In the game of cricket, if a bowler were to take three wickets on three consecutive balls, or if a player were to score three goals in a football match, they were presented with a hat by the fans through a collection. It was a mark of respect offered to the individual who performed the feat.

Therefore, this came to be known as a Hat-trick.

The first known instance of this in cricket was in 1858, when H.H. Stevenson, who took three wickets on three consecutive balls and the fans collected money to buy him a hat.

The people who followed a strict diet that Graham preached were known as Grahamites.

To meet the needs of the Grahamites, the Graham flour, which was coarsely ground whole wheat flour, was produced. The Graham Cracker was produced by Graham himself. A biscuit made with unsifted flour.

He did not produce or profit from the product. The demand from the thousands of Grahamites was so great that many biscuit companies, including the National Biscuit company started mass producing the product in 1898.

They have remained popular ever since.

Source: Wikipedia

The frame that was used to suspend the meat was translated by the Spaniards to barbacoa. The original Arawak term, barbicu, referred to the framework of wood, which was also used to store food above ground.

The word found its way from Spanish to Portuguese to French to English. It was first used in English in 1661 in Edmund Hickeringill’s Jamaica Viewed: “Some are slain, And their flesh forthwith Barbacu’d and eat”. It was initially used as a verb rather than a noun, and the noun usage evolved later in the century.

The word has also had several spellings, including barbeque, barbecque and barbecue over the years.

This was the Iron Age and getting through fortified castle walls was not easy. Medieval siege warfare was brutal and extremely human intensive. These were meat grinders where several men had to be lost to get through the fortifications.

One of the methods that was devised as a means of getting around the fortifications was to dig under the foundation of the walls to weaken the walls and make them easier to bring down. This practice of weakening the foundation came to be known as undermining.

This practice also gave rise to technique of fighting wars from covered trenches known as sapping. The divisions engaged in these operations came to be known as Sappers. The engineering regiment of the Indian army located off Ulsoor Lake, Bangalore is known as the Madras Sappers.

It was not until the 15th century that word started taking a metaphorical meaning which it is known for today.

As the idea of genes took root, so did the idea that some people had bad genes and some people good ones.

It was assumed that those who were prone to diseases such as epilepsy were perhaps suffering the results of having bad genes. The idea soon emerged that if such individuals were taken out of the gene pool, bluntly put, if such people could be sterilised, the future generations would be better off and would not have to suffer these faults. This gave birth to the field of eugenics.

Genes were also considered responsible for shortcomings and immoral behaviour. In the US, such people were considered feebleminded. Feebleminded people were also categorised into three categories. Stupid, Imbecile and Moron.

A Stupid was a person with a mental age of less than 35 months.

Imbeciles and Morons had a much more fluid definition. Essentially, people found to be engaging in indecency, prostitution, etc, which could not be harshly punished by the law, fell into this category.

In the US, in 1910, the idea of separating the feebleminded took root. A colony was created at Lynchburg, Virginia, where these feebleminded were taken to live. It was a Hotel California that you could check into, but you could not get out of.

The colony was authorised by a 1906 bill written by eugenicist and social welfare advocate Aubrey Strode, in collaboration with eugenicists Albert Priddy and Joseph DeJarnette. The colony received its first patients in 1911 and by the end of the calendar year had more than 150 men who suffered from epilepsy, a condition of social abhorrence. Colonies like the Virginia State Colony had been established in order to separate the disabled from criminal populations, for example, many of the first inhabitants of the Virginia State Colony had previously been housed in prisons and state hospitals. Originally, only men could be patients of the colony, but after roughly one year of operation, superintendent Priddy allowed women into the colony who were diagnosed as feeble-minded.

Source: Wikipedia

The institution underwent several rounds of rebranding but was finally shut down in 2020.

When Hitler was being released from prison after the Beer Hall Putsch, a lady by the name of Carrie Buck arrived at Lynchburg, and she was the subject of a court battle over the legality of the state go Virginia to sterilise her. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided that it was legal for the state of Virginia to sterilise Ms Buck.

While the sterilisation program at Lynchburg continued till 1956, the eugenicists involved there also marvelled at how efficiently Hitler was pushing the idea of the purity of the race. The idea of segregating and doing away with individuals with poor genetics appealed to many of them.

The concentration camps run by the Nazis were explicitly run with the idea of killing people with a particular gene. Or rather, killing all those who did not possess Aryan genetics.

Hence,

Geno ~ referring to a or belonging to a gene; and

-cide ~ denoting a person a substance that kills.

We got Genocide.

Charles Lynch was born in an America that was still under British rule. He lived in Bedford County, Virginia. He was a large landowner, a leading citizen, and immensely wealthy as a result of his farming of tobacco and cattle.

Since he was a large business owner, he was approached by citizens to be a part of the Virginia Assembly, which he refused. In 1767, he was appointed the judge of the peace of Bedford County, Virginia. He served the House of Burgesses and the convention for 10 years, starting in 1769 and became a militia colonel.

To put down a loyalist uprising in 1780, Charles Lynch handed down sentences after a summary trial at an informal court. The suspects were handed sentences, including whipping, property seizure, coerced pledge of allegiance and conscription into the military.

His actions were legitimised by the Virginia General Assembly in 1782, and he served the Virginia Senate from 1784 to 1789.

This form of handing punishment came to be known as Lynch’s Law.

In 1780, Captain William Lynch of Pittsylvania, Virginia, led vigilance committees to maintain order during the Revolution. In 1811, he claimed that it was a compact signed between him and his neighbour to uphold their own brand of law independent of legal authority.

Charles Lynch had passed away in 1796.

In 1820, Lynch's Law referred to extrajudicial punishment honouring the wishes of a large number of people. By the 1880s, the meaning of the word Lynch had narrowed to extrajudicial killings of Black people by While mobs. This shift may have been a result of the work of Ida B Wells, who coined the term Lynch Mobs.

The first recorded epidemic ever was that of Malaria. The first mentions of a disease that had symptoms similar to Malaria come from Egypt in 1550 B.C. It was thereafter reported in Greece in 413 B.C.

Although the disease emerged in Africa, due to the trade across the Mediterranean, it crossed over to Rome and Greece. It was responsible for the decline of entire city-state populations. One of the proposed theories of the decline of the Roman Empire is epidemic. In Rome, it came to be known as Roman Fever.

In the 16th century, the Italians thought that the disease was caused by poisonous air arising from the marshes. Even in England, it was called the Marsh Fever.

Since it was believed the poisonous air from the marshes was causing the fever, the Italians called the disease “mal”, meaning bad and “aria”, meaning air. Malaria literally meant bad air. It was not until the 19th century that the true cause was understood, but the name stuck and has remained since.

In the 1880s, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) started working towards promoting abstinence through education to rid society of the ill effects of excessive alcohol consumption.

While at the time a national prohibition was not passed, in several states and counties, alcohol consumption was banned through the passage of local laws.

At the time, the leg of the boot was used to conceal an alcohol bottle or flask and moved across state lines. Thus illegal movement of alcohol came to be known as bootlegging.

The term was extended to music in the 1950s when it became common to copy music without paying the artist.

Jean Nicot de Villemain is known for having had to negotiate the wedding of the six-year-old Margaret of Valois and the five-year-old King Sebastian of Portugal. That marriage never happened.

In 1492, on his first voyage to what would come to be known as the West Indies, Christopher Columbus brought back leaves and seeds of the tobacco plant with him. A crew member, Rodrigo de Jerez, started smoking the leaves and found it impressive. The plant had found its way from Spain to Portugal.

After his 27 years in Portugal, Jean Nicot returned to France with a tobacco plant, which he introduced to the French Royal Court as a present. More specifically, he introduced the plant to Catherine de Medici with the instruction to use it as snuff. She found it relieved the King of his headaches.

In 1560, the French started cultivating tobacco in France. The plant was named Nicotiana tabacum in honour of Jean Nicot. The plant’s name was further shortened to give us Nicotine.

Charles would earn 10% of the total rent due to Lord Erne. Charles, whose full name was Charles Cunningham Boycott, would become quite wealthy himself.

The year 1880 had seen a poor harvest. The farmers who had been renting the land were not able to produce enough due to the bad harvest. The farmers, led by Father O’Malley, had requested that the rent be lowered, keeping in mind the lower harvest. In August 1880, the farmers went on a strike to reduce the rent. Charles agreed to reduce the rent by 10% on account of the poor harvest. All except for two tenants wanted a 25% reduction.

Charles said that he had written to Lord Erne, but the Lord had refused to accede. He issued notices for the rent due and told them they would be evicted if they did not pay the rent.

The next step was the serve the eviction notice, and after the third farmer, the fourth refused to accept the notice and waved a red flag to let the rest of the farmers know that eviction notices were to be served.

After refusing to accept the notice, the farmers made all of the servants who worked at the Boycott Estate quit their jobs. Boycott was left taking care of his entire estate all by himself.

According to James Redpath, the verb "to boycott" was coined by Father O'Malley in a discussion between them on 23 September 1880. The following is Redpath's account:

I said, "I'm bothered about a word."

"What is it?" asked Father John.

"Well," I said, "When the people ostracise a land-grabber we call it social excommunication, but we ought to have an entirely different word to signify ostracism applied to a landlord or land-agent like Boycott. Ostracism won't do – the peasantry would not know the meaning of the word – and I can't think of any other."

"No," said Father John, "ostracism wouldn't do."

He looked down, tapped his big forehead, and said: "How would it do to call it to Boycott him?"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott

In November 1880, it was reportedly printed in the Birmingham Daily Post. In the same year, The Illustrated London News described how “to Boycott” had already become an active verb. In 1888 it was included the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which would go on to become the Oxford English Dictionary.

She acted in several movies and, as an actress, was invited to several of the galas meant to promote those films. As a child, she was not allowed to drink.

Legend has it that she was served a mocktail, which was a mix of ginger ale, a splash of grenadine and garnished with a maraschino cherry. The drink thus got the name Shirley Temple.

But she said -

The saccharine sweet, icky drink? Yes, well... those were created in the probably middle 1930s by the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood, and I had nothing to do with it. But all over the world, I am served that. People think it's funny. I hate them. Too sweet!

Source: NPR Archives

In order to produce the maps, one uses the triangulation method, where the location of any point is determined using the angles from any known points. Incidentally, this is exactly how a GPS locates you on the planet today!

Triangulation requires precise measurement. The surveyors used a three-legged bench to place a table which was level with the ground. The points at which the legs would be placed on the ground used to be marked with “benchmarks”. An angle iron was left in the ground to mark the points.

Source: Wikipedia

These locations were marked so that the bench could be placed back at the same location precisely without repeated measurements.

Even today, most surveyors use a three-legged survey tool called the total station to undertake surveys on the ground.

Source: Wikipedia

In 1979, Xerox used the term Competitive Benchmarking to compare its process with those of the Japanese firms they were competing.

Some guy in a management college read this, and the word started its new journey, which refers to a standard or a point of reference.

Aristotle first suggested that there must be a fifth element that stars were made of, since they seem to follow perfect laws of motion. On Earth, you have friction, you have wind, you have a host of factors that make perfect motion impossible. In stark contrast, the lights in the sky seem to move in absolute perfection.

He proposed a fifth element called Aether to account for the celestial bodies. This fifth element was considered a pure, fine and perfect substance.

In Latin, quinque is the number ‘five’ and quinta means fifth. Since Aether was considered the fifth element, it was also referred to as Quintessence.

This term was later adopted by the alchemists to explain how one element changes into another. They thought of it as a life force which transmutes base metals into others. Even Newton spent a considerable part of his life in the pursuit of creating Gold in this manner.

The word found its way into English through French and is used to refer to describe the purest, most ideal form of something.

The prisons were guarded by men with shoot-to-kill orders in case anyone was found crossing the line.

That line came to be known as the deadline. If you crossed it, you were dead.

In the early 20th century, that word transitioned to be used in a metaphorical sense, especially in the publishing and news industry. Since news had to be sent into print by night so that the paper carried the story in the morning, there was intense pressure to post stories before a certain time after which the print run could not be changed. That time came to be known as the deadline.

And like that, the meaning of the word morphed to denote a time.

Marcus hired an enterprising advertising manager by the name of Nils Granlund as the advertising manager of Leow’s Theatres. In 1913, he spliced together rehearsal footage of The Pleasure Seekers into a montage that trialled after the show.

From the very beginning, "trailers" had always referred to a preview of a future movie release, but it made more sense back then because they were shown at the end of a movie screening, trailing the actual shown movie, instead of at the start, as is the practice today.

By the end of the 1930s, however, film studios realised that trailers would have a greater impact if they were screened before a movie rather than afterwards. Consequently, they began showing them in that order instead.

While this word probably came from the German word geck, which meant a fool, dupe or a simpleton.

The word was used in English in America in the 1900s to describe a ‘sideshow freak’ in a circus. They were usually engaged in grotesque acts such as biting the heads of small animals, such as chickens.

In June 1935, The American Mercury published an article titled The Mystery of the Carnival Language, in which Geek referred to a degenerate who bites off the heads of chickens in a gory cannibal show.

By the late 1950s, it came to be used in the context of an overly diligent, unsociable person. This was most likely an accident. By the 1980s, the word came to be used to describe an unsociable person with an obsessive interest. Most likely in computers.

By the 21st century, the word had lost its negative connotation and started being viewed in a positive light.

When books began being written, books were handwritten, or rather hand-copied. Since books were written on leather, leaf or papyrus, they had limited shelf life and often had to be copied over and over as the document aged, to preserve it. Writing books by hand was expensive because it was so time-consuming. Every letter had to be written legibly so that anyone would be able to read it.

This resulted in the advent of cursive writing in ancient Rome and Greece. The word Cursive is derived from the Latin word ‘Cursivus’ which means running. Running handwriting sped up the process of writing while at the same time preserving the legibility for all readers.

With the advent of printing, there was a need to replicate the beauty of cursive writing while printing books. Every letter had to have a capitalised and a small form. Two forms of every letter were created, and they also needed to be stored separately so as not to confuse the two.

The terms "upper case" and "lower case" have quite literal meanings. Printers stored the capitalised letter in the upper part of a case, and small letters were stored in the lower case. This carried forth from the printing world into computing, and thus we call capitalised letters upper case and small letters lower case.

For those who were left without the possibility of finding mates in their villages, these were great places to try their hand at finding both work and mates. This convergence at such trading posts gave birth to cities.

Cities are also a great vector for the spread of viruses.

In 1346, a bacterium called Yersinia Pestis started spreading across Europe. Over the next seven years, Europe saw the largest outbreak of Bubonic Plague or the Black Death, as it was known. It is estimated that between 75 million and 220 million people died. The global population at the time is estimated to be 443 million. The global human population was reduced by between 20% to 50% depending on the estimate you pick.

Venice had become incredibly wealthy at the time thanks to the slave trade from Europe to Persia. Have you heard of the Slavs?

Dubrovnik was under Venetian rule at the time. To keep the disease from spreading, the city of Dubrovnik declared that the ships and people arriving at their ports had to be isolated for 40 days before entering the city. 2

At the time, in the Venetian dialect, 40 days was referred to as ‘quaranta giorni’. This gave birth to the word Quarantine.

This is a tough one since there are several origin stories and nobody agrees on one story being the sole source of origin.

In theatres, a “leg line” drawn on either side of the stage marks the point beyond which actors would be visible to the audience. If an actor did not get to cross the leg line during a performance, he/she would not get paid. Break a leg was a wish for the actor to get on the stage, so they would get paid.

Another origin story goes that during Elizabethan times, the audience would bang their chairs on the ground instead of applauding by clapping. If they banged the chair really hard, the leg would break.

There is another etymological origin theory which says this comes from German - the origins are suggested to have arrived from a loan translation of the German phrase “Hals- und Beinbruch,” which literally means “neck and leg break.” That phrase itself was a humorous interpretation of the Yiddish phrase “Hatsloche un broche,” which literally translates to “success and blessing.” The similar pronunciations of these phrases may have been the start of an ironic well-wishing.

When the soldiers landed on the D-Day beaches in Normandy, the ones on the front lines were almost certain to die. They were meant to be cannon fodder, so that those behind them could make more progress and overwhelm the German posts. If those in front did not rush into near-certain death, there was no chance for those behind them.

In the Roman army, maintaining that discipline was important. There had to be no room for mutiny, cowardice, desertion or insubordination. An army cohort used to number about 480 soldiers. If the cohort engaged in any of the above capital offences they had to be punished. But punishing all of the soldiers would mean there would not be any soldiers left!

So the Romans devised a plan to punish the soldiers.

The entire cohort would be divided into groups of 10 soldiers by the draw of straws. The one who drew the shortest straw would be executed by the other 9, often through stoning, clubbing or stabbing.

Decimatio in Latin means ten. Since the soldiers were divided into groups of 10, and the tenth soldier was picked for punishment, this form of punishment came to be known as decimation.

The earliest reference to this practice goes back to 471 BC.

For a long time, Decimate meant to reduce by a tenth. Then, as the Roman Empire itself got decimated again and again, the word made its way to English.

As this word jumped across to English, its meaning got completely altered to imply complete destruction.