Ever wondered how the months got their names? Then read on!

January

The first month of the year is named after the Roman god Janus, the god in charge of beginnings and passages. This was an apt name for January as it marked a review of the year that just ended and the optimism associated with a new year ahead.

February

This month took its name from ‘februa’, the cultural practice taking place halfway through the month. The Februa feast culminated between the 15th and 13th centuries as a form of ritual purification.

March

This one is easy! March got its name from the god of war, Mars. Several cultural practices devoted to Mars were taking place around this season, hence the name.

April

This name was presumably derived from the Latin word ‘aprillis’ coming from the verb aperio, which means “to open.” Given the agricultural focus of civilizations thousands of years ago, April was a busy, thriving month for farmers that signaling the opening of new agricultural possibilities ahead.

May

The fifth month is named after Maia, a goddess who, according to Greek mythology is Hermes’ mother and Atlas’ daughter. She was celebrated as a deity with a nurturing, motherly attitude.

June

Named after the Roman goddess, Juno, June is a month dedicated to marriage, childbirth and women’s well-being. Often Juno was associated with her Greek counterpart, Hera.

July

Named after Julius Caesar as a way to commemorate him, July is the first month of the calendar year not named after a deity, and it’s the month Caesar was born in.

Now let’s take a breather and a brief history lesson to understand the naming of the remaining months.

Hundreds of years back, the Romans had only ten months. These were what we now know as March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December. They also had a dead or idle period of about 60 days in which nothing major happened , at least not anything related to agriculture.

So, according to the Roman year, the year started in March and ended about 60 days after the end of December.  So considering that March was the first month, that makes August the sixth, September the seventh and so forth.

Now, Numa Pompilius, the King of Rome 2,700 or so years ago, decided to spice things up a bit. He said that the year should start earlier than March, and so he divided and named that dead winter time, creating January and February.

August, September, October, November, December

Before being named August, the six month was known as Sextilis (the ‘sixth’, see history lesson above). It was renamed as August in honor of the first Roman emperor.

September is the seventh month, October is the eighth month, November the ninth and of course, December, the tenth. These all come from the Latin words for those numbers: septem, octo, novem, decem.

Now you know why months are named the way they are!

Ultimate Vocabulary guarantees to help you increase your vocabulary knowledge! Learn more words and apply them in your writings.

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Happy Birthday, Texting! Though it’s most often associated with teenagers these days, texting itself can now be considered an adult. It has been 23 years since that very first text message went from one device to another, making the first ever sender and recipient world-famous for being the first people to engage in what eventually ended up being a daily and almost obsessive activity for millions of people.

Neil Papworth was the first person to use the short message service (SMS) function to send a text message. On December 3, 1992, Neil sent his colleague, Richard Jarvis, a holiday greeting. “Merry Christmas,” was the text that Jarvis received on his Orbitel 901.

The story goes that Neil Papworth never got a reply, or at least not immediately. Unlike today’s access-anywhere mobile phones, devices other than computers didn’t support texting at the time.

Who would’ve thought that two decades later, texting would be the most popular, affordable and fast non-verbal way to communicate? With yearly SMS traffic being projected to exceed the 9  trillion by next year, it’s evident that the SMS is the king of electronic, non-verbal communication in the 21st century.

Today millions of people enjoy this swift, discreet and efficient way to communicate locally and internationally. Although instant messaging and social media apps that provide alternate ways of sending messages are becoming increasingly popular, texting still holds tight to its position as the leader in electronic communications.

Texting has matured on another level as well. Today, this method of communication has many uses outside the personal realm. Brands are using texting to send offers, promotional coupons, and recommendations to their subscribers and loyal customers. The 160-character service seems more than enough for marketing and commercial purposes, especially when backed by the power of an international corporation.

Being available across platforms makes texting a prevalent mode of communication despite the new and attractively different apps that everyone seems to be using. Though each new app gets its followers, they find it hard to completely overshadow texting. It’s a mature, robust communication tool that shaped entire generations and has become part and parcel of cultures that traverses age, race, culture, and socioeconomic status.

Many people rushed to claim that texting was dead, after seeing the rapid growth of apps like WhatsApp. But the truth is that (for the time being at least) texting is a more accessible and global method. Anyone can receive a text message from you, but not everyone has a smartphone, let alone the specific app you are using. There are signs that mobile applications will possibly replace texting in the following years, but for now the simple SMS is here to stay.

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Do you ever wonder what makes a word … word-y? What are the criteria for a word to become an officially recognized part of a language?

There are many people who argue about where that tipping point is. Whether words like “slacktivism,” “bae,” and “feels” are proper words or not is still under debate. So to jump into the conversation, let’s look into how a word becomes a word.

What’s In A Word

For words to gain real-word status, a lot of people have to use them. If “selfie” and “vape” weren’t being used by a growing number of people then they would never acquire proper word status. In fact, “vape” was so extensively used that Oxford Dictionary named it the Word of the Year for 2014.

The Oxford Dictionary explains why “vape” was chosen:

“ You are thirty times more likely to come across the word vape than you were two years ago, and usage has more than doubled in the past year.”

Technology Leads the Way

So usage and popularity are two main factors that affect a word’s word status eligibility. Culture is the third.

Large scale events, new technologies, and advancements in science and other industries also give way to the creation and adoption of new words.

If researchers discover a new gene, a new correlation between atoms, or a new planetary system, words need to be created or borrowed from other languages to describe that concept.

Looking at word list from past years, it instantly becomes obvious how prevalent technology-related words are. And because technology lends itself to fast – almost viral – adoption, it should come as no surprise that in 2014 the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate® Dictionary list was dominated by techie words:

– Big Data

– Social Networking

– Tweep

– Hashtag

– Gamification

Nothing’s Permanent, Not Even Word Status

Rebekah Otto, Director of Content at Dictionary.com, says in an interview with Mental Floss that there’s a very thin line between slang and informal language. She poses this question to readers:

“What’s the line that delineates a phrase like “brogrammer” between being slang and an official word?”

Words are living organisms that are influenced by our culture and defined by human behavior, global trends, and technological innovation.

This can be easily observed by how fast a word with merely slang status – that is, a very informal word, used by a minority and not used in written language – gets informal word status or even proper word status.

For a word to enter the English dictionary, many happenstances have to collide. Cultural acceptance and adoption, usage, and online and offline media propagation need to be in place for a word to enter global consciousness and discourse.

But even if a word never gains Oxford Dictionary word status, it is still a proper word, in the minds and conversations of people that use it.  

Doctors use words that laypeople will probably never have to speak in their lives. Teens have their own slang words to communicate and affiliate with certain groups and identities. Professions of all kinds have their own obscure (to the uninitiated) words.

It could be said that a word becomes a word when it is spoken or used enough for it to make sense as a concept reference. Whether it is an officially accepted word or not, the status of a word should only worry you in circumstances when you need to use that word in formal writing or other contexts that require a certain level of formality.

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The continuous growth of China economically has urged many individuals and corporations to equip themselves with a 21st century must-have skill, the ability to speak Chinese. Speaking Chinese opens up many windows for Western countries who wish to establish solid and enduring relations with China.

However, anyone who thinks about languages will soon notice a paradox. If the Chinese language is rising into such prominence, why isn’t there a substantial number of words that have been borrowed from Chinese into English? After all, English is known for adopting and adapting words from many other cultures and languages.

What kind of challenges and hindrances prevent words of Chinese origin from entering the English language?

It’s too soon

Cultural, commercial, and financial interactions are still new. For years, China has chosen to exclude the outside world due to political principles and circumstances. It’s been only 35 years since Deng Xiaoping inaugurated the market-based, capitalism-oriented economy which has catapulted China into its current position as the 2nd largest economy in the world.

This economic growth and all its implications are only now getting into high gear or maturing. Given that transactions and relations with China are just starting to systematize, it is expected that in the near future, Chinese will find a way into the English language, especially with regards to cultural concepts not present in western cultures.

Thus far, Chinese has introduced many cultural notions in English, from food (chow mein) to commerce (guanxi, lose/save face) to the spiritual (feng shui, Chi). But as these interactions deepen and intensify, one can only imagine how Chinese can enrich the English language with a fresh and intriguing cultural discourse.

A logographic system and the lack of an alphabet

Another reason that there aren’t more Chinese words in English is that Chinese characters do not correspond to letters but whole syllables. A Chinese character matches a concrete syllable that cannot be further analyzed. A Chinese character might be a stand-alone word, a concept or abstract idea, or even a symbol signifying the tone or pronunciation of that syllable. Contrast this with the alphabet-based English, where words are formed of individual letters, and it’s easy to see why the translation and adaptation has been slow.

Because of its complex and symbolic nature, anyone unfamiliar with how the Chinese language is constituted, spoken and written will find it hard to grasp the intricacy and splendor of Chinese, something that has slowed down the incorporation of Chinese words into the English language.

Pronunciation is hard and unpredictable

For non-Chinese speakers, decoding Chinese characters can be a real struggle. Adding to this the five pronunciation tones that need to be implemented when speaking Chinese, and the endeavor already seems like a lost cause. So even if Chinese words make it into English, there will be a long time before a common, accepted pronunciation and meaning of that word are firmly established.

Cultural connotations get lost in translation

With a uniquely variegated and rich culture that spans over 4000 years, it’s impossible for Chinese words to get picked up as easily as English words do, at least for non-native speakers.

The Chinese culture is too immense and complicated for people to properly grasp the full range of meanings and connotations of its culturally charged words. Simple words like “dragon” have come to represent power and fortune and luck, but there are so many other layers of discourse behind each word, unknown and ungrasped by other cultures, that simply using the literal translation of a word leaves out the full meaning that would be understood in China.

The idiosyncrasies of the Chinese language and the Western’ world’s unpreparedness and unfamiliarity with the language are some of the reasons why Chinese words haven’t easily found their way into English, but as more cross-cultural and linguistic exchanges occur over the upcoming decades, the richness of the Chinese language will further enrich English vocabulary as well.

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Learning a new language is a wondrous adventure. You travel in history, experience the culture, and taste a new way of living simply by learning the words that culture uses to express those concepts. But do you remember feeling the same emotions and sensations when you learned your first language – the one belonging to the culture you were born to? Probably not.

Acquiring Your Mother Tongue vs Learning a Foreign Language

There’s not much critical thinking involved when learning your native language. You learn to speak at a lightning fast speed, and amazingly you make up for anything that’s unknown or yet not solidified as a language rule through creative improvisation and substitutions. Children have an amazing capacity for vocabulary and communication that allows them to pick up a language without formal education, in a process that’s mostly unconscious.

Learning a language as an adult, however, is a different story. You already possess your native tongue, and you have experiences, emotions, beliefs, and opinions that influence and even interfere with your new language learning.

When you learn a second or third language your very own language often gets in the way. It leads you you make false assumptions about grammar rules and syntax, it confuses you with rules that do not exist in your language, and it leaves you feeling frustrated that you cannot find a corresponding entity or function in your mother tongue.

But that frustration, that ennui is surprisingly pleasurable if you look at it from the right perspective. You can in fact derive great satisfaction from learning a language so unfamiliar and disconnected from your own. You’re forced to reconsider the universality of your own language and understand how language defines your thinking and permeates your reality so extensively.

As the renowned Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has said:

“[T]he limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.”

Expand your reality, expand the place you inhabit

What’s so marvelous about language is the way that it expands your reality. Where you used to have only one tool to make sense of your world, now you have two. This is true especially if you’re learning a language that’s vastly different from your own because it belongs to a different language family; the linguistic and mental shock can be even greater.

It’s one thing for a Spanish native speaker to learn Italian. It’s an entirely different thing for an English native speaker to learn traditional Chinese.

When you learn a totally unfamiliar language, you can’t help feeling like a child. You are a clean slate. You learn everything from scratch. It’s not just a new language, it’s a new culture and a whole lot of history. A brand new world awaiting discovery.

As you advance your language learning and you shyly start speaking the language, a sense of empowerment arises. You feel a growing pleasure, and you feel more in control because you can use a language – a string of words and sounds that was previously completely unknown – to communicate. Even something as simple as learning how to express a feeling or statement in another language makes you feel powerful.

There are many reasons to learn a new language, but one of the most pleasurable is to get the freedom that comes from the ability to communicate in and understand a different language. Yes, learning a new language has many professional and social benefits, but none can compare to the euphoria experienced when you achieve the previously unimaginable: gaining a new tool for communication.

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Every aspiring writer wants a Pulitzer, or at least a New York Times best-seller. There’s a long and arduous path ahead of those writers, but the process can be made easier if the writer is prepared for what they’ll face. To help with that, Ultimate Vocabulary presents 7 tips for aspiring literary giants.

Write What You Know

One piece advice for every would-be writer is to write what they know about. The mere act itself sets in motion a stream of creativity and helps you discover ideas and plots you wouldn’t otherwise be able to dig up.

Write For The Sake of Writing

Don’t fixate on writing the next best American novel. It won’t happen unless you write, write, and then write some more.

Instead of narrowing your writing output to that one goal, make it your life’s purpose to write about everything you admire, everything you are passionate about, and all the things that frighten and make you sad. Steven Petite of the Huffington Post says:

“By all means, maintain the dream of writing a great novel that will be lauded by literary critics and consumers alike . . . [but] do not let yourself get trapped into a sort of tunnel vision that prevents you from exploring other topics with your writing.”

Know Your Competitors

If you’re a graphic novel writer know who you’re competing against. If you’re a memoir writer, know the key players you want to surpass with your book.

Not only will this help you create a trajectory for your own writing goals but it might well give you a push in the right direction. It might help you discover a topic or subject that hasn’t be talked about yet, instantly giving yourself a competitive advantage.

Calm Down

It’s so easy to end up so immersed in your vision to become a New York Time best-selling author that you lose sight of your mission and stop enjoying the process.

Do be professional and make calm, considerate decisions, but don’t take yourself too seriously.

Know Your Editor

Don’t wait until you finish all your chapters to hire an editor. This should be done at the early stages of your writing process as a good editor will offer you support, direction, and tips on how to get it right the first time.

It’s the Twitter Era, Make Good Use Of It

You really don’t have to wait for critics and consumers to learn what the world thinks of your work. In fact, it is important that you test drive your book by giving bits and pieces away through blog posts. You can even do this through Twitter and other social networks.

Take it out there in the jungle and see what the world has to say in response.

Have A Plan – And Tell Others About It

Writing a book shouldn’t take your whole life. The anticipation, thrill and overwhelming fear of failure shouldn’t stop you dead in your tracks, but motivate you to complete your book!

That of course doesn’t mean finishing your book in one sitting. Take your time. What you should be doing is letting others know of your intention and plan of when to finish your book. Tell your editor, tell your publisher, tell your mom:

“I’m writing a book. I’ll finish it in [choose the time frame you want].” Accountability will motivate and keep you focused on your goal. Finish that darn book.

An online war is raging. What do you call the practice of pressing keys on a keyboard? What do you call the activity of touch typing on a tablet’s virtual keyboard? Touch typing or keyboarding – or something else entirely?

The world is apparently confused. “Typing” was the word people came up with over a century ago, to describe a new phenomenon, the activity of pressing keys on the newly-invented typewriter.

But today, actual physical typewriters are no longer in general use, except by some die-hard vintage buffs, including writers and novelists who relish the multisensory experience a 1920’s Remington typewriter offers.

So what’s the best term to describe the process, when it’s not done on the original machine?

Technically speaking, the word “typing” should be reserved for activities that involve a typewriter. A keyboard has a slightly different structure: it’s flatter, often smaller, and is part of a system that also includes a monitor or display screen. Many people think that the word “keyboarding” should be used when talking about the activity if it involves keyboards, when using PCs, Macs and laptops.

Many argue against the terms “typing” and “touch typing” saying they’re as obsolete as typewriters.  Some elementary and high schools offer students the opportunity to learn how to keyboard, but in general the average student is self-taught. The Internet offers a wide range of resources to learn to keyboard, from typing games and how-to videos, to numerous keyboarding lessons.

Typing and touch typing are the most widely used terms, however, even if most people are using keyboards. It’s easy to discover the proof of this: the term “touch typing” has 980,000 Google hits and “keyboarding” has merely 488,000.

Interestingly, though, there’s a definite trend towards adopting the term “keyboarding” over the last few years, especially since numerous keyboarding software products and promoters favor the term “keyboarding” over “touch typing” and “typing.”

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what people call it, as long as they possess the skill. Keyboarding skills are expected to become as important as literacy skills in the next decade. The more advanced technology becomes, the more well versed as technology users we need to be.

You may not call it typing or touch typing, since you’re pressing keys on a keyboard and not a typewriter, but do make sure you have at least basic typing skills. You can easily improve your typing performance by first practicing your typing accuracy and then your typing speed.

No one can confidently say whether there will be a time in the future when we will only use the term “keyboarding” to describe what most of us engage with in a daily basis. But what’s beyond doubt is that those who master keyboarding – or touch typing, or typing – will stay ahead of those who do not hone and improve this essential skill.

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Typing blog.

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