Out of Whack

Jane from Traverse City asked about the phrase, out of whack. Today, it refers to a situation or machine not operating as it should. It showed up in America in the late 1800s.

Originally, a whack was a smack or a blow. The word probably arose in imitation of the sound that such a hit would make. To take a whack at something was to attempt it.

Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the English Tongue defined whack as 18^th century underworld slang meaning “a share of a booty obtained by fraud.” Hotten’s Slang Dictionary [1874] included “to go whacks,” meaning to divide equally or to enter into partnership.

Britain contributed “the full whack,” meaning the maximum price or rate. The Mafia chimed in with “to whack someone,” meaning to murder execution-style.

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

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Who Dat Which?

Larry asked about rules for using who, that, and which. There are still grammarians who insist on brutally rigid distinctions, but the fact is that relative pronouns have waxed and waned in favor over the centuries and will continue to do so.

Currently, there is one point of general agreement. Most commentators say that who should be used when speaking of humans, and which should be saved for comments about nonhumans:

The person who did this damage is in deep trouble.

The motive which prompted him is irrelevant.

Many people would write that last sentence as, “The motive that prompted him is irrelevant.” That’s where much of the contention arises. That and which are practically interchangeable in many cases; personal preference and one’s sense of euphony come into play. Just take a look at this quote from the King James Version of the Bible: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” One sentence, two choices.

One other element comes into play, and that is the distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. A restrictive clause contains necessary information: The dog that bit me is being held for tests. A nonrestrictive clause contains extra information: The dog, which is a gray Schnauzer, is being examined at Wilson Veterinary Care.

Contemporary usage seems to prefer the word that in a restrictive clause, and the word which in a nonrestrictive clause. Notice also that punctuation acts as a signal. A nonrestrictive clause is encased in commas, dashes, or parentheses. A restrictive clause does not use them.

Daily exercise that increases the heart rate is good for you.

Exercise, which should be part of your daily routine, is good for you.

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Shhhhhhhh!

Helen was rereading Longfellow’s Evangeline after decades of being out of school when she came across an unfamiliar word: “A brief uproar too feeble to ascend by so much as an infantine susurrus to the ears of the British Neptune.”

Susurrus comes from the Latin susurrare, to whisper, to mutter, or to rustle. In the context above, it would mean an almost inaudible sound from a baby.

The root gave rise to susurrate, to whisper, susurration, a murmur or whisper (early on, malicious in nature), insusurration, an insinuation whispered into one’s ear, and susurrous, of the nature of a whisper.

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Right in a Fortnight

Esther from Honor asked about the phrase, “right in a fortnight.” The meaning is rather transparent: be patient for a couple of weeks and things will turn out OK.

First, let’s deal with the word fortnight. It is a contracted form of the Old English féowertýne niht, fourteen nights. The first instance cited in the Oxford English Dictionary comes from the year 1,000. There is an allied word, sennight, that came from two Old English words: seofon, seven, and nihta, the plural of niht, night.

The phrase “right in a fortnight” is listed in a dictionary of Australian slang. It supposedly started among Aussie soldiers during WWII.

Lowell from Interlochen speculated that “right in a fortnight” came from the 16^th century Gregorian Calendar change. The change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar was necessary because after centuries of use, the Julian calendar had fallen ten days behind real time. By decree, October 4, 1582, was followed by October 15, 1582. Since fortnight first appeared in 1,000, and since the complete phrase first showed up in the 1940s, any direct connection to the calendar change is dubious.

SIDEBAR: Gregorian Calendar History

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Betta or Beta?

Bob from Glen Arbor asked about the name for a Siamese fighting fish called a beta. Bob wondered why a fish that was really an alpha, or dominant male, would be called a beta.

We got into a discussion of beta. It’s the second letter of the Greek alphabet, and it has come to represent the second in a series, a backup, or a second-generation version. It has been widely used in various sciences, and it is often applied to software that is in a test phase right before universal release.

After the show, I discovered that the preferred spelling is betta, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the Greek alphabet. Instead, it came from a Malay name, ikan bettah.

Never mind.

SIDEBAR: Betta Fish

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Tooth Skin

Ron from Duck Lake asked about the phrase, “by the skin of your teeth.” Today, it signifies a narrow escape. The idea is also encapsulated in phrases such as in the nick of time, by a hair’s breadth, by a whisker, just squeaked by, and close shave.

This is a case in which a lowly preposition makes a huge difference. Conveying the meaning a narrow escape, we find the preposition by. The original wording, however, was “with the skin of my teeth,” and it signified deprivation and reduction, paring things down to the bone, and severe loss.

It shows up in Job xix.20. If you recall, Job was a test case used by God to show Satan that a perfect and upright man would not abandon God even if beset by terrible loss. Job started out as a prosperous man with an immense household, huge herds of livestock, and a large, happy family. Everything was taken from him to test his devotion.

Some of the English versions of Job were direct translations from the Hebrew, which means that the choices made by the translator were critical. The first translation to use the preposition with was the Geneva Bible of 1560: “I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe.” This was repeated in the King James Version: "My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth."

Two other translations took a different approach using a Latin base (Jerome’s Vulgate Bible), and I think that they clarify the meaning. Wycliffe’s Bible had this: “Oneli þe lippis ben laft aboute my teeþ.” [Only the lips have been left around my teeth.] The Douay Bible of 1582 reads: "My bone hath cleaved to my skin, and nothing but lips are left about my teeth."

In other words, a severely emaciated Job had a narrow escape.

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Catch-22

Nephew Brian Sheehan asked about the term Catch-22. Catch-22 came from the 1961 novel of that name, and it appears that author Joseph Heller was the first person to use it. It refers to a no-win situation, a life-threatening obligation that one can’t escape, but I can’t find why Heller chose the number 22 instead of another. A catch is a snare or trap.

In the novel, a couple of WWII-era bombardiers are searching for a way to get out of their dangerous missions. Two airmen named Yossarian and Orr figure that a plea of insanity might do the job. They are disabused of that notion by flight surgeon Doctor Daneeka, who would have to pass on any such claim.

Heller wrote, “There was only one catch, and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and he would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.”

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

SIDEBAR: Google Books

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BLT

Jim from Elk Rapids asked a strange question: “Could you discuss the origin of the elements in a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich?” I take it that it’s not an agricultural question.

Bacon comes from a Germanic word that meant the back. Meat from the back and sides of a pig were cured by salting or by drying, thus producing bacon.

Lettuce came from a Latin word that meant milk. That may seem unlikely at first glance, but it referred to the milky juice that some varieties of lettuce will exude upon cutting.

Tomato came from a Mexican word that meant the vegetable that we know and love. In American slang, a tomato once referred to an attractive young lady. Come to think of it, lettuce and bacon (bringing home the bacon) once were slang terms for money.

SIDEBAR: Procul Harum, Bringing Home the Bacon

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One Hand Clapping

When we say that something is plausible, we mean that it is reasonable, probable, and believable. In other words, it is in the realm of the rational. The origin of the word, however, involved the realm of the emotional. It signified something that met general approval and acceptance. It was so pleasing, in fact, that it might be met with applause. The word came from the Latin plaudere, to strike or to clap the hands.

Another word that came from the same Latin verb is plaudits, an expression of approval. Again, that could well involve applause. The spelling was originally plaudite, a command that meant “give these folks a hand.” It was the customary request from actors at the end of a play in old Rome.

Two surprising words that come from the Latin word meaning clapping are explode and implode. Originally, a disapproving audience would drive an actor off the stage by hooting, shouting, and clapping so loudly that he couldn’t be heard and had to beat a hasty retreat. While explode was an outburst, implode was an inburst.

There’s an obsolete and rare word also based on plaudere that might be useful even today, especially in the stands at sporting events. The word is supplode, and it meant to stamp with the feet – to applaud underneath.

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Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me . . . ?

The Latin verb pungere, to prick or sting, produced three connected sensory words in English: pungent, piquant, and poignant.

Pungent originally referred to the kind of pain that comes from stabbing or piercing, whether literal or figurative. In the 17^th century, the additional meaning of “forcefully or trenchantly expressed” was added, soon followed by “intensely flavored.”

Piquant started off as a sharp object, especially the spine of a hedgehog. It progressed to a sharp taste, then to wounded feelings. “Fascinating or charming” eventually crept in.

Poignant took a side trip through French, which influenced the spelling. It started as a reference to taste or smell, transferred to physical pain, then settled on mental feelings: grief, regret, or despair. Along the way, sorrowful tenderness (paradoxically, a pleasurable pain) worked its way in.

Related words include compunction, expunge, punctual, puncture, and punctum.

Pun Gent: a man addicted to paronomasia.

SIDEBAR: Recipe for sauce piquant

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Giddy with Enthusiasm

Three words are linked in a curious way: swindler, giddy, and dizzy.

A swindler cheats and defrauds people for his or her personal gain. Originally, the word meant a giddy person. Giddy people were believed to indulge in flights of fancy, in gossamer schemes, in flights from reality. Eventually, the schemes were seen as nefarious, and the cheating element crept in.

At first, giddy meant possessed by spirits; that was the original explanation for insanity. There was a connection to the word god, pointing to giddiness as the result of being taken over by a god. When finally secularized, it came to mean silly or foolish. [Although it is not etymologically connected, the word enthusiasm also started out as “possessed by a god.”]

In Old English, dizzy meant foolish or stupid. In the 14^th century, the idea of vertigo was introduced. In Latin, vertigo was a whirling or turning that resulted in a loss of equilibrium.

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

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Where There's Smoke

Smoke is defined as the visible vapor given off by burning or smoldering material. The word goes back to Old English, and it was derived from Dutch, German, and Danish models.

More interesting are the words that relate to smoke in a covert way. I'm speaking about terms that usually come from Latin or Greek forms not easily recognized by most people. Let’s run through some examples.

• acapnia: diminution or deficiency of carbon dioxide in the blood. It comes from two Greek elements—a-, meaning without, and kapnos, meaning smoke.
• capnomancy: divination by observing rising or swirling smoke.
• chipotle: a dried and smoked ripe jalapeño pepper, dark reddish-brown with a strong, piquant flavor, used in Mexican cooking. Its source is the Nahuatl chil-, chilli, and poctli, smoke.
• fumacious: fond of smoking. The source is the Latin fumare, to smoke.
• fumitory: related to tobacco smoking.
• fumivorous: feeding or living on smoke, a perfect adjective for a fire fighter.
• misocapnic: opposed to tobacco smoke.
• perfume: we associate it with the aromatic mist or liquid used to mask body odor, but originally it referred to fumigation, a cleansing process using smoke.
• typhus: the infectious fever. It comes from a Greek word, typhos, that meant smoke, but another meaning of typhos, stupor, is directly related to the fever.

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Conversational Fillers

Bill asked about conversational fillers, citing if you will as an example. Every language seems to have them. In English, um, er, well, sort of, actually, basically, you know, and like are among the most common.

When they are overused, they can be well, you know, like, annoying as hell. I remember a teacher who overused surely, which he pronounced as shirley. Before his class, we would form a pool to predict the number of shirleys that would show up that day. [Leslie Nielson clip]

Sometimes fillers can be a sign of unfamiliarity with the subject, nervousness, or a challenged vocabulary, but they can also serve a useful purpose. For instance, a conversation involves two inescapable elements: give and take, send and receive, speak and listen. When we have finished a statement, our ensuing silence is a signal to the other party to respond. If we are thinking ahead and are not ready to relinquish our turn, we may use a filler to indicate that we are not finished.

Other useful roles for fillers include

• memory searches
• softening or strengthening a statement
• restating for emphasis
• expanding a thought
• switching ideas midstream
• bringing in peripheral, but connected, thoughts

So, while overuse of conversational fillers can be distracting and counterproductive, a measured use can help manage a conversation and direct the listener’s attention.

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

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Eleemosynary

This tracks back to a Greek word meaning pity. The Greek word ἐλεημοσύνη [eleemosyne], an expansion of the shorter word, meant compassionateness. The modern sense pertains to an act motivated by charity.

The word alms is inextricably bound up in the word eleemosynary. It signified a dependence on alms for survival. In Old English, alms was spelled aelmysse, making the connection with the original Greek more obvious.

The word pittance now means a very small or inadequate amount of something, but originally, it, too, was connected to the word alms. Originally, it was alms in the form of food given to monks or paupers—the product of pity.

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Nit

Jeff wrote to say that he gets the meaning of “Gotcha Journalism,” but wonders about related charges of nitpicking coming from conservative politicians.

Nitpickers are said to make a big deal out of minor issues. Lacking major complaints, they quibble over insignificant items. Originally, a nit was the egg of a parasitic insect like the louse. Later, by extension, it referred to the parasite itself.

Shakespeare used the word nit to designate an insignificant, inconsequential, and contemptible person.

• Love's Labour's Lost, iv. i. 146: “And his Page . ‥ Ah heauens, it is most patheticall nit.”
• Taming of the Shrew, iv. iii. 109: “Thou Flea, thou Nit, thou winter cricket, thou.”

Eventually, the term hit America. Humorist George Ade once wrote, “I don't read Books. I am an Intellectual Nit.”

Nit also shows up in nitwit, defined as a stupid, foolish, or idiotic person. Wit refers to the mind, the seat of cognition. The first citation mentioned in the OED is from The Los Angeles Times, 5 June 14: “After her trip to Virginia Miss Helen Morton was quoted as saying that Chicago men were ‘nit wits’.”

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Cuff

Dona asked about the word cuff, as in, “If you kids don’t knock it off, I’m going to come out there and cuff your ears.” It means to beat, strike, or buffet. The origin is labeled uncertain, but the OED reminds us of the existence of kuffen, a German criminal slang word meaning to thrash.

The other verb use is an abbreviation of handcuff, to manacle one by the wrists. The cuff involved there came from a word meaning a mitten or glove, particularly the section that covers the wrist.

Cuff also means a blow with the fist or an open hand; it shows up in fisticuff. Other unconnected noun uses include a contemptuous slang term meaning a miserly old man, a Scottish variant of scruff (the fleshy part of the back of the neck), and an abbreviation for Cuffee, a personal name.

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Without Feck

An online description for Turner Classic Movies described Rebel Without a Cause this way: “Volatile teens with feckless parents witness tragedy.” Feckless parents: you don’t see that every day.

The –less segment tells us that something is missing. What is missing is feck, described by the Oxford English Dictionary as an apparent aphetic of the word effeck, an old variant of effect, in the sense of “to become operative or to prove effective.” (Aphetic refers to the loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word.)

Feckless first referred to physical objects, and it meant valueless or futile. Applied later to human beings, it came to mean lacking vigor, energy, or capacity; weak or helpless. Feckless parents, then, would be irresponsible parents, unable or unwilling to carry out their duties.

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Austerity

Ron Jolly brought up the word austerity on last Tuesday’s program. The original Latin and Greek words were sensory words. They meant harsh to the taste, producing an astringent sourness in the mouth. The word austere, the root of austerity, referred to any substance or condition that made the tongue dry and rough.

As time went on, it could be applied to any person or situation that was harsh, stern, or rigorous. That led to the meanings self-discipline, self-restraint, and ascetic. Eventually, it settled into lack of luxury or adornment.

During World War II, it referred to the simplicity in clothing and food necessitated by rationing and a shortage of goods. Recently, we have read of riots in Greece because the government is trying to inaugurate fiscal austerity measures that will cut spending and increase taxes.

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500th Airing of Words to the Wise

The 500th airing of Words to the Wise, my weekly radio program on WTCM-AM, Traverse City, Michigan, will broadcast live at the Open Space in Traverse City during the National Cherry Festival.

The date is Tuesday, July 5, 2011, and it will air on AM-580 at the usual time -- 9:00 to 10:00 am, EST. If you are within driving distance of Traverse City, come to the Open Space to join the live audience.

Anywhere else in the world, you may listen to live streaming audio at wtcmradio.com, or you can catch the podcast at a later date and time at the same address.

This Blog Was Written By Me

Ken wrote that he is constantly annoyed by his computer’s grammar checker because it scolds him every time that he uses the passive voice in a verb. What’s the big deal, he asks.

The active voice of a verb shows that the subject is doing something: Carrie swats flies. The action moves from left to right in the sentence, a standard occurrence in English. An active voice verb is preferred because it is direct, vigorous, and less wordy.

In the passive voice, the subject is acted upon: The flies were swatted by Carrie. The action bounces from right to left, as it were, and the construction seems murky, evasive, and clunky. Politicians love the passive voice because it allows the weasels to direct attention away from themselves: Mistakes were made is less accusatory and damning than I goofed up.

Compare these examples to see why the active voice is usually better:

• (A) My dog loves rawhide. (P) Rawhide is loved by my dog.
• (A) Cars need gasoline. (P) Gasoline is needed by cars.
• (A) I hate spinach. (P) Spinach is hated by me.

However, the passive voice is not always inferior. Sometimes we need to emphasize the object instead of the subject, and sometimes we don’t even know who the subject is.

• The synagogue has been vandalized three times this year.
• In the last few years, smart phones have been purchased at a phenomenal rate.
• My new bicycle was stolen yesterday.

We could use the vague someone as subject in two of the sentences above, but that wears thin after a while. As for your grammar checker, Ken, I’d turn it off. I keep my spell checker on to catch typos, but even that isn’t perfectly programmed.

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

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