My Words of the Week

Word: Japan (Noun) Can mean the country, or a cover with a hard black varnish.

Reason: My major is in Japanese studies so this word is special to me. Also, I noticed that the word for Japan in Japanese is nihon (日本 )which sounds nothing like the word Japan, however many European languages, not just English, use this word. So I wanted to know how that word was created.

History: The word goes all the way back to when Marco Polo circumnavigated the globe. At the time when he visited “Japan”, he called it Cipangu (sipangu) The word Japan came from many Chinese dialects, for example in premodern Wu Chinese and current Shanghai dialect, they say Zeppen. When the Portuguese visited Asia during the 1500s, they encountered the Malay word Jepang, and used it in Portuguese. This ended up spreading across Europe and everyone started incorporating it in their language. Japan did not show up in English until 1565, but the word was spelled Giapan. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan#Etymology

Word: Flabbergast or flabbergasted (adjective) Means overwhelming astonishment

Reason: I remember reading that this was one of the words in the English language that no one uses much and if you say it, people won't know what you are talking about. So I thought, I would just say it randomly sometimes in my vocabulary. It's fun when I say this word to my non-native English speaking friends and they look at me with the weirdest expression.

Etymology: This word showed up around 1772 in an article of new words. “Now we are flabbergasted and bored from morning to night.” It is likely a combination of the words flabber and aghast into the word flabbergasted. It is uncertain where the word came from; some say flabber came from flabby which implies a person is so surprised, they're shaking or their facial expression becomes flabby while aghast means astonishment. Some say it could have been part of the Suffolk dialect or a Sussex word, or from the Scottish word flabrigast. Source:http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/52773/what-is-the-etymology-of-flabbergasted

Word: Zombie (Noun) An animated corpse or slow person

Reason: The concept of zombies and its use has increased in the past decade with talk of the zombie apocalypse and movies. Also, in one of the earliest well-known zombie movies: Night of the Living Dead, the word 'zombie' wasn't even used at all. I wanted to know where this word came from because it doesn't actually look like an English word.

Etymology: Originally of West African descent around the 1800s. It is very similar to the Kikongo word zumbi which means 'fetish' and Kimbundu nzambi which means 'god'. Began as meaning a snake god and then became 'reanimated corpse' in voodoo belief. It could have also come from the Louisiana creole word zonbi meaning 'ghost' as well as the Spanish sombra which also means 'ghost'. Source: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=zombie