THE ETYMOLOGY NERD
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity

A POPULAR ROOT

4/30/2017

1 Comment

 
Sorry, biologists, a population is supposed to be composed of only humans. Sorry, cool kids, being popular is actually being like all other humans. Population is from the Latin nominative populatio, "a people", from populus "people". Popular (of which pop, "cool", is an abbreviation) originally meant "public" in Middle French as populier. This is a borrowing from Latin popularis, or "belonging to the people", which stems from populus. Likewise, the word people comes through French as peupel to go back to populus. Clearly a very popular word, populus is also the direct etymon of the now-ubiquitous term populist, which means "of the people", the Spanish word pueblo "town", and the Italian word popolo, or "people". However, for all that linguistic significancy, we don't know what comes next. The main theory traces it to Etruscan (which would go further back to Proto-Tyrsenian), but we have no clue about that. The word poplar, as in the tree type, also goes back to a Latin word populus, but it was a homonym with no semantic connection (the word went on to develop from Old French poplier and Anglo-French popler, and is supposedly from Proto-Italic poplo, "army", and also probably Etruscan. BUT IT HAS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT HISTORY).
1 Comment
Mary
4/30/2017 11:34:08 pm

So, we're all popular? Woaaahh.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR

    Picture
    Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic. You're looking at a super outdated page

    Archives

    December 2023
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    TAGS

    All
    Interview
    Satire

Picture
CONTACT: [email protected]
SUBSTACK • TIKTOK • INSTAGRAM • YOUTUBE
I do not have a facebook account that's an impostor
  • Home
  • ALGOSPEAK
  • Infographics
    • Interactive Map
  • EVENTS
  • MORE
    • Shop
    • Media/publicity