Vocabulary Gap
The etymology of obscure words can be fun. I particularly enjoy the segments of “Says You!” which ask for the derivation of words or phrases, but their variation on the dictionary game—where one team must pick the correct definition from among fake definitions made up on the spot by the opposing team—is a reliable diversion, too. Often, the words are picked simply for sounding silly: words with lots of G’s and U’s, for example, or anything with “inkle” as a component, or obscure Yiddish.
The most interesting words, though, are the ones whose purpose is difficult to understand. Words, after all, exist because somebody once had a need to talk about what they describe, and sometimes it’s hard to see the need. Words for obsolete fashions, for example, or parts of sailing ships, are easy to understand: once, people used them daily. They are less mysterious, and thus less interesting. The perfect example of what I’m talking about is a word I have long forgotten, but whose meaning has stuck with me for over a decade: there is a word for the distance between a hole and the pile of earth that results from its digging.
I couldn’t figure out the purpose of that one, and needed the explanation. How about you—give up?
If a hole is too near the resultant pile of dirt, there is a danger that the dirt and rocks will pour back into the hole, or that the weight will collapse the edge of the hole, harming the diggers below. Worker safety regulations demand a minimum distance between the two to prevent this hazard. And, since the regulations needed to refer to this space repeatedly, some enterprising civil servant coined a word to simplify the job of writing them.
It’s easier to find phrases, and especially idioms, like this. Individual words are rarer.