Ghosting

When someone disappears from a relationship like a ghost...

"Ghosting" is a term that has been around since at least 2011. It means breaking off a relationship (often an intimate relationship) by ceasing all communication and contact with the former partner without any apparent warning or justification. You disappear, like a ghost. It also includes ignoring any attempts by the person ghosted to reach out or communicate.

It was especially popular in the context of online relationships and dating which are easier relationships to shut down. It was included in the Collins English Dictionary in 2015.

A few ghostly offshoots of the term are ghostbusting, Marleying and Caspering.



The term "ghostbusting" is when you force someone to reply - as a Ghostbuster forces a ghost into a trap.



"Marleying" comes from the ghostly character Marley from Dickens' A Christmas Carol and is used for the specific situation of when an ex gets in touch with you at Christmas or New Year's Eve out of nowhere.



 “Caspering” has its origin with the comic book friendly ghost, Casper). This is friendlier kind of ghosting when instead of just totally ignoring someone, you’re honest about how you feel, and let them down gently before disappearing from their lives.

These are just four words that have emerged around the newest world of dating.

Odds-and-ends

Today, we use the phrase "odds-and-ends" to refer to all kinds of miscellaneous or remnant items.

They can be physical objects. "Everyone has an odds-and-ends drawer full of things." 

It can also refer to something non-physical, such as in "I have some odds-and-ends [chores] to take care of this weekend."

an odds-and-ends drawer

The origin of the phrase goes back to the mid-sixteenth century when the idiom "odd ends" referred to the leftover scrap materials from making something, such as the fragments of cloth or lumber from a project.

Countries Ending in -stan

Have you noticed how may countries end with -stan? This suffix comes from the Proto-Indo-European language which was a prehistoric Eurasian language. Linguists have reconstructed it and find it in many language descendants.

In Russian -stan means “settlement.” In other Slavic languages it means “state.” But it is the ancient Indo-Iranian peoples (descendants of Proto-Indo-Europeans who moved east and south from the Eurasian steppe) who used -stan to mean “place” or “place of” that we find in the names of the modern countries.

Urdu and Pashto, the official languages of Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively, both descend from the Indo-Iranian language. Also the former Soviet -stan countries have historically been mostly ethnically Turkic and speak languages from the Turkic family.

So, Afghanistan is the "Land of the Afghans.”

Kazakhstan is the “Land of the Kazakhs” and Kazakh is derived from a Turkic word meaning “independent.”

Kyrgyzstan being the “Land of the Kyrgyz” and Kyrgyz is thought to come from the Turkic word for “forty” being a reference to forty clans that banded together.

Though Pakistan - “Land of the Pure” in Urdu could come from the Indo-Iranian pak, word for “pure/clean”), the country’s name was constructed as an acronym in the 1930s. It referes to the area’s constituent cultures: Punjabi + Afghani + Kashmiri + Sindhi + Balochistan with an "i" inserted to aid pronunciation.

Tajik historically was used by Turks to refer to “non-Turks” that spoke Iranian-related languages, so Tajikistan is the "Land of the Tajiks.”

Turkmenistan is the “Land of the Turkmen.”

Uzbeki+stan rom Uzbek which either comes from Uzbek Khan, a tribal leader who united different groups in the region, or a combination of Turkic words meaning “his own master.”


Source: Mental Floss