World Wide Words -- 14 Oct 00
Michael Quinion
editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Oct 13 18:00:17 UTC 2000
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 209 Saturday 14 October 2000
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Contents
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1. Notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Green famine.
3. Weird Words: Astrobleme.
4. Q & A: Tinker's damn, Jalopy, Phrases using 'Dutch'.
5. Administration: How to join and leave the list, Copyright.
1. Notes and comments
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GIG Following last week's Q&A piece on this word, I must thank
everybody who wrote in with senses I'd never heard of, including
gigging for frogs. George Hersh wrote to suggest that a 'fizzgig'
(also known as a 'fizgig' or 'fishgig') is a type of harpoon with
two or three prongs - presumably the source of the verb above -
that might have been a direct source for 'gig' in the sense of the
nineteenth-century numbers game mentioned in the item.
SLUGFLATION This In Brief item should, of course, have mentioned
'stagflation', a blend of 'stagnant' with 'inflation', a term that
us older ones in Britain recall from the sixties and seventies. The
new term has a similar sense; presumably the new term was coined
either because the writers were unfamiliar with the older term
(unlikely; incredible if true), or that they were trying to avoid
its historical associations. (I put aside the unworthy thought that
they were just trying to be smart-arses.)
YOUR HELP REQUESTED The search engine I found online and recently
put on the site is already causing problems, so I've written a new
one from scratch. It would be a great help if you would try it and
let me know what you think. You will find the test search page at
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/wordsearchbeta.htm>; please send any
comments to searchbeta at worldwidewords.org. (The existing search
page at <http://www.worldwidewords.org/wordsearch.htm> remains in
public use, so you can compare the two if you want.)
2. Turns of Phrase: Green famine
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This phrase has begun to appear in newspapers, particularly with
reference to Ethiopia, but is as yet hardly common outside relief
agencies. It refers to a situation in which the land is green and
crops are growing, but in which people are starving. This may be
because the rains have arrived too late for crops to be grown and
harvested in time to prevent famine; alternatively, civil war and
consequent mass migrations may have prevented normal agriculture.
It is possible to track the term back as far as 1994 in reports
from UNICEF officers in Addis Ababa.
Without additional food aid ... the counter-intuitive notion of a
'green famine' may become dreadfully familiar - with food crops
growing in the fields as an ironic backdrop to the large-scale
migrations and displacements, massive camps and widespread deaths
for which Ethiopia, sadly, has become a byword.
[UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs,
_Ethiopia: Separating Humanitarian Needs and
Political Issues_, Jul. 1999]
Like thousands of people across the south of the country, she is
starving to death in a 'green famine' brought on by three
consecutive years of crop failure.
[_Independent on Sunday_, Aug. 2000]
3. Weird Words: Astrobleme
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An eroded meteor impact crater.
It came from outer space. This lovely word refers to the remains of
a large ancient meteoric impact, a roughly circular scar of crushed
and deformed bedrock, from half a mile to 40 miles (0.8 to 64 km)
in diameter. It's only in the last half century that these remnants
have been identified for what they are, since most have been almost
completely eroded away. The best way to identify one is through the
cone of shattered rock that lies beneath it. The most famous is
probably the Sudbury Astrobleme in Canada, whose mines supply about
half the world's nickel. Geologists may dispute my inclusion of
this word in the Weird Words category, as it is a well-known term
in geology, though it only dates only from the 1960s. But I salute
the person who invented it: showing a poetic streak not often
associated with that most literally down-to-earth subject, it was
coined from Greek 'astron', a star, plus 'blema', a wound. 'Star
wound' - what a romantic notion. I shall never think of geologists as
prosaic ever again.
4. Q&A
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[Send your queries to <qa at worldwidewords.org>. All messages will be
acknowledged, but I can't guarantee to reply, as time is limited.
If I can, a response will appear here and on the Words Web site.]
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Q. Why the tinker in 'a tinker's damn'? [David Halperin, Israel]
A. There are two theories about this one. One points to the very
low social status of tinkers, itinerant menders of pots and pans,
and to their well-known tendency to include a swearword in every
sentence. So to say that something "isn't worth a tinker's damn" is
to say that it's of no value at all, not worth even a moment's
consideration.
A more ingenious explanation was put forward in the latter part of
the nineteenth century: when a tinker was soldering a pot, he would
make a small wall out of bread dough around the place he was to
flood with solder in order to stop it from spreading. After he had
finished, he would naturally throw the dough away as being of no
further use, so that "a tinker's dam" was equally something of no
value.
A century ago, the compilers of the First Edition of the _Oxford
English Dictionary_ were scornful of this attempt to make a simple
matter more complicated, though it is still to be found in current
works on phrase histories. It speaks to that part of us that wants
to convert the mundane to the magical, to find something of mystery
and interest in even the most ordinary of expressions.
You may gather that I consider the simpler story to be much the
more likely. It is supported by variations such as 'tinker's curse'
and 'tinker's cuss'.
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Q. What is the derivation of 'jalopy'? My old _Webster's New
International Unabridged_ (new ca. 1939) doesn't even list it, and
my 1961 Partridge lists it (spelled 'jaloppy', a variant I've never
seen in America) and defines it, but offers no source. He says it
is a cheap or old motor-car, ca. 1950. I'm pretty sure it goes back
to the '30's, at least. It's a strange word, and sounds as if it
must be derived from French or Spanish, but I can't find anything
like it in the relevant dictionaries. [Kirk Mattoon]
A. Eric Partridge is actually saying, I think, that the term was
first used in the UK about 1950, which may be true. But you're
right to argue that it's much older than that. The first recorded
use is about 1925-26 in the US, which is where it originated.
The truth is, dictionary makers have not the slightest idea where
'jalopy' comes from. It was spelled all sorts of ways when it first
appeared, a sure sign that oral transmission came first. So, in
lieu of facts, here are some of the stories that others have
recounted in worthy attempts to make some sense of the matter.
Yiddish is a candidate with 'shlappe', a term for an old horse that
actually derives from Polish. A French origin has also been
asserted, from 'chaloupe', a kind of skiff, though why the name
should have come ashore in the process of changing languages is not
explained. A lovely theory has it that the word comes from an
Italian-American pronunciation of 'jelly apple'. The story goes
that a 'jell 'oppy' was one of the decrepit old carts from which
Italian immigrants sold this delicacy during the early part of the
twentieth century. Others argue that it has a link with the Mexican
seaside town of 'Jalapa', where old vehicles were sent to rest and
recuperate. Aa Spanish origin seems probable, but 'galapago', a
tortoise, may be a more plausible suggestion, as a description of
the slowness of beat-up old bangers.
I give no guarantees about any of this. We have to leave it as one
of life's mysteries.
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Q. Recently on a writing forum I visit, quite a discussion erupted
about the term 'Dutch' as in 'Dutch treat' and 'Dutch uncle'. Some
writers, fearing criticism and acutely conscious of political
correctness, were afraid to use them as being pejorative. Where do
we get these terms? [Robert Legleitner, Kentucky]
A. Dutch readers should perhaps look away ...
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch and British were enemies.
Both wanted maritime superiority for economic reasons, especially
control of the sea routes from the rich spice islands of the East
Indies. The two countries fought three wars at sea between the
years 1652 and 1674. At the lowest point of the struggle, in May
1667, the Dutch sailed up the Medway, sank a lot of ships, and
blockaded the Thames. The Dutch were powerful, they were the enemy,
they were the bad guys, and their name was taken in vain at every
opportunity.
The stereotype of the Dutchman among the English at this period was
somebody stolid, miserly, and bad-tempered, and these associations,
especially the stinginess, were linked to several phrases. Only a
small number of them are actually recorded in print from the time
of the Dutch wars, most being of eighteenth century provenance or
later. But there's nothing so long-lasting as traditional enmity;
later phrases borrowed the ideas from earlier ones, and in any case
many are certainly older than their date of first recording.
Examples from the time of the Dutch wars include 'Dutch reckoning',
a bill that is presented without any details, and which only gets
bigger if you question it, and a 'Dutch widow', a prostitute. In
the same spirit, but recorded later, are 'Dutch auction', one in
which the prices go down instead of up; 'Dutch courage', temporary
bravery induced by alcohol; 'Dutch metal', an alloy of copper and
zinc used as a substitute for gold foil; 'Dutch comfort' or 'Dutch
consolation', in which somebody might say "thank God it is no
worse!"; 'Dutch concert', in which each musician plays a different
tune; 'Dutch uncle', someone who criticises or rebukes you with the
frankness of a relative; and 'Dutch treat', one in which those
invited pay for themselves (this last one first appeared only in
the twentieth century, but it continues the associations).
You get the idea. Yes, they are pejorative. Using them requires
thoughtful consideration of the offence that might possibly be
given. However, some are now so embedded in the language that
direct associations with the Dutch or the Netherlands have largely
been lost - Dutch uncle, for example.
5. Administration
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