Miss the office? These work words have some colourful origins

Brainstorms were once mental breakdowns; Salary might help you flavour your food; Peons were handy in times of war. Check out other histories of corporate words as you work from home.

At some point, you’ve missed office life. Dressing up for a big meeting. The coffee breaks with a friend. Watching the intern finally figure it out. In memory of all that’s been suspended, here’s a list of workplace phrases with surprisingly un-corporate origins.

Backlog: It never seems to clear, does it? The word has been used as early as 1684, but then referred to an actual log stored at the far end of the fireplace to keep the blaze going or for later use. About a century ago, it began to be used to describe a log of pending orders. Corporate offices adopted the term in the 1960s.

Boss: When the English took over the Dutch settlements in colonial America in the 1660s and 1670s, locals still held on to the language. The English called their superiors “Master”, which didn’t sit right with many workers. They preferred “Baas”, the Dutch equivalent that sounded less subservient. By the 19th century, a work foreman, supervisor or manager was commonly called the boss — and as organised crime took hold in the cities, the gang leader was the boss too.

Brainstorm: Sometimes, teams put their heads together and great ideas emerge. But when the term was first used, it indicated mental illness. Even as late as 1934, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defined it as a “violent, transient mental derangement manifested in a maniacal outburst; popularly, any transitory agitation or confusion of mind”.

Deadline: In the 1860s, deadlines were actual lines between life and death. Diaries kept by soldiers imprisoned in Georgia, USA, during the Civil War mention lines drawn within and around the premises. Prisoners could be shot by security guards for crossing the dead line. Modern use emerged in the early 20th century as we began working by the clock.

Peon: Missing your office housekeeping team, the army that knew how you liked your coffee, could be trusted with anything, and always had the best gossip? We’ve long stopped calling them peons. That term was first applied to infantrymen and orderlies in India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia, before we started using it in the modern workplace. Peon, a Spanish word, comes from pedonem, the Latin term for foot-soldier or unskilled labourer.

Secretary: Like beneficiary and planetary, the -ary at the tail end means “from”. The word, then, is connected to secrets, or at least it once was. In 15th-century England, a secretary was one who was entrusted with the secrets or confidences of a superior. Most secretaries were men who managed the bookkeeping and correspondence in royal and aristocratic households.

Side-hustle: Because the economy has forced many to take on second jobs, and because we’ve come to view hobbies as things to be monetised too, you’ve probably heard the term “side-hustle” quite a bit in the recent past. But it’s been in use since at least the 1950s, and started off meaning both legitimate jobs and scams. Hustle, itself, emerged from the Dutch word husselen, which means to shake.

Sycophant: The term for a bootlicking yes-man didn’t quite start out that way. In ancient Greece, sykon was the word for fig; and phainein meant to reveal. And a sykophantēs or fig revealer, according to one theory, was someone who would hang around the market, squealing on the fig farmers who were lying about sales so they could cheat on their taxes. Sykophantēs originally meant slanderer too. By 1575, English speakers were using it for anyone who’d make slanderous accusations to curry favour with powerful people.

Salary: Still counting your peanuts? If you were a labourer in ancient Greece or Rome, you’d be counting salt blocks. Salary is derived from the Latin salarium, which means salt money — salt was used to preserve food, treat wounds, it didn’t spoil and it could be traded, so it was a great commodity for payments. Unlike peanuts.