World Wide Words -- 03 Apr 99

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 138          Saturday 3 April 1999
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>From Michael Quinion                        Thornbury, Bristol, UK
Sent every Saturday to more than 4,600 subscribers in 87 countries
Web: <http://www.quinion.com/words/>   E-mail: <words at quinion.com>
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Contents
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1. Feedback: Brassed off, Errors, Lollipop, Blue moon revisited.
2. Turns of Phrase: Gutkha.
3. In Brief: Lapware.
4. Topical Words: Meme.
5. Weird Words: Sisyphean.
6. Q & A: Drag, Sleep tight.
7. Beyond Words: Holiday Triple Bill.
8. Administration.


1. Feedback
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BRASSED OFF. Peter Calamai from Canada quickly pointed out that my
supposedly original theory about the origin of this phrase was put
forward in all seriousness by Eric Partridge, in his 1948 book _A
Dictionary of Forces' Slang_ (a work that should be in every home
but which, alas, is not in mine). Several writers from Britain and
Australia also commented that it's not obsolete, as I claimed.

ERRORS. My volunteer proof reader Gail Heinsohn didn't cast her
eye over last week's issue and several typos crept in. And the
list of currencies was horrendously inaccurate, largely because I
put it in at the last moment to fill a space without realising it
still needed checking. Also, the US entered World War II at the
end of 1941, of course, not in 1942 as stated. Apologies.

LOLLIPOP. And with what I am told Americans are learning to call a
senior moment, I implied that 'lollipop' can refer to the iced
confection on a stick. It can't. In British English that's always
an ice lolly. A lollipop is still a sticky sweet on a stick.

BLUE MOON REVISITED. Following the piece I wrote in the issue of
30 January about the shifting meaning of this phrase, an article
has appeared in the May issue of _Sky & Telescope_, giving more
background. It concedes that the confusion about the meaning of
the term 'Blue Moon' all began in a article by the late James
Pruett in the issue of March 1946 (a correction after 53 years
must surely be some sort of record). He got wrong the basis of the
arcane calculations by which the _Maine Farmers' Almanac_ derived
full moons it termed blue. The story, and the astronomy, is too
complicated to give here, but you will find all the details at
<http://www.skypub.com/sights/moonplanets/9905bluemoon.html> and
my piece at <http:www.quinion.com/words/topicalwords/tw-blu2.htm>
has been updated appropriately.


2. Turns of Phrase: Gutkha
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This is a form of chewing tobacco which originated in India (its
name is the Hindi word for a small piece or shred). It is made
more attractive by adding sweeteners, flavourings and nuts; as a
result, it has been taken up by young people in particular. Gutkha
is becoming common in parts of Britain where Asian immigrants
live. Here it seems to be aimed even more at young people than it
is in India; it has been claimed that packets sold in Britain lack
the health warnings that by law must accompany other tobacco
products. Gutkha began to appear in India several years ago, and
has caused concern among health workers and educators because of
the high risk of mouth cancer; pre-cancerous lesions have been
reported in the mouths of children as young as twelve. Various
attempts have been made in India to limit its sale or to tax it as
a luxury good. A campaign has been launched in Britain, supported
by the British Dental Health Foundation and the World Health
Organisation, to make people aware of its dangers.

The massive hike on sales tax on gutkha (flavoured chewing
tobacco) in Goa has sparked a controversy. The Congress government
is caught between the contradictory demands of the gutkha dealers
and the anti-tobacco citizens' groups.
                                  [_Rediff on the Net_, Apr. 1998]

"Children are tempted to consume gutkha either by friends or the
local panwalla, who might offer the first few sachets free of
cost," said another student, Ms Mridula Palat. "Nowadays, gutkha
sachets are available for as cheap as 50 paise - which is the
price of a toffee".
                                 [_The Times of India_, Mar. 1999]


3. In Brief: Lapware
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This looks as if it ought to have something to do with laptop
computers, but in fact it refers to software that's designed for
children aged from six months to two years, presumably because
they use it while they are sitting on a parent's lap. The word
seems set to be a standard term in the computer business.


4. Topical Words: Meme
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A correspondent wrote to Q&A recently in a state of near despair
to ask what a meme was. Coincidentally, Susan Blackmore, a well-
known British academic, writer and broadcaster, has published a
book entitled _The Meme Machine_. I can take a hint.

The idea, and the word, go back to Richard Dawkins' book _The
Selfish Gene_, published in 1976. He argued that ideas are capable
of being transmitted through a population, to the extent that they
must be thought of as somehow independent of the human brains that
host and spawn them. He coined the word meme for such concepts as
skills, habits, stories, songs, inventions or ideas that are
passed from person to person by imitation. Susan Blackmore says:
"Everything you have learned from somebody else is a meme".

Until recently, academics have thought of the idea as either a
suspicious-sounding concept with more pizzazz about it than good
research, or as one too banal to be worth serious consideration.
None of my scientific dictionaries mention it, and it's not in any
of the works I know of that might have discussed it, such as
Steven Pinker's _The Language Instinct_. But the idea has started
to gain adherents - for example, an academic journal on the
subject started two years ago.

Susan Blackmore attempts to provide a philosophical underpinning
for the idea, with some startling results. She argues that a
facility in imitation is our species' prime characteristic, with
intelligence - whatever that means - coming a bad second; she also
contends that memes designed the huge human brain for their own
replication. And she maintains that the existence of memes means
that the whole idea of free will and self in human beings is an
illusion, with the brain (the "meme machine" of her title) being
just a collection of memes playing out competitive exchanges that
invent an illusion of a controlling intellect.

This is so counter-intuitive that she is going to have vast
trouble convincing people. I'm not qualified to contribute to the
discussion, but I can report on the words the idea is generating.

Richard Dawkins invented the word 'meme' from the Greek 'mimema',
"that which is to be imitated". That would give 'mimeme' in
English, but he deliberately shortened it so that it looked like
'gene'. Pretty soon afterwards the adjective 'memetic' began to
turn up, and I've recently seen an adverb 'memetically' and
another adjective 'memetical'. Someone who works in the field is a
'memeticist' and the subject is 'memetics'. There's 'memeplex'
('meme' + 'complex') for groups of memes, such as languages,
religions, and scientific theories, the study of which is called
'macromemetics' (studied, of course, by 'macromemeticists').
Several other terms have been coined by analogy with genetics,
such as 'meme pool', 'memotype' and 'memone'.

This plethora of terms suggests the meme meme is doing well. It's
certainly making work for those of us who enquire into language.


5. Weird Words: Sisyphean
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Of or relating to an endless and ineffective task.

This one comes straight out of Greek myth. Sisyphus was a king of
Corinth, a son of Aeolus (the ruler of the winds, hence our word
'aeolian' for something produced by or borne on the wind). In
later legend he was the father of Odysseus or Ulysses. His name
actually meant "crafty" in Greek: he was noted for his deception
and he's the equivalent in Greek folklore of the master trickster
who turns up in many folk beliefs, such as Coyote in American
Indian mythology. He even managed to cheat Death the first time
around, surviving the experience to live to a ripe old age. In
Greek legend Sisyphus was punished in Hades for his misdeeds in
life by being condemned eternally to roll a heavy stone up a hill.
As he neared the top, the stone rolled down again, so that his
labour was everlasting and futile. The word first appeared in
English in the middle of the seventeenth century. It isn't used
much now because so few people know classical literature.


6. Q & A
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[Send queries to <qa at quinion.com>. Messages will be acknowledged,
but I can't guarantee to reply, as time is so limited. If I can do
so, a response will appear both here and on the WWW Web site. Any
question sent to <words at quinion.com> will be moved over to Q&A!]
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Q. What is the origin of the term 'in drag'?  Someone online said
that it came from theatrical production notes of yore, where it
stood for "DRessed As a Girl", since primarily men were doing it
back then, but that sounds like the hogwash about "Port Out,
Starboard Home" and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge". [Ali Lemer]

A. That's a delightful story, showing once again how inventive
people are when faced with a conundrum. When it first appeared
'drag' referred only to the wearing of female attire by men; the
unisex implications are much more recent. The origin is thought to
be from Victorian theatrical usage in reference to the dragging
sensation of long skirts on the ground, an unfamiliar sensation to
men. The usage is not found in print until the 1870s but must
surely be older. Jonathon Green suggests that the gay implications
did not arise until the 1920s, and that all the early citations in
the _Oxford English Dictionary_ refer to fancy dress. But I've
recently seen a pair of illustrations from a London publication,
_The Day's Doings_ of 20 May 1871, that showed Frederick William
Park, a well-known homosexual of the period whose "campish
undertakings" with Ernest Boulton in the Burlington Arcade in 1870
had landed them both in court. The drawings are captioned "Park in
mufti" and "Park in 'drag'". Note the quote marks that indicate a
word that was felt to be slang, or at least not quite respectable.
I suspect the camp associations were present very early on.
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Q. I wonder if you could tell me the origin of the phrase 'sleep
tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'. A friend of mine believes that
it comes from medieval England when mattresses were merely bags of
feathers or cloth. A rope was then tied around it and pulled tight
to make a more firm and comfortable bed. If a bed was pulled very
tight it could compress and trap any inhabiting fleas, bedbugs and
assorted greeblies. What do you think? [Jamie Bradley]

A. The big problem with that explanation, apart from the inherent
unlikelihood of any self-respecting bedbug being put off by a
little thing like tight bedclothes, is that the phrase 'sleep
tight' is relatively recent. It's part of a common rhyming formula
addressed to children, of which one version is "good night, sleep
tight". The _Oxford English Dictionary_ records it only from 1933,
though I've found that it appears in L Frank Baum's _Rinkitink In
Oz_, dated 1916: "Eat hearty, sleep tight, and pleasant dreams to
you". And this entry occurs in a diary by Susan Eppes, _Through
Some Eventful Years_: "May 2nd, 1866 - All is ready and we leave
as soon as breakfast is over. Goodbye little Diary. 'Sleep tight
and wake bright,' for I will need you when I return". (In the
dictionary-making business these are called antedatings, and send
word-hunters like me into paroxysms of delight.) I'd guess, not
having found an instance, that the fuller rhyme about the bedbugs
is more recent than any of these.


7. Beyond Words: Holiday Triple Bill
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* Of all the words to spell wrongly. This appeared in a notice of
a meeting in the _Liverpool Echo_ early in March: "Occupational
therapist at Alder Hey Hospital Wendy Smith will be addressing the
Liverpool Dyselxia Association on Wednesday".

* The Corrections Editor of the _Guardian_ regularly features what
he calls "homophone corner". This candidate sentence appeared in
the newspaper on Good Friday: "Ormus, the Orpheus character, is a
moody Bombay musician, with a guitar in place of Orpheus's liar".

* A colleague was driving up to Dunblaine last Monday, listening
the while to a phone-in programme on BBC Radio Scotland about the
famous Glasgow cartoonist Bud Neill. One caller remarked: "He's
one of the immortals. Such a pity he's dead".


8. Administration
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