Maths etymology (1,2,3)

If it isn’t already apparent, I’m quite a big nerd. An extension of my maths nerdery is my love of mathematical etymology, and in fact, all etymology. For the uninitiated (you’re in for a treat), I mean the history and origins of words. As a taster, take the word Turkey. You’ve probably never thought about it much, but a Turkey is called a Turkey because we thought it came from Turkey… but it doesn’t. Clearly the name was too established to change it once we knew more, but other countries call it a Turkey too which raises a few questions. However, a more interesting question is… what do Turkish people call a Turkey? It’s obviously not a native bird so seems pretty likely that it’s not called a Turkey. In fact, it’s called an Inde, meaning ‘Indian’. The poor Turkey can’t get a break, they’re not from there either. The French call them d’Inde as well, and in fact they call guinea pigs (which are neither pigs nor from Guinea) cochon d’Inde. So it seems we all liked to name weird looking animals something along the lines of ‘not from round ‘ere’. But I digress… onto the etymology of, and links with 1, 2 and 3...

One

One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever be

‘An’ and ‘A’ mean ‘one’, so ‘a biscuit’ means one biscuit, ‘an albatross’ means ‘one albatross’ and by extension, ‘any’ fits here too: ‘have you any albatrosses (albatrossi, abatrosserus?!)’ means ‘do you have at least one albatross?’. Very good.

Similarly, ‘one’ is often stuffed into or strapped onto the end of words, like ‘alone’ or ‘atone’ (be at one), lonely, none (not one).

Sometimes it’s a bit French (‘un’, ‘une’) and can be spotted in ‘unify’, ‘unison’, ‘union’, ‘unicorn’, ‘unilateral’, ‘unique’ and united’.

One can also be spotted as ‘sem’ in words like ‘simultaneous’, ‘simple’ (think ‘one sided’) ‘single’ and ‘same’. Or we can use ‘homo’ and get words like ‘homosexual’, ‘homosapien’, ‘homogenous’ and ‘homophony’.

‘Onion’ literally means ‘big one’, and draws from both ‘one’ and ‘ion’ for ‘big’, which you can spot in ‘million’ which literally means ‘big thousand’ which isn’t confusing at all. So if you say ‘does anyone have an onion to atone for the unique breakup of a unicorn reunion?’, then you are playing very, very fast and loose with your ones.

Two

Two can be as bad as one, it’s the loneliest number since the number one…

Two, I think, is the only instance of the ‘tw’ sound being muted when used. If you put it back in, you can spot where ‘two’ appears in a whole bunch of words. Twenty (two tens), twig (think of a two pronged fork), twice, twist (binding two things), inbetween (in the middle of two things), twilight (between night and day), twirl and twin (i reckon we’re ok with twin).

Two also pops up as ‘di’ and ‘bi’ respectively, so we open up two new banks of words: ‘dichotomy’, ‘diploma’ (a document folded in two), ‘duet’, ‘duo’, ‘duplicate’, ‘doubt’ (in two minds), biannual, bicarbonate of soda, binomial (two parts), bisect, binary and biscuit (twice cooked). It appears I keep mentioning biscuits. Can’t think why.

Three

Three pops up predominantely as ‘tri’ when it’s not busy being a counting number, triangle for example, is a three angled shape, trigonometry is the study of measuring trigons (triangles), trisecting angles, a triacontakaitrigon is (obviously) a 33-sided polygon, a tricycle has 3 wheels which would get you disqualified in a triathlon, and you can always confess your sins at the Holy Trinity Church to avoid being poked with a trident by the devil. Three has a few other secret appearances too. A contested root for ‘tribal’ for example, or a troika (a sledge pulled by three horses), or even a sitar - a three stringed instrument that makes uses of ‘si’ meaning three in Persian. Most fun though is ‘testify’, meaning a third party (‘te’ being a variant of ‘tre’ which is a variant of ‘tri’) and, by association, testament and testicle. You might be thinking ‘surely if any number is associated with testicle it’d be the number two?’, however you’d be wrong. A testicle is testament to a man’s virility, or, as other narratives claim, you would swear on your balls that something was true in your testimony. But maybe that’s all bollocks.

If you want further reading on general etymology, Mark Forsyth’s The Etymologicon is a great read, or Steven Schwartzman’s The Words of Mathematics for the niche within a niche.

Or you could just wait until I post more examples some other time.