World Wide Words -- 01 May 99

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS           ISSUE 142           Saturday 1 May 1999
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>From Michael Quinion                        Thornbury, Bristol, UK
Sent every Saturday to more than 4,800 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 and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Inplacement.
3. Weird Words: Tautochrone.
4. In Brief: Excelliance.
5. Q & A: Fuzz, Hobo, Honeymoon, Shaggy dog story.
6. Beyond Words.
7. Administration.


1. Feedback and comments
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V-MAIL. The memories of many subscribers clearly go back further
than mine. Many messages arrived pointing out that 'v-mail' was
the term used in the US Forces during the Second World War for a
method of photographically reducing letters to and from home to
save valuable shipping space; it was an abbreviation of 'Victory
Mail'. Others mentioned that it was better known to them as an
abbreviation for 'voice mail'; perhaps surprisingly, I've not come
across 'v-mail' used in that way. Perhaps it just hasn't caught on
in Britain.

THE DEVIL TO PAY. Several subscribers pointed out that the same
word 'devil', as the name for a seam in a sailing ship that is
hard to get at, also turns up in another expression "Between the
devil and the deep blue sea". This may be thought to be supporting
evidence for the seafaring origin of both phrases, but I have my
doubts. It's notable that the _Oxford English Dictionary_ has a
reference to this use of 'devil' but no citations other than two
mentions in nautical dictionaries (which refer, as I said last
week, to two different seams). This doesn't rule it out, but it
does suggest that some caution is needed in accepting this
explanation.

LIFE IN THE 1500S. About a dozen copies of this curious little
article, supposedly describing life in Anne Hathaway's house and
the origin of some English expressions, have been sent to me in
the past few days. Please don't send me any more! It's interesting
that this piece should have received such a wide circulation. It
reads quite straightforwardly but close examination shows it is
either a skit that has lost its context or a practical joke. The
supposed origins it gives for words and phrases are spurious.

HOLIDAY BREAK. Just to remind you again that World Wide Words will
not be published on 8, 15, 22 or 29 May because I shall be away on
holiday. The next issue is due to appear on 6 June.


2. Turns of Phrase: Inplacement
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In the nineties business has slimmed down by a variety of methods
variously called 'restructuring', 'delayering', or 'downsizing'.
Whatever it was called, it has meant people losing their jobs. Now
firms are beginning to think hard about ways to keep and motivate
the staff they retain. During the shake-out, many organisations
hired consultants to help displaced employees find new jobs, a
process which is often called 'outplacement'. That job is now
largely done. So consultants have moved to marketing themselves as
guides and mentors to staff still in post, to help them make the
most of their career opportunities within the organisation. By an
obvious shift in language that matches their change in role, they
sometimes refer to their function as 'inplacement'. But other
terms are also in use (see the second citation below) and it may
turn out to have been only a short-term fashion.

The policy provides for both inplacement and outplacement
services, pay continuation, and continuation of specific benefits
to those eligible employees whose positions are eliminated as a
result of administrative restructuring.
                     [_Compass_, Univ. of Pennsylvania, July 1996]

Consultants offering inplacement services now call themselves
career-change consultants, or career development consultants.
                             [_Independent on Sunday_, March 1999]


3. Weird Words: Tautochrone
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A curve on which an object falling under gravity will reach the
bottom in the same amount of time, no matter from where it starts.

This may seem like the most abstruse of mathematical ideas, but it
makes accurate pendulum clocks possible. It goes back to the
seventeenth century Dutch scientist Christaan Huygens, who knew
that the pendulum is not quite the perfect keeper of time that one
would like. It works well enough if its movements are kept small,
but as the size of the pendulum's swing varies, so does the time
it takes - only slightly, but it's a serious problem if you're
trying to make your clock precise.

Huygens discovered that there is one curved shape, and only one,
which is perfect in this respect: the cycloid, the curve traced
out when a point on the edge of a wheel rolls along a road. If you
position a cycloidal curve like an inverted arch, and release a
marble from any point on it, it will always take exactly the same
time to reach the bottom, no matter where on the curve you start
from. So the cycloid is said to be a 'tautochrone'. Huygens used
this discovery to construct curved jaws from the point of support
of the pendulum; these forced its string to follow the right curve
no matter how large or small the swing.

The word comes from the Greek 'tauto', "the same" (which we have
inherited in words like 'tautology') and 'chronos', "time" (as in
'chronometer'); so the word means a curve of equal time.


4. In Brief: Excelliance
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This is a blend of 'excellent' and 'alliance', which is a business
buzzword that looks to be only temporary. The idea is that to
succeed in an increasingly global market companies must be much
more than one thing to any one customer, which requires them to
form alliances with other firms in well-matched fields.


5. Q & A
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[As I'm away for most of May, there's little point sending me any
more questions for now. Normal service will be resumed in June.]
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Q. I have been challenged with finding the origin of the word
'fuzz' in referring to the police. Haven't had any luck. [Kelly
Harney]

A. I'm not surprised. Nobody knows for sure. But, as usual, that
hasn't stopped lots of people coming up with ideas. We are sure
that it was originally an American expression, first recorded in
the 1920s, and popular for a while, especially in the 1930s,
though it never quite took over from 'cop'. In Britain, it was in
style in the sixties, though it would now be regarded as dated
slang.

One suggestion is that it's a variant pronunciation of 'fuss',
this being something that policemen are prone to do over matters
that fussees may consider trifling. It's also been said that it
comes from a mispronunciation or mishearing of "Feds", that is,
federal agents, which hardly seems probable.

Yet a third suggestion has been put forward by David Dalby, a
specialist in West African languages, who argues that it comes
from the Wolof word 'fas' for a horse, which was taken over in a
much modified form into the American slang expression 'fuzzy tail'
for a sure bet at a horse race (not to be confused with another
usage of that phrase to refer to the very lowest category of
vagrant or tramp), from there to a mounted policemen, and so to
police in general.
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Q. We're kinda curious as to where the term, 'hobo' came from.
[Reba-Jean & Chris]

A. The flip answer is "aren't we all?", because this is yet
another of those troubling expressions for which there's no
obvious origin.

The word in its modern form was first recorded in the north-
western US. Here's the first example I know about, which comes
from the _Ellensburgh Capital_ in Washington State, in November
1889: "The tramp has changed his name, or rather had it changed
for him, and now he is a 'Hobo'". Note the initial capital letter,
which also turns up in other early examples, and which has led
many writers to conclude that it was a proper name, or at least
the hoboes own name for themselves.

Incidentally, though many writers equate 'hobo' and 'tramp', they
themselves made a careful distinction, in that a hobo travelled to
find work while a tramp travelled to avoid it. (A bum was worse
than either.)

As to where it came from, there are several theories. One writer
has pointed out possible parallels with English dialect words
'hawbuck' and 'hawbaw' for a coarse or clumsy fellow, but there
seems to be no clear evidence for how it got from Britain to the
north-west of the USA. A more common explanation is that it
derives either from a greeting "Ho, Bo!" (or "Ho, Beau!") of one
migrant to another, or a challenge or greeting used by railway
workers: "Ho boy!".

This origin may be supported by a sentence that Barry Popik of the
American Dialect Society found in the _New Orleans Picayune_ of 19
August 1848: "A year's bronzing and 'ho-boying' about among the
mountains of that charming country called Mexico, has given me a
slight dash of the Spanish". But the _Random House Dictionary of
American Historical Slang_ carefully notes that the big gap
between this and the next appearance of the word leaves a lot of
questions unanswered, as is so often the case.
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Q. Can you tell me the origin of "honeymoon"? [Anita Finley]

A. Those of you with romantic constitutions had better look away
now. There are many invented stories about the origin of this
word, mostly so sickly that I cringe at repeating them. There is,
for example, the suggestion that at some time in some place there
was a custom for newlyweds to drink a potion containing honey
every day for the first month after the nuptials. But the word
only turns up in English in the middle of the sixteenth century.
Let me quote you a passage from Richard Huloet's _Abecedarium
Anglico Latinum_ of 1552 (in modernised spelling): "Honeymoon, a
term proverbially applied to such as be new married, which will
not fall out at the first, but the one loveth the other at the
beginning exceedingly, the likelihood of their exceeding love
appearing to assuage, the which time the vulgar people call the
honey moon". Putting it simply, it was that charmed period when
married love was at first as sweet as honey, but which waned like
the moon and in roughly the same period of time. Cynical, I know,
but that's etymology!
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Q. Having heard several clever 'shaggy dog stories' recently, I
wondered what the origin of the term is. There aren't any dogs
concerned, let along shaggy ones! [Jane Rawoof]

A. There were, once. The first shaggy dog stories seem to have
been variations on a tall tale that was indeed about a shaggy-
haired dog. William and Mary Morris, in _The Morris Dictionary of
Word and Phrase Origins_ give a version of it that involves an
advertisement being placed in _The Times_ to announce a
competition to find the shaggiest dog in the world. After a vast
amount of effort and investigation (described in detail, after the
nature of this type of story), the winning dog was presented to
the aristocratic instigator of the competition, who said: "I don't
think he's so shaggy".

The term itself is relatively recent: the first reference I've
found is to a piece by David Low in _The New York Times Magazine_
in 1945. An obscure collection of shaggy dog stories under that
title was published in 1946. Eric Partridge wrote a book called
_The 'Shaggy Dog' Story_ in 1953, which would no doubt be
illuminating if only I could lay my hands on a copy (the _Oxford
English Dictionary_ cites this work under an unrelated heading as
referring to a story "published many years ago" in _Collier's
Weekly_ that is a tantalising reference, though it's unlikely that
the term itself was used there, or the _OED_ would have cited it).
It may be, though, that the phrase is older than the mid 1940s.


6. Beyond Words
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The _Guardian_ perpetrated a common error recently in an article
that began: "We may spend hours pouring over curtain material and
weeks choosing furniture ...". This reminded me that in _The Years
With Ross_, about Harold Ross and the _New Yorker_, James Thurber
told of a man who wrote to the editor in its early years as
follows: "I have an idea for a cartoon. The cartoon is entitled
'Pouring over his Books'. This is a pun. Have a student sit by a
desk with a stack of books before him and reading out of one book.
In the meantime have him pour some gin in a glass and is ready to
drink it. All about him on the floor have bottles thrown about.
The humour in this cartoon is in the words 'pour' and 'pore', one
means to drink and the other means to study careful". Thurber
commented that "In the margin of this wondrous note, Ross had
written 'too subtle'".


7. Administration
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