Lesson 3 Stories of English Words and Expressions
English Words of Foreign Origin
English ____ often borrowed words from other cultures or languages.
____ are some examples with interesting stories.
shampoo
The word shampoo comes from the Hindi word chāmpo, ____ means “to press.”
In India, the word ____ used for a head massage.
____ traders in India experienced a bath with a head massage and introduced it to Britain in the 18th century.
The meaning of the word shampoo changed a few times after it first entered English ____ 1762.
In the 19th century, shampoo got its present meaning of “washing ____ hair.”
Shortly after that, the word began to be also used for a special ____ for the hair.
robot
The word robot comes from ____ play R.U.R., which was written in 1920 by a Czech writer Karel Čapek.
In the play, robots are machines that look like ____
They are designed to work for humans and are produced ____ a factory.
____ is interesting that the idea of using the word robot didn’t come from Karel Čapek himself.
He originally ____ the machines in his play labori from the Latin word for “work.”
However, ____ brother suggested roboti, which means “slave workers” in Czech.
Karel Čapek liked the idea ____ decided to use the word roboti.
In 1938, the play was made into a science fiction ____ on television in Britain.
hurricane
The word hurricane ____ from the Spanish word huracán, which originates from the name of a Mayan god.
In the Mayan creation myth, Huracán ____ the weather god of wind, storm, and fire, and he is one of the three gods who created humans.
However, the first humans angered ____ gods, so Huracán caused a great flood.
The first Spanish contact with the Mayan civilization was in ____
Spanish explorers who were passing through the Caribbean ____ a hurricane and picked up the word for it from the people in the area.
In English, one of the early ____ of hurricane was in a play by Shakespeare in 1608.
hamburger
The word hamburger originally ____ from Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city.
Hamburger means “people ____ things from Hamburg” in German.
The origin of the first hamburger is not ____
However, it is believed that ____ hamburger was invented in a small town in Texas, USA, sometime between 1885 and 1904.
A cook placed a Hamburg-style steak between two slices of bread, and ____ started to call such food a hamburger.