Quiz: Do You Know The Origin Of The Word “Travel”?

Posted by Mike Richard on July 18, 2007
Filed under: Odds + Ends, Sidelines

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Greg Rodgers of StartBackpacking.com does:

Our ancestors knew the real deal. The word “travel” comes from the old French word “travail” which means to work. That word, is thought to have come from “tripullare”, which is the three sectioned whip that Roman soldiers used to strongly encourage productivity out of the laborers in their expanded empire. They associated the act of moving from one place to another with hellish torture.

I’m embarrassed to say that, with all the obsessing I’ve done over travel, I never actually knew the origin of the word!

(I’m also embarrassed to say that I’ve never been able to properly spell the word “embarrassed” without the aid of Spell Check. Fun fact about me: I once lost a middle school spelling bee because I mispelled “embarrassment”. How do you define irony?)

Check out the full text of Greg’s piece here. I guarantee it’ll make you laugh.

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Vagabondish editor Mike Richard lives in Rhode Island - a small patch of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats and speaking in the third person.



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Comments

Travel Minx
July 18th, 2007 - 12:21 pm

Brilliant article. I wanted to leave a comment but there wasn’t the option, or a contact button. :( I’ll have to send via telepathy.


Mike
July 18th, 2007 - 1:32 pm

That’s a good point.

Perhaps Greg only likes to hear himself talk (jk, Greg). If you’re reading this though, turn comments on. We have a couple of things we’d like to say to you. =P


Greg
July 25th, 2007 - 2:38 pm

Hello Mike and Shona….I finally received the telepathy and saw this. :)
Hmmm…well the problem is that to turn comments “on” I would have to write a script (doable but painful) because I did all the code and graphics for the site myself in a few months of frenzied computer nerd activity…it is not driven by any blogging engine, etc. I definitely think it is a good idea however and will add it to my after-China fixes for the site list when I get back. Thanks for the tip!

Wow - that was long…maybe I DO like hearing myself talk. ;)


Mike
July 26th, 2007 - 8:37 am

LOL, I understand, Greg. Why not go with WordPress? As a web designer/developer myself, I can say that I too like the punishment of building things myself.