Question: I read that "caddie" comes from "cadet," and I would like to know more about the history of the word. Is there a connection between the military "cadet" and a golf "caddie?"
Answer: When the English adopted the French word "cadet" in the 17th century, they used it the way the French did - both for a "younger son" and for a young gentleman in military training (since these were generally younger sons in need of a career). The Scots - pronouncing "cadet" somewhat in the French way, "CAH-day," but spelling it "cawdie" or "caddie" - also began using the word in the mid-17th century to refer to a military trainee.
In 18th-century Scotland a gang of young street people banded together under the leadership of the "Constable of the Cawdies." It is supposed they took their name, and to some degree ran their organization, in imitation of the more respectable "caddies" in military service. Despite their unseemly appearance, they were actually on the lookout for whatever kind of employment came their way - odd jobs of any sort. As a result, in Scottish English "caddie" eventually came to mean "a person who waits about for odd jobs."
One way of putting a caddie to work was to have him haul a golfer's clubs around the course. Not surprisingly, the earliest examples of "caddie" meaning specifically "golfer's assistant" first appeared in print in Scottish sources, but not until the mid-19th century.
One story that crops up intermittently is that Mary, Queen of Scots, an avid player herself, was responsible for the use of "caddie" in golf, but that doesn't quite jibe with the recorded history of the word. Supposedly Mary had a "caddie" in the form of an army cadet who carried her clubs. But Her Highness was playing golf in the mid-1500s, when "cadet" was not a word known in English, nor "caddie" in Scottish English. Mary may have used the word "cadet" in France (she was brought up in the French court), but it's hardly likely that she was playing golf there; she most likely took it up later, when she returned to Scotland.
Question: The weather outside is frightful, and it's got me wondering - why do we call a powerful winter storm a "blizzard"?
Answer: The short answer is that nobody really knows. There is a popular story about "blizzard" which holds a woman named Mother Wells of Spencer, Iowa, coined the word. Mother Wells is supposed to have read a story about a violent-tempered Mr. Blizzard and then to have remarked of a terrific snowstorm in 1866, "My, this is a regular old man Blizzard of a storm." There is no hard evidence, however, to support this fanciful account.
The word first appeared in print in the Estherville (Iowa) Northern Vindicator on April 23, 1870. It was spelled "blizard" and enclosed in quotation marks, showing the writer did not expect all his readers to be familiar with it. The following week it appeared again, still in quotation marks, but with the double-z spelling. During the next few years, "blizzard" spread to other newspapers in Iowa and neighboring states, becoming a well-known word in the Midwest. It became well-known nationally in March 1888 when a storm paralyzed the Eastern seaboard for days, took 400 lives and destroyed much property.
It is more of a problem to explain where the word itself came from. "Blizzard" was used earlier in this country with other meanings. In the works of Davy Crocket from the 1830's, "blizzard" appears twice: once for a blast from a gun, and then figuratively for a blast of words. From a shotgun blast to a verbal blast to a wintry blast seems to be a reasonable sense development, but it is not documented. The earlier uses of "blizzard" were short-lived or local.
The Oxford English Dictionary suggests "blizzard" probably developed from similar sounding and descriptive words like "blast," "bluster," "blow," and "blister." That doesn't make for much of a story, but it is most likely accurate.