{"id":203,"date":"2009-09-18T10:24:02","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T14:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/?p=203"},"modified":"2009-09-18T10:24:02","modified_gmt":"2009-09-18T14:24:02","slug":"word-origins-placebo-domingo-y-ostra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/word-origins-placebo-domingo-y-ostra\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Origins: placebo, domingo y ostra"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Placebo <\/strong>(same spelling in English and Spanish) is a harmless substance given to a sick person instead of medicine, without telling them it is not real. They\u2019re often used in tests in which some people take real medicine and others take a placebo, so that doctors can compare the results to see if the real medicine works properly.<\/p>\n<p>The word <em>placebo <\/em>comes from Latin and it is the future of the verb <em>to please<\/em> or <em>satisfy<\/em>; it denotes the idea that doctors prescribe a placebo just to satisfy\/please his patient.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Domingo <\/strong>\u2013 Pope Sylvester I hold office between the years 314 and 335, and he was the first to name the seventh day of the week <em>dominicus<\/em>, because it was \u201cthe day to consecrate the Lord\u201d (Dominus). Before that, Romans had called Sunday <em>dies solis<\/em> (day of the sun) and such denomination influenced other languages like English (<em>Sunday<\/em>), German (<em>Sonntag<\/em>), Dtuch (<em>zondag<\/em>), and Swedish (<em>s\u00f6ndag<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>Pope Sylvester I was canonized as St. Sylvester \u2013 his day is celebrated on December 31st \u2013 and his calling Sunday the seventh day of the week had geographical impact almost ten centuries later: when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean on November 3rd 1493, he landed in an island in the Small Antilles, which he named Dominica, because it was a Sunday, according to the Julian calendar.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ostra <\/strong>(oyster)<\/p>\n<p>The word <em>ostra<\/em>, which comes from Latin <em>ostrea<\/em>, has a very interesting story in Spanish. Around the 14th century, it lost the <em>r<\/em> and became <em>ostia<\/em>, thus becoming a homophone with the word <em>hostia<\/em> (<em>host<\/em> as sacramental bread, coming from the Latin for <em>sacrifice<\/em>) and lending itself to all sorts of puns, which was considered a sacrilege. However sacrilegious it was, this form imposed itself in most of the Iberian Peninsula and, even today in Andalusia, the word for oyster is <em>osti\u00f3n<\/em>. Later on, due to pressure from the Vatican, it adopted the form <em>ostra<\/em>, the same form in the language of Cam\u00f5es and Machado de Assis (Portuguese).<\/p>\n<p>Nos vemos prontito.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Placebo (same spelling in English and Spanish) is a harmless substance given to a sick person instead of medicine, without telling them it is not real. They\u2019re often used in tests in which some people take real medicine and others take a placebo, so that doctors can compare the results to see if the real&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/word-origins-placebo-domingo-y-ostra\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-vocabulary","tag-etymology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/spanish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}