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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 4 April 2015</i></span></font></p>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:0.00mm; margin-bottom:6.33mm;"><font face="Calibri" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>This newsletter is also </b></span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/utkh"><font face="Calibri" color="#0000ff">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b><u>online</u></b></span></font></a><font face="Calibri" color="#008000"><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<b>.</b></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:12pt">
<b>Volleyballene.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Barbara Millikan emailed to point out that entomologists are just as
skittish in naming species as chemists are with new substances. As two examples, she
mentioned the insects </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Carmenelectra shechisme</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Scaptia Beyonceae</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. She gave a
link to an article on the </span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/nstnmes"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<u>Plantwise blog</u></span></font></a><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt"> which provides more examples.</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:12pt">And Ed Matthews tracked down </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>polybathroomfloorene</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which isn't a fullerene, but
the creation of an SF author:</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">That, obviously, had been the multiple-benzene-ring gas Hawkesite; it
had been very popular during the days of the warring stellar “empires,”
when it had been called “</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>polybathroomfloorene”</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> for no discoverable
reason.</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>Earthman, Come Home</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by James Blish, 1955.</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:12pt">
<b>Oddest book title of the year.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> The last issue detailed the shortlist for the 2015
Bookseller Diagram prize. The winner was announced on 26 March: a travelogue
called </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Strangers Have the Best Candy</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, self-published by Margaret Meps Schulte.
Subtitled “How talking to strangers leads to a life of crazy adventure and lasting
friendship”, it chronicles her experiences of talking to strangers while travelling in the
US.</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:12pt">
<b>Trove.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> An unexpected consequence of my piece on </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>trove</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> in the last issue was a
mention of it in the </span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/trove"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<u>Open Door section</u></span></font></a><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> newspaper last Monday, with
an extended quote. It also provoked a change to the journal’s style guide. </span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Vellichor</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:12pt">Amogh Simha alerted me to this word, which has been widely mentioned on social
media in the past year but which is unknown to the non-digital world. All the
references to it quote the same definition, which suggests that they all derive from a
common source.</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:12pt">This appears to be John Koenig’s wonderfully named site </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Dictionary of Obscure
Sorrows</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It was picked up by Twitter subscribers in August 2013 and has been
making the rounds ever since. It has caught people’s attention online in a way that
coined words rarely do.</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:12pt">John Koenig wrote of his creation that it meant:</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 strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused
with the passage of time — filled with thousands of old books you’ll never
have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and
dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago,
a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day
they were captured.</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:12pt">Few words in English end in </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>-chor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, easily the most common being </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>anchor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It and two
others come from unconnected roots: the obsolete </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>vouchor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Oxford English
Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> tells us is a person “who calls another into court to warrant a title” and the
chemical term </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>parachor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. Two more are the linked </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ichor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>petrichor</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">. The former is
the stuff that was said to flow in the veins of the Greek gods in place of blood; the
latter is the distinctive and pleasant smell that can accompany rain falling on ground
baked dry.</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:12pt">This last evocative word (created only in 1964 from </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ichor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> with a prefix from Greek
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>petros</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, stone) must surely be the inspiration for </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>vellichor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, with the first part replaced
with </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>vellum</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. For lovers of books, there is nothing more distinctive and melancholy
than the sight and smell of old books, redolent of dust and decayed hopes.</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:12pt">
<i>Vellichor</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> deserves to be more widely known.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Galoot</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:12pt"> </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>From Jim Curran in Canada (a related question came from Sam Young in New
Zealand)</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: I have heard the expression </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>big galloot</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> but wonder what a </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>galloot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is,
whether large or small? Can you enlighten me?</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:12pt"> I’m not at all sure one can have a small galoot. The image is usually of a man who
is variously worthless, uneducated, simple-minded or stupid. He may be clumsy and
large, but not necessarily, though </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>big galoot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is certainly the compound that’s most
often been found. He may also be argumentative and difficult to get on with, hence
the classic description </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ornery galoot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> that I recall from my days of reading American
cowboy stories. It’s basically an all-purpose term of mild contempt with humorous
undertones. On the other hand, like many such insults, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>galoot </i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">can also be a term of
affection. It was quite widely used from about 1900 to the 1940s but is now outdated
and unfashionable even in its American heartland . </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:12pt">The spelling I’m using, by the way, is the usual one in my dictionaries, though yours is
also common. In its early days, around the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was
also recorded variously as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>galoon</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>galoosh</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>galook</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>galout</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">.</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:12pt">It appears in 1819 in a work with the catchy title </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Memoirs of the First Thirty-Two
Years of The Life of James Hardy Vaux, A Swindler and Pickpocket; Now
Transported for the Second Time, and For Life, to New South Wales</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. He added to it
a glossary of slang, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>A New Vocabulary of the Flash Language</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which Vaux had
compiled while a transported convict in Australia. He defined </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>galloot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, as he spelled it,
as “a soldier”. It retained that association in the 1864 edition of John Camden
Hotten’s </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Slang Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, but Hotten spelled it </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>geeloot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and said it was a recruit or
awkward soldier. Three years later Admiral William Henry Smyth published his
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Sailor’s Word-Book: an Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and included that
definition, adding a note that it could also refer to a “young or ‘green’ marine”.</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:12pt">Despite the early association with Australia, the term is British. The earliest example
I’ve found in a printed work is this mildly mysterious snippet from a newspaper
article about a political row involving a man named Swan:</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">Our excellent contemporary, the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Edinburgh Evening Post</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which so
thoroughly exposed the humbug of the factious, scribbling, galloot
Alexander Sommerville, has also landed the Swan high and dry, and
never did anything bearing the same name look more awkward, even to
deformity, than does the present specimen.</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>Old England</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (London), 20 Jan. 1833. The title of the article, by the way, is
“Rara Avis — A Black Swan”, a play on the man’s name and character that long
precedes all the fuss in recent years about the term </span><span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>black swan</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> for a rare and
unexpected event that has significant consequences.</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:12pt">
<i>Galoot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> was undoubtedly slang taken to Australia by involuntary immigrants. The
associations with both army and navy are present in the first example known from
that country, in a tale told by an old seaman:</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">May I never see light if ev’ry chap as toed a line on her deck, from stem to
starn, had’nt his body braced-up with a pair o’ braces crossing his
shoulders for all the world like a galloot on guard.</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 Sydney Gazette</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (New South Wales), 22 Jan. 1833.</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:12pt">The seafaring associations also appeared the following year in </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Jacob Faithful</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a
British work by Captain Frederick Marryat (still known a little for his children’s
classic </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Coral Island</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">). In it, a naval officer, messing about in a boat on the River
Thames, nearly gets his four unpleasant civilian companions drowned, only to be
saved by Jacob Faithful, a river boatman and the book’s narrator:</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">“Have you got them all, waterman?” said he. “Yes, sir, I believe so; I have
four.” “The tally is right,” replied he, “and four greater galloots were never
picked up; but never mind that. It was my nonsense that nearly drowned
them; and, therefore, I’m very glad you’ve managed so well.”</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>Jacob Faithful</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Captain Frederick Marryat, 1834.</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:12pt">In the late 1860s it begins to appear in American publications without the military or
seafaring associations but with the more general sense of a term of abuse for a
person, usually male. However, the first known example in print from North America
is in a comedy sketch and refers affectionately to a woman:</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">I felt a sentymental mood still so gently ore me stealin’, and I pawsed
before Betsey’s winder, and sung, in a kind of operatic vois, as follers,
improintoo, to-wit:<br />
Wake, Betsey, wake,<br />
My sweet galoot!<br />
Rise up, fair lady,<br />
While I touch my lute!</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">A syndicated tale by “Artemus Ward” (Charles Farrar Browne) in </span><span style=" font-size:11pt">
<i>The
Worthington Gazette</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Indiana), 30 May 1866.</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:12pt">Its source is obscure, though it has been suggested it may be from the Dutch word
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>gelubt</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> for a eunuch or a corruption of Dutch </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>genoot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a companion. Those current
dictionaries that hazard a guess mention the Scots </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>loot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a variant form of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>lout</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">,
prefixed by the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ker-</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> sound (modified to the spelling </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ga-</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">) which may in this case be a
reinforcement of the idea in the root.</span></font></p>
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<span style=" font-size:14pt"><b>Crizzling</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:12pt">The last issue contained a reference to Robert Macfarlane’s book </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Landmarks</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which
details the results of his long search for the language of landscape and natural
phenomena. </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Crizzling</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is one member of his collection.</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:12pt">It appears in the entry for </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>fizmer</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> — which he says is the rustling noise that is
produced in grass by petty agitations of the wind, but which the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>English Dialect
Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of a century ago defines as “to fidget restlessly; to make a great stir about
trifles, to make little progress” — with other words that he suggests are imitative of
the sounds they represent, such as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>susurrus</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a low soft whispering or rustling sound.
He writes that </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i><u>c</u></i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>rizzling</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is the action of frost forming on water. Though he doesn’t
make it explicit, putting it with the others suggests that it describes the faint crackling
sound you can sometimes hear when ice forms.</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:12pt">It’s a dialect word, best known from Northamptonshire, though the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>English Dialect
Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> records it from Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Leicestershire as well. Its
most famous appearances, two of the few in print before modern times, are in poems
by John Clare of Northamptonshire, called the Peasant Poet because he wrote in
spare time from working as a farm labourer. His </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Address to Plenty</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of 1821 has “View
the hole the boys have broke, / Crizzling, still inclin’d to freeze — / And the rime upon
the trees.” In another poem, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Woodman</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, he wrote that “The white frost ’gins
crizzle pond and brook.” </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:12pt">These are evocative images that don’t suggest sound but rather the physical change
that Professor Macfarlane defined. The few other definitions that exist don’t mention
noise either. The </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>English Dialect Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> says the verb </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>crizzle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> means “to become
rough on the surface, as water when it begins to freeze” and “To grow hard and rough
with heat; to crisp, to make rough with drought or heat.” The </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Oxford English
Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">’s definition is similar, to “roughen or crumple the surface” of something.</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:12pt">The word has vanished from dialect, but it lives on in a specialist term that seems to
have arisen around the end of the nineteenth century. </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Crizzled glass</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, also called </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>sick
glass</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, is the bane of museum conservators. Salts can leach out of old glass that hadn’t
been made with the correct ingredients. They can form a crust on the surface that
clouds and roughens it, or may generate a network of fine cracks that may cause the
glass to fall apart.</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>Caparisoned</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:12pt">Don’t be confused by the first syllable: this English word doesn’t imply a head
covering, though it can be used for clothing. But there is a historical link, as some
experts believe that </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>caparisoned</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> ultimately derives from the Latin word for a cap.</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:12pt">The original </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>caparison</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> wasn’t for humans. It was a cloth spread over the saddle or
harness of a horse. Its source — through French — was Spanish </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>caparazón</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> for a
saddlecloth (which may also be the source of </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>carapace</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, for the upper shell of a
tortoise, by inversion of the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>p</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>r</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> through what’s called metathesis). This probably
came from </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>capa</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a short cape or hood, itself from late Latin </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>cappa</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a cap. Our </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>cape</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> is
from the same Latin word, though via Provençal and French instead. The link may be
the idea that a cloth on the back of a horse is equivalent to a cape for a human. </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:12pt">Medieval caparisons could be richly decorated, though that wasn’t implied by its
original meaning. However, almost as soon as it came into English it was being used
for any sort of splendid or expensive covering, including that of the person. In </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The
Winter’s Tale</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Shakespeare created the confidence trickster Autolycus, the original
“snapper-up of unconsidered trifles” (meaning he appropriated anything that had
been left unguarded). When he appears, he wittily bemoans his caparison of rags and
tatters, to which he had been reduced after too much gambling and wenching.</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:12pt">
<i>Caparisoned</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> often features in historical novels, especially nineteenth-century ones by
writers such as Sir Walter Scott. It has dropped off in popularity since then and has
become a semi-cliché, often preceded by words such as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>richly</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ornately</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>finely</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">. </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 feasts and pageants that mark coronations, births, marriages and
deaths are good for juicy details. Imagine giving birth under a
mink-edged cloak of velvet on a richly caparisoned pallet bed, then being
removed to an even more splendid bed of state.</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 Independent</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (London), 16 Nov. 2013.</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:12pt">Though </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>caparisoned</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is still common, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>caparison</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (my fingers keep wanting to type
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>comparison</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">) is rare these days, to the extent that its meaning has become somewhat
uncertain and muddled. It has been erroneously defined by writers in newspapers as
a tournament costume (true in a way, but of a horse rather than its rider) and as a
horse in a funeral procession.</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:12pt">John Arthur was fascinated by the genealogical implications of a quotation from
Katherine Holman’s </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Historical Dictionary of the Vikings</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> which appeared in a
Wikipedia article on the Old Norse hero Ragnar Lodbrok: “Although his sons are
historical figures, there is no evidence that Ragnar himself ever lived.”</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:12pt">“Can I have one of these drinks?” commented Tom Kavanagh on a subheading to an
article of 21 March on the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Spectator</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> site: “After all, how often does a vicar buy you a
drink, especially a female 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:12pt">The lead sentence in an AOL news item of 20 March that Gerald Weissmann
submitted has subsequently been reworded, for good reason: “After seven weeks in a
medically-induced coma, a source has revealed that Bobbi Kristina Brown's family is
making changes.”</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:12pt">“Definitely disturbing,” was the comment of Ross Burnett on a headline over a story
of 24 March on </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Week</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">’s website: “Disturbing ultrasounds show how babies are
affected by smoking in the womb.” Uncomfortable for the mother, too.</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:12pt">The website of the British estate agents Lancaster Samms features thumbnail
biographies of its staff. Steven Burkeman was struck by this one (not solely because of
the hypercorrection of </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>whom</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">): “After almost a decade of working in property, Elkie is
a passionate and experienced Sales Consultant whom has helped hundreds of buyers
find their dream home. Married with two young sons, Elkie has bought and sold
herself on many occasions and is personally and professionally accomplished.”</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:12pt">Julane Marx tells us that the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Los Angeles Times</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Sunday Business section had an
article on 29 March about becoming an aesthetician (a word new to me): “After
following a skin care regiment designed specifically for her, the client's acne
vanished.” Marching men vanquish disease?</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:12pt">You may recall the story from Los Angeles on 10 March about a famous actor having
to land his plane on a golf course. The </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>New York Post</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> headlined its item thus:
“Harrison Ford wasn’t required to file flight plan before crash-landing.” But then,
who is?</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:12pt">The April 2015 issue of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Film & Video Maker</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> contains a splendidly awful error,
resulting — we must assume — from computer speech-to-text conversion: “Align the
optical axes. These are two menagerie lions running through the lenses rather than
around the centre of the earth.”</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:11pt">
<b>About this newsletter:</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> World Wide Words is researched, written and published by
Michael Quinion in the UK. ISSN 1470-1448. Copyediting and advice are provided by
volunteers Julane Marx, Robert Waterhouse, John Bagnall and Peter Morris. Any
residual errors are the fault of the author. The linked website is
http://www.worldwidewords.org.</span></font></p>
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