October 3, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History of Everyday Objects Undusted: Tapes

Moving from glues to tapes isn’t a huge leap; both are adhesives and developed from the same starting point – tar (tree sap), the prehistoric solution. Ancient Egyptians soaked strips of cloth in animal glue, beeswax, or resins to make medical bandages. In 1845, Dr Horace Day invented “surgical strips” – a type of rubber attached to strips of cloth… though they tended to fall off. In 1921, Johnson & Johnson improved on the formula and introduced Band-Aids. Just four years later, in 1925, Richard Drew, working as a 3M lab technician, invented the world’s first masking tape – the motivation for this product was car manufacturing, used to make crisp lines between two-colour paint treatments. When Drew first attempted to find a solution for the car manufacturers, he only put adhesive along the outer edges of the tape (which was made of crepe paper fused with adhesive), and he was told by shop workers to tell his Scotch bosses to stop being stingy with the adhesive! The name stuck. In 1930, Drew invented a clear, waterproof tape using cellophane, and this is the ubiquitous Scotch tape we know today. During the Great Depression, it became the most popular tool for fixing everything from shoes to books, broken household appliances, toys, ripped curtains, for sealing opened tins of food or milk bottles, and even fixing cracked eggshells.

Duct tape has an interesting history: Originally called “Duck Tape”, it was made of long strips of duck cloth (a tightly-woven cotton fabric). During World War 2, boxes of ammunition were wrapped with a thin paper soaked in wax to waterproof them, with a strip left loose as a tab to pull – the problem was that, because the paper used was so thin, the tabs often got ripped off in transit or worn off; this made them difficult to hastily open during battle, which was kind of the point. An ordnance factory worker, Vesta Stoudt, had two sons in the Navy, and she pointed out this weakness to her factory bosses – who ignored her. She made a prototype and tested it, then took it straight to the top, writing to President Roosevelt. He took the idea seriously and passed it to the War Production Board, which put Johnson & Johnson onto the project. The new tape was sturdier and made to be ripped by hand, not requiring scissors or a knife. This military tape only came in military green. Duck tape became so popular among soldiers that they called it the “100-mph tape”, as it could fix anything, including airplanes in an emergency. After the war, they brought it home. It began to be used on ducts in construction, which is how the name became “duct” (incidentally, it is no longer recommended for this purpose). The tape became embedded in daily life after the famous Apollo 13 crisis in 1970; it was a roll of duct tape aboard the vessel that helped the astronauts convert an air filter, getting them home safely.

Besides those mentioned above, we now have a wide range of tapes for all kinds of uses; here are a few:

Gorilla tape (a heavy-duty duct tape brand); builder’s-; carpet/masking-; paper-; packing-; electrical-; filament (strapping)-; double-sided-; gaffer-; washi-; aluminium-; K-tape, floor-marking-(yellow and black striped tape used to alert to danger); friction- (used for, e.g. hammers, bike handlebars, tennis racket handles); hook-and-loop tape (aka Velcro with an adhesive backing); Kapton (used e.g. in spacecraft to provide thermal insulation, or to support solar sails, as telescope sunshields, and in 3D printers, it is often used as a build surface to prevent warping of the extruded material as it cools); nano-; security tape (the kinds found on products or medical bottles to prevent tampering, or to expose an issue if it has been tampered with); self-fusing silicone-; speed- (used e.g. on airplanes, it’s designed to remain adhered in strong winds); spike- (used in theatre or films to mark areas on a stage or set for actors); wound closure strips (a medical “stitch” tape); surgical-; toupee / wig-; reflective-; and thread seal- (commonly used in plumbing for sealing pipe threads).

The next time you reach for a roll of tape, stop and think about the long history of this simple, everyday object!

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September 19, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History of Everyday Objects Undusted: Glue

I’ll bet that you have a few glues in your house right now – whether that’s white “school” glue (= PVA, or polyvinyl alcohol), glue sticks, or wood glue.  It’s basically ubiquitous in first-world homes, but it has a long history.

In prehistoric times, plant resins and tars were used to “glue” stone tools to wooden handles, sometimes secured additionally with sinew or strips of bark. By the time of the ancient Egyptians, they were using animal-based glues extracted from the collagen found in bones, fish, and hides; these were used, e.g., in the construction of chariots and furniture, as well as for repairing small household items much like we do today.

The Romans and Greeks further refined glue once they’d discovered the adhesive properties of casein, a protein found in milk. This improved glue was used to paint and gild objects, be used in the construction of buildings, and to make papyrus scrolls; these scrolls were made by slicing thin strips from the inner pith of papyrus reeds, gluing them together, and pressing them into crisscross patterns. I think the fact that thousands of Roman constructions still stand today attests to their skills and the materials they chose or developed to accomplish such longevity.

Their glue was so well made that the formula remained largely unchanged up through the Middle Ages; it was widely used in bookbinding, carpentry, and in luxury items such as musical instruments. Attempts were made to improve glue formulas using things like egg whites and even blood, but these had a limited shelf life, as you can imagine.

The Industrial Revolution raised the need for reliable and durable glue compounds to meet the demands of machinery and rapid production. During this time, glue was made mainly with slaughterhouse waste, by boiling it down to collect the collagen, which, as it boiled down, became gelatine. When this cooled, it was dried into hard sheets, cakes or granules that could be shipped, then reconstituted with water into glue.

AI Image; as always, it gives you a good idea of what it might have been like, but also, always take it with a hefty pinch of salt!

In 1824, the Scottish chemist and inventor Charles Macintosh developed the eponymous Mackintosh raincoat (the variant in his family name’s spelling is a standard spelling when applied to the raincoat) by dissolving natural rubber in coal naphtha (which is benzene, a natural element derived from the refining of petroleum – it’s the sweet smell that gives gasoline its characteristic aroma) to create a waterproof adhesive, which was then sandwiched between two layers of cloth to make an impermeable coat (in a country that has over 500 words for water or snow, and winds that rip umbrellas into tulips faster than you can blink, raincoats are a matter of survival!). The path from the first raincoat to what we know today as a Mackintosh is a roundabout one, with many improvements made over time, but the history of its development shows how far we’ve come.

One of the glues I mentioned, PVA, was invented in 1912 by German chemist Fritz Klatte; he was looking for a way to use acetylene, a colourless gas that is unstable in its pure form and thus needs to be handled in a solution. PVA glue is used to make standard white glues (“school” glue), strong wood glues, and the dissolvable films around some dishwasher detergent pods; it helps to coat and strengthen paper products during the manufacturing process, and it’s even used in biomedical products such as eye drops, wound dressings, and contact lenses. It is controversial, as PVA is one of the most common plastics and, as such, does not break down organically in the environment. Hopefully we are on the cusp of another leap forward in the development of stable, environmentally-friendly glues.

In my craft room, I have no less than twenty different glues that immediately come to mind. They all have different properties, drying times, adhesive qualities, and durability. Some, I may need only as a placeholder before something is sewn, or as a less-adhesive inner glue to be strengthened by a different glue around the edge of a project. Some can be diluted in water, while others would clump. From glue sticks to hot glue, from diamond glaze to mat medium, they all have their uses.

We’ve come a long way since tar and the slaughterhouse – thank goodness!

What kinds of glues do you have in or around your home right now? Let us know in the comments!

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September 5, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History of Everyday Objects Undusted: Needles

As far back as humans have needed to bind materials together, they’ve found ways to do it. The oldest sewing needle dates back 60,000 years and was found in Sibudu Cave, South Africa (made from a bone, most likely a bird). Needles have also been found in Russia, dating back 50,000 years, and in China (from stone), dating back 9,000 years. These and other archaeological finds show that people around the world developed similar solutions. The material used depended on availability in their region, including boar bristles, bones (including antlers and tusks), cactus needles or other thorns, stones, and various metals (the first copper needles were found in Armenia, dating to around 7,000 BC; the first bronze needles appeared during the Bronze Age, around 1200 BC). Earlier needles had grooves on the side for holding threads of sinew or strips of bark or other fibre. They were not only used for making clothing or shoes, but also for weaving fishing nets or heavier materials like tents or ships’ sails.

Boar bristles are still used today in some leatherworking: The bristles are attached to a tapered linen thread with a sticky wax, giving the thread a stiff leader to get through awled stitch holes. This technique would have been used regardless of the needle material until the eye came along. Eyeless needles are still used, for example, as modern medical suturing tools for both external wounds and surgical procedures.

The first needle with an eye is dated to around 25,000 years ago, during the Upper Palaeolithic Period. Some ancient Roman needles have been found with two or even three eyes toward one end; one paper suggests that the multi-eyed needle may indicate their use in making fabrics with the nålbinding technique, which would make them stretchy. Some ancient Roman needles have also been found with the eye around mid-length; this might have been used to push and pull threads through tougher materials; some modern nålbinding needles also have this feature. I wondered if the multi-eyed needles might have been used to combine several colours, and this video confirms that. Incidentally, this technique was the ancestor of the two-needle technique we know as knitting today.

Ancient Roman Needle

As you can imagine, the work that went into creating a tapered piece of bone or stone made these items valuable; as soon as they were created, a casing to protect them likely soon followed. Cases have been discovered the world over, ranging from simple hollowed-out sticks to hides to elaborate gilt and jewelled cases; the oldest known needle case that I could find information about is from early Iron Age Russia, approximately 37,000 years old; it was made from bone, found in a cave in the Caucasus Mountains. Another was found in Siberia, made of Rhinoceros bone, and dates to around 33,000 years ago. Think about that a moment: Rhinoceros… in Siberia. Climate change is nothing new.

Ancient Norse Needle Case, Swedish Museum

Personally, I have several kinds of needle holders, for various-sized, -shaped, and -purpose needles: I have wooden cases with a wooden cork (bought many years ago at a Native American trading post); I have an empty lipstick tube (the base is blocked with a piece of sponge to keep the needles from falling through the holes in the corkscrew section) – this makes accessing the needles easy, as I wind them up to select one; other cases I have are more conventional. I have metal needles, but I also have plastic ones; the latter make it easier to get, e.g., elastic or a cloth cord through a seam.

The next time you have a threaded needle in your hand, take a second to think about its long history, and bless the day when needle eyes, smooth threads, and the self-threading needle for sewing machines came along!

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August 22, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History of Everyday Objects Undusted: Sponges

Today, let’s dive into the topic of sponges.

Natural sponges are sessile (immobile) marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (pore-bearing). They lack complex nervous, digestive, and circulatory systems but rely on constant water flow through their bodies to take in nutrients and oxygen, and to remove waste. There are nearly ten thousand known species; some feed on planktonic bacteria; others host symbiotic organisms to thrive, and some have even developed predatory survival strategies in nutrient-poor environments.

Natural sponges have been used by humans for thousands of years; archaeological excavations have found evidence of sponges used to plaster and paint the queen’s walls at Knossos (the Minoan culture of Crete, c. 1700 to 1400 BC). They have been found on Greek pottery from around 760 BC in depictions of thermal scenes or as status symbols. Oppianus Cilicius (2nd C BC) was the first to write about those fishing for sponges, including details about the spongers’ lifestyles and diets, and the dangers they faced from shark attacks (for an interesting video on the topic of modern spongers, click here). Aristotle (384–322 BC) described the “elephant nose-like tube” used by the sponge divers to breathe. In the Iliad and Odyssey, Homer makes reference to sponges as hygienic utensils. Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79), among others, described the uses of sponges in agriculture and cooking. Cicero (106-43 BC) referred to their use in washing or cleaning. Roman legionaries were supplied with sponges to stuff into their helmets, for personal hygiene, and for drinking (their ancient solution to a water bottle); let’s hope that those were three different sponges allotted. This explains the presence of a sponge at the cross in Matthew 27:48/Mark 15:36/John 19:29.

The first use of a sponge with inhaled surgical anaesthesia is recorded in AD 1025 by the Persian physician Ibn Sina, who used a concoction of potent (=poisonous) sedatives of opium, mandrake and hemlock. Medieval European physicians sometimes used crude herbal mixtures or opium sponges to administer a type of anaesthetic, but it was a far cry from what we know today; at best, it got the patient drunk or high enough not to scream as loudly.  Ether vapour as an anaesthetic didn’t make its way into use in Europe until 1846, at the London University College’s theatre.

By the mid-twentieth century, overfishing brought both the sponges and the industry close to extinction. Overharvesting strained the sponge populations around the Mediterranean and the Caribbean; other stresses include storms (which can suffocate them with sand and debris, or rip them loose from their anchors) and climate change (disease outbreaks occur more frequently in warming ocean temperatures). The depleted population also puts stress on the entire environmental chain: Sponge feeders, such as parrotfish or angelfish, move on; without their presence, rapid-growing sponge species smother reef-building corals, which in turn reduces breeding, hiding, and feeding places for other marine species. Changes in harvesting policies and practices in some regions may mitigate these issues: By cutting the sponges loose rather than ripping them out, sponges have a chance to regenerate. But as more people in the First World become concerned with using natural products, marine sponges will continue to be (over-)harvested.

Sponges today are usually synthetic, invented in 1937 by the German scientist Otto Bayer, who (in the good ol’ fashioned way a lot of discoveries have been made) accidentally created polyurethane foam. By the 1940s, the DuPont company had begun mass-producing sponges made from wood pulp, hemp fibres, and sodium sulphate. By the late 1950s, dual-purpose sponges were introduced.

An alternative to both the marine- and synthetic sponges is the Loofah (Luffa) gourd: Besides being a food in the earlier stages of its cycle, when these gourds are left on the vine to dry out, they become a fibrous, natural sponge. For a short video on how to harvest and use a luffa gourd sponge, just click here. If I had a garden, I would certainly try to grow these!

What kinds of sponges do you have in your home? I hope this helps you appreciate the humble sponge, whichever form you use.

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August 15, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History of Everyday Objects Undusted: Garment Fasteners

For as long as humans have worn clothes, they’ve needed to find ways to hold them on, up, around, or to their bodies. Genesis 3:7 tells us that, once Adam and Eve realised they were naked, they “sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves”. They likely sewed them with some kind of twisted or stripped plant fibres such as grass blades, green twigs or even fibrous roots; this method was used for millennia.

In Ancient Athens, tunics were fastened together at the shoulder by long dagger-like pins. That is, until a group of angry Athenian women used their pins to stab an Athenian soldier to death; according to Herodotus’s Histories, a law was passed forbidding the Athenian style of tunic in the Roman Empire thereafter. Understandable, that, but I wonder what Athenians used to fasten their tunics immediately after that decree…

Clothing fasteners (hardware or notions used to connect two or more pieces of fabric together to open, close, or secure a garment) used today vary: Buttons, whether plastic, wood or metal; zippers; hooks and loops (commonly known as Velcro); eyelets (aka grommets); snaps; buckles; suspenders with clips; hooks and eyes (such as those found on skirts or bras), and even safety pins.

But before any of these came along, people literally sewed their garments on; even into 18th Century Europe, women were stitched in or pinned in by maids; Jane Austen alludes to this in Northanger Abbey, when Mrs Allen complains that a needle holding her sleeve in place was jabbing her, and she was afraid it would rip the muslin, for which she paid “but nine shillings a yard”. Every evening, they were either “unsewn” out of them, or they slipped some garments over their heads if possible. Corsets, as well as fashionable garments, were laced on, easier to remove than put on. When metal fasteners became increasingly available, it introduced new possibilities in fashion: it allowed for more fitted garments, and gave women the freedom from the need of being dressed by maids (or, if lower classes, of being dependent on a relative to help one dress). It didn’t dispense with corsets, but the metal front-fastening busks enabled women to put on their own.

If shoes are to be thought of as clothing, their history probably goes back as far as that of clothing itself: The oldest known shoes were sandals made of woven bark, dated to around 10.5 thousand years old. The first known leather shoes, found in Armenia, date to around 3,500 BC. Oetzi, the Austrian Iceman, wore shoes constructed of bearskin soles, deerskin side panels, and a bark cord that held them onto his feet. The modern shoelace, with the stiffened aglet, or tip, was invented by the Englishman Harvey Kennedy, patented in 1790. Before that, shoes were held on with buckles or buttons.

Today, some people (like me) usually have slip-on, fastener-free clothing articles like T-shirts, or trousers with elastic bands that require no other fasteners. What kinds of fasteners do you typically have on your garments today?

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August 8, 2026 · 10:00 AM

History Undusted: Everyday Objects

In the past several years, I’ve looked into quite a few everyday objects that captured my curiosity at the time; here is a list of such objects for those interested:

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a few everyday objects that I’d like to explore the history of, so I’ll take you along for the ride, starting next week.

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July 25, 2026 · 10:00 AM

Etymology Undusted: Old Norse Borrowings

As we’ve seen over the past few blogs, English is quite a magpie language, snabbling any loose vocabulary it comes across. 

What is known as the Viking Age began in Britain with the raid on the coastal community of Lindisfarne in AD 793. It eventually went from raiding easy targets to Norse colonisation, trade, and cultural assimilation. That’s the simplified version; I could write forever about the age and its impact on the languages, cultures and mentalities of both the raided and the raiders (who came from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark). Instead, I’ll focus on the linguistic impact of Old Norse (ON) on Old English (OE).

[Note: The Norse did not refer to themselves as Vikings; that word came into English through “The History of the Anglo-Saxons” by English historian Sharon H. Turner, 1801, meaning Scandinavian pirate. The Norse had the term vikingr, which referred only to Norsemen when they were out raiding (whether on neighbouring shores or fjords, or further afield). Perhaps in that sense, it was similar in use to our gerund noun form.]

During the Viking Age and the subsequent Danelaw period of British history, the Norse introduced more than a thousand words into the English language. The biggest question that arises in my mind when I think of some of the words is, “What did we use before that?”

The Norse introduced third-person pronouns – þeir, þeira, from which we get they, them, and their. We can be thankful for these words, as the Anglo-Saxon terms used before their introduction were hi, hie, heira, and hem. These changes are unusual in that it is rare for additions to a language to replace such fundamental identity markers within the collective speech of a people group.

Some words were a merging of OE and ON terms, such as are (OE had earun/earon, and ON had er). Another merging is awkward – from ON ǫfugr (meaning turned backwards) and OE weard. Other such hybrid words are axle, gawk, and snipe/sniper.

A caveat to Norse influence on English is that many more words than those from the time periods mentioned above flowed into English through Normandy. The term “Norman” itself is a term that arose from an etymological shift: Scandinavian raiders who settled in that region of what would become France were known locally as the Normanz or Normant, meaning Northmen (men of the north). It was eventually Latinized to Normanni.  Their influence on the French language eventually made its way into the magpie language across the Channel.

Here are a few more words we can thank Norse raiders for: Window (vindauge – literally wind-eye); wing (vængr); whisk (viska); want (vanta, to lack); waive (veifa); until (und + til); ugly (uggligr); tryst (from French, probably ON treysta – to trust, or to make firm); stumble (stumla); squall (skvala); sprint (spretta); and trash (tros). Many of our th- words come from ON, aside from those already mentioned, such as: Thrall, though, thrift, thrive, thrust, and thwart.

Aside from individual words, the Norse left evidence of their influence through placenames: The suffix -by means farmstead or village, seen in Whitby and Derby; -ness meant promontory or headland, and is found in Stenness, Durness, Muness, and Snarraness – all of which are in Orkney, Shetland, and northern Scotland – all places frequented by or lived in by the Norse. –Thorpe and –thwaite are more examples of the -th heritage, shown in places like Scunthorpe, Copmanthorpe, Bassenthwaite, and Rosthwaite.

These few examples are just the tip of the isbjerg which we can thank those pirates, who our European ancestors might well have preferred never to have been forced into acquaintance with…

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July 11, 2026 · 10:00 AM

Etymology Undusted: Brittonic Remnants

While many English words can be traced back to an event, such as the French absorbed into the language after 1066, some words we use today can be traced much further back to the formation of the language.

English itself is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family. During the period of Roman Britain (AD 43 to AD 410), what we know as Britain today spoke Brittonic dialects and languages, influenced by the Celtic migration from the Continent around 1300-800 BC; during the Roman occupation, many words from Latin were assimilated, and English as a language began to emerge around 450 AD. Old English would be unintelligible to most English speakers today; I won’t go into the history of the Great Vowel Shift again, which fundamentally changed the sound of the language, but suffice to say, we still use many Old English words today. Famously, Winston Churchill used many Old English words in his “We shall never surrender” speech, delivered just after the evacuation from Dunkirk was successfully completed. Old English words tend to be short, giving the speech more emphasis; click on this link for a clip from the film Darkest Hour, portraying the speech. As one man in the clip says, he mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.

Even though English as a language has adapted, evolved and adopted words from around the globe since its inception, there are ancient words from Brittonic which we still use today. Here are a few:

Ass, crag, doe, wan, combe (valley), peat, hog, gull, brock, bin, coracle, flannel, and bannock. Possible words (etymology is unclear, but these are suspected to be Celtic British) include basket, sark (a shirt or smock in Scotland and northern England), wan, and dun.

Among the place names from Brittonic are Avon, Derwent, York, Leeds, and London. The elements of Aber-, Caer-, Pen-, and Dun– are typical Brittonic place-name derivatives; these include: Aberdeen, Aberfeldy, Cardiff, Carlisle, Penzance, Dumbarton, Dundee, and Dumfries.

Some of these words are more common, for instance, in Scotland than in America, but they are still words used today. As you can imagine, the farther back we go in history, the more we’ll realise that earlier words have been usurped by “modern” ones – even if “modern” refers to a thousand years ago. What we know today only as “eggs” once had a variety of spellings: æg, ei, ey, eai, egge, eyern, eyeren, eggys, eggja. All of these were in use until William Caxton (c. 1422 – c. 1491) decided on eggs (thank you!). Only because of him do we spell it thus, and not æg or anything else.

I realise that all of this is an over-simplification, but it would be impossible to do justice to a language that has been developing for well over a thousand years, no matter how many books have been written on the subject. Hopefully, this little insight gives you a deeper appreciation for the fact that your spouse can write “eggs” on the shopping list and that you understand the term!

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June 27, 2026 · 10:00 AM

Etymology Undusted: British Colonial English Borrowings

Just as language in 11th-century Britain needed to adapt to facilitate communication between the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman French-speaking ruling class, when Britain eventually expanded into what became the British Empire, the nations under their rule absorbed English for the same reasons. English is known as the common language that divides; Caribbean English has little to do with Indian English; Australian English has little to do with Creole English. The rich linguistic diversity that resulted from geopolitical constellations is something we still benefit from today. English is still absorbing new words from other languages, such as umami (Japanese); many new words may only be understood in local regions before they spread to wider use.

British English has many words imported from the time of Colonialism, from India, the Caribbean, Australia, and Africa. Over time, many of those words have been exported to the colonies of the New World, and so they are familiar to English speakers outside of the colonial regions of the former British Empire. Here are a few words we owe to Indian languages (which number over 120; if you count dialects, it can be into the high thousands):

From Hindi, we have: Jungle, pajamas (pyjamas), pundit, bungalow, cushy, monsoon, avatar, bangle, bandana, chutney (and many spice names, such as garam masala), cheetah, cot, cummerbund, dinghy, dungaree, juggernaut, khaki, karma, loot, mantra, punch, pukka*, shampoo, typhoon, and veranda – to name a few.

*Pukka is a modern British slang word meaning superior, excellent, first-class.

From the Indian Tamil language, we have catamaran and curry; from Malayalam, we have calico and jackfruit; from Kannada, we have bamboo; from Sanskrit, we have atoll, aubergine, basmati, candy, carmine and crimson, cowrie, crocus, ginger, jute, lacquer, lilac, mandala, mandarin, musk, nard, opal, orange, pepper, rice, sapphire, sandalwood and shawl.

From Australia, many Aboriginal words have spread throughout the English-speaking world and beyond; here are the most common: kangaroo, koala, dingo, wombat, kookaburra, boomerang, gammon, cheeky, lingo,moola (money), and wallaby.

African words that have made it into English include banjo, jazz, cola, chigger, ebony, goober, gumbo, impala, jive, jukebox, jumbo, mojo, okra, safari, tango, jam, and zebra.

From the indigenous Caribbean languages, we get words like barbecue, canoe, cassava, guava, hammock, hurricane, iguana, maroon, potato, savanna, and reggae.   

This list could be pages long, as the British Empire influenced, as well as absorbed, languages and vocabulary from around the world.

Do you know of any others to add to the list? Please add them, and where they come from, below!

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June 13, 2026 · 10:00 AM

Etymology Undusted: Native American Borrowings

Though some of these words have probably made it across the Pond, American English is the focus of these borrowings: When the pioneers and explorers began moving westward across the North American continent, they encountered geographical features, plants, animals, and situations for which they as yet had no word; thus, the Native American words were borrowed. I won’t go into the sordid history of colonisation’s tactics here; suffice to say, it was not a mutual exchange once Europeans began arriving in larger numbers.

According to some estimates, nearly half of the U.S. state names derive from or are directly related to the regional indigenous tribes. Here are a few place name examples: Chicago (from the Miami-Illinois Myaamiaki tribe’s word, shikaakwa, wild onion); Dakota (from the Sioux language, meaning friend or ally); Oklahoma (from Choctaw, red people); Utah comes from the Ute tribe; Mississippi (from the Ojibwe phrase misi-ziibi, meaning great river); Milwaukee (Algonquian, meaning good land); Alabama (from the Alabama tribe, Alibamu); Alaska (from the Aleut word alaskag or alyeska, meaning mainland or great land); Connecticut (from the Mohican/Algonquian word quinnehtukqet, meaning beside the long tidal river); Iowa was named for the Ioway people, commonly interpreted as beautiful land; Kansas, named for the Kansa/Kaw tribe, often translated as people of the south wind; Wichita, Kansas was named for the Wichita tribe.

Some animal names include caribou, chipmunk, husky, moose, muskrat, opossum, raccoon, skunk, woodchuck, coyote, ocelot, mole, chinchilla and condor.

Some geographical features include Lake Tahoe (Big Water); Potomac River (Place where people trade); Mount Moosilauke, New Hampshire, from moosi and auke, meaning bald place; Mount Tamalpais, California (from the Coast Miwok people, meaning bay mountain);

One example of the reverse is that the Ochese Creek tribe were called Creek after the geographical feature. Creek is likely from Old Norse kriki, meaning corner or nook, extended to inlet or short arm of a river; a Swedish dialect has krik, meaning corner, bend or creek, cove.

And finally, a few botanical borrowings (including some from the Nahuatl, or Aztec, tribe*): Hickory, pecan, persimmon, squash, succotash, chayote, pawpaw (tree), guava, avocado*, tomato*, guano*, mesquite*, and mezcal*.

Do you know any other words borrowed from Native American languages? Please share them in the comments!

(AI Gen Image)

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