|
|
June 2008Just Foolin' AroundOnce again, events in Myanmar (formerly Burma) helped move the term junta high onto the list of most-looked-up words for a few days last month. In October 2007, we reviewed the history of junta, the term applied to that nation's military rulers. This month, we fooled around a bit with the history of junta and found a wealth of words. Junta has an ancestor in the Latin jungere, "to join," a verb which also gave our language yoke. Yoke is tied to more than five dozen other English words ranging from the Hindu niyoga to the German joch to the Scottish jougs to the Spanish ayuntamiento to the Arabic feddan. Interested in other words that relate to each other etymologically? Unyoke yourself from flipping through the hard copy of the dictionary and search online. Select the Unabridged as your reference, click on the pull-down menu and choose Etymology. Then type in the term of interest and click Search. |