World Wide Words -- 17 Apr 99

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 140         Saturday 17 April 1999
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>From Michael Quinion                        Thornbury, Bristol, UK
Sent every Saturday to more than 4,700 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. Turns of Phrase: Home zone.
2. Topical Words: Weird.
3. Weird Words: Ansible.
4. In Brief: Mouse-over.
5. Q & A: Moxie, Policy wonk.
6. Beyond Words.
7. Administration.


1. Turns of Phrase: Home zone
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Home zones are residential streets in which motor vehicles take
second place to people. They've been a feature of some parts of
continental Europe for 25 years, but have only recently begun to
be discussed seriously in Britain. The government has recently
asked local authorities to nominate neighbourhoods to be turned
into such zones. The term is still uncommon in the UK, at the
moment mostly being the jargon of traffic engineers and local
environmental campaigners. Similar ideas have been put forward in
other English-speaking countries, but the term is even less well
known than in Britain. In continental home zones, pedestrians and
cyclists have legal right of way, and vehicles are restricted to
not much more than walking pace. The distinction between vehicle
and pedestrian areas is deliberately blurred; trees, seating and
play areas are added so that the streets become open spaces for
walking, sitting, playing and talking. Home zones are marked with
an internationally recognised sign showing a walker, a house, a
child with a ball and a distant car. The word is the English
equivalent (what grammarians call a calque or loan translation) of
the Dutch name for the system, 'woonerf'.

What would Home Zones be like? For residents, parents, children,
pets, strollers and promenaders in the spring sunshine they would
be delightful. Queues of cars would be unlikely to form, because
cars would avoid them unless absolutely necessary.
                                         [_The Times_, Jan. 1998]

Home Zones have existed in many other European countries for
years, and play a key role in improving the quality of life for
residents in towns and cities, reducing the demand for new housing
in rural areas and cutting down on commuting.
                                [_Manchester Forum_, Summer 1998]


2. Topical Words: Weird
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The _Fortean Times Weirdness Index_ announced recently that weird
activity is increasing as the millennium approaches. Until I read
that, I would have said the paranormal was hardly in evidence in
the lead-up to the end of life as we know it, but no doubt they
see matters more clearly.

What sounded a trifle odd was this use of 'weird'. Its slang
senses and its derivatives have become so common that it now seems
hardly possible for anyone to use it in serious writing. From
'bearded weirdie' through 'weirdo' to the informal usage of
'weird' to mean "something mildly out of the ordinary", it has
lost much of the force that it once had.

At one time it was a truly heavyweight word. One's weird was one's
destiny or fate. The weird sisters in _Macbeth_ were so called not
because they were peculiar or outlandish, but because they were
thought capable of controlling future events. And the three
witches would not only have been described as weird, they would
have been called weirds, a noun that often appeared in combination
as 'witches and weirds'. The 'Three Weirds' were the three fates
who were supposed to determine the course of human life.

A warning proverb had it that "after word comes weird", another
way of saying "speak of the Devil (and he will appear)": you only
have to mention something, especially something unpleasant, and it
will turn up or come about. 'Weird' could also refer to some
supernatural happening, or be a prophecy of things to come.

Our much weaker modern standard English sense of "uncanny"
developed only in the nineteenth century, no doubt because of the
progressive slackening of belief in magic in the centuries since
Shakespeare. Today it's hard to suspend disbelief during "fire
burn and cauldron bubble". (I've not been able to look that scene
in the face since the English fantasy author Terry Pratchett got
at it in his Discworld novel _Wyrd Sisters_: "As the cauldron
bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: 'When shall we three meet
again?' There was a pause. Finally another voice said: 'Well, I
can do Tuesday.'".)

As a result of all these changes, the currency of dread has been
debased, and we have nothing to put in its place.


3. Weird Words: Ansible
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An interstellar instantaneous communications device.

This word has never broken out of the science-fiction linguistic
ghetto in which it was created, though in that field it's one of
the better-known terms. It was invented by Ursula K Le Guin in her
novel _The Left Hand of Darkness_, published in 1969: "He said in
his shrill harsh voice, 'What's that?' - pointing to the ansible.
'The ansible communicator, sir.' 'A radio?' 'It doesn't involve
radio waves, or any form of energy ... What it does, sir, is
produce a message at any two points simultaneously. Anywhere.'" A
method of communication across galactic distances that circumvents
the limitations of Einstein's theory of relativity is a useful
plot device, avoiding part of the suspension of disbelief that is
required with the faster-than-light transport of physical objects.
The idea has been used by other SF writers, notably James Blish
with his Dirac communicator, though only Orson Scott Card has
actually borrowed the word itself. It's not clear where Le Guin
got the name from: some people have read a message into its being
an anagram of 'lesbian'; that would be particularly relevant to
the _The Left Hand of Darkness_, which deals with androgyny and
issues of sexuality, but it hasn't been confirmed as her
inspiration.


4. In Brief: Mouse-over
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You know when you visit some high-tech Web site, and as you move
your mouse about over the graphics on the page, they change in
some way to show which one you're currently over? In the jargon of
the trade, that's a mouse-over, triggered by code in the Web page.


5. 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. I watched a recent rerun of the film _The Sting_ and one of the
phrases that was in use was "you got moxy, kid". Where on earth
does this phrase originate?  [Barry Praag, Israel]

A. Moxie, usually so spelt, was (and in New England it would seem
still is) the name of a non-alcoholic drink, first produced in
substantial quantities by the Moxie Nerve Food Company of Lowell,
Massachusetts in about 1884. Its founder, Dr Augustin Thompson,
originally developed it in the 1870s as a patent medicine or nerve
tonic, claiming it cured paralysis, loss of manhood, and softening
of the brain. The name may come from the Algonquin Indian word
root 'maski-' "medicine" which became 'moxie' as a name for
wintergreen, one of the early constituents of this bitter drink.
Moxie was the first carbonated and bottled soft drink that was
widely distributed in America (just beating Dr Pepper and Coca-
Cola), being sold from "Moxie bottle wagons" and later
"Moxiemobiles". It was heavily promoted in the first three decades
of the twentieth century, so that the name became very widely
known, especially on the East Coast. In the twenties, the word
picked up an informal meaning of "guts, courage, nerve"; the first
citation I can find is from a story by Damon Runyon in 1930:
"Personally, I always figure Louie a petty-larceny kind of guy,
with no more moxie than a canary bird". It would seem the word, at
first slang, derived from one or other of the firm's slogans of
the inter-war period, such as "What this country needs is plenty
of Moxie!". Some have said that it needed courage just to drink
the stuff, no doubt a calumny, but even its supporters today admit
it's an acquired taste.
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Q. Any idea about the origin of the word 'wonk', most commonly
used today in 'policy wonk'? [Jason Rothstein]

A. How many explanations would you like? I've turned up at least a
dozen, some of them quite ingenious.

The boring facts first. 'Wonk' is a disparaging term for a
studious or hard-working person. It is first recorded, according
to the _Oxford English Dictionary_, in an article in _Sports
Illustrated_ in December 1962, though Fred Shapiro of Yale Law
School has turned up an example from _Time_ in 1954. It gained a
wider exposure, for example, through being used in Erich Segal's
_Love Story_ of 1970: "Who could Jenny be talking to that was
worth appropriating moments set aside for a date with me? Some
musical wonk?".

The clue to its origin may be in that article in _Sports
Illustrated_, in which it is explained that in Harvard slang there
was a tripartite classification of students into wonks, preppies,
and jocks. It seems that all three terms were around in the 1950s
('jock' possibly even earlier) and that they have moved into
mainstream use in the decades since. The word was presumably taken
to Washington by Harvard graduates and formed the basis for the
modern term 'policy wonk', which - as you say - is where most of
us encounter it. There it acquired the meaning of "a policy
expert, especially one who takes an obsessive interest in minor
details of policy", with a disparaging implication of someone
immersed in detail and out of touch with the real world.

Now to the 64-dollar question: where did the word come from? This
is where we step on to shaky ground. Some have suggested that it
may be 'know' written backwards or an acronym for 'WithOut Normal
Knowledge'. More seriously, others find an origin in the British
word 'wonky', meaning something or someone unsteady or unsound;
even if a connection is found, which seems unlikely, it just takes
the problem back a few decades, since we don't know where 'wonky'
comes from either. A source in 'wank', for masturbation, has also
been suggested. A popular derivation links it with _Willy Wonka
and the Chocolate Factory_, but though Roald Dahl's original story
_Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ dates from 1964, the name
'Wonka' was really only popularised by the film; and 'wonk', as
we've seen, is anyway older than either.

Others suggest links with various known senses of 'wonk': as 1920s
slang for a useless naval cadet or midshipman; as the name for a
Chinese dog; a disparaging Australian aboriginal word for a white
man (much like the black American 'honky', with which it is not
connected); or 1940s Australian slang for an effeminate or
homosexual man (also known in that period as a 'gussie' or a
'spurge'). None of these have solid evidence in their favour, and
only the naval slang sounds even moderately plausible. We really
don't know.


6. Beyond Words
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Subscriber Dermod Quirke pointed out a fine example of homophonic
ineptitude in a letter in last Sunday's _Observer_: "The continued
foreign occupation of a region riven with nationalist fanaticism
is unlikely to dowse the flames". Worse, 'dowse' was repeated in
the headline above the letter. First find your flames ...


7. Administration
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