ronnagram
The unit of measurement ronnagram was created in 2022, when four new SI prefixes were added. Why weren’t they needed before? Well, the diameter of the observable universe is about 0.88 ronnameters. The size of the entire internet is about 0.0001 ronnabytes. At least the mass of the earth is 5.97 ronnagrams, phew!
Here’s the full table of SI prefix etymologies, another example of what a carefully groomed system might look like after 230 years of only ever adding, never modifying. More detail below.
| 10^1 | deci- | decimus | L. tenth | deca- | δέκα (déka) | G. ten |
| 10^2 | centi- | centum | L. hundred | hecto- | ἑκατόν (hekatón) | G. hundred |
| 10^3 | milli- | mille | L. thousand | kilo- | χίλιοι (khílioi) | G. thousand |
| 10^6 | micro- | μικρός (mikrós) | G. small | mega- | μέγας (mégas) | G. great |
| 10^9 | nano- | νᾶνος (nânos) | G. dwarf | giga- | γίγας (gígas) | G. giant |
| 10^12 | pico- | pico | Sp. little bit | tera- | τέρας (téras) | G. monster |
| 10^15 | femto- | femten | Da. fifteen | peta- | πέντε (pénte) | G. five |
| 10^18 | atto- | atten | Da. eighteen | exa- | ἕξ (héx) | G. six |
| 10^21 | zepto- | ἑπτά (heptá) | G. seven | zetta- | ἑπτά (heptá) | G. seven |
| 10^24 | yocto- | ὀκτώ (oktṓ) | G. eight | yotta- | ὀκτώ (oktṓ) | G. eight |
| 10^27 | ronto- | ἐννέα (ennéa) | G. nine | ronna- | ἐννέα (ennéa) | G. nine |
| 10^30 | quecto- | decem | L. ten | quetta- | decem | L. ten |
A year after the French Revolution, in 1790, the Académie des sciences (French Academy of Sciences) tasked a panel of scientists to come up with a unified national system of weights and measures. The traditional systems they wanted to supplant had definitions that varied between towns, making even internal trade difficult. By 1795, their proposal was accepted, including the original metric prefixes: deca-, hecto-, kilo-, and myria-, based on the Greek words for ten, hundred, thousand, and ten-thousand; and deci-, centi-, and milli-, based on the Latin words for tenth, hundred, and thousand.
Each day would be divided into 10 hours of 100 minutes, each composed of 100 seconds. This isn’t an obviously terrible idea. However, the government gave up trying to enforce the use of the new clocks just six years later.
Over the next 170 years of the system’s spread and adaptation, myria- fell out of use in favor of new prefixes based on multiples of 1000. They seem to each have come from regional vernacular before becoming codified and standarized with the creation of the SI in 1960. Mega- is from the Greek for great, giga- for giant, and tera- for monster. Micro- is from the Greek for small, nano- for dwarf, and pico- is, uh, from Spanish “pico” meaning “little bit”.
In the modern era, SI prefix expansion is much more documented and formalized, immortalized in resolutions made at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM). In 1964, the need to measure atomic lengths and extremely precise periods of time led to the addition of femto- (10^-15) from the Danish for fifteen, and atto- (10^-18) for eighteen.
The lopsided prefixes stood until the 1975 adoption of new prefixes for use with world energy usage and radiation, peta- (10^3^5) from the Greek for five, and exa- (10^3^6) for six.
By 1991, there was a clear need for smaller units for working with single molecules and spectral analysis. Vowing never to repeat its past mistakes, the CGPM introduced matching larger prefixes despite there being no known applications at the time. They opted to give them consistent abbreviations by prepending letters to the traditional Greek roots. So zepto- (10^3^-7) is z + seven, yocto- (10^3^-8) is y + eight, zetta- (10^3^7) is Z + seven, and yotta- (10^3^8) is Y + eight.
Finally, we arrive at the 2022 resolution, which recognized that the only remaining unused letters were Q and R. So ronto- (10^3^-9) is r + nine, quecto- (10^3^-10) is q + Latin for ten, ronna- (10^3^9) is R + nine, and quetta- (10^3^10) is Q + Latin for ten. Ironically, these changes were driven by the larger units. People had started using vernacular coinages for prefixes above 10^24 like bronto- and hella-, and the CGPM vowed never to repeat its past mistakes by superseding them with official, designed prefixes.
Smaller QR codes for URLs
For historical reasons, QR codes have four different encodings they use depending on the characters they need to represent. Purely numeric codes use the most efficient encoding, then alphanumeric, then binary, then kanji (historical reasons). The thing is, “alphanumeric” here only includes capital letters, not lowercase letters. Specifically, it’s 0-9, A-Z, space, and $%*+-./: which is enough to encode a url AS LONG AS YOU ONLY USE UPPERCASE.
If your url includes lowercase letters, it’ll fall through and get encoded as binary (Latin-1) instead, which is significantly longer, leading to a larger QR code.
(h/t Why are QR Codes with capital letters smaller than QR codes with lower-case letters? )
nope
The interjection nope is first found in print in 1888, although it was likely common in speech well before that. Essentially, when you say “no” quickly and crisply, closing your mouth causes the final vowel to sound like it ends with a /p/. This is because a final /p/ sound is usually made by closing both lips. This phenomenon has the charming name “excrescent p”. Excrescence is the general term for a sound change where a consonant gets added to a word, like the /p/ sound often found in the middle of something or hamster when spoken aloud.
The parallel yep, likely based on yeah, is similarly first attested in 1882. Here’s a 1946 paper where a linguist discusses the phenomenon, including an example usage of welp, based on well, long before its first print usage in the wild in 1987. Welp saw a dramatic rise in usage in the late 2000s and early 2010s, as captured in this 2012 Slate explainer about the word. The regional ope is likely a similar alteration of oh.
Icon with the word “Nope!” in white text over a purple diamond from the video game Balatro
sherlock
The ironic term for a perceptive person sherlock is first seen in print in 1903, naturally named after fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. His full name had been used in this way since 1896 (e.g. “you’re a regular Sherlock Holmes”), an impressive rise considering he first appeared in 1887.
Being given a rare first name likely contributed to this eponym’s popularity. Sherlock is originally an uncommon English last name, which have rarely gotten used as first names since last names were first instituted. It’s the blond version of Blacklock, Silverlock, or Harlock (har meaning “grey” in Old English; the Modern English equivalent is hoar), where scir is another Old English color term meaning “bright” (Modern English sheer) that has fallen out of use.
uranium
The heaviest naturally occurring element uranium was discovered and named by German scientist Martin Klaproth in 1789 by purifying pitchblende, a naturally occurring uranium ore. (Note: Uranium was not discovered to be radioactive until we discovered what radioactivity was by observing uranium, in 1896.) He named it after the planet Uranus, which had been discovered in 1781, but was at the time named George.
Wait, what?! Let’s back up a few links. The planet Uranus was discovered by William Herschel, a German-born British astronomer. He first reported it as a comet due to its motion, but later that year, Royal Society astronomers concluded after repeated observation that its movement meant it had to be a planet. Uranus had in fact been spotted many times before (definitely in 1690, possibly in 128 BCE!) but had previously always been misclassified as a star.
Given naming rights to the first new planet discovered in history, Herschel decided history should remember that this scientific achievement occurred in the reign of King George III (yes, the American Revolution guy). This understandably did not go over well with astronomers from other countries, who generally refused to call it George. Some of the other names in use at the time included Herschel, Neptune, and Astraea. Uranus was suggested by German astronomer Johann Elert Bode and ultimately became the consensus choice, owing in part to his colleague Martin’s naming of uranium in 1789. This conflict was not fully settled until British astronomers finally relented and started calling the planet Uranus like everyone else in 1850.
Johann’s proposal of Uranus followed the pattern of the other planets being named after Roman gods. He chose Ouranos, the Greek god of the sky, not realizing that “Uranus” was actually the Latinized form of that name, not the intended Roman god of the sky’s name, Caelus.
Ouranos is probably named for being the rain god, after Proto-Greek ṷorsó-, meaning ”to rain”. This is the same root used in Greek οὐρέω (ouréō), meaning “to urinate”, from which we get the English word urea.
Even in Ancient Greek, Ouranos can’t escape stupid jokes about his name.