Marcie Sundaram
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alliterative.bsky.social
Marcie Sundaram
@alliterative.bsky.social
1.7K followers 250 following 990 posts
Interdisciplinarian, historical linguist, philologist, medievalist; I make videos & podcasts about words, history, and literature. Married to @AvenSarah. She/her
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alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is MAYOR/MAJOR #wotd #mayor #major #ZohranForNYC #Mamdani
The cause of progressivism in the US won a major victory with the election of Zohran Mamdami as mayor of New York City, and etymologically that makes sense. The word mayor, borrowed from Old French maire ca. 1300 in the sense “head of a city or town government” but with the original sense “greater, superior”, comes from Latin maior, the comparative form of the adjective magnus “large, great, big, high, tall, long, broad, extensive, spacious”. Latin maior was also borrowed directly into English in its original sense of “bigger, greater, more important” as major.
November 10, 2025 at 6:30 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
An Etruscan mirror. Needs a bit of a polish. #sundaypixmirror
Etruscan bronze mirror in a display case at the British museum
November 9, 2025 at 4:14 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
New cover song! My version of “Mess Around” originally performed by Ray Charles! Check out the full song here: youtu.be/TKuv17boF4w?...
November 9, 2025 at 12:44 AM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is NUCLEAR/TEST/NUT/TESTICLES #wotd #nuclear #test #nut #testicle #NuclearTesting
Trump’s plan for the US to restart testing of nuclear weapons is nuts and shows that he’s thinking with his testicles rather than his brains. Nuclear, formed from nucleus in reference to the splitting of the nucleus of the atom, comes from Latin nucleus “kernel” from nucula “little nut”, the diminutive of nux “nut”, which can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European *knuk-, an extended zero-grade form of the root *kneu- “nut”, which also had the extended zero-grade form *knud- which produced the Proto-Germanic root *hnut- leading to Old English hnutu “nut” and Modern English nut. Since nuts were considered a special treat the plural nuts gained the sense “any source of pleasure or delight” in the 17th c., and in the 18th c. the expression be nuts on meant “be very fond of”, and by the 19th c. nuts came to mean “crazy”. The slang sense of nuts meaning “testicles” first appears by 1915. As for the word testicle itself, it comes from Latin testiculus, a diminutive of testis “testicle”, whose origin is debated, either from another Latin word testis meaning “witness” (source of the English word testify), from the notion that testicles bear witness to male virility, or it might instead be a figurative sense coming from the Latin word testa “pot, shell” — compare for instance French tête “head” which also comes from Latin testa. In Medieval Latin, testum “earthen pot” referred to an earthen vessel, also known as a cupel, in which the purity of a metal was ascertained by exposing it to high temperatures, and by analogy came the English word test by which a teacher may ascertain a student’s knowledge.
November 3, 2025 at 6:58 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
Check out my new single “Interesting Times” on your platform of choice!

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October 28, 2025 at 1:38 AM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FRANKENSTEIN/FRANCHISE/MONSTER/MONEY #wotd #Frankenstein #franchise #monster #money
It’s spooky season, and right on cue there’s a new monster movie in the moneymaking Frankenstein franchise, and etymologically that’s appropriate. Mary Shelley named the creator of the monster Victor Frankenstein, and this German name means literally “stone of the Franks”, the Franks being one of the Germanic tribes that dates back to the middle ages, which moved into Gaul, or modern day France. It’s a common enough German name, often being used to refer to a rocky mountainous terrain, and there are a number of old fortifications in Germany named Burg Frankenstein or Castle Frankenstein. The Franks, who took their name from a type of javelin that was their preferred weapon (or it might have been the other way around), were conquerors, and so the word frank came to mean “superior” or “free” (in contrast to those they conquered who weren’t free), so when you speak frankly you’re speaking “freely” or “openly”. We can see this sense too in the Old French word franchise “freedom, exemption; right, privilege”, which came into English in the late 14th c. with the sense “a special right or privilege (by grant of a sovereign or government)”, later developing into “right to buy or sell” and “right to exclude others from buying or selling, a monopoly” and in the 20th c. “authorization by a company to sell its products or services” and by extension “a series of related works (such as novels or films) each of which includes the same characters or different characters that are understood to exist and interact in the same fictional universe with characters from the other works”. Monster comes from Latin monstrum, which could refer to a “monster” or something with an abnormal shape, but really had the more general sense of “omen” or “portent”, since such abnormalities were taken as a sign, usually bad, of what was to come. The word comes from the verb monere “to remind, admonish, warn, instruct”, so literally a monster is a “warning”, and because of a particular incident in ancient Rome when the sacred geese around the temple of the goddess Juno honked loudly warning the Romans of a surprise nighttime attack by the Gauls, a Celtic tribe, she was given the epithet Juno Moneta from that same word monere, which was transfered to the contents of that temple, which was where coins were struck and stored, passing through Old French to give us the English word money.
October 27, 2025 at 5:20 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
Nothing makes me feel happier than thinking of times spent with people I love and who love me, & I certainly love you dear Wombat. Here we are from the Beatles tour we went on together, seeing all the Liverpool sights and singing Beatles songs!
#SundayPixWombie
#SundayPixWombat
@wombat37.bsky.social
October 26, 2025 at 7:57 PM
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Now available on all your favourite platforms: “Interesting Times”, a song about change!

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October 25, 2025 at 2:58 AM
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#NewSong “Interesting Times”! 🎸

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October 24, 2025 at 4:08 AM
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New song coming tomorrow! 🎸
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October 23, 2025 at 9:31 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is CEASEFIRE/SUCCEED #wotd #ceasefire #succeed
Negotiators have succeeded in establishing a ceasefire, and in addition to this being a tremendous relief it’s also etymologically appropriate. Ceasefire first appeared in the 19th c., initially as a military command to stop shooting (as in sounding the ceasefire with bugles), and then as a (temporary) truce itself at the end of the First World War, developing from the verb phrase cease fire. The word cease first appeared in English around 1300, coming from Old French cesser “to come to an end, stop, cease; give up, desist”, from Latin cessare “to be remiss, delay, loiter, cease from, stop, give over”, the frequentative form of cedere “to go, to go from, to yield, withdraw, depart, retire, yield”, ultimately traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ked- “to go, yield”. Latin cedere was also combined with sub “under, below, beneath, underneath, behind” which as a prefix could have the meaning “next to, after, in addition to”, producing succedere “to go below, come under, enter; to follow, follow after, succeed”, which passed into Old French as succeder “to follow on”, and coming into English in the 14th c. initially with the sense “to come next after and take the place of”, as in “succeeding to a position of rule or an estate”, and then by the 15th c. developing its modern sense of “to turn out well, arrive at a happy issue, have a favourable result, terminate according to desire” as a shortening of the phrase to succeed well. And of course for a lasting peace, diplomacy is always necessary, a word also from this same PIE root, from the prefixed and suffixed form *ne-ked-ti- “(there is) no drawing back”, which became Latin necesse “inevitable, unavoidable” before passing through Old French into English.
October 20, 2025 at 4:52 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HARVEST/SCARCE #wotd #harvest #scarce #thanksgiving #CanadianThanksgiving #ThanksgivingCanada
Thanksgiving is all about the harvest, but for many people food can be scarce even at this time of year. The word harvest comes, through Old English hærfest “harvest, autumn” and Proto-Germanic *harbitaz, from the Proto-Indo-European root *kerp- which means “to gather, pluck”, and the Latin word from this same root, carpere “to pick, gather”, also through Old French gives us the English word scarce which develops from the sense of being “plucked out” and therefore “rare”. That Latin word is perhaps most famous from the phrase carpe diem, usually translated as “seize the day”, but the metaphor at work there is really a harvesting metaphor, like “harvest your crops when they’re ripe before they go bad”. And this PIE root *kerp- goes even further back to the form *(s)ker- which means “to cut, shear”, eventually giving us many English words, including share from the idea of a division or portion — so sharing gets around scarcity. This root also leads to the Latin word caro/carnis “flesh, meat”, as in the English word carnivore, which might bring to mind your Thanksgiving turkey.
October 13, 2025 at 3:30 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FURLOUGH/LOVE/LIVELONG #wotd #furlough #love #livelong #Shutdown2025 #GovernmentShutdown
No one loves a furlough of government workers, but hopefully it won’t last a livelong time. Furlough, the temporary layoff of workers, originally meant a “leave of absence”, with the first element related to the English intensifying or negating prefix for- meaning “away, opposite, completely” and the second element related to the English noun leave meaning “permission” (from Old English leaf “permission” and not at all related to the verb leave meaning “to go away, cause to remain”). It was borrowed into English in the 1620s from Dutch verlof meaning literally “permission” from Middle Dutch ver- “completely, for” + lof “permission”, which comes from Proto-Germanic *laubo, ultimately traceable back to *loubh- the o-grade form of Proto-Indo-European *leubh- “to care, desire, love” from the notion of “pleasure, approval”. The zero-grade form of this root *lubh- in the suffixed form *lubh-a- came into Germanic as *lubo which became Old English lufu “love” and Modern English love. As for the somewhat old fashioned word livelong meaning “very long” most often seen in the phrase livelong day, the first element is completely unrelated to the word live, but in fact comes from the PIE root *leubh-, specifically the suffixed form *leubh-o-, which came into Germanic as *leubaz, becoming Old English leof “dear, beloved”, which not only gave us the now archaic word lief “dearly, gladly, willingly”, but was also used as an emotional intensifier with the word long in Middle English to give us livelong literally “dear long”.
October 6, 2025 at 5:53 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
Today is Goose Day when geese are often eaten for Michaelmas, so the #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is GOOSE/SMORGASBORD #wotd #goose #smorgasbord #gooseday #Michaelmas
Etymologically speaking you should find goose served in a smorgasbord. Goose has a pretty straight forward history, from Old English gos, Proto-Germanic *gans-, and Proto-Indo-European *ghans- meaning “goose, swan” and is probably imitative of the honking sound the bird makes. Unsurprisingly Swedish has the word gås “goose”. What is more surprising is the Swedish compound word smörgås, which is literally “butter-goose” but is used to mean “slice of bread with butter”. The first element smör, related to English smear, is Swedish for “butter” and in this context gås means “lump of butter” by way of comparison to goose fat. Smörgåsbord then, with bord (related to English board) meaning “table”, came to refer to food served buffet-style, and entered English as smorgasbord eventually gaining the figurative sense of “medley, miscellany”.
September 29, 2025 at 9:20 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is FREE/AFRAID/FRIEND #wotd #free #afraid #friend #FreeSpeech #JimmyKimmel #StephenColbert
The Trump regime crackdown on free speech, cancelling late night hosts, might have some afraid, but no fear my friends, I don’t think they’ll be that easily frightened off the air. The word afraid was originally the past participle of the now rare verb affray “to frighten, terrify; to fear, be afraid of” (related to the noun affray “public fight, quarrel, brawl”). Affray, which surprisingly is not etymologically connected to either fear or fright, with the three all coming from completely separate origins, came into Middle English from Anglo-Norman French afrayer, Old French esfreer “to worry, concern, trouble, disturb”, ultimately from Vulgar Latin *exfridare literally “to take out of peace”, made up of the Latin prefix ex- “out of” + the Frankish word *frithu “peace”, from Proto-Germanic *frithuz “peace, consideration, forbearance” (also the source of the Old English word friðu “peace”), ultimately traceable back to *pri-tu- a suffixed form of the Proto-Indo-European root *pri- “to love, like, feel well-disposed, friendly”. The suffixed form of this root *priy-o- also came into Old English as freo becoming Modern English free, from the notion of those in your family or clan, whom you therefore “loved”, who were were “free” as opposed to the servants or slaves who were not “free”. Also the suffixed participial form of this same root *priy-ont- “loving” came into Old English as freond becoming Modern English friend.
September 22, 2025 at 4:42 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is KAREN/SURE/WORK #wotd #karen #sure #work #phillieskaren
We’ve all encountered Karens before: an entitled middle-aged white woman who is overly sure of herself and is quite a piece of work. The name Karen is a Danish shortened form of Katherine, from Medieval Latin Katerina, ultimately from Greek Aikaterine. The etymology of this Greek name is uncertain and much debated, but it might either come from the Greek word hekateros “each of two, each singly”, which itself comes from hekas “far off”, from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronoun *s(w)e “self”, which has many other English derivatives including sure from the Latin reflexive pronoun se “self” + cura “care” coming into English directly as secure and through Old French seur as English sure, or from the name Hekate, the Greek goddess of witchcraft and crossroads. The etymology of Hekate is itself uncertain, but it might come from Greek hekaergos, an epithet of Apollo meaning literally “far-worker” from that same word hekas “far off” + ergon “deed, work” from the PIE root *werg- “to do”, which also became Old English weorc and Modern English work.
September 15, 2025 at 5:17 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is WAR/WORSE & DEFENSE/BANE #wotd #war #worse #defense #bane #DepartmentofDefense #DepartmentofWar #DoD
Trump’s decision to rename the Department of Defense to the worse name Department of War clearly shows he wants the US to be the bane of world peace. The word war was borrowed into late Old English from Old North French werre “war”, which itself was borrowed from Frankish *werra, from Proto-Germanic *werz-a-, ultimately traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root *wers- “to confuse, mix up”, which also came directly into English as wyrsa “worse” and wyrsta “worse” from the comparative and superlative Germanic forms *wers-izon- and *wers-ista-, giving us Modern English worse and worst. The word defense comes into English from Old French defense, from Latin defensus, the past participle of defendere “to ward off, protect”, made up from the prefix de- “from, away” + -fendere “to strike, hit, push”, traceable back to PIE *gwhen-do-, a suffixed form of the root *gwhen- “to strike, kill”, which also had the o-grade form *gwhon-, which came into Old English as bana “slayer, cause of ruin or destruction” eventually giving us Modern English bane.
September 8, 2025 at 6:18 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is ENGAGEMENT/WEDDING/WAGER #wotd #engagement #wedding #wager #taylorswiftengaged #taylorandtravis
The engagement of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce likely means there’ll be wedding bells in their near future, and etymologically that’s worth a wager. Engage originally meant “to deposit or make over as a pledge; to bind or secure by a pledge”, from Old French engagier “bind (by promise or oath), pledge; pawn”, from the phrase en gage “under pledge”, from gage “pledge”, which came through Frankish ultimately from the Proto-Germanic root *wadja “pledge”. When the Franks, who were originally speakers of a Germanic language, brought their word into French, the native French speakers had trouble with that /w/ sound so they stuck a /g/ before it (which is also why the French form of William is Guillaume and why we have the pair warranty/guarantee). This Germanic root also came into Old English as weddian “to pledge oneself, covenant to do something, vow; betroth, marry” and weddung “state of being wed; pledge, betrothal; action of marrying”, giving us Modern English wed and wedding. The word wager also comes from this same Germanic root, but came into English directly through the Northern French dialect of the Normans (who were also Germanic speakers who later switched to French), so that original /w/ remains.
September 1, 2025 at 5:10 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is TEXT/SUBTLE #wotd #text #subtle #BackToSchool
Any English major can tell you that a text can be subtle and hard to understand. Latin textus meant literally “woven thing” but could metaphorically be used to refer to the “style or texture of a work” and eventually the “written work” itself. The Latin subtilis meant “finely woven” from sub- “under” + tela “web”. Both text and subtle can thus be traced back to the Proto-Indo-European root *teks- meaning “to weave”.
August 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
Today (Aug 18) is #HeliumDiscoveryDay marking the eclipse observation by Pierre Jules Janssen, who along with Joseph Lockyer is credited with the discovery of helium, so the #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HELIUM/SOLAR/SUN #wotd #helium #solar #sun #scicomm #lingcomm
During a solar eclipse in 1868 astronomer Joseph N. Lockyer (among others) discovered the element helium by studying the light of the sun, and etymologically this makes sense. Sun comes from Old English sunne, from Proto-Germanic *sunnon (related to *sunthaz “sun-side” eventually giving us the word south), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *s(u)wen- a variant form of *sawel- “sun”. The variant form *s(e)wol- led to Latin sol “sun” from which we get solar. The suffixed form *sawel-yo- led to Greek helios “sun”, and it’s from that Greek word that Lockyer coined the term helium.
August 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HEAT DOME/DANGEROUS #wotd #HeatDome #heat #hot #dangerous #danger #heatwave
A heat dome is caused by high pressure in the atmosphere pushing the air down and trapping the heat like a lid, and if people get too hot in these conditions it can be very dangerous. It’s probably obvious that heat and hot are related, from Old English hætu and hat respectively, from Proto-Germanic *haiti- and *haita-, from the extended form *kaid- of the Proto-Indo-European root *kai- “heat”. As for dome, it entered English in the 1650s from French dome “a town-house; a dome, a cupola", either from Italian duomo “house, house of God, high cupola, dome” (as a feature of Italian cathedrals as opposed to the arches of Gothic-style cathedrals), from Latin domus “house”, and/or from Greek doma “a house, housetop” (especially in reference to a style of roof from the east), related to domos “house”, in either case traceable ultimately to the PIE root *dem- “house, household”. From Latin domus also comes dominus “lord, master (of a household)”, which produced Vulgar Latin *dominarium “power of a lord”, then Old French dongier and dangier “power, power to harm, mastery, authority, control”, coming into English as danger in the 13th century. Heat domes are associated with climate change and that’s the real danger.
August 11, 2025 at 3:53 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
CFP: Patterns of Language: Meaning, Metaphor, and Metalinguistics
Modality: Virtual
Sponsor: Society for Medieval Languages and Linguistics
wmich.edu/medievalcong...
Patterns of Language: Meaning, Metaphor, and Metalinguistics Modality: Virtual Sponsor: Society for Medieval Languages and Linguistics Organizer: Andrew Troup (atroup@csub.edu) Paul A. Johnston Patricia Voichahoske Lehman Students of medieval texts look into a different culture through the lens of language. They see words, phrases, and discourses different from their own. Learning to decipher and interpret these language elements is essential to understanding medieval texts. For this session, we invite papers that focus on the elements of language: vocabulary, phrase structure, metrical patterns, and so forth. All disciplinary approaches to language study—linguistic, literary, rhetorical, philosophical, etc.—are welcome.
August 5, 2025 at 7:33 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is BALLROOM/SYMBOL/RUMMAGE #wotd #ballroom #symbol #rummage
It’s hard to miss the symbolism of Trump cancelling funding to public services like health care and public broadcasting, forcing them to rummage for their operating costs, and then building a $200 million ballroom on the White House, and the etymology only makes that clearer. The word room comes from Old English rum which originally meant “space, extent” with the modern sense “chamber” not arising until the 15th c., and it can be traced back to Proto-Germanic *rumaz and Proto-Indo-European *reuə- “to open; space”. This Germanic root also lies behind Middle Dutch ruim “space”, which was borrowed into French as the verb arrumer “to stow in a ship’s hold” and noun arrumage “arrangement of cargo”, and then borrowed into English as the noun rummage “stowage of cargo in a ship’s hold” in the 1520s and then converted into a verb in the 1540s meaning “arrange or stow cargo in a ship”, with the modern sense arising around 1600. Ball in the dancing sense comes from French bal “dance, social gathering for dancing”, from Old French baller “to dance” from Late Latin ballare “to dance”, which was borrowed from Greek ballizein “to dance, jump about” (from the notion of “throwing one’s body”), from ballein “to throw”, traceable back to the PIE root *gwelə- “to throw, reach”. From the Greek verb ballein also comes the noun bole meaning “a throw or stroke” and when combined with the prefix syn- “together” produced the word symbolon literally meaning “that which is thrown together” but taking on the meaning “sign, token”, which passed through Late Latin before being borrowed into English as symbol in the mid 15th c. As a final note, that PIE root meaning “to throw, reach” also had the extended sense “to pierce” and it’s in that sense that the suffixed zero-grade form *gwl-yo- passed into Proto-Germanic as *kuljan, which produced Old English cwellan “to kill, destroy” (giving us Modern English quell), which seems to have had an unrecorded variant *cyllan “to kill” which resurfaced c. 1200 giving us Modern English kill, and the other consequence of those health care cuts may be the killing of many people.
August 4, 2025 at 3:42 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is CANCEL/CIRCUMSCRIBE/DERANGED #wotd #cancel #circumscribe #deranged #StephenColbert
The cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert because of his unwillingness to be circumscribed by CBS’s attempts to placate a deranged President has caused a media circus, and etymologically that’s fitting. Cancel originally meant “to cross something out”, as you might cross out a word with lines, from Latin cancellare “to make a lattice”, which is closely related to Latin carcer “prison” from which we get English incarcerate. Though its etymology is uncertain, most likely it comes from Proto-Indo-European *krkr- “circular” from the idea of “an enclosure”, which would be a reduplicated form of the PIE root *(s)ker- “to turn, bend”. This root also came into Greek as kirkos “circle, ring” and was borrowed into Latin as circus (originally referring to the circular arena used for chariot races before being borrowed into English), and also becoming Latin circum “around”, which has become a prefix in a number of words such as circumscribe, literally “to write around”, but from the idea of “drawing a circle around” has come to mean “to confine, restrain”. This same root also came into Proto-Germanic as *hringaz “circle, ring” (the direct source of Old English hring “ring” and Modern English ring), and was borrowed into Old French through Frankish as reng “line, row”, producing the Old French verb rengier “to put into line”, which was then combined with the Latin-derived prefix des- “do the opposite of” to form Old French desrengier “disarrange, throw into disorder” and Modern French déranger, and borrowed into English in 1776, with the mental sense of “disorder the mind” by around 1790. All of this could have been avoided if said President had been properly incarcerated in the first place.
July 28, 2025 at 4:54 PM
alliterative.bsky.social
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is STARE/TORPOR/START #wotd #stare #torpor #torpid #start #GenZStare
Have you noticed the Gen Z stare, when they seem to be in a torpor leaving you to wonder when they’ll start speaking? The word stare comes from Old English starian “to gaze, stare”, from Proto-Germanic *staren, ultimately traceable back to Proto-Indo-European *stor-e-, a suffixed o-grade form of the root *ster- “stiff”, so it’s the idea of “stiffness” that actually underlies the word. In this more basic sense, an extended zero-grade form of this root *trp-e- came into Latin as torpere “to be stiff, be numb, be inactive, be torpid” and torpor “numbness, stupefaction, torpor, sluggishness”, from which we get the English words torpor and torpid. From the notion of “moving briskly, moving stiffly”, another extended form *sterd- came into Old English as styrtan “to start, leap up” (only attested in Old English as a present participle in the Northumbrian dialect as sturtende) giving us Modern English start, with the original notion of “move or spring suddenly” expanding to “awaken suddenly or abruptly; flinch or recoil in alarm” by around 1300, and then by the 1660s to “cause to begin acting or operating”, and it’s only by the 1820s that we see the meaning “to begin to move, leave, or depart; enter upon action” as we have it today.
July 21, 2025 at 6:53 PM