Do you ever have those moments where you catch yourself thinking about the simplest of things in life? Things that are common to you, yet you’ve never stopped to think about why you call something by a certain term and where those words or phrases come from? I do, with alarming frequency… I guess it’s the product of a curious mind.
I have long hair; so long that, if it’s not in a braid or some other up-do, I’d be sitting on it with ease. I braid it every day and every night – otherwise, it tangles. And thus, while brushing my hair out this morning, the word tangle tangled in my tangled mind. As someone once said, my hair isn’t messy; it’s just erupting with awesomeness.
As a verb, meaning “to knit together confusedly, encumber, or enmesh”, it came into English in the mid-14th century via Old Norse þongull, meaning seaweed, from the Proto-Germanic thangul. Other Germanic languages have related words: In both Dutch and German, we find Tang (seaweed), and in Frisian we find Tung [Frisia is a cultural region that lies over the border between the Netherlands and Germany.] Looking at the image below, it’s easy to imagine a ship’s tackle becoming entangled in the tang…
As with any useful word, it began to collect variations: The transitive sense of entrapping someone or bringing someone under one’s influence; the sense of fighting with someone; Tanglefoot was a western slang meaning strong whiskey, and tanglesome (1823), meaning complicated.
So I hope I’ve untangled the origins of this tanglesome word! Have a great, untangled week!
Stephanie Huesler 