BJU Press Blog

etymology

Election Terms Explained

by

Election Day is just around the corner, and if you’re like me, you’ve probably wondered about some of the language the candidates have been using. To find out more, I looked though the BJU Press vocabulary curriculum. I came back with some rather interesting information.

Election Terms Explained

Red Tape

Candidates often talk about “cutting the red tape” that slows down anything the government gets involved in. But have you ever wondered where the phrase “red tape” came from?

As early as the mid 1800s, Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle wrote about the annoying red tape of their day. In English government offices it was customary to use strips of red fabric for tying legal papers in bundles. Red tape became a symbol for needless forms and regulations issued by the government. Government business is now largely computerized, but red tape is still with us.

red ribbon on letters

Casting a Ballot

It’s almost time to cast our ballots, but we aren’t really going to cast anything. We’re going to write our vote on paper or press a button on a machine. So why do we call it casting a ballot?

Originally voters did literally cast their ballots. To cast means “to throw,” and the ballots that were tossed into a ballot box were pebbles or small balls. In Italian, ballotta means “little ball.” A black ball indicated a negative vote. Today, to blackball a person means “to vote against or to exclude a person from a social group.” Paper ballots and voting machines might have replaced the pebbles, but we still speak of casting ballots at election time.

black marbles

Budget

We hear a lot of talk about “balancing the budget,” but where exactly did the term budget come from?

In Old French the word bougette referred to a little leather bag. A merchant could tell how much money he had by opening his bougette. In Middle English bouget  meant “a small sack for money.” It would be wise for those who are trying to balance a budget to follow the example of those medieval merchants by looking in the bag and spending only the money they actually have.

black leather bag

All these examples and more can be found in the BJU Press language arts curriculum, which you can preview on bjupresshomeschool.com.

Welcome to October!

by

Welcome to October! A wonderful month characterized by cooler weather, remembering important discoveries, and (for me) family celebrations. This tenth month of the year brings joy and happiness in so many little ways. But I have to admit there’s also something about this month that I always found puzzling—its name.

Have you ever wondered what the word October means?

Curiosity finally got the better of me, so I looked up the meaning. Names are important because they can describe a person, give insight into the meaning behind a concept, and provide understanding of a place or thing. The word October is no exception. The etymology of the word is Latin.

Its prefix, octo, means eight.

Other words that use the prefix octo are octopus (eight tentacles), octagon (eight sides), and octave (eight notes). But remember, October is the tenth month of the year. So where’s the connection with the number eight?

The meaning of October relates to the Roman calendar.

The ancient Roman calendar, a lunar calendar, only has ten months in a year. As its name suggests, October was the eighth month in that calendar. However, over time the Roman calendar was replaced by the Julian calendar; and then later the Gregorian calendar—which is what we still use today. The current system is a solar calendar of twelve months. That’s right—October now finds its place as the tenth month in the Gregorian calendar despite the meaning of its name.

Curious about the third syllable in the word Oc•to•ber?

According to Dictionary.com, the ending “is probably from -bris, an adjectival suffix.” This explanation also ties back to the Roman calendar. It’s believed that the first several months of the calendar were named according to the agricultural seasons, but the rest of the months were simply named according to their corresponding number placement in the Roman calendar.¹ So October is not the only month whose name reveals its placement in the Roman calendar—September (seventh month), November (ninth month) and December (tenth month) do too. Now isn’t that neat!

What do you enjoy most about the month of October?

¹ december. Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/december (accessed: September 28, 2013).