World Wide Words -- 03 Sep 11
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Wed Aug 31 19:37:51 UTC 2011
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 752 Saturday 3 September 2011
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Author/editor: Michael Quinion US advisory editor: Julane Marx
Website: http://www.worldwidewords.org ISSN 1470-1448
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A formatted version of this e-magazine is available
online at http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/riek.htm
Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Supererogation.
3. Q and A: Ahead of the curve.
4. 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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DRUG ON THE MARKET Lots of people looked at the French "drogue",
the antecedent of "drug", and thought of the English "drogue", a
device that's towed behind a boat, aircraft, or other moving object
to reduce speed or improve stability. It's certainly consistent with
"drug" in the idiom. "Drogue" was originally whaling jargon from the
eighteenth-century for a marker that was attached to the end of a
harpoon line so whalers could keep an eye on the direction in which
the whale was swimming. There may be a link - "drogue" is probably
from "drug", an old form of "drag" - but it has no other connection
with the idiom, not least because "drug" is much older.
MARMALADE Several readers provided a joke about the origin of the
word. Cathy Varney told it thus: "Do you know about the young chick
who found an orange in the nest? He said, 'Oh, look at the orange
mama laid!'"
2. Weird Words: Supererogation
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Last week, the publicists at Collins Dictionaries produced a list of
words which the dictionary's editors consider obsolete and which are
to be removed from the next edition of its dictionary. One of them
is "supererogate", to do more than is required of one, to go beyond
the call of duty. However, the related noun, "supererogation", is
still used enough to be retained.
It comes from Latin "supererogare", from "super-", beyond or above,
plus "erogare". The latter originally meant to pay out public money
after asking the consent of the Roman people (it's from "rogare", to
ask). "Supererogare" literally meant to pay more than was necessary.
In its figurative sense it appeared first in the parable of the Good
Samaritan in a Latin translation of the New Testament.
"Supererogation" has long had a special meaning within the Roman
Catholic church for acts that are morally good but not required for
salvation by God. Church doctrine holds that such good works make up
a reserve fund of merit that can be drawn on by prayer in favour of
sinners. In recent decades, "supererogation" has taken on another
sense in philosophy, for a much-debated topic that refers to the
nature of duty and to what extent moral actions can be optional.
More loosely, supererogation can refer to something unnecessary or
perhaps even undesirable:
For the rest, the staging is an act of supererogation,
a distraction from the grandeur of Gluck's opera.
[The Times, 30 Oct. 2010.]
3. Q and A: Ahead of the curve
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Q. I see that you don't have an entry for "ahead of the curve". I
haven't so far found a definite etymology for this one; I'd always
assumed it had to do with bell curves in statistics - a curve that
charts the time of adoption of new technology, for instance - but
others have suggested biking and baseball. (And there are people out
there who think it's "ahead of the curb", which makes no sense.) So
I'll be interested to know what you find. [James Harbeck]
A. The evidence does indeed suggest there's a mathematical curve at
the root of the expression. The idiom usually means that those being
referred to are in a position to anticipate or initiate the latest
developments in some field - to be ahead of the game, you might say,
which is an older equivalent of the same idiomatic idea.
Some history first. With one exception I'll get to in a moment, the
phrase starts to appear in print in the early 1970s. The evidence
suggests that it became popular as the result of its having been a
jargon term within the Washington Beltway during the Nixon period:
Repeatedly Nixon and his top aides spoke of "keeping
ahead of the curve" -- giving information to the public
just before it otherwise became generally known, and thus
being able to take some credit.
[Anchorage Daily News, 22 May 1974.]
However, it wasn't the origin. A fuller version, "ahead of the power
curve", is recorded earlier and existed in parallel with the shorter
form well into the 1980s. An early example is in a speech by Admiral
Thomas H Moorer, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was
discussing streamlining the systems for controlling American nuclear
and conventional forces worldwide:
Moorer told newsmen that without a doubt, the system
"is very responsive" in dealing with current problems and
possible crises. "Our concern is not for today," Moorer
said, "but to make certain we stay ahead of the power
curve."
[The Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach,
California), 25 Mar. 1972.]
The power that's being referred to might be electrical (a couple of
examples from the early 1980s occur in descriptions of electricity
generation by nuclear energy). However, several appearances show it
has a different genesis:
"Just remember," Davis told her, "you have to stay
ahead of the power curve." "I don't understand," Joyce
replied. "It's a saying they have on aircraft carriers. If
a pilot comes in ahead of the power curve, he can pull up
and out safely if something goes wrong. If he falls behind
the curve and something happens, he'll crash into the
ship. You always have to look out for yourself and stay
ahead of the power curve."
[The Execution of Charles Horman, by Thomas Hauser,
1978.]
Other literal usages likewise refer to flying. This is the earliest
I've so far found:
Inherent stability of the plane - if it is being flown
ahead of the power curve with level wings - will control
the pitch attitude with less chance of structural damage
than a pilot applying large elevator control inputs.
[Flying, Jul. 1964.]
The power curve shows how an aircraft's speed changes in response to
changes in engine power. It has a pronounced minimum at the airspeed
at which the aircraft is most efficient (least drag for the power
applied). Below this airspeed, against common sense, it takes more
thrust to reduce speed while continuing to fly level. A plane in
this situation is said by pilots to be behind the curve and it's a
risky place to be, close to stalling speed and with limited options
in case of trouble. If you're above the curve, on the other hand,
you have much more freedom of manoeuvre.
Taking the examples as a group, it seems virtually certain that the
idiom derives rather loosely from the mathematics of flight, and so
is a close relative of "pushing the envelope" (see my piece online
at http://wwwords.org?PSEV). Its source is most probably the US
military.
4. Sic!
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Beware of armed Arctic mammals. Murray Ball spotted the following
headline on a story in the Calgary Herald on 27 August: "Polar bear
dies after shooting at oil workers' compound."
This grisly story may remind you of an ancient horror film. Part of
a long-dead body had been found in Peckham, south London, the Daily
Mail reported on 25 August: "The hand, thought to be Mr Benit's, was
discovered by council workers at the run-down third-floor flat on
the Tustin estate and immediately alerted police."
Louis Cohen wrote, "An email announcement of the opening of the
student restaurant at the local community college culinary program
included a sample lunch menu item: Grilled Chicken Noodle Soup. When
I took classes there, they never taught us how to grill soup."
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