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[–] 45 points 1 year ago* (11 children)

This is an example of folk etymology. The original word was Spanish cucaracha, but English speakers couldn't make anything meaningful of that when they borrowed it into English, and so they folk etymologized it into cock "male chicken" and roach "a type of fish", that sounds similar enough to cucaracha to be reasonable.

The same thing happened to Cayo Hueso "Bone Key" as "Key West", for example.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I hate that THAT is acceptable but when I combine "no one" to "noone" someone HAS to call me out for it and act like English never changes to become easier

    it's extremely petty but I'm still mad about it

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    People like you should of never been born

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Nah let these gentlemen cook. I don’t get mad when people can’t do math and destroy the economy, but make one spelling or grammar error online and it’s over.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I think a better example for you to follow would be how "a napron" turned into "an apron."

    However, I'm not a fan of "noone" as it doesn't look like it would be pronounced as "no one." It could perhaps be "no-one" or "noöne", but they seem off as well. And very few people use umlauts in English to signify that the two consecutive vowels are separate sounds (The New Yorker is the only publicaton that I know about that does this, but I'm not sure if they stopped).

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The name for the insect probably originated in the Caribbean. Then brought over by the Portuguese and transferred to Spanish. The English got it from the Spanish, where other languages like French and Dutch got it from the Portuguese.

    In English it went from the Spanish cacarucha to the English cacarootch. Which later changed to cockroche and eventually became cockroach.

    The original Caribbean word was most likely kakalaka. This went to cacalacca in early Portuguese and then into the Spanish cacarucha. Interesting enough the newer Portuguese word of caroucha was based on the Spanish word. So the word went from Portuguese to Spanish and back again.

    People always forget languages are a living thing and words for a lot of things were very different hundreds of years ago.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    TIL stale beer attracts dick bugs.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    And they say scientists don’t have a sense of humor.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Where was other scientist when people were naming birds?

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)