224. Cosmic Hairball

February 9, 2026·16 min·1 clip

Helen Zaltzman reveals how words like 'eccentric' and 'ether' have hidden origins in celestial observations.

Helen Zaltzman opens by noting that English is saturated with words borrowed from or shaped by space. She begins with a rapid survey: 'eccentric' described an orbit not centred on Earth; 'ether' was the substance filling space beyond the clouds; 'depression' originally referred to the angle of stars below the horizon; 'zenith' and 'nadir' are celestial sphere terms. Planetary influence shaped personality words: 'jovial' comes from Jupiter (Jove), 'saturnine' from Saturn, and 'influence' itself derives from the belief that stars exerted power over human fate. 'Influenza' was literally a visitation of starlight, and 'starstruck' once meant suffering under a star's malign influence. The moon contributed 'lunacy,' 'lunatic,' 'moonstruck,' and the Old English 'moonsick,' as well as the first syllable of 'menstruation,' 'menarche,' 'menopause,' 'month,' 'honeymoon,' and 'meniscus.' Zaltzman then turns critical: while English absorbed much from space, the language it gave back to describe space is underwhelming. 'Crater' originated as a large Greek mixing bowl for diluting strong wine at parties; the person managing it was the symposiarch, giving us 'symposium' — originally a boozy gathering. The word moved to volcanoes around 400 years ago, then to the moon in the 1800s when astronomers mistakenly thought lunar craters were volcanic. 'Orbit' comes from the Latin for eye socket, and possibly from the ruts left by a wheel. Comets were universally feared as omens of royal death and divine wrath, yet the word 'comet' simply means hair — a star with hair streaming behind it. Norse mythology held that comets were skull fragments of the giant Ymir. Throughout the 20th century, a comet's nucleus was called a 'dirty snowball' or 'icy dirtball.' Until the 19th century, 'meteor' was a weather term: rainbows were luminous meteors, wind was an aerial meteor, rain and snow were aqueous meteors. Zaltzman clarifies the modern meteoroid/meteor/meteorite distinction and notes that the oldest known human iron objects — Egyptian beads over 5,200 years old — were made from meteorite iron. The word 'meteor' itself just means 'a thing that is high up.' She then contrasts the rich global naming traditions for the Milky Way — including 'Ganges of the Ether,' 'The Way the Dog Ran Away,' and 'The Severed Tail of a Dragon' — with the English and Greek preference for milk imagery, connecting 'galaxy' to the Latin root for milk (lactic). The episode closes with an original comedic song about milk and a note that the piece originated as a live planetarium performance.

As heard by us

Space vocabulary gets traced back through a strange and satisfying web of old meanings.

Helen Zaltzman treats the sky like a cabinet of odd etymologies, and the episode keeps pulling out hair, skulls, weather, and old guesses about what people saw above them. A comet ends up as a star with hair.

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Why you'd press play

Space words, comet hair, and a disciplined detour through sky history.

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