Alright, today, I’d like to have a very brief discussion about two words that are often confused in everyday speech: Etymology and Entomology.

Etymology

Pronounced “eh-ta-MAH-lo-gee” (/ɛtəmalədʒi/), Etymology is the study of the origin of words. Many words end up in English after traveling through several languages and permutations, and often, the etymology of words can be fascinating.

For instance, according the Oxford American Dictionary, the etymology of the word “Orange” is as follows:

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French orenge (in the phrase pomme d’orenge), based on Arabic nāranj, from Persian nārang.

Sometimes, words will be incorporated into other languages at different stages in its evolution. Those of you who speak Spanish will likely recognize “Naranja” as a pretty clear derivation from the Arabic. However, the modern Russian word for orange, “aranzhevii”, is likely an import from later in the word’s evolution, perhaps from the French.

Keep in mind, though, not all words have a clear etymology. For instance, there’s still considerable debate about the origin of the word/phrase “OK” (see here, here, and the Wikipedia page).

Etymology is a really fascinating area. I’ve posted many times about different word origins (here, here and here, to start), and I’ll likely continue to do so, as they’re usually pretty interesting. Giving word origins can also be quite an entertaining party trick, too, if you’re sufficiently nerdy.

Entomology (pronounced “en-ta-MAH-lo-gee” (/ɛntəmalədʒi/)), on the other hand, is the study of insects. That’s right. Creepy, crawly insects.

Although the Wikipedia article on the subject will be able to tell you much more about this science, my main point is that Entomology is very, very different from etymology.

“So, how does the study of insects pertain to this phrase…?”

Very frequently, people will ask me for the “entomology” of a word, and it can be quite difficult sometimes to avoid discussing how the word relates to insects. I understand that they’re both unusual words, and I also understand that they’re pretty similar, but at the same time, I beg you, please note the difference.

Etymologies are a truly fascinating subject, and can really help a person grow closer to the language they speak. I’m sure that Entomology is cool too, although personally, I prefer suffixes to centipedes. That’s just me, though.

PS: I’ve just added a link under “Language Sites and Blogs” that gives the Etymology of all 50 US state names. Very cool site, and highly related.

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Language Usage, Speech and Grammar Errors, Words, Phrases, and Idioms | 14 Comments


As I mentioned before, I’ve spent the last few days out of town, at a major conference for one of my other jobs. The conference was interesting to me as a phonetician, hearing all the various accents from around the country, but the most interesting (and funny) language moment occurred during the closing ceremonies.

A slip worthy of the ages

The conference, discussing Residence Hall life, took place on a college campus, and the 1000+ people attending were each assigned rooms in the Residence Halls on campus. So, everybody was staying in first-year dorms, with the same shared bathrooms, roommates, and tiny rooms as any incoming student would have. By no means were these luxury accommodations, but they didn’t have to be, we’re all used to Dorm life anyways, and what was provided was quite sufficient for the weekend.

Perhaps most wonderful Freudian slip I’ve seen in a long time happened during the closing ceremonies for this conference. So, myself and 1000+ other people are sitting in the main arena, and one of the conference coordinators is speaking to the entire group. He’s going through and thanking each different group or committee that made the conference possible, and then finally, he says (paraphrased) “I’d like to thank the University’s Housing and Conference services department for providing us with our unremarkable accommodations”.

A long moment passed, and then a good portion of the arena burst into laughter. He realized several seconds later what he had said, but by then, it was too late, and his correction was overwhelmed by the laughter, and his original meaning of “remarkable accommodations” was lost to history.

This is a truly amazing example of a “Freudian slip”.

Parapraxis 101

A Freudian Slip (or Parapraxis) is where one’s subconscious thoughts are somehow expressed on the surface through their words or actions. This often happens through name replacement (“I love you Laura” when Laura is your mistress’ name, not your wife’s), or through other “slips of the tongue” (“I would do anything to you” as opposed to “I would do anything for you”). No matter the form it takes, the most basic requirement for a speech error to be considered an instance of Parapraxis is that you end up communicating something you didn’t intend to but were likely thinking subconsciously.

According the Wikipedia article on Freudian Slips, Freud thought that these slips had a psychological meaning:

The Freudian slip is named after Sigmund Freud, who described the phenomenon he called Fehlleistung (literally meaning “faulty action” in German, but termed as parapraxis in English) in his 1901 book The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Freud gives several examples of seemingly trivial, bizarre or nonsensical Freudian slips in Psychopathology; the analysis is often quite lengthy and complex, as was the case with many of the dreams in The Interpretation of Dreams.

Popularization of the term has diluted its technical meaning in some contexts to include any slip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, often in an attempt by the user to humorously assign hidden motives or sexual innuendo to the mistake. It is not clear, however, what Freud considered an “innocent” mistake, or if he thought that there were any innocent mistakes. The enormous quantity of slips analyzed in psychopathology, many of which are banal or apparently trivial, would seem to indicate that Freud felt almost any seemingly tiny slip or hesitation would respond to analysis.

Context is everything

The social power of these slips lies in the context in which they occur. For instance, had we all been housed in a five star hotel and the speaker still said “unremarkable”, it might still be funny, but it’d be more of a simple speech error. The beauty of a Freudian slip comes from the fact that it reveals the truth (or one’s true feelings), even while a person tries to cover it up.

Because everybody knew that the accommodations were, in fact, quite unremarkable, when he misspoke, it was both extremely funny and extremely telling. He unconsciously violated the social norm as well as catching himself in his own distortion of the truth in front of 1000+ people.

So, the moral of this story is that you’re never safe from your own inner thoughts. Although some people can become very adept at lying (or mild distortion of the truth), a single speech error could pop up and blow your entire cover. You can pay close attention to your words, and try to suppress your subconscious, but sooner or later, everybody slips up.

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Language and Thought, Language Humor, Psycholinguistics, Speech and Grammar Errors | 2 Comments


Sometimes I have to go looking for some sort of linguistic phenomenon to discuss, but other days, they seem to just fall into my lap. In this case, it fell into my inbox, in a mail from one of the school administrators:

…information about a new course…

This will not show up on the web until about the middle of next week, but is for your FYI.

FYI: An explanation of FYI

For those you unfamiliar with the English acronym, “FYI” stands for “For your information”. Generally, it’s just used to indicate that a message or bit of info is relevant to somebody. It started in the corporate world, but seems to have spread from there into everyday use. Here are a few usage examples from the EnronSent corpus:

enronsent27:28740:I received this today. FYI and follow-up if you’re interested.
enronsent42:12:4. FYI – Entities which have an asterik(*) are qualified in foreign jurisdictions and may, according to statute, need to file amended Certificates of Authority to reflect that they are now Manager managed.
enronsent43:24017:Thanks for the reminder. Just an FYI – it is not babysitting when it is your own kids. (Just kidding – wanting to share a pet peeve of my sister’s.)

Generally, it’s used in one of three ways. Sometimes, it’s used simply as an abbreviation, standing in for the full phrase, as in the first example above.

Other times, you’ll have an “FYI – ….information…” construction. Here, FYI (as a whole) means “The reason I’m sending this your way is because you probably want to know this”. See the second example.

Finally, FYI has become a noun for some people. You’ll get things like “This is just an FYI, but…” when somebody is trying to politely let somebody know of a hole in their knowledge of a situation. “An FYI” is a polite reminder or tidbit of information somebody might find useful.

However, I’ve never seen anybody say “For your FYI” before.

For your FYI? Call the department of redundancy department

“For your FYI” is a very interesting construction. I sincerely doubt that she was intending to say “for your for your information”, and I doubt that she was intending to say that the information was intended for our tidbit of information.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t an isolated incident. A simple google search for “for your FYI” brought up several different sites containing the phrase (here, here and here), and even a CD titled “For your FYI”. On the site for the CD, there’s even a remark about the strangeness (and origin) of the title:

Exit 245′s second CD “For Your FYI” was released in 2001. The CD got it’s title from an email from current member Jason Robey who sent an email letting the group know “For their FYI” about an upcoming concert. The inside joke made it as the CD title and the disc features 15 songs a hidden track.

So, I’m not the only person who finds it strange.

Don’t worry, if you use it, I won’t call the Federal FBI

What’s happening here? Well, truthfully, I’m not sure.

One theory would be that people are forgetting (or ignoring) what people actually mean by “FYI”. Perhaps it is no longer viewed by this person as meaning “For your information”. Instead, it seems to have become an amorphous sort of word referring to “useful information”. Thus, what she really meant to say was “For your useful information”. Not terribly far from where we started, I know, but language works in mysterious ways.

I might be willing to chalk this up to linguistic randomness if “for your FYI” were the only case. However, this seems to be a trend. I found several google hits for “federal FBI” (federal federal bureau of investigation), and a handful for “hd drive” (hard drive drive). The people at PC Computer Notes (personal computer computer notes) might well be able to tell us something about this phenomenon, and it might be worthwhile to ask the next person you see discussing their “SUV vehicle” (sport utility vehicle vehicle). There might even be some posts made on language related web blogs (web web-logs) about it.

If you’ve got any ideas of what the linguistic explanation might be, I’d love to hear it As I said, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here. I just know that it’s happening, and it’s interesting to watch.

The moral of this story: keep your eyes open, you never know what sorts of interesting language you’ll find, even places as boring as your electronic email.

Tagged with Conventional Linguistics, Language Change, Language Usage, Speech and Grammar Errors, Words, Phrases, and Idioms | 17 Comments

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