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Word etymologies are found in most dictionaries. They give the origins and historical development of words. The study of word etymologies can be fun and enlightening, often turning up the most unexpected results. For example: the month names shown above derive from the Latin “septem” (seven), “octa” (eight), “novem” (nine), and “decem” (ten), yet these numbers do not correspond to the positions of the respective months on the modern calendar. The student is challenged to find out why, and, from such a simple beginning, is (hopefully) encouraged to do a little study on calendrical history. I did such a study years ago, and acquired enough information to have developed an entire lecture on the topic.
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