<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"><head>
<title></title>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"/>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css"/>
</head>
<body>
<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 July 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 available online at </b></span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/rufc"><font face="Calibri" color="#0000ff">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b><u>http://wwwords.org/rufc</u></b></span></font></a><font face="Calibri" color="#008000"><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<b> <br />
and is attached as a PDF file.</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>Crisp versus crispy.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Several readers responded to the comments in this section last
time, among them Andrew Haynes: “</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Crisp bacon</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> would have the awkward feature of
consecutive labial consonants, which would make it hard to pronounce other than as
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>crisbacon</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Crispy</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> may convey nothing that </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>crisp</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> does not, but it allows a clearly
enunciated description of bacon cooked to crispiness (or crispness).” Gould Thomas
added, “I never hear that word without thinking of one of my favourite lines from </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The
Goon Show</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: ‘Whatever happened to the crispy bacon we had before the war?’ When
with friends and the conversation seems to be going nowhere I will throw that in just
to ‘re-boot’ it.”</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>Deodand.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Carl Moss was one of a number of readers who mentioned a curious usage
of this old word. “Those of us who take a guilty pleasure in reading fantasy ‘literature’
will recognise </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>deodand</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> as a word appropriated by Jack Vance for his </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Dying Earth</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
books as a type of humanoid creature. I don’t know why he picked the word. Perhaps
it was for its splendid and slightly exotic sound.”</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>Vigintillion</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">Reader David Hutchinson asked me about this word, which he had encountered in a
well-known story by H P Lovecraft, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Call of Cthulhu</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which appeared in </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Weird
Tales</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> in February 1928: “After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again,
and ravening for delight.” Was this perhaps a creation by Lovecraft or a real word
with some history?</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 rather rare but </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>vigintillion</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is real enough, though its meaning has been disputed.
Some old references explain it as 10 followed by 120 zeros (10</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><sup>120</sup></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">) but modern ones as
10 followed by a mere 63 zeros (10</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><sup>63</sup></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">). This gross disparity in definition of a number
that by any measure is awesomely huge (the universe is estimated to contain about
10</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><sup>23</sup></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> stars) is the result of different French and English methods of naming big
numbers.</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">When Lovecraft was writing a century ago, the word was known to many older
Americans from the rote learning of arithmetic in school. This Gradgrindian approach
to imparting facts was based on works such as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>A New and Complete System of
Arithmetick: Composed for the Use of the Citizens of the United States</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, written by
Nicolas Pike in 1788 but later revised and extended by others. Most children would
have met one of the abridged versions considered to be more appropriate for tender
minds. It was one of Pike’s revisers, Chester Dewey, who introduced </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>vigintillion</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, in
the fourth edition of 1822:</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">These names of periods of figures, derived from the Latin numerals, may
be continued without end. They are as follows, for twenty periods, viz.
Units, Millions, Billions, Trillions, Quatrillions, Quintillions, Sextillions,
Septillions, Octillions, Nonillions, Decillions, Undecillions, Duodecillions,
Tredecillions, Quatuordecillions, Quindecillions, Sexdecillions,
Septendecillions, Octodecillions, Novemdecillions, Vigintillions.</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">Pike had sensibly ended his list at duodecillions and to extend it was surely otiose.
Successors and imitators perpetuated Dewey’s version of this utterly useless
catalogue, few of whose members have ever been encountered in print other than as
part of this list.</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">Most enforced learners must have forgotten almost all of these number words
immediately after leaving school and probably felt the better for it. Some later
recalled its final member, not in its specific sense but as a way to express some very
large but unspecified number, much as we use words like </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>gazillion</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> or </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bazillion</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> today:</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">Well when a boy we learned the numeration table as far as vigintillions by
the English method, and it is well we did, for nothing short of this would
tell of the corn crop this fall.</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>Freeport North West</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Freeport, Illinois), 14 Sep. 1865.</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 names never stood much chance of being adopted. When the need to refer to
large numbers became urgent a century later, a set of prefixes were created (</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>giga‑</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">,
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>tera-</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>peta-</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>eta-</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>zeta-</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>yotta-</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">) that take us to 10</span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><sup>24</sup></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, about as far as most people will
ever need to go. They mostly appear in computing (</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>gigabytes</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>terabytes</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and the
like) since recorders even of national expenditure haven’t yet needed to speak of sums
of money much greater than a trillion. Douglas Hofstadter wrote wittily in his
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Metamagical Themas</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> column in </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>Scientific American</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> in May 1982 about these old
terms:</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">To be sure, there are some official names for bigger numbers [than
trillions], but they are about as familiar as the names of extinct dinosaurs:
quadrillion, octillion, vigintillion, brontosillion, triceratillion and so on.
We are simply not familiar with them, since they died off a dinosillion
years ago.</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">Let that be their epitaph.</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="Georgia" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>Hingle</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">
<i>Hingle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, an English dialect word that I suspect is now hardly known, appeared
recently in a book by a father-and-son pair of poachers. In the language of their
occupation, a hingle is a snare with which to catch a hare or rabbit. It’s essentially a
bent twig or loop of wire. </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">At root, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>hingle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> means a hinge and the word has also been used in dialect in that sense;
it can be traced to the Old English </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>hengle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> that’s also the origin of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>hinge</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">
<i>Hingle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> has been recorded across a band of English counties from Lancashire and
Cheshire in the west to Norfolk in the east. A couple of references suggest that the
snares were also used to catch wild birds. In 1880 </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Zoologist</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> wrote about Norfolk
that “Sky Larks were, at that time, so plentiful in the ‘Fen,’ that from twenty to thirty
dozen were taken daily in ‘hingles.’” An old ordinance about swans, said to be from
the reign of Henry VIII and presented to a conference in Lincoln in 1848, read in part
“It’m [Item] that no person shall set any hingles, snares or engines for foule, from
Shrovetide to St Luke’s Day.” </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 appears from time to time in nineteenth-century court reports of poachers
on trial, as here in the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Bury and Norwich Post</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of December 1858: “I was watching a
hingle with a dead partridge in it ... and saw the defendant come along the hedge
cutting up some sticks. When he got up to the stack he took up the hingle and the
partridge, and went home with it.”</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 perhaps not so surprising that the word has survived but the two poachers who
wrote the book are from Gloucestershire, well outside the historical area in which the
term has been recorded.</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>Bookaneer</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">A review of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Last Bookaneer</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> by Matthew Pearl produced a word new to me, one
with an intriguing history. </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">His title term refers to literary thieves of the nineteenth century who exploited the
lack of international copyright agreements to publish counterfeit editions in foreign
countries. These buccaneers of the book trade were especially prevalent in the USA,
reproducing new works by popular British authors such as Charles Dickens without
bothering to pay for the privilege. </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">Matthew Pearl writes in </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Last Bookaneer</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: “Bookaneers would not describe
themselves as thieves, but they would resort to almost any means to profit from an
unprotected book.” Dickens had a very public battle with piratical American
periodicals and satirised their activities in </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, the serial parts of
which were reprinted in the very publications he was lambasting.</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>Bookaneer</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> was coined by the poet and author Thomas Hood in a letter in </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>The
Athenaeum</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of 22 April 1837 under the title </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Copyright and Copywrong</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">: “If a work be
of temporary interest it shall virtually be free for any Bookaneer to avail himself of its
pages and its popularity with impunity.” The extent of the problem was described in
an American publication at the middle of the century:</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">No sooner is a literary venture of Bulwer, Thackeray, or Dickens afloat,
than a whole baracoon of “bookaneers,” as Hood called them, rushes
forth to seize 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>The Metropolitan</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Baltimore), March 1853. A </span><span style=" font-size:11pt">
<i>barracoon</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> was a rough barracks
used for the temporary confinement of slaves or criminals.</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">It’s curious that in an age when it was considered rather bad form for a serious writer
to coin new words that </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bookaneer</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> should have had the circulation it did. But it was of
temporary popularity within a narrow field and there were few uses after the 1870s in
the sense of a ruffianly publisher (though the word has had other senses since) until
Matthew Pearl found it while writing a work about Dickens in 2009 and decided to
focus on the pirates in his next work.</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="Georgia" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>Weather-wise</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">A sentence in yet another book review, in the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> on 13 June, sent me to the
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: “FitzRoy was not the first European to establish a
storm-warning system, but he coined the term ‘forecast’.” He did?</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 reference is to Robert FitzRoy, who captained HMS</span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i> Beagle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> on the famous voyage
to explore and survey the coast of South America with Charles Darwin. He later
became an admiral. FitzRoy was an early enthusiast for meteorology who in 1854
became head of a new government department that evolved into the Meteorological
Office; he produced the first forecasts of stormy weather for shipping in 1861.
(FitzRoy’s contribution to weather forecasting was marked internationally in 2002
when the shipping forecast area to the west of the Bay of Biscay known as Finisterre
was renamed in his honour.) FitzRoy used </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>forecast</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> because, as he commented in
1863 in </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Weather Book: A Manual of Practical Meteorology</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, “Prophecies and
predictions they are not. The term forecast is strictly applicable to such an </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>opinion</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> as
[it] is a result of scientific combination and calculation.”</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">Other writers similarly claim FitzRoy invented </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>forecast</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> but they are wrong. The
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> does cite a letter he wrote to </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The Times</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> in April 1862 as its
first example in the sense of weather forecasting, but the noun has been recorded
since at least the late seventeenth century, having been derived from the much older
verb.</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">Those that perpetuate the story presumably think in this way: Admiral FitzRoy
invented the weather forecast, therefore he must also have invented the word
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>forecast</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It is probably much too late to expunge this folk etymology from the public
mind.</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="Georgia" color="#008000">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b>From my reading</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>Leaves of chaos.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Within the European Commission the evolving Greek financial
crisis has led to insiders creating a jargon term that appeared in several places this
past week: </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>paperology</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. This isn’t the science or study of paper and its uses, though
others have employed it in that sense, but refers to the series of economic reform
proposals that the Greek government has submitted in recent weeks. It has been
explained as the exchange of different discussion papers in order to seem to be
demonstrating progress while actually acting as a delaying tactic. One source suggests
that the term arose earlier in the crisis, in 2012. In that year, the risk that Greece may
be forced to abandon the euro generated another jargon term within the EU
bureaucracy: </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>redrachmatisation</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. So much has been written recently about the crisis
that Wall Street traders have reportedly invented </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Gretigue</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a blend of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Greek</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>fatigue</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">
<b>Downward disposal?</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> A curious idiom appeared in a tweet on 1 July by Boris
Johnson, the Mayor of London and recently elected MP. He was commenting on the
342-page report published that day by the Davies commission. After three years’ work
it has decided that a third runway at Heathrow Airport would be the best option for
increasing air capacity in the south-east of England. Johnson opposes the
enlargement of Heathrow and wrote that the report was “destined for vertical filing as
3rd r/way will never be built.” Vertical filing? Did he mean that the report is likely to
languish on some dusty bookshelf or that it should be thoughtfully dropped into the
nearest wastepaper basket? I've asked him.</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>Pig sick</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 Margaret Lethbridge-Cejku</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: I came across this recently, in a mystery novel
set in Bath, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Something in the Blood</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> by Jean Goodhind: “She knew he was brooding.
He’d lost the clock and he was pig sick about it.” I gather the character was near
prostrate in his disappointment, but </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>pig sick</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">? Is this a common expression? When I
encounter </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>sick as a dog</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, I envision vomiting copiously. But pigs? Are they prone to
histrionics? The context leads me to think that it’s an over-the-top but deeply felt
heartache. Can you enlighten this Yankee reader?</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"> The sense is as you describe it. The slang term </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>pig sick</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> refers not to a real physical
sickness or illness but to an acute state of mind — annoyed, saddened, displeased,
discontented or indignant about something:</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">If you are pig sick of the Kardashian clan, an app called KardBlock cuts
them out of your digital life.</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">, 5 May 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">We’re pig sick of this political correctness</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 Mirror</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> headline, 25 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:12pt">
<i>Sick</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> by itself can have much the same idea of a feeling of affliction or mental
unhappiness that’s powerful enough to mimic a physical ailment. It’s been used in
English for about a thousand years and we have several phrases that include it, such
as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>sick at heart</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>heartsick</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">) and the old-fashioned </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>sick with love</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">. A person might
say “it makes me sick”, “I’m sick of it” or more fully “I’m sick and tired of it” when
referring to some situation that seriously irritates. To express sadness or
disappointment we have down the years been metaphorically as sick as horses, dogs,
and even parrots.</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 the pig in the expression isn’t a real animal either. Like </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>dog</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>pig</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> has long been
used as what linguists call an intensifier, adding strength to an expression. Somebody
may be </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>pig-ignorant</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, for example. To be </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>pig sick</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> then is to have some adverse
emotion in especially high measure.</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 term is mostly found in Britain and Commonwealth countries and looks from the
dating evidence to be a coinage of the Second World War. This is the earliest I’ve so
far found, a letter to a British newspaper from a resident who is displeased by
wartime regulations:</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">If a jay-walker is knocked down, blame the motorist; if he accidentally
bumps the kerb he is driving dangerously; if his lights are too bright or
too dim, he is a danger on the road; if his car is not smothered in white
paint he commits an offence; if he drives over 30 m.p.h. he is a menace; if
he drives under 30 m.p.h. he is impeding traffic. All these petty items are
making the motorist just pig-sick.</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>Hartlepool Mail</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 16 Jan. 1942.</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">There may be a literal source for the expression. At one time, land was said by
farmers and vets to be </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>pig sick</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> if the animals were allowed to run on it for an
extended period so that parasites built up in the soil, stopping the pigs thriving and
sometimes killing them. It’s possible that early users of the expression had this
agricultural usage in mind.</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">Michael LaNoue read in the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Denver Post</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of a police investigation into a person
hoarding animals: “When officers arrived, they discovered hundreds of rats, snakes
and geckos that Kelley said appeared to be stored in a garage. ‘We did find deceased
animals living in very poor conditions’, she said.”</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 </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>East Oregonian</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> became briefly notorious for its headline over a sports story on 6
June: “Amphibious Pitcher makes debut”. Thanks to the many people who sent that
in.</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">Charles Veritie wondered if he were missing something, having read a report on
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Yahoo News</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> on 29 June about Heathrow Airport: “The extension will be built on top
of the existing Terminal 1, which is to be demolished.”</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">Craig Osborne encountered a paradoxical sign at a parking space: “No Unauthorised
Parking Without Permission”.</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 July issue of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Allestree Life</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a magazine for a suburb of Derby, caused Kate
Bunting to hoot with laughter: “Heavily pregnant, my husband arrived home from
work to find me under the kitchen table on all fours ...”</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">Thomas Mannoia read in a report on the News10 site about the fate of one of the New
York prison escapees: “Richard Matt was shot and killed in the head three times”.
Once is usually enough.</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">A headline on the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Mansfield Wicked Local</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> site in New England was spotted by Barton
Bresnik: “Mansfield shoplifting suspect nabbed after chase with halted train”.</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 freely
provided by 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>
<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>Support World Wide Words</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: If you have enjoyed this newsletter and would like to
help defray its costs and those of the linked Web site, please visit the .</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:11pt">
<b>Subscriptions</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: Email worldwidewords-leave@listserv.linguistlist.org from your
subscribed address to </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>leave the list</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. To </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>join the list</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, send an email from the to
worldwidewords-join@listserv.linguistlist.org. To </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>change your subscribed address</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">,
leave the list and rejoin. In each case, the subject line and body of your message will
be ignored; you will be sent a message asking you to confirm your intention. Please
don’t contact me about changes you can make yourself, though if problems arise you
can email me at wordssubs@worldwidewords.org. Back issues from January 2011 are
</span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/bi"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt"><u>here</u></span></font></a>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and older ones back to 1999 are </span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/bk"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><u>here</u></span></font></a><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">. World Wide Words is also on </span></font>
<a href="http://wwwords.org/tw"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt"><u>Twitter</u></span></font></a>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and
</span></font><a href="http://wwwords.org/fb"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt"><u>Facebook</u></span></font></a>
<font face="Georgia"><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:11pt">
<b>Email addresses:</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Comments on newsletter mailings are always welcome. They
should be sent to me at michael.quinion@worldwidewords.org. I try to respond, but
pressures of time often stop me. Items intended for </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Sic!</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> should be addressed to
sic@worldwidewords.org. Questions for the Q&A section should be sent to
questions@worldwidewords.org, not to the correspondence address.</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:11pt">
<b>Copyright:</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 1996-2015. All rights
reserved. You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free newsletters,
newsgroups or mailing lists or as educational resources provided that you include the
copyright notice above and give the website address of
http://www.worldwidewords.org. Reproduction of items in printed publications or
commercial websites requires permission from the author beforehand.</span></font></p>
<div align="left"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt"><br />
</span></font></div>
<div align="left"> </div>
</body>
</html>