The Convoluted Word History of the Avocado

Hello,

Which word can link alligators, lawyers, 1970s bathroom suites, and male anatomy? Answer – the avocado.

The avocado is a popular ingredient in my salads. It’s an edible fruit from trees found in the American tropics and the word itself joined English in the late 1700s but the history of the word took a few strange turns along the way.

Let’s begin in Mexico with the Nahuatl language. It was the language most commonly used in the Aztec Empire and it has provided English with a few words (via Spanish) – chilli, tomato, and cocoa for example.

In Nahuatl, the avocado fruit was called a āhuacatl (testicle) thanks to a similarity of shape. Although you might want to cross it with a kiwi to be more accurate. When the Spanish arrived they loved the fruit but couldn’t pronounce the local name. To them it became aguacate and then avocado. The word avocado was already in Spanish however, it meant lawyer (thanks to advocate in Latin).

When the fruit, and the word, arrived in England it had changed again, to an avigato pear. The addition of pear makes sense again due to the shape and also to indicate that it was a fruit with a stone inside.

Its story didn’t end there. Somehow the word was mangled to be an alligator pear (perhaps because of the gnarled skin?) and that term is still used in California apparently (can any American readers confirm this for me?). Thankfully with time avocado was the term English settled with and the pear part is optional. by the 1940s avocado’s distinctive green flesh was being used as a colour name and from there it was a short hop to somebody thinking it would be fabulous in bathroom interior design.

As for the bathroom suites, if you know somebody who was around in the 1970s, ask them about avocado bathroom fittings. They truly were a sight to behold, perhaps from a distance, with sunglasses, or a blindfold.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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Escalator – A Tale of a Brand Name Becoming Generic

Hello,

This week’s word is escalator and it’s with thanks to “The Story of English in 100 Words” by David Crystal. You’re probably already aware of the issues around product names edging their way into the dictionary and how that can lead to court-cases as companies strive to retain their uniqueness.

The example I always think of here in Ireland is hoover. We use it as a verb, but of course it was originally a product name for the Hoover company. Technically we’re vacuuming the carpet, but because Hoover dominated the market here for so long nearly everybody says hoovering.

Other examples Crystal lists are aspirin, butterscotch, heroin, thermos, yo-yo, zipper, lego, kleenex, portakabin, and rollerblade. For some of those products I’m struggling to think of a non-brand name for them. Seriously – what else would you call a yo-yo? Butterscotch dates to 1817 apparently. As for heroin it was created by C. R. Alder Wright in 1874 from morphine and marketed by Bayer in 1898 under that name because it made users feel heroic. We know how that turned out.

I had no idea that escalator was a brand name originally. Various moving staircases were designed in the 1800s but the Otis Elevator Company purchased the rights to the name escalator. It was formed by inserted scala (Latin for ladder) into the word elevator and its first use was around 1900. As for elevator, that’s an older word, joining English in the 1600s for particular muscles that raise parts of the body thanks to elevare – the Latin verb for raising up and the source of elevate too. By the late 1700s an elevator was a mechanical lift for grain and from there it was a short hop to lifts in buildings for human use.

Escalator took off and acquired figurative usage swiftly. Escalator clauses entered contracts about planned price increases. Ambitious politicians were said to be on a political escalator. By the 1920s you could escalate something and escalation followed soon after. Otis tried to retain their original meaning but a court case in the 1950s ruled escalator had become generic and they lost control of the word.

I wondered about the source of Otis too. It’s from the founder of the company back in 1853, the American inventor Elisha Otis, who invented the elevator safety brake – the important gadget that makes lifts safe.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Obscure Word History of Eclipse

Hello,

In the wake of last week’s partial solar eclipse here in Ireland I’m taking a look at the history of the word itself. Thankfully for this particular “look” I don’t need to source a pair of eclipse glasses, as a I reckon they’re sold out everywhere. We were unable to find a pair ourselves and had to resort to using a colander (surprisingly effective). The dappled shade under our apple tree created a wonderful pattern too, pictured below.

Partial solar eclipse, August 2026, seen through dappled shade

First, what is an eclipse? It’s the obscuring of the light of the sun, moon, or other heavenly body by the intervention of another. The one we experienced last week was when the moon passed in front of the sun. Although the moon is far smaller (400 times I believe) than the sun, it can obscure the sun from our earth-bound perspective because it is so much closer to our position in the universe. The eclipse was partial here, because of Ireland’s location on the planet. Whereas my friend Noelle, went to Spain and was able to see the totality of the eclipse there.

Now, what about the word eclipse? Where does it come from?

Eclipse was borrowed directly into English around the year 1300 from Old French. Old French had taken it from eclipsis in Latin, and before that it was ekleipsis in Greek. The meaning in Greek was slightly different, however. It was an eclipse but also an abandonment, a literal forsaking. It came from ekleipen which meant eclipse but also meant to fail to appear or to forsake a place. It was formed from ek (out) and leipein (to leave). That same verb leipein is behind the ellipsis (…) in punctuation because the omitted words it indicates leave the sentence, but that’s a word for another day.

Those roots tell me that when an eclipse happened in Greece, the people felt that the light of the sun, so bright there most of the time, had gone away and left them, abandoned them.

It’s easier in more modern times to understand that the sunlight will come back, but imagine an age when this was less well understood, the birds go quiet, the cold builds, and total darkness covers your world. Yes, you would feel abandoned.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Crafty Word History of Bodger

Hello,

Regular readers of Wordfoolery will know that I never met a craft I didn’t like (except for felting…definitely not for me) so when I came across the word bodger recently I couldn’t resist trying to find its history.

The reference was in Amy Licence’s “Woodsmoke and Sage” an excellent reference book about how Tudors experienced the world through the five senses, which I was reading to gather ideas for a Tudor-era fiction I’m revising. She was discussing the vibrant second-hand clothes trade in Tudor London at Birchin Lane, St Bartholomew’s, and Houndsditch. She mentioned the snobbery about such purchases adding that “tailors who specialised in reworking second-hand clothing were known as bodgers and the women who made a living selling such items on were derided.”

Some of my fabric stash – much of it recycled

Nowadays upcycling and recycling clothes has a slightly better reputation (although my in-laws still look a little shocked when faced with the thrifted, re-created items chosen by my daughter and myself). It’s wonderful to realise this has been a practice since the 1600s, but more importantly, what a great word!

The Oxdord English Dictionary believed bodge was a variant of the verb to botch. Botch comes from the late 1300s verb bocchen (to repair) and in the 1500s to repair badly. By the 1600s you could call something a botch, meaning it was ill-made.

They add that to bodge was to repair clumsily and that a bodger in the 1550s was one who mended old garments.

Less formal sources directed me to a different craft – green wood furniture making. This is where the craftsman uses fresh unseasoned word to create pieces, often chairs, and the results are stunning in my opinion. Some chair makers have taken the term bodger to mean chair maker, possibly because that craft involves a certain amount of working with quirks of the wood and adapting designs on the fly, which takes great skill, I might add. No implication of bad work from me on this one.

Apparently bodger is also a surname in the UK where it is common to have family surnames given for the work their ancestor did – Butcher, Baker, Smith, and Fletcher are all surnames, for example. Well apparently there were 300 people called Bodger in 1999. I can’t help wondering if any of them enjoy mending and adapting clothes?

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Ever Shortening History of the Word Mob

Hello,

This week’s word is mob and comes with thanks to “The Story of English in 100 Words” by David Crystal which brought it to my attention. This one is thanks to the Romans which might not be what you’d expect for a word that ends with organised crime groups in the 1900s.

Mob entered the English language in the late 1600s, much earlier than you might expect, and it was used for a gathering of riotous people, the rabble basically. It was a shortening of the earlier words mobile or mobility which again were used for the rabble. In the case of mobility it was probably a play on the term nobility for a group of the upper class. Both mobile and mobility have very different meanings in modern English so what was going on?

This is where the Romans come in. Latin had an expression mobile vulgus which was used to describe the common folk as being fickle or movable in their opinions. It was used in English too from about 1600s and was the source of mobile, and ultimately mob. The idea of a crowd of rioters being easily moved in their emotions and opinions is pretty accurate so it does make sense. Latin was widely understood in certain sectors of British society in the 1600s, exactly the sort of folk (the nobility) who would look down upon the common people.

The shortening of mobile vulgus to mobile and then to mob is what’s know as clipping. In the late 1600s and 1700s it was hugely popular to shorten words in this way. You might say pos instead of positive or incog instead of incognito, for example. It seems like a thoroughly modern thing to do with a word, but no, the English speakers of the 1600s beat us to it.

After the 1600s the word mob continued to be used but it evolved, as so often happens. By 1806 the term mob-rule was being used. If you want to be fancy you can use ocholcracy instead. By the 1830s a mob might be a gang of criminals working together – typically pick-pockets or thieves. In Australia and New Zealand it should be noted that mob is just a term for a crowd, it doesn’t have negative connotations there. I guess we have flash-mobs now too, and they’re usually peaceful, if noisy.

Where do we get the word mob for a mafia gang? That one has a story attached. It goes back to the prohibition of alcohol in America and it wasn’t even particularly attached to Italian-American families. It was a loose alliance of bootleggers (Italian, Irish, and Jewish) who produced, supplied, and distributed illegal booze during prohibition. Apparently they were also called The Combination, but never the Mafia. It was the 1930s before The Mob achieved its association with Italian-American crime families in particular.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Foolish Word History of Fopdoodle

Hello,

As you might expect, given the name of this blog, I have a particular fondness for foolish words and this week’s word is doubly foolish so it has earned its place here. Fopdoodle is one I picked up thanks to David Crystal’s excellent book “The Story of English in 100 Words” where he uses it to illustrate how words leave dictionaries as their usage declines.

Perfect beer for a wordfool

First, what is a fopdoodle? It’s a fool, twice over in fact. Dr. Johnson defines them in his famous dictionary as “a fool, an insignificant wretch”. The word arrived in English in the 1600s and was formed by compounding two words fop (a fool) and doodle (a simpleton). You might call a naive dweller in the countryside a fopdoodle but it could be used for a city dweller too as fop also meant a vain dandy.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites the work of the poet Samuel Butler in 1664 as the first use in print of the word fopdoodle. The word fopdoodle is largely obsolete these days, but feel free to use it, that’s how words survive in this world.

Fop caught my eye along the way. It arrived in English in the mid 1400s, long before fopdoodle. Its exact origins are unknown but it may come from fop as a verb (to make a fool of) or from foppen in German (to jeer at, to make a fool of). By the late 1600s a fop had the additional meaning I already mentioned – a dandy, a man too concerned with his appearance. The dandies, and fops, had their major moment in the sun during the 1700s and I love that there was even a term for younger members of their ranks – a fopling.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Egyptian Roots of Dismal

Hello,

Hopefully you’re having a wonderful summer (or winter for readers south of the equator) but if not, have you considered that you’re under a dismal influence?

“Grumpy Tiki” – a wood carving by my DH whose cantankerous face adorns our garden

The word dismal entered English around 1400 to describe something as inauspicious or unlucky and the reason why brings us back to Egyptian astrologers, so stay with me here. Dismal came from the same word in Anglo-French and before that from Medieval Latin dies mali (evil days) which were also called dies AEgyptiaci. Dies meanings day and mali means bad (from a Proto Indo European root word mel meaning false or bad).

But why were the days bad and what did the Egyptians have to do with it?

Apparently Egyptian astrologers had calculated that certain days were unlucky. These were days when you shouldn’t do anything important – don’t start a journey, don’t have a medical procedure etc. The days were marked on medieval calendars with a letter D so you could avoid such mistakes. Naturally that caused me to look up the dates!

January 1, 25

February 4, 26

March 1, 28

April 10, 20

May 3, 25

June 10, 16

July 13, 22

August 1, 30

September 3, 21

October 3, 22

November 5, 28

December 7, 22

With time dies mal ended up as dismal and the meaning evolved too. It might describe the Devil, a bad event (presumably held in error on one of the evil days), or having the blues. By the late 1500s you could use dismal to describe something or somebody as gloomy or dreary. In North Carolina in the 1700s the term was used for a an area of swampy land.

I’ve never lived my life by the position of the stars and there are far too many dismal days on that list for my liking, but if you want to listen to ancient astrologers, then feel free.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Greek History of Enigma

Hello,

I’d love to believe I project an enigmatic persona, although that’s pretty unlikely. But where do we get enigma and enigmatic from? For this one we need to visit the Greeks again. They really did exert a tremendous influence on the English language down through the centuries.

Engima entered English in the early 1500s to describe a statement with a hidden meaning. It came to the language from aenigma in Latin where it meant a riddle. Before Latin it had been in Greek as ainigma. The plural was ainigmata, if you’re curious, and these were riddles or “dark sayings”. I quite like the idea of a dark saying. It sounds pretty sinister, doesn’t it? They also had ainissesthai – to speak in riddles and the origin of all these words was ainos – a tale, story, saying, or proverb.

This means that the idea of an enigma begins in stories, but then goes cryptic and dark somewhere along the way until it lands in English. Saying and proverbs can hide extra meanings below the surface, and that’s true of stories and tales too. We look for themes, the words not spoken, the inner story of characters, subplots. Perhaps that’s just a human way of dealing with stories, and life, so enigmas are a natural expression of those hidden meanings.

So, an enigma is a Greek story, a Latin riddle, and something of a dark saying. By 1600, in English an enigma is something inexplicable, and that’s a meaning we’ve retained. By the mid 1600s we also had enigmatic from the same roots. We now use that mostly as a synonym of mysterious.

As a former computer geek, enigma has another meaning for me – a WWII German encryption device, broken at Bletchley Park by Alan Turning and others. The Germans called it Enigma or Schlüsselmaschine (literally key machine).

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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The Ancient Greek History of Bruxism

Hello,

This week’s word is bruxism and we have the ancient Greeks to thank for it. I love discovering everyday facts about the past that help me to realise we’ve so much in common with our ancestors as well as our contemporaries, and this word in one of those little gateways.

So what does bruxism mean? Bruxism is a medical/dental condition where you subconsciously clench your jaw or grind your teeth. There are two varieties – doing this while you’re awake (not surprisingly called awake bruxism) and doing it while you’re asleep (sleep bruxism). If you suffer from this it’s probably a good idea to book an appointment with your dentist/doctor as it can lead to chipped teeth, jaw pain, tooth loss, and headaches.

Sheep teeth

Mercifully I don’t have bruxism, although I think I did a bit of night-time jaw clenching a few years ago due to stress. About 1 in 5 of us will experience it during our lives.

What does all of this have to do with the ancient Greeks?

The word bruxism joined the English dictionary in 1931 thanks to a publication about the psychotherapeutic elements of dentistry by Dr. Bertrand Frohman. He coined the word by combining brykein with the -ism suffix for a condition or behaviour. He borrowed brykein from ancient Greek where it meant to gnash or bite the teeth. That tells me the ancient Greeks were also grinding their teeth. Stress isn’t a new thing in the world, after all, and they had to handle those pesky Greek gods and goddesses who loved to mess with their lives.

Interestingly the idea isn’t confined to the European world either. Apparently 2,000 years ago Xu Shen documented the definition of a Chinese character as “the clenching of teeth” so it appears that it was an issue there too.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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Old Measures – a Firkin

Hello,

This week’s word is an old form of measurement and I’m sharing it here with thanks to Noelle, who stumbled across it and shared it with me – a firkin.

Once upon a time, long before the creation of plastics, goods were transported and sold in barrels and sacks. My father-in-law sold tea from tea-chests and shop-keepers would wrap your goods in brown paper and string. The firkin belongs to this type of packaging.

The word arrives into English in the late 1300s to describe a small cask (smaller than those pictured above but that’s best barrel picture I had to hand). It came to English from vierdekijn in Dutch. The Dutch word comes from the word vier for four (the same word in German, I remember). The idea is that a firkin is a fourth part of a barrel.

Traditionally a firkin was used for butter and the weight had to be 56 pounds (25.4 kilograms). There was even a Cork Butter Exchange in the city of Cork, Ireland and in 1855 they erected the Firkin Crane building where butter casks were weighed and graded for trade. There’s now a Butter Museum down there. I haven’t visited, yet.

You wouldn’t be using a firkin when buying your weekly groceries (unless you were landed gentry maybe) but they were vital in the dairy trade.

There’s a wonderful resource of interviews and written accounts called the Schools Collection online about life in Ireland in older times and I came across a charming account of filling a firkin of butter between several houses.

Now if you’re buttering your toast, you know about firkins.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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