Lesson 3 Stories of English Words and Expressions
English Words of Foreign Origin
English has often borrowed words from other ____ or languages.
Here are some examples with interesting ____
shampoo
The word shampoo comes from the Hindi word chāmpo, ____ means “to press.”
In India, the ____ was used for a head massage.
British ____ in India experienced a bath with a head massage and introduced it to Britain in the 18th century.
The meaning of ____ word shampoo changed a few times after it first entered English around 1762.
In the 19th century, shampoo got its present meaning of “washing ____ hair.”
Shortly after that, ____ word began to be also used for a special soap for the hair.
robot
____ word robot comes from the play R.U.R., which was written in 1920 by a Czech writer Karel Čapek.
In the play, robots are machines ____ look like humans.
They are designed to work for humans ____ are produced in a factory.
It is interesting that the idea of using the ____ robot didn’t come from Karel Čapek himself.
He originally called the ____ in his play labori from the Latin word for “work.”
However, his brother suggested roboti, ____ means “slave workers” in Czech.
Karel Čapek liked the idea and decided ____ use the word roboti.
In 1938, the play was made into a science fiction show ____ television in Britain.
hurricane
The word hurricane comes from the Spanish word huracán, which originates from the ____ of a Mayan god.
In the Mayan creation myth, Huracán is the weather ____ of wind, storm, and fire, and he is one of the three gods who created humans.
However, the first humans angered the ____ so Huracán caused a great flood.
The first Spanish contact with the ____ civilization was in 1517.
Spanish explorers who were passing through the Caribbean experienced a hurricane and picked up the word for ____ from the people in the area.
In English, one of the early uses of hurricane ____ in a play by Shakespeare in 1608.
hamburger
____ word hamburger originally comes from Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city.
Hamburger means “people or ____ from Hamburg” in German.
The origin ____ the first hamburger is not clear.
However, it is believed that the hamburger was invented in a small town ____ Texas, USA, sometime between 1885 and 1904.
A cook placed a ____ steak between two slices of bread, and people started to call such food a hamburger.