WORD HISTORIES VIII

From The Mensa Book of Words

          Dr. Abbie Salny 

ACADEMY

Plato's school in Athens, Greece was called the Academy. It was named after a man named Akademos, the owner of the grove, garden, or location where Plato rented space.

 

AGNOSTIC

No use of this word is known before 1869 when Thomas Henry Huxley (grandfather of Aldous Huxley) coined it to describe his philosophical position on Christianity and Darwin's theory of evolution. 

ANTIMACASSAR

Macassar was very much beloved of the Victorians. It was wonderful hair grease, but it left an oily residue on everything it touched. So the careful housewife of that era knitted, crocheted, tatted, or made from a fabric a nice, usually lacy, covering for the upper part of chairs. Eventually, this craze spread to chair arms and sofa arms as well.

 

BALLOT

A ballot was a small ball used in secret voting. For many years, balloting was done by dropping a small ball into a box - black for no, white for yes. This is the origin of the expression "black ball." 

BEDLAM

This word, now meaning uproar and chaos, derived from the name of a hospital in London - St. Mary of Bethlehem, which was devoted to treating the mentally ill in the 1400's. 

BOYCOTT

Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was a cruel land agent in Ireland who charged exorbitant rents and evicted tenants who could not pay. In passive, united, resistance, everyone associated with the land shunned him, refused to pay him, and refused to work the land. Even the shopkeepers would not sell him food or supplies. His own land came to ruin, and he was forced to return to England.