Etymology: Do Not Try This At Home

MOTUS ^ | 4-4-20 | MOTUS

[NOBO2012]

It’s been a grueling week. How about we divert our attention for a minute or two away from the COVID-19 pandemic?

First, on the etymology (etymology - the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time; derives from the Greek word etumos, meaning true) of a couple of common computer related terms.

Don’t even get me started on the etymology of “floppy.”

My second offering is unrelated to etymology and only tangentially related to COVID-19 (which btw is correctly typed in upper-case as it is shorthand for CoronaVirus Disease originating in 2019 - no mention of where, as that would be geographically correct but politically incorrect).

COVID-19 already has its own icon

The good news coming out of the COVID countrywide shutdown:

Here’s a happy thought: If AOC was still a bartender rather than a U.S. Representative harping on all things socialist, she’d be out of work now.

Hi, I’m Sandy and I’ll be your bartender tonight.

COVID-19 special cocktail: 1 part hydroxychloroquine, 5 parts azithromycin: do not try this at home with fish tank cleaner, which contains an entirely different etymology.

Posted from: MOTUS A.D.

[my job]

Thanks,
Over the shoulder motor oil is great, but AOC out of work ... the best (well great start)

[my job]

PS: I got to use a letterbox as a teen to feed a pantograph.
Extra points for anyone who knows what that is...
Hint: it was a long time ago.

[booley]

Another interesting etymology: The name of the device on top of an electric-powered train that gathers electricity from overhead wires to drive it is derived from the name of what you’re writing about.

[nicollo]

Nicely done!

[nicollo]

Here are couple other ones for ya:

“Malaria” = “bad” + “air” (a term not helpful to the French attempt on the Panama canal, whose “fever wards” protected patients from ants by planting hospital beds in cans of water...)

Probably done enough lately, but “quarantine”, in case anyone missed it, is from Italian for “forty” (quaranta) for the 40 days ship crews were required to isolate on arrival to Venice if suspected of carrying disease.

For you computer geeks, “computer” comes from “cum” and “putare,” which, sadly, is not derived from “putaria”in Brazilian Portuguese (from “puta” - don’t google the word without a safe filter on!); instead it’s straight from Latin for “with” and “to reckon.”

Most importantly, “whiskey” comes from the Scottish Gaelic term, “uisce beatha” (or Irish Gaelic “uisce bethu”) “for “water of life.”