Word Origins; Fascinate, Jinx,
Secretary, Abyss & Howdy

Today we have more fun and interesting facts about word origins and you’re going to be facinated.

Facinate comes from the latin word fascinum which means literally to cast a spell. So, a long time ago, they literally believed that you could cast a spell by using your evil eye. So up until about the middle of the 15th century, that’s what they belived is that when you were facinated, someone was casting a spell on you. Now is come to mean more that you are attracted and that you couldn’t just take your eyes off of something. So, if your girlfriend catches you staring at another girl, and she gets mad, if you say that you were just facinated, then that would literally mean that you couldn’t take your eyes off of her because she had cast a spell on you.

Have you ever wondered where the word jinx comes from? Well the word jinx comes from the greek work iynx. However, jinx and iynx are both used to describe a certain bird. Now this bird is really weird. It has weird eating and mating habbits and its neck is twisted and very grotesque looking. Also, when the bird does its migration, it sends out this shrilled, loud crazy sound. And what’s weird about this bird is for the rest of the time, the bird is completely silent. Soalot of people started to associate this bird with being of the acult or having to do with black magic. And people that were into this kind of stuff would actually use the birds feathers to either grind up to make love potions or use the feathers to make charms. So this bird became associated with black magic and casting spells. So the word jinx means to cast a spell on someone.

Do you think that secretaries are attractive? Where did the word secretary come from in the first place? Secretary comes from the latin word secratari which means secret and it was first used in mideval Europe to describe an advisor. In the 14th century, secretary was used to describe a political official and it wasn’t until the 19th century that secretary became known as a personla assistant. But one thing about the word secretary that hasn’t changed is that secretary is still the person that keeps your secrets.

Abyss. Have you ever seen the movie The Abyss? Well lets look at the word abyss for a moment. What’s interesting about the word abyss is that it’s one of the few words in the English language to have been derived from the language of sumarian.Now sumarian is the first written language to ever be in this world. So abyss was originally from the sumarian language, however, we picked it up from the latin word abysses, which means deep. So originally it was the sumarian primorialy sea abzu.

Howdy partners! I’m from Texas and the phrase howdy is used a lot here, but where did howdy come from? Well lets face it. Howdy is just a lazy way of saying how do you do. Howdy is typically a southern expression and it was first recorded in 1840.

And in a future video, more fun word origins to fascinate you.

And in another video, fun facts about dogs.

Thanks for watching. Please rate my video and remember subscribe or I’ll cast a spell on you.