World Wide Words -- 09 Jul 05
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Jul 8 17:43:43 UTC 2005
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 448 Saturday 9 July 2005
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Sent each Saturday to 23,000+ subscribers in at least 120 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Urban gaming.
3. Recently noted.
4. Weird Words: Fustilugs.
5. Q&A: Over the moon.
6. Sic!
A. E-mail contact addresses.
B. Subscription information.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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SIMOLEON As a further note on the origins of this term, discussed
two weeks ago, Laurie Bamford suggests that the reason the English
sixpence, a small silver coin, was nicknamed a simon was because of
the famous seventeenth-century engraver at the London Mint, Thomas
Simon. The Dictionary of National Biography says of him: "Simon's
outstanding achievement was to bring together exquisite artistry
and technology at the mint."
DEEP-FRIED MARS BAR My comment last week that this was a Glasgow
speciality raised dissenting shouts among the people of Stonehaven,
who believe it was first prepared in The Haven chip shop in that
town in 1995, though some hold that the true and original source is
the Bervie Chipper in nearby Inverbervie. Whatever its origins, it
has been widely copied - David Morrison and Mark Pettigrew, health
professionals in Glasgow, wrote to the Lancet in December last year
to say that they had thought the dish was an urban legend because
they had never seen one, but had found to their horror that 22% of
Scotland's fish-and-chip shops sold this calorie-ridden and fatty
snack, some more than 200 a week.
2. Turns of Phrase: Urban gaming
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In the USA, this term most frequently refers to the controversial
issue of casinos being operated by Native Americans within cities.
But it has recently started to refer to a different sort of game,
one which combines computer technology with the actual geography of
a town. One game in London is called Uncle Roy All Around You, in
which players use handheld computers to search for Uncle Roy, aided
by a map and by incoming messages from online players who help them
to reach their destination. The games firm Hasbro is setting up
another, also in London, that uses specially equipped taxis to play
an interactive, virtual-reality Monopoly game in the real locations
of the British version of the board (though putting a hotel on 10
Downing Street might pose problems). In a related case, researchers
in Singapore have created a version of the arcade game PacMan that
superimposes the game world on to the real environment by means of
special goggles and headsets. Players move about a set play area to
collect the little energy pills, which they can see through their
interactive goggles, all the while being chased by "ghosts" who can
"kill" them if they catch them. This version of the idea builds on
a virtual-reality concept called augmented reality, but it's not
likely to prove practical until electronic locating systems can be
made much more accurate.
* From the New Scientist, 11 Jun. 2005: He also happens to be a
pioneer of a new social phenomenon, urban gaming. If you thought
the computer games of the 21st century are only ever played by
couch potatoes addicted to the new generation of Xbox, Nintendo or
PlayStation consoles, you'd be mistaken. For urban gamers are
harnessing the power of global positioning systems (GPS), high-
resolution screens and cameras and the latest mobile phones to play
games across our towns and cities, where they become spies, vampire
slayers, celebrities and even Pac-Man.
3. Recently noted
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SOUS-SHERPA The G8 summit in Gleneagles has resulted in this term
of the diplomatic trade popping briefly into wider public view. A
splendid amalgam of French and Tibetan, it was created in French
and means "under-helper". It refers to the permanent officials and
experts of nations who are preparing to hold a summit meeting, who
work behind the scenes to give advice and prepare position papers.
The most senior officials are sherpas, who hold regular meetings in
the period before a summit meeting. Each is supported by a number
of sous-sherpas and by even more lowly assistants called sous-sous-
sherpas. A report in an American newspaper in 1997 remarked that:
"Like the guides who carry packs of supplies up the Himalayas, the
sherpas for each country do the heavy lifting all year to prepare
the economic and political communiques and statements for the
meetings." The term goes back at least to 1990.
4. Weird Words: Fustilugs
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A grossly fat or slovenly woman.
In those moments when only insults will do, how good it is to turn
to the inventive but unsung genius of everyday folk, whose local
dialect is so often full of expressive abuse. This one still has
some small currency, mostly in Yorkshire I believe, though at one
time it was widely known across a swathe of England ranging from
Cumbria to Devon. That it will almost certainly be unknown to the
object of your obloquy will add relish to your utterance, though it
might not be too hard to work out it isn't complimentary. It has
rarely been written down outside dialect glossaries, but it did
appear in 1621 in a long passage full of terms of opprobrium in The
Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton: "Every lover admires his
mistress, though she be ... a vast virago, or an ugly tit, a slug,
a fat fustilugs". It's a compound of "fusty" with "lug" in the
sense of carrying something heavy about.
5. Q&A
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Q. Can you tell me what the expression "over the moon" means? I
don't find it on your site, yet it seems to be a popularly used
expression. [Raymond Graham]
A. Someone who says this is delighted or extraordinarily happy.
In Britain, it's intimately linked with football (Americans will
know this game as soccer). It became very popular in the 1970s as
one of a pair of opposing phrases that were often on the lips of
players or managers at the end of a game. If the team had lost, the
speaker was "as sick as a parrot" (in a state of deep depression,
not physically ill). If the team had won, he was "over the moon".
But the expression is actually much older - there are records of it
from the nineteenth century. Eric Partridge found an example in the
diary of May, Lady Cavendish, for 7 February 1857, in which she
noted the reaction of the announcement of the birth of her youngest
brother to the rest of his siblings: "they were at first utterly
incredulous and then over the moon".
The origin is surely the nursery rhyme Hey, Diddle Diddle in which
the cow jumped over the moon. We know that's right because earlier
writers used a fuller version. For example, "Ready to jump over the
moon for delight" appeared in Thomas Chandler Haliburton's The
Clockmaker in 1840.
6. Sic!
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In the Sunday Telegraph of 23 January, Richard Hallas noted three
lines of text, "The war of words between Sir Alex Ferguson, the
Manchester United manager, and his Arse-" above a picture and the
rest of the sentence: "nal counterpart, Arsene Wenger".
Jerry Morelock found a note at the bottom of a parking ticket in
Memphis, Tennessee about payment of the fine. "Failure to comply
will result in execution." No risk of a repeat offence, then.
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