When I was in my early 20s, my parents bombarded me with career advice: "Why don't you be a dentist?" or "Why don't you go into accounting?" or "Why don't you write a newspaper column about words?" OK, so I made up the last one.

Annoyed by this nudging, I began to refer to these suggestions as "Why don't yous" or, more accurately, "whydontchas," as in, "Mom, I don't need any more whydontchas!"

The invention of a word based on a commonly heard phrase such as "why don't you" happens quite often in English. People speak of their "druthers," from "I'd rather (ruther) do this or that," and call aspiring aspirants "wannabes" (people who say they "want to be" something).

Similarly, the word "dirge" comes from the first word of a Latin anthem sung in the Office of the Dead: "Dirige, Domine deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam" ("Direct, O Lord my God, my way in thy sight").

People began using the first word of the anthem to refer to the entire hymn, and soon, "dirige" (later shortened to "dirge") became a general term for a funeral anthem or a piece of music that was solemn or mournful.

Speaking of music, the word "piano" is also derived from a lengthy foreign phrase. Around 1709, a Florentine harpsichord maker named Bartolomeo Cristofori devised a new instrument with a mechanism that allowed the strings of a harpsichord to be struck by felt-covered hammers.

Cristofori called the new instrument "gravicembalo col piano e forte" (a harpsichord with soft and loud). Eventually, this was shortened to "pianoforte" and later to "piano."

The story of another sound-related word — "shibboleth" — can be traced to the twelfth chapter of the Bible's Book of Judges, which recounts a battle between the Gileadites and the Ephraimites.

To detect the Ephraimites trying to sneak across the Jordan River, the Gileadites would ask strangers to say "shibboleth," a word that meant "ear of grain" or "stream." The Gileadites knew that the Ephraimites had difficulty pronouncing the "sh" sound, so if the person said "sibboleth," he was slain. Oops!

Eventually, "shibboleth" entered English, meaning "a word, slogan, pronunciation or custom of a particular group" or "a custom or practice that betrays one as an outsider."

Come to think of it, "whydontcha" is something of a shibboleth in my family. If you have to ask what it means, you didn't grow up in my house.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Photo credit: Renaud Camus