500
Years
of
New Words

Copyright 1983 Doubleday Canada lmt. To. CA.


William Sherk

With the use of the book "500 years of new words" I bring you this page.

Thank you Will

America
You might expect the New World to be named after Christopher Columbus since he is best known of all the explorers who purportedly discovered it, but to his dying day in 1506 Columbus insisted he had not found an unknown continent but rather had reached an unexplored part of eastern Asia. The honor fell to America Vespucci, a Florentine navigator who made four visits to the New World between 1497 and 1503 and who suggested the new lands be called Mundis Novus -the New World. A German mapmaker named Martin Waldseemuller read Vespucci's account of his voyages and labeled the new land "America." When Waldseemuller later learned of the role Columbus had played in these discoveries, he dropped the name America from his maps and renamed it "The Land Unknown."
Despite the change, the name America caught on. Over the years, Vespucci has been accused of cheating Columbus out of the honor that should have been his, although Vespucci never claimed the New World should be named after him. American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "Strange that broad America must wear the name of a thief! Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle-dealer at Seville, who went out in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda, and whose highest naval rank was boatswain's mate, in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus, and baptize half the world with his own dishonest name." In fact, Vespucci did sail, not once but four times, and had respect and admiration for Columbus. The pickle-dealer from Seville lives on not only on maps. A bumber sticker currently popular in the United States proudly proclaims: "America-a good old Italian name."

Try to guess the year it became part of the English language Guest book If you get it right I will post your name under it. Each week there will be a new word. Last weeks word will be given the date.There will also be a 2 year leniency for all guesses NOTE:All dates are between 1500 AC to 1600 AC due to the lack of all the pages!