{"id":19085,"date":"2020-04-16T20:58:31","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T20:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19085"},"modified":"2020-04-16T20:58:31","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T20:58:31","slug":"blazing-a-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19085","title":{"rendered":"Blazing a trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wonder why we talk about ‘blazing trails’?<\/p>\n

Well, according to Dent’s Modern Tribes – The Secret Languages of Britain<\/em><\/a> by Susie Dent, one of the books I got for my birthday last week, one of the original meanings of the word blaze was a white spot on a horse’s or cow’s forehead. It came to mean any light coloured mark or spot.<\/p>\n

In the 18th century in North America, trails, paths and boundaries could be indicated by stripping a piece of bark off a tree and making a white mark on it. Thus to blaze a trail meant to mark trees along the trail in this way.<\/p>\n

The word blaze, in this context, is thought to have come via northern English dialects, from the Old Norse blesi<\/em> (white spot on a horse’s face), from the Proto-Germanic *blas-<\/em> (shining, white), from the Proto-Indo-European *b\u02b0el-<\/em> (to shine, flash, burn) [source<\/a>], which is also the root of the English word flame, and related words in other languages.<\/p>\n

If I hadn’t known this, I would have guessed that blazing a trail originally involved literally blazing a trail with fire.<\/p>\n

\"Blazed<\/a>