Not very diverse. Only one thing in here... Books!

Etymological Diversity   

I've always been fond of words. In politics they are significantly more powerful than the sword. In conversation they can be used to turn fools into Pygmalion-esque geniuses. Or vice versa. Lately a few words have been bothering me.

et.y.mol.o.gy Noun - The origin of a word and the historical development of its meaning.

Yesterday I was at Newcastle University's Library, the Robinson Building, and while milling around outside (as you do), I found myself intently staring at the logo for the Uni. You know when you keep looking at a word and it loses its meaning? The word

"University" is a strange one. Uni means 'one', of course. And University means one group of people who share a common (i.e. "one") set of interests, or legal rights, or capabilities.

From this stems "Diversity", people with more than one single set of interested or rights or capabilities. So why the hell aren't they called Diversities?

Other words get to me too. "Cul-de-sac". A street with only one entrance. Despite the usual beliefs, We already have a word for that: "Close". There are different categories of street names, for example, a "Drive", is a street which can be driven through to get to other streets. A "Chare" in North-East English dialect is a small or narrow alleyway, possibly from the Saxon "Cerre" which means open or ajar, and has more recently been used to describe streets with two entrances. Chares also tend to bend round in a semicircle.

"Aluminium" is a bugbear of many British people, especially when they hear Americans missing out that last "i" and call it "Aluminum".

The sad fact of the matter is that we're both right. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) set "Aluminium" (The British way) as being the proper name in 1990, but since has published just as many documents with the American spelling as their chosen standard spelling. The -ium ending, however, does sit more nicely into the rest of the periodic table (sodium, potassium, berylium, etc.). So, and in a very biased way, I will continue to use the British name and look down my nose at the Americans who try to simplify English by removing letters from perfectly good words. (Don't get me started on "color" and the pronunciation of "herbs")...

I expect I will whinge about more words in the future. So if that's your thing, don't forget to subscribe to the site's feed by clicking "feed" on the top menu bar!