Ventriloquy

A dying breed now, ventriloquists were once very popular entertainers. Traditionally, they are a performer with a puppet where the performer makes it appear that the puppet is speaking by "throwing his voice" with minimal mouth movements.

What interesting is that the source meaning of the word "ventriloquy" is opposed to the modern usage. The roots of the word come from Latin as "belly" and "speak"...sort of a gruff, growling sound internalized. People who spoke in this fashion were considered to be possessed by demons and the original sounds described this way were opposite of the projection required for modern ventriloquists.

Now we have the other oddity: The ventriloquists puppet is known as a "dummy". Dummy originally meant someone who was dumb, that is, literally could not speak. The whole idea behind the ventriloquists show is to convince the audience that the dummy CAN speak.

A strange use of words for this profession, indeed!