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That’s Shakespeare up there penning something or other.

Whatever he was writing, it likely involved female characters, and if it did, they would be played by men.

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the stage wasn’t just a place of entertainment. It had strong links to the church and with that came rules that only men were allowed to act. It was considered indecent for a woman to tread on the boards.

And thus, the term ‘drag’ was born in reference to the hems of their dresses which would ‘drag’ along the floor.

Nowadays, ‘drag’ is used to describe an art form whereby (mostly) men adopt an exaggerated feminine persona and dress accordingly.

A number of the terms that we consider contemporary actually have origins that will take you on a wild ride through history.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Theodore Roosevelt coined the term “lunatic fringe”, while the New York Times obituaries of psychologists George Weinberg and Herbert Freudenberger, identified them as the coiners of important words like “homophobia” and “burnout”.

Dr. Seuss invented the word “nerd” in his 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo. It was the name of one of his characters but soon took on a different meaning.

The New York Post looked into a few more words with unexpected origins.

Booty Call

The origins of this one are pretty much what you’d think. The term was coined by hip-hop duo Duice in 1993. Duice’s Anthony Darlington said that in the mid-1980s, he and his friends used payphones to “call that booty” which was then later shortened to making booty calls.

The point is that it isn’t something that Millennials came up with after the advent of cellphones.

Frenemies

Twitter loves this term, which is used to describe a friendship wherein both parties pretend to be nice to one another, but are actually enemies.

The word’s actual origins have nothing to do with social media. It was first used in a 1953 column by Walter Winchell who asked: “Howz about calling the Russians our Frienemies?”

The spelling might be different, but the meaning is the same.

Wimp

Usually applied to someone who breaks under pressure or isn’t brave, this word was first used in a children’s book by Evelyn Sharp to describe a group of children who played pranks on others, but burst into tears when the same was done to them.

It was originally spelt ‘wymp’.

Gung-ho

During World War II, Western observers in China noticed workers using “Kung” meaning work, and “ho” together. It was anglicised as “gung-ho” and used by Marine Colonel Evans Carlson as the “Battle Cry of the Marine Raiders”.

Bluetooth

The wireless technology was named after a 10th-century Scandinavian king who united Denmark and Norway.

He was named King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, with the nickname derived from his dead tooth, which was a dark blue/grey colour.

Tabloid

The awful rags that play fast and loose with the truth in shorter articles were named after ‘tablets’ – yep, compressed medicine.

Guy

‘Guy’ was originally an insult and comes from Guy Fawkes, who was convicted and sentenced to death for his plot to blow up Britain’s House of Lords.

You can check out more origins of common words here.

If you really want to take a deep dive into the history of words, The Wall Street Journals reckons you should check out Ralph Keyes’ The Hidden History of Coined Words.

And, yes, the next time your kid says “frenemies” you can reply with “OK Boomer”.

[sources:wsj&nypost]