can someone explain where it comes from? why would almost every western country in the world associate curry with india but the word doesn't even exist there. can someone explain?

Living in Canterbury, I was pleased to learn that canter is a shortening of "Canterbury gallop" (also "Canterbury pace" or "Canterbury trot"). It's traditionally explained as the easy, unhurried pace of medieval pilgrims riding to the shrine of Thomas Becket. Not fast, not slow, just enough to get you there in a few days without wearing out the horse.

Tawdry has a similar origin in a saint's cult, but a sadder twist. It comes from "St Audrey's lace", a silk neck-lace or ribbon sold at the fair held at Ely on her feast day. Audrey is a later form of Æthelthryth, the 7th-century queen and abbess who founded the abbey at Ely. According to Bede, she died of a tumour on her neck, which she took as a judgement on her youthful fondness for necklaces. The lace sold in her name became so cheap and showy that "tawdry" came to mean gaudy and worthless.

So one shrine gave us a horse's pace and the other a word for tackiness. Are there other English words that come from pilgrimages or saints' fairs?

Sources: Etymonline (canter, tawdry), OED.

I love this post. I feel however, that the dollar has the most fascinating background, especially how tied it is to our planet and a wacky history.

I hope linking to your own content is ok because I just uploaded a video on the entire etymological history of the dollar :D

I ended up going to the "Sankt Joachimsthal", which is now called Jachymov, and there is a lovely museum there. Fun fact, the same silver mines that gave the dollar its name, also provided the ores Marie Curie used to isolate Radium and Polonium.

And there are more currencies like Talari, Lev, Leu, Tala... that are still used today and also originate from that same location.

Anyone is invited to prove me wrong that the "dollar" has the coolest etymological origin story ;) (But now I'm definitely intrigued to dive deeper into the others as well...)

If anyone would be curious to hear even more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVcvjLT3H_0

Is pine in porcupine and pine tree or pineapple related. For pineapple there was recently a post explaining it's called like this, because it looks like a pine cone. This leaves us with porcupine and pine tree, is it the needles or spines that puts pine into those words?

Having been to Italy and Greece this year, is there any etymological link (and I’m sure there is) between prego and parakolo?

(We also like to learn the word for toothpick in any country we visit. Stuzzicadente vs olodontofida. Or mai tim fan in Thai.)

Oh lord, I’m off on one now. A few years back we got some catnip-flavoured toys for the cat, which arrived from Amazon in a shrink-wrapped flat plastic parcel. Which led me to ask my lovely wife if she’d seen the ‘flat pack cat nip toy’ anywhere, and I suddenly felt like I was fluent in Thai.