Whatnot

A caller asked about the word whatnot. I said that it was a convenient filler or replacement when we can’t think of a specific term, something like thingamabob or thingamajig. That prompted an e-mail from another listener, Teresa K. Fowler of Naubinway:

"What-not" is not just another placeholder name like "whatchamacallit." Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary says a "what-not" is also a light, open set of shelves used to display bric-a-brac (i.e. collectible thingamajigs) which often included cups and saucers, knickknacks and figurines, according to Don Butkovich, Traverse City antiques appraiser. What the English call a "what-not" is similar to the French "etagere." It comes in several forms, and often is a backless sets of shelves, joined by spindles, and tiered or stacked backward like a layered cake. These were popular from approximately 1850 to 1950 among English, French, German, Belgian and other families, Butkovich said. A what-not might stand alone on the floor, or might be made to hang in a corner or stand on top of a dresser. Butkovich said current usage among antiques writers calls for hyphenating "what-not." He deals in 18th- and 19th-century American and European antiques and art, and says this barely scratches the surface of what is known about what-nots.

I appreciate the time and trouble that Teresa took to provide such solid details. As with many words, whatnot carries several meanings and shades of meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that it first appeared with a meaning that it still retains today:

Anything whatever; everything; ‘anything and everything’; ‘all sorts of things’: mostly, now only, as final item of an enumeration: = anything else, various things besides; ‘whatever you like to call it’. 1540 PALSGR. Acolastus V. ii. Yiijb, "Excesse of fleshely pleasures.. hath taken awaye all thynges..my goodes or substance, my good name and fame, my frendes, my glory, my renoume or estimation, what not? What thyng is it that she hath not taken from me?"

Almost 300 years later, it took on the meaning that Teresa detailed: An article of furniture consisting of an open stand with shelves one above another, for keeping or displaying various objects, as ornaments, curiosities, books, papers, etc. 1808 LADY S. LYTTELTON Correspondence. (1902) 54 "The old chairs, tables, what-nots, and sofas."

The Online Etymology Dictionary adds that the furniture took its name from the objects that it is meant to hold.

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Handsome is as Handsome Does

Is there really a hand in handsome? If so, how?

Let’s examine the -some part first. It was an Old English suffix (-sum) used primarily to form adjectives from nouns, and occasionally from other adjectives and verbs.

So the suffix -some added to hand meant pertaining to a hand. Let’s follow the evolution of the word, starting in 1435 A.D., through the eyes of the Oxford English Dictionary.

• Easy to handle or manipulate, or to wield, deal with, or use in any way.
• Of action, speech, etc.: Appropriate, apt, dexterous, clever, happy: in reference to language, sometimes implying gracefulness of style.
• Proper, fitting, seemly, becoming, decent, courteous, gracious.
• Of a sum of money, a fortune, a gift, etc.: Considerable. Now in stronger sense: Ample, generous, liberal, munificent.
• Having a fine form or figure (usually in conjunction with full size or stateliness); ‘beautiful with dignity’; ‘fine’. (The prevailing current sense.)

So, “attractive because easy to handle” eventually lost the hand but retained the attractiveness.

Most people will recognize some of the other surviving -some forms:

adventuresome: seeking risky activities
awesome: inspiring awe; prodigious
bothersome: causing bother
cumbersome: unwieldy and clumsy
fearsome: causing fear; timid
fulsome: offending through excess; insincere
gruesome: horrible; grisly
loathsome: abhorrent; offensive
lonesome: suffering from lack of company
meddlesome: given to interfering
noisome: foul; disgusting; harmful
quarrelsome: contentious; belligerent
wholesome: salutary; sound; healthful
winsome: of an attractive nature or disposition

SIDEBAR: Handsome Devil

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Limbo

Limbo refers to the permanent place or state of those unbaptized children who, even though they committed no personal mortal sin, are excluded from the presence of God after death because of original sin. They were not damned and they lived in a state of happiness, but they were not in the direct presence of God, which is the essence of heaven.

For centuries, Catholic theologians based the existence of infant Limbo on two scriptural passages:

(1) John 3:5 -- "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
(2) Romans 5:12 -- “. . . by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

But in the spring of 2007, Pope Benedict XVI virtually repealed Limbo, saying that there is hope that these infants do enjoy the Beatific Vision after all. Last one out turn off the lights.

My interest is in the word itself. In Latin, limbus meant a hem or a fringe. Limbo was the ablative singular form, translated as "on the fringe." So Limbo was a suburb between hell and heaven, so near yet so far.

By extension, in secular use, it came to mean a place of confinement, sort of a junkyard for the outworn or useless. To be in limbo is to be out of the mainstream, on permanent hold, up in the air.

Selected headlines make it clear that it is a very popular metaphor:

• Court leaves status of Miss. executions in limbo [MSNBC, August 8, 2007]
• Case in limbo against bounty hunter [USA Today, July 27, 2007]
• Culpepper signs with Raiders; Russell still in limbo [ESPN, August 1, 2007]
• Law library still in limbo [Florida Today, August 6, 2007]
• Transplant patients in limbo as doctors quit [ABC News, August 6, 2007]
• Budget standoff: Budget vote left senator in limbo [Sacramento Bee, August 3, 2007]
• Child Health Money in Limbo [WKSU, August 8, 2007]
• OMB nomination in limbo [Tick Marks blog, August 2, 2007]
• Rove's Time in Limbo Near End in CIA Leak Case [Washington Post, May 8, 2006]
• Philly Park Casino Plans Remain in Limbo [bloodhorse.com, August 14, 2007]

SIDEBAR: Radiohead, In Limbo

SIDEBAR: limbo music (the dance)

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Don't Meddle With Mettle

Chrysler's boss shows his metal at car rally
freep.com August 17, 2007

At first, I thought that the headline writer had made a mistake. “Surely,” I thought, “he meant mettle.” Then it dawned on me that he was perpetrating a pun. In the story, Bob Nardelli is showing off his car--a hunk of metal.

But readers who don’t know the difference between metal and mettle won’t get the wordplay.

Metal, in the poetic description provided by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “hard, shiny, malleable material of the kind originally represented by gold, silver, copper, etc., esp. as used in the manufacture of objects, artefacts, and utensils.” It comes from a Greek word meaning a mine or quarry, and by extension, the stuff that comes from a mine.

Mettle is a person’s strength of character, disposition, courage, and temperament. The cliché is to show one’s mettle, and it means to reveal your inner self during adversity.

But it turns out that the two words are related in history. In Anglo-Norman, metal took on the meaning of material or substance. It was then applied metaphorically to a person’s substance or nature. In fact, the spelling metal was used both for the malleable stuff and for the Right Stuff.

The OED points out the interchangeability in two versions of Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV, II.v.
• 1598 Quarto Edition: “A Corinthian, a lad of metall.”
• 1623 Folio Edition: “A Corinthian, a lad of mettle.”

Don’t meddle with a lad with mettle; he deserves a metal medal.

SIDEBAR: A cat with mettle

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Jabber

Jabber is a pejorative term, a put-down. It is often said in contempt, referring to a dialect or a language that the hearer finds unintelligible, or to a message that he or she finds unacceptable. It showed up in print in 1499: “Iangelyn or iaberyn” [jangling or jabbering]. It is probably onomatopoeic, the word rising from an imitation of the perceived sound.

There are similar words, all of them basically defined as,” to speak rapidly and inarticulately; to chatter, talk nonsense.” [OED]

• gibber: [1604, Shakespeare, Hamlet, I. i. 116 (Qo. 2) “The graves stood tenantlesse and the sheeted dead Did squeake and gibber in the Roman streets.”
• jibber: [1824, Scott, Redgauntlet, Lettter. xi “The jackanape . . . jibbered and cried as if it was mocking its master.”]
• gabble: [1577, Stanyhurst, Description of Irelland, i. 4 in Holinshed Chron. I. “He that dooth not perceyue, what is fitting or decent for euerye season, or gabbleth more then he hath commission to doe.”]
• gobbledygook: [1944, American Notes & Queries, Apr. 9/1. “Gobbledygook talk: Maury Maverick's name for the long high-sounding words of Washington's red-tape language.”]

The term jibber-jabber manages to combine two versions to produce industrial-strength onomatopoeia. [1922, A. Haddon, Green Room Gossip ix. 240. “The jibber-jabber was entertaining, not because the utterances were those of ordinary human beings, but because they were the voice of Shaw.”]

The famous version, of course, was jibba-jabba, a hallmark of the A-Team’s Mr. T.

SIDEBAR: sound bite of Mr. T

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Bleachers

Bonds Blasts 756 into Bleachers

This alliterative headline in Wednesday’s sports section attracted the eye of Ted from Old Mission (Michigan). “Where did we get the word bleachers?” he asked.

It’s connected with the word bleach--to whiten by means of the sun’s intense rays or through chemical means. Old English, Old Norse, Old Teutonic and a host of other snowbleached areas had words for the process, so it goes back quite a way.

Bleachers--the seats--showed up in 1889 in the Chicago Tribune [18 May 6/1]: “The grand stand and bleachers were well filled with something over 2,000 spectators.” Originally, bleachers had no cover, while grandstands did have a roof. Hence, the lower price. Now there probably isn’t a school gymnasium around the world that doesn’t have indoor bleachers.

Since bleachers endured the direct onslaught of the afternoon sun, someone thought that the bleaching process would provide a colorful (as it were) name. The problem comes in determining what was bleached.

Some source [I misplaced my reference] says that the clothes of people habitually sitting in the bleachers began to lose their color. I have a few faded golf shirts, but I suspect that frequent washings are the cause. With my game, I spend an inordinate amount of time in the woods, out of the sun.

The American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition, implies that the fans are the objects getting bleached. As a person who respects the need for sun blockers, that one doesn’t compute.

The Online Etymology Dictionary and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology point to the bleachers themselves. Even for away games, the seats in the home stadium are always washed in sun.

I need to have my house re-stained very soon, so I’ll buy that explanation.

SIDEBAR: Guidelines to Retrofitting Bleachers

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Bayonet

Donald from Bay Harbor writes: “I’m curious about the word bayonet. I can see the word ‘bay’ buried in there, along with ‘net,’ but I can’t see how those words would relate to a stabbing weapon attached to the barrel of a rifle.”

The Oxford English Dictionary casts some doubt, but the usual explanation is that the instrument was either invented or first used in the city of Bayonne, France, in the 16th century.

Words often do arise from a place name with which an object is associated.

• The artesian well was developed in Artois, a province in France.
• A cantering horse moves at a moderate gallop, and it derives from Canterbury, England, where pilgrims on horseback visited the shrine of Thomas à Becket.
• Bubbly champagne, proprietarily speaking, comes only from Champagne, a region in northeast France.
• The ermine, whose fur is prized for decoration, probably took its name from the country of Armenia.
• A laconic person--a person of few words--owes his name to the tight-lipped inhabitants of Laconia in southern Greece.
• To meander means to wander, and its name comes from the Meander River in Phrygia, noted for its twists and turns.
• Sodomy comes from the biblical city of Sodom, destroyed by God along with Gomorrah because of industrial-strength vice and depravity. [See Genesis 19]
• In computer terminology, a trojan horse is a program that pretends to be harmless or helpul, but actually installs malicious code that enables the perpetrator to access your computer files remotely. The name comes from the city of Troy in northwest Asia Minor. [See The Trojan War]

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Proactive

Fred from Traverse City asked about the word proactive, wondering if it meant “in favor of activity.” Let’s cover the meaning first, then get back to the prefix pro-, which has more than one meaning.

The word proactive was used by logotherapy’s founder, Victor Frankl,
in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. He meant it as an antonym to reactive. In his view, mentally healthy people do not simply react to external circumstances. Rather, they act according to what they see as meaningful in their lives no matter what is happening externally.

In non-clinical use, the word means taking initiative, anticipating events, and controlling a situation rather than indulging in a series of knee-jerk reactions.

Let’s get back to the prefix pro-. It can mean in favor of, as in the words pro-American, pro-business, or pro-war. But it can also mean towards the front (proclaim, propose), in anticipation of (proactive, provide), onward or forward (proceed, progress), or, especially in science, a precursor (pro-agonic, prohormone).

The lesson is this: don’t wed yourself to just one meaning for this prefix. Let context help you sort out which meaning is involved, or reach for that handy dictionary and look for the etymology.

SIDEBAR: How to be proactive

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-curt-

The Latin word curtus has led to some interesting words in English, but it was interesting in itself.

Curtus meant short, but there were intimations of mutilation and breakage lurking beneath the surface. It was a word that might be applied to a castrated bull, a gelded horse, a dog with a docked tail, or a circumcised man. [Gentlemen in the audience may now participate in a group wince.]

By the time this root worked its way into English, it had acquired the meaning of physically short or abbreviated, though the cutting aspect had not entirely disappeared. So we had the following:

• curtal (an animal with a short tail)
• curtate (shortened or abbreviated)
• curtail (to shorten)
• curtilage (a small enclosure)
• curtipendulous (hanging by a short stem)
• decurtate (shortened)

By extension, the English word curt left the realm of the merely physical and came to mean terse to an extreme degree--bordering, in fact, on rudeness.

The word curtain comes from an entirely different source, so a long curtain is not an oxymoron.

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Eavesdrop

Q. Where did the word eavesdrop come from? [Lannie, Old Mission Peninsula]

A. It’s an Old English word going back to at least the 9th century. The eaves of a house is the projecting overhang at the lower edge of a roof. Water drips from it when it rains.

An Old English law mandated that the owner of a building must leave at least two feet from the boundary of his property open to the sky. This was so water dripping from the roof line did not erode the neighbor’s land or damage his buildings. The Romans had similar laws on their books, called iura stillicidiorum, or laws of the falling drops. [Chambers-Murray, Latin-English Dictionary] I’m not making this up.

By extension, the eavesdrip was the space between the dripping water line and the wall of the house. An eavesdropper would be someone who crept close to a door or window to listen in on a conversation. “Evesdroppers are such as stand under wals or windowes..to heare news.” [Termes de la Ley, 1641] The very eaves have ears.

SIDEBAR: Eavesdrop Radio

SIDEBAR: Eavesdrop, New York based performance and arts in education collective

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Pommel/Pummel

Craig from Pellston: I saw a headline the other day that read, Sox Pummel Tigers. I know that sportswriters love alliteration and hate to use plain words like defeat, but isn’t this way out there?

A. You’re correct that it means to beat, and I love your comment about sportswriters, but it’s a legitimate word. As just one example, Charles Dickens used it in his novel Great Expectations:

“Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, that I used to want - quite painfully - to burst into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over.” So, as a verb it means to beat someone, especially with the fists.

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable gives it a French origin--pommeler, to dapple-- because it’s a matter of beating someone black and blue. The OED sees a connection to a word meaning apple.

The noun pummel (also spelled pommel) covers a wide range of objects, but they all have something in common: a bulbous appearance. Here are some of its meanings.

• the ornamental knob on a candlestick
• a finial
• the ornamental top of a flagpole
• the knob at the back end of a cannon
• a cross with knobs at the end of the arms
• the knob at the end of a sword or dagger that keeps it from slipping out of your grasp
• the knob on a saddle used for mounting and dismounting
• a woman’s breast
• the lower side of a closed fist
• in gymnastics, the curved handgrip on a vaulting horse

SIDEBAR: Pummel Peak

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Soap

A recent headline in the Traverse City Record-Eagle proclaimed, “Local man plans to get back on his soap box.” This prompted some questions on the origin of the term soap box.

First of all, there’s the word soap. In a reversal of the usual historical direction, it seems to have worked its way into Latin as sapo. Originally, it came from Teutonic or Tartar languages.

Literally, a soap box was a wooden crate used to deliver soap. Empty, it made a convenient platform to raise a speaker slightly above his audience so that he might be seen and heard. Since many of these public speakers embraced eccentric or quirky ideas, and since they usually employed a passionate style of oratory, to get on your soapbox took on a pejorative cast.

The soapbox derby was so named because a wooden crate originally formed the riding compartment of the vehicle. (Derby takes its name from the 12th Earl of Derby who first held the race that takes place near the town of Epsom in Surrey.)

To soft soap someone is to employ flattery in an unctuous way. The OED gives an instance from 1830: “I will not use the vulgar phrase, and say he has been pouring soft soap down the backs of the New York delegation.” [Register of Congressional Debates]

The sponsors of daytime dramas on the radio tended to be soap and detergent companies such as Procter & Gamble or Colgate-Palmolive-Peet. This lead to the term soap opera.

Finally, soap was an American slang term in the 19th century that meant money. When we deny a request by saying no soap, it translates as “nothing doing,” but originally it probably meant something like “I don’t have any change to spare.”

SIDEBAR: saponification

NOTE: Thank you to the anonymous reader who corrected me on the source of Derby by sending me here: http://www.epsomdowns.co.uk/History.ink

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Take A Powder

“Take a powder!” used to be a more popular saying. It was a gruff demand that the targeted person leave. No one seems to know with certainty how the phrase started, but that never squelches speculation.

In 17th century Britain, the colloquial verb to powder meant to rush, to hurry impetuously. “Zacheus climb'd the Tree: But O how fast. . . (when Our Saviour called) he powder'd down agen!” [1632, Francis Quarles, Divine Fancies, I. lxvii]

Around the same time, to dust was a colloquial American phrase meaning to ride or go quickly, to hasten, to hurry. “Stick thou To thy sure trot..Let folly dust it on, or lag behind.” [1655, Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans, I. Rules & Lessons]

But it wasn’t until 1916 that we see Americans using to take a powder: “Look at the two birds trying to take a run-out powder on the eats.” [1916, Washington Post, May 20] Four years later, we find this: “The ‘Wilmington’ challenged us to a boat race, but when we slapped up a sack of good Chinese taels [money] to back our team, the ‘Wily Willie’ took a run-out powder and called off the race.” [1920, Our Navy, Aug. 33/1]

Notice that in both cases, the form is to take a run-out powder. Powdered medicines were common in that era for anything that ailed you, so it is possible that the origin of the phrase was a reference to a drug that would dull your sense of ethics or responsibility. There was definitely a pejorative edge to the phrase, a hint of chicanery or dereliction of duty.

Over the years, many explanations have been proffered:

• it started as a reference to gunpowder, which explosively propels bullets and shells
• it’s a reference to a laxative powder, which would cause you to run to the nearest toilet
• it’s a reference to the dust that our feet raise when we are scampering off
• it’s a reference to the “magical” powder used by magicians to make things disappear

SIDEBAR: to take a scampering powder

SIDEBAR: Powder--the band

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Fraught

FRAUGHT

These days, fraught is usually followed by ominous phrases such as “with danger,” “with peril,” or “with risk,” but its close relative is the word freight.

Originally, fraught stood for the money paid for a transport vessel or the act of transport itself. Later, the noun designated the cargo in the hold. It ended as any burden or load. In Sir James Barrie’s Little Minister, we find the line “. . . to carry a fraught of water to the manse.” According to the OED, this would have amounted to two pailfuls.

At various times, the verb form meant to load a ship, to hire a vessel, and to equip. The past participle (fraught) means attended with, carrying with it as an attribute or accompaniment, or filled with promise or menace.

Archaic forms include fraughtage (Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, IV. i. 87: “Our fraughtage sir, I haue conuei'd aboord.”) and fraughtsman.

SIDEBAR: fraught quotes

SIDEBAR: listen to the central Iowa band Fraught

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Patter

In the colloquial sense, patter is defined as mere talk or incessant chatter. In sales or entertainment, it is the smooth, persuasive, and sometimes rapid speech used to attract an audience and then keep its attention.

It came from the rapid and mechanical way in which the Pater noster (the Our Father) was often repeated, e.g. in the rosary [1425]. The words would tumble out automatically with no thought given to meaning. Of course, the automatic nature of the prayers used in the rosary was supposed to give the reciter an opportunity to meditate on theological mysteries, so it wasn’t just an act of sloppiness.



Pater noster, qui es in caelis: __________________[Our Father, who art in heaven:]
sanctificetur nomen tuum; ____________________[hallowed be thy name.]
adveniat regnum tuum; ______________________ [Thy kingdom come;]
fiat voluntas tua, ___________________________[thy will be done]
sicut in caelo, et in terra. _____________________ [on earth as it is in heaven.]
Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; ________[Give us this day our daily bread]
et dimitte nobis debita nostra, _________________ [and forgive us our debts]
sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; ________[as we forgive our debtors;]
et ne nos inducas in tentationem; _______________ [and lead us not into temptation,]
sed libera nos a malo. _______________________ [but deliver us from evil.]

• Paternoster came to be used as a term for a set of rosary beads. After ten Hail Mary’s, a larger bead, set apart, signalled the time to say an Our Father.

• Paternoster was also a measure of flax, perhaps, says the OED, with reference to the separating bead after each decade (10 Hail Mary’s).

• Something consisting of a long series of identical objects was also called a paternoster. For instance, a paternoster line is a fishing line with a weight at the end, and hooks are attached at intervals to this line.

• As an architectural term, a paternoster was a row of beadlike ornaments.

• Finally, a paternoster was an elevator consisting of a set of linked doorless compartments moving continuously on an endless belt so as to allow entry at any time and exit on any floor.


SIDEBAR: learn to chant the Pater Noster

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hoolian/hoolihan

Mike from Glen Arbor, Michigan, waxed nostalgic about a song that he learned as a child: Old Paint. He also had a question: what’s a hoolihan?

Let’s back up and give the first four lines of the song.

I ride an old paint [variation: Old Paint as a proper name]
I lead an old dam [variation: Old Dan as a proper name]
I’m going to Montana
To throw a hoolihan. [variation: hoolian]

The Wordsworth Dictionary of the American West provides us with two vital definitions.
• paint: “A spotted horse, white with large areas of either black, brown, or red.”
• dam: In four-legged animals, the female parent. [AHD] Easily the most recognizable dam in literature is Grendel’s dam in Beowulf.
• hoolihan: “A quiet, no-fuss rope throw for catching horses in a crowded corral--one quick whirl, a flat noose, and a head catch.”

So our cowboy is riding a spotted horse, leading a trailing female horse (probably as a pack animal), and he’s bound for Montana where he’ll work with corralled horses.

As noted above, depending on who’s singing the song, paint and dam are sometimes transmuted into proper names.

And if I remember the melody well enough, I believe that Aaron Copeland used it in his ballet Rodeo, calling it “Saturday Night Waltz.”

SIDEBAR: the lyrics

SIDEBAR: Copeland’s “Saturday Night Waltz.”

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Fanatic Fans

Fanatic comes to us from the Latin word fanum, a temple. Avid devotees of a particular god would invite possession, whereby the favored god would induce a frenzy. The person would be figuratively carried away, exhibiting behavior akin to madness.

Enthusiasm, a quality displayed in fans (abbreviated from fanatic), originally meant possessed by a god. The theos (god) was ev, within.

Frantic and frenzy are two words that would suit such an occasion, and they are related. Frantic comes from a Greek form meaning affected with delirium (phrenetikos). Frenzy comes from the same basic Greek root.

Phren was a Greek word meaning mind, and it has given us phrenesis (madness), phrenetic (mentally deranged), phreniatric (relating to mental disorder), phrenitic (delirious), and others. Nowadays, frenzy is no longer seen as a gift of the gods.

SIDEBAR: NCAA report on fan behavior

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Contest Entry

Answers.com is running a contest, and this is my entry.

For all intents and purposes,
The yo-yo is a toy--
A ubiquitous thing on a string
To delight both girl and boy.
But over in Belize,
It serves another cause:
It kills the brown recluse spider,
And it’s required by several laws.
This may sound quite quixotic,
Something you’d like to abrogate,
But you’ve got to stop those critters
Before they start to mate.
If you’re in need of money,
It’s a matter of quid pro quo:
For every one you squash,
You get a lot of dough.
But you can’t just be perfunctory;
Dedication is the key.
And if you have melissophobia,
You can also kill a bee.

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," he said.

Thanks to a thoughtful friend, I now own a copy of “Shut Up!” He Explained, by William Noble (Paul S. Erickson, Publisher, 1987).

Chapter 8 reminded me of the old editorial policy at The New Yorker under the watchful eyes of Harold Ross and Wolcott Gibbs:

“One of the rules, according to Thurber, was that a passage of dialogue is best followed by said. Anything else--shouts or exclaims or retorts, for example--is just wasted motion. No verb, in other words, should substitute for said.” [p.91]

That’s a bit extreme, perhaps, but it errs on the side of the angels. It’s a rule that more writers should observe, especially in stories posted on the internet. I did a quick and dirty search and found groaners such as these:

• “If only [she] had been at home, she could have found him for us," asserted Peter.
• "You're not in earnest, that woman?" gasped Felicity at last.
• "I wonder if the wishbone she gave me would have done any good," cried Cecily suddenly.
• “I’ll probably continue to smoke,” he averred.
• "I'll never forgive myself for not thinking about it before," mourned Cecily.
• "Oh, let's go to bed," growled Dan.
• "You might tell me all about it, Sara," I insinuated.
• You've got to give the spell time to work," he expostulated.
• "Oh, how he must have suffered!" moaned Cecily.
• "I'm sure I shall die when I find myself up on that platform, facing people,"she sighed.
• “I once worked in a circus,” I volunteered.
• “Sorry,” she demurred. “I scratched necrophilia off my list a long time ago.”
• "And I hope it will be a lesson to him to stay home after this," commented Felicity.
• “And that’s their right,” he opined.
• "I wonder what it is," speculated Cecily.

The New Yorker policy now allows substitutions for said, but Noble points out that leaving out any modifier at all--even he/she said--allows the dialogue to speak for itself. Omission is a good way to change the rhythm and pace and avoid needless repetition. But never undervalue the word said. Straining for synonyms is counterproductive, he pontificated.

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Sturdy

Sturdy is a plain, blue-collar type of word. It evokes images of vigor, robustness, hardiness, strength, and solidity.

That’s why it’s surprising to learn that in its long history, it has also meant giddy, dazed, reckless, ruthless, cruel, rebellious, obstinate, and surly. It was also the name of a brain disease in sheep and cattle.

Even stranger is the putative origin of the word, though no one seems to be absolutely certain. Some authorities say that it comes from the Latin word meaning thrush: turdus. This is because in the early days of its existence, it meant thoughtless or feather-brained. It reflected a French proverb, “drunk as a thrush.” The idea was that if a bird eats fermented fruit, it will act drunk; giddiness and recklessness will follow.

“The only birds I see are a few sad survivors of a covey of partridges and thrushes, which conduct themselves so strangely that the foresters assert that they are tipsy. ‘As drunk as a thrush’ is a proverb here.” [Charles Dickens, Household Words: A Weekly Journal, p. 308]

Other words coming from the Latin turdus include turdiform (having the form or appearance of a thrush), turdine (belonging to the sub-family Turdinae of true thrushes), and turdoid (akin to a thrush).

Note that these words have nothing to do with the vulgar word turd, which derives from the Old English tord, excrement.

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Wheelbarrow

Hans from Traverse City, Michigan, called the show last Tuesday to propose a new piece of folk etymology. If enough people pick up on it, it will soon show up in your home as a forwarded e-mail.

Hans was doing some yard work, in the course of which he used a wheelbarrow. His whimsical speculation was that the barrow in wheelbarrow is actually a corruption of burro, the pack animal. After all, both are used to transport materials. Over the course of centuries, he speculates, the word burro was misheard, misspelled, and otherwise mangled until the transformation was complete.

As Fritz told his mother after his brother fell over a precipice, “Look, Ma, no Hans!”

The Oxford English Dictionary will have none of this. Instead, it soberly reminds us that barrow comes from an Old English word meaning” to bear or to carry,” and it showed up in print as barewe in the year 1300. The earliest model was a framework with handles projecting fore and aft so that two men could carry things. To distinguish it from a wheelbarrow, it was called a hand-barrow.

The spelling barrow was also used for several wildly unrelated items:

• a mountain or a hill
• a gravemound formed from dirt or stones
• a castrated boar
• a conical basket into which wet salt is placed to drain
• A long sleeveless flannel garment for infants

Of course, those in the know realize that the original spelling was wheelborrow, and that it targeted the practice of neighbors who use your yard equipment, then forget to return it.

SIDEBAR: burrito recipes

SIDEBAR: Listen to In The Valley Of The Shadow Of The Handbarrow and other St. Paul bands. (Go to August 7, 2005.)
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/minnesota/radio/programs/local_music_with_chris_roberts/2005/08/08_lm.ram

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Naughty

Melissa from Interlochen, Michigan, asks whether there is a connection between the word naught (nothing) and the word naughty. There is.

The word naughty is a rather insipid word these days. We use it to describe the mischievous infractions of children, the accidents of our pets, or as a synonym for saucy.

But in the 15th and 16th centuries, it was a word used to describe industrial-strength wickedness. It ranged from morally evil to turpitudinous to licentious.

One element of the word naught started as the word no and its variants in Scandinavian, Old High German, Frisian and Saxon. It had the force of not, in no way, by no means. So the earlier version of naughty described a person who had no ethical standards or qualms, who in no way was a good person.

An alternate spelling (still used in Britain) is nought, but American English seems to prefer naught.

SIDEBAR: read an earlier blog comparing naughty and nice [March 2, 2007]
http://verbmall.blogspot.com/2007/03/gonna-find-out-whos-naughty-nice.html

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Out of the Fold

David from Central Lake, Michigan, asks about the phrase, out of the fold.

A fold is a pen for domestic animals, especially sheep. It comes from the Old English falaed, an enclosed space.

It is used as a metaphor for people united in belief or in common purpose. Thus, to be out of the fold is to abandon belief (if a voluntary act) or (involuntarily) to be ostracized as a form of punishment or censure. Elvis has left the enclosure.

Given the bucolic setting of the ancient world, it was a familiar biblical image.
• Numbers 32:24 (KJV) ”Build you cities for your little ones, and folds for your sheep; and do that which hath proceeded out of your mouth.”
• Jeremiah 23:3 “And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.”

In the New Testament spiritual sense, it reflects the concept of the Good Shepherd. “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” [John 10:16]

It also showed up in secular settings.
• The Farmer’s Law, 8th c. Byzantium: “If a slave, while trying to steal by night, drives the sheep away from the flock in chasing them out of the fold, and they are lost or eaten by wild beasts, let him be hanged as a murderer.”
• “It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered."—Thomas Jefferson, notes on the State of Virginia, c..

SIDEBAR: the sheep game

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Crepitation

The Latin verb crepitare has given us several interesting words, most of them used in a medical context. In that language, crepitare meant to crackle.

So, a crepitant sound is a rattling or crackling, something that will be heard in the lungs of a pneumonia patient, or the sound produced by joints or broken ends of bones rubbing together.

Crepitation is the noun form signifying a crackling noise, and to crepitate is the verb form.

Decrepit means worn out from old age, illness, or hard use, and decrepitude is the noun signifying that state or condition. Figuratively, things have cracked open.

To decrepitate is to subject crystals or salts to high heat so that they crackle and disintegrate.

Finally, a crepitaculum is the name herpetologists use for the rattler of the rattlesnake.

SIDEBAR: listen to crackles

SIDEBAR: rattlesnake sounds:

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Rakish

< . . .2-year-old Border collie with a rakish expression. . .>

Kimber/Traverse City: “The word rakish was used in the Record-Eagle to describe a border collie. I thought rakish meant sexy looks, rather than distinctive looks. Why use the word to describe a dog?”

Rake is an old-fashioned term for a man of loose habits and immoral character; he was an idle dissipated man of fashion. “Dissolute rake” is the usual pairing that we find. William Hogarth did a series of paintings with the title, A Rake’s Progress. The adjective rakish attached to this word certainly has a negative connotation: disreputable.

But another rake refers to the slope of a ship’s mast, a deviation from the vertical that gives it a sleek and fast look. Dashing and jaunty would be synonyms. This seems to be the sense that the reporter was applying to the pooch.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, other uses of rake have included the familiar implement used after mowing, the throat and jaws, a rough path, a vein of ore, and a herd of colts. An adaptable word, indeed.

SIDEBAR: Rake, the magazine

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Pomp and Circumstance

The pairing of the two terms in Pomp and Circumstance came up on Tuesday’s show, principally because this is graduation season and Elgar’s composition is played countless times this month.

Pomp comes from a Greek word meaning procession, parade, or display. In Latin, circumstantia signified a surrounding condition, and one of the meanings acquired in English was a ceremony or a formal presentation. So, Procession and Ceremony would be a synonym.

The pairing was forever established by William Shakespeare in his Othello, Act III, Scene iii:

Oh now, for euer
Farewell the Tranquill minde; farewell Content;
Farewell the plumed Troopes, and the bigge Warres,
That makes Ambition, Vertue! Oh farewell,
Farewell the neighing Steed, and the shrill Trumpe,
The Spirit-stirring Drum, th' Eare-piercing Fife,
The Royall Banner, and all Qualitie,
Pride, Pompe, and Circumstance of glorious Warre:
And O you mortall Engines, whose rude throates
Th' immortall Ioues dread Clamours, counterfet,
Farewell: Othello's Occupation's gone.

That might have passed from memory had not Sir Edward Elgar used it as the title of his suite of marches written for the coronation of King Edward VII.

Arthur Christopher Benson later added words to Elgar’s music:

Land of Hope and Glory,
Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee,
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bounds be set,
God who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet.


SIDEBAR: Elgar--NPR program with music

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Propinquity

Not only is this a useful word, it’s fun to say. Try it aloud: propinquity. There’s something light and leaping about the experience, like a chickadee hopping from branch to branch. (Ok, so I may be in this mood because I just replenished the seed in the bird feeder.)

It comes from the Latin propinquus, near or neighboring, and it means a closeness or proximity. It has also been used to signify a nearness in time, not just distance. In addition, it can refer to kinship or to similar dispositions or belief.

Variations include propinquant (adjacent), propinquate (proximate), propinquous (close at hand), and the obsolete propinque (immediate, proximate). In sociology, researchers study the Propinquity Effect.

I was surprised and delighted to discover a rare antonym: longinquity, remoteness in space or in time. I think that’s a word that deserves to be revived. It is related to the also rare longinque (distant).

SIDEBAR: The Edge of Propinquity

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Brand New

The Bay Area Senior Advocates held their Senior Expo 2007 in Traverse City today, so I had the opportunity to see and speak to a number of listeners (Words to the Wise, AM-580, WTCM). One gentleman asked me about the phrase “brand-new,” which a vendor was using in her promotional literature. Dinner is over, so here goes some on-the-fly research.

The Oxford English Dictionary tells me that the “brand” part originally comes from the name of a piece of wood burning on the hearth. There were also literary references to the fire brands of Jove, God, Phoebus, and the Archangel that stood guard at the gates of Eden after the Fall. Flame is a dominant feature.

Later, brand referred to the mark made on livestock (or criminals!) by an iron heated in the fire, red hot like a brand of wood.

So, the underlying idea is something fresh and glowing from the fire or furnace or kiln. After a while, the burning, glowing object cools down and gets an ashy coating, but the moment it was pulled fresh from the fire, it was brand-new.

It appears in print in 1570 in John Foxe’s gloss on 2 Corinthians, v. 63: “New bodies, new minds..and all thinges new, brande-newe.”

In 1594, Shakespeare used a parallel phrase in Richard III, I. iii. 256:
[QUEEN MARGARET]
Peace, master marquess, you are malapert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
O, that your young nobility could judge
What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

SIDEBAR: brandnew, the band

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Yeah, but . . .

I don’t like to think of myself as a curmudgeon, but sometimes my nostrils quiver in indignation when someone defends a dubious usage by proclaiming, “But it’s in the dictionary!” Even though it may be, I want to retort, “Yeah, but . . .” to such simplistic reasoning.

For many years, a battle has raged between the prescriptionists, who believe that a dictionary exists to tell us what is right and must not be changed, and the descriptionists, who believe that a dictionary exists merely to tell us how words are currently being used.

I have lived long enough and studied enough to know that meanings and grammar conventions and punctuation styles are seasonal. They are not, like the Ten Commandments, set in stone. So I have no trouble lining up with the descriptionists. Dictionaries shouldn’t lay down laws that can’t possibly be enforced.

On the other hand, total perspective comes only from knowing a fuller context, from knowing what came before our own brief time. That’s why God invented the Oxford English Dictionary and founded it upon historical principles.

In brief, here’s what I’m saying: you may find a meaning or usage in a dictionary because it developed from ignorance and misunderstanding, and now it has infected large numbers of users, forcing editors to acknowledge its bastardized existence. The fact that it’s listed in a dictionary does not excuse it from its embarrassing origin, nor does it mean that a writer’s job is over after he or she has zipped through one dictionary.

Here’s a case in point. The May edition of a local magazine in northern Michigan includes this headline: “Honing in on the Great Lakes’ most mysterious shipwreck.” I know that dictionaries say it’s a variant of homing in, but it’s a variant based on earlier mishearing or ignorance, so don’t be surprised if you hear titters and snickers in the background when you use it.

Let’s check the Oxford English Dictionary for historical perspective. Back in the 10th century, a hone was a stone or a rock. By 1325, the meaning had evolved into a whetstone, a hard, fine-grained stone used for giving a sharp edge to cutting tools, including knives and razors. Finally, by the 19th century, honing was metaphorically applied to refining a skill--sharpening your wits, as it were.

Since the 10th century, home was where you lived. It referred to people for centuries, but by the 19th century, to home began to refer to pigeons that were trained to return home to the loft after being released in sport. To home in became entrenched when 20th century warfare developed weapons that could be guided to a target, either by landmarks or by a radio beacon. These weapons would home in on a target; that is, they would go home where they belonged.

The mistake to hone in doesn’t even show up in print until 1965: “Then he'd fly on past or off at an angle, his hands splayed out wide, looking back for the ball honing in to intercept his line of flight.” George Plimpton, Paper Lion.

The fact that to hone in shows up in dictionaries doesn't cancel the history and logic of to home in. Both are used, but only one betrays perspective.

SIDEBAR: International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers, Inc.

SIDEBAR: How to use a whetstone

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