For the month of May, we have chosen musical instruments as the theme for our Word for Wednesday posts. The word music entered English in the thirteenth century as ‘musike’ via the Old French ‘musique’ and the Latin ‘musica’ meaning ‘music or poetry’. ‘Musica’ is from the Greek ‘mousikē’ which means ‘art of the muses’. So far in our exploration into where musical instruments get their names from, we’ve looked at the words piano, guitar, and drum. The final musical instrument in our series is the saxophone. A saxophone is a met...
Can you believe December starts tomorrow? We're going to be sharing Advent Anagrams next month, so if you enjoy a good puzzle, make sure you stay tuned! In the meantime, here's a round-up of this month's posts! I've spent November exploring the influences of Latin on the English language. I finally know what 'ad hoc' means, and have developed a (perhaps unhealthy) habit of telling every new person I meet where 'Thursday' got its name from. You can find the links to my posts below. Latin expressions in English - Part One Latin expressions in English - Part Two Where the months get their names from Where the days of the week get their names fr...
Today marks the birthday of an important figure in music history, best known for the invention of the Saxophone. Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax was born this day in 1814. To commemorate his contributions to music, 6th of November is celebrated annually as National Saxophone Day. The word Saxophone is a compound of ‘Sax’ (after Adolphe) and ‘Phone’. The name Sax spans from the Germanic Sachs literally meaning ‘Saxon’ or ‘one from Saxony’. The suffix ‘Phone’ is derived from the Greek ‘Phonos’ meaning ‘sounding’ or ‘voice’. Not to be confused with another Greek definition for ‘Phono...
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