As I mentioned elsewhere, the expression time and tide preserves a word (tide) which has pretty much gone out of use, except for being "frozen" in this one expression. A somewhat similar situation can be found in a few more words.
First, bridegroom preserves a vestige of the Old English word guma, meaning 'man' (if you're interested, this is cognate with all the words for 'man' that begin with h- in related languages: homme, hombre, homo, etc.).
The Old English word bana meant 'murderer', We still have this word in a couple plant names, henbane and wolfsbane, plus of course in the expression--no longer meaning something as drastic as 'murderer'--the bane of my existence.
Now another interesting etymology not quite of the same sort. Nickname comes from eke, meaning 'also' plus of course name. Thus, a nickname is an also name. Isn't that cute?
I wonder if "guma" is the origin of "human".
ReplyDeleteThey are related, but not linearly; i.e., it's not a matter of descent. Human is more directly borrowed from Latin humanus; the Latin for man is homo, which would be a cognate of guma.
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