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Welcome to Etymology. I'm your host, Professor Alan Parkinson. And my first guest is here from Iceland to help me illustrate the Indo-European origin of the word, 'fair'. You'll notice, first of all, that she has fair hair. Isn't it beautiful? So radiant. And next, you'll note her fair skin, unblemished, almost milky in tone. In fact, the word 'fair' has been synonymous with 'beautiful', since it was considered beautiful to be unblemished through all those centuries of appalling hygiene in Medieval Europe. The Norse have a legend that women such as my guest are an offshoot of the seed of Odin, planted in the North Pole during an ice-fishing trip by a glacier nymph who visited him when he was drunk, and then passed down through generations of Vikings, who laboured over the following centuries to construct Superman's Crystal Palace... Go to a commercial, please. We're back and my next guest is here to help us trace the origin of the word, 'china'. Now, we here in the west value our china. It is smooth and well made. It has lovely rounded features. It is strong, yet delicate. It is highly civilized. It has the kind of hair you want to bury your face in. Uh - Can we go to another commercial? We'll be right back with the origin of the word, 'mojo'. |
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| © 2007, 2013. Scripts by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Etymology
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