Chris G. asks: Why are there so many countries that have a name that ends in stan?
I was also wondering why we call people from many countries the name of their country ended
with an, like Canada and Canadian?
Denoting that it is a piece of the earth associated with a particular group of people, the suffix
-stan simply means "land of."
An ancient suffix of Persian origins, for many people, particularly in Central Asia,
the addition of –stan to the name of their cultural or ethnic group identifies that a
certain place belongs to them, e.g., Kazakhstan is the "land of the Kazakhs."
-Stan's roots go even further back than Persia, however, to the Indo-Iranian element, *stanam,
which meant both "place" or even more literally, "where one stands."
This old construction is derived from the even earlier Proto-Indo-European root *sta,
which also meant "to stand."
The use of a suffix to denote "land of" is not unique to -stan, however.
In English, we often use –land to identify a nation or place, and familiar words include
England, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and Thailand,
as well as Maryland and Newfoundland.
Other languages use the convention as well, such as the German Deutschland.
Adding –an at the end of country or place names to identify a person's heritage or ethnicity
also traces its origins back to ancient times, and the Proto-Indo-European root *-no-, which
meant "pertaining to."
More recently (but still relatively ancient), in Latin this element gave rise to –anus,
as in Rōma ‎(“Rome”) → Rōmānus ‎(“Roman”).
Over the years this has in turn morphed into our current ending –an, as in American,
Mexican and Romanian.
Not exclusive to regional references, we also see this nomenclature in many other words
like Christus ‎(“Christ”) → christiānus ‎(“christian”).
In addition, in English, this –an is often modified with the addition of an "i," such
as in the aforementioned Romanian and christian, as well as in things like Brazilian, Canadian
and Parisian.
And if you're wondering, the suffix –ish, as in British, comes from the Proto-Germanic
suffix *-iska which meant "of the nativity or country of."
It morphed into the Old English –isc before becoming the modern English, Irish, Spanish,
etc.
Moving swiftly on, if you’ve ever wondered why it’s “Lukewarm” and not something
like "Stevewarm", well, wonder no more- To begin with, because nobody likes you Steve…
In truth, it turns out, while today using "luke" to mean "warm" has gone out of fashion,
possibly due to the popularity of the name "Luke", at one time that's what the word meant.
This came from the fact that "luke" derived from "lew" or "lewk" or "leuk", in Middle
English, which meant "tepid" (slightly warm).
This in turn came from the Old English adverb "hlēowe", which means "warm or sunny".
Finally, "hlēowe" came from the Proto-Germanic *hlēwaz, meaning "warm".
The word "lukewarm" popped up around the 14th century as meaning "slightly warm".
Within two centuries, it also began having a figurative meaning, that of "lacking in
enthusiasm".
It isn't clear where the name "Luke" came from, but it was around long before the English
word, "luke", and even before English.
"Luke" received a huge boost in popularity thanks to the publishing of The Gospel of
Luke, written around 70-90 AD.
Speaking of names popularized by the Bible, Mary was the most popular female baby name
in the US from 1879-1946.
It was finally beaten by “Linda” in 1947.
Linda held that position until 1953 when it was beat out by none other than Mary, which
then held that spot until 1962 when it was supplanted by “Lisa”.
Since then, Mary has never regained the top spot.
Since “Lisa”, the most popular female baby names were: Jennifer, Ashley, Jessica,
Emily, Emma, and Isabella, the latter of which has held the top spot up through 2010.
Isabella first debuted in the top 5 in 2006, appearing at position 4, and steadily climbed
from there to number 1, no doubt initially spurred on by the 2005 release of “Twilight”
with the main character being Isabella Swan.
Since Isabella the next most popular female names were Sophia for two years and since
then Emma has been back on top for five consecutive years.
Finally, ever wonder where the words geek and nerd come from?
Well, wonder no more: the first documented case of "geek" dates all the way back to 1916.
At the time, the term was used to describe sideshow freaks in circuses.
Specifically, it was typically attributed to those circus performers who were known
for doing crazy things like biting the heads of various small live animals or eating live
insects and the like.
These performances were often called "geek shows".
The word itself, "geek", came from the word "geck", which was originally a Low German
word which meant someone who is a "fool/freak/simpleton".
As for nerd, the first documented case of it was in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo, in
1950.
The specific text was: "a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too".
It was just one year after the Dr. Seuss’ book, in 1951 in a Newsweek magazine article,
that we find the first documented case of "nerd" being used similarly to how we use
it today.
Specifically, they used it as being synonymous with someone who was a "drip" or a "square".
There are two popular theories as to where the word derived from.
The first is that it was perhaps derived from "drunk" spelled backwards, "knurd".
This was fitting to describe people who studied instead of going out with friends and partying.
More likely is that it came from a modification of "nut", specifically "nert", which meant
"stupid or crazy person" and was common in the 1940s, directly before the term "nerd"
showed up.
The word nerd ended up becoming fairly popular in the 1960s and by the 1970s was hugely popularized
by the TV show Happy Days, where it was used frequently.
Incidentally, before "geek", "nerd", "dork", etc, the proper terms for these same ragamuffins
were "Dewdroppers", "Waldos", and "Slackers".
Other common old slang words that were somewhat similar in meaning: pantywaist, oil can, drip,
stinkeroo, mullet, roach, schnookle, kook, dimp, dorf, squid, auger, square, Joe Zilch,
and dudd.
As for us, we prefer the name we first learned from a quote from Chuck Yeager- “Sexual
Intellectual” Confused?
Yeager explains that a “Sexual Intellectual” is
a “Fucking Know-It-All”. ;-)