RANDOM THOUGHTS #239

Steve Cole ponders the curious origins of interesting words:
    

1. QUAKER, a member of the religious group known as the Society of Friends, was an insulting appellation applied to them by a judge when the founder said that the judge should "tremble before God." The Society has never officially adopted the name but seems comfortable with its use.
    

2. QUARRY, an animal hunted as prey, comes from the French word cuiree, which referred to the parts of the animal given to the dogs as their reward. Quarry, a place where stone blocks for buildings are taken from the bedrock, comes from the unrelated Latin word quadratus, which means "square."
    

3. QUISLING, a traitor, comes from the name of Vidkur Quisling, the Norwegian Nazi who ran the occupied country during World War II as a stooge for Hitler. Tried for treason and 1,100 acts of murder, Quisling was shot by a firing squad after Norway passed a special law allowing the previously eliminated death penalty to be used for traitors.
    

4. QUIXOTIC, meaning an impractical if romantic dream, comes from the character Don Quixote. Written in Spain in 1605, the book by Cervantes tells the story of a slightly insane but absolutely chivalrous old knight who apparently got hit in the helmet one too many times. The book was something of a satire of much older books about real knights doing real deeds, and was immensely popular at the time and even today.
    

5. QUORUM, which under parliamentary rules means enough members of the group to conduct business (usually just over 50% but various groups have other rules), hold votes, reach agreements, and make decisions, comes from a Latin phrase "quorum vos [name] unum [number] esse volumnus" which means "You are one of the [number] required to be present." Judges in old Roman Empire courts had a small staff of scribes and experts whom were necessary to hold trials and that Latin phrase meant "you are one of the judge's staff."
    

6. RAFFLE, which today means a game of chance in which many buy tickets and the holder of the winning ticket gets the prize, was a simple dice game in the late 1300s of England. In that game, each player made a wager, then each threw three dice. The winner was the player with the highest triple, or if there were no triple, the highest pair, or if there was no pair, the highest total.
    

7. RAKE, a scoundrel of vile character, is a short form of Rake Hell, a term used 400 years ago. The point was that you'd have to rake the embers of Hell to find someone of such low character, questionable ethics, and evil intent.
    

8. RAPTURE, RAPT, RAPE, all deriva from the same Latin word, rapio, which meant "to capture or seize." The term was particularly applied to seizing a woman (as loot) during wartime. Today rapt carries the original meaning of seized as is "his attention was seized by what he saw." Rapture then means a state of mind in which that which has seized your attention is so incredible that no other thought is possible.
    

9. RECALCITRANT, which means to angrily and stubbornly resist an order or social requirement, comes from the Latin "re calcitro" meaning "to kick back." It refers to a horse or mule hitched to a wagon but objecting to the order to pull the wagon. The animal "kicks back" in an attempt to destroy the wagon or injure the driver and thus escape from bondage.
    

10. RECORD, which as a verb means "to take note of" or "to make a record of" comes form the Latin "re cor" which means "back to the heart" or "learn it by heart". The phrase comes from a time 20 centuries ago when few could read or write, and a servant or soldier had to "learn by heart" the message or report he was to carry to a distant post.