word origins site
While searching for the origins of the the spelling of "colonel" for my class, who found it a most unlikely spelling,
I found a most intriguing web site: http://www.takeourword.com/index.html
Here I learned the relationship between opera and manure, the *etymological* relationship, that is!
I couldn't figure out how to link to it directly; it's one of the back issues. Give them a look!
It says:
http://www.operaam.org/Now, if we said the word opera to you, it is unlikely that your next thought would be "manure". Well, OK, perhaps it's not that unlikely, but let's pretend for a moment that you're neither a scatologically inclined philistine nor an etymologist. [There's a difference? - M&M]
Manure was originally a verb and in Middle English, to manure meant "to cultivate" - nothing more. There was no suggestion whatever of any of... erm... that smelly stuff. Any activity which promoted growth, whether weeding, plowing or fertilizing, was considered manure. It could even refer to mental development, as in the statement that "Those Scotts which inhabit the southe... are well manured". The word manure has its origin in Old French manuvrer which is also the origin of maneuver (that's manoeuvre if you're British).
The words manure, maneuver and, more obscurely, mainour are ultimately derived from Latin manu operari, literallyhttp://www.wimanuremgt.org/Manure Show.htm "hand work". (Thank goodness for gardening forks!) Wait, did we say operari? Yes, there's that missing link. Opus, the Latin word for "work" has given us opera, operation, cooperate and, well... opus. Another term which we still use in its original Latin is modus operandi, the "mode of operating", a term reserved almost exclusively for criminals. Which brings us to that word we just mentioned: mainour. It means "a stolen object found in the hand of a thief when apprehended".
I found a most intriguing web site: http://www.takeourword.com/index.html
Here I learned the relationship between opera and manure, the *etymological* relationship, that is!
I couldn't figure out how to link to it directly; it's one of the back issues. Give them a look!
It says:
http://www.operaam.org/Now, if we said the word opera to you, it is unlikely that your next thought would be "manure". Well, OK, perhaps it's not that unlikely, but let's pretend for a moment that you're neither a scatologically inclined philistine nor an etymologist. [There's a difference? - M&M]
Manure was originally a verb and in Middle English, to manure meant "to cultivate" - nothing more. There was no suggestion whatever of any of... erm... that smelly stuff. Any activity which promoted growth, whether weeding, plowing or fertilizing, was considered manure. It could even refer to mental development, as in the statement that "Those Scotts which inhabit the southe... are well manured". The word manure has its origin in Old French manuvrer which is also the origin of maneuver (that's manoeuvre if you're British).
The words manure, maneuver and, more obscurely, mainour are ultimately derived from Latin manu operari, literallyhttp://www.wimanuremgt.org/Manure Show.htm "hand work". (Thank goodness for gardening forks!) Wait, did we say operari? Yes, there's that missing link. Opus, the Latin word for "work" has given us opera, operation, cooperate and, well... opus. Another term which we still use in its original Latin is modus operandi, the "mode of operating", a term reserved almost exclusively for criminals. Which brings us to that word we just mentioned: mainour. It means "a stolen object found in the hand of a thief when apprehended".