Saturday, January 31, 2009

Words with interesting origins - people

A number of words in English have originated from the names of people.
  1. biro: (ball-point pen) named after Laszlo Biro, its Hungarian inventor (pena) not a bureau
  2. boycott: (refuse to deal with or a refusal to deal with) after a landlord in Ireland who made himself unpopular by his treatment of his tenants and was socially isolated (boikot)
  3. Braille: (name of raised writing system used by blind people) from the name of its French inventor, Louis Braille
  4. chauvinist: (strong belief that your country or race is superior to others) after the French guy, Nicolas Chauvin, who fanatically devoted to Napoleon
  5. Hooligan: (a rough, lawless youth) from the Irish family name, Hooligan
  6. Machiavellian: (cunning/cerdik, deceitful/curang, unscrupulous/jahat in the pursuit of a goal) from Niccolo Machiavelli, the Italian statesman who died in 1527
  7. mentor: (loyal and wise adviser) from mentor, friend to Odysseus (penasehat)
  8. pamphlet: (a small leaflet) from a character Phampilus, in a 12th century love poem
  9. to pander: (to indulge someone's desires) from Pandaros, a procurer or pimp in Ancient Greek mythology (kaki tangan)
  10. saxophone: (a musical instuments) invented by the Belgian, Adolphe Sax
  11. tawdry: (cheap and tasteless)  from St Audrey, at whose annual fair in the town of Ely, near Cambridge, cheap gaudy scarves were sold (norak)
  12. watt: (unit of power) from the 18th century Scottish inventor, James Wat
  13. herculean: (needing great strength and determination) from the mythical Greek hero, son of Zeus and Alcmena, famous for his strength. 
  14. platonic: (affectionate but not sexual) from Greek philosopher, Plato(bersifat persaudaraan)
  15. teddy bear: (a doll) named after the president of USA Theodore Roosevelt
  16. Caesarean section/ C-section: (a surgical procedure to deliver baby) from Julius Caesar a great Roman dictator who was believed born with this method
  17. July: (7th month of Gregorian calendar) also named after Julius Caesar, who was born in that month, previousely called Quintilis
  18. magnolia:(ornamental shrub/tree which bears a large white or pink flower) from Pierre Magnol, a French botanist who introduced plant natural classification
  19. atlas: (a collection of maps) from King Atlas, king of Mauretania who made fist celestial globe; or from Atlas, a figure from Greek mythology who bear the weight of heaven (not earth actually)
  20. dahlia: (a flowering plant) from Anders Dahl, a Swedish botanist
  21. freesia: (a flowering plant) the genus was named in honour of Frierich Henrich Theodor Freese, a German physcian
  22. begonia: (also a flowering plant) from Michel Begon, a former governor of the French colony, Haiti
      
    magnolia                          dahlia

    
             begonia                         freesia

Here are some sentences using the words above.

He's been like a mentor to me, and we have a platonic friendship that even her girlfriend is not jealous with our relationship. We both have difficult problem in our work, and we think that we need herculean effort to deal with it. We agreed each other that we won't boycott the policy that company  had been made, nor use machiavellian way. On the other side, our opponents spreaded pamphlets issuing the bad company condition. 
I was stressed that time and my migraine recurred. To cheer me up, my boyfriend send me a bunch of flower, from dahlia, begonia, freesia, and magnolia. It's so amazing that I worked on the after day.

cookies:
Missisipi is known as magnolia state, and Houston, Texas is known as magnolia city.

 

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