ETYMOLOGY
101
The origin of: cannibal
The word for an animal that eats the flesh of its own kind
entered English via the Spanish caníbal,
which in turn comes from the writings of Christopher Columbus.
When Columbus landed in the West Indies, he encountered people
in Cuba and Haiti who called themselves caniba
and carib, respectively. Thinking
he was not far from China, he supposed these people were subjects
of the Grand Khan (“la gente del Gran Can”). Since
the Spanish believed the natives were man-eaters (anthropophagites),
the word cannibal in the European
languages came to mean “a human who eats the flesh of
another human.” Cannibalize
did not refer to machinery and other things until 1943, when
wartime shortages made it necessary to dismantle older or
less important machines to make newer ones.
The origin of other English words borrowed from
Spanish
In my search for the words of the week, I came across several
interesting Spanish words that have made their way (often
unchanged, aside from pronunciation) into our language. The
word burrito, for example, is a diminutive
of the Spanish word burro (donkey),
and literally means “little donkey.” The word
comrade comes from the Spanish word camarada
(originally “chamberful,” then “chamber
mate,” from the Latin camera,
“vault, room in a dwelling”).
Many of us are familiar
with that delicious frozen concoction that blends light rum,
coconut cream, pineapple juice and ice, but do we know what
it means? In Spanish, piña colada
means “strained pineapple.” Ask for a strained
pineapple at the bar and you’re more likely to get a
strained expression from the bartender.
Alligator
comes from the Spanish el lagarto,
or “the lizard.” The wide- rimmed sombrero,
which does an excellent job of keeping the sun out of its
wearer’s eyes, is derived from the Spanish sombra,
meaning “darkness,” “shade,” or “shadow.”
Source: The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories,
Online Etymology Dictionary,
About.com.
NEAT-O
A
BRIEF HISTORY OF CINCO DE MAYO
May 5th is commonly confused with Mexican Independence
Day, which was declared on September 16, 1810, over 50 years
earlier. The real purpose of Cinco de Mayo is to commemorate
a Mexican military victory over French troops on May 5, 1862
near the city of Puebla, Mexico.
In the several
years prior to the Battle of Puebla (Batalla de
Puebla), Mexico endured a war of reform in which
parallel governments and their factions (liberal and conservative)
fought to control the course of the nation. The liberals wanted
to curtail the influence of the Catholic church and the military
and move towards a more market-based economy, while the conservatives
wanted to stick with the old ways. In 1861, Benito Juárez
was elected president of the liberal government of Mexico
for a four year term. |
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Years
of civil strife had left Mexico’s central government
impecunious, so one of Juárez’s first acts as
president was to suspend payments of outstanding debt due
the governments of Spain, England, and France. In an attempt
to receive payment for these debts, the three nations united
their efforts under the Treaty of London on October 31, 1861.
Troops from all three armies arrived in the port city of Veracruz
between December of 1861 and January of 1862.
It soon became
apparent that France was interested in more than just getting
paid, so the Spanish and English forces withdrew their troops
and settled their debt issues diplomatically.
What interested
French emperor Napoleon III more than a check from Juárez
was a Mexican colony and its attendant influence over the
precocious United States. Napoleon probably wasn’t a
big fan of the Monroe Doctrine, and his wife (a Spaniard)
saw a Mexican colony as a way of taking revenge for her country’s
defeat 40 years earlier.
Napoleon figured
that if the Mexican capital city fell, the rest of the nation
would fall as well (something that happens frequently in Europe
and Castle Risk). The French troops marched from Veracruz
to Mexico City, but on the way happened to get beaten badly
by a much smaller Mexican army at Puebla.
BATALLA DE PUEBLA
In the mid-19th
century, the French army was among the best
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