Plenty of words have no clear origin
A new book investigating strange etymologies reads like a detective story
July 18th 2024
Origin Uncertain: Unravelling the Mysteries of Etymology.By Anatoly Liberman. Oxford University Press; 344 pages; $29.99 and £22.99
MANY WORDS are puzzles themselves. “Conundrum” confounds scholars; “bamboozle” beguiles them. Anatoly Liberman, an etymologist at the University of Minnesota, explains why in “Origin Uncertain”, a delightful romp through the annals of words’ origins.
conundrum /kəˈnʌndrəm/ 难题，难解的问题。例句: Solving this conundrum will require a combination of creativity and critical thinking. (解决这个难题将需要创造力和批判性思维的结合。)
bamboozle /bæmˈbuːzl/ 欺骗，愚弄。例句：He tried to bamboozle me into believing his lies.（他试图愚弄我相信他的谎言。）
romp /rɒmp/ 欢闹地玩耍，轻松愉快地行动。例句：The children had a romp in the park, laughing and playing together. (孩子们在公园里嬉戏玩耍，一起笑着玩耍。)
Compiled from some 20 years of blogs he wrote for Oxford University Press, “Origin Uncertain” takes a broadly thematic approach. He covers words that are “bizarre, misbegotten and born by mistake”, such as punk, spunk and funk, and terms with “troublesome phonetics”, including the related words sneak, snack and snuck.
misbegotten /ˌmɪsbɪˈɡɒtn/ 不正当出生的，私生的。 例句：She felt like a misbegotten child with no place in the world.（她觉得自己像个私生子，无处立足。）
sneak /sniːk/ 潜行，偷偷摸摸。例句：He tried to sneak into the house without being noticed.（他试图偷偷摸摸地潜入房子，不被发现。）
snack /snæk/ 小吃，零食。例句：I always have a healthy snack between meals.（我总是在餐间吃点健康的零食。）
snuck /snʌk/ （sneak的过去式和过去分词形式，美式英语）。例句：She snuck out of the party early to avoid saying goodbye.（她偷偷溜出派对，避免告别。）
punk /pʌŋk/ 朋克，庞克，刻薄，胆量。例句：He loves listening to punk rock music. (他喜欢听朋克摇滚音乐。)
spunk /spʌŋk/ 勇气，活力，精力。例句：She has the spunk to stand up to anyone who tries to put her down. (她有勇气去面对任何想要打击她的人。)
funk /fʌŋk/ 懈怠，畏缩。例句：Don't let fear hold you back; don't funk out.(不要让恐惧阻碍你前进；不要畏缩。)
All of this will delight logophiles. The book may also appeal to true-crime fans; it reads like a detective story. The hunt for the Middle English word “henchman”, for example, has “villains and casualties at every step”. It first surfaced in 1360; etymologists thought it meant “horseman”, from hengst, an Old Germanic word for “stallion”. Yet hengst had died out in English a century earlier, making this coinage unlikely. The word eventually became hencheman, before vanishing in the 17th century. Walter Scott, a poet, revived it some 200 years later, bestowingthe definition “one who is always at his master’s haunch”. This bears some resemblance to its meaning today, as an unscrupulous or corrupt crony.
logophiles/ˈlɑːɡəfaɪlz/ 博爱语言的人，热爱词语的人。例句：Logophiles enjoy exploring the nuances of language and discovering new words.（爱好语言的人喜欢探索语言的细微差别并发现新单词。）
henchman /ˈhɛnʧmən/ 忠实的追随者，助手，手下。例句：He was always surrounded by a group of loyal henchmen ready to do his bidding. (他总是被一群忠实的手下包围，随时准备听命行事。)
stallion /ˈstæljən/ 公马。例句：The rancher bought a new stallion to breed with his mare.（牧场主买了一匹新的公马来和他的母马交配。）
bestow /bɪˈstoʊ/ 赠予，授予。例句：She decided to bestow her wealth to charity after her death.(她决定在去世后把她的财富赠予慈善事业。)
haunch /hɔːntʃ/ 臀部，大腿后部。例句：She leaned against the fence, resting her haunch on the rail.（她靠在篱笆上，臀部搁在栏杆上。）
Mr Liberman does not manage to prove the true origins of “henchman”, concluding that the “criminal” leaves the “investigators partly at bay”. Some readers may grow tired of the unsolvable linguistic riddles in this book. Yet they demonstrate the capriciousnature of vocabulary. So many words have quietly fallen out of fashion; others have survived only because famous writers such asShakespeare used them.
riddle /ˈrɪdl/ 谜语，谜题。例句：Can you solve this riddle? (你能解开这个谜题吗？)
capricious /kəˈprɪʃəs/ 反复无常的，善变的。例句：Her capricious behavior made it difficult to predict her reactions. (她的反复无常的行为让人难以预测她的反应。)
In few cases is the invention of a word recorded. William Thoms, a 19th-century British writer, coined the term “folklore” (“the lore of the people”) in a letter in 1846. As “folklore” became popular, however, Thoms had to keep reminding readers that he came up with it. If a word “finds approval by the community”, Mr Liberman explains, “it survives, and the inventor’s name is soon forgotten”. The origins of bamboozle will continue to bamboozle, a fact that would doubtless have delighted its unremembered creator.■
