Question: My Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives the date of 1613 for the word "volcano." But we know from history that there were volcanoes long before then. Did they have a different name before the 17th century?Answer: Before the Age of Discoveries medieval Europe knew only the handful of active volcanoes long familiar to mariners in the Mediterranean -- Vesuvius in Italy, Etna on Sicily, and the peaks of Stromboli and Vulcano among the Lipari Islands off the Sicilian coast. Apparently no need was felt for a generic word to describe a mountain that emitted fire.
The situation changed in the 16th century, when the Spanish conquistadores came upon the great volcanic peaks of Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. The chroniclers of the conquistadores applied to these mountains the word "volcan," whose roots lie in classical antiquity. Vulcanus, the ancient Roman god of fire, was particularly associated with the Lipari Islands. Cicero called them the "insulae Vulcaniae" or "islands of Vulcan," and this association is perpetuated today in "Vulcano," the modern Italian name of the southernmost island. Medieval Islamic authors applied "burkan," an Arabicized form of "Vulcanus," to either Etna or the Lipari Island volcanoes, and this word appears transformed into the Latinized "vulcan" in a 13th century Spanish translation from Arabic. It resurfaces as "volcan" in a 1524 description of Guatemalan volcanoes. From the Spanish chroniclers the word soon found its way into Italian, French, and English. By the early 17th century the final "o" had been added to the word in English, giving us our current spelling of "volcano."
Question: A business associate told me that the word "bug," meaning flaw, came from an incident when a moth flew into an early computer and wreaked havoc. I find this story hard to believe. Could this be true?
Answer: Your suspicions are correct; the insect in the computer theory of the origin of "bug" should be mothballed. Surprisingly, "bug" has been used to mean "an unexpected defect, fault, flaw or imperfection" since 1889. The earliest example in print refers to Edison's work on the phonograph, but there is no reason to believe the great inventor coined this usage. We'll probably never know just who did or if there was an inspirational real-life bug plugging up someone's works.
Question: Whenever I bake, people always seem to ask if I made it "from scratch," I tell them, no, I made it from flour, sugar, eggs, etc. Why do people use the phrase "from scratch"?
Answer: The term "from scratch," originally just "scratch," derives from sporting events, not cooking, which is probably why it sounds so strange to you. "Scratch," started out in Great Britain as a term indicating the starting line in athletic competitions. Contestants started from the "scratch." It was later also used to refer more specifically in a handicap to the starting point for competitors who received no odds, and hence the advent of the "scratch" game, a game without handicaps.
"Scratch" was also later used figuratively to mean "from the beginning" in other contexts. James Joyce used "scratch" in this sense in his 1922 masterpiece Ulysses, in which he wrote of a "poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny." The phrase "from scratch" is now the more common form.
As you pointed out, "from scratch" is often used in connection with cooking to mean made from the essential ingredients rather than, say, from a packaged mix, which eliminates some steps in the preparation. The phrase is also used more broadly, however, to refer to anything that must be constructed or carried out from the beginning.
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 St., Springfield, MA 01102. Merriam-Webster Inc. Dist. by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service