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Part 4 of a 5-part series on word histories
In Ancient Rome, centuries before refrigeration, soldiers received a regular allowance to buy sal, the Latin word for salt.
They used the salt to preserve food.
The allowance was called a salarium.
English-speakers eventually changed the word to salary.
Echoing the word's origin, we still say, "He's worth his salt."
And if an Ancient Roman soldier went beyond the call of duty he received a bonus, the Latin word for good.
Part 3 of a 5-part series on word histories
During the 18th and 19th centuries, along with thousands of West Africans, voodoo was transported to North America on slave ships.
Voodoo's practitioners brought with them the word zombie, the name for a snake god with the power to reanimate the dead.
When the dead walked, they were called zombies.
Got it?
Now, run!
Part 2 of a 5-part series on word histories
Slogan has a war-loving past.
The Irish word for army is sluagh.
In Irish, sluagh was combined with gairm, the word for shout, to mean war cry.
Sluaghgairm later appeared in Scottish English as slogorn.
By the 17th century, the word was spelled slogan and conveyed the meaning motto.
In the early 20th century—around the time of World War I—slogan became synonymous with a company's or group's goal or position.
NOTE: Today's post, Number 300, is a milestone. It feels like one, anyway. Stay thirsty, my friends.
Part 1 of a 5-part series on word histories
Many of the most common words, to borrow a phrase from Nietszche, are "coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins."
Where did we get the word "budget?"
The Ancient Romans called a leather pouch a bulga.
The French, by the 12th century, called it a bougette.
The English borrowed the French word in the 15th century, transforming it into bowgette.
By the 16th century, the English pronounced the word as budget. To them, budget meant the contents of a pouch.
Flash forward to the 18th century and you'll find the English government using budget to mean a statement of our financial position.
By the 19th century, budget was being used to mean the money available for households and businesses, as well the government.
Ninjas were 16th century James Bonds who were tapped by their samurai masters for the dirty work of spying, sabotage and assassination.
Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronics Association, thinks ninjas created the die from which today's business winners are cast.
He draws out that comparison entertainingly in his new 250-page book Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses.
"Ninja innovation is my catch-all phrase for what it takes to succeed," Shapiro writes in the introduction.
"You have to display the qualities of the ancient Japanese ninja, whose only purpose was to complete the job. He wasn't bound by precedent; he had to invent new ways."
In defining ninja innovation, Shapiro offers a quasi-memoir that might have been titled My Life in Consumer Electronics.
The stories are fun and the major characters—including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban and Mark Zuckerberg—mostly notable.
From the book we learn that business innovators, though not literally given to spying, like James Bond are particularly single-minded. They don't think twice about breaking the "rules of the game" to win.
Shapiro scatters among the lessons lengthy gripes about US immigration policy, government regulation and unions, leftovers from his first book, The Comeback.
But the fresh material—especially his inside look at lobbying and the history of the Consumer Electronics Show—makes Shapiro's new book worth reading.
In an interview, I asked him whether business success demands that you play the tough guy.
"Absolutely not," Shapiro replied. "In fact, that's a recipe for not being successful. Instead, you have to think like a ninja. You have to be clever, creative, and think outside the box. You have to set a goal and relentlessly pursue it. You have to have a plan and a strategy and you have to be focused."
