Wordorigins.org

Does the word testify (with its associated forms like testimony and testament) come from testicle?

All these words come from the Latin testis meaning witness. The ultimately etymology of the Latin word is uncertain with the usual explanation being that the testes or testicles are witnesses to or prove a man’s virility. Some suggest that the Latin words for the witness and the reproductive organs are unrelated, with testa, meaning pot or shell, being the source for the latter.

Terrorism is not simply a modern phenomenon. Rather, the word, along with terrorist, first appears in English in the late 18th century in reference to the Jacobins of France. They ruled France in what was called the Reign of Terror from 1793-94. The word is thought to have been coined by the Jacobins themselves. If they did, they are one of the few to have used it self-referentially as the term has always had negative connotations. From the Annual Register of 1795:

It would...renew the reign of terrorism.

And a use of terrorist from the same source:

The terrorists, as they were justly denominated, from the cruel and impolitic maxim of keeping the people in implicit subjection by a merciless severity.

Both of the above citations are used to refer to the Jacobins. By 1798, the term was being applied generally to anyone who attempted to achieve political goals through violence and intimidation. From Thomas Mathias’s 1798 poem The Pursuits of Literature:

The causes of rebellion, insurrection,...terrorism, massacres, and revolutionary murders.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

Onomastician and toponymist Kelsie Harder died at this home on 12 April. He was 84. He was the editor of the Illustrated Dictionary of Place Names and numerous other works about names. His NY Times obituary is here.

From time to time we discuss issues having to do with copyright and intellectual property here at Wordorigins.org. For those interested, there is a fairly new podcast on the subject called Rules For The Revolution. It’s hosted by Colette Vogele, an intellectual property lawyer here in the Bay Area and a non-resident fellow at Stanford’s Center for Internet & Society. Rules For The Revolution is geared primarily for those producing podcasts (lots of discussion about copyright of audio), but it is also of interest to anyone who is producing or using any kind of copyrighted material.

Episode 11 of the RFTR podcast is all about fair use of copyrighted material. It features an interview with Tony Falzone, executive director of the Stanford Fair Use Project. If you’ve ever wanted a concise, legal interpretation of the fair use doctrine give this a listen. You can also subscribe via iTunes. The RFTR podcast is free.

Teetotal is used to refer to complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages. It is one of those rare words for which we have precise and definitive information about its coinage. The tee- is a reduplicative syllable that emphasizes the total; the word was first used to differentiate those who abstained from all alcohol from those who advocated temperance for hard liquor only.

Teetotal was first used in a speech at an 1833 temperance rally in Preston, England by a working man named Richard “Dicky” Turner. The word first appears in print in the April 1824 issue of the Preston Temperance Advocate in the signature to a letter:

A Lover of Sociality, and a “Tee-Total” Abstainer.

And again later in the same magazine:

He...is now a tee-total abstinence member, and is an ornament to the Society.

The adverb teetotally, however, was in use the US before, but in a general sense—not specifically related to temperance. There are also claims, but no strong evidence, that teetotally was used in Ireland as well. From James Hall’s 1832 Legends of the West:

These Mingoes...ought to be essentially, and particularly, and tee-totally obflisticated [sic] off of the face of the whole yearth [sic].

Teetotal also appears in England in the general sense by 1840. It is possible that the adverb is older in British use and influenced the temperance sense. But it is also possible that the temperance sense was coined independently from the general one.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

The bugle dirge that signals “lights out” and is used at funerals in the US military is called Taps. The tune dates to the US Civil War and was composed by General Daniel Butterfield and his bugler, a man named Norton, in 1862. But the word taps is older. It is a US military term for the lights out signal—or more accurately for the time of day the signal is given.

Prior to the Butterfield’s composition, the call was known as Extinguish Lights. The call would be played at taps which was the time of day—usually some period, about 15 minutes, after the Tattoo call. Extinguish Lights consisted of the first eight bars of Tattoo (which is same call of that name played today in the US Army) followed by several isolated beats on a drum—hence the name Taps.

From an 1824 document produced by the US House of Representatives:

It is his duty...to visit his rooms, at the taps; see that the lights are extinguished; the fires properly secured; the occupants present, and in bed.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)

The word Taliban is from the Farsi/Pashto Talib, meaning student (the root is a borrowing from Arabic). The Taliban got their start in the early 1990s as a loose confederation of radical Afghan student groups, both within Afghanistan in in exile in Pakistan, that shared a version of conservative Sunni Islam. They emerged in 1994 as an organized and powerful politico-military force and by 1996 had become the dominant faction in the country, capturing the capital, Kabul. They were overthrown in 2001 by a US military intervention and have since then engaged in warfare against the US-supported Afghan government.

The term began appearing in English-language newspapers in early 1995. From Asiaweek of 6 January 1995:

A powerful new armed faction, known as the Taliban or “religious students,” mysteriously emerged in October and has already transformed the balance of power in southern Afghanistan.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, New Edition)

In today’s speech, tabloid refers to a sensational style of journalism and somewhat more rarely, to a newspaper print format that uses smaller pages and folds like a book (as opposed to broadsheet, the traditional newspaper format). But the term got its start in the field of pharmaceuticals.

Tabloid was registered as a trademark in 1884 by Burroughs, Wellcome & Co. They formed the word by blending tablet with -oid, meaning resembling or similar to. From the Trade Marks Journal of 23 April 1884:

Tabloid...Burroughs, Wellcome & Company, Snow Hill Buildings, Holborn Viaduct, London, E.C....Chemical substances not included in Class I, used in Medicine and Pharmacy.

We’re all familiar with bad translations into English. They’re a staple of many comedy routines. But this one reported by MSNBC takes the cake.

Adams, Michael (2003). Slayer slang: a Buffy The Vampire Slayer lexicon. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

A comprehensive treatise on the slang and usage of this inventive television series.