To Boot

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi, this is Dale Hobson from Potsdam, New York.

I have a question.

There was a post-it note on the cash register of my local food co-op asking for the origin of the phrase to boot.

Now, I’m kind of a geekly guy, so I thought I knew the answer to that, as in the geek squad couldn’t get my new computer to boot.

But that wasn’t what they were asking.

What they wanted to know was the origin of to boot when it’s used to mean furthermore or in addition to.

Right.

And your mother dresses you funny and you are ugly to boot.

Well, I don’t know what I think about that.

Well, Dale, first of all, let me ask you, is this something that’s commonly done at your food co-op?

Can anybody come up and put a post-it with a question about an etymology?

Well, usually it’s about the produce or something like that.

But every now and then it’s sort of the community Twitter board.

We’re a little low-tech up here with 140 characters on it.

-huh. Yeah.

So do you think it has anything to do with footwear?

I kind of think not, but I have no idea where it would come from.

Right.

Well, that’s a good guess, Dale, because it has nothing to do with footwear.

It comes from an entirely different family of words.

You’re tricky, Martha.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This kind of to boot, Dale, goes all the way back to the 11th century.

In those days, the word boot itself had a positive meaning.

It meant something good or an advantage.

And over time, it sort of acquired the idea of something good thrown into the bargain, you know, like an addition.

Like booty.

Actually, I thought that too, but that’s not the case.

That’s from a whole other family of words, but a very good guess.

It meant an added advantage, you know, like I’ll give you three chickens and some arugula to boot or something like that.

And then it took on a life of its own, and it came to mean something additional, either good or bad.

Originally, it was positive, and I’ll tell you a word that it is related to is the word better.

It’s from that family of words, meaning something good.

Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense then.

Yeah.

Because they’re all about something positive or something good.

Right.

Does that make sense, Dale?

It makes sense to me, and it will make sense to all the members of the Potsdam Food Co-op to boot.

Well, now, how are you going to get all that on a Post-it?

I will write really small, I guess.

More than 140 characters, huh?

I think so.

Okay.

Well, I hope that helped.

Well, thank you very much.

All right.

Thanks for calling, Dale.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you have a question about language, we’ll give you an answer and a little bit of humor to boot.

Maybe.

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