Today I Learned …

The English-speaking world didn’t have a word for “shark” until just 500 years ago. The word shark derives from the Mayan word xoc, and first appeared in the 16th century. For one hundred years prior to that, English speakers used the Spanish word tiburon, which in turn was borrowed from the Carib Indians. The reason is thought to be because, whereas large sharks were known to the seafaring Greeks and Romans, medieval Europeans rarely, if ever, encountered the beasts. They only fished close to shore, or in rivers and streams. It was only when European explorers reached the American tropics that sharks, and the fear of them, entered the European psyche. (From Fish That Fake Orgasms and Other Zoological Curiosities, by Matt Walker.)