Etymology of the day: ‘book’ comes from an ancient root shared by ‘beech’, a wood that people used for engraving inscriptions. ‘Paper’ comes from ‘papyrus’, and ‘volume’ is from the Latin for a ‘roll’ of parchment. Happy World Book Day. - ThreadSky

susiedent.com • 10 hours ago

Etymology of the day: ‘book’ comes from an ancient root shared by ‘beech’, a wood that people used for engraving inscriptions. ‘Paper’ comes from ‘papyrus’, and ‘volume’ is from the Latin for a ‘roll’ of parchment.

Happy World Book Day.

Comments

roisindubh1.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Ah good
Any chance you could forward a copy of
'Government and Legal Stuff for Dummies'

To a certain President?

ceu---azul.bsky.social•4 hours ago

to you as well, ms Dent!

litterygeniarse.bsky.social•9 hours ago

As I struggle, going round in circles, trying to finish my heart breaking novel of littery geniarse: The Book That Jack Wrote about an insane writer writing about an insane protagonist with the meta-layer of my own dubious grip on reality I find I have lost the point of this sentence.

Ah well.

kerlarsenickoff.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Cognate with 'volute', I guess.

finogenatius.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Yes latin is a very rooty language thank you..

brekekekiwi.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Oh, like volute?

crosrob.bsky.social•9 hours ago

This is Fonte Arethusa in Siracusa, Sicily. The only place in Europe where Papyrus grows.

hopeberry.bsky.social•4 hours ago

I was where a few months ago! My favourite place in Sicily 🥰 this Fonte has a very fine collection of ducks who live there. The associated mythology of the site is fascinating…

hopeberry.bsky.social•4 hours ago

*there* a few months ago - stupid predictive text

crosrob.bsky.social•3 hours ago

I was there 2 weeks ago! Beautiful place and yes, some very handsome ducks ☺️

beyondxistence.bsky.social•2 hours ago

Now I want to be sitting on a beach under a beech eating a roll reading a scroll of papyrus.
🏖️ 🌳 🥐 📜

tallbeanpole.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Happy World Book Day to you too.... still looking forward to your next beech!

raggletaggle.bsky.social•9 hours ago

And 'livre', 'libro', library' from the Latin 'lĭbru(m)', the film between the bark and the wood

motosunburn.bsky.social•10 hours ago

The Russian word for beech is бук (buk).

slothlydad.bsky.social•6 hours ago

And most Westerners only know that because the Russians gave that name to the missile launcher which shot down that Malaysian Airlines flight a few years back.

motosunburn.bsky.social•6 hours ago

I doubt many westerners know the translation of "buk". It's something they might remember from having heard it in the news, but we are very bad at learning other languages.

slothlydad.bsky.social•6 hours ago

Fair. I only found out about it when reading war news and wondering why Putin's artillery pieces were called stuff like "Acacia" and "Hyacinth".

motosunburn.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Yep, and the recently debuted hypersonic missile is called "oreshnik" (hazel). I worked in Kazakhstan for a while, Russian language is fascinating but the grammar is a nightmare 😂

paul-anderson8.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Happy world book day to you. Your book 'Guilty by Definition' was great. Paul

sunelangdal.bsky.social•9 hours ago

"Letter" in Danish is "bogstav" from "bok" (beech) and stav (vertical character). Started with runes, I suppose

darjanator.com•6 hours ago

Oh? I thought we got volume via vellum or calfskin. 🤔

jfritte.bsky.social•10 hours ago

So how did volume come to be used to measure… well… volume (xyz)?

susiedent.com•10 hours ago

It also came to mean ‘the size or extent of a book’, and from there to the idea of measurement.

jfritte.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Ta!

gustapher.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Volvo - I roll over.

p-goldin.bsky.social•9 hours ago

the beech is "book" in Ukrainian but I never thought these words could be related :)

guanolad.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Random thought: "crust" sounds onomatopoeic to me.

dilledahlin.bsky.social•10 hours ago

In Swedish, "book" is "bok", and "beech tree" is called "bok".

I've always wondered why it was the same word.

Thank you. Etymology is really interesting.

petitdictionnaire.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Thanks, I'm learning Swedish so I was just wondering what beech would be in Swedish 🙂

dilledahlin.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Swedish can be a pretty weird language. How come you're learning Swedish?

petitdictionnaire.bsky.social•1 hour ago

I love learning languages. This is just for me. When I have some spare time for me, I learn Swedish and it makes me feel good. I wanted to learn a Scandinavian language, and I chose Swedish based on Swedish noir series, because I like the sound of Swedish best.

josefinateresia.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Du har samma efternamn som min farmor innan hon gifte sig. Intressant! Varifrån i Sverige kommer du? Jag är från Göteborg. Jag är mycket intresserad av etymologi.

dilledahlin.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Jag kommer från Trollhättan, men bor i Göteborg.
Dahlin är ju inget ovanligt namn. Det finns tom mer än en Anna Dahlin bara i Göteborg.

Och etymologi är superintressant!

thejoycoach.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Fascinating! Happy World Book Day! 📚

iniseoghain.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Very bookish of you.

myview66.bsky.social•5 hours ago

I love this kind of stuff

alastairmeeks.bsky.social•10 hours ago

The Hungarian word for beech is bükk. Given Hungarian is not an Indo-European language, that's curious.

petitdictionnaire.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Hungarian has a lot of borrowed words from Russian. Here's your answer https://bsky.app/profile/motosunburn.bsky.social/post/3ljp2ifum4k2v

audiocarlos.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Last week Me and My Beech (I don't think she minds me making this silly pun, She's laughing 😆) walked through an ethereal looking beech copse and marvelled. Would have been nice to know this. I propose moving book day back a week for the uneducated among us 🙃 😆
TY

anniez24.bsky.social•10 hours ago

I’m a teacher and had a kid say he didn’t want to eat his sandwich as it has sand in it. I told him I thought it was named after the Earl of Sandwich and had no sand or witches in… but where does the word Sandwich come from?!

stephengardens.bsky.social•7 hours ago

“wich” is from “wick”, which is either the Scandinavian work “vik” (creek or bay) or the Anglo Saxon word which meant port or trading location. Depends whether the place was in the Danelaw or not, essentially.

Either way, it means a sandy beach or port.

hoveactually.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Sandwich, in Kent. ‘Wick’ means ‘village’, so Sandwich is ‘Sandy village’.

hoveactually.bsky.social•7 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-wich_town

mabrownstuff.bsky.social•10 hours ago

And a happy World Book Day to you. Even more excuse to read than normal... 📚

harriett-8.bsky.social•8 hours ago

Thanks for the info!

keepinfairlieweird.bsky.social•7 hours ago

Book in Scottish is 'Buik' which is also the word for 'belly' in Dutch. yeah, me neither.

cardinalbigglere.bsky.social•6 hours ago

And "Brexit Manifesto" comes from the Ancient Sumerian "To Lie for Profit"

josephinea197.bsky.social•7 hours ago

In Sweden the word for book and beech is still the same, both are written and called "bok". :-)

ohhhappydays.bsky.social•10 hours ago

@screenshotthis.dev

screenshotthis.dev•10 hours ago

Sure! Here is a screenshot of this post:

chasm2025.bsky.social•10 hours ago

Thanks

belfastnomad.bsky.social•9 hours ago

And that you, too. I'm enjoying this book from D. Dorling. It ain't uplifting, on purpose I assume, but it covers many important issues facing our government today. 👌

fidaisyg.bsky.social•10 hours ago

HYS the #Xylotheque in #Glasgow #HiddenGardens? soundbite 9 in this exploration
https://thehiddengardens.org.uk/explore/

johnweyman.bsky.social•9 hours ago

I thought it was derived from goat because goat skin, velum was used for books. Boucq means goat in French, and a bouquiniste is a book seller.
It would seem it's the other way round. So boucq also comes from beech.

stringerbelly.bsky.social•9 hours ago

I loved the way my history teacher Ms Stirzaker said "book".

listergatan.bsky.social•5 hours ago

In Swedish book is bok and European beech is bok. The trees were threatened by Phytophthora some 10 years ago but seems to be under control. 500 years ago book was bök, while European beech is bøg in Danish. Both versions of book have the umlaut in plural. Swedish bög, bugger, is prob not related