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<p
style="font-weight:bold;margin:0;font-size:24pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:green;">World
Wide Words</p>
<p style="color:green;margin:0 0 6pt
0;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;line-height:14.0pt;">Saturday
3 September 2016.</p>
<p style="color:green;margin:6pt 0 18pt
0;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;">This
newsletter is also available online at <a
href="http://wwwords.org/wjje">http://wwwords.org/wjje</a><br>
and is also attached to this message as a PDF file containing
illustrations.</p>
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style="font-family:Georgia,serif;margin:0;line-height:15pt;font-size:12pt;"><i>Check
the recipient address if you reply to this message. For security
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<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:green;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;line-height:14pt;font-weight:bold;margin:18pt
0 0 0;">Feedback, Notes and Comments</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
last two pieces in this month’s issue are rewrites of ones that I
created more than a decade ago. They’ve been amended so much
they’re effectively new. Access to better sources of information
means that it’s possible to say much more than I could when they
were first written; in particular I can now provide a plausible
origin for <em>no soap</em>. Since the last newsletter, I’ve also
updated my pieces online on <a href="../qa/qa-ste2.htm">steal
one’s thunder</a>, <a href="../qa/qa-kat1.htm"><em>Katy bar the
door</em></a>, the old slang term <a
href="../weirdwords/ww-sim1.htm"><em>simoleon</em></a>, and <a
href="../weirdwords/ww-umq1.htm">umquhile</a>.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:green;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;line-height:14pt;font-weight:bold;margin:18pt
0 0 0;">Nimrod</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:6px;"><span
style="background-color:#008000;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-style:normal;font-size:1.1em;margin-right:6px;padding-left:4px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:1px;">Q</span>
<em>From Barbara Murray, Wisconsin</em>: Oxford Dictionaries
online defines <em>nimrod</em> in UK English as a “skilful
hunter” and, across the pond where I reside, as an “inept person”.
Can you explain these more or less opposite meanings?</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:6px;"><span
style="background-color:#008000;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-style:normal;font-size:1.1em;margin-right:6px;padding-left:4px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:1px;">A</span>
Let’s start, as all good stories should, at the beginning. In the
Bible, Nimrod was said to be the great-grandson of Noah. Genesis
reports “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the
earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” </p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">From
the seventeenth century, Nimrod was conventionally used in
literature on both sides of the Atlantic as the personification of
a hunter, an eponym:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">In
front of him is the sporting Earl of Sefton, and that
highly-esteemed son of Nimrod, Colonel Hilton Joliffe,— men of the
strictest probity, and hence often appointed referees on matters
in dispute.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>The English Spy</em>, by Bernard
Blackmantle, 1825.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">He
was a complete Nimrod, now almost worn out.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>The Adventures of Daniel Boone</em>,
by “Uncle Philip”, 1843.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">In
the UK, the name stayed largely a literary reference but even in
that context it is now extremely rare. Several Royal Navy ships
down the years have borne the name, as has a class of
submarine-hunter aircraft. But we probably know it mostly as a
piece of music much used on solemn state occasions. For
geographical and social reasons it has never become a popular term
in daily life for a hunter. When it did appear, it usually meant a
rider to hounds:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">The
weather in the past few days has been so open, that the whole
Nimrod school have had a fine run of enjoyment this season, except
in cases where foxes are somewhat scarce.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Jackson’s Oxford Journal</em>, 27
Jan. 1855. </span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">In
the US, with its longstanding and widespread tradition of hunting,
much greater opportunities existed to describe individuals as
Nimrods. It appears in sources such as newspapers from about the
middle of the nineteenth century. At one time in the US it was
also a moderately common given name in communities that went to
the Bible for inspiration.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Early
on, references were neutral in their implications, simply a
figurative way to describe a person who hunted. Occasional
descents into derision were prompted by a person falling short of
competence, as in this tale about a group of young people out for
a day’s sport:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">Zindel
was the mighty hunter of the crowd and after expostulations of his
nimrod abilities the others watched him walk into a flock of a
hundred quails and snap both triggers of his gun upon empty
chambers.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Fort Madison Weekly Democrat</em>
(Fort Madison, Iowa), 11 Jan. 1911.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Note
that <em>Nimrod</em> here has lost his initial capital letter,
sure evidence that the word was losing its mental links with an
historical personage. This is the way that eponyms evolve — we no
longer capitalise <em>wellington</em>, <em>cardigan</em>, <em>pasteurise</em>,
<em>diesel</em>, <em>silhouette</em>, <em>boycott</em> or dozens
of others of the same type.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">From
the 1930s onwards we see an increasing tendency for <em>nimrod</em>
to be used much more in a disparaging or sarcastic way for a
hunter with limited skills. Bugs Bunny, you may recall, referred
to hunter Elmer Fudd as “poor little Nimrod”. Over time, <em>nimrod</em>
shifted still further towards meaning a damn fool who shot at
anything that moved and even things that didn’t. By the 1960s,
this transition was pretty much complete:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">In
Wisconsin, as I was driving through, a hunter shot his own guide
between the shoulder blades. The coroner questioning this nimrod
asked, “Did you think he was a deer?”<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Travels with Charley</em>, by
John Steinbeck, 1962.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">and
was being applied in particular to people who shot up road signs
for fun:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">Martin
estimated that nimrod sign destruction in Kansas costs taxpayers
more than $1 million a year.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Arkansas City Traveler</em>
(Arkansas City, Kansas), 9 Jan. 1960.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
next stage seems to have been largely catalysed by students in the
1980s and 1990s, for whom <em>nimrod</em> had lost its
associations with hunting but retained those of a contemptible or
inept person. By the turn of the new century, that sense had
become the dominant one:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">When
you’re followed, you can’t know if it’s an experienced expert or
some bloody nimrod who can’t find his way to the loo.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Red Rabbit</em>, by Tom Clancy,
2002.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:green;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;line-height:14pt;font-weight:bold;margin:18pt
0 0 0;">Isabelline</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Pronounced
/ɪzəˈbɛlɪn/</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><em>Isabelline</em>
refers to a colour. The dictionaries variously describe it as
greyish-yellow, light buff, pale cream-brown, dingy yellowish grey
or drab. The <em>Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary </em>tries
hardest to tie it down: “a moderate yellowish brown to light olive
brown that is lighter and stronger than clay drab or medal
bronze”. It has also been described as the colour of parchment or
sand.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
female name <em>Isabella</em> can similarly refer to the colour.
Its first appearance in English is in an inventory of the wardrobe
of Queen Elizabeth I in 1600: “one rounde gowne of Isabella-colour
satten ... set with silver bangles”. Versions of it are known in
various European languages from about the same date, including
French, German, Spanish and Italian, usually for the colour of a
horse. </p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
origin is unclear. That has led to stories growing up that
associate <em>Isabella</em> (and by implication <em>isabelline</em>)
with an historical event involving a noble lady by that name. One
identifies her as Isabella, Archduchess of Austria, daughter of
Philip II of Spain. He laid siege to Ostend in 1601 and in a
moment of filial fervour Isabella vowed not to change her
undergarments until the city was taken. Unfortunately for her (and
no doubt for those around her) the siege lasted another three
years, supposedly leading to this off-colour word for over-worn
underwear. Other European nations have a similar story, though
they apply it instead to the siege of Granada by Ferdinand and
Isabella of Castille in 1491.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><em>Isabelline</em>
is comparatively recent, appearing from about 1840 in descriptions
by zoologists of a wide variety of species of bats, fungi, fish
and mammals, but mainly birds, such as the <em>isabelline
wheatear</em> and the <em>isabelline shrike</em>. Charles
Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both used it, as did other
writers of the nineteenth century:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">To
begin with, all the smaller denizens of the desert — whether
butterflies, beetles, birds, or lizards — must be quite uniformly
isabelline or sand-coloured.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Falling in Love; With Other
Essays on More Exact Branches of Science</em>, by Grant Allen,
1889.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">It’s
a specialist word of natural history writing and it’s rare to find
it elsewhere other than occasionally as the horse colour.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Most
experts say the proper name is the source, though nobody can
explain how it came about. Some writers in French and Spanish say
instead that it derives instead from an Arabic word, given either
as <em>izah</em> or <em>hizah</em>, referring specifically to
the colour of a lion’s pelt. However, there seems to be no such
word in Arabic and we must disregard the suggestion.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:green;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;line-height:14pt;font-weight:bold;margin:18pt
0 0 0;">No soap</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:6px;"><span
style="background-color:#008000;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-style:normal;font-size:1.1em;margin-right:6px;padding-left:4px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:1px;">Q</span>
<em>From Anthony Pennock</em>: Why do we say <em>no soap</em>?</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:6px;"><span
style="background-color:#008000;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-style:normal;font-size:1.1em;margin-right:6px;padding-left:4px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:1px;">A</span>
I’m not sure that people do any more. From my vantage point in the
UK, this classic Americanism appears to have largely died out,
remembered and occasionally used only by older people. </p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">A
speaker usually means by it that there’s no chance of something
happening or no hope of some outcome, that the enquirer is out of
luck or more generally that some request is being denied.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">When
he called the Georgia senator to ask for his help on the defense
reorganization bill, Russell replied, “No soap.”<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>The Sputnik Challenge</em>, by
Robert A. Divine, 1993.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">For
me, perhaps through reading too many old American crime novels, it
brings to mind the 1930s and 1940s as a term of the underworld and
hard-bitten detectives:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">I
dropped quietly on the running board and waited. No soap. Canino
was too cagey. <br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>The Big Sleep</em>, by Raymond
Chandler, 1939. </span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
first examples of the idiom appear near the end of the First World
War in letters home from draftees. The more literate of such
letters were often reprinted in small-town newspapers to let
readers know how their boys were doing. The ones which I’ve
uncovered that mention <em>no soap</em> all came from recruits at
the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois. This is a late
example:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">Saturday
came along and we all dressed up in our best, as that was our
liberty day, when the Commander came in and said “No Soap” on
liberty as we were in a draft. No one is allowed liberty when they
are on a draft, afraid that someone would run away.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Versailles Republican</em>
(Versailles, Indiana), 3 Oct. 1918.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">An
article a few months later headlined “Demobilizing War Words”
confirms that the expression was widespread within the US Navy:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">A
particularly pathetic case is that of the nautical term, “No
soap!” I say “particularly pathetic” because I myself have found
the phrase so much more satisfying than the more classical
“nothing stirring!” which it has so amply replaced. “Nothing
stirring” will find strong support among the purists, but half a
million sailors and an equal number of sailors’ sweethearts are
not going to surrender the new-found phrase without a fight.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Boston Globe</em> (Boston,
Massachusetts), 9 Feb. 1919.</span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Later
evidence suggests that it did remain popular and met a need within
a wider audience for a sharply colloquial dismissive saying.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">As
with most slang expressions, where it comes from is uncertain. In
the past, the experts have pointed to the much older use of <em>soap</em>
to refer to money, a term that was first recorded in a slang
dictionary in 1859 but which had a long run right down into the
1920s, overlapping with <em>no soap</em>. This overlap, I
suspect, led etymologists to infer a connection between the two
and it’s not implausible. It might well have been that a person
who said “No soap!” meant something like “No, I haven’t any money”
or “No, I won’t give you a loan”.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">But
other letters home from First World War navy recruits, coupled
with newspaper articles from the period about naval slang, suggest
a more mundane source. Recruits often complained they weren’t
being supplied with soap, a need that was at times met by the Red
Cross in the comfort kits they supplied. Soap was in short supply
in the US at the time — as it was throughout Europe — because its
raw materials of gelatine and fat were being diverted to make
explosives. It seems likely that <em>no soap</em>, at first a
rueful complaint, became for recruits a saying that meant — as
early references confirmed — “you’re out of luck”. The slightly
broader senses naturally followed.</p>
<p style="font-weight:bold;margin:18pt 0 0
0;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;color:green;">Useful
information</p>
<p
style="color:black;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;margin:6pt
0 0 0;"><b>About this newsletter:</b> 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 <a href="http://www.worldwidewords.org">http://www.worldwidewords.org.</a></p>
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