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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 7 March 2015</i></span></font></p>
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<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>Verbigeration.</b></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> Gregory Harris commented, “It might have been useful to
mention that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>verbigeration</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is said with a soft </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>g</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, like </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>refrigeration</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt">, and not a
hard </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>g</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, like </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>invigorate</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>Worry Wart.</b></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> Several readers pointed out that, before J R Williams had
created the term, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>wart</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by itself had already some currency as slang for a junior
army officer and in the US for an obnoxious or objectionable person (the first
recorded user in the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is the American writer George
Ade, in 1896). </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>Punch list.</b></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> Nobody was able to assist with the early history of this odd term,
though several pointed out other circumstances in which holes were punched
in sheets as confirmations that an action had been taken. </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">Jim Tang wrote about a related expression: “When problems are noted that
ground an airplane, they are normally memorialized on a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>squawk sheet</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. The
items, of course, are squawks. There is probably a chicken-and-egg argument
as to whether the latter term derived from the sheet, or the sheet derived from
pilots who, much like their winged friends, made their displeasure known in
forthright tones.”</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">Many readers reminded me that the legal documents I mentioned in the piece,
of which the counterpart copies were cut apart with a jagged edge, were called
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>indentures</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> because the cut edges looked fancifully like teeth. (</span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Indent</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> comes
from a related idea.) Michael Grounds emailed to point out that the jagged
lines were also called </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>horns </i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">and that</span></font>
<font face="Courier New" size="2"><span style=" font-size:10pt"> </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">a legal document such as a will, for which
no counterpart copy was needed, was called a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>deed poll</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, from the document
being </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>polled</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, lacking horns. </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>Poll</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> ultimately comes from its sense of the head
(hence </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>poll</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in the election and survey senses, literally counting heads) and
from a polled person being one whose hair has been cut short or shaved; later a
polled deer was one that had cast its antlers and a polled animal was one of a
breed naturally lacking horns.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b><i>Volleyballene</i></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">Scientists have a puckish sense of humour. </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 week, I encountered a substance called </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>volleyballene</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. It’s a hollow sphere
of 60 carbon atoms and 20 atoms of scandium. This produces a shape made up
of pentagons and octagons that looks a bit like an ultra-miniature volleyball. At
the moment, it exists only as a computer design:</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">Volleyballene is a molecule waiting to be synthesized. So if you’re a
chemist with a little time on your hands, let us know when you’ve made
one of these things.</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>MIT Technology Review</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 18 Feb. 2015.</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">It’s one of a large group of hollow carbon molecules, variously shaped like eggs,
tubes, rugby balls or spheres. The first one discovered was a sixty-carbon
sphere which reminded its discoverers at Rice University in Texas of the
geodesic dome, which had been invented by the American engineer and
architect R Buckminster Fuller (a notable example was exhibited at Expo ‘67 in
Montreal). They named the substance </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>buckminsterfullerene</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">Its surface shape, a mixture of hexagons and pentagons, reminded people of a
football (soccer ball) and so some wits took to calling it </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>soccerballene</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>f</i></span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>ootballene</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt">. Others, tiring of writing the 20-letter name, shortened it to
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i><u>buckyball</u></i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. When other shapes and sizes were discovered, they were all at first
called </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">buckyballs</span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">, though the more formal collective term for them is
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>fullerenes</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, another shortening.</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">Fullerenes have become a hot topic in chemistry and so many types have been
created that they make up what’s been called a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>fullerene zoo</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. Hollow cylindrical
ones can be </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>buckytubes</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, though more often </span></font>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>nanotubes</i></span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">. </span></font>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">Spheres with fewer
atoms </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">than buckminsterfullerene have been called </span></font><font face="Georgia">
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>buckybabies</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, and ones with
layers within layers were named </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>bucky onions</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Russian eggs</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> or </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>buckskis</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt">.
Buckyballs bewhiskered with atoms of other elements such as hydrogen are
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>fuzzyballs</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. Another sort, containing a caged osmium atom (an example of a
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>metallofullerene</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">) is a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>bunnyball</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, because it has a couple of add-on bits that
fancifully look like rabbit’s ears. </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>Volleyballene</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is the most recent addition to the zoo. It’s unlikely to be the last.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Diagram prize</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">At this time of year, we await with high expectations an email from the
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Bookseller </i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">with the list of finalists in its Diagram Prize for the oddest book title
of the year. Its administrator, the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Bookseller</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">’s diarist Horace Bent, says it
“highlights the crème de la crème of unintentionally nonsensical, absurd and
downright head-scratching titles”. </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">Relationships feature greatly in this year’s selection, including </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>The Ugly Wife is
Treasured at Home</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by Melissa Margaret Schneider, an exposé of love and sex
under Maoist rule in China, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Divorcing a Real Witch</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by Diana Rajchel, a
practical guide for ending pagan relationships, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Nature’s Nether Regions</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by
Menno Schilthuizen, a history of the evolution of genitals, and </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>The Madwoman
in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by Sandra Tsing-Loh, a memoir of
the menopause. </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">They’re joined by </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Where do Camels Belong?</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by Ken Thompson, a study of
native and invasive species, and by the self-published </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Strangers Have the Best
Candy</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by Margaret Meps Schulte. The final entrant is a specialist work entitled
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Advanced Pavement Research: Selected, Peer Reviewed Papers from the 3rd
International Conference on Concrete Pavements Design, Construction, and
Rehabilitation</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Elsewhere</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">Robert Macfarlane, a writer and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge,
wrote movingly in last Saturday’s </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> under the title </span></font>
<a href="http://wwwords.org/wrdhrd"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>From Aquabob to
Zawn</i></span></font></a><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt"> about his long search for the language of landscape and natural
phenomena. His resulting book, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Landmarks</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, is out this week under the
Hamish Hamilton imprint. In her series on modern tribes in the same issue,
Catherine Bennett wrote a sharply observed piece about </span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/mdtrb"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">the grammar pedant</span></font></a>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:13pt">.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Trove</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 </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> has been a minor treasure-trove this week for enquirers into
matters of English language. As well as the articles linked above, an item in the
Corrections and Clarifications column on Monday (2 March) reported that
grammar pedants (tactfully described there as “linguistic purists”) had been
upset at the use of the phrase </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Snowden trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> for the thousands of documents
leaked by Edward Snowden. They asserted, and the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">’s style guide
agrees, that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> may not be used on its own, but must always form part of the
compound noun </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>treasure-trove</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">The idea that valuables that had been abandoned or hidden by persons
unknown could be claimed by the state goes back at least to Roman times. The
Latin was </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>thesaurus inventus</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, which strikes modern non-Latinists as peculiar,
since for us a </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>thesaurus</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is a special form of dictionary, while to </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>invent</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is to
create something new. But </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>thesaurus</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in Latin could mean a treasury and the
concept of a book being a storehouse of knowledge has led to the word being
used in English at least since the sixteenth century. And Latin </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>inventus</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> could
as much mean discovered as invented.</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">The Latin </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>thesaurus inventus</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> continued to be used until the end of the
medieval period. After the Norman Conquest it existed alongside the
Anglo-Norman </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>tresor trové</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. This was gradually Anglicised into </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>treasure found</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">.
Legal English, with its liking for old French terms, preferred to turn it into
English in a different way; a legal textbook of 1567 explained that valuable
abandoned property belonged to the queen and was called </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>treasure-trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">.
Since the concept was a legal one, this form ousted the other one.</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>Treasure-trove </i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">follows a pattern of compound terms derived from French in
which the adjective follows the noun; others are </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>governor-general</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>poet
laureate</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>court-martial</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>God Almighty</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>heir apparent</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>letter patent</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>knight
errant</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. Careful users of English, and the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guardian</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"> style guide, seem to be
correct when they say that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> has no independent existence.</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">At least, until we start to look at the evidence.</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">People started to use </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> by itself to mean a hoard or a valuable find at least
as far back as the 1880s:</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">The value of her trove struck her, and she cast about for the best method
of using it.</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>Plain Tales from the Hills</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Rudyard Kipling, 1888.</span></font></div>
<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">His breath came hot and fast as he gazed upon the trove; a queen’s
ransom, a fortune incalculable even to its owner. </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>The Brass Bowl</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Louis Joseph Vance, 1907.</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">By the 1920s it was moderately common, though still not recognised by the
linguistic authorities. When in 1950 Leonard Gribble published an anthology of
tales for children under the title </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Story Trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, it clearly wasn’t regarded as
hopelessly bad English. Shortly afterwards, this well-known example appeared:</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">The Wise may have good reason to believe that the halfling’s trove is
indeed the Great Ring of long debate, unlikely though that may seem to
those who know less.</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>The Fellowship of the Ring</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by J R R Tolkien, 1954.</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">Nowadays it is unremarkable, though often expressing a broader sense of a
hoard of intangible valuables (an Australian newspaper database, for example,
is called simply </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">):</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">But that would have to assume that Sony executives are incredibly smart.
The trove of their emails would strongly suggest that’s not the case.</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>Garden City Telegram</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Kansas), 2 Jan. 2015.</span></font></div>
<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">It has to recognise that consumer services are generating a trove of data
that’s valuable to us.</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>New Scientist</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 24 Jan. 2015.</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">Language has moved on. </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is now too widely used to be dismissed as bad
English. Dictionaries include it (the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> has had an
entry for it since 1989), though some refer the enquirer to </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>treasure-trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">.
American ones are readier than British to accept that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is now a noun and a
valid abbreviated form of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>treasure-trove</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. The </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> itself acknowledges
this in its Corrections and Clarifications item: “Perhaps we should now accept
that it’s a useful word on its own.” Indeed.</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>Smithereens</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 Stephen Offenbacker, Germany</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">: Any thoughts on the origin of
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, as in </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>smash to smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">? I sometimes wonder if it could have
anything to do with blacksmiths, since a blacksmith’s hammer is certainly well
capable of reducing objects to small pieces.</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. It’s an excellent word to describe the action of pummelling something
forcibly, with that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>sm</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> sound at the start that also appears in words such as
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smack</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smite</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smash</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. When an object has become smithereens, it has been
thoroughly reduced to little bits. There’s nothing half-hearted about the
activity, which most often appears in phrases such as </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>blown to smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">,
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>split in smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and your </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>smashed to smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. Another:</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">The party is in danger of being blasted to smithereens at next year’s
General Election. </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>The Sun</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 26 Feb. 2015.</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">That huge tribe variously called Smith, Smyth, or Smythe, whose family name
has been taken from a worker in iron, need not worry that they are being
accused of mayhem by proxy. Though there has been some small doubt about
the origin of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, and Ivor Brown speculated in </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Words in Our Time</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> in
1958 that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithers</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> might be from the detritus of blacksmithing, the experts are
now sure that there’s no link to smiths.</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">The </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>-een</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> ending at once makes us think of Ireland and of </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>colleen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>poteen</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt">,
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>shebeen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and other words that derive from the Irish diminutive ending </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>-ín</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. (A
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>colleen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is a young woman, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>poteen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> for illicit alcohol is literally a little pot and a
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>shebeen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, in which such liquor was sold, takes its name from the Irish word for a
small mugful; but note that </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>tureen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>canteen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>velveteen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>sateen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and some other
words aren’t from Irish, but from French.) Most dictionaries assert that
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> is indeed Irish, from </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>smidirín</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, a diminutive of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smiodar</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt">, a
fragment.</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">Early examples are certainly associated with Ireland. In August 1810, the
</span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Dublin Evening Post</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> published a notice that had been posted on a local
magistrate’s door in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in 1795. This was the act of
Orangemen, Protestant adherents of William of Orange (William III), who
invaded Ireland in 1690 and defeated his Catholic predecessor James II at the
Battle of the Boyne:</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">Mr Pounden, — Sir, we gave you notice some time ago to quit this
country, for you are making a rebellion here — we tell you now again, that
if you do not be </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>of</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> directly, by the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>gost</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of William, our deliverer, and by
the Orange we wear, we will break your carriage in smithereens, and hoch
your cattle, and burn your house — so mind yourself — you will soon hear
again from your friend, TRUE BLUE.</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">Reprinted in the </span><span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Irish Magazine, or Monthly Asylum for Neglected Biography</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:11pt">,
Sep. 1810. </span><span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>Hoch</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> is sometimes respelled as </span><span style=" font-size:11pt">
<i>hough</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">; both are versions of </span><span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>hock</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, to
disable an animal by cutting its tendons.</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 notice was also reproduced in Francis Plowden’s </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>The History of Ireland
from its Union With Great Britain in January 1801 to October 1810</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> and in
newspapers in Britain and North America. The publicity must have helped
popularise the word. By one of those quirks of recording, the word had
appeared earlier in print in the US in an article in the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Goshan Weekly News</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> of
Indiana in January 1805. </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> — always plural, by the way — became
widely known in later decades wherever English was spoken and is still
common. It’s too good to lose.</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">One remaining minor puzzle is its resemblance to the Scots and English dialect
word </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smither</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> or </span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
<i>smithers</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> meaning fragments, a word of doubtful ancestry,
though it’s been suggested it might be from </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smite</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, or perhaps associated in
some way with </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smidgen</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. </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">An’ once I said to the Missis, “My lass, when I cooms to die,
<br />
Smash the bottle to smithers, the Divil’s in ‘im,” said I.</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>The Northern Cobbler</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, in </span><span style=" font-size:11pt">
<i>Ballads and Other Poems</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson,
1880. This dialect poem recounts the cobbler’s struggle against alcoholism.</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 </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, in an old entry, wondered if </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smither</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> could
have been taken to Ireland by incomers and been extended by the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>‑een</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> ending,
with the Irish form </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smidirín</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> coming along later. As </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithers</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> was first recorded
decades after </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, it’s just as likely matters are the other way around,
with its being an abbreviation of </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>smithereens</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">. Nobody believes either situation
now: the two words were probably of independent formation, though they may
well have influenced each other. </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>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">A headline on MSN on 23 February struck Martin Gilmore as being tough duty
for the cops involved: “Beloved K9 receives final salute, police escort to be
euthanized at clinic.”</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">“Dolly’s unexpected job” was the eyebrow-raised subject of John Peck’s email,
about this sentence on the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Daily Mail</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt"> site on 2o February: “Roger Stone,
pictured with Dolly Parton, who was Rotherham Council leader at the time, is a
lifelong fan of the country singer.”</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 Paul McAuley’s SF book </span>
<span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Something Coming Through</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">, out last month:
“Daniel sat back, steepling his long fingers across his waistcoat. He bought
them from a little shop in Brixton Market.”</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 Blackmore submitted a misleadingly written — though accurate —
headline about a serious accident that was in the </span><span style=" font-size:13pt"><i>Massachusetts Eagle-Tribune</i></span><span style=" font-size:13pt">
of 12 February. “Kingston man not seriously hurt in fatal crash.”</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>Useful information</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">About this newsletter: World Wide Words is researched, written and published
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