Hello,
I don’t usually delve into the history of phrases, preferring the simplicity of word history, but this one caught my imagination and I thought I’d share it with you.
Trailblazers and blazing a trail are popular expressions lately and I had assumed they related to burning a path through a forest but I was wrong. Blaze, as in a fire or flame, comes to Old English as blaese from a Germanic root word blas (shining, white) and an earlier root word bhel for shining or burning.
Blaze, as in a light-coloured mark on the face of a horse or cow, arrived in English in the early 1600s via northern English dialect based on the Old Norse Viking word blesi for a white spot on a horse’s forehead – from the same root words mentioned earlier.
Early settlers in North America, from the late 1600s onwards, would mark out a trail in the thick forests by cutting a blaze mark into the bark on the trunks of trees to show the way to those behind them as the lighter inner wood would show brightly against the dark bark. Modern trail blazers are following in their footsteps.
Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)
Wordfoolery 