World Wide Words -- 24 Mar 07
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Mar 23 18:33:13 UTC 2007
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 532 Saturday 24 March 2007
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Sent each Saturday to at least 48,000 subscribers by e-mail and RSS
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx
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A formatted version of this newsletter is available
online at http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/omrf.htm
Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Rantipole.
3. Q&A: Turnpike.
4. Recently noted.
5. Q&A: Sick abed on two chairs.
6. Sic!
A. Subscription information.
B. E-mail contact addresses.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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G FOR GOLF While presenting the solution last week to the trivia
question about "the only phonetically correct sport", I referred in
error to the A Alfa, B Bravo, C Charlie system as the International
Phonetic Alphabet. That, as I knew very well but my typing fingers
didn't, is a system for representing the sounds of languages in
unambiguous symbols. I should have called the Alfa Bravo Charlie
one the International Spelling Alphabet. Some readers were puzzled
by the answer because they knew of other ways to spell out letters
of the alphabet in which G is not represented by Golf. There have
been many spelling alphabets, but the current standard is the one
created by NATO, which is also widely used, for example, in civil
aviation. For more information, see the Wikipedia article (go via
http://quinion.com?WISA), which lists the complete alphabet.
TITCH Readers from Canada, the USA and Australia mentioned that
"titch" was or is used to refer to a small quantity of something
rather than to a small person. Some suggested it might derive from
a local pronunciation of "touch", but the few dictionaries I have
that mention this sense say that it also comes from Little Tich.
Nigel Lindsey-Renton pointed out that John Hay Beith, the author of
the book, All In It, which I quoted in the piece, is better known
as the Scots playwright and author Ian Hay. My reference to "an
American serving on the Western Front" was an editing error that
related to another work about the First World War, Kitchener's Mob,
The Adventures of an American in the British Army, by James Norman
Hall; this also includes "tich" for a small person.
"Tich" as a nickname might be earlier than the First World War.
John Lowe told me that his grandfather, Cyril Nelson Lowe, was
given this nickname, probably while he was at Dulwich College
between 1905 and 1911.
SIC Dozens of readers argued that a "Sic!" piece last week was
wrong to claim that an error existed. The item asserted that the
question, "Should mandatory drug testing for steroids be required
for high school athletes?" contained redundant language. Colin
Fine's response was typical: "Since 'Sic!' is a playground for
pedants, I make no apology for pointing out that there is nothing
either tautologous or contradictory about it. If it is interpreted
as 'Should schools, clubs or competitions be required to introduce
mandatory drug testing?', it is unexceptionable."
2. Weird Words: Rantipole
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Wild, disorderly, rakish; a wild, ill-behaved or reckless person.
When in Great Expectations Charles Dickens has Pip's ill-tempered
older sister refer to him as "young Rantipole", his readers would
have known it was not a compliment. At the end of the nineteenth
century, Dr E Cobham Brewer, the first editor of the Dictionary of
Phrase and Fable, remarked that "The late Emperor Napoleon III was
called 'Rantipole', for his escapades at Strasbourg and Boulogne.
In 1852 I myself saw a man commanded by the police to leave Paris
within twenty-four hours for calling his dog Rantipole."
Unlike Dr Brewer, we do not believe that the word derives from the
Dutch "randten", to be in a state of idiocy or insanity, though it
is accepted that the second half is "poll", meaning the head. It is
now thought the first part is from "rant" (or possibly the English
dialect "ranty", meaning "riotous" or "wildly excited") and that
the whole is a fanciful creation by some unknown person around
1700.
It was equally well known in North America (Noah Webster had the
noun and verb in his dictionary of 1806) and it appears in several
works by Washington Irving, including The Legend of Sleepy Hollow:
"This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming
Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his
amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and
endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not
altogether discourage his hopes."
3. Q&A: Turnpike
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Q. I wish to know the origin of the word "turnpike". A friend told
me a story about a farmer laying turning spikes in his field to
mark his territory. Is it true? [Adi Piltz]
A. There's just a grain of truth in it.
The original turnpikes - dating from the fifteenth century - were
indeed spiked barriers, but they were designed to be placed across
roads to prevent sudden attack by men on horseback. Later ones were
horizontal timbers fitted with spikes, a version of what is called
a cheval de frise, but the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that
the mounting timbers of the originals may have been vertical, since
a slightly later sense was of a horizontal cross of timbers turning
on a vertical pin, set up to exclude horse-traffic from a footpath,
which is essentially the device we now call a turnstile.
The word itself doesn't come from "turning spikes", but from "turn"
and "pike", the latter in the old sense of an infantry weapon with
a pointed steel or iron head on a long wooden shaft. It's the
inclusion of "turn" here that suggests the pikes were the barrier,
which could be turned aside about a vertical pivot to allow access.
>From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, various acts of
Parliament created new toll roads in various parts of Britain. They
were run by trusts, the tolls supposedly being put towards the cost
of maintenance. Early toll gates were modelled on the old turnpike
barriers and so the roads became known as turnpike roads, later
shortened to just turnpikes.
4. Recently noted
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ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE? The Oxford English Dictionary team has
just added the latest batch of entries to the online dictionary,
They include "ixnay", the first Pig Latin word to be included,
"pranam", the Indian term for a respectful greeting or salutation,
"capoeirista", a person who practices capoeira, the Brazilian
martial art and dance form, "djembe", the West African drum, and
"wiki", for an online collaborative project (as in Wikipedia), from
Hawaiian "wiki", quick.
The same week, a report from the British think tank Demos, entitled
As You Like It: Catching Up in an Age of Global English, argued
that British complacency about the global influence of the language
may lead to the UK being marginalised. In part, the authors argue,
that will be because we're neglecting to learn other languages, in
particular those whose influence is increasing, such as Mandarin,
Spanish, Hindi and Urdu: "The bonus of ordering a burger in English
while on holiday will increasingly seem fairly paltry in comparison
with the economic and cultural penalties of monolingualism." They
also say that the way English is taught means we're not keeping up
with the way it is evolving worldwide, especially into regional
Englishes (Hinglish, Spanglish, etc), each with their individual
cultures. The teaching of English as a foreign language should
focus on transmitting a practical ability to communicate based on
learners' personal and particular interests and situations rather
than on the preconception that there is only one correct way to
speak English.
The authors suggest that a Web site, Democtionary.org, should be
set up on democratic lines to supplement the OED, to which people
from around the world could contribute new words and senses as they
are actually used.
Links:
OED Update : http://quinion.com?OEDU
Demos report: http://quinion.com?AYLI
McJOB In common with other major dictionaries, the entry for this
term in the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't flatter the fast-food
chain McDonald's. It is defined as "An unstimulating, low-paid job
with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the
service sector". An etymological note says, "Used with allusion to
the McDonald's Corporation's practice of using Mc- as an initial
element in a range of proprietary product names". McJob was first
used in the US in the 1980s but was popularised by Generation X,
Douglas Coupland's 1991 book. It was widely reported this week that
McDonald's is reviving its campaign to get the definition changed,
having failed in the US in 2003 (see http://quinion.com?MCJB for my
comments at the time). A petition is shortly to be launched in the
UK to ask dictionary houses to delete their entries for the word or
to amend the definition into something more positive. The chances
of this happening are in the range from zilch to nothing, since
dictionary editors work from evidence of the way people actually
use words, not from pious hopes or public-relations spin. Erin
McKean, editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary, is quoted as
commenting that "Asking the dictionary not to report a word is like
asking the evening news not to report a five-car pile up on the
highway." Others have tried unavailingly to have dictionary entries
changed: in 1987 Dan Quayle sought to persuade Merriam-Webster to
amend their definition for the word Hoosier, which Quayle thought
was disparaging and unflattering. He was seen off with a polite but
uncompromising refusal.
5. Q&A: Sick abed on two chairs
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Q. I caught your interview with Bob Edwards on XM Satellite Radio.
I wonder if you could explain an expression my great-grandfather
used to say: "sick abed on two chairs". My mother often repeated
this as a favorite phrase of his, but none of us really knew what
it meant. He emigrated from Somerset in 1874 and made his home in
central New York State. He had been raised a Quaker in England and
continued to use plain speech (thee and thou) throughout his life.
I would love to know more about this curious phrase. [Natalie
Teichman]
Many thanks for your interesting question.
It defeats most of my standard references but the expression has
been recorded several times. A couple of online sites mention it
and I've turned up a newspaper advert that contains it, which was
published in December 1944 in the Bismarck Tribune of North Dakota.
It also appears in a couple of recent books, including a story by
Sylvia Thompson with that title which was published in 1997 in a
collection called The Quiet Center: "When I was little and what my
grandmother called 'sick abed on two chairs' she would comfort me
with pudding."
The one source that gives details is the Dictionary of American
Regional English (DARE), which quotes examples going back to 1939
and mentions that an older variation, recorded from 1914, was "sick
abed in the wood-box". Sometimes the two forms were combined. DARE
suggests it was a regional expression, mostly from the northeast of
the US (which would put the Dakota advert way out on a geographical
and linguistic limb).
DARE says the expression was "used as a facetious response to
queries about one's health or to imply that someone is pretending
to be ill or is slightly unwell". Sylvia Thompson's usage would fit
the "slightly unwell" meaning, as does the 1944 advertisement:
"Sick-abed on two chairs with your feet in the wood-box, or just
lazy?" The idea would seem to be that you were slightly out of
sorts, not enough to make you take to your bed but enough to make
you want to sit in a chair with your feet up on another, or to sit
close enough to the fire that your feet could, figuratively, rest
on the box of logs.
Nothing beyond that suggests a source. It might have been Somerset
dialect, though both forms feel more North American than English;
the English Dialect Dictionary, compiled at the end of the 19th
century, doesn't mention it and there is no example I can find in
British literature. It seems most likely, since DARE's location
information fits with your great-grandfather having settled in New
York State, that he learned it after he arrived.
No doubt subscribers will be able to fill in some of the blanks.
6. Sic!
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Like so many people, Jo Sidebottom is the involuntary recipient at
work of a lot of office-related circular e-mails. A couple on one
day recently were more fun than most (names have been suppressed to
protect the guilty): "The local Labour MP is visiting to conduct an
official opening ceremony. The ceremony will take place at 1.30pm
and champagne and canopies will be provided afterwards." Perhaps in
case of rain? The other said: "As you know we have reached the half
way point of the project. To mark the occasion, we have been given
some momentums. For those who have not received their gift, when
you are in HQ next please give X a shout." She says, "the momentums
will give us the push we need to complete the project!"
Our friends at BBC News are at it again. Richard Hallas found this
in a story dated 12 March: "Her face was so badly swollen doctors
could not operate on her immediately and had to use a wheelchair
for three months." Mr Hallas' wonders how more than one doctor was
able to share that wheelchair. The caption to a photograph of the
Castle of May accompanying a story on 15 March read: "Bought as a
wreck, the Queen Mother restored the castle". That was good of Her
Majesty's mum, considering her condition. Nicholas Farhi wonders if
the editors of the site are doing it deliberately to get into this
column, having seen the headline over a story on 18 March about the
impending closure of a pork and bacon processing plant in Norfolk:
"Meat firm axe 'may hit hundreds'".
David Bracey encountered a news release put out by the University
Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio: "Each hat is unique, and no two are
the same." How true.
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