Do You Understand The Words That are Coming Out Of Your Mouth???

Words are simply verbal symbols that conveys messages to and from us to others, or from other sources such as the news.  Yet, we take for granted we that we know what we are saying when we talk.  Here are a few words I am sure we are confident we know the meaning.  But, do we really?

Nice - Agreeable, delightful.  Thoughtful and kind.  From the late 13th century meaning foolish, stupid, and senseless.  From Old French Nice meaning silly, foolish.  From the Latin nescius meaning ignorant.

 Bad - Normally best described as inferior in quality stemming from the 1200's, coming to mean evil, vicious or wicked.  Originating from the Old English baeddel or baedling meaning effeminate man, hermaphrodite.  Also meaning to defile.

Care - From Old English caru or cearu meaning "sorrow, anxiety or grief also "serious mental attention."  Old German chara meaning sorrow "wail or lament."  From German karg meaning scanty or stingy.  Gar meaning to cry out, scream to grief.

Black - Old English blaec "black,dark" From Old Nordic blakkr "dark" From Old High German blah "black", from Proto Indo European bhleg "meaning to burn, gleam, shine or flash, to bleach."  Old English meaning "bright, shining, glittering, pale.  Middle English it's doubtful that blac, blak, blake means black, dark or pale, colourless..."  Black when referring to people first appeared around 1620's, possible coming from the 1540's term blackamoor meaning "black as a moor."

Do your really know what you're saying when you say it?  Do you understand the words that are coming out of your mouth:

Do you understand the words that are coming out of your mouth?

Words, phrases and sayings all have roots in other languages that have come over into English and on to the (A)Merican language. Many words we use today may have common origins and meanings familiar to us and others may not. For instance I’ve noticed how the word Black evolves and bleaches to white in it’s origins. Here are some words that we use everyday and may not have thought of their etymological roots or where they come from and how they just may affect our psyche without us ever noticing. I thought about this when I saw the Chris Tucker character in the movie Rush Hour said to his Chinese collegue “do you understand the words that are coming our of my mouth?” So I ask do you understand the words that are coming out of your mouth?

Wife - Having roots in that of a veiled person, shame or female shame; pudenda “one being made to shame.” To the Germanic wibam (wombman) or simply woman. Originally having nothing to do with being in a state of marriage.

Witch - Later understood to be a woman having dealings with the devil. From the Germanic female soothsayer, wikken. One skilled with drugs or poisons (pharmacology). From the Gothic weihs meaning sacred. Ultimately a witch is a WISE woman.

Wit - As you can see the root of the word wit-ch. From the Germanic witz; a joke. Wid meaning to see, to see is to know.

Genius - One possessing superior intelligence. A person with distinguished mental prowess or an outstanding creative talent. The Romans believed the genius was the guiding or “tutelary”(guardian) spirit of a person, an inborn nature. From the Arabic Djinn or Genii, coming into English as “genie,” from the Kemetan (Egyptian) Guardian Angel.

God/god - Origins of the word are uncertain. Possibly from Proto-Germanic gudan. The immanent spirit in a burial ground. Or the pouring of libations. Also, believed to be from the heathen word for deity. Possibly from the Proto-Indo-European grau meaning “to call or invoke”(conjure?) Others believe the word God/god derives from the Buddha’s patriarchal name Guatama or Gotama, to the Danish Gud, German Gott, to English God. At any rate the word God/god is a relatively new EUROPEAN invention in terms of history.