Etymology
Related: word - neologism - thesaurus - vocabulary - definition
"It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature." -Jorge Luis Borges, Prologue to "El otro, el mismo."
http://www.etymonline.com
http://www.etymonline.com/-- Douglas HarperDefinition
Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Some words have been derived from other languages, possibly in a changed form (the source words are called etymons). Through old texts and comparisons with other languages, etymologists try to reconstruct the history of words — when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning changed. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology [Nov 2004]Etymology and genre theory
Or How Musical Genres Get Their Name
Labeling something jazz or rock or rap or disco or anything else is a tad arbitrary. It's been a long time since genres of popular music stopped being genres and simply started being linguistic placeholders for similar sounds and styles. That's usually the main way music gets its names in the first place -- through an attempt to put into written language something that is purely an aural experience. The result are words that help us understand what we're hearing. --Shan Fowler for popmatters.com
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