A Few Crooked Words

Share this post
I Hominid All Over the Place
afewcrookedwords.substack.com

I Hominid All Over the Place

Becca Rose Hall
Dec 20, 2013
Share this post
I Hominid All Over the Place
afewcrookedwords.substack.com

So I was teaching my students about the word root of the word human a while back. You guys, it’s really cool. Did you know that the words human, humble, humus, hominid, humility, and humiliate all come from the root humus/homo, which means soil? Even linguistically, humanity goes back to the earth. I was waxing on excitedly about this when one of my students pointed out something else: HOMINID SOUNDS LIKE VOMITED! Hot diggity, did that get their attention. We spent the next few minutes writing brilliantly on such topics as when the hominid vomited humbly on the humus. Interestingly (I swear), humor comes not from humus but from humid, as it originally referred to humors, those lovely medieval fluids, and when one was in good humor, one's fluids were doing well, and presumably, one was not hominiding, even on the humble humus.

Share this post
I Hominid All Over the Place
afewcrookedwords.substack.com
Comments
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Becca Rose Hall
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing