Hi everyone. And welcome back to our new segment It Means What.

Yeah.

It’s nice to see you as well. 欢迎大家回来我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】, hi, 安澜.

Hi. Lulu, hi, everyone.

So 安澜you have been working out a lot, doing a lot of exercises.

I've been exercising a bit.

So let's talk about the word muscle 肌肉.

Okay. So for those of you who know me and see me, that I'm incredibly muscular.

Not.

I am. I’ve got one muscle.

So where does this word come from? Is it from the ancient Greeks where they like to rub themselves with olive oil and then they basically run around naked?

No.

Okay.

It comes from Latin, and it comes from a Latin word ‘musculus’ .

Which means? little mouse,

小老鼠.

That's because the Romans believe that when you flex your muscles, it looks like little mice running under your skin.

You know what I've actually heard that expression in Chinese, I think ages go, I don't know if it's a direct translation from the English etymology, but some people do call, I think it's old fashioned, but they did call muscle 小老鼠. They say I have 小老鼠, I have little mouse.

Really?

So this is when you're trying to flex your muscle, you're trying to show your muscle, then it looks like a little mouse running around.

You can kind of see that, can't you?

I think it’s a vivid imagery however not really friendly to people who really are terrified of mice.

I like mice, I think they're really cute, but there's also another word in English that comes from ‘musculus’ and probably you can see and guess what it is. It's a type of seafood.

I know, mussels就是青口贝, because it sounds exactly the same, muscles, mussels.

The pronunciation is Complete the same, the spelling though is different. It's m-u-s-s-e-l-s, and that's because the Romans thought that mussels, i.e. the seafood look like little mice. Again? That's because remember, the Romans used to eat mice. They used to eat mice with honey, it was a delicacy.

Okay, for them it's food anyways, so muscles, the seafood looked like another food they ate, which was the mice. I like the muscles, the physical muscles better.

I do actually like mussels the seafood as well though.

I love mussels, but now you're saying the origin of this word is little mice. I probably have to think twice.

Yeah, don't think about it so much.

Two words that comes from the same route or similar route. One is the muscle on your body 肌肉, the other one seafood, what we eat, mussels, 青口贝.

That's interesting.

I watch a lot of like gangster films and you say he's the muscle.

Normally the bouncer or the bodyguard, this person who is incredibly strong, normally a little bit stupid. You describe them, he is the muscle.

He's the muscle, so he's the muscle for the boss. Basically he just stands around, protects the boss and probably beats other people up.

And you also have the adjective as well for muscle, muscular.

So muscular means you have a lot of muscles, and 安澜earlier on, you wanted to say you're muscular, you're not.

No. I am, I can be.

You can say that on the radio.

I will send photos.

If anyone requests. The other thing is nowadays people go to the gym, they want to work out. They want to have nice muscle tone, right, tone up. 我们说肌肉线条, 中文说lines, but in English you actually say muscle tone, toned.

Yes, we say you tone up your muscles, to tone up.

So that ends today's episode about the origin of the word muscle. We actually talked about 2 types of muscles/ mussels.

So if you would like to see pictures of my muscles, please leave us comment in the comment section.

Don't, yeah, they're gonna regret it. All right, but jokes aside, if you enjoyed the segment, let us know. And if you want to put in a request for a specific word or phrase, also let us know

So until next time.

We'll see you next time.

Bye bye.