Chrysti The Wordsmith: Tool - 1

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Over the millennia English speakers have coined and later abandoned countless words. Ever hear the verb to wisin meaning to dry up. Probably not because it was centuries ago consigned to the lexical barnyard. But one term that English speakers have found irreplaceable over the ages is to rule a simple monosyllable that refers to any implement of manual operation to derives from an ancient Germanic verb that means to prepare in the year 88. A version of the word showed up in an old English document and it's been standard used by English speakers ever since over the centuries the noun tool has been pressed into service for several tasks. It's most common sense has always been that of a manually operated implement a lathe all chisel paint brush and the like. But in past ages a sword was often called a tool. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet one of the Capulets exclaims draw the right tool. Here comes two of the house of the Montagues.

The word also achieved figurative use by the late 16 hundreds when a fool or sucker might have been called a tool a mere instrument used in another's scheme. The term has also been paired with many other nouns resulting in such useful compounds as tool bar tool kit and tool shed. Next time the etymological mystery of tooling around. I'm Christi the wordsmith. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.