World Wide Words -- 11 Jul 09
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Jul 10 16:56:18 UTC 2009
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 645 Saturday 11 July 2009
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Frontispiece.
3. Recently noted.
4. Q and A: White lie.
5. Review: Why is Q Always Followed by U?
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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DUCKS IN A ROW Dan Norder found a slightly earlier example of the
expression in its figurative sense than my 1912 one:
It quite frequently happens that when political parties and
even nations think they have "their ducks in a row" the
unexpected happens which knocks their well-laid plans awry.
[The Daily Progress (Petersburg, Virginia), 16 Jun.
1910.]
Chris Bitten pointed out that ducks often sleep in a row and that
this might have had something to do with the expression's origin.
Kristin O'Keefe turned up an article in the Free Thought Magazine
dated 1896 dated 1896 which criticised President Grover Cleveland
for unsporting behaviour. He lured ducks with bait to get them all
in a row on the water so he could pot them with one shot from his
ten-gauge shotgun. Ms O'Keefe wonders if this might have influenced
the creation of the expression. It's impossible to say, though - as
I wrote in the piece last week - shooting at ducks is often given
as one possible source of the expression.
2. Weird Words: Frontispiece /'frVntIspi:s/
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There's nothing in "frontispiece" to suggest a piece of anything,
other than what confused English speakers have put there.
The original sense in English was of the façade of a building, the
decorated front that was designed to be imposing. It came from the
French "frontispice" or the late Latin word "frontispicium", both
meaning a façade. The Latin word was made up of "frons", forehead,
plus "specere", to look at, and so originally meant a view of the
forehead.
You might think that this referred to the forehead being a clearly
visible part of a person's head, but it seems instead to have been
connected with yet another of those weird methods of divination so
common in classical times. It has another name, "metoposcopy" (from
Greek words meaing "observe the forehead"); it's the art of telling
people's character or fortune from their foreheads (another related
term is "physiognomy", judging character from characteristics of
the face, which is also from Greek). The association of ideas seems
to be that the façade of a building is as expressive as a person's
forehead.
The word was borrowed into English around the end of the sixteenth
century in the French form "frontispice" but no later than 1607 was
also being used for the title page of a book. This may seem a large
shift in sense, but the link lies in the practice of engraving a
highly illustrated page with all sorts of architectural detailing,
such as columns and pediments. And it was at the front of the book,
which helped the idea.
By 1682, the word had taken on its modern sense of an illustration
facing the title page of a book. And by then the folk etymologists
had had their evil way with it, making a totally unwarranted
association between "front" and "piece" and turning "frontispice"
into our modern "frontispiece".
3. Recently noted
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BANKSLAUGHTER It's "bank" + "slaughter", certainly no laughing
matter. It was used by Professor Paul Collier of Oxford University
in an article in the Guardian on 1 July. He suggested that a crime
of this name, by analogy with manslaughter, would be an effective
deterrent to the reckless or irresponsible managers of financial
institutions who take decisions that lead to their collapse. Like
manslaughter, prosecutors wouldn't have to prove malice. It was
used in the same paper by Timothy Garton Ash on 6 May, quoting a
friend - in retrospect clearly enough Professor Collier - but it
was the latter's piece, under the name of an acknowledged economic
expert, that gained the word some attention, with comments
appearing that wistfully supported the concept. However, the term
will almost certainly die again, like most neologisms.
CYBERGEDDON Though this scare term for the wrecking of online
communications through electronic warfare isn't new (it goes back
to 1999 at least) it has popped up again recently. There are two
main reasons: the British government has published its strategy for
keeping the Internet secure and the US Department of Defense has
set up a cyber defence command in the Pentagon. These actions have
been provoked by threats of enemy action knocking out the computers
that run a country's critical infrastructure, such as electricity,
oil, gas, and water supplies. Fortunately for our peace of mind,
cybergeddon is regarded as very unlikely. The term is an obvious-
enough modification of "Armageddon", the final battle between good
and evil before the Day of Judgement, with "cyber-", which I wrote
about in 1996 (http://wwwords.org?CYBR).
4. Q and A: White lie
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Q. What is the origin of the phrase "white lie"? [Tom Michael]
A. It's based on the ancient Western idea of polar opposites,
represented in popular culture through "white" meaning good and
"black" its evil antithesis. We have "white magic", for example,
beneficent magic that's opposed to the malign black variety. The
term "white paternoster" meant a prayer or charm recited to protect
against evil at night (of which one version that survives is the
old children's rhyme "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed
that I lie on"). The opposite was a "black paternoster", a spell
recited to conjure up evil spirits or devils.
Along the same lines, a "white lie" is one that lacks evil intent,
as opposed to a "black lie", which is most certainly malevolent,
though normally we don't bother to specify that lies are evil. A
white lie is harmless or trivial, frequently one said in order to
avoid hurting someone's feelings. The term is first found in the
eighteenth century, when it suggested something slightly different:
A certain Lady of the highest Quality ... makes a judicious
Distinction between a white Lie and a black Lie. A white Lie is
That which is not intended to injure any Body in his Fortune,
Interest, or Reputation but only to gratify a garrulous
Disposition and the Itch of amusing People by telling Them
wonderful Stories.
[The Gentleman's Magazine, 1741.]
5. Review: Why is Q Always Followed by U?
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By Michael Quinion.
Reviewed by Erin McKean, currently CEO and co-founder of the online
dictionary project Wordnik (http://www.wordnik.com) and editor of
Verbatim: the Language Quarterly (http://www.verbatimmag.com); she
was previously editor-in-chief of Oxford's American Dictionaries.
The most essential skill for any etymologist - more useful than a
knowledge of Old English or Grimm's Law - is the ability to say,
clearly, "we don't know" without coming across as a spoilsport or a
wet blanket at the etymology party. Readers of this e-magazine have
known for years that he possesses this skill, in spades, and that
he can be relied on to clearly separate certainty from conjecture,
without losing a drop of the entertainment value to be had from
either.
His new book, Why is Q Always Followed by U?, contains "revised,
corrected, expanded and updated" versions of a couple of hundred of
the cogent and absorbing etymological explanations that delight
this publication's readers, in a pleasantly chunky and attractive
volume from Penguin UK's new Particular Books imprint. (As handy as
the Internet is for quick searches and aimless surfing, it's hard
to beat a well-made book for dipping into - or for wrapping up as a
gift.)
The book's nice size allows for a great cross-section of words to
discover. For every one whose history was familiar to me (for which
the pleasure was not so much in discovering new facts as in
enjoying seeing them related in Michael's easy style) there were
two or three novelties, including "Heath Robinson" (as an American
my allegiance has always been to Rube Goldberg), "tracklements",
and "on one's tod". The entries also include information about
variants: I was happy to learn that, in addition to "making a whim-
whim for a goose's bridle" (to express, more or less, "don't bother
me, kid") I can also use "making layovers to catch meddlers" and
"making a whipple for a dooses poke".
The best part of Why is Q Always Followed by U?, however, is the
example sentences. Nothing brings a word to life like seeing it in
context, and nothing punctures a folk etymology or tall tale like
sentences dating years (or decades, or centuries) before the word's
supposed origin. As an extreme example, "waddle" can't be from the
name of the one-legged, 200-pound Confederate captain named James
Waddell, since it's found in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
The sentences Michael has found are not just illuminating, they're
often interesting in their own right, and I marked a couple so that
I could track down their sources myself, for pleasure reading. Many
of them are from the usual suspects (Dickens, Twain, Wodehouse) but
plenty are from more obscure sources, and thankfully, those are
given excellent notes (for example, in the one about James Grant,
at "trip the light fantastic", we find out that he was the editor
of the newspaper of the Licensed Victuallers' Association, and the
author of 40 books "virtually all of them ... now forgotten.").
A warning: if you carry this book out in public, be prepared to be
stopped by passers-by who are struck by the title and have to know,
right that minute, just why it is that Q is always followed by U,
anyway? (I had one woman hold up the boarding of an airplane to ask
me about it.) If you're on the shy side, you might want to invest
in a book cover, or at least remove the dust jacket.
I do wish the book had included an index but even without it, Why
is Q Always Followed by U? is an excellent book for browsing, and
would make a wonderful gift to spark someone's interest in
etymology and word history. Highly recommended.
[Michael Quinion, Why is Q Always Followed by U?, published by
Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin Books, on 2 July 2009;
hardback, 352pp; publisher's UK list price £12.99. ISBN-13: 978-1-
846-14184-3; ISBN-10: 1-846-14184-2.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THIS BOOK
Amazon UK: GBP8.44 http://wwwords.org?WQFU1
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Amazon Germany: EUR12,95 http://wwwords.org?WQFU8
[Please use these links to get your copy. They get World Wide Words
a small commission at no extra cost to you.]
6. Sic!
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The old ones are still the best. John Sweney was reading a Robert B
Parker novel, Bad Business. The narrator refers to "a slightly
overweight currently blond woman in a dark blue suit named Edith."
He wondered what she named her other suits.
In its coverage of music in concert, Walter Sheppard tells us, the
current issue of the American Record Guide says that the Sarasota
(Florida) Opera's production of Verdi's Don Carlos was "in a four-
act 1884 revision first performed in Paris on March 11, 1867." Mr
Sheppard hopes no arpeggios were lost in the time warp.
Thomas Thornton and Neil Williams noted that the New York Times for
3 July carried an obituary for Mollie Sugden, familiar to viewers
of the 1970s comedy TV series Are You Being Served?. It described
her as "lavishly upholstered and quaffed, with hair that changed
color each episode." Mr Thornton reckons she must have carried her
liquor well, since she always seemed sober on the show.
The Ottawa Citizen reported on 7 July on a court case in which a
teenager was convicted of manslaughter. Doug Niblock sent me an
electronic clipping. It noted, "In delivering the sentence, Judge
Bruce Duncan said that there was no premedication in the act,
though it was violent." If there had been premedication, perhaps
the outcome might have been different?
"In June," e-mailed Paige Gabhart, "my wife and I attended a band
festival in Danville, Kentucky. We saw a professionally produced
sign at a concessionaire's stall: 'Funnel Cakes $5.00. Sweat and
Delicious'. We opted for a $4.00 funnel cake from another vendor.
Apparently, the sweat adds a dollar to the cost."
Don Monson came across a plot synopsis for the film The Pianist at
The Internet Movie Database: "He then stays in another place, where
there is a piano, in which he grows ill." That's unfortunate, says
Mr Monson, but perhaps he shouldn't have been in that piano in the
first place.
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