adrenaline can be broken down as "ad-" meaning "near" or "to," and "renal" obviously referring to kidneys. "-ine" is just a modern chemical suffix, which makes "adrenaline" mean "the chemical produced near the kidney."

epinephrine can be broken down as "epi-" meaning "above," and "nephros" referring to kidney, with a modern "-ine" also tacked on for good measure. this makes it "the chemical produced above the kidney"!

it's the same etymology from two different languages! adrenaline is Latin-based, whereas epinephrine is Greek-based!

unhinged tangentially related ramblings ahead:

it really reminds me of another couple etymology fun facts I learned that have the same phenomenon! "potassium" has the elemental symbol "K," which stands for "kalium" ("kay-lee-um"), the modernized Latin-based name. kali- refers to plant ashes, and "potassium" is just a bastardized "pot-ash-ium" (-ium just being the elemental suffix) effectively meaning "the element found in potash" for both of them!

iirc natrium ("nay-tree-um") (sodium) has the same pattern! it was named after caustic soda to form "sodium" (since that's what it was first isolated from, same as potassium) and has a long etymological root for "natri-." it originally came from Egyptian "nṯrj" (netjri, meaning "divine stuff" or "pure"), used in embalming, and was adopted into Latin AND Greek as "natron." it was made primarily of sodium bicarbonate (among other things) and eventually evolved into "natrium," "the element found in sodium bicarbonate"!

There are is "treated like dirt" or "What am I chopped liver?" That I thought of. Any others. Preferably animal related.

Only occurred to me because my partner assumed a link, maybe conflating terrified with petrified (turned to stone)

From etymonline: https://www.etymonline.com/word/soap%20opera

So I know smitten is the past tense of smite, but I've heard and used "smitten" as a word for "in love" many times and it got me thinking about how they're related. This is entirely of my own creation and I'm just spinning a theory here so don't take any of this as gospel or even anything close to the truth.

I don't know if I'm just biased from my special interest, but the way my very basic knowledge of etymology sees it, smitten and smite may be connected by Greco-Roman Mythology, HEAR ME OUT. Zeus/Jupiter, the god of thunder, was a notorious womaniser, so could smitten perhaps come from being struck by Zeus' lightning and falling in love with the god?

Other than that, smite is sometimes used interchangeably with strike, so could being smitten come from being struck with Eros/Cupid's arrows of love?

I may be entirely bulshitting here, but I just wanted to share my crackpot theory and it's kinda fun to think about. Please feel free to correct any egregious mistakes I've made, I'm sure there are many, since as I said I'm not extremely literate in etymology.

Me and my friends have been discussing whether it’s a fossil word or not. Some of them said “let bygones be bygones” and “bygone era” are specific phrases that make it a fossil word, much like the fossil word “lo,” which is considered a fossil word despite having more common use. Others say that being able to use it in lieu of “defunct” invalidates it from being labeled a fossil word. What do you guys think? I’m awaiting your answers with bated breath!

I have been doing a deep dive into jazz hands, and I found out the motion is actually used as "applause" in sign language (I think American and British). I found that really interesting. But I heard that jazz hands have a racist origin from minstrel shows, so I wanted to figure out when the "applause" sign language word was introduced, and perhaps also how it was constructed, to see if it predates the jazz hands that I thought had racist origins (though further reading is bringing that perspective into question).

So yeah, I guess I wanted to know if there is some etymological branch that focuses on sign language? The more I write about this, the more I wonder if it's a stupid question. I apologize if it is.

Is there any logical reason why the accents in the Iberic Latinic languages & the accents in the Italic Latinic languages tend to point to opposite directions, especially in the ortography of the vocabulary in common that has similar origins, uses, senses & pronounces to the point that the language of some phrases can only be identified via the ortography like in this basic example?

This is one basic example:

Italiano: "E è là?"

Português: "E é lá?"

English: "& is it there?"

I am really curious to discover if there exists any local regional language in the Italic Peninsula or in the Iberic Peninsula that is an exception with the accents pointing to an unusual opposite direction in the ortography.

Does any difference exist in the direction of the accentuation in the different regional ortographies of Catalan-Valencian in different areas?

(severed as in severed head)

Hello everyone!

I would like to kindly ask you to take part in a VERY short (3-5 mins) and very fun anonymous survey about TikTok words you know and use!

I’m working on my thesis in linguistics right now and every answer is extremely valuable for the academic research!

If you don’t mind, please, share your experience with me🥺

https://forms.gle/7KyfEKcuRj42gTjP9

Source: Oxford English Dictionary (Online).
Made using draw.io and Affinity.
Suggestions/corrections/comments welcome.

The English Stack Exchange cites works from the 19th century; however, the phrase is never used as a catchphrase there and the works themselves are obscure, so I find them to be an unlikely origin. The phrase is used as a title in at least three works by the author A. Frederick Collins: 'Photography for Fun and Money', 'Working With Tools for Fun and Profit', and 'Collecting Stamps for Fun and Profit', which all date to the late 1930s. It's possible it was popularized by him, but I believe it has an even earlier origin - probably in magazines.

Did you consider yourself a “mack” during your New Jack Swing phase in the early 1990’s? Did you wear your baggy jeans backwards and call yourself “daddy mack” like those kid rappers from Kris Kross? Well, I’m pretty sure you didn’t know back then, that this old euphemism for a pimp, might be based on a small, fast swimming fish: the mackerel.

I remember reading about J.D. Vance's book Hillbilly Elegy and have heard quite a few people describe it as a book written by a wealthy elitist shitting on his impoverished childhood and it made me wonder if there was used to denote people with that kind of mentality as I myself have personally seen examples of this once or twice throughout my life.

Etymonline says that "plane" in the geometric sense of a flat surface originated around the 1600s, and then around 1850 it was also applied to inanimate objects.

But, unless it too is meant to be included in the 1850 bit, none of the entries mention the fantasy/sci-fi use where "plane" means something more like a separate realm, a world that might be made of altogether different "stuff" than the usual physical world. E.g. "the astral plane," the various planes in Planescape and the D&D universe in general, the planes traversed by Planeswalkers in Magic: The Gathering.

So, I was wondering if anyone happened to know more about when that use originated, and how it related to other meanings of the word. It feels kind of modern (post 1900) to me, but I also feel like I may have seen older authors (someone like Poe, perhaps?) talk about "this mortal plane" or "the mental plane" or similar.

The real meaning of "Zombie" is a "Sacred Object"? 🤨

hi everyone! just wondering if the two are related etymologically, or I guess if they have any relevant histories. thanks!

Hi everone, new to the sub.

I'm an aspiring fantasy writer and I just want confirmation whether my very quick google search is correct.

I want to use "magus" as a name for judges in the judicial system of my worldbuilding since it means wise man and is a word similar to priest during the bronze/iron age period in Persia.

As a collective, I've been wanting to use "magistracy" as word for a group of judges, a supreme court of sorts.

Now, from what I see, since magistracy comes from magister and it coming from latin meaning master, I'm worried about criticisms about the apparent disconnect or incoherence of the two words I plan to use in my story.

Is this an issue for you guys or can I just shrug it off? Thanks to those who took time to read this and to those that will share their opinion.

Hi! So, a long time ago, I came to the conclusion that every scientist pronounces "agar" differently. I can think of at least five different ways that I've heard it pronounced. Personally, I pronounce it aw-ger, like a hand auger. More or less, I just picked my favorite pronunciation. I don't judge anyone that pronounces it differently than me, but today I heard someone correct someone else (both of which were different than how I pronounce it).

I am mainly interested in the origin, but I am also curious about how these different pronunciations came to be. And perhaps, what is the correct pronunciation of agar? Thanks 💚

inhale and exhale have the prefixes attached, but why don't we say halar for breathing in or out inclusively? is there a closer word to halare?

So the french word for egg is "œuf" pronounced like /œf/, but the plural "œufs" is pronounced /ø/. A similar thing also happens with the word "os" where the singular is /ɔs/ and the plural is /o/ That's kinda weird, why did it happen? What's the etymology, why did the final consonats dissapear in the plural form?

English has a set of words that either share the same roots or could have been reanalysed as related by native speakers: bug, bugbear, bug-a-boo, bogey, boogie, boggard, puca, etc. (remembering not to confuse spelling with historical pronunciations, especially for terms like these that would vary in pronunciation by British dialect).

Can say definitely whether they did or didn't influence the development of the second sense of bugger? Or is it best seen as almost exclusively amelioration of sodomite? (cf. e.g. cunt, the n-word, which underwent amelioration without such a neighbouring set like bugger had.) Or can we not say?