h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Similarly, the color orange was named after the fruit.

It entered English from Spanish 'naranja', from Arabic 'naranj', from Persian 'naranj', from Sanskrit 'naranga', which likely meant simply "orange tree" or 'fragrant tree'. The first 'n' may have been dropped due to the similar sound of "a norange" and "an orange".


On a side note, I've been told Glenmorangie rhymes with 'orange-y'.

A norange -> an orange

It's a process called metanalysis. Other examples are napron, napricot and otch (we got the word 'oche' from Old French and changed 'an oche' to 'a notch'.)

...yup, just that its easier to make the glottal stop after a consonant than after a vowel...

"A norange -> an orange

It's a process called metanalysis"

And is a really good thing to mention when the grammar pedants are getting to excited.

That explanation is a bit misleading, though, I think - the 'a/an' metanalysis business seems to have taken place in the Romance languages. 'Cause we got 'orange' from Middle French, if I read it right. 'une narange/une orange'.

It's still a fun phenomenon. One way to tell it happened is to compare languages. In Germany, there's a snake called a 'Natter'...

Btw, the Greeks name the fruit from the country. The word 'portokali' means 'orange' (and also 'Portuguese').

The 'natter' is definitely another one. A nadder became an adder.

Y'all might enjoy how the North American bird known as the turkey got named after the region formerly known as the Ottoman Empire.

http://blog.dictionary.com/turkey/

Obviously these people never heard guinea fowl. Very noisy birds.

When I got to 'Dutch chicken', I cracked up.

Me too.

There are over 10,000 Catholic saints.

I'm reminded of Robert Heinlein's description of saints getting on public transport in Heaven with their "halos the size of bath tubs".

From E. Vibenstein's twitter feed.


Gary Numan is 13 days older than Gary Oldman.

Every dog that played Lassie was male, due to male collies having a "better, fuller coat."

Mel Brooks' _Blazing Saddles_ premiered at a Burbank drive-in theater. Horses and their riders got in free.


http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2243/photos/26690

Who cleaned up after the horses left?

Never mind that - where did they attach the speaker?

I went to look something up on dictionary.com and got waylaid by the "strange words of the day" section. There I learned that:

The word "dot" (yes, as in dot com) originates from the Latin "tutta" meaning nipple.

(Now I just have to remember what it was I went to look up in the first place.)

Serendipitous.

Despite being played 39 million times on YouTube, Rick Astley has only earned $12 for _Never Gonna Give You Up_.

Here's one for classic anime fans:

The Tokyo Olympics will be held in 2020, corresponding with the events in the 1988 anime film Akira, which took place in 2019 leading up to the fictional 2020 Tokyo Olympics.