Wordorigins.org

Uranium, element 92, was identified as an element in 1789 by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who named it after the recently discovered planet Uranus. In Greek mythology, Uranus was the primordial sky deity who mated with Gaia, the earth, to give birth to the Titans, the race of beings who preceded the Olympian gods. The chemical symbol for uranium is U. English use of the name uranium dates to at least 1797, when it appears in the third edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Uranium, a fossil found [...] in Saxony, and [...] in Bohemia, and is, by the miners, called Pechblend.¹

For many years now, people have been bemoaning the loss of the local, independent bookseller. A few decades back it was big chains like Border’s and Barnes and Noble threatening the independent bookstore. Now it’s internet retailers like Amazon that are the big threat, and which are also threatening the chains. Here in Berkeley, we recently lost two great bookstores, Cody’s and Black Oak Books. (Although Cody’s demise was as much due to unwise and ludicrously optimistic expansion as it was to competition, and Black Oak still lives on without their flagship storefront.)

I’ve never understood why this is a bad thing. To be sure, many small, independent bookstores have their charms and are pleasant places to visit and browse for books and their staff generally is more knowledgeable than that of big chains, but by their nature they have limited inventory. The competition that is killing them has far superior selection and makes available a much wider range of books at lower prices. The independent bookstore is more attractive as an ineffable ideal than as a cold, commercial reality. The reality is that more and better books are available to more people at lower prices than ever in history. You no longer have to live in Manhattan or San Francisco to find great books. The guy in the cabin with a DSL line in Elkbutt, Montana has as much access to books as the Fifth Avenue socialite.

Then the inimitable Clay Shirky comes along and summarizes the situation and puts forward a potential solution, a vision of what the independent bookstore could become. It is well worth a read.

Protactinium, element 91, was discovered in 1918 by German chemist Otto Hahn and physicist Lise Meitner. They initially dubbed the element proactinium because the element’s radioactive decay converts protactinium into actinium, therefore it “comes before” (pro-) actinium. Shortly after this initial naming, the pair inserted the t to make the name easier to pronounce and it became protactinium.

Thorium, element 90, was discovered by Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1828. Berzelius named the metal after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.¹ The chemical symbol for thorium is Th.

But this wasn’t the first time that Berzelius named a substance for the god. In 1815 he called a compound, which turned out to be yttrium phosphate, thorjord, or Thor’s earth. The French flubbed the Swedish name, dubbing the compound thorine in their language, from which English took the name thorina (which is no longer in use.)²

The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected their word of the year for 2009, and that word is unfriend. The runners up are here. (It’s a bit early to be selecting words. After all we’ve still got more than a month to go. But I guess like hanging Christmas decorations, this stuff gets earlier each year. And it isn’t very catchy to say, “Word of 15 November 2008 through 16 November 2009.)

Of course, we do a words of the year thing here too, but it’s a bit less formal. I don’t select a single word, but rather use the opportunity to learn about and generate discussion on new words and phrases that are out there. So post your suggestions here.

The American Dialect Society is collecting suggestions for their selection of word of the year and word of the decade. (The selection will be in early January, as it should be.) You can send them directly to woty AT americandialect.org. I’ll also be sending the best ones posted here to Grant Barrett and the nominating committee. 

Actinium, element 89, was discovered by French chemist André-Louis Debierne in 1899, a year after the Curies discovered radium. Debierne announced his discovery the following year, naming the new radioactive element after the Greek άκτις (actis), meaning beam or ray. In this way, it is the Greek equivalent of the Curies’ Latin radium.¹

¹Oxford English Dictionary, actinium, 2nd Edition, 1989, Oxford University Press, accessed 15 November 2009, http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50002167. 

See radium.

See radium.

See radium.

Radium, element 88, was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. The Curies dubbed the new element so because of its radioactive properties. The rad- is from the Latin radius, or ray. The first known English appearance of the word is in a January 1899 article by the pair.¹ The chemical symbol for radium is Ra. The Curies were awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radioactivity, and Marie was also awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry specifically for the discovery of radium, becoming the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. (Pierre had died in 1906 and Nobels are not awarded posthumously.)