7. Tawdry. The remarkable cathedral at Ely, just north of Cambridge in the UK, stands on or near the site of a much smaller religious building that was established there in the 7th century by Etheldrida a Queen of Northumbria. Sixty years after her death (in 697), the Venerable Bede recorded the nature of her passing, saying that she died of a neck tumor, a fate she ascribed to the wearing of necklaces in her youth.
She eventually became the patron saint of Ely, but by the time that happened, the Normans had arrived on Albion’s shores and Anglo-Saxon names like Etheldrida were as passé as punk rock, so she was referred to as St Audrey and a fair was held in here honor every 17 October. Along with toffee apples and gold-fish-in-a-plastic-bag, they sold lace ribbons and scarves for wearing round the neck, in memory of St Audrey. Well, you know how it is with fairs like that; the apples aren’t the best, the goldfish dies after a few days and the lace falls to bits the second time you wash it. The term St Audrey’s lace was corrupted over time to tawdry lace and all that’s left now is the word “tawdry.”
8.Robot. It’s not often that a Czech word makes it into the English language. Basically it’s polka, semtex, robot and that’s just about it. Robot comes from the 1920 play, Rossum’s Universal Robots, by Czech author and science fiction writer Karel Capek. The play is about a factory that makes “artificial people” called Robots, who are a bit like terminators in that they look human, they can think for themselves and they eventually rebel against their human masters and try to wipe out the human race. What the original robots couldn’t do was travel back in time or run for Governor of California. The term robot derives from the Czech word robota, meaning work.
9. Hazard. The game of backgammon is very old. It’s probably 5000 years old or thereabouts. Certainly there are records of backgammon being played in ancient Mesopotamia and the game appears to be similar to the Egyptian game, Senet, which dates back to 3000 BC. That puts a “latest date” on the invention of dice, since dice are required for backgammon, although it’s possible that dice go back much earlier. Backgammon may be best known as a gambling game, but in the Arabic world it is also prized as a game that teaches children to count.
The Arabs had simpler games for gambling with dice. Indeed, the Arabic word for dice, “al zar”, is also the Arabic name for a gambling game which came into English under the name Hazard and became popular in taverns. The French gave the same game a different name; Craps, which is a corruption of “Crabs.” The word “hazard” eventually took its place as a bona fide English word as the popularity of the game fell away.
10. Quintessential. You may remember the movie “The Fifth Element.” I certainly do, but mostly because of the strange orange haired female who dropped in on Bruce Willis. Aside from the plot of that unintelligible movie, which I can’t pretend to understand and may have no relationship to this, there were once believed to be 4 elements; earth, water, fire and air. Everything was some combination of these four elements, even a Nintendo GameBoy with a flat battery. So God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.
At least it was fine until Aristotle stepped in and offered up the possibility of a fifth element, which was not of the nature of the first 4. It had no qualities, permeated everything, was incapable of change and by its nature moved in circles. That’s where the word “quintessential” comes from, because quintessence is Aristotle’s fifth element which, as you might have noticed, is pretty hard to detect – so hard to detect that you will never get the opportunity to point any out to your kids. Suffice to say that Aristotle’s theories once had more cred than they do now. So for want of something to do, quintessential has acquired a new meaning. Quintessential means “the very essence of” as in “Rossum’s Universal Robots is the quintessential book on Robot Rage.”
10 IT Words That You Don’t Know
10 Collective Nouns That You Don’t Know
10 Words You Don’t Know That Shouldn’t Exist
10 Medical Words You Don’t Know
10 Words You Don’t Know, With Limericks
Click here for the full list: Words You Dont Know
Click here to BUY the book: Words You Don’t Know on Amazon
~ Salvador Dali
