Why 'epitome' is confusing. Quirky stories behind baby animal names. Alice doors
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Grammar Girl here. I'm Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. Today, we're going to talk about why people are confused about how to use the word epitome, and then we'll have some spring fun talking about baby animal names. Epitome is one of those words whose pronunciation can mess you up if you learned it from reading instead of from hearing people say it.

The word is spelled E-P-I-T-O-M-E, and a lot of young readers end up thinking it's pronounced epitome instead of epitome because a lot of other words that start with E-P-I are pronounced that way. Epicenter, epidemic, epidermis, and so on. And a lot of these people don't realize their mistake until years and years later.

But I recently came across some interesting changes in meaning the word has been going through, too. First, epitome comes from Greek, where as a noun, it meant summary or an abridgment, and as a verb, it meant to cut short. And it first meant the same thing in English, a summary. For example, in a book describing some letters in 1698, the writer said, "'It's very difficult to give an abstract or epitome of them.'"

And here's a funny quotation from William Sclater, a British clergyman in 1623. This age is strangely in love with epitomes. It feels like it could have been written just last week about services that summarize books like Blinkist or people who use ChatGPT to generate a lot of summaries.

Now, I've never even heard this summarizing meaning. The meaning I know for epitome is a representative or example of a class or type, as in squiggly is the epitome of chocolate-loving snails. But it seems like it wasn't that long ago that the summary meaning started to fade.

The American Heritage Dictionary used to have a usage panel made up of language experts who would vote and comment on controversial usages. Well, in 2004, they were asked to weigh in on the word epitome, and 20% of the panel still rejected this sentence. Their business model is the epitome of efficiency.

And the suggestion in the write-up is that this small percentage of panelists was sticking with the summary meaning being the only acceptable meaning. I was so surprised when I saw that.

But even among the 80% of panelists who accepted other meanings, another 10% seemed to say that epitome should be used to describe only positive examples of a class, not negative examples. So 10% thought you can say someone is the epitome of a medal-winning gymnast, but not that the pet rock is the epitome of useless gifts.

And that last example is a little ambiguous and gets to another meaning that seems to be emerging for epitome, but that isn't accepted yet today. And that's the pinnacle meaning. Garner's Modern English usage calls that meaning a mistake.

Now, if I mean that the pet rock is a good example of the class of useless gifts, then the way I wrote it works. And most people would be okay with that use, even though it's negative.

But if I mean that the pet rock marked the pinnacle of the age of useless gifts, and I change the verb to write, the pet rock was the epitome of useless gifts, most people on the usage panel would say that use of epitome to mean pinnacle is wrong.

but apparently you're hearing it more and more out in the world these days. So some interesting history there. Epitome used to mean summary, but that meaning is fading, and if you use it that way today, you may even confuse people. It's fine to use it today to describe something that typifies its class, a person or a thing, and it's maybe a little better to stick with using it in a positive way. And for now, I'd avoid using it to mean pinnacle.

It all started with a school field trip and an innocent nature guide.

As middle schoolers gathered round to learn about elephant seals, the docent proudly announced, and these chubby youngsters are called wieners. Cue an explosion of giggles and elbowing, as every preteen definitely heard wieners, w-i-e-n-e-r-s, instead of the actual term wieners, that's w-e-a-n-e-r-s.

So where did quirky baby animal names like wiener come from? Well, unlike scientific classification with its fancy Latin terms and strict rules, everyday animal names, especially what we call their babies, popped up naturally as people worked and lived with animals through the centuries.

Think about farmers working with their livestock. They needed practical ways to talk about animals at different life stages. A cow that's still nursing needs different care than one ready for milking, right? So specific names for each stage just made life easier.

Hunters, too, created their own special words. Tracking a mother deer with her fawn requires different skills from hunting a full-grown buck. So distinct terms became part of their woodland vocabulary, too. Many of these names are ancient. Words like calf and lamb trace back to Old English, Germanic, and Norse languages. These terms were already old when Shakespeare was writing his plays.

And sometimes a name just sticks because it sounds right. Puggle for baby echidnas? That's just fun to say. Some catchy descriptive terms spread through communities simply because people liked them.

So there's no official baby animal naming committee that would not be the best job ever. Instead, these words evolved naturally through everyday conversations, eventually making their way into farming guides, hunting manuals, and dictionaries.

Okay, so let's take a linguistic safari through a menagerie of baby animal names that might make you smile, raise your eyebrows, or maybe even scratch your head wondering who came up with that. Ever seen a baby salmon? These little guys are called alevins, and they look absolutely bizarre, like tiny fish with built-in lunchboxes. They hatch with their yolk sacs still attached to their bellies.

The word comes from Old French, éleven, meaning to raise up. These tiny swimmers hide in gravel until they've gobbled up all the nutrients in their personal food pouches, then emerge as what we call fry. Not to be confused with fish fry, a Friday staple in many parts of the U.S.

Some baby fish are called fingerlings, and it's the most literal name ever. No fancy Latin roots or Old English history here, it likely just stems from practical people saying, yep, that fish is about as long as my finger, let's call it that. Peppa Pig and friends get called piglets, of course, and you'll sometimes hear baby boars referred to as borelets.

The "-let ending is a linguistic hand-me-down, often called a diminutive that means small version. It's kind of like how we add "-ito in Spanish or "-chen in German to make things sound cute and tiny. You'll spot this language pattern popping up all over our baby animal name journey. And here's a word that gets around. Baby cows are calves, of course, but so are baby elephants, whales, and even hippos.

This versatile word comes from the Old English word chulf, which is related to the Old Norse kalfur. We also call the back of our leg a calf, but there doesn't seem to be a direct connection there in terms of etymology.

Baby swans get the elegant name cygnet, which sounds like it belongs on a fancy restaurant menu, but please don't eat baby swans. It comes straight from Latin cygnus, meaning swan. When your parents have a fancy name, you get one too. No cute baby talk for these sophisticated water birds.

And D is for duckling. No linguistic mysteries here. Take duck and add the ling ending that means little one and voila, duckling. This straightforward naming pattern shows up in words like yearling, an animal that's a year old, and foundling, a found child.

Baby eels get a name that sounds like a character from the Lord of the Rings, Elver. The name comes from Old English, Isle, and Middle English, Elver, a dialectical variation of eel.

These tiny eels make an epic journey. They're born in the mysterious Sargasso Sea as leaf-like larvae, then transform into elvers as they swim thousands of miles to reach rivers in Europe and North America. Imagine making a cross-continental journey when you're still a baby.

And those adorable spotted baby deer, they're called fawns. And the word comes from Latin fetus, meaning offspring. But there's something cool. The light brown color we call fawn is named after the deer, not the other way around.

Baby horses are foals, and this is another ancient word. It traces back to Old English foala and has relatives in almost every European language. This suggests that humans have been naming baby horses since, well, practically since we first encountered them. And here's something interesting. Boy foals get the special title colt,

Well, girl foals are called fillies. It's one of those rare cases where baby animals get different names based on their sex. The word colt comes from Old English and originally meant any young, inexperienced male, kind of like calling a teenage boy sunny. Filly has Norse roots from fylja, F-Y-L-J-A, meaning young female horse, and it's related to the word foal itself.

Those fluffy yellow baby geese? They are goslings, literally little goose in Old English. But just don't call actor Ryan Gosling, Ryan Little Goose. His surname likely comes from a Middle English name referring to a place or person, not directly from the word for baby goose.

Baby hedgehogs win the cuteness contest with both their appearance and their name. Hoglet combines hog, referring to their piggy snout, with our friend L-E-T again. It's a relatively new term. Linguistic evidence suggests people started using it in the early 1900s. That's practically yesterday in language years.

Baby kangaroos, they are joeys. But why? This one's a head-scratcher because it has absolutely nothing to do with the word kangaroo, which comes from the aboriginal Gugu Yimita language.

The best theory is that joey was just a generic term for baby or small animal that English colonists brought to Australia. Now, ever wonder why baby rabbits, baby cats, and baby foxes are all called kittens or kits?

This naming puzzle actually reveals how language works like a family tree, with branches that grow in surprising directions. Both kit and kitten started as the same word way back in Middle English, catown. That word came from Old French chitoun, which ultimately traces back to Latin catus, meaning cat.

Originally, these terms were just for baby cats, which makes perfect sense. But over time, people started using kit for baby rabbits and foxes. Why? Possibly because these babies are all small, fuzzy, and helpless when born. Similar enough that the word just hopped from one animal family to another. It's like how we might call any small electronic device a gadget, even if they're completely different things.

So when you call a baby rabbit a kit, you're technically using a nickname that means little cat. Baby rabbits may be kits, but baby hares get a fancy sounding name, leveret. It comes from the old French leveret, a diminutive of lièvre.

Next time you want to sound sophisticated, say, I spotted a leverette hopping through the meadow. Just be sure it's actually a hare and not a rabbit. They're different animals, and wildlife enthusiasts will definitely call you out on that mix-up. Next, young hens get the name pullet until they're about a year old. It comes from Middle English through Old French poulet, meaning chicken, from Latin poulus, meaning young animal.

Now, just about everyone loves puppies, but did you know puppy was originally an insult? It comes from French "poupie" meaning doll or toy, basically calling dogs living playthings. Before puppy became popular, English speakers called baby dogs whelps, which sounds way less cuddly. Language definitely made the right choice here.

Now, baby porcupines get the delightful name porcupette, which sounds like it belongs in a French bakery. It's a modern mashup of porcupine with a French diminutive etete. Whoever came up with this one was definitely going for maximum cuteness to balance out all those intimidating quills.

Baby pigeons have a weird-sounding name that actually fits them perfectly, squab. It comes from Swedish skvab, meaning loose-fat flesh, which is actually what baby pigeons look like before they grow their feathers. Like most baby birds, they're pudgy, naked blobs that only their mother could love. Most people never see squabs because pigeons nest in hidden spots until their babies are fully feathered and, you know, look presentable.

Tadpole, the word for baby frogs, literally means toad head in Middle English. Tad for toad and pole for head. And that's exactly what they look like, swimming heads with tails. It's like our ancestors looked at these wiggling water creatures and said, let's call it exactly what it looks like. No fancy linguistic roots needed when something is just a head with a tail.

As we learned from our middle school field trip mishap, baby elephant seals are wieners. The name is all about function, not cuteness. It describes the stage when elephant seals are being weaned from their mother's milk. These blubbery youngsters spend weeks living off their substantial fat reserves while learning to swim and hunt. So,

So whether it's a kit, cub, chick, or pup, each baby animal name has its own story to tell about human history, language evolution, and our never-ending fascination with the younger members of the animal kingdom. And that's definitely something worth squealing, bleeding, and chirping about.

That segment was by Karen Lundy, a career writer and editor. In the late 90s, as a young mom with two kids and a dog, she founded one of the internet's first writing workshop communities. These days, she facilitates expressive writing workshops, both online and off. Find her at chanterellestorystudio.com. And finally, here's a familect from Melissa Fayad.

She says her family uses the phrase Alice doors. This could mean anything from entering a room and forgetting why you went through the door to starting a task and needing something that you should have brought with you.

She says,

Thanks, Melissa. And if you're wondering why I'm reading the familect this week, it's because I'm out of recorded messages. So if you've ever thought of sharing your family's story, now is a great time. A

A familect is a word or phrase that you only use with your friends or family. It's like your secret language. And to send me a recording, you can call the voicemail line at 833214GIRL or leave a voice message on WhatsApp. And if you want that number or link later, you can always find them in the show notes.

Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and we have lots of other shows. This week, Modern Mentor has an episode about how to handle burnout if you're a manager. I'm sure some people could benefit from that. Check it out. And again, that's the Modern Mentor podcast.

Thanks to Nat Hoops in marketing, Dan Feierabend in audio, Morgan Christensen in advertising, Brandon Goetjes, director of podcasts, and Holly Hutchings in digital operations, who's getting her e-bike repaired this week to go out and enjoy the beautiful, warm weather. And I'm Mignon Fogarty, known as Grammar Girl and author of the tip of day book, The Grammar Daily. That's all. Thanks for listening.