The term was first used in 1829 to describe a popular sideshow act of two siblings from Southeast Asia that were joined at the stomach by a small stretch of skin.
In the 1800s, long sea voyages were very difficult and dangerous, so people were understandably hesitant to become sailors. But sea captains and shipping companies still needed crews to sail their ships, so they gathered sailors any way they could — even if that meant resorting to kidnapping.
The word “shanghai” comes from the name of the Chinese city of Shanghai. People started to use the city’s name for that unscrupulous way of obtaining sailors because the East was often a destination of ships that had kidnapped men for their crew.
In German, Schmuck actually means jewelry. Although this word is of Yiddish origin, which is consistent with its English meaning.
It is just interesting that the same word actually means something completely in another language.
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Scapegoat
During Yom Kippur, the original tradition was to use two goats in the ritual. One goat, called the Lord’s Goat, was sacrificed, while the other goat, which the priest confessed all the sins of his people, was then set free into the wilderness.
The second was called the Escape Goat, which evolved into Scapegoat.
The term first appeared in the English translation of Tyndale’s Bible
In Latin, sarcophagus means ‘flesh-eater’.
When the Romans would open up the tombs that would store the dead commoners of Egypt, the bodies were so decayed (because they were not embalmed) that the Romans thought that they were meant to be in that condition.
They thought that the bodies were put in the containers to rot, so they called the container ‘flesh-eater’, or ‘sarcophagus’.