From April 2006

I hate luggage.

My theory of travel includes a thin suitcase and a fat wallet.

Consequently I never travel.

The word “luggage” appears first in 1597 and one of the first citations is Shakespeare’ Henry IV where the King’s son Hal asks his friend to

bring your luggage nobly on your back

The word “luggage” is supposed to be modeled after the word baggage.  But a bag is the container.  The luggage refers to the thing we have to lug around.

“Lug” is an older word and it has always meant something to do with pulling.  So these roller bags that make it easier to lug your junk around airports are in keeping with etymology stretching back more than 600 years.

Originally “lug” is thought to have come from Old Norse and is reflected in Swedish where lugga refers to pulling a person by the hair.  But it also at various times meant to pull out your sword and to take a pull at a bottle.

I took a look at the word slug, thinking that if lug meant to take a little drink, maybe taking a slug was related.  The OED says this form of slug is a slang usage, not tracing the origin.  But etymonline offers two other possibilities, a slang expression “fire a slug” that used to mean take a drink, or from Irish slog that meant swallow.

Since our word “luggage” didn’t come from Latin I am interested to see that in the Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary the Latin translations they give for luggage include impedimenta—which is how I feel about luggage—and onus.

Onus is Latin for “burden.”

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English seems to feel that dragging luggage around is classier than carrying baggage.  I think the fat wallet idea is the classiest.