Trimming our vocabulary

Americans say 'soccer' instead of 'football' for this reason

Have you ever wondered why we say ‘fab’ for fabulous, or ‘uni’ for university? A natural characteristic of most languages is that speakers, even if they don't realize it, try to say the most amount of things with the least amount of words possible. This can be done in many ways, including by shortening the word to its smallest form. While in some cases the short and the long versions are used at the same time, many terms that we don’t think twice about actually have a longer version. Keep on reading to discover the original form of these everyday words.

Public establishments dedicated to selling alcohol are as old as time and have gone by several names over the centuries. In English, taverns, alehouses, and inns existed way before the word ‘pub’ was in use. Where did it come from, then? In the 17th century, the term ‘public house’ began to be used to distinguish these establishments from private houses and residences, and the shortened version of ‘pub’ was registered for the first time in 1859.

Buses weren't always machines. The first recorded bus dates back to 1823 in Nantes, France, where a horse-drawn carriage service transported passengers to the public baths. The service was called Omnes Omnibus, Latin for ‘everything for everyone’. The omnibus part remained and was adopted into English to refer to public transport, later shortened to ‘bus’.

While we still use the full word ‘refrigerator’ in English, ‘fridge’ is now a word in its own right. But how did it get to that form? As modern refrigerators became increasingly more common in the 20th century, people started shortening their name to ‘frig’, but this form sounded harsher than the original. To capture the sound of the g in ‘refrigerator’, writers started writing the word as ‘fridge’, mirroring the spelling of words like ‘bridge’ or ‘lodge’.

Many think that Americans use the term soccer because a sport named football was already popular in the U.S., and they are only half right. Originally, there were several sports named football: Rugby football (now, just rugby), Association football (soccer), and Gridiron football (football). In the late 19th century, English students started shortening Association football to ‘assoc’ and then to ‘soccer’, a name that became popular and coexisted with the term ‘football’ for a long time. While ultimately ‘football’ became the more widespread term for the sport, in America, due to the popularity of Gridiron football, the name ‘soccer’ remained.

The word ‘perk’ has many meanings, but not all are a shortened version of another word. The word ‘perquisite’ comes from the Latin perquisitum, meaning ‘something carefully sought or acquired’. In the 19th century, it was shortened to ‘perk’, which has now evolved to mean a benefit or an extra, usually related to a job or salary.

While ‘mistress’ often has a negative connotation in modern English, this was not always the case. Originally, ‘mistress’ was the feminine version of ‘master’, as in ‘the head of a household’. Around the 1600s, it was shortened to ‘miss’, and both ‘mistress’ and ‘miss’ were used for the lady of the house. Eventually, ‘miss’ came to be used for young, unmarried ladies, while ‘mistress’ evolved into ‘Mrs’ (pronounced missus).

Have you ever heard the word ‘acute’ used to describe a sharp pain or a sharp-witted person? Believe it or not, it is related to the word we use to talk about charming and pretty things and people. While acute —and its shortened version, ‘cute’— originally meant ‘perceptive’ or ‘sharp’, it became a slang word for clever, fetching, or pretty things in the 19th century. Eventually, the meaning broadened to include physical appearances.

Middle English had many gender neutral terms to refer to people —think ‘child’ or ‘sibling’, for example— and ‘girl’ was one of these terms. Originally gyrle or girle, it was used to describe any small child, regardless of their sex, and adjectives were added to specify if it was male or female. Around the 15th and 16th centuries, the meaning shifted to refer to young females, while also becoming an affectionate term for women of all ages.

‘Taxi’ and ‘cab’ are used interchangeably for a vehicle with a hired driver, and many people have at least once heard the term ‘taxicab’, now practically obsolete. But what if we tell you that taxicab is not the original term either? A taximeter (a mix of taxa, ‘charge’, and metron, ‘measure’) was an instrument used to measure and determine a fare, while a cabriolet was a light, horse-drawn carriage. The first automatic taximeter was invented in Germany in 1891, and attached to horse carriages and later to automobiles. These vehicles were initially called taximeter cabs, then taxicabs, and ultimately just taxis or cabs.

Ask any high school student, and most of them will agree that prom is a major rite of passage of adolescence. This tradition is derived from high society formal dances that gave young people the opportunity to practice their social skills and make acquaintances. But what does ‘prom’ mean? The original term is ‘promenade’, a word you may recognize in relation to walkways and avenues, a French term used for a leisurely walk or stroll. In high society events, ‘promenade’ was used for the initial formal parade of the guests, which gave them the chance to show off their attire. Eventually, it came to refer to the event itself.

WEIRD FOSSILS

10 Of The Weirdest Extinct Animals That Roamed The Earth

Image: David Clode

Earth is a weird place. Many living creatures already seem out-of-this-world -or at least ill-conceived - but what about those that are extinct? Millions of species have roamed the planet, and although many are similar to what we are used to, many more are exceedingly strange.

Join us as we go deep into our evolutionary past and uncover some of the weirdest animals that ever lived!

Image: André Ganzarolli Martins, CC BY-SA 4.0

The peaceful glyptodon was an enormous mammal (roughly the size of a small car) that was related to modern-day armadillos and sported a similar armored exterior. This giant herbivore lived during the Pliocene, around 3.2 million years ago. Although glyptodon and humans coexisted for a relatively short period of time, human hunters are said to have used the hardened shells as shelter.

Image: Werner Kraus, CC BY-SA 4.0

Maybe weird is not the right word to describe this spine-chilling monster, but it would have certainly been a sight to behold. Megalodon, which means "big tooth" in ancient Greek, was the largest shark to ever swim in Earth’s oceans. Luckily, it went extinct around 3.6 million years ago, because it could reach 67 feet in length and its dagger-like teeth were 7 inches long!

Image: PaleoEquii, CC BY-SA 4.0

If this nightmarish creature was conceived as some sort of alien monster in a low-budget sci-fi movie, we would still say it was ludicrous. But the aptly named Tully Monster was definitely real, and it was weirder than you think. Based on the fossil record, tullimonstrum was an aquatic creature with a (mostly) tubular shape, eyestalks, and a long proboscis with sharp teeth at its end. Even paleontologists find it exceedingly weird, so much so that its exact classification has been the subject of a long-held controversy among scientists.

Image: Seth Wickham

Afraid of millipedes? Maybe skip this one, then. Arthropleura was a genus of massive millipedes that could reach lengths of almost 8 feet. These terrifying creatures of the lower Carboniferous were, however, very similar to modern arthropods, likely scurrying around forests and consuming decomposing organic matter. The reason so many bugs grew to immense sizes during this time was likely related to higher levels of oxygen present in Earth’s atmosphere, and the lack of large terrestrial predators.

Image: Frank Lehmann, CC BY-SA 4.0

As their name suggests, terror birds were apex predators. In fact, the largest predators in South America during the Cenozoic. These giant flightless birds could grow to be 10 feet tall, only ate meat, and could easily crack skulls or shells with the terrible strength of their pointed beaks. Fortunately, terror birds are thought to have become extinct at least a million years before humans arrived on the continent, though some smaller subspecies may have survived until more recently.

Image: Jan Kopřiva

As if Colombian rainforests weren’t dangerous enough, imagine an almost 50-foot-long snake stalking its prey amongst the dense foliage. Titanoboa were a larger (and way heavier) relative of modern anacondas, and the largest snakes to ever roam Earth. Although at first they were thought to be an apex predator, the shape of their skulls suggests that titanoboa likely preferred to prey on fish.

Image: CSIRO, CC BY 3.0

A fish so rare that only one specimen of the species was captured for scientific study in 1802, on the shallow coastal waters of Tasmania, the smooth handfish is on the cuter side of this list - sort of - with four hand-like appendages that it used to walk on the seafloor. Australian researchers hilariously describe its whimsical appearance as "dipping a toad in some brightly colored paint, telling it a sad story, and forcing it to wear gloves two sizes too big." Since the smooth handfish was never seen again in two centuries, it is deemed long extinct, but several other species of handfish survive in southern Australia.

Image: Han Zeng, CC0

If the name is not a clue as to the weirdness of this extinct species, behold its description: a mostly featureless worm-like creature with ten pairs of legs, a set of rigid spines on its back, and a blobby head. However, since its real appearance is difficult to reconstruct, some scientists have even weirder interpretations of hallucigenia, claiming that the legs were actually tentacle-like appendages that may have had independent mouths.

Image: Dustin Humes

Did you know that dragonflies grow larger in enriched oxygen atmospheres? Well, during the oxygen-rich Carboniferous (300 million years ago), a giant relative of modern dragonflies soared the skies. Meganeura could have a staggering wingspan of over 2 feet, and they were adapted to prey on other insects in open habitats. Scientists think that, as oxygen levels plummeted in the following geological periods, these huge insects went extinct, as their larger body size was no longer an advantage.

Image: Mike Arney

As recently as 300,000 years ago, true giants roamed southern Asia’s thick bamboo forests. Nearly 10 feet tall and potentially weighing as much as 600 pounds, this gorilla-like ape is thought to have been mainly herbivorous, surviving on barks and twigs. Although some people have speculated that surviving members of the Gigantopithecus genus could be behind the alleged sightings of Bigfoot, most scientists dismiss these theories, as the species has been extinct for thousands of years.