I find this somehow very poignant :) What exactly does the author think "microscope" means? From Wikipedia:
> microscope (from the Ancient Greek: μικρός, mikrós, "small" and σκοπεῖν, skopeîn, "to look" or "see")
Consider a man being helped along the street by his friends. He's stumbling, often falling over, unable to keep going in a straight line. A police officer walks up and asks them what's wrong.
Scenario 1: his friends say "He's drunk off his ass."
Scenario 2: his friends say "He has imbibed intoxicating beverages to excess."
To many native English speakers, if you presented those two as skits, they'd find the second one much funnier. And the reason would be the use of "high-class" vocabulary in a decidedly low-class situation (a drunk stumbling along the street).
Now consider the English word hydrogen. And then consider the German word Wasserstoff. Native English speakers sometimes find the German word funny -- it sounds just like "water stuff"! But they don't reflect on the fact that "hydrogen" means essentially the same thing when you look at the Greek roots.
This happens because words with Germanic roots are often "low-class" in modern English, while words with obvious Greek and Latin roots are high-class. And that... is because modern English developed after the (Romance-language-speaking) Normans took over England from the (Germanic-language-speaking) Anglo-Saxons. The vocabulary of the Normans, since they were the ruling class, is prestigious in modern English, while the vocabulary of their Anglo-Saxon subjects isn't.
And guess what language family Icelandic is in?
- turtle: Schildkröte (shield toad)
- sloth: Faultier (lazy animal)
- glove: handschuh (hand shoe)
- squirrel: Eichhörnchen (oak horn. Admittedly that does not make much sense.)
- slug: Nacktschnecke (naked snail)
- headlight: Scheinwerfer (shine thrower)
- gum: Zahnfleisch (tooth meat)
- vacuum cleaner: Staubsauger (dust sucker)
- squid: Tintenfisch (ink fish)
- plane: Flugzeug (fly thing)
- vehicle: Fahrzeug (drive thing)
I've heard a similar tale about 'wisdom tooth'. The story goes that it's a translation of the Dutch 'verstandskies'. 'Kies' means tooth (molar?), and 'verstand' can mean 'far-standing', so referring to the position of the tooth.
However, because 'verstand' more commonly means 'mind', it was mistranslated.
Now, Germans also use the 'wisdom' version, and Belgians use 'wijsheidstand', where 'wijsheid' is another of wisdom, so probably this story is incorrect. Many of us Dutchies still choose to believe it, however, and so we just have to conclude that both the Germans and Belgians are just kind of silly for making the same mistake.
It's from Greek σωφρονιστήρ /sophonister/ through Latin (dens sapientiae). It's been "Wisdom tooth" all along. The story goes that these teeth appear approximately at the age where one becomes "wise."
Ha. Few of the people whose wisdom teeth came and went (painfully) are wise already. Increased life spans and all that…
Then again, sophos does not just mean wise in Greek, but also just clever, cunning, or prudent. ;-)
Thanks for your comments though. I love this kind of stuff!
Also, "Eich" has nothing to do with "Oak." Instead, it derives from PIE " * aig-" which means "to move quickly."
EDIT: HN's pseudo-markdown formatting is a plague unto mankind. The hoops I had to jump through to prefix an asterisk to a word…
EDIT2: If you click around on the Wiktionary page for Eichhörnchen, you can find lots of fun details to its etymology. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eichh%C3%B6rnchen
The translation of Zeug, and especially -zeug is contentious. Stuff, gear, tool, utility, means. There are many ways in which it is used in German: Flugzeug, something that flies (or that you use to fly with); but Schwimmzeug is not a boat. Instead it means the "stuff" you need to go swimming, like goggles and a swimsuit. Schlagzeug (Schlag: beat) is neither something you use to hit somebody with, nor all the things you need in order to go a-hitting. It's a drum kit.
An aeroplane is a wanderer through the air.