Etymology is the linguistic discipline that deals with the origin of words. Looked at closely, it is a game through which we reach the first aroma of the word to study; the reason for its existence and interpretation.
Willing to play, and without leaving the scientific dimension, we find some etymological curiosities that are very good. Without going any further, the origin of the word “barbiturate” dates back to December 4, 1863, the date on which barbituric acid was synthesized by the chemist Adolf von Baeyer, coinciding on the saints day with Saint Barbara’s Day, hence the name that designates it.
However, there are voices that suggest that the name is due to another Barbara, lover of Adolf von Baeyer and waitress in Munich. According to these voices, this Barbara was the one who provided Adolf von Baeyer with the urine to carry out the experiment that resulted in the synthesis of the aforementioned acid. It should be noted that to obtain barbituric acid it is necessary to combine malonic acid with urea, a chemical compound found in urine. But it lends itself to distortion, it is possible that the name is due to the fact that on the day of the discovery, Adolf von Baeyer and his assistants went to celebrate it in a tavern where Saint Barbara’s Day was also being celebrated. Therefore we go back to the beginning, ignoring the voices that point to the love game between Adolf von Baeyer and the waitress.
Continuing with the etymological origin of the chemical compounds, we have Veronal, the commercial name of the first sleeping pill in the barbiturate group that had its market at the beginning of the 20th century. Its etymology takes us to Verona, an Italian city where it is said that its discoverer Josef von Mering woke up after taking a sleeping dose on a train trip. However, as we have already seen, there are those who say that the Veronal brand had a more literary origin, pointing to William Shakespeare and his tragedy. Romeo and Julietwhere the lovers of Verona live a forbidden love that, over time, has become an archetype. In one of its passages, Julieta takes a sleeping substance to simulate death, hence the name of this barbiturate with hypnotic properties.
Without leaving aside narcotics, we have the word “murderer”, whose etymology takes us to Arabs because its origin is Arabic. So we have the word ḥaššāšīn that, according to Etymological critical dictionary of the Spanish language of Corominas, means “drinker of ḥaššishnarcotic drink made from hemp leaves.” In this way, ḥaššāšīn will be the term used to name the followers of a Muslim sect (10th-13th centuries) that was dedicated to carrying out political assassinations under the effects of ḥaššish.
In fact, the word assassin comes to mean magnicide in English, differentiating itself from murderer who is the one who, when it comes to killing, not only does it.
Finally, the word “scientist” originates from Latin. scientific and means “relative to the one who does knowing” being “science”, science“quality of one who knows.” The first to use the term “scientist” was William Whewell, theologian, philosopher and also scientist, who wanted to give a global character to all those people who were dedicated to physics, mathematics, biology and other disciplines whose common attribute lies in the method with which to proceed.
William Whewell presented the term at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1833 and, although he initially had reservations, over the years it gained acceptance. No matter how hard one searched, another more precise term would not be found.
It is a section where with a desire for prose, exerts its particular siege on scientific reality to demonstrate that science and art are complementary forms of knowledge.
