Though the definitions of words are continually changing, there is still a general misunderstanding of the word celibacy.

Often it is thought to mean no sexual relations. Roman Catholic priests had to be celibate. However, the connotation is wrong.

Yes, they had to celibate – they had to be unmarried. That's all celibate means : unmarried, single, bound not to marry, a bachelor, the state of living unmarried.

Bill Bryson, in his book Dictionary of Troublesome Words, puts it this way : 'Celibacy does not, as is generally supposed, necessarily indicate abstinence from sexual relations. It means only to be unmarried, particularly if as a result of a religious vow. A married man cannot be celibate, but he may be chaste.'

In the Middle Ages the early barbers were also the early surgeons, both having a collection of scissors, knives and other sharp, gouging instruments.

After operations, the surgeons bound the bleeding wounds in bandages, which often seeped blood between the binds, looking much like a barbershop pole.

Hence the sign for the barber / surgeon was this pole, which continues to be seen outside some barbershops today.

In the early Industrial Revolution in France many textile mill workers were disgruntled that their jobs were being replaced by machinery.

Taking their wooden clogs – sabots – they threw them into the machinery causing malicious destruction of their employer's property. Hence sabotage.

A mixture of Greek and Latin meaning flesh-eating.

It was a kind of stone known among the Greeks to have the properties of eating any flesh deposited on it. Hence early coffins were made of this stone, and subsequently devoured the dead within.

Next time you are cheering at a birthday party, think about what you are saying...

Hip is a notarikon*, composed of the initials of Hierosolyma est perdita. And when the German knights headed a Jew-hunt(!!) in the Middle Ages, they yelled “Hip! Hip!” as a way of saying "Jerusalem is destroyed!".

The Hoorah part was rerived from the old Slavonic hu-raj meaning “to Paradise”.

Hence “Hip! Hip! Hoorah” would translate as “Jerusalem is lost to the infidel, and we are on the road to Paradise.”

*notarikon (Latin, notarius, a shorthand writer) is 'a cabalistic word denoting the old Jewish art of using each letter in a word to form another word, or using the initials of the words in a sentence to form another word'.

When a wealthy Roman landowner wanted, for example, a sculpture for the grounds of his villa, he would visit a stone mason, who in turn would visit the local quarry.

At the quarry, he may have got a great deal on marble – somewhat flawed – but still a great deal.

So when chipping away at his creation, a crack appeared or a limb / the head fell off, the mason rectified matters by smearing wax into the crack and covered it over with marble dust.

Then, when finished, he took the sculpture to the landowner who proudly displayed it at his villa. However, when the sun came out, the wax melted and the head fell off!

So the more reputable masons used to portray their honesty by inscribing the base of their statues with the words sine cera, which means without wax !

(Another source suggests that sincerely came into the English language from the Latin sincerus, meaning clean or pure.)

Some more later