aegis

I was watching an American medical drama called ‘New Amsterdam’ the other day (I love me an American medical drama – ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is my absolute fave). During a courtroom scene with a patient with some mental-health struggles, a judge said ‘I’m not willing to to release you into your own aegis’. My first thought was of course, ‘why not use a word that everyone can understand, silly legal person?’. And my second was, ‘I wonder where “aegis” comes from?’ Well, it turns out it has quite an interesting backstory.

In the context of the silly legal person, ‘aegis’ simply means ‘protection, sponsorship or support of a person, group or organisation’. Its other, much more fun, definition is ‘a shield or breastplate associated with Zeus and Athena’. And that’s where our etymology comes from.

In Greek mythology, aegises also included cloaks, and were often described as powerful and protective. Some of them featured the head of the Gorgon, she of the bad snake-hair day. The word itself comes from a noun, ‘aigis’, which means ‘goatskin’. This is probably just because cloaks were often made of goatskin, but it might (it probably isn’t TBH, but I wanted to tell this story) be something to do with the mythical goat Amalthea. Rhea, Zeus’ Ma, hid him in a cave to protect him from his father Cronus, who was a bit of a nutter known for eating his own children (someone call social services). Amalthea nursed (yep, fed) and cared for the infant Zeus in the cave. Hence, goats = protection.

Aegis made its way into English in the 18th century in the sense of those protective shields or cloaks. It later evolved into the idea of protection, sponsorship or support, and a silly legal term.

To say thanks for looking after him in that cave, Zeus later transformed one of Amalthea’s horns into the Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty, which could provide an endless supply of food and drink. I’m not sure how this worked logistically – surely it would need to be detached from Amalthea’s head to provide all that chow? That doesn’t seem like much of a thank you.

Zeus – DTF

Zeus was also a bit of a dirty old (and young) man. One of his favourite things to do was to transform himself into something else to have sex with both mortals and immortals. This included transforming into a swan, a bull and a shower of gold. I’m definitely not going to try to work out the logistics of that…

geminate

I’ve been doing some geminating this morning, with my socks, which I hate (the geminating, not the socks. I’m fine with socks in general).

Not to be confused with germinating, ‘geminate’ as a verb means to put something into pairs. Although it’s usually used in this way by linguists to describe sounds that are doubled, you can also use it to be fancy-dancy when you’re doing laundry (and who doesn’t need to add a bit of fancy-dancy when they’re sorting out washing?).

Geminate is also an adjective (AKA a describing word). So when you’ve finished sorting those goddamn socks, you can says that they’re geminate (sadly I still can’t say this about mine as many of them are still lounging in the laundry basket).

It’s not just about socks of course – you can use ‘geminate’ for anything that comes in a pair, like headlights, eyes or the twins from The Shining (other twins are available).

So, where does the word come from? Well, if you were born between 21 May and 20 June then you’re probably well ahead of me – like the star sign gemini, it comes from the Latin word ‘geminatus’ which itself comes from ‘geminus’, meaning ‘twin’.

The constellation Gemini is named for the twins Castor and Pollux from Greek mythology. The story goes that their mother, Leda, was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan (the logistics of this always bother me). She later laid four eggs (because, swan) out of which hatched the aforementioned twins, as well as two others – Helen (later to become ‘of Troy’ and launch a bunch of boats) and Clytemnestra (which I always think sounds like an STD). Because Leda had also had relations with her husband (not a bird) on the same night, it seems that Castor and Clytemnestra were his kids, while Pollux and Helen were Zeus’, which therefore gave them demigod status, and immortality. When Castor was later killed in battle, Pollux was so upset that he begged his dad to let him give up half his immortality to give to his bro. Zeus agreed, and Castor and Pollux were transformed into the Gemini constellation.

Woman impregnated by swan? Sounds like a load of old Pollux to me.

The geminate twins from ‘The Shining’. I used to work with the grown-up version of one of these actresses. Yes, really. Dunno which one though.

adamant

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of…

To be adamant about something is to have an opinion about it which you absolutely refuse to change, despite evidence to the contrary. It’s also, of course, a popstar from the 80s who I once dressed up as for a fancy-dress party (and yes, I did do the Prince Charming dance when I was there, despite being stone-cold sober due to driving, and also only knowing the crossed-arms move and nothing else). But the meaning of adamant as we know it only dates back to around the 1800s. Before that it was used as both a noun and an adjective for something that was really bloody hard – that’s hard like a diamond, not Jason Statham. In fact, ‘adamant’ was used as a synonym (i.e. another word for) a diamond.

If you’re a fan of the Marvel comic/film franchise you’ll probably have realised that this meaning is where ‘adamantium’ comes from – the fictional metal alloy that’s grafted onto Wolverine’s skeleton and claws and is virtually indestructible. ‘Adamant’ or ‘adamantine’ as an unbreakable substance also pops up in lots of classical literature – in Greek mythology, Cronus (Zeus’ dad) castrated his father Uranus using an adamantine sickle given to him by his mother Gaia. That must have made family gatherings quite awkward. And here it is in action in a particularly sexist bit of the novel ‘Romola’ by George Eliot (even though SHE WAS A WOMAN):

Trust not in your gold and silver, trust not in your high fortresses; for, though the walls were of iron, and the fortresses of adamant, the Most High shall put terror into your hearts and weakness into your councils, so that you shall be confounded and flee like women.

Oh, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the name Adam – that’s a Hebrew word meaning, basically, ‘man’.

stellify

I came across this lovely word in Greg Jenner’s book ‘Dead Famous’ (well worth a read). To stellify something is to turn it into a star or to place it into the heavens. It comes from Greek mythology where this literally (well, literally in classical mythology) happened to people – in fact it was the best thing that could happen to a puny mortal at the end of their life (a couple you might have heard of who were full-on put into the heavens are Orion and Cassiopeia). But it’s also used to describe someone or something becoming famous. This is down to Geoffrey Chaucer – he of nightmare English lessons trying to read ‘The Canterbury Tales’ while waiting for the dirty bits – who wrote a poem called ‘House of Fame’ (or ‘Hous of Fame’ as it is in Middle English. See, it’s not that hard, is it?).

Photo by Guillermo Ferla on Unsplash.

Probably written between 1374 and 1385, the whole poem is over 2,005 lines long across three books (GC didn’t do things by halves). It’s basically about a poet who falls asleep and dreams he’s in a glass temple adorned with images of famous people and their deeds (so kinda like ye olde teenager’s bedroom then). With an eagle as a guide (OBVIOUSLY), he then meditates on the nature of fame for all of those 2,005 lines. I won’t quote it here because it’s in Middle English and therefore really bloody hard to read, but if you want to see it in action, go here.

Etymology wise, ‘stellify’ comes from the Latin work stella which means star. So that’s not very interesting. But it’s still a nice word, right?

petrichor

Ooh, this is a lovely word. It describes the scent you smell when rain hits dry soil. It’s one of the few words we have for a specific smell – most, like fresh-cut grass or frying bacon, are just descriptions of what they are.

Photo by Zachary Gilseth on Unsplash.

In the words of Jennifer Aniston, here comes the science… So, certain plants exude an oil during dry weather, which is then absorbed by clay-based soil and rocks. When it rains this is released into the air, alongside another compound called geosmin (a metabolic byproduct of bacteria) which is emitted by wet soil. And together they make the smell petrichor. Hmmm, I’m glad someone came up with a nice word for it, cos it sounds gross.

Origin-wise, even though ‘petrichor’ sounds all Latiney or Ancient Greeky, it’s actually quite a modern word. It was coined in 1964 by two researchers called Isabel Joy Bear and Richard G Thomas in the scientific journal Nature. The reason it looks like ye olde word is because our researchers took its parts from Greek. ‘petra’ means ‘stone’ (you can also find this in words like ‘petrified’ and ‘petrol) and ‘ichor’ is basically a fancy word for fluid (it’s also the stuff that flows in the veins of the gods of Greek mythology apparently).

If you’re a fan of Doctor Who then you’ve probably come across ‘petrichor’ already – it was used by the TARDIS as part of a password to open a back-up control room in ‘The Doctor’s Wife’, and was also the name of a perfume that Amy Pond modelled in ‘Closing Time’.

Interesting fact alert: our noses are super sensitive to geosmin – we can detect it at concentrations as low as five parts per trillion (which is good…?). Some scientists think this is because it might have been handy for survival for our ancestors to know when rainy weather was on the way.

hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia

The word of the week is going on holiday for a while (it’s been working really hard and it deserves it). So I thought I’d better make it a good one. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (phew) means a fear of long words.

Photo by Dušan Smetana on Unsplash.

Basically this is one big wordy joke. And whether or not it’s a ‘real’ word is debateable. There’s a shorter version – ‘sesquipedaliophobia’ – which turns up in The Aldrich Dictionary of Phobias and Other Word Families (published in 2002). ‘Phobia’ means ‘fear of’ (from Phobos, the Greek personification of fear – check out this blog post for more words we get from ancient Greek), while ‘sesquipedalian’ means having many syllables. That dates back to 1656, and comes from a Latin word ‘sesquipedalis’, which literally means a foot and a half long. From what I can gather, some wordy wag (those lexicographers are a wacky lot) then added the ‘hippo’ and the ‘monstro’ to make it even longer and, presumably, more scary sounding. Which is very unfair on any hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobics out there.

Bonus fact: the longest word in the English dictionary is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis. It’s a lung disease you catch from inhaling very fine silica particles, specifically from a volcano. So not much chance of getting it in Suffolk then. Which is lucky as I’d never be able to tell people what was wrong with me.

(See you back here in January for more words of the week.)

quintessential

You know what it means: something which represents a typical or perfect example of something. But do you know where it comes from? Yes? Well, you can look smug and stop reading. No? Strap in, you’re in for a fun ride. No, seriously, stay with me – it actually has a surprisingly mystical back story.

You might have already worked out that the ‘quint’ refers to five (as in quintet, quintuplets, and so on, but not the guy from Jaws). But what does that have to do with being perfect? Well, the ‘essential’ bit comes from ‘essentia’ which means essence. So ‘quintessential’ actually means the ‘fifth essence’. Still none the wiser? Me neither. We need to go all the way back to ancient Greece for this, so run and get your toga. All set? Let’s go.

Aristotle, the head honcho of western philosophy, introduced the idea of a fifth element (nope, not the Bruce Willis film), to the existing four (i.e. 70s disco group earth, wind and fire, plus water). The fifth one was an airy-fairy thing that made up the heavenly and divine bodies, also called ‘aether’.

According to the A-man, a little tiny bit of this perfect, god-like substance was supposed to exist in all things (including us human beans). So that’s why the word’s since come to mean the most refined version of something.

clue

Usually I like to pretend to be super clever by using big long words here, which ‘clue’ obviously isn’t. But I’ve picked it because it has really interesting etymology. It actually comes from Greek myth. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. (This is a long one, sorry.)

Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash.

Minos, king of Crete, was married to Pasiphae. She had sex with a bull (because, Zeus), and gave birth to a hideous beast called the minotaur (I don’t know why it was named after Minos as he didn’t have anything to do with it, but I digress). Minos was a bit embarrassed by this, but decided to put his bovine stepson to work rather than just killing it (again, I don’t know why, as he was a bit of a git – he must have been feeling uncharacteristically charitable that day). So he imprisoned it in a huge labyrinth, then stuck anyone who pissed him off in there. They then couldn’t find a way out and were eventually eaten by the minotaur. Which saved on the Ocado bills.

Cut to Athens, where Minos’ actual son gets killed by the same bull that boffed his mum (what are the chances!). Minos is understandably miffed about this, and demands that Athens send him human sacrifices every year to make up for it. I told you he was a bastard. This goes on for a few years, until an Athenian named Theseus thinks ‘f*ck this, my people shouldn’t be ending up as hors-d’oeuvres for a cow-man’, and decides to kill the minotaur. So he sails to Crete, where he meets another of Minos’ offspring, Ariadne. They fall madly in love, and she gives him a ball of wool (he’s a cheap date). He then heads off into the labyrinth, kills the minotaur and uses the wool to find his way back out. Then he pops Ariadne on his ship and takes her back to Athens where they live happily ever after.* What does this have to do with ‘clue’, I hear you shouting? Well, the old word for a ball of wool was ‘clew’ (sorry it took so long to get there). Because of the way Theseus used it, i.e. as a clue to get him out of the maze, it slowly took on the meaning it has today.

Bonus fact: I’ve used the word maze above, because I didn’t want to write labyrinth again. But in fact they’re different things. A maze has choices of paths and directions, and can have different entrances and exits, and dead ends. A labyrinth only has one single path which leads to the middle, and only one way in and out. And David Bowie lives in one.

Well done for making it to the end BTW.

*Due to a mix up over some sails, Theseus’ dad thought his son had been killed by the minotaur and, in his grief, chucked himself off a cliff. So it wasn’t an entirely happy ending, sorry.

(Like what you just read? Check out the other words of the week. There’s loads.)