At this point, I've written about two Nabisco products - Oreos and Triscuits - but I haven't yet dived into the name of the company itself. It all traces to an 1898 merger between the New York Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company, which rebranded as the National Biscuit Company. In 1901, the company introduced a new type of sugar wafer that they called Nabisco, after the first few letters of each word in the company name. About a decade later, the company rebranded to just NBC, and in the 1940s they finally began using Nabisco across all their packaging, formalizing it in April 1971. These are minor legal changes, but following some mergers the company was renamed to Nabisco Brands in 1981, then RJR Nabisco in 1985, then back to Nabisco in 1993.

The Latin word umbra, meaning "shadow", has had a surprisingly large influence on our language. You might immediately recognize it as the source of the diminutized word umbrella, which literally translates to "little shadow". We also have the words umbrage, meaning "darkness", and umbrageous, meaning "shady" - those were borrowed from French in the sixteenth century. The color umber, describing the earthy brown pigment, comes from Italian ombra​. Then we can also tack on the Latin word paene, meaning "almost", to form the word penumbra, referring to the "shadow cast by a celestial body during an eclipse". And (my personal favorite) add the prefix sub-, meaning "under", throw it through a couple centuries of French, and you also get the word somber. 

Maybe this was already obvious to hip hop enthusiasts, but I just realized that rapper Cardi B's stage name comes from the rum brand Bacardi. Apparently, her sister's name is Hennessy, so everybody jokingly called her by the other alcohol brand name, since it sort of sounded like her actual name, Belcalis. However, Instagram kept deleting any account she set up with the word Bacardi, so she switched it up to Cardi B, which seems to have suited her fairly well. The brand Bacardi was founded in Cuba in 1862 by a man named Don Facundo Bacardí Massó, and the surname probably traces to the French word Picard, meaning "someone from the French region of Picardy". Finally, Picardy comes from pic, an Old French word for "pike", since people in the region traditionally used a lot of pikes in battle.

When Cheerios were invented in Minnesota in 1941, they were actually called CheeriOats as a variation of the word "cheery" and a reference to how it was made out of the grain. However, rival company Quaker Oats sued, saying that using the word "oats" was copyright infringement, so General Mills, Cheerios' parent company, changed it to an "o", which worked pretty well anyway, considering that the cereal is o-shaped and "cheerio" can also be an interjection meaning "goodbye". That exclamation emerged in the early twentieth century from the earlier version cheero, which was simply used to wish someone cheer. The word cheer, in turn, actually used to mean "expression", and comes from the Late Latin word carus, meaning "face" (ultimately from PIE ker, "horn").

I recently stumbled on a fascinating Twitter thread concerning the etymology of Triscuit​ crackers, which until last year was lost to the annals of history. At first glance, one would assume that it just means "thrice cooked", since the word biscuit translates to "twice cooked". Enter Sage Boggs, a writer for the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, who emailed the Nabisco corporation in March 2020 just to confirm that tri- did, in fact, mean "three". After receiving a cryptic message that they didn't know the etymology but it didn't mean "three", Boggs did a little digging and came up with old Triscuit advertisements from the early 1900s touting that the crackers were "baked by electricity". Elec-tri-city. Triscuits are "electric biscuits", and this was eventually confirmed by the company, which sent Boggs a large batch of complimentary crackers as a reward.

The verb exhaust first started showing up in English in the mid-sixteenth century, with pretty much the same definition as today. It's borrowed from Latin exhaustus, which is the past principle of the verb exhaurire, meaning "to draw off" or "to use up". That's composed of the prefix ex-, meaning "out", and the root haurire, meaning "to draw up" (as in water) or "take out". More figuratively, it could mean "remove", and that's how we got the sense of exhaust being something that's pushed away rather than pulled toward, despite the Romans maybe having a different conceptualization of the word. Finally, haurire comes, through Proto-Italic auzjo, from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction hews, meaning "east" or "dawn", with the connection being the notion of the sun being drawn upwards.

The word obsequious, meaning "excessively obedient", was borrowed in the late fifteenth century from Latin obsequiem, which pretty much meant the same thing but in a less pejorative sense. That's from the prefix ob-, here meaning "after" (from Proto-Indo-European epi, "against"), and the verb sequi, which meant "to follow" in Latin. This is the same root as the one we see in non sequitur (something that does not follow), consecutive (something that follows together), suitor (one who follows another), sequel (something that follows), and many more similar words. Finally, etymologists reconstruct sequi to the Proto-Indo-European root sekw, which also just meant "to follow". Since its introduction into the English language, obsequious​ peaked in usage in 1779 and has been on the decline since.

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes became the first person to use the word leviathan in the context of political entities, but it was in use since 1606 with the meaning "person of formidable wealth or influence". This sense emerged from an earlier reference to the gigantic sea serpent that shows up in several books of the Bible - the leviathan person, like the creature, possessed great power. The word, through Latin, comes from Hebrew livyathan, which could be used for several large animals, including dragons, serpents, and various sea monsters. That has an uncertain etymology, but the main theory that's been proposed is that it traces to the Proto-Semitic root l-w-h, meaning "twist", with the definition changing based on the notion of a serpent coiling itself. This would make it related to the Hebrew word for "wreath", liwyah, and the Arabic word for "bend", lawa​.

When the word turnpike was first used in the English language in 1420 CE, it referred to a spiked barrier set up across a road to prevent attacks on horseback. In the seventeenth century, this sense got extended to a kind of barrier that was raised on roads until a toll was paid, and eventually to any kind of expressway with a toll. The word, simply enough, comes from turn and pike (the kind of spiked weapon), because the original turnpikes were often constructed at turns and out of pikes. Turn, through Old French torner, comes from Latin tornus, meaning "lathe", and that's from Ancient Greek tornos, with the same definition. Pike, which is also the source of the fish name due to a perceived physical resemblance, comes from Old French pic, meaning "sharp point", and that has several proposed etymologies.

Despite doing a whole infographic on epidemiology etymology, I've never discussed the origin of the word herpes before. It was first used in Bartholomeus Anglicus' 1398 encyclopedia On the Order of Things, where it was capitalized and had pretty much the same definition as today. Anglicus took that directly from Latin herpes, which could refer to any kind of inflammatory skin problem, and the Romans borrowed their word from Greek herpein, meaning "creeping". That's also the source of the word herpetology, "the study of snakes", because the Greek word for "snake" literally meant "creeping thing". It's also the source of serpent, because the Greek h corresponds to the Latin s as it developed from the Proto-Indo-European s. That takes us to our final word, PIE serp, which meant "creep" or "crawl" as well.

There's an eleventh-century French epic poem called The Song of Roland, and it turns out that Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien was heavily influenced by it. The titular character bears striking similarities to Boromir, the sword Anduril was based on Roland's sword Durendal, and - this is the topic of today's post - both feature an animal called an oliphaunt, which in the books was basically a larger elephant. Oliphant was actually an obscure twelfth-century variant spelling of elephant borrowed from Old French olifant, which could refer to elephants, ivory, or horns made out of ivory. That comes from Latin elephantus, which is from Greek elephas, meaning both "ivory" and "elephant". Finally, that's thought to be non-Indo-European in origin, and etymologies have been proposed from Phoenecian to Berber and Egyptian.

As you may have noticed, I've recently been gathering information on how various typefaces got their names. Turns out that a lot of this information is not available online because nobody thought to write down the reasons, so I've had to do some research and email designers about their naming processes. One of these designers was Gary Munch, a senior lecturer at the University of Bridgeport and the guy who created the Candara font. Apparently, the working name for Candara was Sense, but it was commissioned as part of the Microsoft's ClearType project, which required all its fonts to start with the letter C (others included Calibri, Cambria, Consolas, Constantia, and Corbel), so Munch changed the name to Candor, meaning "honesty". However, Microsoft vetoed that, so he suggested Candel or Caroleon as variations of the word until the marketing team stepped in, changed a few letters around, and Candara was born.

The font Helvetica was created in 1957 by Swiss designer Max Miedinger, but it wasn't called that at the time. It originally came out with the name Neue Haas Grotesk, or "New Haas Grotesque", with Haas being the name of the type foundry and Grotesque being a type of sans-serif font. However, as you can imagine, the marketers at Miedinger's parent company weren't too happy with the name, and pushed for something more memorable and accessible. The suggested name, Helvetica, was an elegant reference to the country of Switzerland, which was referred to as Confoederatio Helvetica in Latin. That's a reference to the Helvetii, a Celtic tribe living in the area during Roman times, and the name ultimately meant something like "many grasslands" in Proto-Celtic.

Today, we think of the word font as whatever kind of text we choose to write in, but that idea historically has been communicated by the word typeface, while font included the specifications for size, italics, and more within that typeface. This sense traces back to the printing press days, when a font was a set of printing blocks carved out in a certain height, width, and style. That definition, which emerged in the 1660s, comes from an earlier meaning of "cast iron", because the printing blocks had to be made out of cast metals. Through French, that comes from the Latin verb fondre, meaning "to melt", here in reference to the metals that were melted while being cast. Finally, it all traces to the Proto-Indo-European root gheue, meaning "to pour".

The Georgia typeface (a registered trademark of Microsoft) is one of the most recognizable serif fonts out there. As you might surmise, it is named after the American state, but there's much more to the story than just that: it was rather whimsically named after a tabloid headline reading Alien Heads Found in Georgia. Apparently, the designer, Matthew Carter, was partially inspired by the lettering on the tabloid headline and wanted to pay homage to it. It's probably named "Georgia" and not something along the lines of "Alien Heads" because there is a long tradition of naming fonts after places, from Helvetica (the Latin name for Switzerland) to Tahoma​ (the native name for Mount Rainier in Washington). Stay tuned for more font facts in upcoming days.

The word csardas or czardas, which describes a type of traditional Hungarian dance and is also the name of my favorite piece of violin music, was borrowed into English in 1860 from Hungarian. That, in turn, was the adjectival form of the word csarda, meaning "tavern", because the type of music was frequently played in taverns. Csarda was borrowed from the Turkish noun cardak, which could refer to several different building types, and the Turkish word came from Persian cartaq, describing a type of arch with a pointed apex. More literally, it meant "four arch", coming from car, the word for "four" (from Proto-Indo-European ketwores), and taq, a word for "arch" which I can't find any more information on. According to Google NGrams, usage of the words csardas and czardas peaked in the 1890s, 1900s, and 1930s, and has declined significantly since.

The adjective impudent (meaning "impertinent") and the noun pudendum are related. Through Middle French, the former comes from Latin impudens, which was formed from the prefix in-, meaning "not", and the verb pudere, meaning "to be ashamed". A pudendum, meanwhile, literally translates as a "thing to be ashamed of". This kind of curious split isn't exclusive to English: numerous languages have shaped pudere into words meaning everything from "modesty" (Italian pudore) and "prudish" (French pudibond) to slang words for "to have sex" (Austrian German pudern) and "penis" (Spanish pudendo, though archaic). Because of how the word could be interpreted as both "shame" and "thing to be ashamed of", it evolved in very different ways. Finally, pudere comes from the Proto-Indo-European root paw, meaning "to strike".

In golf, being below par is a good thing, so why is being subpar a bad thing? To answer this, let's go back to the Latin adjective par, which meant "equal" or "even". This was borrowed into Old French in the 1200s and then was first used in English in 1601 as an economic term referring to the rate of exchange of a currency between two countries. Throughout the centuries, it took on the meaning of "average", which was used in both of the previous examples, just in different ways. It could also mean "equal" or "normal", as in the case of par for the course​. Finally, Latin par has an uncertain derivation. Some theorize that it comes from Proto-Indo-European perh, meaning "exchange", but sound change rules don't work for that, so it's also possible it might not be Indo-European at all.

Apparently, when the Episcopal Church was being set up at the end of the 1700s, its full name was The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and this remained the only official name until 1964, when they amended the constitution to allow for the shorter The Episcopal Church. Several prominent members throughout the history of the organization actually took issue with the name, saying it didn't reflect the reformed nature of the church and advocating for it to be called something like the American Catholic Church. The word "episcopal" just means "of or pertaining to bishops", and comes from episcopus, the Latin word for "bishop" (and also the source of English bishop, once you drop the e and the suffix). Finally, that comes from the Ancient Greek roots epi, meaning "over", and skopos, meaning "watcher", because a bishop is like a religious overseer.

The phrase grand slam is very embedded in our recreational culture: in baseball, it refers to a home run when all bases are loaded; in bridge, it's used when someone wins all thirteen tricks; and in tennis, golf, and rugby, it's when someone wins all the major championships of that sport within a year. All of these achievements get their name from a trick-taking card game called Boston, which was basically the precursor to bridge. Then the term seeped into popular culture with the meaning "great success" and got applied to sports. In Boston, the word slam is thought to be completely unrelated to the verb meaning "forceful sound". Rather, it probably comes from slampant, a term in an older, seventeenth-century card game which ultimately was an obscure word meaning "trickery".

A lothario is a man who unscrupulously seduces women. The term was popularized through Nicholas Rowe's 1703 play The Fair Penitent, which featured a character with that name who, unsurprisingly, unscrupulously seduced women. Rowe didn't just make the name up, though; apparently it was previously used for a similar character in William Davenant's 1630 tragedy The Cruel Brother, and the word may have evolved from stock character status into what it is today. The name comes from Old English Hlothari, which literally meant "famous warrior": hloth comes from Old High German lut, meaning "noisy" (or, in this case, "famous", from Proto-Indo-European klutos, also "famous") and the other element is heri, the Old English word for "army" (from PIE korio​, meaning "war").

The word lagoon first started showing up in English in the early seventeenth century with the spelling laguna. At the time, it exclusively referred to the body of water that Venice was in, but it came to be applied to other brackish lakes separated from the sea by barriers after James Cook used it to describe a stretch of water in a southern Pacific atoll. The word, possibly through French, comes from the Italian word for "pond", and the -oon suffix was added to show the stress on a borrowed noun (see buffoon, lampoon, and harpoon for similar examples). Finally, the Italian word comes from Latin lacus, which meant"pond" and is also the source of "lake", and that's from Proto-Indo-European laku​, meaning "body of water" more generally.

At first blush, the word bonfire might appear to be from the French word for "good", bon, plus the word fire. Indeed, many early dictionaries, including Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language and Webster's Dictionary, claimed that, but this violates spelling change rules and doesn't make historical sense, and the reference books were corrected around the turn of the twentieth century. The first element of the word actually comes from the English word bone, because it used to be a practice to burn bones (apparently you can do that) in honor of certain saints. Later on, the original meaning was entirely forgotten and the e was dropped from the word because of analogy with the French adjective.

There's a baseball team called the Red Sox and a baseball team called the White Sox. Both are, simply enough, named after the color socks they wore in their outfits, with sox being a popular commercial slang term for socks around the beginning of the twentieth century, when both teams were named. And they weren't the only teams named after their clothes! The Cincinnati Reds were so named because they wore knee-high red socks, and there were historically professional teams called the Blues, Maroons, and Grays after their stockings. However, don't get fooled: the Cleveland Browns are named that after their original coach, Paul Brown, and the St. Louis Blues got their name from a song with that title.

In marketing or politics, astroturfing is the practice of advertising in a way that makes it look like it's coming from a grassroots campaign, despite being backed by big money. The word in this sense emerged in a Canadian newspaper and then spread on Internet message boards throughout the 1990s, and comes from AstroTurf, the name of an actual synthetic turf company - since it's a brand of fake grass, it's a joke on the word "grassroots". The company was invented and patented in 1965 under the name ChemGrass, but was then rebranded after it was used in the Houston Astrodome sports stadium the following year, and turf has been around with the definition "slab of grass" since Old English. Although, now, more people probably associate the word with the fake grass, since that was clipped from the company name.