Episode 4 – Let's Name The Place After Our Guests

Welcome to Thinking Backwords.
I'm your host, Clark H Smith.
We're thinking about the common ancestors of modern words.

Today's words range from the study of geography to geometry to gastronomy. They all arise from the ancient root -ank-, meaning angle. 

It strikes me as humorous that England is actually named after an obscure piece of land the size of New York City far away from its own shores. The English language is built almost entirely from foreign words so it makes sense that "England" itself should be a foreign word.

From high school history class, do you remember tales of the Jutes, Angles, Saxons. Maybe you identify your heritage as Anglo-Saxon. These folks lived in Northern Europe and had eager aspirations to conquer distant lands. The Angles a land we now call England.

Where did that ambitious old clan of Angles get their name? Obviously, we can't overlook the clue staring us in the face – angle.

Angle is a geometry term that comes to us from that ancient word root -ank-. The same root word is found as the -ag- sound in geometry terms like diagonal, pentagon, octagon, and so on. Our root word is also found at the bottom of the ocean - anchor.

The Land of the Angles – let's call it Angle-Land is now in the larger province of Holstein of milk-cow fame. Angle-land was mapped along a line between three major towns. This line angled down in the middle, and thus the province, looked like a very broad V, or a chevron, an obtuse angle. The people who lived in the angle-shaped land were called Angles. England is named for the people who lived far away on a piece of land shaped like an angle. 

Bonus Word: Remember that Angle-land appeared on a map as a sort of Chevron shape. The back lower leg of a goat, just like a human ankle, also forms an angle, a chevron. Chevron is based in an ancient root word for goat that forms the basis of Capricorn, capricious, chevre, Chevrolet, etc.

listen @