Earthy Language:

In the beginning there was ..."Chaos."

That's what the acient Greek called the swirling, transparent vapour they thought existed in the universe before any objects were formed. The confusion and disorder of the early universe abide in the meaning of our present modern word "chaos," as well as in the words "mites' soccer game."

Hence ,we are not surpried at all when we heard of chaos in and outside the filed of soccer games worldwide, today.

Another descendent of "chaos" is "gas."
When Jan Batptist van Helmont, a Flemish chemist (try saying those two words a couple of times!)observed the vapours produced by burning charcoal (presumably while barbecuing), he decided to call these formless, amorphous substances "chaos." But he spelled "chaos" the way it was pronounced in Flemish, giving his former English readers and the whole world "gas."

Greeks believed that "Chaos" eventually took on an organized shape and form they called "Cosmos," their word for order, good arrangement. We still refer to the universe as the "cosmos," and this root survives in "cosmic" ( vast, significant), "cosmopolitan" (worldly), "microcosm" (small world) and cosmetic" (something that brings order to chaos and, in the case of cosmetic surgery, order to Kay).

According to Greek myth, the first gods to emerge from Chaos were Ouranos and Gaia. Ouranos was the wild, zany god of the sky, while Gaia was the down-to-earth goddes of the earth. O=male, G=female; O=boy, G=girl.

earth's mother Gaia's name survives in English language as a prefix for many words related to our planet - "geography" (description of the earth),
"geology" (science of the earth")
and "geometry" (measurement of the earth while simultaneously torturing high-school sophomores). LOL! Just love to learn and labour all studies with love and geometry will be your self discovery. Enjoy.

Romans gave Gaia two names - "Terra" and "Tellus." Terra has its feet planted firmly in many earthy English words - " terrace," (living in terrace house)
"territory,"
"terrain,"
"terraruim,"
"extra-terrestial,"
"terra cotta" (cooked earth),
even "terrier" (ground dog). There is no heavenly dog.

But "tellus" is the "terra incognita" of earth words. It survives only in a few English words you have probably never heard of.

"Please tell us !" you say?
Well, OK - "tellurian" ( of or relating to the earth),
"tellurion" (an apparatus that depicts the movement of the earth on its axis and around the sun)
and "tellurium" ( a brittle, silvery white metallic element).

As for good old "earth," this word comes from the Old English "eaorthe," a descendant of the Germanic "ertho," meaning - what else? - earth.

Many more interesting words discovery can be learn from Once upon a Word(True tales of Word Origins) by Rob Kyff.
You need not be an Englishman/ Englishwoman to enjoy this treasure chest of colourful words and phases:
Why is a teeny swimsuit called a bikini?
How can someone hoodwink us?
What;s a boondoggle?
Was Mary Magdalene maudlin and was St. Audrey tawdry?

Enjoy learning English to love English readers, worldwide too!
Jiang Hua Yi !