A Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, listener notes that the word cunning is sometimes used to describe a cute baby. In the 14th century, this adjective had to do with the idea of knowing, and eventually also acquired the meaning of quaint or charming. The word cute itself followed a somewhat similar path, deriving from acute, meaning sharp or knowledgeable. This is part of a complete episode.
Leave a comment
1 comment
More from this show
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
Yes, most likely related to old norse. There are clues in the modern nordic languages. The infinitive “to know (as in to know how to do something)” is “att kunna” in Swedish. The adjective form is kunnig, which means capable, knowledgeable, clever.