World Wide Words -- 04 Sep 10

Fri Sep 3 17:14:33 UTC 2010

WORLD WIDE WORDS        ISSUE 702         Saturday 4 September 2010
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Editor: Michael Quinion             US advisory editor: Julane Marx
Website: http://www.worldwidewords.org               ISSN 1470-1448     
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      online at http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/mnvc.htm

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   For a key to phonetic symbols, see http://wwwords.org?PRON

Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Prodnose.
3. Wordface.
4. Q and A: Chops.
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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JUMENTOUS  Several readers pointed out that the Latin word is also 
the source of French "jument", a mare. Others noted the reference 
to "lateritious" in one of the quotations and asked whether it was 
related to the clayey stuff called laterite (Tim Conway recalls it 
as "a much-sought-after soil for road building that I encountered 
when I was a civil engineer in Kenya a few decades ago"). It is. 
Like "lateritious", it's from Latin "later" for a brick, because 
laterite is reddish and on exposure to the air sets rock-hard.

Robert Rosenberg connected the word with the history of the horse 
collar: "This is an even more interesting story than you might 
think, because there has been a historical debate about the role of 
horses as draft animals in the Roman era, and this word provides 
evidence in that debate. In a nutshell, there was an early 
twentieth-century argument that horses could not have been draft 
animals because of the harness used by the Romans. That argument 
has fallen, but this word might have given some of its proponents 
pause had they known it."

CABBAGE  Last week, I mentioned this term for offcuts of material 
which tailors took as a perk of the job. Peter Weinrich e-mailed 
from Canada to recall, "when I was in the drapery trade - over 50 
years ago - the term for ends of discontinued fabrics was 'cold 
pork'." From the US, Jeff Coghill remembers that "rabbit" was the 
term used by electricians for the copper wire left over after 
installing a circuit. The insulation was burnt off, the copper sold 
to a scrap metal merchant and the proceeds shared among the members 
of the crew.

2. Weird Words: Prodnose  /'prQdn at Uz/
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This is principally British, an apt descriptive term for a pedantic 
and interfering person, one who is always poking his nose in where 
it's not wanted. A recent example:

    And life is like that: in the depths of extreme 
    personal grief there is always some official prodnose of 
    a parking authority or bullying tax inspector to harass 
    you into intemperate rage against the universe.
    [The Sunday Times, 18 Apr. 2009.]

Its genesis was a surrealistic column in the Daily Express with the 
title By The Way, often witty but as often bafflingly off-beat and 
obscure. For many years it was written by the humorist J B Morton, 
who introduced his readers to many strange characters, such as Mr 
Justice Cocklecarrot, who presided over the recurring case of the 
twelve red-bearded dwarves. The eccentric scientist, Dr Strabismus 
(whom God preserve) of Utrecht made frequent appearances. So did 
that archetypal cad Captain Foulenough, who attended the notorious 
public school Narkover, which specialised in horse-racing, card-
playing and bribery under the supervision of its headmaster, the 
dubious Dr Smart-Allick. Prodnose was a character who represented 
the general public, a pedantic oaf who interrupted Beachcomber and 
had to be booted out.

Reporters found "prodnose" to be an excellent term to describe 
subeditors, because - in the view of the reporters - they were 
continually asking awkward questions and pedantically correcting 
the text of their pieces. For that reason, when the term appears - 
which isn't often - it is usually in newspaper columns.

3. Wordface
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WILL IT OR WON'T IT?  A storm in a teacup has erupted as a result 
of an unguarded comment by Nigel Portwood, the Chief Executive of 
Oxford University Press. In an interview in the Sunday Times last 
weekend, he was asked whether the forthcoming third edition of the 
Oxford English Dictionary, due out in about a decade or so, would 
be published in book form. He said he didn't think so. Within a few 
hours, this uncontroversial statement went around the world about 
twice and has appeared in at least 700 newspaper reports. It could 
be predicted by anybody versed in the economics and technology of 
big reference books, especially in the case of the OED, which has 
never made a profit in its history. As Mr Portwood explained, "The 
print dictionary market is just disappearing, it is falling away by 
tens of per cent a year." His comments ruffled his colleagues at 
the OUP. Though it was a holiday weekend in the UK, Anna Baldwin, 
its Communications Director, rushed out a press release whose only 
significant sentence was "No decision has yet been made on the 
format of the third edition." The two statements, you will note, do 
not actually conflict. The gasps of shock at Mr Portwood's 
throwaway comment seem to have been fuelled by a sense that ending 
publication of such an iconic work as the OED in book form would be 
a milestone in the story of the printed word. Allied to that may be 
nostalgia for the smell of printer's ink and the rustle of the 
printed page, though presumably not for the risk of hernia from 
lifting 20 volumes collectively weighing 130 pounds.

WHEN IS A BEDBUG NOT A BEDBUG?  An item on 30 August in The Well, 
the online blog section of the New York Times, about the resurgence 
of bedbugs (so written), provoked this orthographical comment: 

    Bed bugs is TWO words - not one. The general rule for 
    writing out common names of insects is as follows. If the 
    insect name is a misnomer (e.g., the dragonfly is NOT a 
    fly and neither is a damselfly), then the whole name is 
    written as one word. If it is not a misnomer, then it is 
    written as two words (e.g., house fly, which is a real 
    fly). The bed bug is a "true" bug and therefore is two 
    words.

You may consider this to be an instance of what one wit has already 
described as folk entomology. I doubt that one person in a thousand 
has heard of this supposed rule, but other comments on the item 
argued the same point and they're supported by discussions in 
numerous books on insect classification. The idea is to separate 
what are often called the "true flies" in the scientific order 
Diptera from other insects commonly but unscientifically called 
flies, and to draw a distinction between the Hemiptera or "true 
bugs" and bugs of other kinds. This is one reference of many:

    Because of the aerial prowess of insects in general, a 
    great many nonflies bear "fly" as part of the name, such 
    as butterfly, firefly, stonefly, and mayfly. Notice that 
    the names are spelled as all one word. True flies are 
    described by two words, such as mydas fly, robber fly, 
    and soldier fly.
    [The Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, 
    by Eric R Eaton and Kenn Kaufman, 2007.]

Various books likewise argue that the same rule should apply to the 
bugs. True bugs such as assassin bugs, June bugs and shield bugs 
should have their names written as two words, but those that aren't 
should be written as one, such as pillbug or ladybug (though what 
one should do with the British "ladybird" for the same creature is 
unstated, though as it isn't a bird, presumably a similar rule 
would apply).

"Fly" and "bug" are both ancient words of wide applicability and 
imprecise meaning that predate attempts at classifying the living 
world. Surprisingly, however, common usage follows the rule quite 
closely. It fails with bedbug and with spittlebug and tumblebug, 
all three of which are true bugs and so by the rule ought to be 
written as two words. Likewise, the blackfly, greenfly, horsefly, 
and blowfly are all true flies.

The rule seems to be a modern creation, an informal way of using 
the spelling of insects' common names to distinguish Diptera or 
Hemiptera species from other flying beasties, but which lacks any 
etymological or historical justification. It is highly unlikely to 
affect the spelling of "bedbug", since the tendency in modern 
English is to amalgamate multi-word terms into single words, not 
split them apart.

4. Q and A: Chops
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Q. In a book review in the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote, 
"It's as if an acrobatic but show-offy performance artist ... had 
decided to do an old-fashioned play and, in the process, proved his 
chops as an actor." I'm sure she's not referring to a delicious 
meal here. What do chops have to do with credentials? [William 
Armstrong, Atlanta, Georgia]

A. Nothing at all, Mr Armstrong. The two senses come from different 
sources.

A chop in the sense of a cut of meat is just a piece that has been 
chopped off the animal. It's from the verb that means to cut with a 
quick and heavy blow. (This used to be spelled "chap" and survives 
separately in the sense of cracking the skin, as in chapped lips.) 
The other chop - for a person's skills or talents - is a distinct 
word, originally meaning the jaws - as in "licking one's chops" - 
but later extended to refer to the whole mouth area, especially the 
cheeks. This led to the British slang "chubby chops" for a child 
with a fat face.

In the 1940s or thereabouts, "chops" began to be used in American 
slang for the power of a jazz trumpeter's embouchure, the way in 
which he applied his mouth to the instrument, and so came to mean 
the quality and versatility of his playing. It was extended to 
describe the skills and talent of any musician and then even more 
to those of any artist in any field, sometimes as a play on words:

    She will present her Kazaam Salad at the State Fair, 
    demonstrating not only her culinary chops, but also the 
    science to back up her claim that it contains everything 
    a person would need to eat in a day.
    [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 1 Sep. 2009.]

Neither of these senses of "chop" have anything to do with others 
in the language, such as the one for an official signature or 
stamp; we think of it as Chinese, but it started out as the Hindi 
"chap", a stamp or brand - it was taken to China by European 
traders, where it altered its meaning. "Chop-chop", on the other 
hand, really is Chinese, a Pidgin English bending of the dialectal 
"kuaì-kuaì". In "chop and change", to continually alter one's 
actions or opinions, "chop" is from a Middle English word, "chap", 
that meant to barter or exchange (hence "chapman" for a peddler). 

5. Sic!
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A headline in the Sudbury Star of Canada on 30 August was sent in 
by Russ Hunt: "Wreckless decision to invade Somalia seeded chaos." 
(It's perhaps better than a seedless decision that wreaked chaos.)

Elspeth Pope wrote, "While looking for an address in the Shelton, 
WA, phone book I came across the entry 'Forest Funeral Home and 
Creamation'." It's an interesting business model, but it's hard to 
see how it all fits together.

The BBC website told Randall Bart: "Wireless power system shown 
off". He would be more impressed if they showed it with the power 
on.

The Oldham Evening Chronicle of Lancashire ran a story on 20th 
August 2010, Mary Pendlebury reports, which included the sentence: 
"One of three sisters, Hilda's father was a butcher who ran four 
shops in Oldham."  

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