I went into Senior Project Manager, Ellen Heydt’s office the other day and asked her where she bought her “pocket book.”
“Pocket Book?” I said. “Where did that come from? A pocket book is a bag and a bag is not a book. Is it?”
This made me think about other words. How did dungarees become jeans? Or, how did stockings become pantyhose or just hose?
We know what these words mean but if you really think about it, what is a pantyhose? Panty could be underwear but hose?
When I did a quick search on Wikipedia, I found that hose originated from Hosiery. Interestingly, in England, hosiery is called tights. However, I thought that tights was something that held you in.
It’s amazing how through the years words mean different things. In the 90’s, my staff would use the word “sweet,” when something was “good or cool.” But I always used sweet to go hand and hand with sugar or a sugar substitute.
And what about cool? Does anyone ever use that term anymore to think something is “awesome?”
Thinking of words and their origins makes me fall in love even more with the Internet. It just opens up a whole new world of answers!
Gordon has an app on his iPhone that gives him a new word each day – tells the definition, origin, etc. He loves it 🙂
There are lots of books on the origin of “every day” words. It’s interesting, because these words start off as “slang,” sometimes evolve and eventually gain acceptance to be recognized as an actual word.