In the early 1600s, the term undertaker didn’t necessarily denote someone in charge of arranging funerals. It was a more general term referring to entrepreneurs who undertook the work of running a business. Mine undertakers undertook exploring a mine, and land undertakers acquired land for commercial purposes. A book publisher might be called an undertaker, and the producer of a play was referred to as the undertaker of that production. If your job was to care for the dead, you were an undertaker of that particular kind of work. By the late 1600s, though, the meaning of undertaker began narrowing to specify someone in the funeral business. This is part of a complete episode.
I wonder if ‘undertaker’ is a calque from Dutch, the other way around, or borrowed from a whole different language! In Dutch the word ‘ondernemer’ is still used in the broad sense of owning a business. As such, a common mistake for Dutch people to make in English, is to refer to themself as an undertaker, when they mean entrepreneur.
I was surprised you didn’t mention all the other instances in English where ‘undertake’ is still used in its older, broader sense, though specific in its own way. For example ‘undertaking’ to mean a big job or task. Or indeed the verb ‘to undertake’: to embark on a big job. And in reading a dictionary entry at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/undertake I realize it can even mean ‘to make a promise’ and ‘to take responsibility for something’, though I’ve not come across those organically, yet.
It’s hard to remember how to spell the names of some cities. Tallahassee, Florida, for example. Then there are towns with very few letters to remember. Y, a tiny town in northern France, has only two main streets, which come together to form...
On a busy day in the emergency room, Alisa of Dallas, Texas, told an efficient colleague that she was really humming, meaning it as a compliment. Her colleague took offense, maintaining that humming meant “smelly.” Since the 18th...
Subscribe to the fantastic A Way with Words newsletter!
Martha and Grant send occasional messages with language headlines, event announcements, linguistic tidbits, and episode reminders. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening with the show.
I wonder if ‘undertaker’ is a calque from Dutch, the other way around, or borrowed from a whole different language! In Dutch the word ‘ondernemer’ is still used in the broad sense of owning a business. As such, a common mistake for Dutch people to make in English, is to refer to themself as an undertaker, when they mean entrepreneur.
I was surprised you didn’t mention all the other instances in English where ‘undertake’ is still used in its older, broader sense, though specific in its own way. For example ‘undertaking’ to mean a big job or task. Or indeed the verb ‘to undertake’: to embark on a big job. And in reading a dictionary entry at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/undertake I realize it can even mean ‘to make a promise’ and ‘to take responsibility for something’, though I’ve not come across those organically, yet.