World Wide Words -- 06 Jun 09

Thu Jun 4 03:18:24 UTC 2009

WORLD WIDE WORDS            ISSUE 642          Saturday 6 June 2009
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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. Weird Words: Adumbrate.
3. Recently noted.
4. Q and A: Cagmag.
5. 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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HOLIDAYS  I'm still away. By all means send your questions and Sic! 
items together with your comments on the items in this issue, but 
don't expect an answer before the middle of June at the earliest.

2. Weird Words: Adumbrate   /@'dVmbreIt/
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There are shadowy associations to this word. It comes from a Latin 
verb that itself derives from "umbra", a shadow, which has also 
given us umbrella, sombre, and umbrage.

All the English senses have figurative associations with dimness or 
shade. The principal one today is "report or represent in outline", 
to sketch dimly in words, one might say, which is very close to the 
sense of the Latin. If it's not a word in your working vocabulary, 
that's hardly a surprise, since it has always tended to turn up in 
academic or formal prose:

    Feeble is human speech to deal with such high matters, 
    serving, at the best, but dimly to adumbrate ineffable 
    truths.
    [The Contemporary Review, January 1883.]

It can also mean to indicate something faintly or merely hint at 
it, to foreshadow or prefigure a future event, or to overshadow or 
obscure something. Here's an example of the hinting sense:

    Perhaps Lessing's point, merely adumbrated, is that 
    the long Edwardian afternoon would have entailed a 
    continuation of the great Edwardian philanthropy, 
    otherwise brutally curtailed.
    [The Spectator, 24 May 2008.]

3. Recently noted
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HOLIDAY AT HOME!  Perhaps it's because my mind has been on holidays 
but it's very noticeable how in recent weeks the US "staycation" (a 
stay-at-home vacation, taking day trips to local attractions from 
home) is being used by the British press in reports, for example, 
about traffic congestion on public holidays or the prospects for 
the UK domestic holiday market. Compounds such as "staycationer" 
and "staycationing" mark its increasing acceptance. Its appearance 
in the UK is a little odd, since in British English "vacation" has 
traditionally been a formal term, used for universities, Parliament 
and the courts. People take holidays. Clearly, the US "vacation" 
has become sufficiently familiar through the media to allow the 
term to catch on. On the other hand, we haven't, as yet, taken up 
the less popular US "naycation" - not just holidaying in your own 
area, but staying at home and not going anywhere.

AGGRO  British speakers rarely come across the verb "aggress", a 
back-formation from "aggression", meaning to commit aggression or 
act aggressively. But then, so far as I can find out, it's not that 
common anywhere. If I were to read the sentence, "Two journalists 
were aggressed by police", I would pause for a moment to let a 
slight dizzy feeling pass. Then I looked up the verb in the Oxford 
English Dictionary: surprisingly, the first use in the modern sense 
is given as 1714 and Herbert Spencer is quoted from 1851: "The 
moral law says - Do not aggress." But what appears to be fairly new 
is a sense of being a victim of aggression: "They were the 
aggressors, and we were getting aggressed" (Columbia Daily Tribune, 
Dec. 2008) and "Being British is actually about feeling aggressed, 
mistrustful, overlooked [and] powerless" (Guardian, 18 May). I am 
gently aggressed by the usage.

4. Q and A: Cagmag
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Q. My dad has a word that I've often wondered about: "cag-mag" for 
cheap sugary foods (he also uses it for my mum's baking!). [Alex 
Wade]

A. Cheeky devil. If I were your mum, I'd give him a belt round the 
ear.

"Cagmag" is an intriguing bit of British dialect that starts to be 
recorded in the eighteenth century. It has had several senses, all 
of them disparaging, though never referring specifically to cheap 
sugary foods. The oldest references are to geese:

    Vast numbers are driven annually to London, to supply 
    the markets; among them all the superannuated geese and 
    ganders (called here Cagmags) which serve to fatigue the 
    jaws of the good Citizens, who are so unfortunate as to 
    meet with them.
    [A Tour in Scotland, by Thomas Pennant, 1772. Despite 
    the title, Pennant is referring to Lincolnshire.]

A century later, the English Dialect Dictionary lists a number of 
meanings, starting with this one and moving on to tough, inferior 
meat or carrion; bad or unwholesome food; worthless items; inferior 
or spurious things; an animal that is coarse or mongrel bred; and 
"a term of opprobrium applied to persons", typically an old woman.

It was widely used in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and other counties, 
but nobody seems to have the slightest idea where it comes from. In 
his Slang Dictionary in 1864, John Camden Hotten notes a suggestion 
from a correspondent at Trinity College, Dublin, that the word was 
a corruption of the Greek "kakos mageiros", a bad cook, a learned 
slang term once known in university circles. Nobody now believes 
this, but there's nothing to put in its place.

It's still around in Lincolnshire and also in Nottinghamshire, the 
Birmingham area and the Black Country (where in 2003 it was said to 
mean a gossipy old woman). I've also found references in Australian 
English.

    Although she was poor, my mother wouldn't buy the 
    cheap meat she called "cag mag".
    [Birmingham Evening Mail, 7 Dec. 2002.]

    The late Sir Nicholas Fairbairn escaped rebuke, but 
    not disdain, by describing women MPs as "mostly hideous - 
    they have no fragrance and I dislike women who deny their 
    femininity. They are just cagmags, scrub heaps, old 
    tattles". 
    [BBC News, 8 Dec. 2005.]

5. Sic!
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We left home in the midst of the UK MPs' expenses scandal. It has 
led some commentators to suggest adopting US-style primaries to 
involve voters in selecting candidates. So we were charmed to read 
in our tour manager's briefing notes that she could provide "plugs 
that will convert your electoral equipment to the US system." We 
plan to take one home.

Paul Fletcher queried the headline over a story on the BBC Web site 
on 27 May: "Firefighters warn over crew cuts." Is the hairstyle 
really a matter of concern?

The Microsoft site has an article about new features in the next 
version of its operating system, Windows 7. Mark Sinden, who read 
the same text on another site, learned that two new functions focus 
on "aggregating data from desperate locations".

Pat Walton read about a child prodigy in an article dated 21 May on 
the Web site of STV, Scottish Television: "Julian, 39, was adopted 
by step-father David aged three, who taught him how to play the 
saxophone to the standard which won him a standing ovation at his 
audition for the talent show".

A recent notice in The Adirondack Pennysaver, a small free weekly 
newspaper based in Plattsburgh, NY, advertised for "Someone to cut 
trees for Senior Citizen. Must be reasonable, tall but not big 
around." Paul Brady wonders how many rational and well-proportioned 
woodsmen responded to the query. 

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B. E-mail contact addresses
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