Contents introduction chapter I historical background of etymological doublets

Salary (Origin: Latin)
The word “salary” comes from the Latin salarium, meaning “salt money.” In ancient times, salt was used for many important things and was often referred to as “white gold.” It could be used as an antiseptic to treat wounds — In Romance languages one can recognize a connection between sal/sale, meaning “salt,” and salud/saude/salute, meaning “health”) — and to preserve food, and also as a method of payment in Greece and Rome. As far back as the Egyptian Empire, laborers were paid with salt that they could use to preserve their food. The Roman Empire continued using this form of payment and it took on the name “salary” for “that which was given to workers at the end of the working month,” which adds a new dimension to the notion of a company’s solvency.
Trivial (Origin: Latin)
“Trivial” originates from the Latin word trivium, which was used to mean “a place where three roads meet” (tri- meaning “three,” and -vium from via, meaning “road”). A trivium gained the connotation of being an open, public place — a mini agora — where people from across society’s technicolor spectrum could relax, chat and simply coexist. The adjective trivialis was a derivative of trivium and came to mean “vulgar, ordinary, of little importance, common and contemporary,” and the English adjective trivial carries much of this definition to this day: tired, ordinary, commonplace; of little use, import, consequence or significance.
Whiskey (Origin: Gaelic)
Medieval monks called it aqua vitae, meaning “life water.” The expression was transformed into uisce beatha when it was transferred to Gaelic. As time passed and the word was anglicized, uisce evolved into uige, usque, and then uisky, which bears an obvious and close resemblance to “whiskey.” You may have noticed that you can spell the drink two different ways — “whiskey” and “whisky.” Some people believe the extra “e” was added to by Irish and American distilleries to differentiate their higher quality whiskeys during a period when Scottish whisky had a bad reputation. Scotch was also introduced to denominate a Scottish whisky, and the word “whiskey” has been adopted in other countries for quite different reasons. In some South American countries, it’s used as an alternative to “cheese” to encourage people to smile when being photographed. How and why we chose “cheese,” and why the South Americans chose “whiskey” (and the Spanish patata, or “potato”) is a story for another time⁹.
Etymology not only enhances your understanding of your native language but also gives you insights into its shared roots with other languages. Prior to reading this article, would you have thought that every time you say “avocado,” you’re prompting Moctezuma to chuckle in his tomb? Some word origins are wonderfully idiosyncratic and make for great anecdotes, while others demonstrate common standards and rules which help you assimilate new words and terms across languages. Take the simple examples of the Latin prefixes con- (also “com-” in English) and dis-, which are widely used in Romance languages and indicate “togetherness” and “apartness,” respectively. Knowing such elements of etymology can vastly improve your guesswork when it comes to deciphering words, whether it be concatenate (con– and -catenate, from catena, meaning “chain”; a verb meaning to chain together) or disconsolate (dis- and con– and -solate, from solari, meaning “to comfort”; an adjective describing someone who can’t be comforted or consoled).