Word Worries

Most people will be aware that “holiday” is the result of contracting the phrase “holy days,” with reference to religious observance days.  As far as contracted phrases go, it doesn’t really save the speaker a lot of work, but it at least cuts down on letters.  The formation of the word owes to a principle in English (and in all languages) which holds that as time goes on, language practices tend to give over to the laziest path possible.  It’s why accents become more “rounded” over time, and many words become pronounced very differently than they are spelled.

You can hear in the vowel sounds of “holy days” versus “holidays” that the latter is a little more relaxed and easier to say.  The whole phenomenon of sliding into less formal speech has been widely noted, and in fact is the central feature of what linguists refer to as the “Great Vowel Shift” in early modern English.  That makes it sounds pretty impressive, but really it’s just a testament to out capacity to try to find simpler ways to do things.

To be honest, “holiday” was really just a segue to bring up some of the words with similar origins that might not be quite as obvious.

“Goodbye” is probably the best example of the word type of all.  It’s a word we all use, but rarely think about.  Every time you say it, you’re actually saying “God be with you.”  This one took many years to evolve into its current form, but perhaps not as long as you might think.  The website for the Tabernacle Choir (of all things!) notes that “the first known use of the word “goodbye” was recorded in 1573 in a letter by English writer and scholar, Gabriel Harvey, which reads: “To requite your gallonde [gallon] of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes.”" “Godbwye” is a contraction of the phrase “God be with ye.” Throughout the years the word “good” was substituted for “God” due to the influence of phrases such as “good day” or “good evening.””  (This usage is backed up by the Oxford English Dictionary, in case you weren’t convinced.)

The companion term mentioned briefly in the letter is the western standby “howdy,” which itself means “how do you do?” and is also potentially much older than you would first guess.

Of course, the 1500s put these word origins squarely in the pre-colonial days of Old England, which is from whence (“where and when”) come a few of the most perplexing phrase contractions.  “Blimey” is what’s referred to as a “minced oath.”  In this case, “oath” is a term for a religiously based “swear,” and “minced” refers to the alteration the word experienced from its original form.  “Blimey” is short for “God Blind Me” (if I am lying).  It is part of a collection of odd words like “Zounds” (“God’s Wounds”), “Bloody” (“By Our Lady”/or “Christ’s Blood”), that are used to swear without swearing.

“Oaths” are different from “curses,” which specifically spell out a negative effect on the listener—“get lost,” “go to h***” etc.

Fortnight is a word your kids could probably tell you all about (although they probably think you’re spelling it incorrectly), but they may not be able to explain its origin.  It’s an odd word, at first blush, but probably less so when you realize it’s a shortened form of “fourteen nights,” or two full weeks.  

One of the oddest ones is probably “willy-nilly,” which is a rendering of the phrase “Will I, or Nill I?”  The original phrase is a very archaic way of saying helter-skelter, higgeldy-piggeldy, hodge-podge, or catawampus.  You know, clear as day phrases like that. 

Anyway, it will be interesting to see which words and phrases will similarly be “shrunk” in the future, or become fully new words in their own right.