MERRY

Bysuehar

Wild Word Friday!

Christmas is getting close, so I thought it would be appropriate to investigate a Christmas-y word – MERRY.  I don’t know about you, but for me MERRY brings England to mind as in “MERRY Olde”. 

MERRY is a very old (or olde, if you prefer) word that comes to us all the way from the parent language of nearly all European languages, Indo-European.  The Indo-European root from which it springs is mreghu- (a prefix), which means short or brief.  The general idea here is that old adage, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

So, here’s wishing that your holiday season is MERRY and long enough to bring you joy.

Q4U:  Any December holiday (Christmas or otherwise) traditions you’d like to share with us?

Blessings!  Sue

Similar Posts

| |

HUM

Bysuehar

Wild Word Friday! HUM is one of those glorious onomatopoeic words that is an imitation of the sound it describes. The earliest form of HUM that we know of – onomatopoeic words can have very obscure localized origins – comes from the Middle English hummen, which almost makes your mouth vibrate when you say it….

FOOL

Bysuehar

Wild Word Friday! April 1 – April’s Fool’s Day. I’m not sure that this “holiday” is recognized anywhere else in the world, but in the U.S. it’s a great excuse to pull pranks and launch practical jokes.  I’m not much into pranks, and practical jokes always seem to backfire, so instead, let’s take a little time to…

|

PUMPKIN

Bysuehar

Wild Word Friday! PUMPKIN!  As in pie!  This is a great little word – all right, middle sized word – that comes to us via the Latin word, pepo, and then through Middle French popon or pompon to English.  It means “cooked by the sun”, which is appropriate since we don’t eat PUMPKINs during their…

| |

SPLADE

Bysuehar

Wild Word Friday! My friend Trish responded to a FaceBook post in which I asked which kitchen gadget you would most hate to give up. She responded by saying, her SPLADE. Trish is from Australia, and so I immediately asked her if a SPLADE was an Australian kitchen gadget, because I’d never heard of one…