31. Where did (some word or phrase) come from?
Description
This article is from the sci.lang FAQ, by Michael Covington (mcovingt@ai.uga.edu) and Mark Rosenfelder (markrose@zompist.com) with numerous contributions by others.
31. Where did (some word or phrase) come from?
[--markrose]
If you get a snarky response to such questions on sci.lang, it's because
some people think you ought to look in a dictionary first. The American
Heritage Dictionary traces words back (where possible) to Proto-Indo-European;
and the massive Oxford English Dictionary, available at most libraries,
contains not only etymologies but illustrative citations through the centuries.
When it comes to word and phrase origins, most people's standard of proof
seems to be "Doesn't violate the laws of physics!" But a plausible story is
not a proof. The three most important types of evidence in etymology are
citations, citations, citations. If you have some amusing theory that "the
whole nine yards" derives from haberdashery, or baseball, or mortuaries,
you'd better have appropriate examples from those fields in the right
historical period.
Anyway, here are brief notes on a few terms that have been asked about
more than once on sci.lang. (Also see the alt.usage.english FAQ.)
OK
There's half a dozen explanations for this, but only one correct one,
demonstrated with hundreds of citations by Allen Walker Read in 1964:
OK stands for oll korrect, and dates to a fad for humorous mis-abbreviations
which started in Boston newspapers in 1838. It spread nationwide when
supporters of Martin Van Buren organized the "OK Club" during the 1840
presidential campaign (giving the term a double meaning, since Van Buren's
nickname was Old Kinderhook).
Usted
Some people have wondered if the Spanish formal second person pronoun Usted
came from the Arabic honorific 'usta:dh. It doesn't; it's a well-attested
abbreviation of vuestra merced 'your mercy'. There are transitional forms
such as vuasted, vuesarced, voarced, as well as parallel constructions like
usia from vuestra sen~oria, ucencia from vuestra excelencia. Compare also
Portuguese vossa merce^ --> vosmece^ --> voce^, as well as Catalan voste
and Gallego vostede. Finally, note that the abbreviation Usted doesn't appear
until 130 years after the Moors had been kicked out of Spain.
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