Now for the "Poop"

    I really wanted to title this post "The Nitty Gritty" but after looking up that phrase it was not all that much worthwhile for a meaningful beginning. Being not much more than a reference to Jazz players who tweaked this lingo from "finely ground corn". Thus we may have heard Fats Waller shout out a hundred years ago, "Hey Tuba Skinny, what's the nitty-gritty today?!"

    POOP, however not only an ignoble eye-catching (and fly catching) grand title, but also a fun etymology. So lets get started!


Poop - "the stern of a ship" where the steering of gears would maneuver the vessel. Recently becoming a military term regarding the necessary facts needed to command and captain the ship. So poop means "up-to-date-information" and much like the nitty-gritty you can say, "give me the poop, please".

Desire - an Old French phrase de sidere, "from the stars”

Youngster - "young-star"

Sky - is a simple Norse word meaning "a cloud". How's that for a paradox.
(May i remind you all of a previous post about "clouds" which literally means "rocks")

Cathedral -from kata-hedra: “the down face of a geometric solid”
 
Geek - "a croaking sideshow freak"
  
Ambulance - “walking (hospital)"

Bizarre - "handsome, brave," and as EtymologyOnline insightfully comments that it is perhaps from Basque bizar meaning, "a beard" because the history of bearded Spanish soldiers making a strange impression on the French to the point of influencing the development of this word.

Lazarus - Hebrew for “God has helped”



F.U.C.K. – well the rumors about this take on English's most popular four-lettered word are more interesting than the facts. Legend goes that it was an accronym describing the Biblical wisdom a person would possess for being intimate with another and thus, “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”. . . . F U C K.

Horizon - "a bounding circle"

Graffit - "to scribble" (originating from "ancient wall inscriptions found in the ruins of Pompeii!")

Mustard - "new wine"

Mayonnaise - named in recognition of Mahon, seaport capital of island of Minorca, captured by France 1756 after the defeat of the British defending fleet in the Seven Years' War.


Peewee - "a small marble"

Further acronym speculations about the etymology of NEWS: "north, east, west, and south"



Colossus - unknown in origin however first used by Herodotus when describing giant Egyptian statues.

Astronaut - a "star sailor"


Demiurge - "public worker"

Attitude: used "originally in 17th century as a technical term in art for the posture of a figure in a statue or painting; later generalized to "a posture of the body supposed to imply some mental state”.(EtymologyOnline.com)




To close this entry, here is a most perplexing word humour of which i don't know what to make because its referenced in a few cultures all with similarly strange meanings.
Middle English for "fluid or juice of an animal or plant," or Latin for "body moisture".

In ancient and medieval physiology, "any of the four body fluids" (blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy or black bile) whose relative proportions were thought to determine state of mind. This led to a sense of "mood, temporary state of mind," first recorded 1520's.
(EtyologyOnline.com).


OkiDoki, stay healthy my friends. Be happy. And don't wet yourselves with too much humorous laughter. 

Hope you enjoyed the poop.
See you on the far side in the sky.