By Leaps and Bounds

Q. What is a kangaroo court?

A. There are a couple of definitions. First, it may be defined as an improperly constituted court with no legal standing whatsoever. This could occur during a prison riot when the inmates convict some of their own to death.

Second, it may be a properly constituted court that acts in an unfair, biased, and hasty way. In this sense, it goes back to the California Gold Rush. Many Australian immigrants were attracted by the promise of wealth, and they may have brought the image of a bounding kangaroo with them.

What’s at question is who was doing the leaping, jumping, or hopping. One theory says that these courts were often convened to deal with claim jumpers; hence, the name. Another theory points to the system of itinerant judges in those days. They hopped from place to place, bringing organized justice with them. In some cases, they drew their salaries from the fines imposed on the guilty, so the unscrupulous and greedy amongst them may have jumped to convenient conclusions.

The term has entered official Supreme Court records. In Williams v. United States, Associate Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "Where police take matters in their own hands, seize victims, beat and pound them until they confess, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the police have deprived the victim of a right under the Constitution. It is the right of the accused to be tried by a legally constituted court, not by a kangaroo court."

SIDEBAR: Kangaroos and more

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Opportunity Knocks

Latin mythology/theology gets a bit fuzzy at times, especially when separate gods or goddesses have overlapping duties. Take Portunus, for example. He started out as the god of keys and doors, and later of granaries. It all came about because porta meant gate or door.

A similar Latin word, portus, meant a harbor or shelter. That was originally the domain of another god, Palaemon, but over time he merged in the common mind with Portunus, no doubt because of the similarity of the two words. So Portunus evolved into the god of harbors.

This explains the origin of words such as opportune, inopportune, importune, and opportunity. Opportune, for instance, comes from the prefix ob-, toward, and Portunus, god of the harbor. A boat coming close to a harbor was about to fall under the favor of the harbor-god. Or, to go back to the root portus, it was moving toward the harbor, a good opportunity to embrace shelter.

A Christian apologist named Arnobius [284-305] made waves against the idea that pagan gods were the source of safety and protection. Here’s part of what he had to say in his Seven Books against the Heathen, III.23:

“But you will, perhaps, say that the gods are not artificers, but that they preside over these arts, and have their oversight; nay, that under their care all things have been placed, which we manage and conduct, and that their providence sees to the happy and fortunate issue of these. Now this would certainly appear to be said justly, and with some probability, if all we engage in, all we do, or all we attempt in human affairs, sped as we wished and purposed. But since every day the reverse is the case, and the results of actions do not correspond to the purpose of the will, it is trifling to say that we have, set as guardians over as, gods invented by our superstitious fancy, not grasped with assured certainty. Portunus gives to the sailor perfect safety in traversing the seas; but why has the raging sea cast up so many cruelly-shattered wrecks?”

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Coming soon from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition

Boat-Shaped

A number of words contain the element “boat-shaped.” That wouldn’t have been all that surprising centuries ago when boats were essential to travel and commerce, but boats are no longer in the ascendancy. Some of these words are quite literal, actually describing a boat, but many are based on analogy.

• cymbiform: boat-shaped. [L. cymba, boat]

• cymbocephalic: having a skull long and narrow, and, as viewed from above, somewhat boat-shaped. Also kumbo-kephalic [Gr. kumbe, boat]

• navicular: a boat-shaped bone in the ankle. [L. navis, ship]

• naviculoid: a diatom which has bilaterally symmetrical boat-shaped or spindle-shaped cells.

• naviform: boat-shaped

• scaphite: a cephalopod with a boat-shaped shell. [Gr. skaphe, boat]

• scaphocephalus: a boat-shaped head

• scaphoidal: boat-shaped; hollowed out

SIDEBAR: how shape affects speed

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Loose Change

Many of us have a change jar on our desk or on a shelf. When we empty our pockets, pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters clink into the jar to join their brethren. In time, they add up, so we wrap them in paper cylinders and take them to the bank to convert them to paper.

Over the years, a number of idioms have grown up based on small change.

• bad penny (to turn up like a): to show up at an event or a place where you are definitely not wanted.
• count your pennies: pay attention to small details if you want your affairs to be in order.
• in for a penny, in for a pound: a show of determination that no mattter what the cost, you are going to stay the course.
• not have a red cent: totally bankrupt. The red referred to the collar of copper used in the coin.
• not have two pennies to rub together: again, to be totally bankrupt.
• pennies from heaven: an unexpected benefit, probably a reflection of the biblical manna from heaven.
• penny dropped, (the): a thought finally impinged on one’s consciousness. Probably a reference to a slot machine or a gumball machine; the money drops and finally hits home.
• penny for your thoughts: an indirect way of saying, “what are you thinking about?”
• penny-pinching: being a most careful steward of your money; you hold it in a tight grip.
• penny saved is a penny earned: even small amounts begin to add up if you spend nothing as money comes in.
• penny wise and pound foolish: you pay attention to small monetary matters, but are careless about larger expenses.
• pretty penny, (that’ll cost you a): the price will be high.
• put in my two cents’ worth: give your opinion. It has apparent elements of self-deprecation, but may actually represent false modesty.
• don’t take any wooden nickels: don’t let yourself be cheated or scammed; real nickels are metal.
• nickel and dime someone: to add on small charges that, in time, begin to be significant or, at least, annoying.
• not worth a plugged nickel: worthless. A plug was a hole made in a coin and filled with a baser metal. Defaced currency would not be accepted as legal tender.
• dime a dozen, a: cheap and readily available. Each item would cost less than a cent.
• drop the dime: to betray someone. A dime was the price of a pay-phone call to the local police precinct.
• get off the dime: to spring into action, especially after a period of lethargy.
• stop/turn on a dime: to come to a halt/change direction very quickly.

SIDEBAR: The United States Mint

SIDEBAR: Market Value of American Coins

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Coming soon from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition

Laugh and the World Laughs with You

Dour, unsmiling, mirthless: this describes an agelast, one who never laughs. It’s a great word, and it comes to us from the Greek verb gelaein, to laugh, plus the negative particle a-, not. Some other English words denoting laughter come from the Latin verb ridere, to laugh, which gave us the roots rid- and ris-.

• gelasin: a dimple in the cheek, produced by smiling.
• gelastic: serving the function of laughter; risible
• gelophobia: fear of laughter
• hypergelast: excessive laugher
• rident: radiantly cheerful
• ridibundal: inclined to laughter
• risible: given to laughter
• risorial: risible
• risus: an involuntary grin resulting from a morbid condition
• subrident: smiling

Shakespearean joke:

Macbeth is standing watch on a castle parapet at Dunsinane when a messenger rushes in, breathless and with a look of abject fear on his face.

Macbeth demands, “What is it, man? Tell thy story quickly.”

The messenger points a shaky finger at the field below and says,” Cheese it--the copse!”


SIDEBAR: The Stress Management and Health Benefits of Laughter

SIDEBAR: How Laughter Works

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Hesthographomania

Q. I live in an area rife with tourists. A walk along Front Street will take you past many stores selling T-shirts and caps with town slogans on them. My question is, is there a word for this touristy compulsion to buy and wear clothing emblazoned with place names?

A. My personal favorite is, “If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?” but the Chamber of Commerce isn’t amused. I’m not aware of any such word, but why not make one up?

My Word Parts Dictionary lists -mania as a compulsion or craving, grapho- as a term for marking or printing, and hestho- as a word part meaning clothing or dress. So get out there in conversation and in writing and promote the word hesthographomania: a touristy compulsion to buy and wear clothing emblazoned with place names.

If you manage to get it in print, please let me know.

SIDEBAR: U. S. Department of State Travel Warnings

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Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

A couple of seed catalogs have arrived in the mail, signifying that even though we still have a couple of feet of snow covering the lawn here in northern Michigan, spring is not impossibly far away. That turned my thoughts to the names of blooming trees and flowers, many of which are poems on a stalk.

➢ ACACIA: the OED says that it may come from a Greek word meaning “pointed,” in reference to its thorns. A web site featuring flower names
guesses that it comes from a Greek word meaning “not bad.” Faint praise, indeed.
➢ AMARYLLIS comes from a Greek word meaning to sparkle, and it was the stock name given to a rustic girl in some works of Theocritus, Ovid, and Virgil.
➢ ANEMONE comes from a Greek word meaning “daughter of the wind.”
➢ AZALEA comes from a Greek word meaning dry, either from the dry soil in which it flourishes, or from its dry brittle wood.
➢ CARNATION: Some say that it is a corruption of coronation because the flowers were sometimes used to make wreaths for the head. Others think that it refers to flesh color.
➢ CHRYSANTHEMUM comes from two Greek words that mean “gold flower.”
➢ DAISY, in Old English form, meant “day’s eye.” It closed at night and opened in the morning. It always struck me as a happy little flower, so I’m not sure why that flower was chosen for push up the daisies, under the daisies, and to turn your toes up to the daisies, all references to death.
➢ GLADIOLUS comes from a Latin word meaning little sword; it had sword-shaped leaves.
➢ HYACINTH has a somewhat obscure origin. The Greeks said it was the name of a youth loved by Apollo. When Hyacynthus was accidentally killed, flowers sprang up from his blood.
➢ IRIS was the Greek goddess who acted as the messenger of the gods, and her sign was the rainbow.
➢ LAVENDER: Some commentators think that it was related to a word that meant laundered linen, but the OED throws cold water on that theory. Another speculation is that it derived from a word that meant livid or bluish.
➢ MARIGOLD: Another word with an obscure origin. Literally, it means “Mary’s gold flower,” Mary being the Blessed Mother. German and Flemish legends speak of her cutting her finger by accident and staining the edges of the flower, or alternatively, spilling her tears on the flower.
➢ NARCISSUS was the gorgeous youth who fell in love with his own reflection in a fountain. When he pined away and died, a flower sprang up on the spot, according to Ovid.
➢ ORCHID means testicles in a wide range of languages: Greek, Avestan, Old Irish, Armenian, Albanian, and Lithuanian, so it stands up to close scrotiny. The image probably refers to the flower’s root, which features paired tubers.
➢ PEONY comes from Paean, the physician of the gods. [Immortals could catch a cold?] The lowercase paean is a song or chant properly directed to Apollo under the name Paean.
➢ POSY is a variant of poesy, a poetic composition, from the Greek verb “to construct.”
➢ RHODODENDRON: From two Greek words, it literally means rose tree.
➢ ROSEMARY comes from the Latin ros marinus, sea-dew, possibly because it grew near the sea.
➢ TULIP is related to the Persian word for turban, which the tulip was thought to resemble when open.

SIDEBAR: Burpee Seed Catalog

SIDEBAR: The Gardener’s Network

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Coming soon from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition

Bacteria: The Only Culture That Some People Have

The combining form -culture, found in words such as agriculture or horticulture, comes from a Latin word meaning to raise, rear, or develop. It signifies supervised and promoted growth.

There are some interesting words fashioned from that combining form. Let’s look at a few of them.

• apiculture: raising bees
• aviculture: raising birds
• boviculture: raising cattle
• hirudiniculture: raising leeches
• ostreiculture: raising oysters
• pecudiculture: raising cattle
• pisciculture: raising fish
• pomiculture: raising fruit
• sericiculture: raising silkworms
• silviculture: raising trees
• vermiculture: raising worms
• viniculture: raising grapes
• viticulture: raising grapevines

The form is also used metaphorically, as in homiculture (developing mankind), menticulture (developing the mind), pluviculture (rainmaking), puericulture (raising children), and urbiculture (developing cities).

SIDEBAR: culture shock

SIDEBAR: Culture Club

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Bad Donkey!

[Fuseli: Nightmare]

From the Greek word kakos, bad, we have inherited our combining form caco-, (bad, depraved, evil, putrid, etc. ) I remember chanting kakos onos! in my high school sophomore Greek class. Literally, it meant “bad beast of burden.” But to us, it meant “bad ass.”

Aside from the word cacophony (dissonance, harsh sound), we don’t use many of these words in ordinary conversation, but they can be useful.

• cachomyny: unhealthy state of the humors of the body
• cacodemon: evil spirit; nightmare
• cacodorous: ill-smelling
• cacodoxy: bad doctrine
• cacœconomy: bad management or fiscal policy
• cacoëpy: faulty pronunciation
• cacoethes: bad habit; a compulsive proclivity to do something
• cacography: wretched handwriting
• cacology: vicious pronunciation
• caconym: bad terminology
• cacosphyxy: irregular pulse
• cacotrophy: disordered nutrition
• cacotype: an imperfect description in writing

SIDEBAR: Cacophony, the band

SIDEBAR: El Caco

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Wolf At The Door

The title phrase now refers to hunger. It appears in the saying, “to keep the wolf from the door” (to stave off starvation), and it’s been with us since the 15th century. I live in Michigan, known as the Wolverine State, and it turns out that wolverine is based on the Teutonic wolv, a wolf.

Wolf shows up in a number of folk phrases: a wolf in sheep’s clothing, to wolf down your food, to cry wolf, to have a wolf by the ears, lone wolf, to run with the wolves, to throw someone to the wolves, and to be in the wolf’'s mouth.

It is tucked away in a number of words. Loup garou was an early term for a werewolf. The same idea is found in the word lycanthropy; the wolfman is a lycanthrope. The adjective lupine means having the characteristics of a wolf. Lycodont (wolf tooth) is the name given to a particular snake, simply because it has canine-like teeth. Lycoperdon (which came up in an earlier posting) is a fungus puffball; it means wolf fart. The obsolete word lycophosed (wolf light) meant keen-sighted. Lycopodium (wolf foot) is a moss that has a claw shape.


SIDEBAR: International Wolf Center

SIDEBAR: The Chicago Wolves

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Bruschetta

Bruschetta is a traditional Italian dish. It is nothing more than toasted peasant-style bread slathered with extra-virgin olive oil and garlic. There are many variations; most Americans have encountered the tomato/basil version.

The etymology is quite interesting. The name comes from an Italian word that meant "to roast over coals." In turn, that came from a 13th century verb that meant “to pass a flame over the keel of a boat in order to melt the pitch and improve waterproofing.” Ancient methods of waterproofing included bitumen, wax mixed with moss, and resin, so bringing a flame near the keel would melt the caulking material, thus spreading it more deeply into the cracks and joints. If I brought a firebrand that close to a wooden boat, I’d have a scapho-conflagration.

If you go to this web site, you’ll find some recipes from Mario Batali that give variations on bruschetta: white bean bruschettta, ceci bean bruschetta, tomato basil bruschetta, and mackerel bruschetta, among others.

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Imprecation

Dan from Cincinnati asked about the word imprecation. It’s generally used as a synonym for a curse; you’re calling down evil upon an enemy. It seems to have been formed from the verb to imprecate, which is not quite as clear-cut: imprecate means both to pray for something positive and to call down evil upon a person.

The source is the Latin precari, to pray, plus the prefix im-, which is a form of in-, in or upon. So to imprecate is to call in the aid of a deity. The one making the request is the imprecator, and he’s behaving in an imprecatory manner.

Precation seems to be more positive and benign: it means prayer, supplication, or entreaty. In grammar, precative refers to a verb that expresses entreaty or a request. In law, the words in a will that express the wish that a particular action be taken are precatory.

To deprecate is to pray for deliverance from evil. Outside the arena of prayer, it means to express strong disapproval of a plan of action. Deprecation is both a prayer for averting evil and an expression of feeling against a practice.

The Oxford English Dictionary points out that the phrase self-deprecating (putting oneself down) is widely considered incorrect; it should be self-depreciating, says the OED. But it’s not quite that simple; experts line up on both sides. Bryan Garner (Modern American Usage) concludes, “However grudgingly, we must accord to [self-deprecating] the status of Standard English.” Merriam-Webster’s Concise Dictionary of English Usage points out that self-deprecation is now the more common term, having supplanted the earlier self-depreciation.

SIDEBAR: Imprecation, the death metal band

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That'll Be Three Bucks, Please

This question came up on my show recently: why do we call a dollar a buck, or multiple dollars, bucks?

The Oxford English Dictionary plumps for origin uncertain. The American Heritage Dictionary says that it comes from buckskin, once an article important in trade. Having perused a historical document recently, I tend to side with AHD.

The document is the Journal of Conrad Weiser, Esq., an early Pennsylvania settler of Germanic descent who learned various Indian languages and acted as a translator and treaty maker for many years. The journal entry for September 17, 1748, has him speaking to a tribe settled in for the hunting season on the Ohio River:

“Brethren: You have of late made frequent Complaints against the Traders bringing so much Rum to your Towns, & desir'd it might be stop't; & your Brethren the President & Council made an Act accordingly & put a stop to it, & no Trader was to bring any Rum or strong Liquor to your Towns. I have the Act here with me & shall explain it to You before I leave you; But it seems it is out of your Brethren's Power to stop it entirely. You send down your own Skins by the Traders to buy Rum for you. You go yourselves & fetch Horse loads of strong Liquor. But the other Day an Indian came to this Town out of Maryland with 3 Horse loads of Liquor, so that it appears you love it so well that you cannot be without it. You know very well that the Country near the endless Mountain affords strong Liquor, & the moment the Traders buy it they are gone out of the Inhabitants & are travelling to this Place without being discover'd; besides this, you never agree about it- one will have it, the other won't (tho' very few), a third says we will have it cheaper; this last we believe is spoken from your Hearts (here they Laughed). Your Brethren, therefore, have order'd that every ________ of Whiskey shall be sold to You for 5 Bucks in your Town, & if a Trader offers to sell Whiskey to You and will not let you have it at that Price, you may take it from him & drink it for nothing.”

Gave a Belt.

“Brethren: Here is one of the Traders who you know to be a very sober & honest Man; he has been robbed of the value of 300 Bucks, & you all know by whom; let, therefore, Satisfaction be made to the Trader.”

Gave a String of Wampum.

Given the context, there is no doubt that the deer skins used to buy rum are later called bucks, an abbreviation for buckskins. And in an earlier, unconnected treaty [Treaty of Savannah, 1733], we find these equivalents for trade: “One Blue Duffel Blanket, three Buckskins or Six Doeskins.” So bucks were worth twice the value of does.

Another caller also brought up “to pass the buck,” (to avoid responsibility) a saying decisively nipped in the bud by Harry Truman’s “the buck stops here.” Again, the AHD shows more certainty than the OED. It declares that this buck referred to a buckhorn knife, which was passed from player to player in a certain type of poker. The person holding the knife dealt that hand, rather than having a house dealer who would deal every hand.

SIDEBAR: Pearl S. Buck

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Snitch

Ed from Alden, Michigan, called during Tuesday’s show to ask where the word snitch--meaning an informant--came from. In my misbegotten youth, we used it the same way, but we also used it in the sense to steal something. The Oxford English Dictionary gives a confirming citation from the N.Y. Times, 6 June 1904, 9: “They reached Coney Island by snitching rides.”

Unfortunately, when it comes to the informant who turns state’s evidence against a confrere, the OED slaps on the obscure origin label. But I think we can pick out some tight connections even if we can’t sniff out the origin.

Snitch started life meaning a fillip on the nose. An early citation is Elisha Coles, An English Dictionary, 1676: “Snitch . . . a fillip.” It might be a good idea to define fillip at this point: “A movement made by bending the last joint of a finger against the thumb and suddenly releasing it (so as to propel some small object, or merely as a gesture); a smart stroke or tap given by this means.” [OED]

By 1700, snitch meant the nose itself. B.E., Gentleman, A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew: “Snite his Snitch, Wipe his Nose, or give him a good Flap on the Face.”

By 1785, we have arrived at snitch, an informer who turns King’s or Queen’s evidence. It is thus defined in Francis Grose’s A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

So we see a straight line of development from a fillip on the nose to an informant. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the word nose itself had a related slang meaning: “a spy or informer, especially for the police” [OED]. Francis Grose defines it that way in his A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue [1785].

So this much is clear: snitch and nose were synonyms, and both shared the slang meaning of an informant. I notice that the phrase “to thrust one’s nose into someone else’s business” has a citation dating back to 1611. I have no direct proof, but making a connection between that and the word snitch does not seem to stretch things beyond credulity.

SIDEBAR: The Snitch: Harry Potter site

SIDEBAR: PBS Frontline: Snitch

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Silent But Deadly

Warning: this entry contains a word that the staid Oxford English Dictionary labels as “not in decent use.”

I know that some people consider etymology the second most dismal science, but every once in a while, a revelation bursts forth. This happened to me yesterday as I looked up a word. The word was the seemingly innocent partridge.

Partridges are members of the pheasant family. They eat insects, berries, and seeds, and they nest on the ground. Weighing less than a pound, they can run very quickly, which saves them from many a predator.

Then came the shocker: the name derived from a Greek verb, perdesthai, which, from antiquity, has meant “to fart.” It’s not so much that this particular bird is prone to flatulence. Rather, it refers to the noise made by the bird as it flies away. That has to be some takeoff.

Intrigued, I decided to do a wild card search on etymologies containing break wind, fart, and flatulence. That’s when a second surprise erupted.

The German district of Westphalia was known for its pumpernickel, a coarse black bread not always fully appreciated. In fact, in early modern German, pumper meant fart. As the Oxford English Dictionary delicately puts it, “this type of bread was probably so called either on account of its being difficult to digest and causing flatulence, or in a more general allusion to its hardness and poor quality.”

Hidden farts also lurk in lycoperdon (wolf’s fart), a fungus puffball, Onopordon (donkey fart), a genus of thistles, pedicule (small fart), a louse, and poop, from a German verb meaning to fart.

Now I can’t wait to have a partridge sandwich on pumpernickel. Pass the Beano®, please.


SIDEBAR: Partridge recipe

SIDEBAR: Brontofart: dinosaurs and methane

SIDEBAR: The Partridge Family

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Lost in Translation

I’ve always found it amusing that the family name Perdue in Perdue Farms, a huge purveyor of chicken, probably comes from the French word meaning lost. You come through our coops, chickie, and you’re dead meat. This in spite of the disclaimer found on their web site:

“Perdue Farms and our farm-family partners share a belief that it is our responsibility to treat the animals in our care with respect.” [Poultry Welfare]

But I digress. As a root, -perd- came from a Latin word meaning to destroy or lose; in turn, that came from the Greek of the same meaning. It later morphed into the spiritual sense of moral corruption and ruin, even becoming a substitute word for hell.

Aside from the familiar perdition, the root showed up in a number of words.

• deperdition: loss, waste, destruction by wasting away.
• disperdition: an undoing.
• imperdible: unable to be lost or destroyed.
• ligniperdous: wood-destroying.
• officiperd: the throwing away of one's labor.
• perdido: a person who is considered lost; a desperate or depraved person; a dead person.
• perdifoil: a plant that loses its leaves annually; a deciduous plant.
• perdite: debauched, abandoned, wicked.
• perditious: damnable, pernicious. Also in weakened sense: harmful, undesirable.

SIDEBAR: Pain Perdu: French toast the Cajun way

SIDEBAR: Sons of Perdition

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Speak the Speech, I Pray You . . . .

-LOQUY [L. loqui, to speak]

In the 16th and 17th centuries, there was an outbreak of words ending in -loquy, from the Latin loqui, to speak. At the time, they were deemed necessary to name various forms of discourse, but most of them dropped away over the centuries--colloquy and soliloquy being glaring exceptions. I’m not a charter member of the Antiquarian Society, but some of those terms might be worth reviving.

We’ve all heard speakers drift away from the point, politicians among them. This was known as alieniloquy. Its kissing-cousin was ambiloquy, “discourse of doubtful meaning,” as Bailey politely expressed it. And we’ve watched Presidential candidates as they gleefully point out contradictions in their opponent’s stand, a clear case of antiloquy and obloquy. Of course, when they twist the truth, we’re in the presence of tortiloquy.

Less grandiloquy and magniloquy (protracted and inflated speech) should be the norm. Let’s have more plain and blunt language; let’s have some planiloquy. Or, for that matter, what about some pleasant talk for a change: let’s hear it for dulciloquy and suaviloquy. Above all, avoid foolish babbling (stultiloquy) and boasting (vaniloquy).

A few other words in this category are worth mentioning. Actors depended on cues spoken by other actors to know when to begin their lines; this was called anteloquy. The beginning of a speech was the archiloquy. Tardiloquy was very slow speech, and dentiloquy was the grating habit of speaking through your teeth.

Time for me to take a nap. Remember, I’m not responsible for anything that I mutter in my sleep (somniloquy).


SIDEBAR: Bailey’s Dictionary

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A Psephologist Goes Mano a Mano

Political consultant Peter Fenn appeared on CNN Wednesday afternoon (1/30/08) and spoke about the Democratic debate set for Thursday night (1/ 31/08). He noted that it will be down to two major candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Referring to the expected tussle, he said “It will be mano against . . .well . . . not mano.” At least he didn’t say womano.

Nay, nay, Mr. Fenn. Mano a mano does not mean man to man, a mistake appearing far too frequently these days. Rather, it means hand to hand, and it comes to us from the Spanish, which borrowed it from the Latin manus (as in manual labor). Two women can fight mano a mano. This atrocity belongs in the Museum of the Misused, along with thinking that “begging the question” is the same as “raising the question” or “asking the question.” It ain’t.

And now for something completely different. Mr. Fenn might be called a psephologist.

The ancient Athenians used to vote by putting a pebble in a ballot box of their choice. The Greek word for pebble was psephos, and that has led to several English terms.

• psephism: a decree enacted by a vote of a public assembly, especially that of ancient Athens.
• psephocracy: the form of government which results from the election of representatives by ballot; the system of government by elected representatives.
• psephocrat: an adherent or advocate of government by elected representatives.
• psephograph: a machine used for the automatic recording of votes. It was invented in the early 20th century by a young Italian, Signor Boggiano, to thwart ballot box stuffing.
• psephologist: a political scientist who specializes in the study of elections; an analyst or forecaster of voting statistics and trends. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that Dr. David Butler, of Oxford University, invented the term in jest in 1952 on the suggestion of R.B. McCallum. ‘Taint funny, McGee.
• psephology: the study of public elections; statistical analysis of trends in voting; the prediction of electoral results based on analysis of sample polls, voting patterns, etc.

In closing, I should mention that a few -pseph- words have nothing to do with voting.

• Psephite is a coarse-grained rock.
• There was an ancient custom of assigning numerical values to letters. Two words that added up to the same sum were called isopsephic: equal in numeric value. There was mystical meaning behind the process. [See abraxis]
• Psephomancy was divination accomplished by drawing a number of small marked pebbles from a jar, then interpreting their meaning. This was also known as lithomancy and pessomancy.

SIDEBAR: Psephos Election Archive

SIDEBAR: The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show

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In a Dither

If you have access to the Blondie comic strip, you are familiar with Mr. Dithers, Dagwood’s boss. Since to dither means to act indecisively, to waver between different courses of action, the name doesn’t quite fit the character. Julius Dithers knows exactly what he wants: more work from his employees for less pay.

Dither originally meant “to tremble, quake, quiver, or thrill.” It later developed the meaning “to confuse, perplex, or make nervous,” and Mr. Dithers certainly has that effect on poor Dagwood.

Dither is related to the word dodder, as in doddering old fool, a nasty reference to someone who shakes in frailty or has a tottering gait.

In computer graphics, dithering is the process of juxtaposing pixels of two colors to create the illusion that a third color is present. This reduces the number of colors needed to render a picture, and it speeds up the loading time. Dithering is also a term used by audio engineers.

SIDEBAR: Graphics: dithering

SIDEBAR: Dither fish

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From the Trenches

  I am reading once again David Crystal’s The Stories of English, and when I came to a check mark in the margin on page 72, I found a word that had caught my eye before. It appears in this sentence: “And a whole new tranche of Danish words would become fashionable.”

The word tranche comes to us from the French, where it means to cut or slice. In the context above, it would be defined as a block or a set. In the world of investing, tranche is used to describe a security that can be split up into smaller pieces and subsequently sold to investors. As appearance and origin would suggest, it is related to the word trench.

Trench has taken on a few meanings through the centuries. Chaucer used it to designate a path winding through the woods. We use it to name a ditch. In military use, the long ditch sits behind a mound of dirt thrown from the excavation in order to protect soldiers from enemy fire. That’s where the garment called the trench coat received its name, as did the maladies trench fever, trench foot, and trench mouth. And, in the 16th century, it referred to horse colic.

A trencher was a wooden plate on which meat was placed and cut up, so there is a connection to the words above. Also related is truncheon and truncate/truncation.

SIDEBAR: the deepest ocean trench

SIDEBAR: The Tranche Project

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Something FISHY Going On

Since so many of our words developed from Greek and Latin terms, it is predictable that we often have two roots expressing the same concept. For instance, in Greek the word for fish is ichthus, and we find many words in English reflecting that spelling.

• ichthus: A stylized representation of a fish in profile, consisting of a pointed oval extended by two lines at one end (representing a tail), used as symbol for Jesus Christ or Christianity. [Click here]
• ichthyic: Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of fish; having the zoological characters of a fish.
• ichthyolatry: fish-worship, the worship of a fish-god, as Dagon.
• ichthyology: The natural history of fish as a branch of zoology.
• ichthyomancy: Divination by means of the heads or entrails of fishes.
• ichthyophagy: The practice of eating fish.
• ichthyopolist: A seller of fish, a fishmonger.
• icthyosaurus: A genus of extinct marine animals, combining the characters of saurian reptiles and of fish with some features of whales, and having an enormous head, a tapering body, four paddles, and a long tail.
• ichthyosis: A congenital disease of the skin in which the epidermis becomes thickened and assumes a dry and horny appearance. (Also called fish-skin disease and porcupine disease.)
• osteichthyan: Of, relating to, or designating the bony fishes (class Osteichthyes); characteristic of fishes of this class.
• palaeoichthyologist | paleoichthyologist: A palaeontologist who specializes in extinct and fossil fish.

In Latin, the word for fish is piscis, so we find words containing the -pisc- root.

• expiscate: To “fish out”; hence, to find out by scrutiny.
• piscary: The right to fish in a particular body of water; a fishing right.
• piscation: Fishing.
• piscatology: The study or practice of fishing.
• piscatory: A literary work portraying the lives of fishermen or anglers.
• piscicide: The killing or slaughter of fish.
• piscicle: A small fish.
• pisciculture: The artificial or controlled breeding and rearing of fish; fish farming.
• pisciform: Shaped like a fish; taking the form of a fish.
• piscine: Of or relating to fish; of the nature of or characteristic of a fish or fishes.
• piscivororous: Fish-eating; ichthyophagous.
• piscose: Of a taste: fishy.
• pisculent: Full of fish; that may be fished.

SIDEBAR: Go Fish

SIDEBAR: Save the Fish game

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Snow Place for the Frigid

Just like the Wolf Man each month during a full moon, the myth that the Inuit have hundreds of words for snow--unlike any other group--keeps popping up.

If you’re tempted to believe the myth, I recommend Geoffrey K. Pullum’s 1999 book, The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language. [ ISBN: 978-0-226-68534-2 or ISBN-10: 0-226-68534-9 ]

I thought of this as I was trudging along behind my snow thrower today. It occurred to me that English is no slouch when it comes to snow terms, especially if you live in the northern states. Aside from all the compound variations of the word snow--including attached descriptive adjectives--we have frost, sleet, ice, slush, powder, blizzard, dusting, flurry, hardpack, sneet, and so on.

And, of course, there are the hidden snow terms, thanks to Latin and Greek roots. Greek gives us chion-, and Latin chimes in with niv- and the occasional ninguid-. In fact, we once used the word ninguid to mean “covered with snow.”

• There is a mineral named chiolite that sports white translucent crystals.
• Chionodoxa is a plant with blue flowers, but because it blooms very early, it is called “glory of the snow.”
• One species of hedychium (“sweet snow”) has fragrant white flowers.
• Nival means snowy, resembling snow; formed from or in snow.
• Nivated: produced or affected by nivation. [see next]
• Nivation: erosion of the ground beneath and at the sides of a snow bank undergoing seasonal melting, resulting in the formation of a shallow depression.
• Niveous: snowy, resembling snow; white and lustrous like snow.
• Nivose: The fourth month of the French Republican calendar (introduced in 1793), extending from 21 December to 19 January.
• Nivosity: snowiness; a resemblance to snow.
• Nixious: snowy. *The Oxford English Dictionary points out that this is an interesting exception to a general trend. Normally, words are formed from the genitive stem [nivis] rather than from the nominative singular [nix].
• Transnivean: being or living beyond the snows.

SIDEBAR: All about snow

SIDEBAR: McFly--Let It Snow

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Muddying the Waters

Nancy and Gifford Torbenson of South Bend, Indiana, ask whether the saying “your name is mud” is connected with Dr. Samuel Mudd, the physician who treated John Wilke Booth’s broken leg after Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln. That’s a story that’s been going around for a while.

The thing to notice immediately is that the concept existed before Dr. Mudd was convicted of conspiracy. In other words, the saying did not arise from his predicament. Some would argue that his name intensified the cliché, but that’s not something that can be proved. Mud is not Mudd.

Aside from its literal meaning, mud has been used figuratively since 1563 to represent something regarded as base, worthless, or polluting. It later developed the meaning of dregs--the lowest or worse part of something. By the 19th century, it also signified a dolt, an idiot.

Jon Bee, nom de plume of author John Badcock, defined the epithet this way in his 1823 Slang, A Dictionary of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase: “Mud, a stupid twaddling fellow. ‘And his name is mud!’ ejaculated upon the conclusion of a silly oration, or of a leader in the Courier.”

Today, if your name is mud, you are discredited and in disgrace. Your name has been dragged through the mud and you are the victim of merciless mudslingers. Dirty work, this.

SIDEBAR: Muddy Waters

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Make Yourself Useful

A couple of matched roots are used to declare that something is useful. The Greek chresto- means useful, as does the Latin util-.

• chrestomathic: Devoted to the learning of useful matters. [Greek chrestos, useful + matheia, learning]
• chrestomathy: A collection of choice passages from an author or authors, esp. one compiled to assist in the acquirement of a language. [Greek chrestos, useful + matheia, learning]
• inutile: Useless; of no service; unprofitable. [Latin in-, not + utilis, useful]
• ophelimity: The capacity to satisfy a need, desire, or want. [Greek ophelimos, useful, serviceable]
• panchreston: An explanation or theory which can be made to fit all cases, being used in such a variety of ways as to become meaningless. [Greek pan-, all + chrestos, useful]
• polychrest: A thing adapted to several different uses. Now esp.: a homoeopathic drug used to treat a variety of diseases. [Greek poly, many + chrestos, useful]
• proficuous: Profitable; beneficial, useful. [Latin proficuus, useful]
• sideroachrestic: A form of hypochromic anemia in which impaired synthesis of hemoglobin renders treatment with iron useless. [Greek sideros, iron + a-, not + chrestos, useful]
• utility: The fact, character, or quality of being useful or serviceable; fitness for some desirable purpose or valuable end. [Latin utilis, useful]

SIDEBAR: Useless Information

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Bearding the Lion

The word beard has many diverse meanings. As an American slang term of the 1950s, it came to mean a front man, someone who would conceal the real identity of the person placing a bet on a horse race, for instance--especially if the bettor was the trainer.

These days, a beard is a companion of the opposite sex who helps hide the reality that one party is gay. I’ve also seen it used for a person who acts as a smoke screen to hide the fact that his married buddy is having an affair.

Well, the tables are turned, because it’s surprising how many words are bearding for beard. Let’s look at some examples that derive from the Latin barba, beard, and the Greek term for the same, pogon.

• barb: a beard-like appendage in various animals; e.g. feathers under the beak of a hawk (obs.), the wattles of a cock (obs.), a slender fleshy appendage hanging from the corners of the mouth of some fishes, such as the barbel and fishing-frog.
• barbate: bearded or tufted.
• barbellate: furnished with short, stiff hairs.
• barber: a person who shaves or trims beards and cuts hair.
• barbigerous: bearded.
• rebarbative: repellant, forbidding, unpleasant.
• pogoniasis: growth of beard by a woman; excessive beard growth, generally.
• pogonic: relating to a beard.
• pogonologist: a person who studies or writes about beards (pogonology).
• pogonotomy: shaving.
• Tragopogon: the plant Goat’s-beard. [Trag- is also used in tragedy: Goat Song]

By the way, bearding the lion, meaning to confront danger directly, comes from I Samuel 17:34-35: “And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock. And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered [it] out of his mouth; and when he arose against me, I caught [him] by his beard, and smote him, and slew him.”

SIDEBAR: The Beards [Lisa Marr]

SIDEBAR: The Beards [Hillbilly Italian Spaghetti Roots and Blues]

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