Hi there, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Joe Montani calling from Tucson, Arizona, the old Pueblo.
Hi Joe, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Grant.
You know, well, I tell you what, I’m a scientist here, an astronomer.
Oh, really? That’s cool.
We, of course, you know, coming up in science, we have a lot of contact with mathematics, and out of necessity, and well, because it’s fun also.
But I have a question that’s been on my mind for many years.
Even though I’ve had plenty of opportunity to talk with mathematicians and other scientists, I never put this question to them, nor have dictionaries or other sources of etymology been able to help me.
And that is the word odds, O-D-D-S.
Now, I mean, I’m not a gambler or a gamer or, you know, one who wagers, so I’ve never really used this in a practical way.
But, of course, we know that, well, it’s the ratio of probability.
You know, one outcome of something might be probable to a certain extent.
Another one might be probable to another extent.
And the ratio of those is the odds, which one will win out.
But where, where, oh, where does this word odds come from?
You know, again, in math, we know there are even numbers, odd numbers.
But I doubt it has anything to do with that.
But I’ll be delighted to learn otherwise or if that is the case.
Any ideas?
It does.
It does come from odds and evens.
All right, let’s say you have two stacks of coins and they both have 10 coins in a stack across the top.
They’re perfectly even if you take one coin off of one stack now.
They’re uneven they are one of the stacks as is now odd. All right.
Let’s say that you have four stacks and one one of the stacks has one fewer coin than the other three stacks. It is the odd stack. It’s unusual. It’s odd, right?
It’s literally that same odd.
So it’s different. And so what we’re talking about here is something that as odd is unusual.
It’s different. And it starts out as the opposite of even. And odd came to refer to the difference between anything, any two things or more than one thing, to indicate that something was unequal.
And that’s what’s happening, just like you said, in gambling. The odds is the ratio, that is the difference for and against a certain position in the outcome of what is being bet on.
And so when we talk about the odds for and against something, that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
What is the outstanding different part of this wager?
What is the unequal position that we might take that something will or won’t happen?
It’s all about what’s different or what’s unequal.
So it is odd. It’s unusual.
Okay, Grant, that does shed some light on it.
And see, I hadn’t really considered that it would land on both sides of that question.
That is, that it would have a connection with the mathematical fact of something either being odd or even as a number.
And, and here’s the big end, that it had something to do with the oddness of its strangeness or the difference between things.
That’s so interesting.
Yeah, when words develop new meaning, sometimes they become abstracted from their source.
And so they seem odd.
They seem unusual and strange.
But once we look into the path that they’ve taken to go from meaning one to meaning two, it starts to make more sense.
And then you kind of have your aha or eureka moment.
But I want to get back to your profession.
You said you’re an astronomer.
I imagine there in Tucson, if you drive out a ways, you’ll find plenty of places where there’s not a lot of urban light, and you can see great distances into the universe.
Yeah, you’ve probably had your own ahas and eurekas, huh?
Yeah.
Oh, that’s certainly right.
You know, from early childhood on, I grew up on the East Coast, New Jersey, and started to use small telescopes there, and then to get bigger telescopes, I couldn’t afford them.
So I had to start making them, even as a kid.
I made my first one at age 13, larger and larger mirrors, ground from scratch, literally from scratch, using abrasives and then polishing.
So that led to a career, which I’m very happy to be part of.
I think definitely what drew me to the field is the beauty of what you can see.
In other words, as an observer, simply the beauty of it.
And, of course, mathematics has a certain beauty of its own, which put the two together.
And, wow, it’s a nice combination.
What are the odds of that?
Well, I imagine you have some lovely language that you can share with us in a future call.
And so, Joe, we’d love to hear some of that from you another time.
That would be an absolute delight, and I look forward to it.
And I want to thank you for putting my mind at rest.
Yeah, thanks so much.
I’ll be well.
