Etymology
According to the Los Angeles Almanac: "The original spelling of the name of the winds is unclear, not to mention the origin." The name "Santa Ana Winds" is said to be traced to Spanish California, when the winds were called devil winds because of their heat. Santa Ana winds may get their name from the Santa Ana Mountains in Orange County, the Santa Ana River or Santa Ana Canyon, along which the winds are particularly strong. The original form may have been an Anglicized version of the Spanish, Satana's winds, from the Spanish vientos de Satán ("winds of Satan"). Sanatanas is a rarer form of Satanas and is a translation of a native name in an unspecified language.
Dr. George Fischbeck was a widely viewed newscaster in Southern California in the 1970s and 1980s who helped to familiarize Californians with the winds, which he referred to by their other common name, the "Santana winds" (Santana is a Spanish contraction for Santa Ana), noting that they were not confined to Orange County (where Santa Ana is located), but occurred throughout Southern California. He delighted in the symbolism of the devil's breath playing havoc with Southern California.
A recent popular guide book Los Angeles A to Z (by Leonard & Dale Pitt), credits the Santa Ana Canyon in Orange County as the origin of the name Santa Ana winds.
One account places the origin of the term Santa Ana winds with an Associated Press correspondent stationed in Santa Ana who mistakenly began using Santa Ana winds instead of Santana winds in a 1901 dispatch.
Read more about this topic: Santa Ana Winds
Famous quotes containing the word etymology:
“The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)