Thursday, September 17, 2009
Root Canal
Sound kinda like a "root cellar", doesn't it? Maybe a place to store potatoes and carrots in a barge or something. Actually, of course, it refers to something done to a tooth in your mouth. The term seems to strike fear into the ears and uttermost being of any red-blooded American adult. It's really not a scary procedure; it just sounds like it would be. Maybe we should change the name to something innocuous, like "tooth spa" or "rainbow dental". Anyway, that's what I'm getting this evening at 6:30pm. Did you know some dentists have evening hours? How educational this day has been!
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So...I just had to look 'root' up in the dictionary. After looking at some of the 'roots' of the word 'root' it is small wonder there is some fear and trepidation about it!! (LOL!!)
ReplyDeleteroot (n.)
"underground part of a plant," late O.E. rot, from O.N. rot "root," from P.Gmc. *wrot, *vrot (with characteristic loss of -w- before -r-), from PIE *wrd-. The O.E. cognate was wyrt "root, herb, plant" (see wort); also cognate with L. radix. The usual O.E. words for "root" were wyrttruma and wyrtwala. Fig. use is from c.1200. Of teeth, hair, etc., from c.1225. Mathematical sense is from 1557. The verb meaning "fixed or firmly attached by roots" (often fig.) is attested from 1398; sense of "to pull up by the root" (now usually uproot) also is from 1398. Root beer first recorded 1843, Amer.Eng.; root doctor is from 1821.
root (v2.)
"cheer, support," 1889, Amer.Eng., originally in a baseball context, probably from root (v.1) via intermediate sense of "study, work hard" (1856).
root (v1.)
"dig with the snout," 1538, from M.E. wroten "dig with the snout," from O.E. wrotan, from P.Gmc. *wrotanan (cf. O.N. rota, Swed. rota "to dig out, root," M.L.G. wroten, M.Du. wroeten, O.H.G. ruozian "to plow up"), cognate with L. rodere "to gnaw" (see rodent). Associated with the verb sense of root (n.). Extended sense of "poke about, pry" first recorded 1831. Phrase root hog or die "work or fail" first attested 1834, Amer.Eng. (in works of Davey Crockett, who noted it as an "old saying"). Reduplicated form rootin' tootin' "noisy, rambunctious" is recorded from 1875.
Who wants someone digging with the snout in their mouth?!?
Info found at the Online Entymology Dictionary
You ALWAYS make my days more educational!!
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