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<div align="left"><font face="Calibri" color="#008000" size="6"><span style=" font-size:24pt"><b>World Wide Words</b></span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:0.00mm; margin-bottom:2.11mm;"><font face="Arial" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Saturday 14 February 2015</i></span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:6.33mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Calibri" color="#008000" size="4">
<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Feedback, Notes and Comments</b></span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<b>Heliotrope.</b></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> Anton Sherwood was struck by a word in the newspaper
quotation in the piece, which mentioned “the newly-blown flower”. He wrote,
“This sense of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>blown</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is new to me, and it solves the mystery of the term
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>full-blown</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, as in </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>full-blown AIDS</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. But where did the adjective come from?”
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Blown</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>full-blown</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"> have a long history in English in the sense of a plant
being in flower. They derive from Old English </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>blówan</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, which has nothing
directly to do with wind but is a relative of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>blossom</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and of </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>bloom</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. However, it’s
close to the idea of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>blow up</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in its sense of expand or swell.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Stuart Mushlin wrote: “Your wonderful piece cleared up a longstanding
puzzlement I had. I teach at Harvard Medical School and encourage the young
trainees to be observant — something computer records distract them from
doing. There is a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>heliotrope hue</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> seen in a condition called dermatomyositis. It
is a purplish color on the upper eyelid. I was always puzzled as to why the term
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>heliotrope</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, as I would have thought yellow or orange, but your derivation has
let me teach it to my students until I’m forced to either retire or shut up. Thank
you.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Brian Pasby tells us that, in the US, the heliotrope is commonly called the
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>cherry pie plant</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> from its smell, which makes the scent I mentioned in the piece
less crude an approximation than I had suggested.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Andy Behrens corrected me on the origin of the word </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>mauve</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. This is from the
French word for the mallow plant, which has purple flowers, not the madder,
whose flowers are yellow.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<b>Ditty bag.</b></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> “When I was growing up in the 1960s,” Megan Zurawicz wrote from
the US, “Girl Scouts were expected to make a ditty bag to take camping. It
consisted of two loose-weave dishwashing cloths sewed together on three sides
and a drawstring channel made at the top, the drawstring being provided
generally by a long shoelace (say the type for high top basketball shoes). It was
used to carry one’s plate, cup and silverware.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Linda L Fullerton commented, “Where I now live, in Seattle, the local
Episcopal Diocese supports a Mission to Seafarers that creates and distributes
ditty bags to crew members from all over the world. Years ago, I recall appeals
for small sewing kits for this ministry. Today, the list of items has changed but
the ditty bag sails on.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">“Last year,” emailed Michael Bawtree, “In commemoration of the effect of the
outbreak of WW1 on the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, Canada, a group
from a local Women’s Institute branch got together to re-create the bags of
useful items (socks, jam, etc.) which their former members put together in
1914-18 and sent to Canadian soldiers at the front. These were called
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>ditty-bags</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. There is no mention in your article of them being used by soldiers. I
wonder whether Nova Scotia’s strong maritime tradition had anything to do
with the local currency of the word, and its transfer for use by land forces.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Peter Rugg wrote: “This term is aging in the US. In the 1950s every boat I
boarded had a ditty bag of sail repair notions, bits of light cordage, and maybe a
couple of small tools — knife, screwdriver and pliers. The boat I began sailing
in 1986 has a ditty bag to this day, but the one sailed from 2007 has a tool bag
in which there is in addition to a larger assortment of tools, a small sail repair
kit. No more ditty bag.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">John Neave recalls: “I was aware that </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>ditty bag</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> was a naval term, but originally
encountered it through my old Cockney grandmother (1887-1963) who kept
her important household documents, insurance policies, birth certificates and
suchlike, in her ‘ditty bag’, since she had never had access to facilities such as
those offered by banks. Because of her accent, however, she pronounced it
‘diddy bag’.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">“I wonder,” began Roger Downham, “if there’s any link between ditty bags and
[Liverpool comedian] Ken Dodd’s diddy men? </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Diddy</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is northern slang for
‘little’. Liverpool was once packed with sailors from ships using the port, so it
wouldn’t surprise me if a bit of sailor talk slipped ashore and got taken up by
the locals!” The </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, in an entry compiled in 2006, finds
no examples of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>diddy</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> before the rise of Dodd’s diddy men in the 1960s, so its
origin remains obscure.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Anthea Fleming emailed from Melbourne with </span></font>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">an intriguing accidental
similarity</span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">: “A similar usage in Australia is </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>dilly-bag,</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> a quite independent word
because it’s of aboriginal origin [from Yagara </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>dili</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">]. It’s a smallish bag, usually
made of plant fibre but could be skin, tied round the waist as a rule, but
sometimes slung round the neck. Used to transport personal possessions, small
stone tools, tobacco, lumps of resin or gum for repairs, ochre and pipe-clay for
decoration, fish-hooks and line.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Bob Leavitt noted the similarity between </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>hussif</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, another name for ditty bag that
I mentioned in the piece, and </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>hussy</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, an impudent or immoral girl or woman.
They are indeed closely connected: </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>hussy</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is similarly an abbreviation of
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>housewife</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<b>Long words.</b></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> A reader mentioned </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>floccinaucinihilipilification</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"> in the last issue.
W Douglas Maurer pointed out that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>floccipaucinihilipilification</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> (with a </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>p</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in
seventh place) also exists. Examples of that form are found online and in some
modern books but it isn’t standard. The fault seems to be that of Sir Walter
Scott, who misspelled it in his journal in 1829, a mistake perpetuated by the
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guinness Book of World Records</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, which has included it in some editions as the
correct form, quoting Scott, while noting the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>n</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> version as a variant.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Ken Tough wrote, “Sorry to be pedantic, but I counted the letters in your
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> to confirm that your </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>E31</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> referred to the
number of letters in the word. But it only has 30 letters. Is this a spelling error,
or a counting one?” Alas, the latter. From now on, we must call it E30 for short,
or shorter.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">“Then there’s </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Konstantinopolitanischerdudelsackpfeifergesellschaft</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">,” Tom
Halsted noted, “a German word which my mother swore she came across in the
1920s. She died in 2006 at age 99, so I can’t verify the source of this delightful,
almost certainly made-up word, but I like to think there once was a bagpipe
manufacturer in Constantinople, perhaps managed by a German company.
Even if there wasn’t, I like the name </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Dudelsack</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">!” But a </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Dudelsackpfeifer</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is a
bagpiper, so the mythical firm presumably trained musicians rather than made
instruments.</span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:6.33mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Calibri" color="#008000" size="4">
<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Worry wart</b></span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Arial Black" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>Q.</b></span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"> </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>From David Bagwell</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">: At least in the deep South of the United States,
somebody who worries unreasonably is called a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>worry-wort</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> or </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>worry-wart</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, an
odd usage. I could not find it in the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, at least with my
eyes or a glass in my edition with the “Lord’s Prayer on a pinhead” font. Is it
known in other parts of the world? It sounds old, and I’ll bet it goes back a long
time. And is it </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>wort</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> or </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>wart</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">?</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Arial Black" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>A.</b></span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"> It’s been about a month since you asked this question, so I hope you’ve not
been kept awake at night worrying about the origins and spelling of this
curious expression. In case you have, I hasten to clear up the second part of
your question by confirming that it’s always written </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>wart</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, like the growth on
the skin.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">It was originally American and remains widely known there (not only in the
deep South), though it has long since migrated to other parts of the world. It’s
not particularly common in the UK but does turn up from time to time:</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">Instead of wandering about in a joyful, pregnant haze, I became an
obsessive worry wart. I didn’t even dare buy baby clothes. </span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:1.06mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia" color="#006000">
<span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Daily Telegraph</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 28 Apr. 2014.</span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">The origin, as so often with popular phrases, is a comic strip. In this case, it
was the highly popular </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Out Our Way</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by J R Williams, which began life in 1922
and ran until 1977. In the early days it often featured a small-town family. One
of the boys, aged about eight, was nicknamed Worry Wart by his elder brother.
In one early frame, the boy is in bed alongside an open window, his bedclothes
and face blackened with soot from nearby factory chimneys. He gets an
unsympathetic reaction from his brother:</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">So somebody told you it was good fer you t’sleep with a winder open,
hah? Well answer me this, Worry Wart, without no sarcasticism — does
this somebody live in a shop neighborhood?</span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:1.06mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia" color="#006000">
<span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Out Our Way</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by J R Williams, in the </span><span style=" font-size:11pt">
<i>Canton Daily News</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Canton, Ohio), 3
Apr. 1929.</span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">The phrase came into the language at around this time and became quite
popular in the 1930s because Williams produced many gently humorous
cartoons featuring Worry Wart.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">What’s intriguing about its early history is that it didn’t mean what it does now
— somebody who constantly worries about everything and anything. Instead it
took its sense from the cartoon — a child who annoys everyone through being a
pest or nuisance. An early reference is a story from April 1930 in a Texan
newspaper, the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Quanah Tribune Chief</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">: “Elmo Dansby (the school worry wart)
informed us that he was going to get him a girl and have a big time.” He doesn’t
sound like a worrier. An odd enquiry a little later in the decade (presumably a
humorous squib and not a genuine question) shows the meaning well:</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">Dear Pat and Mike: I am a young squirt in the Sophomore class. I have
many bad habits such as trying to act smart, pestering the teachers, am
the biggest worry wart in school and think I am very cute. Tell me a way
to overcome these bad habits. — Worry Wart.<br />
Dear Worry Wart: When you find out what people think of you, you will
automatically drop them.</span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:1.06mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia" color="#006000">
<span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Lockhart Post-Register</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Texas), 8 Nov. 1934.</span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">This meaning was still the usual one when the phrase began to appear in
Australia after the Second World War, but by the 1950s it was being used there
in the way we do now. It took some years more for the meaning to change
completely in the US. By the time it reached us here in the UK it had only the
current sense.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">So where does it come from? There has long been a belief that warts are caused
by worry and stress, which presumably accounts for the current meaning. And
the original sense made have been provoked through the idea that warts are
often an itchy nuisance. They invite one to scratch and worry at them, which
only makes things worse. The idea was expressed in this falsely worry-making
admonitory ditty:</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">Don’t worry a wart,
<br />
Or a thing of that sort,<br />
You’re taking a terrible chance sir;<br />
For often they grow,<br />
As doctors all know,<br />
Into a formidable cancer.</span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:1.06mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia" color="#006000">
<span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Sandusky Star Journal</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Ohio), 26 Feb. 1923.</span></font></div>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Verbigeration</b></span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">The American actor, musician, and author John Lithgow remarked in a recent
newspaper interview that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>verbigeration</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> was his current favourite word.
Though it describes the use of words, the concern of any actor or writer, Mr
Lithgow would surely not wish it to be applied to himself.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">It sounds like the bigging up of verbs, which isn’t altogether wrong, as it refers
to the involuntary repetition of meaningless words and phrases. The
psychiatrist Bernard Glueck described it in 1916 as “senseless word salad”.
Another writer, G Stanley Hall, in a work ten years earlier with the off-putting
title </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, preferred to define it as
“The continual utterance of certain words or phrases at short intervals, without
reference to their meaning.” It has been regarded as a symptom of a mental
disorder, though we in the UK, currently in the run-up to a general election,
may feel it could be used to describe certain British political figures. </span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Its source is Latin, </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>verbum</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, a word (also the source of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>verbiage</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">), plus the verb
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>gerĕre</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, to carry on or conduct, from which derived the Latin verb </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>verbigerāre</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
to talk or chat. An isolated early appearance of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>verbigeration</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in English was in
the dictionary </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Glossographia</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in 1656; Thomas Blount, who compiled it,
defined it in this neutral Latin sense. However, nobody else bothered with it
until it was reinvented late in the nineteenth century by the British physician
Daniel Hack Tuke. It was never popular and was soon after replaced by
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>palilalia</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, taken instead from Greek: </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>palil</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, again, plus </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>lalia</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, talk or speech.
There’s also </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>echolalia</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, from the same root, which is similarly involuntary
repetition, but of the words of another person.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Punch list</b></span></font></div>
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<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>Q.</b></span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"> </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>From Ellen Smithee</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">: A comment in the February issue of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>Angie’s List
Monthly</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> says that the term </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>punch list</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> gets its name from a period when
contractors would punch a hole next to each completed item on a project list.
The hole would go through two sheets, creating a copy for the customer. This
has intuitive appeal, but so do a lot of folk etymologies. What say you?</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>A.</b></span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"> I’ve no personal experience of this term — it seems to be restricted to the
civil engineering and building industries in the US and has never been used in
Britain. Searching around, it turns out that the explanation given in the
publication is a bit inadequate. A </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>punch list</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is usually described as a list of
matters that don’t conf0rm to the contract specification, usually minor items,
that have to be corrected before final payment can be made. It’s also called a
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>snag list</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> — no doubt there are other terms for it in various countries.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">I’m in two minds about the story of its origin. It does sound like a fable, but one
that’s eminently plausible. It’s a simple method, easy to do on site and difficult
to forge. It reminds me of an ancient method of ensuring legal documents were
valid. The text was written out twice on one sheet of paper and cut apart by a
deliberately jagged line. If the two halves could be put together with their joins
matching, both parts were genuine.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">I was sceptical about your story to start with, in part because the </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Oxford
English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">’s first example for </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>punch list</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"> is dated as recently as 1961.
Would such an unsophisticated method really have been created in modern
times? </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Punch list</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> was added to the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>OED</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">’s entry for </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>punch</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> when it was revised
in 2007, which implies the earliest dating is accurate. </span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">No doubt Americans with long experience in civil engineering projects will now
be disagreeing with the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>OED</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, for good reason. For starters, the first example in
American newspapers I can find is a decade earlier:</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">In an inspection two weeks ago by the State Board of Health and the U. S.
Public Health Service, inspectors prepared a long “punch” list of minor
details that must be completed and cleaned up before the hospital can be
opened and all contracts terminated.</span></font></p>
<div align="left" style="margin-left:10mm; margin-right:13mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:1.06mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia" color="#006000">
<span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Tipton Daily Tribune</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Tipton, Indiana), 2 Aug. 1950.</span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Note the quote marks around </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>punch</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, which suggests that the journalist writing
the news item was unfamiliar with the term. That doesn’t mean much for
dating the term, since the jargon of working life can be used for generations
without being noticed by the public at large or reaching print.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Dating-wise, I’ve found references to </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>punch lists</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in a couple of US legal
judgements from the late 1930s. This is long enough ago — before modern
technological alternatives — that the suggested origin seems reasonable.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">That’s the best I can do, I fear. Perhaps readers can help?</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Sic!</b></span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">On 31 January, the </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> reported the enforced withdrawal of the actor
Brian Blessed from a production of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>King Lear</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> because of a heart condition. His
agent was quoted: “With a broken heart, Brian has been compelled to withdraw
from the production of which he is so proud.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">“I’m glad I wasn’t on that plane”, Steve Hirsch emailed about a headline in the
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Huffington Post</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> dated 3 February: “Paris Hilton’s Brother Conrad Charged
After Alleged Plane Meltdown.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">In Australia, Bruce McKenzie noticed ABC on 4 February was describing the
failure of two convicted drug smugglers to avoid capital punishment in
Indonesia: “In a final attempt to save themselves from the firing squad, lawyers
for the two men lodged applications with the Denpasar district court for a
second judicial review.” He wrote, “I know some people don’t like lawyers but
boy, that is one tough legal system!”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">“A recent bulletin from our local Council,” wrote David Finch, “on refuse
collection during the snowy weather ended ‘Customers are being advised to
leave their bins out for collection via the website and social media’.”</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Kate Archdeacon emailed: “I don't normally send gruesome examples, but this
is too good not to share. From </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>The Age</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> of Melbourne on 7 February: ‘Police
confirmed the leg is believed to be connected to the two limbs found upstream
on Thursday and Friday.’ ” Not any more, it isn’t.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Useful information</b></span></font></div>
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