Language Log

The etymology, according to the OED:

Apparently cognate with Old Saxon drano, dran (with uncertain vowel length: see note) (Middle Low German drāne, drōne; German regional (Low German) drāne, drōne; > German Drohne) and probably also with Old Saxon dreno, Old High German treno, tren (Middle High German tren, all with short vowel), all in the sense ‘drone bee’, further etymology uncertain, probably ultimately < a Germanic verbal base for making a kind of loud, continuous sound (compare droun v.); the noun was apparently formed from this verbal base with reference to the loud buzzing sound made by bees and similar insects, perhaps sometimes specifically with reference to the males of some species buzzing aggressively when the hive is disturbed.

With all the recent news about tariffs, I wondered where the word came from. So I consulted the OED:

< Italian tariffa ‘arithmetike or casting of accounts’ (Florio), ‘a book of rates for duties’ (Baretti), = Spanish tarifa, Portuguese tarifa, < Arabic taʿrīf notification, explanation, definition, article, < ʿarafa in 1st conj. to notify, make known. So French tarif.

We need a new word in English:  "roboton"

The reason I thought of this is because it reflects my reaction to the constant, mindless, monotonous repetition of Chinese government spokespersons with ready-made responses to any should-be difficult questions that may be put to them.  For example, "China maintains a position of strict neutrality in the Ukraine crisis and never does anything contrary to international law" (or words to that effect), as Mme. Mao Ning (Director of the Foreign Ministry Information Department of China) has said so many times.

Throughout my research and teaching career,  I have always emphasized that, when it comes to genuine etymology of Sinitic, what matters are the sounds and meanings of the constituent etyma, going all the way back to the fundamental roots.  The shapes of the glyphs used to write the eyma in question are far less important than the sounds and meanings.  In fact, discussion of the shapes of the glyphs is often more of a distraction than a benefit to understanding what the true etymologies of given etyma are.  We demonstrated that by the sharp disagreements we had over the meanings of the shapes of the ancient glyphs / forms / shapes of such a simple / definite / concise lexeme / morpheme as "woman; female".  That is why the sound nǚ and its attendant meaning "woman; female" are more important for Sinitic etymology than is the the three-stroke character 女, albeit the latter derived from more complicated and difficult to explain / interpret forms.

We've been discussing the oracle bone form (late 2nd millennium BC) of nǚ女 ("woman; female"):

(WP)

I've always felt that it shows the profile of a submissive, kneeling female figure with her arms crossed in front of her (I say this after examining scores of variants of OB forms of 女).

"Arnold the Grove Snail"  (1:11)

Well, now, for all those doubting Thomases who insist that there was no contact between western Eurasia, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia in antiquity:

"The Amber Trade along the Southwestern Silk Road from 600 BCE-220 CE." Lü, Jing et al. Palaeoentomology 8, no. 6 (December 29, 2025): 679-682. https://www.mapress.com/pe/article/view/palaeoentomology.8.6.10.

Christian Horn writes:

Oreo cookies are famous and widely known.

I never attached the name "Oreo" to single piecesof the cookie, but once you start this is possible:

Wiktionary's etymology:

nyce, nice, nys, from Old French nice, niche, nisce (“simple, foolish, ignorant”), from Latin nescius (“ignorant, not knowing”); compare nesciō (“to know not, be ignorant of”), from ne (“not”) + sciō (“to know”).

Wiktionary's etymology:

From Middle English mery, merie, mirie, myrie, murie, murȝe, from Old English meriġe, miriġe, myriġe, myreġe, myrġe (“pleasing, agreeable; pleasant, sweet, delightful; melodious”), from Proto-West Germanic *murgī (“short, slow, leisurely”), from Proto-Germanic *murguz (“short, slow”), from Proto-Indo-European *mréǵʰus (“short”). Cognate with Scots mery, mirry (“merry”), Middle Dutch mergelijc (“pleasant, agreeable, joyful”), Norwegian dialectal myrjel (“small object, figurine”), Latin brevis (“short, small, narrow, shallow”), Ancient Greek βραχύς (brakhús, “short”). Doublet of brief.

I was intrigued by the surname of a very nice man whom I met at Home Depot.  His name was Steven Dreibelbis, and his position in the store was that of "Customer Experience Manager".

Steven'a surname, Dreibelbis, sounded very German to me.  I asked him about it and he told me that he was indeed of German descent on his father's side, but his mother was Colombian and his grandmother was Peruvian, so he looked more South American than German.

Tomorrow I will be delivering the keynote address to the international conference on "China and Greece. Ancient Ecumenisms in the Mirror", to be held at the Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo (DAAM) of Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" in late November (actually tomorrow, Tuesday the 25th; here's the zoom link for my talk at 9:30 AM EST).

In preparing for my lecture on "Isidore of Seville and the medieval concept of the ecumene", I was delighted to learn more about this remarkable man.  Isidorus Hispalensis, who lived from ca. 560-636. was a Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian, and the archbishop of Seville.  During his lifetime, he was active in the politico-religious affairs of Iberia, including most prominently the conversion of the Visigothic kings to Chalcedonian Christianity.  After his death, Isidore's legacy was based largely on his celebrated Etymologiae, an encyclopedia that brought together extracts of works from classical antiquity that would otherwise have  been lost.

When I first learned the name of this important port city in northeastern Taiwan, I was told that it was originally written with characters that mean "chicken coop; hen coop; rooster cage", Taiwanese "Kelang" (POJ Ke-lâng/Koe-lâng).  I found that to be rather droll and thought that it was probably derived from the cramped geological formation of the hilly city.  The actual story of the city's name, which has come back into the news today, is quite different, as I will explain below the break.

Keelung pranked by name change on Google Maps
Prankster used characters for 18th century rendering of Keelung's name
Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News (Oct. 24, 2025)