Does Anybody Out There Get Curious About Word Origins? Like That's A Bunch Of Tom Foolery

The etymology is hard to come by. Here's something I found. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gig#Etymology_1
It was used by musicians: 'we had three gigs last week.'

 

Thanks, John. That was way much more than I wanted to know.
Have some Old French dressing on your salad. I'm buying.

 

Not really curious, it is too easy to find reference book that gives explainations for phrase orgins, internet archive.org has many books on the subject.

 

It's off-topic but I'm still kinda mad that you can't 'like' your own comments. My egotistical self would just keeping tapping that button.

 

I don't understand that??

 

As a retired languages teacher I’ve always been interested in the origin of words, phrases and place names. I have three dictionaries on the origins of English place names, slang phrases and idioms, bit of course much of that information can now be found online.

 

Talking about words and sayings there are many English idioms and phrases that those of you in the USA may never have heard of or if you have may not understand the meaning of.

For example, what on earth does the saying ”It’s like taking coal to Newcastle” mean?

Welll the area around the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in north east England used to be a major coalmining region and of course as a result it would be pretty pointless taking coal from another region to sell there as they already had more than enough.

In other words doing something that’s completely pointless.

 

Oh yeah...the word "Tomfoolery" is never seperated into two words. Look it up!

Hal

 

Woher der Name 'Wright"?

 

@James Hintze If you've read my posts I'm sure you'll have seen somewhere that my husband is English. Not only that but the name Wright although uncommon is found in Scandinavia as are a number of other British names.

 

It's obviously English, but has a most interesting Germanic origin: https://www.etymonline.com/word/wright

 

Oh, and by the way "Hintze" is an old German given name, derived from 'Heinrich.' German for "Every Tom, Dick, and Harry," is "Jeder Hintz und Kuntz." (My ancestry, both paternal and maternal, is supposedly Danish). There was a German friend, after whom a child was named. His child, supposedly 'Hintzesen' emigrated and dropped the 'sen.'
Names are interesting. 'Vladimir (Putin)' is derived from the source of the German 'Waldemar.' Obviously the Danes had a version of the name when they occupied Russia way back then.

 

There is no such phrase as "Tom Foolery" It is just the word "Tomfoolery". Look it up!

Hal

 

That’s pretty prohibitive and maybe unconstitutional in that if Tom wishes to be involved in foolery then so be it as long as the foolery Tom is intending on doing isn’t against the law. In either case Tom and foolery would be two words. (Poor Tom).