words origins and their changes

Born by accident: 10 English words that started as mistakes

There are many words we use today that actually came from small "mistakes," like "shamefaced", "penthouse", or the verb "edit." Back then, as words moved between languages and writing wasn’t as common, changes in spelling, pronunciation, or transcription were usual. Sometimes these shifts were unintentional, and other times they were adjusted to sound more familiar with what people thought the word meant. Let’s see these 10 words you probably didn’t know were born as accidents.

The word "shamefaced" looks like it's referring to your face turning red with embarrassment, but that's not actually its first meaning. The original word was shamefast, and that second part, fast, used to mean "held firmly in place." So it wasn't about your face showing how ashamed you were; it was about being held back, or frozen, by shame. Around the 16th and 17th centuries, English people stopped recognizing the old meaning of "fast" and replaced it with "face," which sounded more accurate, but the meaning remained the same.

It may be hard to believe, but the meaning of "penthouse" was originally associated with a small attached structure rather than with luxury apartments. It comes from the French apentis, which referred to a simple construction against a wall, usually with a sloped roof. In the Middle Ages, it was adopted by the English and appeared in forms such as pentis or pentice, already altered in sound.

Time went through, and speakers reshaped it into "penthouse," connecting it to the familiar word "house," even though that link wasn’t originally there. As the form changed, the meaning shifted too. Instead of a modest attached structure, it came to describe a top-floor space, and eventually a high-end apartment at the top of a building.

The verb "edit" didn’t exist as it does now. English already had the noun editor, which came from Latin and meant someone who prepares text for publication. By the late 1700s and early 1800s, English speakers began assuming that if there was an "editor," there should also be a verb "to edit". So they removed what they thought was the "-or" ending and formed a new verb: edit. This is an example of back-formation, where a shorter word is created from a longer one by mistake. Even though "edit" wasn’t the original form, it quickly became standard, and we actually use it more frequently than its original noun.

The Old English word for the snake was nædre. People would say it with the article, like "a nædre." At some point, listeners got confused about where the word actually began and started hearing it as "an adder." So the "n" shifted from the noun to the article, and eventually disappeared from the word itself.

So, it went from "a nædre" to "an adder," and finally to just "adder." This happened in past centuries when language was heard more than written, and people naturally reinterpreted where one word ended, and the next began.

A singular–plural mistake happened with the word "biceps." From Latin, where bi- means "two" and -ceps means "headed". The word is already singular, referring to a muscle with two points of attachment. When it was adopted into English, however, "biceps" was mistaken for a plural form, and "bicep" emerged as a new singular. This is another example of back-formation, when a shorter form is created by removing what people think is a plural ending.

This is a case of misdivision. The fruit has its roots in Asia, and its name travels from Sanskrit, to Persian, to the Arabic naranj. In Spanish, it stayed almost the same; it is called naranja. But in French, naranj came to be norange, and people often said it with the article "une norange". Time passed, and people started to say une orange. When English borrowed the word from French, it adopted this "mistaken version" and has remained orange until today.

After the Norman conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror of Normandy invaded England and brought French influence to the English language, the English adopted the word cherise from the French (a variant of what today is called in French cerise). As it sounded like the word ended in "s", English thought it was plural and invented the "cherry" as its singular form.

The word "island" didn’t always have an "s" in it. In Old English, it was written as igland or yland, meaning "land surrounded by water." By the 1500s, the spelling started to change. Writers added an "s" because they thought the word was related to "isle," from the word "insula" in French. The "land" part was also kept to make the meaning clearer and avoid confusion with other similar words for water. With time, the spelling "island" became standard. Even though the "s" was added by mistake, it stayed in the word; that’s why we still write it, but never pronounce it.

In early English, sneeze was written as fnese, along with forms like fneosung (sneezing) and fnora (a sneeze). So what happened? In medieval handwriting, there was a long "s" that looked a lot like the letter "f." Because of that, people often misread the word and begin writing it with an "s" instead. That reading mistake stuck and became the standard spelling. Even though the word echoes the sound of a sneeze, its modern form actually comes from writing confusion.

Gravy comes from a French word, grané, which means "spiced". This word was also misread due to medieval handwriting and the similarities between the letters"n" and "u". So, the word came to be misspelled as graue. Today, we use either "u" or "v" depending on the sound they represent, although in medieval times these letters varied according to their position in the whole word. If it was at the beginning of it, the "v" was used, and the "u" if it was in the middle of it. It didn’t matter how it sounded. Because of these changes, grané evolved into gravy as we know it today.

10 weird historical events that no one has been able to explain (yet)

Image: Walters Art Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Who doesn't like a good mystery? And if the mystery isn’t a work of fiction but the result of a true story, even better! The great unsolved enigmas of history are absolutely fascinating. Some have been solved over time, but there are still many old secrets for which neither scientists nor historians have found an explanation—yet. Time-travel with us as we uncover 10 of the biggest historical mysteries that will probably never be cracked!

Image: Tanner, Henry S., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Bermeja Island is mentioned in navigation texts written by European travelers and appears in cartography from the 16th to 19th centuries. Old maps place it off the north coast of the Yucatán Peninsula; however, multiple searches over the years have yielded no concrete evidence of its existence.

So, what happened to Isla Bermeja? Was it a cartographic error? Did it sink due to a tidal wave? Because of its geopolitical significance, some have even suggested that it was blown up by the CIA! A 2009 study by the Autonomous University of Mexico concluded that Isla Bermeja does not exist today, nor were any traces found at its supposed coordinates. Yet, it will forever remain a mystery that will surely keep many entertained.

Image: Credit: Big Ear Radio Observatory and North American AstroPhysical Observatory (NAAPO)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1977, Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope, used in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, detected a signal now known as the Wow! signal. While reviewing the data, astronomer Jerry R. Ehman noticed a sequence represented as "6EQUJ5." Baffled by the anomaly, he circled it and wrote "Wow!" in the margins.

The signal lasted 72 seconds and, unfortunately, has never been repeated. To this day, no one can fully explain the phenomenon, although some suggest it may have come from a man-made source. Still, the Wow! signal remains one of the strongest candidates for potential extraterrestrial contact ever detected.

Image: Edward S. Curtis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

How is it possible for an entire village to vanish without a trace? Believe it or not, this is said to have happened nearly a century ago. According to lore, a small Inuit village in Canada was well known among fur trappers who visited regularly to trade. But in 1930, something very strange supposedly occurred.

A hunter named Joe Labelle claimed he visited the village one day and couldn’t find a single person. Reports said there were guns and food left behind, and even claims that the graves in the cemetery were empty. A thorough investigation, however, found no conclusive evidence of what happened to the villagers. Some witnesses from nearby towns even reported seeing a huge green light. Theories ranged from mass migration to extraterrestrial abductions. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has since dismissed the case as an urban legend. Some still believe the story to be true.

Image: bbb

We know thousands of shipwreck stories, but this one is quite unique. The MV Joyita, designed to be nearly unsinkable, was found adrift in the South Pacific, practically unharmed, but the crew had disappeared completely.

In October 1955, the American merchant vessel left the port of Apia in Samoa with 16 crew members and 9 passengers bound for the Tokelau Islands. After days without news, a rescue mission was launched. Five weeks later, the Joyita was spotted more than 600 miles west of its intended route. The vessel was partially submerged, and there was no sign of the passengers or crew. Four tons of cargo and all three life rafts were missing. They were never seen again.

Image: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Do you know where one of the best-preserved mummies was found? Hint: not in Egypt. Xin Zhui, the Marquise of Dai during the Western Han Dynasty in China, was discovered in her tomb at Mawangdui 2,000 years after her death, along with hundreds of valuable documents and artifacts.

What makes this mummy so extraordinary is how well-preserved her body is. Her organs and veins remain intact, and she still has hair and even eyelashes. Scientists analyzed the fluid present in the coffin and discovered it was acidic and contained salt and magnesium. They believe this mysterious liquid may have been responsible for preserving Xin Zhui so well. What they don’t know is whether it was intentionally poured into the coffin or came from the body itself.

Image: Yoichi Okamoto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The United States has its fair share of presidents who died while in office, but none of our 45 presidents have ever disappeared without a trace. Did you know that this actually happened in The Land Down Under?

Harold Edward Holt was the Prime Minister of Australia from 1966 until his presumed death in 1967. He loved the ocean and spearfishing. During a weekend trip with friends, Holt visited the remote Cheviot Beach to take a swim. Rough sea conditions that day caused him to be swept away by the waves, and he never reappeared. Despite an intensive search, his body was never found, which has given rise to numerous conspiracy theories. Ironically, Australians built the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre in Melbourne in his honor.

Image: FBI, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Many famous criminals have managed to remain unidentified for decades, but the D.B. Cooper case is something else entirely. In 1971, Cooper boarded a flight from Portland to Seattle. Shortly after takeoff, he showed a flight attendant a device he claimed was a bomb and demanded four parachutes and $200,000 in cash.

The crew landed to meet Cooper’s demands in exchange for the passengers and then took off again. As the plane flew over southwestern Washington, Cooper jumped into the cold, rainy night carrying his haul. His whereabouts and true identity were never discovered, although it is likely he didn’t survive the jump. In 1980, some of the ransom money was found near the Columbia River. Although the FBI officially closed the case in 2016, amateur sleuths continue to try to crack it.

Image: Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Can you imagine an epidemic where the main symptom is uncontrollable dancing? Sounds like science fiction, doesn’t it? Yet this really happened during the Middle Ages. In 1518, a dancing plague struck Strasbourg, Alsace, in what is now France. This strange condition affected up to 400 people, making them dance frantically for weeks. It is said that some even died of heart attacks, exhaustion, or strokes.

Doctors and authorities tried all kinds of measures to stop the spread. They even banned music for a while! To this day, scientists are not certain what caused this bizarre condition: it may have been food poisoning from toxins in the ergot fungus, or perhaps a case of stress-induced mass hysteria.

Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Voynich manuscript is a codex written roughly 500 years ago in an unknown language and writing system by an anonymous author. Known as Voynichese, the manuscript was named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish bibliophile and antiquarian who purchased it in 1912.

Radiocarbon testing has shown that it dates to the early 15th century. Many cryptographers and codebreakers have attempted to decipher its roughly 240 pages without success. The manuscript contains diagrams and illustrations of unknown plants and astrological symbols. Some believe it may be a made-up language, a secret code, a work of fiction, or even a hoax. If you think you can solve this mystery, the Voynich manuscript is available for viewing at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Image: Bernhard

Similar to the Voynich manuscript, the Phaistos Disc is a fired clay disc believed to have been created during the Bronze Age. It was discovered by an Italian archaeologist in the basement of a palace in Crete, Greece, in 1908.

What makes this disc fascinating is that it contains a mysterious message. Stamped into the clay is a set of signs, forming a text that many scientists have tried to decipher—without success. It is considered an early attempt at printing, a technological innovation that would not become widespread for several centuries. While enthusiasts still hope the enigma can be solved, this is unlikely unless other documents are discovered to provide context.