1026. This week, we look at the origins of words for men, including the ancient roots of "man," the surprising evolution of the word "guy" from being an insult to just another word, and how "guido" took a different route. Then, for some Halloween fun, we look at the difference between crypts, catacombs, mausoleums, and ossuaries, with an emphasis on their fascinating origins and some famous examples.
1026. This week, we look at the origins of words for men, including the ancient roots of "man," the surprising evolution of the word "guy" from being an insult to just another word, and how "guido" took a different route. Then, for some Halloween fun, we look at the difference between crypts, catacombs, mausoleums, and ossuaries, with an emphasis on their fascinating origins and some famous examples.
The "words for men" segment is by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." A version of this story originally appeared on Psychology Today, and you can find her at valeriefridland.com.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today, in honor of Guy Fawkes Day next week, we're going to talk about "guy" and some of the other words we use for men, and then in honor of Halloween looming before us on the calendar, we're going to look at the origins of the words for places we lay people to rest, like crypts.
But before we start, I got interesting comments from listeners about weak word forms from last week's segment on why it sounds weird to end a sentence with a contraction. One person had an example of ending a sentence with the weak form of "you": "I'm gonna give it to ya," and the other described his grandparents having a dialect where it was normal to use the weak form of "to" at the end of a sentence, as in "Where ya going tuh?"
And I'm actually surprised that I didn't get comments about all the times you can end a sentence with a contraction, as in "I'm going to the concert, but she can't" because I usually get those too.
But what all these things have in common is that we said we were explaining why you can't end a sentence with a contraction or a weak form of a word in some contexts. And then also, because this is English, there are even exceptions to those contexts and dialects that don't follow the standard rules. So yes, you were absolutely right that you will hear people say, "I'm gonna give it to ya," and "Where ya goin' tuh," but there are still some general rules about strong and weak word forms and clitics that explain why we don't usually hear things like "Come to the place I'm."
by Valerie Fridland
With Guy Fawkes Day just around the corner, it's time to think about the word "guy" and while we're at it other terms we use for men.
"Man" is probably the most common word we use, and it is as old as English, although in Old English it meant only “mankind.”
The Old English "mann" (spelled with two N's) was related to the German "mann," (with two N's) the Dutch and Swedish "man" (with one N), and the Danish word "mand," which tells us that these languages all inherited the word from an older Germanic source language. However, its origin story grows somewhat murky as we move back beyond its Germanic past.
We find another relative in the Sanskrit word "manu" (also meaning “mankind” or a progenitor of man), suggesting that all these words actually came from from the ancient Indo-European language that spawned both Sanskrit and the Germanic languages, though no direct evidence exists of such a word itself.
As we said, unlike the word "man" in modern English, the Old English word ("mann") wasn't a way to talk about an individual man. That meaning emerged later in Middle English.
Still, people could talk about an individual male person in Old English by instead using the word "were" (which is also sometimes translated as “husband”). "Were" seems to have come from the Latin word "vir," also meaning “man.” This is why when we imagine werewolves, we usually think specifically of a man that turns into a wolf, since this is exactly what the compound "werewolf" means.
What might surprise you more is that the word "world" is also related to Old English "were": it was a combination of "were" and "olde," ("were-olde"), which translates as “the age of man,” a phrase that eventually became more about the place man occupies, rather than the time he lived.
And one thing that has definitely changed during the age of man is how we talk about him. While the word "man" still wins out in more formal contexts, in more casual or colloquial speech, the word "guy" becomes a very common way to refer to a male person starting in the 1800s, most particularly in America.
Historically, the word derives from a specific person who was named Guy — Guy Fawkes, one of the Catholic conspirators involved in the Gunpowder Plot, a stymied rebellion that occurred in Britain in 1605. The plotters intended to blow up the House of Lords to get rid of King James’ Protestant regime, and Guy Fawkes, as their munitions expert, was caught holding the flame to light the gunpowder hidden under the Parliament building in just the nick of time.
As a result, Parliament subsequently declared the day in question, November 5, as a holiday, mainly in celebration of the fact that they weren't blown to bits. Guy Fawkes, in turn, was convicted of treason and hung, but his name lived on in infamy because part of the annual November 5 festivities involve burning effigies of the men considered responsible for the plot, and these were referred to as “Guys."
Although at first "guy" was just a name for these effigies, within a few decades people were using it to refer to people too, but at first only bad people — bad guys. Eventually, the word began to lose its stigma though, especially in American English, and people started using it more widely, as just another way to refer to a man.
Next, there's another term that has a link to Guy Fawkes: "guido." This colloquial term for "man" is the Italian equivalent of the name Guy, and in fact, Guy Fawkes apparently went by the name Guido Fawkes. But while, over time, the word "guy" lost its negative association, most people still think of "guido" as an insult, and it's often used to refer to an overly showy man who has, shall we say, a bit too much machismo.
Finally, we turn to the origin of our words for men who become fathers. The word "father" is also very old, with similar words in most languages that came from an even older Indo-European source language.
But while most Germanic languages have words for fathers that start with an “f” sound, many other languages use words that start with “p” sounds, especially older languages like Latin ("pater"), Ancient Greek ("patér"), and Sanskrit ("pitar").
Since the original Indo-European language that gave rise to all these languages isn't thought to have an "f" or "th" sound, but likely did have "p-," "b-," and "d-"like sounds; "papa," "dada," "baba," or similar-sounding words used by young children are probably closer to ancient versions of father-words than those that later developed in English and German (such as "father" or "vater").
Even more intriguing is the fact that words for father in unrelated languages around the globe seem to have similar sounding words for father — a situation that is not true of words like "guy" or "man," which can only be traced back to one language family. This suggests that babies and their universal form of babble might have early on spawned the word for dads all over the world.
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." A version of this story originally appeared on Psychology Today, and you can find Valerie at valeriefridland.com.
Next, for Halloween, I decided to dig up the origins of four burial-related words: "crypt," "catacomb," "mausoleum," and "ossuary."
by Mignon Fogarty
First, picture this: You're in an old European church, maybe somewhere in England or Italy. As you descend a narrow set of stairs, you find yourself in a small, vaulted chamber — a crypt. The word "crypt" comes from the Greek word "kryptē," meaning "hidden" or "vault." And it's a fitting name for a secretive, tucked-away space under a church where important dead people are interred, like nobles, clergy, and maybe even saints. Crypts are often for a particular family or religious figure, almost like a private room for the dearly departed.
And the word "encrypt" does come from the same origin as "crypt." It uses the same idea of something hidden away — although instead of a body, in the case of "encrypt," it's information that’s being locked away.
Next, to understand catacombs, we have to travel to Rome, believed to be the site of the first catacombs. This time picture yourself under the bustling city in a maze of narrow tunnels. The walls are lined with thousands of neatly arranged bones and burial niches — a vast, communal resting place. The word "catacomb" goes all the way back to Old English but has a slightly murky origin before that. It may have come from or been influenced by a Latin word that meant "to lie" as in "to lie down."
Unlike crypts, which were small and reserved for the elite, catacombs were for many people.
Next, we have "mausoleums." These are grand, above-ground burial structures, often adorned with intricate carvings that serve as the burial place for important people or families. A few years ago, I got to visit La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the resting place of Eva Peron and other notable Argentineans, and as you walk down the pathways between the mausoleums, you start to feel like you're walking through a neighborhood of little macabre houses. Or at least I did.
The word "mausoleum" comes from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was built as the tomb for Mausolus, a Persian satrap — a governor — and it was so impressive that his name became synonymous with grand, monumental tombs. Unlike crypts, which are often hidden and intimate, mausoleums are designed to be visible.
Another huge, famous mausoleum is the Taj Mahal in India, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the mid-1600s in memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, whose name meant "chosen one of the palace." The word "mahal" means "palace." "Taj" means "crown," and so "Taj Majah " means "crown of the palace." So although you might guess that the name "Taj Mahal" comes from the wife being named "Mahal," it actually doesn't. Their names just both happen to end with "palace."
Finally, we have the "ossuary," which is actually something quite different — an ossuary is a place specifically for the storage of bones. The word comes from the Latin "ossuarium," meaning “container for bones.” These places often become necessary when space is scarce, and they make for some truly eerie visuals — think of walls literally built out of carefully stacked skulls and femurs. The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, also known as the “Bone Church,” is one of the most famous, with decorations made entirely of human remains. It’s creepy, but also strangely artistic. Confusingly, the famous Catacombs of Paris, whose walls are lined with bones and which you may have seen in pictures or movies, is actually, technically, an ossuary.
Language-wise, "ossuary" shares a root with words like "ossify," which means “to turn into bone” or, metaphorically, to become rigid or fixed in position.
So there you have it. Crypts are private chambers for people of status, catacombs are sprawling underground cities for the dead masses, mausoleums are grand monuments meant to honor and remember people, and ossuaries are practical, bone-stacking solutions when space is tight.
Finally, I have a familect story from Jared.
Hello. Mignon. My name is Jared, and I have a familect story. When I was growing up, I was one of 6 kids, and so there are a lot of opinions. And like in any families, sometimes things would begin to get heated over something trivial. As a way of defusing the tension, a few strategies emerged over the years. One of which involves food. So my family was quite fond of taquitos — those rolled crunchy tacos. One day, my siblings and I started to argue, and one of us who wasn't in the argument shouted, "Taquitos!" The oddness of this expression and the happy memories of the delicious crunchy snacks calm things down for a bit.
Another way was a bit more interactive. One day, the whole family was at the beach. There are a lot of hungry seagulls warming around any scrap of food and swooping over our heads looking for any snacks they might get. We happened to all have plastic water bottles, and later that day when some of them started to argue, one of us threw an empty water bottle over the heads of the arguers. This immediately stopped the fight as we looked up to protect ourselves from a feathered dive bomber. Love the show. Congratulations on the 1,000 show milestone. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Jared. This is so interesting because it's clearly something your family does to disrupt arguments, but it's not really a single word or even always a word. The best I could come up with is that finding an offbeat way to interrupt an argument is your family "strategy." But if someone else listening knows of a name that's already established for something like that, please let us know!
And this is also, I guess, a good time for me to answer a question that came in from Richard asking me to explain exactly what a familect is.
So the word "familect" is a blend of the words "family" and "dialect." It's a word or phrase that you only use with your family (of course, we've broadened that to occasionally include words you use with just your friends, like we heard from Jim a couple of weeks ago, and in that case, we usually call it a "friendilect." An example from my family is that we call ficus trees "Normans" after the calf that was born in the movie "City Slickers" because right after we saw that movie, I rode home on my bike in the rain with a small ficus tree in my backpack that was a muddy mess when I pulled it out, and it reminded us of the calf being born in the rain storm. Another example from a listener is saying, "Well, it's no chocolate river" when they see something impressive because they were once went to a restaurant that advertised having a chocolate river that turned out be terribly disappointing and it became a joke, like, "Well, the Grand Canyon is cool, but it's no chocolate river." So those words or phrases, the things you say to your family or friends that mean something to you but wouldn't mean something to anyone else — those are familects.
And I would love to hear yours! Please, give me a call and tell me your familect stories so I can share them on the show. People don't seem to like using WhatsApp, so although it will still be there, and it's in the show notes, you can also call the voicemail line again at 83-321-4-GIRL.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to Davina Tomlin and Nat Hoopes in marketing; Dan Feierabend in audio; Morgan Christianson in advertising; Brannan Goetschius, director of podcasts; and Holly Hutchings in digital operations who's adding ice skating to her fitness regimen soon.
And I'm Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip-a-day book "The Grammar Daily." That's all. Thanks for listening.
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The following references for the "words for men" segment did not appear in the audio but are included here for completeness.
Ayto, John. 1990. Dictionary of Word Origins. Arcade Publishing, Inc. New York: New York.
Fridland, Valerie. 2022. From ‘dada’ to Darth Vader – why the way we name fathers reminds us we spring from the same well. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/from-dada-to-darth-vader-why-the-way-we-name-fathers-reminds-us-we-spring-from-the-same-well-184370 (accessed June 13, 2023).
Liberman, Anatoly. 2015. You’ll be a man my son, part 1. Oxford University Press Blog. https://blog.oup.com/2015/11/man-word-origin-etymology-part-1/ (accessed June 13, 2023).