memo 1 Flashcards
origin of maize
Taino
origin of yoghurt
Turkish
origin of slogan
Gaelic
origin of dollar
German
origin of chutzpah
Arabic
origin of hysteria
Greek- womb
origin of khaki
Persian
origin of martyr
Greek
origin of taboo
Tongan
origin of safari
Arabic
babysitter
compound
mainframe
compound
app
clipping
skyskraper
compound
syphilis
eponym
laser
acronym
rugby
toponym
blog
clipping (weblog)
advertorial
blend
SARS
acronym
Placebo
meaning ‘to please’
veto
‘i forbid’
any ban or prohibition
caveat
‘let the person be aware’
a warning of conditions
affidavit
‘he has stated on oath’
deficit
‘it is lacking’
Fascist
- an authoritarian and nationalistic right wing system of government
Dismal
- depressing
- unlucky days by Egyptian astrologers
Pariah
- an outcast
- only allowed to be drummers in religious festivals
- Tamil
Kangaroo
first recorded by James Cook and Joseph Banks
legend has it that the scout replied “gangurru” which supposedly meant “I don’t understand” in English. This has been refuted and it is considered that gangurru is an aboriginal word for a kangaroo.
Levi’s
- riveted jean brand
- Levi Strauss went to Californian Gold Rush to sell good. miners trousers tore so he made thick ones from canvas so he used denim. Back in New York he added metal rivets at points of strain
Heroin
used to be sold as a non-addictive pain-killer to replace morhpine and codeine for TB treatment
Robot
machine capable of carrying out complex processes
from Czach robota coined in a play
chauvinist
a person displaying excessive or prejudiced support for own country, cause, etc
- eponym- Nicolas Chauvin who was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars. He was ridiculed for his extreme devotion to Emperor Napoleon, and in 1831 he was ridiculed as the character in a play by Cogniard called “La Cocarde Tricolore
Boycott
- This was taken from the name of Captain Charles C. Boycott, an Irish land agent acting for the absent landowner, the Earl of Erne. When the Irish politician, Charles Parnell, instituted land reform and advocated that landlords lower their rents, Boycott refused. As a result, Parnell’s supporters and Boycott’s tenants refused to have anything to do with Boycott and his family – they were isolated without servants, farmhands, service in stores, or mail delivery. Boycott’s name was quickly adopted as the term for this kind of treatment.
Gerrymander
- eponym
- to arrange political divisions that gives one political party unfair advantage
- Governor Elbridge Gerry, Governor of Massachusetts, subdivided his home territory of Essex County, in the northeast corner of Massachusetts, into bizarrely shaped senatorial districts so as to give the his party a majority in the state senate. The shape of the re-districted area resembled a salamander, a lizard-like creature with four short legs and a long tail.
Bowdlerize
to expurgate (edit severely) a written work by removing or modifying passages considered vulgar or offensive. In 1836, Dr Thomas Bowdler published a notoriously expurgated Shakespeare as he felt that he could not read the text aloud to his children. The result was a weaker and less effective text.
Balaclava
- toponym
- Crimean War
Alsatian
-German dog
The Alsatian dog was primarily bred in Germany, in the area of Alsace, as a shepherding dog, but because of its strength, intelligence and trainability it is often used as a working dog for search and rescue, personal protection, drug detection and is used by the police and military.
Pasteurize
to make milk safe by destroying micro-organisms in it by heating
The French chemist, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), discovered a method for stopping excessive fermentation and reducing disease in such liquids as wine, beer, and milk by heating them. This revolutionized the French wine and beer industries but went on to save the lives of thousands of milk drinkers as well.
Sadist
- deriving pleasure from cruelty
- The Marquis de Sade (Donatien Alphonse Francois) was an infamous sexual pervert who was found guilty of all sorts of sexual crimes and spent more than 27 years in prisons and insane asylums. To overcome boredom in prison, he started to write graphic sexual novels and plays, displaying a preoccupation with sexual violence.
