Etymology

I love words. Ask my husband, I'll always think a joke is funny if it's a play on words. I love them. I'm starting to learn French now. Well, I started in January, but then I became Primary President, so it was put on hold. But now I think I can do both. Besides, I just can't not learn. I have to learn, to be learning something. Brian was really helpful this weekend and bought me language learning software. Why French? No reason, just wanted to know it. It's time I learn another language. I love how learning French interplays with my knowledge of Spanish. My knowledge of ASL doesn't hurt either, since ASL is also based on the French language. I love finding out that words are similar to other words, and seeing how it all means the same thing. It especially helps me understand obscure words in English better, I like that. French is like the link from Latin to modern day English and Spanish. Probably German too, but I don't want to learn German. :-)

Today I was thinking about the word lavender. The spelling of the word has always bothered me, with that e at the end, it always seemed a little odd. Today, I realized it sounds like "lave", which means 'to wash'. I don't know in which language it means this, I just know it's the root. Anyway, looking up the word shows I'm right, that it's from Latin "lavare", 'to wash', 'from the use as bath perfume'. Pretty cool! Now I know where that name came from. Now I just want to figure out why perfume is called "eau de toilette", which, with my best novice translation, means toilet-water. Maybe they just mean a liquid you apply while in the bathroom. Well, whatever the original meaning, perhaps someone should tell them that in English toilet-water means a whole different thing. :-)

I also wanted to share with you today some of my favorite words. If I think of more later, I'll let you know, but I've always liked the sound and spelling of: toluene, porphyritic, and lately, quixotic. I know toluene is a bad substance, but it's such a great word, rolling off the tongue. :-) Porphyritic is from my geology studies. It's actually a cool thing, it means a rock with crystals in it that are large and easily distinguished with the naked eye. Porphyritic rock is beautiful, I think. Quixotic has been in my head lately. Just mainly interesting to me because it's even a word. How many people in a society need to know a story before a derivitave of the protagonist's name becomes a word? It's really cool how that happened. Alex just learned about Icarus recently in homeschool. I wonder, does it work with that name too? Icarustic? Hehe. That sounds funny. I always love those plays on words. :-)