World Wide Words -- 28 Nov 09
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Nov 27 13:43:29 UTC 2009
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 667 Saturday 28 November 2009
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Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Deliquescent.
3. What I've learned this week.
4. Q and A: Dot and carry one.
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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SLIPSHOD? Many readers queried my invention of "disopprobrium" in
this item last week. It was intended to mean harsh censure but, as
correspondents pointed out, "opprobrium" had that sense without the
prefix, which had the effect of inverting the meaning. I might try
to weasel my way out by suggesting "dis-" is an intensifier, but I
fear that wouldn't wash with this audience. Two weeks ago, you may
recall, a Sic! item mentioned an unfortunate use of "approbation"
when "opprobrium" would have been more appropriate. I seem to have
suffered the same confusion but in reverse, since "disapprobation"
(strong disapproval) is a perfectly good word and would have fitted
the context. But "strong disapproval" might have been even better!
UNFRIEND Several readers told me that "unfriend" was much older
than Facebook. The noun certainly is, with evidence going back to
medieval Scots, its sense ranging from that of a person with whom
one is not on friendly terms to a full-blown enemy. After going out
of favour around 1600 it was reintroduced by Sir Walter Scott in
1814 but then disappeared again. The verb has been recorded but is
very rare, though the adjective "unfriended" has been moderately
successful for some centuries:
But I believed, niece, you had a greater sense of
propriety than to have received the visits of any young
man in your present unfriended situation.
[The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, 1794.]
2. Weird Words: Deliquescent /delI'kwIs at nt/
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Many people first encountered this word, as I did, during a school
science lesson in which some crystals were put out on the bench.
Within a few minutes they absorbed enough water vapour from the air
to dissolve into solution. Such crystals are said to deliquesce or
to be deliquescent.
That's a specific technical application of a word whose meanings in
English are intriguing. How about "dusty and deliquescent"? In the
nineteenth century, "deliquescent" was used jokingly of someone who
has become so hot through physical exertion that he's swimming in
sweat. "Dusty and deliquescent" became what we may politely call a
set phrase or, impolitely, a cliché:
The country pedestrians, "dusty and deliquescent" with
their long rounds, are seen marching back towards the
city.
[The Little World of London, by Charles Manby Smith,
1857.]
The Latin original is "deliquescere". This could mean "dissolve",
but more negatively it implied melting away or exhausting. Romans
might employ it figuratively for dissipating one's energies. This
produced another English meaning - of organic matter such as fungi
that decomposes into a liquid mass after fruiting. Such ideas gave
this author a way to create an image of fading fruitfulness:
There was a middle-aged woman at the far side of the
room with black dyed hair and a sort of deliquescent
distinction.
[Room at the Top, by John Braine, 1957.]
The word can - surprisingly - describe a plant stem that repeatedly
branches. The concept is of a single stem that ramifies by repeated
branchings into ever smaller stems until it fades to nothing. This
deeply figurative example is presumably borrowing the idea:
This past fall, with the consecutive openings of six
"Asian biennials," the deliquescent 1990s and early-2000s
trend toward establishing new large-scale exhibitions in
increasingly far-flung locales bore fruit, such as it
is.
[Artforum, 1 Jan. 2009]
3. What I've learned this week
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SKYWATCHERS What do you call a scientist who studies the skies?
Most of us would instantly say "astronomer". But three times in the
past week I've been presented with ASTRONOMIST instead. A search in
the archives finds a large number of examples, at least sixty in
reputable newspapers since 2000. Some are much older - the earliest
I've so far found appeared in the Weekly Georgia Telegraph in 1869
in a report on observations of a solar eclipse. There are so many
words for specialists that end in "-ist" that "astronomist" might
even have become the standard term, had not "astronomer" got there
first (in the 1360s). The modern confusion may be rooted in a
misformulation that's recorded from the 1950s - "astrologist" for
"astrologer". So "astronomist" might be a result of the perennial
confusion in some people's minds between astrology and astronomy.
However, "astronomer" is so common that for writers in periodicals
to use it implies a surprising level of ignorance.
MORE VERBING The recent discussion about the verbing of nouns was
still on my mind when I began to read a Michael Innes novel, Stop
Press, dated 1939 (called The Spider Strikes in the US). The trick
is frequently used for humorous purposes, of course, which is the
way Innes employed it: "They edged through the crush and turning
down a corridor found themselves in a deserted billiard-room amply
DECANTERED and CIGARED." Since these are participles, it might be
argued that Innes is actually adjectiving, not verbing, but that's
a distinction that makes little difference.
GOING DUTCH Last year, the Onze Taal Dutch language association
threw open the choice of its Word of the Year to internet voters.
The association's members were perhaps disconcerted by the choice
of "swaffelen", a slangy Dutch term meaning to deliberately tap
male genitalia against an object. At any rate, this year they have
gone back to the old system and decided on the Word of the Year
among themselves. They've gone for TWITTEREN, which is the Dutch
verb meaning to send short text messages via the Twitter site. The
runners-up were "kopvoddentax" ("head rag tax", in reference to the
controversial tax on Muslim head scarves that was proposed by the
far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders) and "koninginnedagdrama",
which is a reference to the attack on the Dutch royal family during
this year's Queen's Day celebrations.
TWINING A minor lexicographical result of the devastating floods
in Cumbria last week has been the appearance in at least two UK
national newspapers of the dialect word TWINE, to complain or whine
("Cumbrians are a unique breed. They say what they see. They are
hands-on people. They will twine and moan but then they will just
get on with it." - Metro, 23 November). It was at one time widely
known throughout Scotland and the north of England. By way of
another of its senses, to be fretful, ailing or sickly, it may be
connected with "dwine", another dialect word, to pine or waste
away, which is from an ancient Scandinavian source.
4. Q and A: Dot and carry one
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Q. I was re-reading Treasure Island the other day, and there's a
line in it in which a character says his pulse "went dot and carry
one", seeming to mean in context, "skipped a beat". Can you tell me
more about the origin and usage of this phrase - the only other
reference I could dig up online involved an old pulp fiction hero
nicknamed Dot-and-Carry-One because he had an awkward gait due to
having one leg shorter than the other. It seems the metaphor might
have something to do with long division, but I'm not sure how that
relates to the sense of hesitation or jerkiness. [C Sullivan]
A. "Dot and carry one" is a rather dated British figurative phrase
for a person with a limp. Such people may indeed have had one leg
shorter than the other, though the first people to be called that,
around 1775, had wooden legs:
Dot and carry one. Person with a wooden leg. The "dot"
is the pegged impression made by all wooden legs before
the invention of the modelled foot and calf. The "one" is
the widowed leg.
[Passing English of the Victorian Era, by J Redding
Ware, 1909.]
You're right with your suggestion of long division, though it also
relates to addition and subtraction. It refers to a way of doing
arithmetic that was taught to children from the eighteenth century
down into living memory. To "dot and carry one" means to set down
the units in a column and to carry over the tens to the next column
of figures. The method was to put one dot in the next column for
every ten you wanted to carry, as a reminder.
An early reference was in a book that tried to make learning the
techniques of arithmetic more palatable by setting them to music.
One stanza refers to the method of adding up columns of money in
pounds, shillings and pence (the carries are twelves here, because
12 pence made a shilling in old British money):
Still add to these the pence, sir,
On the left if you are willing.
And then mind when you be at the top right under D,
That every twelve's a shilling.
The odd pence must go down, sir,
Or nought if you have none,
Or for every twelve that you had in the pence
You may dot and carry one.
[A Little Young Man's Companion, or, Common Arithmetic
Turned into a Song, by N Withey, 1796. His reference to
"D" is to the old standard symbol for pence, from Latin
"denarius", as in "LSD", pounds, shillings and pence
(hence "money"), where "L" is from another Latin word,
"libra", a pound weight (the British pound originally
referred to the value of a pound weight of silver).]
Another form at the time was "dot and go one", which is explained
by Captain Francis Grose in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of
1785: "Generally applied to persons who have one leg shorter than
the other, and who, as the sea phrase is, go upon an uneven keel."
He adds that the expression was also "a jeering appellation for an
inferior dancing master, or teacher of arithmetic." (Grose also
mentions "hopping-Giles" as another slang term of the time for a
person with a limp, St Giles being the patron saint of cripples.
Another, later, term was "limping Jesus".)
Your "dot and carry one" version, which became the standard one,
was popularised by that giant of early nineteenth-century novel
writing, Sir Walter Scott, in this work:
"That was his father - his father - his father! - you
old dotard Dot-and-carry-one that you are," answered the
goldsmith.
[The Fortunes of Nigel, by Sir Walter Scott, 1822.]
It's easy to see how "dot and carry one" could have later taken on
the idea of a hop and a skip or a missing beat.
5. Sic!
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Mícheál Ó Doibhilín's report about reality crisps two weeks ago
reminded Mark Allison of a belt he bought some years ago. Proudly
stamped on its inner surface was the legend "Genuine Vinyl".
Mr Ó Doibhilín himself returns with the following, which he spotted
on Sky News teletext on 18 November: "A council has dismissed a
fine which it issued to a woman for feeding the ducks with her 17-
month old son." The fine was actually for littering. But of course.
Travis Scholtens reports: "A truck at my local farmers' market
advertises its 'non-profit commitment to harvesting produce and
people'."
"Safe at the hairdresser for eleven months!" was the subject of
Richard Moody's e-mail on Thursday. He had just seen the caption to
a photo in the Herald-Sun of Melbourne: "Shane Warne at Advanced
Hair Studios where they announced a new genetic test for people to
predict whether they will go bald in September."
"It's not yet summer," swooned Margaret Colls, "but large parts of
southern Australia have already had maximum daily temperatures of
more than 40 degrees Celsius. So I appreciated the suggestion on a
packet of my favourite brand of sweets to 'please keep away from
heat to enjoy the flavour & avoid melting'."
Nina Brevik encountered this thought-provoking sentence in an item
in the Daily Telegraph online dated 19 November: "Katie Green, a
former Ultimo model, who launched the Say No To Size Zero campaign
with Lembit Öpik, the Liberal Democrat MP, told The Sun: 'There are
1.1 million eating disorders in the UK alone.'"
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