Word Origins – Interesting Literature

Spenser, Scott, and the Erroneous Origins of ‘Derring-Do’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Some words arise purely by accident. Indeed, even names are sometimes formed because of a mistake: the most famous example is probably Imogen, which is thought to have come about because the Celtic name Innogen (meaning ‘maiden’ or ‘daughter’) was misread as ‘Imogen’.

It’s all Shakespeare’s fault: the name ‘Innogen’ is listed in early stage directions for Much Ado about Nothing, where she’s the silent wife of Leonato and the mother of Hero. But she has no spoken lines and is completely cut from most modern editions of the play, so most people haven’t heard of her. What they do remember is the character Imogen (as it’s usually spelt) who appears in Cymbeline. But ‘Imogen’ was probably originally ‘Innogen’.

A fairly imocuous nnistake, you might say.

On Welsh Rarebit and Just Desserts

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

I was in north Wales last week, having a little holiday, when I stumbled upon a book in a Caernarfon charity shop that I should really already have owned. Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage was first published in 1947 but much of Partridge’s advice about good English still holds good today, and deserves its place beside the Brothers Fowlers’ The King’s English on the shelves of any grammatical stickler and pedant.

The Curious Origins of the Word ‘Leviathan’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Where does the word ‘leviathan’ come from, and what animal does it refer to? The origins of the word are to be found in the Old Testament, but we need to take a closer look at the Bible to uncover the true meaning of the word, and to discover why the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes took the word and used it as the title for his 1651 book Leviathan.

The Curious Origins of the Word ‘Marathon’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

There are a number of myths about the word ‘marathon’ and its origins. Let’s take a closer look at the story of how an ancient battle gave us the word for a long-distance race.

A marathon is a race run over a distance of 26 miles and 385 yards. The 385 yards are a curious detail and one I’ll return to later in this article. But let’s start with the reason why such a race is known as a ‘marathon’.

The Surprising Origins of the Word ‘Android’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Where does the word ‘android’ come from, and what does it mean? And what does the origin of the word ‘android’ have to do with apes? And how did the word come to be used for an operating system? Let’s take a closer look at the curious etymology of a word which arose almost by mistake.