Attention word nerds: 13 mysteries of the vernacular, solved
Posted by: Kate Torgovnick
Before a ‘clue’ became a thing that excited a detective, the word referred to a ball of yarn. So how did this shift in meaning occur? Because in Greek mythology, Ariadne threw a ball of yarn to Theseus before he entered the minotaur’s labyrinth. Theseus unrolled the yarn behind him as he traveled into the deadly maze — then used it to find his way out.
And you’ll find lots more of it in the TED-Ed series Mysteries of the Vernacular, from Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel.
- What the word gorgeous has to do with turtlenecks
- How the word window came from a clever metaphor
- The strange derivation of the tuxedo
- How Alfred Nobel invented dynamite
- Why venom once meant ‘something to be desired’
- The riddle of the word earwig
- Why the word inaugurate is for the birds
- How noise, nausea and naval are all related
- The story of the word pants
- Why the origin of the word miniature isn’t so small
- What a hearse was before a vehicle for the dead
- The word assassin’s roots in hash
- And, as previously mentioned, why you could once knit with a clue