1126. This week, we look at words for fear and why "wherefore" doesn't mean what many people think it means.
1126. This week, we look at words for fear and why "wherefore" doesn't mean what many people think it means.
The false friends segment was written by Karen Lunde, a career writer and editor. These days, she designs websites for solo business owners who care about both words and visuals. Find her at chanterellemarketingstudio.com.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Today, in honor of Halloween, we're going to talk about words for fear and then we'll look at why "wherefore" doesn't mean what many people think it means.
But before we start, I want to respond to a thoughtful comment from a listener named Nathan about the section in the blue idioms piece last week where we described some medical conditions that make people's skin turn blue. We then ended that part by saying, "Let's hope these conditions become even more rare." To me, it was kind of a throwaway line to transition to the next section, which was about the word "blue" meaning "rare," but Nathan pointed out that since the only symptom we described was skin color, it felt pretty icky — like we were saying we wanted there to be fewer people with different skin colors, and it's a completely valid point. I didn't think of it that way, and I certainly didn't mean it that way, and I'm sorry that it could have been interpreted that way. Thanks for the message, Nathan.
By Karen Lunde
Picture this: Juliet stands on her balcony, dramatically crying out to the night, "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" And what do most people think she's asking? "Where are you, Romeo?"
But plot twist: "Wherefore" actually means "why," not "where." Juliet isn't playing hide-and-seek with her beloved. Instead, she's having an existential crisis, basically asking, "Why do you have to be Romeo Montague? Why couldn't you be literally anyone else with a different last name?"
This classic mix-up reveals a truth about Shakespeare: his words are linguistic time travelers that have been playing tricks on modern readers for more than 400 years. And "wherefore" is just the beginning of this word-based mischief.
The "wherefore" confusion happens because our brains automatically connect it to "where." After all, they look like cousins, right? But this word is actually what linguists call a "false friend," a term that sounds like it should mean one thing but actually means something completely different. We covered false friends in episode 1041 if you want to learn more!
But here's another word that sends modern readers down the wrong path: the word "marry," spelled "M-A-R-R-Y." When you see it in Shakespeare, your brain probably jumps to weddings and "I do" moments. But much of the time, Shakespeare uses "marry" as an interjection, not a verb. Originally an oath meaning "by the Virgin Mary," by Shakespeare's time, it had become a way to say "indeed" or to express surprise.
Take this line from Henry IV: "the young lion repents; marry, not in ashes and sackcloth." The speaker isn't talking about anyone getting married—they're basically saying, "Indeed, the young lion repents, but not dramatically so."
Shakespeare used "marry" to express surprise, give emphasis to words, or respond to questions. Think of it as the Elizabethan equivalent of "well," "indeed," or "you bet!"
And why is "marry" spelled with two R's when the original reference comes from the name "Mary," spelled with one? It's a "minced oath" — a softened or altered form of swearing by the Virgin Mary that removes the common name and replaces it with something less recognizable. "Gosh," "heck," and "dang" are also examples of minced oaths.
Here are a few more linguistic twists from Shakespeare's plays:
"Soft!" sounds like it should describe something fluffy or gentle. But in Shakespeare's world, "soft" was an exclamation meaning "hold," "be quiet," or "wait a minute." In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo saying, "Soft! What light through yonder window breaks?" was actually him exclaiming, “Wait! What light is that shining through the window over there?” And that question itself is metaphorical because that "light" Romeo's talking about is Juliet herself.
And here's another one. "Fair" seems pretty straightforward until you realize Shakespeare often used it where we would say "beautiful." A "fair maiden" isn't necessarily pale—she's simply attractive.
"Conceited" today suggests someone who's full of themselves. But in Shakespeare’s time, “conceit” most often meant an idea, imagination, or witty invention, rather than “arrogance.” So if someone was described as having "good conceit," it meant they had clever thoughts, quick imagination, or mental ingenuity. For example, in Romeo and Juliet, Juliet says:
“Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.”
Here “conceit” means thought or imagination, not pride. The word “conceited” could occasionally mean “imaginative” or “full of fanciful ideas.” But more often, it meant something like “having a concept or idea in mind.” In modern terms, Juliet was saying something more like:
“My thoughts are deeper than my words can show. What matters is the substance, not the fancy packaging.”
Here's one more. Today, we think of “shift” in terms of changing gears or work schedules. But in Shakespeare’s time, a “shift” was a clever contrivance or a way of making do. From that meaning came “shiftless,” which originally described someone who lacked resourcefulness or ingenuity. Over the centuries, the sense narrowed into today’s meaning, which is lazy or lacking ambition.
Language evolution is like a massive, centuries-long game of telephone. Words start with one meaning, get passed through generations of speakers, and emerge with completely different jobs. Shakespeare's plays capture English at a particular moment in this evolution—close enough to modern English that we think we understand it, but different enough to create these delightful misunderstandings.
Understanding that you're dealing with these word tricks can take reading Shakespeare from a frustrating puzzle to an exciting detective game. Every "marry," "soft," and "wherefore" becomes a clue about how people actually spoke and thought in Elizabethan England.
The real magic happens when you crack these codes. Suddenly, Shakespeare's characters become more human, their jokes get funnier, and their emotions hit deeper. Those sneaky words aren't trying to confuse you; they're inviting you into a linguistic adventure that spans centuries.
After all, what's more romantic than finally understanding what Juliet was really asking all along?
That segment was written by Karen Lunde, a career writer and editor. These days, she designs websites for solo business owners who care about both words and visuals. Find her at chanterellemarketingstudio.com.
by Mignon Fogarty
It's the time of year for pumpkin spice lattes, carved pumpkins, and ghosts and ghouls. So today we're going to look at words for the feelings you might get walking through a spooky cemetery or a haunted house.
In Old English, “fear” was danger rather than something you felt: "fær" was about sudden peril or attack, such as the hazards travelers faced on dangerous roads. It was related to the Old Saxon word for "ambush" and the Old Norse word for "misfortune" or "plague."
By the 1100s, it had come to describe the feeling you get when you're in such a situation, although the Oxford English Dictionary says it was reserved for "violent extremes," so I imagine it wouldn't have described the feeling of unease on a dark, lonely road, but it would have described the feeling in the middle of an attack by marauders.
Etymonline ties the word "fear" to a Proto-Indo-European idea of “risk” and “trying,” which also shows up in words like “peril,” "experience," “experiment,” and "pirate."
There's another very old root with the same spelling that can mean "to pass through" or "to travel through," but sources don't agree on whether it's related to the root that gives us "fear." Still, some people say that etymologically speaking, fear is an experience — something you go through.
"Terror" is one of the words that stepped up to fill that idea of the violently extreme distress that used to be covered by the word "fear." It's a newer word than "fear," coming into English from both Old French and Classical Latin in the late 1400s, according to the OED, and it was a feeling right from the beginning — extreme fear that overwhelms thought. If you see a hand slowly claw its way out of a fresh grave, and your mind goes blank, that’s terror.
If extreme fear overwhelms not just your thoughts but your ability to move, you're petrified, which literally means "turned to stone" — from Latin "petra," meaning "rock." The word originally referred to things in the natural world that had been turned to stone, but the metaphorical meaning related to fear emerged in English in the 1700s.
"Fright" is similar to terror but, technically, more sudden. In Old English, it referred to general fear, but in the 1300s, it came to mean "sudden fear, violent terror, or alarm."
If your friend jumps out from behind a grave and scares you, that's a fright. And if you're in poor health, you could actually die of fright. In fact, haunted houses in the United States often have warnings telling people not to enter if they have heart conditions, asthma, or other kinds of medical problems.
You could first describe a person as scared in English in the 1500s, according to Etymoline, although the verb goes back much further. The word came from the Old Norse "skirra," with that "sk" beginning we've talked about a couple of times recently as being a hint that a word comes from Old Norse, as in "sky," "skin," "skip," and "skirt."
I tend to think of being scared as being less intense than being terrified or petrified, and not as sudden a feeling as being frightened. Like, I might feel scared walking through a dark cemetery, but I also might be scared of getting pumpkin guts on the white sweater I borrowed from my mom.
"Afraid" started life in English in the 1300s as a past participle — it was the verb "affray" (A-F-F-R-A-Y) plus "-ed" — and it meant to be alarmed or frightened. It goes back to Vulgar Latin that meant "to take out of peace," so when you are afraid, etymologically, your peace is disturbed. It’s a steady, general-purpose label for being in a state of fear. If the haunted house is too much for your grade schooler, and you want to bail through a side exit, you can just say, "We need to leave. He's afraid."
"Afraid" is an unusual adjective because it almost never comes before a noun. In grammar-speak, you'd say it's usually a predicate. For example, think of the "Schoolhouse Rock" song about adjectives. We sang, "He was a hairy bear; he was a scary bear. And we described him with adjectives."
Well, "hairy" and "scary" are adjectives just like "afraid," but we wouldn't say, "He was an afraid bear." It only sounds right to say "the bear was afraid," using "afraid" in the predicate position after a linking verb. So "afraid" is weird that way, but it's not completely alone. "Asleep" and "alive" are similar. You'd say "the bear is asleep" or "the bear is alive," but it would sound wrong to talk about "the asleep bear" or "the alive bear." And as far as I can tell, it's just a coincidence that those three words start with the letter A.
If you are horrified by what you see in the haunted house, you might get goosebumps or the hairs on the back of your neck might stand up. The word "horror" goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root that meant "to bristle," and horror was originally a physical thing — something that was rough, and later the shivering or shaking you get when you are sick. For example, in this 1743 quote in the OED from a book about surgery: "It generally seizes the Patient with a Horror or Shivering." It had a lovely poetic use too about rippling, as in this citation from 1765: "A gentle horror glides over [the sea's] smooth surface."
Today, Merriam-Webster describes horror as "a painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay" and "intense aversion or repugnance."
And if you've ever heard something referred to as a "chamber of horrors," that phrase goes back to Madame Tussaud's wax museum, which had a famous room by that name with wax figures of criminals. For example, the OED has a citation from "Amy Carlton," a Victorian book for young adults that says, "I want to see the Chamber of Horrors. It's full of wax models of the most wicked people that ever lived."
Madame Tussaud's wasn't what we think of today as a commercial haunted house, but her Chamber of Horrors and her earlier exhibition of death masks and decapitated wax figures from the French Revolution were a macabre precursor to what is often called the first haunted house: the Orton & Spooner “Ghost House” built for a British fairground in 1915 — that was a walkthrough with scary costumed actors, spooky lighting, and steam-powered effects like air jets and moving floors.
So whether you're brave enough to walk through a chamber of horrors or prefer to stay home with a pumpkin spice latte, now you know more about the words you can use to describe your emotions this Halloween.
Sources
"A Brief History of the Haunted House." Smithsonian Magazine. October 31, 2017. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-haunted-house-180957008/
"A History of Modern Haunted Houses." Field of Screams Maryland. May 15, 2023. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://screams.org/2023/05/a-history-of-modern-haunted-houses/
"Afraid." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/afraid.
"afraid, adj. & n." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/afraid_adj?tab=meaning_and_use#8890585.
"Fear." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/fear.
"fear, n." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/fear_n?tab=meaning_and_use#4529006.
"History of Haunted Houses: How Attractions Evolved Over Time." Hauntpay. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://hauntpay.com/2024/07/history-of-haunted-houses-how-attractions-evolved-over-time/
"horrific, adj." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/horrific_adj?tab=etymology#1284089.
"horror, n." Merriam-Webster Online. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/horror
"horror, n." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/horror
"horror, n." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/horror_n?tab=meaning_and_use#1284848
Meehan, Paul. The Haunted House on Film. MacFarland, Inc. December 23, 2019. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Haunted_House_on_Film/7SDCDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
"Petrify." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/petrify.
"petrified, adj." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/petrified_adj?tab=meaning_and_use#30660044.
"Scare." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/scare#etymonline_v_22853.
"scare, v." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/scare_v?tab=etymology#24148698.
"Skin." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/skin.
"Skip." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/skip.
"Terror." Online Etymology Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.etymonline.com/word/word/terror.
"terror, n. & adj." Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed October 12, 2025. https://www.oed.com/dictionary/terror_n?tab=meaning_and_use#18690263.
Finally, I have a family story.
Hi, Mignon. Gary here from Pittsburgh. My story is a friendilect story.
A group of us teach together. A group of guys have been teaching together for years. And a few years ago, one of our buddies was moving, and he asked if we'd come over and help him. Of course, we said, "Not a problem. We'd be happy to." And he said, "Don't worry. It's not going to be too much heavy lifting. It'll be pretty easy, more of a social event than anything."
So we showed up and expected to fill maybe a truck and enjoy the rest of the day kind of hanging out. Well, when we got to his house, he had his couch, his love seat, his washer, his dryer, his refrigerator that he was taking with him, as well as just a crazy amount of boxes still sitting in all of his rooms.
And we were like, a social event, huh? So what we thought would be a truckload or less turned into about six or seven truckloads and a very long day. Not that we minded it, but to this day, we still harass him about the fact that how badly he misjudged what needed to be moved that day.
So until this day now, whenever we're trying to move something spatially, and we underestimate the size of what we're moving – so for instance, if we have leftover mashed potatoes at dinner, and I grab too small of a bowl, and I can't fit all the potatoes into that bowl, I go, "Oh man, I pulled a Tom on this one." So anytime anything spatially doesn't fit into something else, and we misjudge it, we call it “a Tom.”
Love the show. Keep doing what you're doing. We appreciate you. Take care.
Thank you, Gary! You sound like a good friend, moving all that heavy stuff for Tom.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a special word or phrase you use with your family, or a friendilect, leave a message on the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL or leave a voice message on WhatsApp.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Morgan Christianson in advertising; Holly Hutchings, director of podcasts; Nat Hoopes and Rebekah Sebastian in marketing; and Dan Feierabend in audio, who is taking a four week sabbatical from his day job that started on his 50th birthday, and ends on his mother's 70th. But he's still generously doing our audio for the show. Thanks, Dan!
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip a day book, "The Grammar Daily" that — oh my gosh, it's already time to start thinking about this — makes a great holiday gift. That's all. Thanks for listening.