Maribel in Montgomery, Alabama, asks about why we say to boot to mean in addition. This kind of boot has nothing to do with the kind you wear on your feet. It’s from Old English bot, meaning advantage or remedy, and is a linguistic relative of the English word better. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “”To Boot” Origins”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Mary Bell Scott from Montgomery, Alabama.
Hi, Mary Bell. Welcome to the show.
Hey, Mary Bell.
Thanks.
What’s up?
Well, I was talking to somebody about a crossword puzzle clue recently. I thought it disparaged my great state of Alabama. And then I said, and it was only a three-letter word, to boot. And I got to thinking, where does that come from? Why do we say to boot when we mean additionally? So I thought maybe you guys might have some insight on that.
Oh, yeah, we do. But I’m curious about this crossword puzzle clue.
The clue was assistance in Alabama.
Assistance in Alabama.
Yes.
Oh, huh. And it was how many letters?
Three.
And you figured it out?
I did.
I did.
Are you ready?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The word is hep.
That’s what I thought. I wasn’t going to say it, though. Really?
You know, there are other clues you could have said for hep, like a hep cat.
Right, exactly.
But they dumped on my state.
Oh.
Oh, that’s not nice.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah. And so the expression to boot came up as well, right?
Yeah. It was an insult to Alabama, and it was just not much of a word to boot.
Okay. To boot meaning something extra, right?
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it doesn’t have anything to do with the boots that you wear on your feet. This is a totally different kind of boot.
Okay.
The word boot in that sense, something extra comes from an old English word, boat, B-O-T, that means advantage or remedy. And so if something’s to boot, it’s something that’s added or extra. It’s actually related to the English word better, a little bit more.
Okay.
That is very good. And is that, that’s a term I’ve used, I guess, since I’ve been talking just about. Is that a pretty common term to boot?
You know, I use it and kind of get cocked eyebrows every once in a while when people think it’s either affected or rare. But I don’t, I think of it as ordinary. But you sound like you’re like me, Mary Bell. You’re probably reading everything all over the place and doing crossword puzzles every day. And you just pick stuff up, right?
Yeah.
Learn lots of cool stuff that way.
But, Maribel, it has been a delight to talk with you, and you call us some other time when you’ve got a complaint about the crossword, all right?
I will do that.
Martha and Grant, it was great talking again to you guys.
It was my pleasure.
Great talking with you.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Take care, Maribel.
Bye.
Language, it’s a crazy thing. We know you’ve got ideas and opinions. You can share those with us, 877-929-9673, or spill it all, spill the beans to us and email words@waywordradio.org.
