World Wide Words -- 23 Oct 99

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS         ISSUE 163         Saturday 23 October 1999
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Sent weekly to more than 6,000 subscribers in at least 93 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion                      Thornbury, Bristol, UK
Web: <http://www.quinion.com/words/>    E-mail: <words at quinion.com>
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Contents
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1. Notes and feedback.
2. Turns of Phrase: Proteomics.
3. Weird Words: Steganography.
4. Affixia: -ette.
5. Topical words: Staple.
6. Q & A: Ollie ollie oxen free.
7. Beyond Words.
8. Administration: How to unsubscribe, Copyright.


1. Notes and feedback
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COUP DE MAIN  Following the Topical Words piece on 'coup' last week
several French speakers have pointed out that in French the phrase
'coup de main' usually means to give someone a helping hand. But at
one time it could also have had the English meaning of "a sudden
and vigorous attack, for the purpose of instantaneously capturing a
position", as the _Oxford English Dictionary_ describes it. English
has picked up only the one sense. And 'coup de foudre' is usually
taken to mean a sudden happening, but especially falling in love.

WRY GRY CRY  Oh, dear. We seem to be suffering a resurgence of that
hoary chestnut of a riddle about the third word that ends in 'gry'.
Eight copies have arrived in the past week. Do me a great favour?
Don't send me any more. The answer, such as it is, may be found at
<http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/gry.htm>.


2. Turns of Phrase: Proteomics
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Three years ago this term didn't exist. Now it's the hottest new
concept in the field of biotechnology, such is the pace of change.
'Proteomics' is the study of the way proteins work inside cells,
and how they interact with each other. Most importantly, it aims to
work out the differences in protein action between diseased cells
and healthy ones. One aim is to find chemical markers to determine
what's going wrong when disease strikes and to diagnose disorders;
another is to find methods of 'gene therapy' that will cure the
problems at the level of the DNA in our genes.

The word is formed in direct imitation of 'genomics', the rather
better-established term for the study of genes and their DNA.
(Similarly, the 'genome', the term for the complete set of genes
inside the cell, has given rise to the <A HREF="tp-
pro1.htm">'proteome'</A> for its protein equivalent). The two
fields are closely linked, as cells make their proteins according
to the DNA templates in genes. The rise of 'proteomics' came about
because ways were invented to study proteins in the complicated and
messy real-life situation inside living cells. One prediction is
that it will be a billion-dollar business within five years.

The new Center for Genomics and Proteomics will team chemists,
biologists, engineers, and computer scientists to mine genome data
from a variety of organisms for clues to the genetics of behavior,
evolution, and the origins of disease.
                                      [_Science_, Jan. 1999]

While genomics - the study of the human genome - has captured
great attention in recent years, proteomics is now widely regarded
as the next wave in 'uncoding' how the body works, in order to
improve human health.
                      [_Canadian Corporate News_, Sep. 1999]


3. Weird Words: Steganography
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The art of creating and transmitting hidden messages.

The dictionaries - those few that include it, for it's an extremely
uncommon word - say this has to do with cryptography. But those in
the spy business make a careful distinction between the techniques
of cryptography and 'steganography', although both are aspects of
the art of secret communication. Cryptography is the technique of
scrambling a message in a systematic way so that (hopefully) it can
be read only by its intended recipient. 'Steganography', on the
other hand, keeps the message secret by hiding the fact that it
exists at all. So the microdot of the Cold War spy novels - in
which a document is photographically reduced to the size of a
pinhead and stuck to an otherwise innocuous typescript - is an
example of 'steganography'. Invisible ink is another example. You
can, of course, combine the two techniques if you believe in the
braces-and-belt approach to life. 'Steganography' derives from the
Greek 'steganos', hidden or covered, plus 'graphein', to write.
Someone who uses this technique is a 'steganographer'.


4. Affixia: -ette
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This suffix comes from the Old French '-ette', the feminine ending
of words in '-et'. Many words in this ending, such as 'brunette' or
'coquette', were taken over ready-made from French. It forms three
types of nouns: those that denote small size (such as 'cigarette'
or 'kitchenette'), those that refer to substitute or imitation
things ('flannelette'), and words that imply the feminine gender
('usherette'). The last of these is the most recent ('suffragette'
from the early twentieth century was the first to be recorded) but
has already pretty much dropped out of use, since we now prefer to
create words that are gender-neutral. New forms are usually meant
facetiously - 'bimbette', 'hunkette', 'punkette' - and some older
ones, such as 'sermonette', that were meant seriously when first
coined, have gone the same way.


5. Topical Words: Staple
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The _Guardian_ was discussing the effect on British stores of the
takeover of the British supermarket chain Asda by Wal-Mart.
"Defensive action," it said, "saw the cost of staple goods such as
cereals, chips and ice cream slump in September".

These consumables (foodstuffs hardly seems the right word) can't be
called 'staples' in the usual sense, which is usually confined to
indispensable foods like bread. But not for the supermarkets, it
seems; they don't make much money on them, as they price them
competitively if not actually as loss leaders. Their profit margins
are much better on the goods we like but don't really need, such as
ice cream. The writer was presumably implying that these are
'staple' goods for the supermarkets because they're the ones they
make their money on, or at least used to.

It's all a long way from the origins of this word. A 'staple' had
nothing to do with food, and wasn't even a thing, but a place. It
was Edward II - or more probably his advisers - who had the neat
idea that the way to stop merchants cheating the Exchequer out of
taxes was to make them all trade in one place, where it was easy to
keep an eye on them. England's biggest trade good at the time was
wool, which was sold on in its raw state to weavers in Flanders. A
good location to make the middlemen congregate was Calais, then a
British possession. This became The Staple from about 1390 to 1558.

Why 'staple'? That's more than a little murky. There seems to have
been a prehistoric German word that meant a pillar, which became
the source for the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch word 'stapel'
for a market or shop. It's just a guess, but it may have happened
through an association of ideas, a town market often being held
under the pillars of a market hall. This word came into English
through the Old French 'estaple' and was given to the trading fairs
held at Calais, and also to some in other big towns throughout
Britain, for example the gigantic one on St Giles Hill at
Winchester each September.

A 'staple' was always held under the command of the king, who
appointed officials to ensure trade was done according to the
rules, that quality was maintained and - especially - that he got
his cut. Because of the great importance of wool, the merchants
trading in it became known as 'staplers'.

It's not surprising that 'staple' moved from describing the place
where trade took place to the principal goods bought and sold
there. Apart from wool - and woollen cloth - leather, tin, and some
other goods were included at various times. Down the years, the
word came to mean any item of special importance, whether of trade
or of diet.

The other main meaning of 'staple', of a bent metal fastener, may
seem to have nothing whatever to do with all this. But it's thought
the two words come from the same source, though it's even less
clear how an ancient word for a pillar became something we use to
clip papers together. Perhaps early examples - which resembled
croquet hoops more than paper fasteners - looked like a miniature
pair of pillars. Who knows?


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 limited. If I can do so,
a response will appear both here and on the WWW Web site.]

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Q. I am trying to find the etymology and correct spelling of the
term 'Olly olly in-come-free', used in children's games to signal
that the game is over or that the main player has given up hope of
winning. Help would be appreciated. [Matt J. Fuller, Cincinnati,
USA]

A. I'm not sure that there is a "correct" spelling of the phrase.
There are dozens of different forms of it, known to children all
over North America at various times. The one I've come across is
'ollie ollie oxen free', but that may not be the most common form.

Children's sayings were hardly recorded until the 1950s, and they
are very variable. That's because they've been passed down orally
from one generation to the next, with no adult intervention or
correction.

The guess is that the original was something like "all in free" for
"all who are out can come in free", to indicate that the person who
is "it" in the game of hide-and-seek has caught somebody to become
the new "it", and so everybody else can come out of hiding without
the risk of being caught.

Oral transmission has garbled this in fascinating ways, with 'all
in', for example, being translated by a series of mishearings to
the name 'Ollie' (short for 'Oliver', once more common than it is
now). And 'oxen' may have come from an intermediate form 'out's in
free' - other recorded versions are 'awk in', 'Oxford', and
'ocean'.

The more recent 'ollie' for a successful jump in skateboarding is
probably unconnected.

[I'm grateful to Jesse Sheidlower, whose reply to a question posed
to _Jesse's Word of the Day_ gave me much of this. See his piece at
<http://www.randomhouse.com/jesse/?date=19970422>.]


7. Beyond Words
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Many media column-inches have been expended recently in repeating
the confessions of the British It Girl and celebrity Tara Palmer-
Tomkinson, which appear in the November issue of _Tatler_. Along
the way, she denies she ever slept with Prince William (this is
roughly on the same level as "man didn't bite dog", but never
mind). Complaining about the intrusive and inaccurate press rumour
mill, she perpetrated my candidate for the most awful neologistic
pun of 1999: "I suffer from rumourtism".  Ouch (in every sense).


8. Administration
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