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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 November 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/rukx"><font face="Calibri" color="#0000ff">
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><b><u>http://wwwords.org/rukx</u></b></span></font></a><font face="Calibri" color="#008000"><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<b> <br />
and is also attached to this message as a PDF file containing illustrations.</b></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:12pt">
<b>Snow.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> One dialect term in my list brought this comment from Hilary Maidstone:
“The word </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>hogamadog</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> you mention as being obsolete Northumbrian is sufficiently
similar to the still current Norfolk dialect word for a snail, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>hodmandod</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, to describe
rather nicely the act of rolling a ball of snow, I would have thought.”</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>The Great Eskimo Naming Problem. </b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">Many readers living nearer the peoples in
question were quick to criticise me for using the word </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Inuits</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. John Nightingalb was
among the first: “A Canadian would urge on you that </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Inuit</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is, itself, the plural form.
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Inuk</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is the singular.” Adam Thompson sent me a link to the Canadian government
advice on usage, which points out that in French, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Inuit</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is both singular and plural and
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Inuk</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> isn’t used. He notes that the same is often true in English.</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">Martin S Taylor wrote “What do you call it when falling snow, rather than melting as
it touches the ground, remains in its frozen, snowy state? I’m from Bristol, where this
is </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>pitching</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. But other parts of the country have it as </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>laying</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> or </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>settling</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"> or </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>landing</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, or a
whole variety of dialect terms.” </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>Chi-ike.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Lesley Shaw recalled this as very common in Australia when she was
growing up: “Chi-acking was light-hearted and essentially good-humoured
back-and-forth banter involving a bit of verbal horseplay between two people, a bit of
‘chucking off’ at each other. There was equality between the banterers and neither
was trying to win. You might do it during ‘smoko’ to ‘get a rise out of the other fellow’
but you would expect to get back as good as you gave. ‘Chi-acking’ was a public
activity as much to amuse onlookers or listeners. Someone might chime in and ask
‘What are you two chi-acking about?’ It’s a great word.”</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">“For what it’s worth,” Vanessa Westwood wrote, “my nan, who was born in London
but married into a Cannock family, used to say ‘Stop chi-iking about!’ to mean ‘stop
messing about’ when I was a kid.” Ross Drewe recalls that a similar sense has been
known in Australia: “In my youth (1960s–70s) this word was still in use, in the
Australianised form of </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>chyacking</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It had suffered a minor shift of meaning from
‘mocking exchanges between men’ to ‘generally boisterous and noisy behaviour by
young men’, usually in the phrase ‘they were chyacking around.’ However the older
meaning was still recognised in the form ‘he couldn’t stand all the chyacking and left
the site’.” </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">Tony Thurling commented in similar vein: “Your latest newsletter reminded me of my
early life [in Australia] where </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>shiacking</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> was a common term for anyone playing the
fool or larking or having a joke. I only ever encountered it in spoken form so don’t
know how it should be written, although I do recall Sydney newspapers at the time
(1970s) using </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>shiack</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>shyack</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It was usually spoken as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>shyacking about</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, with
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>shyacking</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> by itself, both verbal and written, being rare.” </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">Australian and New Zealander readers confirmed that this term, in its various
spellings, has now almost vanished from daily life. </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">British slang expert Jonathon Green tells me he has found earlier appearances of
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>chi-ike</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> than those he included in his three-volume </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Green’s Dictionary of Slang</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. One,
in the oldest sense of a hearty greeting, appeared in an 1835 ballad entitled
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Cock-Eyed Sukey</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: “If chance his mot male chyhoik hear, / And sneaks at once into
her nest”, where </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>mot</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> means girlfriend. This was reproduced in the 2011 four-volume
collection </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> by Patrick Spedding and Paul
Watt, a snip at £350. Jonathon commented: “The 1835 citation, with the usual double
entendre of ballads, might be interpreted as linking to a bird-call and thus suggesting
a new line of etymology.”</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>Cardiac Celt. </b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">Several readers pointed out that this term, mentioned last time, is
most probably based on the older </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Cardiac Jew</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, someone who feels Jewish “in their
heart” but not in their actions. Rick Turkel recalled, “I was in high school and college
during the 1950s and 1960s in New York City and Long Island and recall a similar
usage dating back at least another three decades. A self-referenced Cardiac Jew was
someone who was born Jewish but knew little or nothing of Jewish law, customs or
behavior (and observed less), and was often proud of that. In my crowd it was </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>not</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">
considered a favorable description.” </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">Several other readers recalled that they knew this
term from the same period or a little later, so it seems to have achieved fairly wide
circulation by that time, at least within Jewish communities. </span></font><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">Robert Kernish has
traced it back to an article of 1942 by I. Steinbaum, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>A Study of Jewishness of Twenty
New York Families</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. As Mr Turkel suggests, it may indeed be even older.</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>Unintended error.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> One item in the Sic! section led to a number of puzzled emails.
Roger Christie’s comments may serve for all: “I can’t be your only reader who is
wondering what is wrong with ‘You’ve got a set of unintended consequences that
weren’t planned for’. Most accidents and injuries aren’t intended, but we still have
hospital A&E departments and Fire and Ambulance services.” The comment seemed
so incongruous when I read it that I included it. But the readers who queried it are
correct. It belongs to the same category as Donald Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”,
which was widely mocked when he said it but is entirely logical.</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>Site updates.</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Since the last issue, I’ve revisited a number of pieces, updating them
with information that wasn’t available when I first researched them many years ago.
They are: </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Gone for a Burton</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>Pull the plug</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Bob’s your uncle</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Codswallop</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>That’s all
she wrote</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Great Scott</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. They’re linked from the </span></font>
<a href="http://www.worldwidewords.org/"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt"><u>home page</u></span></font></a>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>World Wide
Words</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> site.</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>Bob’s-a-dying</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 Les Kirkham</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: I know this phrase is used in the navy to mean “drunk”, even
“raucously drunk”, often as “kicking up Bob’s a-dying”, but what are its origins? Is it
anything to do with </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Bob’s your uncle</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">A. The usual dictionary sense of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Bob’s-a-dying</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is of a disturbance or uproar, perhaps
with physical violence involved. It requires no stretch of imagination to connect this
with sailors on shore leave getting well tanked up, but drunkenness as such doesn’t
seem to be the idea behind 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 rare these days and most people will probably have come across it only in such
works as the seafaring novels of Patrick O’Brian. He uses it five times in various
books, as here about his crew:</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">Once ashore they kicked up Bob’s a-dying to a most shocking extent and
then set about the soldiery.</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>Blue at the Mizzen</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Patrick O’Brian, 1999.</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 dating of the expression fits the Napoleonic period in which the books are set. We
begin to see it in print in 1828 but may reasonably assume it’s at least a decade or two
older. It’s much too old and too different in sense to be linkable to </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Bob’s your uncle</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">,
though it may be added to the list of sayings involving somebody or something named
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bob</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> that may just possibly have been an influence.</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">By the end of the nineteenth century it had largely dropped out of public writings but
was being recorded in dialect, from Cornwall to Northumberland, sometimes in
modified forms such as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bobs-a-dial</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> or </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>bobs-a-dilo</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It was said to mean “boisterous
merriment”, though it could also mean causing a row or making a huge fuss. Thomas
Hardy has a character in </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Under the Greenwood Tree</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> say, “You see her first husband
was a young man, who let her go too far; in fact, she used to kick up Bob’s-a-dying at
the least thing in the world.”</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 it first appeared, people seemed clear enough what it was referring to. A story
in the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Metropolitan Magazine</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> in 1835 has “I could dance a hornpipe and kick up
Bob’s a-dying.” Two years earlier a short story appeared that described setting sail on
a warship:</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">Man the haulyards — let go reef-tackles, cluelines, buntlines — light up in
the top — hoist away! Up they went to the tune of “Bob’s a dying”.</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 Monthly Magazine</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, Feb. 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">If any doubt should remain, let me dispel it with this later example:</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 bridal party marched in regular order next, and over them a parasol,
attached to a long rod of iron, was carried by another man, and by his side
was an accordeon player, striking up some lively strains, such as “Pop
goes the Weasel,” “Bob’s a dying,” &c.</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>Nottinghamshire Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 29 June 1854. </span><span style=" font-size:11pt">
<i>Accordeon</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> was a contemporary
spelling of </span><span style=" font-size:11pt"><i>accordion</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, derived from its </span></font>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:11pt">original </span></font><font face="Georgia" color="#006000"><span style=" font-size:11pt">German name.</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">Patrick O’Brian was also sure of its musical origin:</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">He too had danced to the fiddle and fife, his upper half grave and still, his
lower flying — heel and toe, the double harman, the cut-and-come-again,
the Kentish knock, the Bob’s a-dying and its variations in quick
succession and (if the weather was reasonably calm) in perfect time.</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 Ionian Mission</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Patrick O’Brian, 1981.</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 many references to </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>kicking up Bob’s a dying</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> suggests a high-kicking dance. This
presumably wasn’t a sea shanty but a tune particularly popular with seafarers. It’s a
pity that this doesn’t now seem to be known. It must have been particularly lively to
have become linked to uproar ashore, though sailors putting the boot in during an
affray would at once have seen the connection.</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">Who or what was </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bob</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is likewise not known. One theory has it that it referred to a
shilling in old British currency, known as a bob since the latter part of the eighteenth
century; bob might have been dying because the sailor’s money was almost spent. On
drink, we may reasonably suspect.</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><i>Binge-watching</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:12pt">
<i>Binge-watching</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, consuming several or all the episodes of a television programme in
quick succession, was announced by the British dictionary publishers Collins on 5
November as its 2015 Word of the Year. </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">Once upon a time, we had to wait for the next episode of our favourite television show
and had to be sure to catch it when it was broadcast or it was probably gone for ever.
Technology has changed all that, of course, not only providing box sets for easy access
to programmes we want to watch again but more recently giving online access to the
whole of a new series at once.</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">My face is unshaven, my eyes are bloodshot and I haven’t showered in
days. Such are the ravages of binge-watching. Welcome to the latest
addiction affecting America. ... Other than hiding the remote or changing
the victim’s Netflix password, there is no known cure.</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>Clearfield Progress</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Pennsylvania), 13 Jan. 2014.</span></font></div>
<p style="margin-left:0mm; margin-right:0mm; text-indent:0mm; margin-top:2.11mm; margin-bottom:0.00mm;"><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">The term derives from </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge-eating</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge-drinking</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, terms first found in the US
in the 1950s (though </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge drinker</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is a couple of decades older and the noun phrase
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>eating binge</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is of 1930s vintage). An immediate precursor was </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge-reading</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> from
the 1990s. </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">Though </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge-watching</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is recorded in the US as far back as 2003, it widened its
popularity in that country greatly from 2012 on. In December 2013 the American
Dialect Society selected it as its word “most likely to succeed”, a prediction that has
proved accurate. It is now widely known wherever English is spoken:</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">Forget binge-drinking, the celebrated vice in Tellyland is
“binge-watching” and the BBC is the latest to jump on the bandwagon.
Director-General Tony Hall is to release whole drama series on iPlayer. I
know it's what people want but I want to stand up for the slow burn.</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">, 11 Sep. 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>Binge</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is itself an intriguing word, though its ultimate origin is obscure. It derives
from the dialects of the midlands counties of England, such as Northamptonshire and
Lincolnshire. The </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>English Dialect Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of the end of the nineteenth century
notes that to soak a wooden vessel such as a cask or a tub to swell the wood and
render it watertight was said to </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> it. By extension a man who “soaked” himself in
alcoholic drink was said to binge or be on a binge, a usage recorded from
Northamptonshire in 1854.</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">Two slang dictionaries, in 1889 and 1890, note it in the sense of a drinking bout but it
seems to have become socially acceptable in Britain only during the First World War
— early examples are in letters from airmen. Noun and verb were carried to the USA a
little later.</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">We might guess that P G Wodehouse had a hand in its adoption in the US because he
was rather fond of it. However, he uses it loosely for a party, outing or situation, with
no implications of drinking:</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 had had experience of one or two of these binges, and didn’t want to run
any risk of coming early and finding myself shoved into a seat in one of
the front rows. </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 Inimitable Jeeves</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by P G Wodehouse, 1923.</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>Binge</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> can also be used in the sense of any extended immersion in an activity or
situation, such as a guilt binge or a workout binge, though this is less common.</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>Collins’ words of the year 2015</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">As well as </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge-watching</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, Collins’ editors have listed nine other words of 2015. The
most obviously new member of the collection, dating only from July, is </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Corbynomics</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">,
the economic policies of the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Transgender</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (of a
person whose gender identity does not fully correspond to the sex assigned to them at
birth) and associated words have been used much more this year, stimulated by the
media attention paid to Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox among others. The editors
note that </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>shaming</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (to embarrass a person on social media by drawing attention to
some supposed failing) has had a large rise in popularity this year in compounds such
as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>fat-shaming, slut-shaming </i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">and</span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i> single-shaming</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">Others in the list are </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>dadbod</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (the untoned and slightly plump physique of a man who
is nevertheless attractive to women), </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>manspreading</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (of a male passenger in a bus or
train splaying his legs in a way that denies space to the passenger sitting next to him),
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>ghosting</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (to break up with someone by refusing to respond to phone calls, emails and
texts), and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>clean eating</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (following a diet that avoids processed foods, consuming only
those in their natural state).</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">Some words in the list, including </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>binge-watching</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, have been around rather longer
and it seems slightly odd to attach them specifically</span></font><font face="Courier New"><span style=" font-size:12pt"> </span></font>
<font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt">to 2015: </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><b><i>contactless</i></b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<b> </b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">(of smart
cards that use radio-frequency links to make payments) could have been included in
any year from about 2011, though its use has been steadily increasing since; similarly
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>swipe</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (to move a finger across a touch screen on a mobile phone to approve or
dismiss some item) is far from new.</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>Methinks</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 Australian-born humorist, broadcaster and poet Clive James wrote in the
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> on 24 October “I save time on the web by reading nobody’s opinion that
contains the word ‘methinks’.” </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 dislike is understandable. The </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> describes it as archaic,
poetical and regional. It might have added “pretentious” because that’s surely the
quality of online writing that James finds unattractive and likely to waste what little
time he has left in this world. He would presumably have passed over an appearance
in the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> the week before: “So, where will the steel be purchased? Methinks
from George Osborne’s new friends in China.” Luckily for the reputation of the paper
in James’s eyes, that was in a reader’s letter.</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>Methinks</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> has long ago fallen out of spoken usage, except in expressions such as
“Methinks the witness doth protest too much”, a misquotation from </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Hamlet</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">. Style
guides mostly don’t bother to include it, not even to tell readers to avoid it, which
would be good advice. Brian Garner does provide an entry in his guide, without
castigation but calling it “an ever-popular archaism”. I would have contested that, had
I not found more than a thousand examples in a database of British newspapers from
the past 20 years. </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">Many appearances of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>methinks</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> suggest that the </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>OED</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> should have added “humorous”
to its list of likely contexts, though the jocularity can be so ponderous that the eyelids
droop in sympathy. Some journalists do seem to believe it marks prose as elevated or
serious, as in the down-market </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Sun</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> in July 2015: “Time, methinks, for author John
O’Farrell to republish his excellent memoirs”, and in May in the mid-market </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Daily
Telegraph</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: “Methinks that a bit more modesty about how ‘rich’ we are, and
accordingly about our ability to dish out largesse, might not go amiss.”</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>Methinks</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> isn’t only archaic but also ancient. It’s in one of the oldest works in English,
King Alfred’s translation before 899 of Boethius’ </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>De Consolatione Philosophiæ</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, the
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Consolations of Philosophy</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It was then two words, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>me thyncth</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> (but then written </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>me
þincð</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, using the old characters thorn and eth).</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 looks like a thrusting together of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>me</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>think</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">, meaning “it seems to me”,
and as though it comes directly from the Old English equivalent of </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>think</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. But at that
time there were two closely similar verbs, in modern spelling </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>thencan</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, to think, and
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>thyncan</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, to seem or appear. The source of </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>methinks</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is actually the second one. In
Middle English the two became confused and coalesced into one form that evolved
into our modern verb </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>to think</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>Methinks</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> followed.</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">If you’re ever tempted to use the past tense, it’s </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>methought</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. But please don’t.</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>From my reading</b></span></font></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0mm; list-style-type: disc; ">
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">I had thought that </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>dadager</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, a father who manages a show-business son or (more
usually) daughter, had gone the way of other temporary formations — the first
examples on record are from 2006 in reference to Joe Simpson, father-manager of
Jessica. But I came across it last week in reference to Matthew Knowles, described
as former dadager of Beyoncé, and a hunt around found a number of other recent
usages. There are, of course, also </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>momagers</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, and I’ve also turned up one reference
to a </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>sistager</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. Of the three, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>momager</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> is by far the commonest and also the oldest:
a newspaper search revealed an isolated early use from 1977.</span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">A recent BBC television programme, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>The World’s Weirdest Events</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, featured a
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>firenado</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. I come late to this one, as it started to appear in 2013 and became more
widely used in the US in 2014. A firenado is a tornado caused by a big fire, which
carries burning embers and flame across the land. Firenados have been recorded
much earlier under names like </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>fire whirl</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>fire devil</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>fire tornado</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>fire twister</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">.</span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">After the discussion of words for snow in the last issue, it was intriguing
to come
across another Antarctic cold-weather term: </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>brinicle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, from </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>brine</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>icicle</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">. This
was filmed for the first time in 2011 for the BBC television programme, </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Frozen
Planet</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, narrated by Sir David Attenborough. A brinicle is an underwater icicle.
Brine at a temperature well below 0C is extruded from the under-surface of sea ice
and, as it falls, seawater freezes around it to make a column which grows down to
the seabed.</span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">A recent article in the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Observer</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> introduced me to the term </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>social freezing</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, which
has been written about several times this year in the UK. This is the freezing of
eggs by women for social or personal reasons rather than medical necessity. In
theory it permits them to postpone having children until later in life without
problems associated with declining fertility, though experts warn it isn’t an
insurance policy as reimplantation can fail. Reasons for social freezing include
wanting to have a career first or not having yet found the right partner.</span></font></li>
</ul>
<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>Bill of goods</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 BJ Wise</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">: I’ve just come across the phrase </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>bill of goods</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. I might or might not
have read it before, but I had to look it up. Why would </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>selling someone a bill of goods</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">
mean to swindle them? I’m not even sure what a bill of goods in the plain sense
means.</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"> Let’s start with your last comment. Other than in the swindling sense, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of goods</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
is now hardly known, but unless you understand its more literal associations, the
idiom doesn’t make sense. A century ago </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of goods</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> was a US expression meaning a
consignment of goods of any sort:</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">He purchased a bill of goods from Brackton, and, with Creech helping,
carried it up to the cabin under the bluff. Three trips were needed to pack
up all the supplies.</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>Wildfire</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, by Zane Grey, 1917.</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">This is confusing for us today because we would think of this sort of bill as being a
piece of paper, most commonly the sort giving notice of money to be paid. This comes
from </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> having once meant any formal written document, a sense which survives in a
number of special cases, such as </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>parliamentary bill</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>dollar bill </i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">and </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>handbill</i></span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt">. It can
also be a list, as in </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of rights</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> or the old-fashioned </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of fare</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> for a menu. </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">Based on this idea, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of goods</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> originally really did mean a list of goods to be
provided, what we might today call a consignment note or despatch note:</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 merchant, who receives a bill of goods from his correspondent in
London or Liverpool, is particular not only to file that bill for future
reference, but to copy it entire into an invoice book, that he may at
pleasure look to the quantity, quality, and price of the various articles.</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>Gould’s Universal Index, And Everybody’s Own Book</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">, 1842.</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">At some point in the nineteenth century, it changed from being a list to the goods that
were listed.</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">Incidentally, </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> comes from the classical Latin </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>bulla</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> for various globular objects
such as a bubble, boss or stud. In medieval Latin it shifted to being the seal on a
document; in time it came to mean the document instead. In English </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bulla</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> became
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">. It also became </span><span style=" font-size:12pt">
<i>bull</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">, as in a </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Papal bull</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> and similar edicts.</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">Sometime around the 1920s </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of goods</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> took on the meaning that you’re asking
about — to cheat, swindle or get something over on somebody. We don’t know exactly
when or why. However, the two ideas are intimately connected, since there’s nothing
new in the idea of somebody cheating another by selling them inferior items or taking
money for goods that never arrive. The link is expressed pithily in the first example of
the phrase’s use we know about:</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">What has become of the old fashioned salesman who got his customer
drunk and then sold him a bill of goods?</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>Atchison Daily Globe </i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt">(Kansas), 5 Jan. 1933.</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">More recently, as the literal sense of </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>bill of goods</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> has fallen out of memory, the
expression has contracted again:</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">He’s already indicated plans to draw sharp contrasts between his ideas on
the economy and the Republican approach, which the president recently
dismissed as a “bill of goods” that amounts to little more than slashing
spending on vital programs like education and Medicare.</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>Carroll Daily Times Herald</i></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> (Carroll, Iowa), 15 Aug. 2011.</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 reverse of the coin, people may sometimes </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>buy</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> a bill of goods.</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>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0mm; list-style-type: disc; ">
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">Diane Ellerton emails to say that the Care2 site reported on 29 October: “Dog
owners and breeders in British Columbia will no longer be able to have their ears
cropped.”</span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">Still in Canada, Jon Ackroyd came across an advert by a chain of clinics in
the
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Times Colonist</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> of Victoria BC: “Do You Have a Brain Injury? FREE
Demonstrations”.</span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">From Massachusetts, Jessie Brown tells us of a man featured in a story in
her local
paper for whom selling sand to Arabs would be easy-peasy: “An Arlington man
who prosecutors said sold heroin laced with fentanyl to two victims of fatal
overdoses has been convicted on drugs charges.” </span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">The </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Guardian</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> could use Greg Payne as a subeditor, since he spotted an item in the
</span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>New York Times</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> on 10 October about Paul Ryan being pressed to stand as
Speaker of the House of Representatives: “His close associates warned that he had
no intention of fighting for the job and would most likely accept it only by
acclimation.” After he’d got used to the idea.</span></font></li>
<li style="margin-left: -7pt; margin-right: 0pt; padding-left: 0pt; font-family: Symbol; color: #010101; "><font face="Georgia"><span style=" font-size:12pt; font-family:Georgia; color:#010101; font-weight:Normal; font-style:Normal; font-decoration:Normal">Thanks to Robert Ferrando we learn that a headline on the </span>
<span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>San Francisco
Chronicle</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt">’s site on 31 October read: “Man saves dog from mountain lion in his
underwear.” </span></font></li>
</ul>
<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>Support World Wide Words:</b></span><span style=" font-size:11pt"> </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><a href="http://wwwords.org/st"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff">
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<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,
though any residual errors are the fault of the author. The linked website is
</span></font><a href="http://www.worldwidewords.org"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt"><u>http://www.worldwidewords.org</u></span></font></a>
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<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>Email addresses:</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> Comments on newsletter mailings are always welcome. They
should be sent to me at </span></font><a href="mailto:michael.quinion@worldwidewords.org"><font face="Georgia" color="#0000ff"><span style=" font-size:12pt">
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pressures of time often prevent me from doing so. Items intended for </span><span style=" font-size:12pt"><i>Sic!</i></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> should be
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<b>Copyright:</b></span><span style=" font-size:12pt"> World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 1996-2015. All rights
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