Today is both National Boss Day AND World Dictionary Day!\u00a0 And so with serendipity comes etymology.<\/p>\n
The Middle English word for \u201clump\u201d is \u201cboce.\u201d\u00a0 From that we get \u201cboss,\u201d or protuberance. It\u2019s common on plants and animals, and also in architecture meaning \u201cstud\u201d or ornamental projection. \u00a0There\u2019s a boss which forms the hub of a propeller on a boat.\u00a0 Which you may need if you ever cross a \u201cboss of water,\u201d meaning a river\u2019s head or a reservoir.<\/p>\n
You can take a boss and hit other things with it, also known as \u201cembossing.\u201d\u00a0 Makes for a nice ornamentation.\u00a0 In bookbinding, the addition of a boss adds protection to the edges or front cover. \u00a0Plumbers faced with an irregular surface may need to boss some metal to conform with it.\u00a0 Masons may carry their mortar in a boss, not sure why.<\/p>\n
A young bull who has a boss-like horn on his head may want to emboss the rear end of a farmer with it. \u00a0Such a young calf is known familiarly as a \u201cboss,\u201d \u201cburse\u201d or \u201cbuss\u201d (who may or may not become a stud).\u00a0 Perhaps distantly related to this is the Scottish use of boss to mean \u201chollow\u201d or \u201cempty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does this mean you work for an \u201cempty-headed bull\u201d? \u00a0Not necessarily.\u00a0 That variant of boss comes from the Dutch, \u201cbaas,\u201d which means \u201cmaster\u201d but not \u201cowner.\u201d\u00a0 It became popular in colonial America to mean leader of a business or a political machine. \u00a0Or even just someone you don\u2019t really know but want to show respect to, know what I mean, boss?<\/p>\n
And what about things that are really cool? \u00a0Such things tend to stick out in your mind. Which makes them pretty boss.<\/p>\n
So, boss, here\u2019s to Boss Day, and hoping you work for a boss boss, and not some bossy buss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today is both National Boss Day AND World Dictionary Day!\u00a0 And so with serendipity comes etymology. The Middle English word for \u201clump\u201d is \u201cboce.\u201d\u00a0 From that we get \u201cboss,\u201d or protuberance. It\u2019s common on plants and animals, and also in architecture meaning \u201cstud\u201d or ornamental projection. \u00a0There\u2019s a boss which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[164,404,856,1363],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4","tag-boss","tag-etymology","tag-national-boss-day","tag-world-dictionary-day"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}