Question: Why is the human "bellybutton" called a "navel"? Which of these two words was used first?
Answer: The word "navel" has been used since before the 12th century to describe that part of the human anatomy we commonly call the "bellybutton." The word "bellybutton" itself, on the other hand, was not used regularly until the late 1800s.
The Old English word "nafela," which eventually became our word "navel," is closely related to Old English "nafu," meaning "nave." The nave is the central part of a wheel from which the spokes radiate and through which a hole is pierced for the axle. A navel, on the other hand, is a mark or depression more or less in the hub or center of a person's abdomen. It is this analogy between the hub of a wheel and the "center" of a person's body which accounts for the use of the term "navel" to describe the "bellybutton." Today the word "navel" is often preferred over "bellybutton" in formal contexts requiring more dignified terminology.
Question: Please explain the origin of the word "sheriff"?
Answer: The word "sheriff," which dates back to 12th-century England, is formed from a combination of the words "shire" and "reeve." A reeve was basically a medieval English manor official responsible for seeing that tenants met their obligations. Chaucer includes a rather sour specimen of the breed among his Canterbury pilgrims. But in England before the Norman Conquest, the "scir-gerefa" or "shire-reeve" was a high officer, the king's representative in a shire (or county), who was responsible for the administration of the royal lands and the execution of the law. After the conquest, the title and office of sheriff remained. Indeed, in the familiar Robin Hood stories, the sheriff of Nottingham embodies the power of the Norman establishment, while Robin and his band are the Saxon "resistance fighters."
Today's American sheriff is still a county official who, in the words of one observer, "spends most of his time in performance of duties as executive agent of the county court" and thus serves an important function within his local area, much as the shire-reeve did within his shire so long ago.
Question: It seems that I am always hearing of someone who has "lost his marbles." Could you explain the origin of this phrase?
Answer: The phrase "lose one's marbles" is just one of countless ways of saying "go crazy." It derives from the use of the word "marbles" to mean "elements of common sense." The phrase is apparently of modern creation. Our own earliest example of use is dated 1946, and the earliest record we know of is only from 1927. The word "marbles" itself was in use for the child's playthings centuries before those dates, however. The equating of marbles with the mental faculties is most likely due to a fancied similarity of the small, smooth, round object to human brains. The phrase may also have something to do with the game of marbles, in which to lose one's marbles (by having them knocked out of the ring) is to lose the game.
A number of expressions have been formed using the word "marbles" to mean "sense" or "mind," and we often hear of someone who "doesn't have all his marbles" or was "born without all his marbles." Similar expressions include "going bananas," "having a screw loose," "not playing with a full deck," "not having both oars in the water," being "out to lunch" or "a few bricks short of a load," and the list goes on.
This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Send questions to: Merriam-Webster's Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal Street, Springfield, MA 01102.