The Adventure of Words. 3rd. part From now onwards you won’t play a joke on Mike’s surname, as my first word today is Parsley. Parsley as surname and parsley as aromatic herb are true homonyms, words that share the same spelling and pronunciation, have different meanings and are unrelated in origin. The surname Parsley is of Norman origin, with variant spellings. Parsly, Parcely, Parsloe,Parslow,Paslow,Pashley, etc. It is derives from the Old French phrase “passelewe”, a compound of the elements “passé(r)”, to pass or cross (Latin “passare”), plus “l’ewe”, the water (Latin “aqua”), and probably was originally given as a nickname to a merchant or a ferryman who was in the habit of travelling overseas, or else someone who had been on a pilgrimage or crusade. It may also have been used as a topographic name for someone who lived on the opposite side of a watercourse from the main settlement. The surname is an altered form of the medieval family name “Passelewe”, assimilated by folk etymology to the herb name parsley. Folk etymology: isn’t real etymology, which is determined by rules of language change over time; it does not reflect natural historical changes in words. Rather, it represents “erroneous” changes made by people who mishear words, usually foreign words, and try to make theses words more “English”. A clear example of folk etymology is the word “artichoke”: this word came from Arabic “al harshuf” which Spanish borrowed as “alcarchofa”. Italian then changed the “L” to an “R” making it “articiocco”. This was still too exotic for English when its turn came to borrow this word. While “art”-even “Arty”- is a good English word, “ciocco” was not, so we converted it to “choke”. The result was that people thought for a long time the vegetable was so named because it could choke you on its “(he)art” if you weren’t careful eating it. Really! The surname was recorded in its Latinized form in the latter part of the 11th century. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Radulfus Passaqua. The manor of the village of Drayton Parslow in Buckinghamshire is recorded in the Domesday Book as being held by Radulfus Passaqua. After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, having prevailed over king Harold, granted most of Britain to his many victorious Barons. It was not uncommon to find a Baron, or a Bishop, with 60 or more Lordships scattered throughout the country. These he gave to his sons, nephews and other junior lines of his family and they became known as under-tenants. They adopted the Norman system of surnames which identified the under-tenants with his holdings so as to distinguish him from the senior stem of the family. After many rebellious wars between his Barons, Duke William, commissioned a census of all England to determine in 1086, setting once and for all, who held which land. He called the census the “Domesday Book”. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. One Ralph Passelewa was noted in Records of Bury St.Edmunds, in Suffolk, dated 1104. The forms Parsley, Parcely, etc., containing an intrusive “r”, first emerge in the early 16th century. Osbert Parsley, 1511-1585), musical composer, was for fifty years singing-Master at Norwich Cathedral. On September 6th 1555, Edward, son of John Parcely, was christened in Wilne, Derbyshire, and on May 22nd 1579, George Parsley, an infant, was christened at St. Giles, Cripplegate, London. The herb “parsley” comes from the classical Greek word “Petroselinum meaning “petros”, rock +”selinum”, celery. In English the etymology of the word “parsley” starts from Greek Petroselinon>Latin Petrocilium>Late Latin Petrosillum>Old English Petersilie>Middle English, influenced by Old French, Peresil> “parsley”. Nobody knows for sure, but its history in the Eastern Mediterranean is fascinating and dates from a very long way back. A quick glance at Greek mythology yields good results: Homer’s Odyssey, written around 7th century BC, has a description of “parsley” growing on the island of Ogygia, alas an imaginary place and, a century later, in the Nemean games the victor was rewarded with a crown of “parsley”. However, the present Greek name is “Maindanós” derived from the Turkish “Maydanoz”. Curious, isn’t it? What happened was that a Latin term related to an ancient Greek place-“Macedonence”- became a Turkish word-“Maydanoz”- and then a modern Greek word-“Maindanós”. All this happened because after the Turks arrived in Anatolia, over 9 centuries ago, they had to borrow a word for “parsley”, most certainly because they were new to this herb. The Arabic words “Maqdunis”/”Baqdunis” both derive from the Turkish “Maydanoz”. On the Iberian peninsula most of you are familiar with the Spanish word “Salsa”, meaning “sauce”. Not so in Portuguese, where Salsa means, just guess…”parsley”, of course! Hogmanay: it is not a pig resort but a Scottish festivity celebrated on the last day of the year. Children traditionally stroll about the neighbourhood on this day asking for presents. It also refers to the gifts given or received on Hogmanay. According to some people it has become a raucous New Year’s Eve party in many Scottish cities at which revelers sometimes do behave a bit swinishly. The traditional Hogmanay includes “first footing”, the welcoming of a tall, dark stranger at the stroke of midnight. First-footers bring good luck but should also bring a gift such as “uisge beatha”, “water of life” (where Gaelic “uisge” is the source of English “whiskey”). If the uisge is all sold out, a lump of coal or an oat cake called a “bannock” will suffice. This tradition reaches back to the Viking era, when the blond, blue-eyed Vikings brought only bad luck to whomever they visited. The sense of “Hogmanay” corresponds to that of Old French “aguillanneuf, from the phrase “au gui l’an neuf”, “under the New Year’s mistletoe”, which refers to the last day of the year or the gift given at that time. In modern French dialects it survives as “aiguilan”, “guilané”, and “guillanneau”, but in Normandy it is “hoguinané”, the most probable source of the Scottish English term. Bonfire: This word has remained a lexical orphan with no family since its birth in the 15th century. En England bonfire Night is still celebrated. “Bonfire Night is a synonym for Guy Fawkes Night, since in some towns and villages bonfires are lit in celebration of this annual event. On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested while guarding the explosives placed beneath the House of Lords in the infamous Gunpowder Plot to blow it up. In celebration of the survival of king James’s government, bonfires were set around London. Since then they have become the signature event of Guy Fawkes Night. The origin of the English word is Scots English banefire “bonefine”. It was common at one time for the people of a village to save up animal bones and burn them in a large fire on special occasions. “Bone” is a purely Germanic word, cousin of both Dutch been “bone, leg” and German “Bein” “leg”. Fire is a distant cousin to Czech “pyr” “hot ashes” and Greek “pyr” “fire”, which we borrowed as (funeral) “pyre”. “Fyr” in Old English, from Proto Germanic “fuir”. It is a near cousin to German “Feuer” “fire” and similar words in other Germanic languages. Until Middle English it was spelled “fier”, which explains the alternate spelling of “fiery”. Wiki: This word is very popular in compounds, wikileaks( a website on which state secrets are being posted), wikipedia, wiktionary. This word originated in the name of the original wiki, wikiwikiweb. Ward Cunningham, an American computer programmer, was the first to coin the term when he developed the initial technology to make web pages quickly. Rather than call his invention “Quickweb”, he used the Hawaiian word for “quick”, wiki, after riding a wiki-wiki bus at the Honolulu airport. As in most languages repeating this Hawaiian word intensifies its meaning, hence “wikiwiki´” means “really quick”, just like “quickquick” in English. Still, the quickest way to say “quick” in Hawaiian is with one wiki, so half the original term was rubbed away by subsequent history. Yankee: 1. A native or inhabitant of New England. 2. A native or inhabitant of a northern U.S. state, especially a Union soldier during the Civil War 3. A native or inhabitant of the United States. The origin of Yankee has been the subject of much debate, but the most likely source is the Dutch name “Jan kees” meaning “little Jan” or “little John”, a nickname that dates back to the 1680s. Perhaps because it was used as the name of pirates, the name “Yankee” came to be used as a term of contempt. It was used this way in the 1750s by General James Wolfe, the British general who secured British domination of North America by defeating the French at Quebec. The name may have been applied to New Englanders as an extension of an original use referring to Dutch settlers living along the Hudson River. Whatever the reason, Yankee is first recorded in 1765 as a name for an inhabitant of New England. The first recorded use of the term by the British to refer to Americans in general appears in the 1780s in a letter by Lord Horatio Nelson, no less. Around the same time it began to be abbreviated to Yank. During the American Revolution, American soldiers adopted this term of derision as term of national pride. The derisive use nonetheless remained alive and even intensified in the South during the Civil War, when it referred not to all Americans, but to those loyal to the Union. Now the term carries less emotion, except of course for baseball fans. Cuckold: A man whose wife is having an affair with another man (or woman). Although adultery can be a serious matter, we can treat this word as a joke. Cuckold is an oddity: a pejorative term for men with no corresponding word for women. Much more frequently the situation is just the reverse. However, I have found the female equivalent, “cuckquean” first appears in English literature in 1562, adding a suffix to the “cuck” (“quean” means a disreputable woman, prostitute, but in Scottish is a woman that is young or unmarried). We may use this word freely as a verb in referring to a woman who cuckolds her husband. The earliest written use of the Middle English derivation “cokewold” occurs in 1250. It is an adaptation of an Old French word “cucualt”, based on cucu “cuckoo” plus a pejorative personal suffix-“alt”, sometimes-“ald”, that was borrowed from a Germanic language. The betrayed husband is associated with the cuckoo bird because of that bird’s habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds. Since the cuckold cannot be certain of his parentage of the children he is raising, he is said to be like the cuckoo. Let’s take a look at the word “wittol”, an archaic term for cuckold, first appears in 1520, coming from”wetewold” around the 15th century, formed by “wete” meaning witting or knowing and “wold” from “cokewold”, “cuckold”. In this case the “wittol” knows of and tolerates his wife’s infidelity. Pilgrim: 1. A vagabond, wanderer, wayfarer, traveler. 2. A religious devotee who travels a long distance to a sacred site. Pilgrims make pilgrimages. We may also pilgrimage to a special site, using the noun as a verb without any prefix or suffix. The austere Puritans who founded Plymouth, Massachussets, in 1620 were called “pilgrims” because they fled religious persecution in England to a new home in America. The term was first applied in Governor William Bradford’s Journal of Plimouth Plantation, written between 1630 and 1650. Only half the 102 original Pilgrims survived their first winter at Plymouth. The remainder, with strong support of local Native Americans, survived to multiply and, joined by many others over the succeeding years, spread across the continent to build a nation. I’m sure you’ve always wondered what falcons and pilgrims have in common. Today we find out. Pilgrim is a folk etymological rendering of Old French “peligrin”, since “pil(l)” and “grim” are true English words. Old French(modern French “pélerin”) inherited the word from Latin “peregrinus” “foreigner, stranger” not a Roman citizen, an adjective derived from “pereger” “traveller”. “Pereger” was originally a compound comprising “per” “through, beyond” +”ager” “land, field”, also found in “agriculture”. The root behind “ager” came through the Germanic line to English “acre”. The peregrine falcon’s name came from a Latin phrase, “falco peregrinus”, so named because they were captured during migration rather than taken from their nest as fledglings. “Peregrino”, in Spanish, first appears in the Gonzalo de Berceo’s poems in the XIII century to call the Christians who travelled to Rome or Palestine to visit the holy sites. Willy-nilly: 1. “Nolens volens” (Latin phrase: quieras o no , voluntariamente o a la fuerza).( it isn't clear whether the English version is a simple translation of that). Like it or not, without a choice, obligatorily 2. At random, haphazardly, without plan.(sin ton ni son, al tuntún)) This word has strayed away from its original meaning and is used more often in the second sense above in the US. The word history will show that the first definition above is the basic meaning, though the new one seems to be here, willy-nilly, to stay. This word may be used as an adverb, as to do something willy-nilly, or as an adjective, as a willy-nilly order to do something. The repeating of parts of words to make new forms is called reduplication.This word is a rhyming compound based on two discrete words. It originated in a phrase “will ye, nill ye”, “whether you will (it) or not”. “Nill” is the negative counterpart of “will” that went out of service back in the 18th century. It was a contraction of “ne” (currently “nay”) + “will”. In the middle ages English speakers could say something like “I will go or I nill go”, the latter meaning “I won’t go”. “Will” came from an original stem that spread with all the Indo-European languages. It originally meant something like “to please”, for it turned up in Russian as “volya” “will”, in Serbian as “voleti” “to love”, in Greek as “elpis” “hope”, and in French as “vouloir””want, desire”. Shakespeare was familiar with, and apparently quite fond of, the expression in various forms. He used it in The Taming of the Shrew, 1596: Petruchio: [To Katharina] Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on; And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you. [I.e. I will marry you, whether you like it or not.] and again, in Hamlet: First Clown: Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes. [I.e. If a man chooses to drown he enters the water, if he chooses not, he leaves.] The 'undecided' meaning of the expression appears to have spawned the later 'shilly-shally'. The OED is a little lax in dating this from the end of the 19th century. They cite Sir Walter Besant's novel The Orange Girl, 1898: "Let us have no more shilly shally, willy nilly talk." Chauvinism: 1. Exaggerated, blind patriotism to one`s country. 2. Blind partisan commitment to any cause or position to the absolute exclusion of consideration of any other position. It is an “eponym” in Nicholas Chauvin, a soldier of Napoleon’s Grand Armèe. (Eponym: is a word derived from the proper name of a person or place, as “sandwich” or “maverick”. From the Greek meaning “named after”: “epo”= after and “nym”= name.).

The adventure of Words. 3rd. part

The Adventure of Words. 3rd. part From now onwards you won’t play a joke on Mike’s surname, as my first word today is Parsley. Parsley as surname and parsley as aromatic herb are true homonyms, words that share the same spelling and pronunciation, have different meanings and are unrelated in origin. The surname Parsley is of Norman origin, with variant spellings. Parsly, Parcely, Parsloe,Parslow,Paslow,Pashley, etc. It is derives from the Old French phrase “passelewe”, a compound of the elements “passé(r)”, to pass or cross (Latin “passare”), plus “l’ewe”, the water (Latin “aqua”), and probably was originally given as a nickname to a merchant or a ferryman who was in the habit of travelling overseas, or else someone who had been on a pilgrimage or crusade. It may also have been used as a topographic name for someone who lived on the opposite side of a watercourse from the main settlement. The surname is an altered form of the medieval family name “Passelewe”, assimilated by folk etymology to the herb name parsley. Folk etymology: isn’t real etymology, which is determined by rules of language change over time; it does not reflect natural historical changes in words. Rather, it represents “erroneous” changes made by people who mishear words, usually foreign words, and try to make theses words more “English”. A clear example of folk etymology is the word “artichoke”: this word came from Arabic “al harshuf” which Spanish borrowed as “alcarchofa”. Italian then changed the “L” to an “R” making it “articiocco”. This was still too exotic for English when its turn came to borrow this word. While “art”-even “Arty”- is a good English word, “ciocco” was not, so we converted it to “choke”. The result was that people thought for a long time the vegetable was so named because it could choke you on its “(he)art” if you weren’t careful eating it. Really! The surname was recorded in its Latinized form in the latter part of the 11th century. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Radulfus Passaqua. The manor of the village of Drayton Parslow in Buckinghamshire is recorded in the Domesday Book as being held by Radulfus Passaqua. After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, having prevailed over king Harold, granted most of Britain to his many victorious Barons. It was not uncommon to find a Baron, or a Bishop, with 60 or more Lordships scattered throughout the country. These he gave to his sons, nephews and other junior lines of his family and they became known as under-tenants. They adopted the Norman system of surnames which identified the under-tenants with his holdings so as to distinguish him from the senior stem of the family. After many rebellious wars between his Barons, Duke William, commissioned a census of all England to determine in 1086, setting once and for all, who held which land. He called the census the “Domesday Book”. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. One Ralph Passelewa was noted in Records of Bury St.Edmunds, in Suffolk, dated 1104. The forms Parsley, Parcely, etc., containing an intrusive “r”, first emerge in the early 16th century. Osbert Parsley, 1511-1585), musical composer, was for fifty years singing-Master at Norwich Cathedral. On September 6th 1555, Edward, son of John Parcely, was christened in Wilne, Derbyshire, and on May 22nd 1579, George Parsley, an infant, was christened at St. Giles, Cripplegate, London. The herb “parsley” comes from the classical Greek word “Petroselinum meaning “petros”, rock +”selinum”, celery. In English the etymology of the word “parsley” starts from Greek Petroselinon>Latin Petrocilium>Late Latin Petrosillum>Old English Petersilie>Middle English, influenced by Old French, Peresil> “parsley”. Nobody knows for sure, but its history in the Eastern Mediterranean is fascinating and dates from a very long way back. A quick glance at Greek mythology yields good results: Homer’s Odyssey, written around 7th century BC, has a description of “parsley” growing on the island of Ogygia, alas an imaginary place and, a century later, in the Nemean games the victor was rewarded with a crown of “parsley”. However, the present Greek name is “Maindanós” derived from the Turkish “Maydanoz”. Curious, isn’t it? What happened was that a Latin term related to an ancient Greek place-“Macedonence”- became a Turkish word-“Maydanoz”- and then a modern Greek word-“Maindanós”. All this happened because after the Turks arrived in Anatolia, over 9 centuries ago, they had to borrow a word for “parsley”, most certainly because they were new to this herb. The Arabic words “Maqdunis”/”Baqdunis” both derive from the Turkish “Maydanoz”. On the Iberian peninsula most of you are familiar with the Spanish word “Salsa”, meaning “sauce”. Not so in Portuguese, where Salsa means, just guess…”parsley”, of course! Hogmanay: it is not a pig resort but a Scottish festivity celebrated on the last day of the year. Children traditionally stroll about the neighbourhood on this day asking for presents. It also refers to the gifts given or received on Hogmanay. According to some people it has become a raucous New Year’s Eve party in many Scottish cities at which revelers sometimes do behave a bit swinishly. The traditional Hogmanay includes “first footing”, the welcoming of a tall, dark stranger at the stroke of midnight. First-footers bring good luck but should also bring a gift such as “uisge beatha”, “water of life” (where Gaelic “uisge” is the source of English “whiskey”). If the uisge is all sold out, a lump of coal or an oat cake called a “bannock” will suffice. This tradition reaches back to the Viking era, when the blond, blue-eyed Vikings brought only bad luck to whomever they visited. The sense of “Hogmanay” corresponds to that of Old French “aguillanneuf, from the phrase “au gui l’an neuf”, “under the New Year’s mistletoe”, which refers to the last day of the year or the gift given at that time. In modern French dialects it survives as “aiguilan”, “guilané”, and “guillanneau”, but in Normandy it is “hoguinané”, the most probable source of the Scottish English term. Bonfire: This word has remained a lexical orphan with no family since its birth in the 15th century. En England bonfire Night is still celebrated. “Bonfire Night is a synonym for Guy Fawkes Night, since in some towns and villages bonfires are lit in celebration of this annual event. On November 5, 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested while guarding the explosives placed beneath the House of Lords in the infamous Gunpowder Plot to blow it up. In celebration of the survival of king James’s government, bonfires were set around London. Since then they have become the signature event of Guy Fawkes Night. The origin of the English word is Scots English banefire “bonefine”. It was common at one time for the people of a village to save up animal bones and burn them in a large fire on special occasions. “Bone” is a purely Germanic word, cousin of both Dutch been “bone, leg” and German “Bein” “leg”. Fire is a distant cousin to Czech “pyr” “hot ashes” and Greek “pyr” “fire”, which we borrowed as (funeral) “pyre”. “Fyr” in Old English, from Proto Germanic “fuir”. It is a near cousin to German “Feuer” “fire” and similar words in other Germanic languages. Until Middle English it was spelled “fier”, which explains the alternate spelling of “fiery”. Wiki: This word is very popular in compounds, wikileaks( a website on which state secrets are being posted), wikipedia, wiktionary. This word originated in the name of the original wiki, wikiwikiweb. Ward Cunningham, an American computer programmer, was the first to coin the term when he developed the initial technology to make web pages quickly. Rather than call his invention “Quickweb”, he used the Hawaiian word for “quick”, wiki, after riding a wiki-wiki bus at the Honolulu airport. As in most languages repeating this Hawaiian word intensifies its meaning, hence “wikiwiki´” means “really quick”, just like “quickquick” in English. Still, the quickest way to say “quick” in Hawaiian is with one wiki, so half the original term was rubbed away by subsequent history. Yankee: 1. A native or inhabitant of New England. 2. A native or inhabitant of a northern U.S. state, especially a Union soldier during the Civil War 3. A native or inhabitant of the United States. The origin of Yankee has been the subject of much debate, but the most likely source is the Dutch name “Jan kees” meaning “little Jan” or “little John”, a nickname that dates back to the 1680s. Perhaps because it was used as the name of pirates, the name “Yankee” came to be used as a term of contempt. It was used this way in the 1750s by General James Wolfe, the British general who secured British domination of North America by defeating the French at Quebec. The name may have been applied to New Englanders as an extension of an original use referring to Dutch settlers living along the Hudson River. Whatever the reason, Yankee is first recorded in 1765 as a name for an inhabitant of New England. The first recorded use of the term by the British to refer to Americans in general appears in the 1780s in a letter by Lord Horatio Nelson, no less. Around the same time it began to be abbreviated to Yank. During the American Revolution, American soldiers adopted this term of derision as term of national pride. The derisive use nonetheless remained alive and even intensified in the South during the Civil War, when it referred not to all Americans, but to those loyal to the Union. Now the term carries less emotion, except of course for baseball fans. Cuckold: A man whose wife is having an affair with another man (or woman). Although adultery can be a serious matter, we can treat this word as a joke. Cuckold is an oddity: a pejorative term for men with no corresponding word for women. Much more frequently the situation is just the reverse. However, I have found the female equivalent, “cuckquean” first appears in English literature in 1562, adding a suffix to the “cuck” (“quean” means a disreputable woman, prostitute, but in Scottish is a woman that is young or unmarried). We may use this word freely as a verb in referring to a woman who cuckolds her husband. The earliest written use of the Middle English derivation “cokewold” occurs in 1250. It is an adaptation of an Old French word “cucualt”, based on cucu “cuckoo” plus a pejorative personal suffix-“alt”, sometimes-“ald”, that was borrowed from a Germanic language. The betrayed husband is associated with the cuckoo bird because of that bird’s habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds. Since the cuckold cannot be certain of his parentage of the children he is raising, he is said to be like the cuckoo. Let’s take a look at the word “wittol”, an archaic term for cuckold, first appears in 1520, coming from”wetewold” around the 15th century, formed by “wete” meaning witting or knowing and “wold” from “cokewold”, “cuckold”. In this case the “wittol” knows of and tolerates his wife’s infidelity. Pilgrim: 1. A vagabond, wanderer, wayfarer, traveler. 2. A religious devotee who travels a long distance to a sacred site. Pilgrims make pilgrimages. We may also pilgrimage to a special site, using the noun as a verb without any prefix or suffix. The austere Puritans who founded Plymouth, Massachussets, in 1620 were called “pilgrims” because they fled religious persecution in England to a new home in America. The term was first applied in Governor William Bradford’s Journal of Plimouth Plantation, written between 1630 and 1650. Only half the 102 original Pilgrims survived their first winter at Plymouth. The remainder, with strong support of local Native Americans, survived to multiply and, joined by many others over the succeeding years, spread across the continent to build a nation. I’m sure you’ve always wondered what falcons and pilgrims have in common. Today we find out. Pilgrim is a folk etymological rendering of Old French “peligrin”, since “pil(l)” and “grim” are true English words. Old French(modern French “pélerin”) inherited the word from Latin “peregrinus” “foreigner, stranger” not a Roman citizen, an adjective derived from “pereger” “traveller”. “Pereger” was originally a compound comprising “per” “through, beyond” +”ager” “land, field”, also found in “agriculture”. The root behind “ager” came through the Germanic line to English “acre”. The peregrine falcon’s name came from a Latin phrase, “falco peregrinus”, so named because they were captured during migration rather than taken from their nest as fledglings. “Peregrino”, in Spanish, first appears in the Gonzalo de Berceo’s poems in the XIII century to call the Christians who travelled to Rome or Palestine to visit the holy sites. Willy-nilly: 1. “Nolens volens” (Latin phrase: quieras o no , voluntariamente o a la fuerza).( it isn't clear whether the English version is a simple translation of that). Like it or not, without a choice, obligatorily 2. At random, haphazardly, without plan.(sin ton ni son, al tuntún)) This word has strayed away from its original meaning and is used more often in the second sense above in the US. The word history will show that the first definition above is the basic meaning, though the new one seems to be here, willy-nilly, to stay. This word may be used as an adverb, as to do something willy-nilly, or as an adjective, as a willy-nilly order to do something. The repeating of parts of words to make new forms is called reduplication.This word is a rhyming compound based on two discrete words. It originated in a phrase “will ye, nill ye”, “whether you will (it) or not”. “Nill” is the negative counterpart of “will” that went out of service back in the 18th century. It was a contraction of “ne” (currently “nay”) + “will”. In the middle ages English speakers could say something like “I will go or I nill go”, the latter meaning “I won’t go”. “Will” came from an original stem that spread with all the Indo-European languages. It originally meant something like “to please”, for it turned up in Russian as “volya” “will”, in Serbian as “voleti” “to love”, in Greek as “elpis” “hope”, and in French as “vouloir””want, desire”. Shakespeare was familiar with, and apparently quite fond of, the expression in various forms. He used it in The Taming of the Shrew, 1596: Petruchio: [To Katharina] Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on; And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you. [I.e. I will marry you, whether you like it or not.] and again, in Hamlet: First Clown: Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes. [I.e. If a man chooses to drown he enters the water, if he chooses not, he leaves.] The 'undecided' meaning of the expression appears to have spawned the later 'shilly-shally'. The OED is a little lax in dating this from the end of the 19th century. They cite Sir Walter Besant's novel The Orange Girl, 1898: "Let us have no more shilly shally, willy nilly talk." Chauvinism: 1. Exaggerated, blind patriotism to one`s country. 2. Blind partisan commitment to any cause or position to the absolute exclusion of consideration of any other position. It is an “eponym” in Nicholas Chauvin, a soldier of Napoleon’s Grand Armèe. (Eponym: is a word derived from the proper name of a person or place, as “sandwich” or “maverick”. From the Greek meaning “named after”: “epo”= after and “nym”= name.).