deep roots in many cultures. It includes the symbolism of love and renewal of life in ancient Greece, the end of war (when the dove carried a sword) in ancient Japan and later on Japanese stamps commemorating peace, and for divine forgiveness in Christian cultures, since a dove returned to Noah carrying an olive branch in the flood story. Doves were released as a symbol of peace starting in the 1920 Olympics’ opening ceremony and for many years thereafter. Pablo Picasso’s dove in his lithograph “La Colombe” also helped make the bird a standard peace symbol when the World Peace Congress chose it as their emblem in 1949.

Friday

Olive branches surround the world on the United Nations flag, are held in one eagle talon to represent peace on the US $1 bill, and are described in the saying “to extend an olive branch” as an offering of peace or truce. In one Greek myth, the goddess Athena planted an olive tree at Attica to promote peace and prosperity, and other well-meaning goddesses were often pictured with olive branches, including Pax, the peace goddess herself. Those defeated in a war held one to plead for peace, akin to a modern white flag. There is symbolism from the biblical flood, and the much later use of the image by proponents of a peaceful American independence from Great Britain. The tree’s own biology may play a role too, since olive trees grow too slowly to be cultivated during wartime, only peaceful times.

Saturday

The familiar circular peace symbol, made famous during the 1960s, was actually designed to more specifically promote British nuclear disarmament. Artist and engineer Gerald Holtom designed the symbol for use in a 1958 march outside the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in London, and the symbol combines the flag semaphore signals for the letters “N” and “D” for “nuclear disarmament.”

Sunday

The name “Nabisco” condenses the company’s earlier name of “National Biscuit Company.”

Monday

“Exxon” is derived from the earlier brand name “Esso,” the phonetic for “S.O.” for founding company Standard Oil.

Tuesday

“Geico” is an acronym for “Government Employees Insurance Company,” since the company initially just targeted military and federal employees as customers.

Wednesday

“Capcom” condenses “Capsule Computers.”

Thursday

“3M” is easier to say than “Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.”

Friday

“Sprint,” for curious reasons, derives from “Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Communications.”

Saturday

That duck never mentioned that “Aflac” is short for “American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus.”

Sunday

When nature calls, you use “The John” because England’s earliest flush lavatory was developed by Sir John Harrington, godson of Queen Elizabeth I, although he called his creation “Ajax.”

Monday

Centuries later, British manufacturer Thomas Crapper developed the ballcock, a flushing mechanism still used today. His name appeared on these widely-used flush toilets in Europe, which became known as “crappers.”

Tuesday

Brits also call the toilet “the loo.” Before flush toilets, many Europeans did their thing in chamber pots, then threw the contents onto the street below, a practice which now might get you arrested. Before throwing, the courtesy was to yell out “Guardez l’eau!” (“Look out for the water!”), which eventually got shortened to just “loo” to mean toilet.

Wednesday

“Lavare” means to “to wash” in Latin, and this is the source of the words “latrine” and “lavatory.”

Thursday

“Toilette,” the French word from which we get “toilet,” means dressing room, and itself comes from the word “toile,” or cloth. In the 1600s, toilet was the process of doing your hair, clothes, makeup, etc. By 19^th century America, this term referred to the room where this process occurred, and more particularly, the useful device in it.

Friday

“Potty” derives from “chamber pot,” a portable toilet people used in times past for doing their business at night.

Saturday

The room where you can find a toilet and a sink is called a “restroom” or “bathroom” more often in the US than in Britain.

Sunday

CVS = Consumer Value Stores

Monday

TED (as in TED conferences and talks) = Technology, Entertainment, and Design

Tuesday

YMCA = Young Men’s Christian Association

Wednesday

OK = “oll korrect,” a humorous misspelling of “all correct.” OK first showed up in 1839 in the Boston Morning Post in a satirical article about a group called the “Anti Bell-Ringing Society.” At the time, there was a strange literary fashion of abbreviating misspellings of common sayings, such as “K.G.” as “know go” for “no go” or “O.W.” as “oll wright” for “all right.” However, the year after the article was published, OK got a boost by the presidential election of Martin Van Buren. By chance, his nickname was “Old Kinderhook,” and his supporters kept the letters around by forming OK Clubs. Soon after the letters also proved a short, handy way to confirm reception of telegraph messages, and OK/okay is now one of English’s most common expressions, usable as a noun, verb, or adjective.

Thursday

DNA = deoxyribonucleic acid (pronounced “dee-OX-ee-RY-bo-noo-CLAY-ick acid”)

Friday

TNT = trinitrotoluene (pronounced “try-nitro-TAAL-yoo-ween”)

Saturday

SAT = Scholastic Assessment Test

Sunday

Chaos, according to Greek mythology, was the primordial void at the beginning of all existence. It was in a state of “complete disorder and confusion” until the first deities were born from the Cosmic Egg that formed in Chaos’s belly.

Monday

Enormous things (including that ship) are called “titanic” after the Titans, the “immortal giants of incredible strength,” also called “The Elder Gods” because they ruled before the Olympian gods in Greek mythology.

Tuesday

Speaking of ships, among those titans was Oceanus, the god who ruled the giant waterway believed to encircle the earth known to the Greeks.

Wednesday

The word “hysterical” is derived from the Greek word for uterus, and in modern English usually means uncontrollable laughing or crying. Beginning with Hippocrates (who, ironically in this case, is credited with making medicine more evidence-based), ancient Greeks believed that a “wandering and disconnected” uterus was the cause of excessive female emotion, as well as most female emotional and physical ailments. Strange and elaborate remedies were devised to lure the roaming uterus back into place.

Thursday

Simple, minimalist living is called “spartan” after ancient Sparta, whose citizens traditionally eschewed luxury and comfort. A courageous and disciplined person is called “spartan” after these famed qualities of ancient Spartan soldiers.

Friday

The “Stoics” in ancient Greece sought to be free from “passion” by pursuing logic, focus, and reflection, though the word is now more used for an unemotional and/or patiently enduring person.

Saturday

Things related to sensuality and physical passion are called “erotic” after the Greek god Eros, who could make both mortals and gods fall in love. Eros was the precursor to the Roman Cupid, and some sources indicate Eros had an understandably less popular brother Anteros, the God of spurned and unrequited love.

Sunday

Calling an excellent thing “the bee’s knees” was one of many youthful terms for impressive things that began during America’s Roaring Twenties. Many of them were animal-related, such as “the cat’s pygamas,” “the cat’s meow,” and “the snake’s hips.” An earlier 18^th century use of the term indicated something that doesn’t actually exist. However, if you don’t mind calling the joints between bee leg segments “knees,” then bees’ knees exist in great quantity. A honeybee has six legs, each with many joined segments.

Monday

You may not want a “nitpicker” around to criticize your minor faults, but you might if you had lice. The word literally means one who picks off nits, the tiny eggs of lice, fleas, and other insects.

Tuesday

The black widow spider gets its name because the much-larger female of the species sometimes eats her partner after mating.

Wednesday

The word “mantis” comes from the Greek word for prophet, because many ancient religions thought the bugs had supernatural powers. Praying mantises, in addition to their pious appearance, can camouflage remarkably well, are amazingly agile, can prey on bats, birds, and reptiles, and move their head 180 degrees. Females often decapitate and devour their lovers (who don’t need their heads to finish up), and in at least two cases, also ate birds during copulation. Seeing a mantis is either good or bad fortune, depending on the culture. Some Christians believe seeing this prayerful insect in your house means angels are watching over you, but seeing one in Japan may warn of your death.

Thursday

Think there’s a lot of insects around? There are. By one estimate, there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (ten quintillion) total individuals, and that’s just insects, excluding spiders, mites, and other arthropods. Fewer than one million species have been described by scientists, and that’s out of an estimated 2-30 million total species. Throw spiders and all other “bugs” in the pot, and we’re talking about up to 80% of the species on this planet being insects and arthropods.

Friday

Butterfly wings are far larger than needed just to fly, and their erratic-looking flight is partially a tactic to keep predators from predicting their flight path. The insects generate extra turbulence with their wingbeats as they tip, rotate, and shift their center of gravity around. However, species which are more poisonous to predators don’t need all this trickery and fly straighter than their tastier relatives.

Saturday

Despite being around for about 300 million years, dragonflies put most modern flying critters to shame. They can travel up to 34 mph, fly forward, backward, sideways, upside down, hover, turn almost immediately, nab prey in mid-flight, and at least one species can cross oceans (yes, oceans) of 11,000 miles for the record of longest-migrating insect.

Sunday

Before refrigeration, salt was so valuable as a food preservative that Roman soldiers were often paid with it or received allowance for it, and the word “salary” derives from “salarium,” the Latin word for salt allowance.

Monday

Hence, to be good at your job and worthy of your pay is to be “worth your salt.”

Tuesday

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls his audience “the salt of the earth.” By one interpretation, disciples were being called to preserve the earth from moral decay. By another reading, the listeners were being recognized for their value, like salt has. However, the salt found in Israel was rich in magnesium and hence very useful for stoking fires in ovens, so another interpretation is that the disciples were being told that they were essential in this sense. By yet another understanding, the term distinguished salt mined from the ground from that evaporated from the Dead Sea, which was more prone to contamination. There are many more interpretations, but in modern usage, however, the term tends to mean honest, modest, and hardworking people.

Wednesday

The ocean is salty because of runoff water from land, seafloor vents and underwater volcanoes. Since rainwater is slightly acidic, it slowly dissolves rocks on land, the salty ions from which eventually flow into the ocean. Meanwhile, ocean water seeps into the crust below it and is heated by the Earth’s mantle, dissolving minerals from the crust which are added to seawater. A similar process occurs via the injection of salty ions from underwater volcanoes. And while there are different types of salt in nature, 85-90% of the dissolved ions in seawater are sodium and chloride, same as common table salt, which often comes from evaporated seawater.

Thursday

To remind someone of an unpleasant fact is to “rub it in,” which is short for “rubbing salt in the wound.” Not surprisingly, doing this makes a wound more painful.

Friday

The superstition of curing bad luck by throwing salt over the left shoulder is itelf related to another salty superstition. In “The Last Supper,” da Vinci painted Judas Iscariot as having knocked the salt over with his elbow. Accordingly, spilled salt came to be associated with treachery and an invitation for the devil to corrupt the spiller. The cure was for the spiller was to throw salt over the left shoulder and blind the devil supposedly waiting there.

Saturday

Four enormous hollowed-out underground salt caverns along the US Gulf Coast are filled with oil barrels. These create the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with a total capacity of 714 million barrels. After the Arab oil embargo of 1973-4, which cut off the country’s main source and led to shortages, the idea for the strategic stockpile came about.

Sunday

Pawns are the lowest-ranking chess piece, yet can still be strategically valuable. Hence, to say someone is a “pawn” suggests they have little real power and are being used by others in some larger plan.

Monday

In chess, a king is “checked” or “put in check” when threatened with immediate capture, such that the checked player’s next moves are very limited. A person is said to be “put in check” or “checked” when corrected, controlled, or stopped, a term that seems to derive directly from chess.

Tuesday

If the threatened player fails to get out of check, that king is “checkmated,” a term derived from “shah mat,” which translates to “the king died” (Arabic) or “the king is stumped, helpless” (Persian).

Wednesday

Able to travel any distance in any direction, the queen is the games’s most powerful piece, and a real-life powerful queen made her so. The chess queen’s predecessor piece was male and able to move only two spaces at a time. When Isabella, the queen who united Spain, was crowned in 1475, that chess piece got a gender change, but could only match the king in moving one space per turn. Twenty years later, when Isabella had become Europe’s most powerful woman, the queen got upgraded to her current great power, enshrined in the game rules still used today. Symbolically, the king piece remained more important, just like Isabella’s husband King Ferdinand, but far less powerful than the queen.

Thursday

Chess dates back to at least 6^th century India, where the board was conceived as a battlefield. However, as the game got bigger in Europe, the original military characters became characters of a royal court. The original Indian pieces, known as counselor, infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, transformed into the queen, pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, respectively.

Friday

Chess Records, the legendary pioneering blues and rock record company, was not named for the game, but Jewish Polish immigrant brothers Phil and Leonard Chess.

Saturday

There are more possible chess games than there are electrons in the observable universe. (10¹²³ vs. 10⁸⁰)

Sunday

“Karate” is Japanese for “empty hand,” since this martial art focuses on unarmed combat.

Monday

“Tae Kwon Do” is Korean for “way of the fist and foot.”

Tuesday

“Judo” is Japanese for “the gentle way,” as it stresses maximum efficiency with minimal effort, using an opponent’s force against him, and also has a big philosophical component.

Wednesday

“Jiu-jitsu” means “gentle art” in Japanese.

Thursday

The term “kung fu” itself just describes any endeavor requiring time, work, and patience to complete, not necessarily just a martial art.

Friday

“Krav Maga” means “contact combat” in Hebrew.

Saturday

Hapkido translates to “the art of coordinated power” in Korean.