Who Put the Butter in Butterfly? by David Feldman

Author:David Feldman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

Why Is the Death Penalty Called Capital Punishment?

The capital in capital punishment has nothing to do with the seat of government. The word derives from the Latin caput, meaning “head.” The original punishment for a capital crime was the loss of one’s head. The reason the first letter of a sentence is said to be capitalized is because it is at the “head” of the sentence.

Why Is a Police Officer Called a Cop?

If we know when a word or expression was first used, we have the first important clue to how, where, and why it came into the language. Many stories have circulated about the origins of cop. A common explanation is that cop is an acronym for constable on patrol. Another is that cop is short for copper, the metal on the buttons worn by London’s bobbies. The only problem with either theory is that the use of the word cop predates either of the above uses. Bobbies didn’t exist until 1829, but cop was recorded in print as early as 1704.

Cop almost certainly derives from the Latin capere (“to capture”), which was transformed into the French cap and eventually the Middle English cop. Since a police officer’s job is to capture criminals, cop is an appropriate nickname.

Our cop, then, is simply the noun form of the verb we use all the time to mean “capture” or “take.” A furtive teenager cops a feel. And a gangster, whose subculture spread the use of the word cop in the first place, cops a plea (originally, “to confess to the cops”).

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