World Wide Words -- 31 Oct 09
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Oct 30 19:17:21 UTC 2009
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 663 Saturday 31 October 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: Colcannon Night.
3. What I've learned this week.
4. Review: Two Brewer's Dictionaries.
5. Q and A: Witching hour.
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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TABNABS Lots of readers wrote, following a note on this word last
week, to point out that "nabs" is a common term in parts of the US,
mostly the South, for any kind of snack crackers. This is said to
be from the name of a manufacturer, the National Biscuit Company
(now Nabisco); Wikipedia says the company began to call their small
packets of crackers "nabs" in 1928. Readers wondered if this sense
of "nab" is the origin of the second part of "tabnab". It seems
unlikely, as the latter is a British term that's first recorded
very soon after the US company began to use it. An independent
creation is more probable.
Mike Harrison e-mailed from British Columbia: "My father was a
merchant mariner working in the catering department in the 1930s.
During my childhood in the 1940s and 1950s in Southampton (UK)
'tabnabs' was common in our house and it seemed to have currency
throughout the city. It was a loose term but described small and
simple cupcakes and biscuits for day-to-day snacks. When company
was expected something more elaborate was baked." Conversely, Freya
Croft commented: "My husband's family here in Melbourne often have
tabnabs before dinner, referring to the (posh or special) dips and
bikkies and glass of champers. (Another name for hors d'oeuvres?)
His stepfather was in the British Navy, so I guess that's where it
comes from!"
HISTORICAL THESAURUS OF THE OED Several subscribers wondered why it
was, in this digital age, that the work should appear only on in a
paper edition. I asked Dr Christian Kay, director of the Historical
Thesaurus project at Glasgow University, about this. She replied,
"Plans are afoot to link the Thesaurus to the online Oxford English
Dictionary. It would thus become available to all subscribers. We
don't have a date for this yet." (Perhaps it's worth reminding UK
readers that if they have a library card, they have free access
from home to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Dictionary of
National Biography and possibly other databases. Ask your library
for more information.)
2. Weird Words: Colcannon Night
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We are at Halloween, the night that is traditionally the end of the
harvest and of summer, when the veil between life and death weakens
and spirits may walk abroad.
In Ireland, years ago, it was usual to mark the day by serving up
the traditional dish of calcannon or colcannon. This was made from
potatoes and cabbage, and perhaps other vegetables such as leeks,
spinach or hedgerow greens, with a little butter, cream or bacon
fat added, and seasoned with salt and pepper.
Because of the association of the dish with Halloween, the day has
in a few places been called Colcannon Night instead. It was known
as that in Ireland two centuries ago and emigrants took the name to
Newfoundland and Labrador. The folklore department at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland tells me that it has now died out there
and so may not be current anywhere any more.
The first part of the name must surely be related to "cole", an old
term for any type of brassica, the genus that includes cabbage and
cauliflower. Some dictionaries suggest that the second part derives
from a method of pounding the cabbage - with cannon balls. You may
believe that if you like, but it is now more commonly said it comes
from the Irish Gaelic "cál ceannfhionn" (later "cál ceannann"),
meaning white-headed cabbage.
3. What I've learned this week
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SPUDGER Dave Aton told me about his discovery of this word. In the
telecommunications and electronics fields, according to Wikipedia,
technicians mean by SPUDGER (sometimes SPLUDGER) a tool for probing
for plastic parts or adjusting small wires in an assembly. It is a
slim plastic tool, which typically has a bent metal hook at one end
and a flat screwdriver blade at the other, though other designs are
available. Similar tools are used to pry apart the cases of laptops
and mobile phones. The origin is probably "spud", first recorded in
the language in the fifteenth century for a short dagger and which
later became the usual term for a digging or weeding implement. Its
origin is unknown. We know "spud" best as a name for the potato, a
nineteenth-century dialect word of equally uncertain origin (were
spuds dug up with a spud?), but workers in various fields have long
known "spud" for a variety of tools, often chisel-like.
NOT SPUD BUT SPID Annie Clarke introduced me to another new word.
She wrote, "The recent posts about the monkey wrench got me
thinking about other tool names I have come across. I work for a
company that trades in them and over the years have built up a list
of those that were amusing or intriguing. Some are just odd
specialised brand names or describe their function. The one that
has me foxed is SPID BRUSH. Any ideas what this might be, and how
it got its name?" I found out what it is by hunting around online -
it's a British term for a type of wire brush with a curved end for
getting into awkward corners. But I'm stumped about its name.
Surely it's not a relative of "spud"? Is it a trade name? Does
anybody know?
OLOGIES AGAIN As a character in a famous British telecom advert
said many years ago, "everybody's got to have an ology". Academic
disciplines split and fracture till it sometimes seems that there
are as many specialist fields of study as there are researchers. My
jaundiced comments are provoked by finding HEDONOLOGY, the study of
pleasure. Now that's a course we could all happily sign up for. The
discipline may be new (and the term for it rare) but its basis in
etymology is secure: it's from "hedonic", pleasurable, a term taken
from Greek "hedone", pleasure (though psychologists use "hedonic"
for both pleasant and unpleasant sensations, which may say
something about psychologists).
4. Review: Two Brewer's Dictionaries
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This autumn, a new edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and
Fable has come out, together with a new stable mate, Brewer's
Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable.
The first two editions of Dr Ebenezer Cobham Brewer's work, of 1870
and 1896, were dominated by its creator's idiosyncratic approach,
full of personal opinions and with an eclectic exuberance in the
choice of topics. More recent editions, from the 15th onwards, have
sought to remove his personal bias and individual touch in favour
of a more respectable and authoritative approach.
This edition - the 18th - is the first to be published by Chambers
Harrap and represents a further significant change, not back to the
bad old days but to a more witty commentary. Chambers, of course,
publishes Chambers Dictionary, which is famous for what Philip
Pullman, in his introduction, calls "miniature detonations of wit"
("middle-aged: between youth and old age, variously reckoned to
suit the reckoner"; "éclair: a cake, long in shape but short in
duration"). This flavour has been carried over to the new Brewer,
though it may not suit everybody:
Boredom seems to have been discovered around the
middle of the 18th century. No doubt people had been
bored before then, but evidently they could not be
bothered to find a word for it.
Extraordinary rendition: a masterpiece of the
euphemizer's art, cloaking the unpalatable in the
polysyllabic obscurity of words used with a pompous
literalness.
"Extraordinary rendition" is joined by new many other new entries,
such as those on homeland security, civil partnership, blog, honour
killing, and Harry Potter; the set of popular expressions is added
to with entries for such phrases as "six degrees of separation" and
"lipstick on a pig"; entries on modern urban legends are also here,
such as one on the infamous but fictitious alligators in the sewers
of New York. A retrospective innovation is the inclusion of about
200 of Brewer's entries from the second edition.
While turning over the pages at random you may uncover a selection
of famous first lines in fiction, the 99 most beautiful names of
Allah, stories behind famous British pub names, long lists of
famous nicknames or pseudonyms, a tabulation of fictional place
names in literature with their real equivalents, or a schedule of
the symbols of saints. You cannot be bored by Brewer.
Similarly, if you have any interest at all in the story of London,
you will find much in the newest member of the Brewer collection,
Brewer's Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable, to keep you
reading. I won't say more, not least because I'm mentioned in the
acknowledgements (you may detect my influence in entries such as
the one on the Marylebone stage, meaning to go on foot).
[Camilla Rockwood [ed], Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable;
published in the UK in August 2009; due in North America in March
2010; hardback, pp1460; publisher's list price £25.00; ISBN-13:
978-0-550-10411-3; ISBN-10: 0-550-10411-9.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THIS BOOK
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[Russ Willey [ed], Brewer's Dictionary of London Phrase and Fable;
published in the UK in October 2009; due in North America in March
2010; hardback, pp576; publisher's list price £25.00; ISBN-13: 978-
0-550-10445-8; ISBN-10: 0-550-10445-3.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THIS BOOK
Amazon UK: £14.50 http://wwwords.org?BDL2
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[Please use these links to buy. They get World Wide Words a small
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5. Q and A: Witching hour
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Q. I've been asked a seasonal question by friends and am now on a
search for the origins and original meaning of "the witching hour".
I checked your website (always my first resource in matters like
these) and found no entry. Does the phrase refer specifically to
midnight? I've seen references to "the devil's hour" that seem to
refer to 3am rather than midnight. [Laura Perry]
A. The direct origin is easy enough to find: it comes from this:
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.
[Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, 1603. We think that
Shakespeare invented it, but can't be certain - some
other words and phrases previously thought to have been
coined by the Bard have now been antedated.]
Obviously enough, it refers to a time that belongs to the witches
(and by easy extension, ghouls, ghosts, demons and other unearthly
beings), when they are abroad doing their awful deeds. The earliest
references to "witching time" were unspecific about the hour - in a
period before effective artificial lighting of the world around us,
the whole night was the province of supernatural beings.
"Witching hour" came along much later, as a reference to a specific
time of night. This is the earliest example I can find, embedded in
some verse that's garnished with an excess of Gothic extravagance:
Now Midnight spreads her sable vest
With starry rays light tissu'd o'er;
Now from the Desart's thistl'd breast
The chilling dews begin to soar;
The owl shrieks from the tott'ring tow'r,
Dread watch-bird of the witching hour!
[A Fragment, by Mary Robinson, in the European
Magazine and London Review, 1 Apr 1793.]
Most modern references are to midnight, the time when witches are
supposed to be most active. But the time of night has varied a good
deal, perhaps curiously in view of the implicit assumption in
"witching hour" that a particular hour is meant. Some writers have
taken it to be the twilight time just after sunset, when the world
is still and the landscape seems bewitched. Others allow it to be
the whole period between midnight and dawn. Some Christians do hold
that the true witching hour (which they would rather call the
"devils hour") is 3am, because it is said to be an overt mockery of
the supposed hour of Christ's death on the cross at 3pm.
Sleep easy tonight, won't you all?
6. Sic!
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Joan Butler read a blurb for the BBC science programme Horizon in
the Radio Times: "They have read about the power of stem cells to
heal the body. Here they meet pioneering scientists to find out how
likely they are to be cured within their lifetimes." She wonders
how long it will take for the march of science to find a way to
cure them after they are dead.
The miracles of modern science (continued). Steve Hirsch pointed
out that the Crabtree & Evelyn site heads its selection of hand
soaps with the sentence "Our gentle cleansing liquid soaps are pH-
balanced and soap-free." "That's right," he says, "They're selling
soap-free soap."
"I can't conceive of any way that could possibly help," commented
Peter Janes about a headline to an article dated 23 October in the
London Free Press of Canada: "Future moms urged to get shot." The
story was reporting that doctors were urging pregnant women to get
their swine flu vaccinations.
William T Hole spotted an unfortunate malapropism in a story in the
New York Times on 26 October about aircraft fires caused by faulty
batteries in electrical equipment. Gerald McNerney from Motorola
was quoted: "What we've done is look at creating backups, duplicity
in development so that you're not going to have an explosion."
On Tuesday, Michael Hocken reports, the Times had an item about the
Michael Jackson exhibition at the O2 arena complex in London: "The
Official Exhibition also includes a triptych showing Jackson being
crowned, knighted and holding a magical sword, his 1967 Rolls-Royce
Phantom, a rocking horse given to him by Dame Elizabeth Taylor and
a collection of his jewelled gloves." A heavy burden for any man.
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