World Wide Words -- 21 Oct 00
Michael Quinion
editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Sat Oct 21 07:36:42 UTC 2000
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 210 Saturday 21 October 2000
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Editor: Michael Quinion ISSN 1470-1448 Thornbury, Bristol, UK
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Contents
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1. Corrections, clarifications and feedback.
2. Turns of Phrase: Genetic underclass.
3. Book Review: Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.
4. Book Review: The New Oxford Thesaurus of English.
5. Weird Words: Leiotrichous.
6. Q & A: Happy as Larry.
7. Administration: How to join and leave the list, Copyright.
1. Corrections, clarifications and feedback
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GREEN FAMINE John Haigh wrote "Here in South Africa we often refer
to a 'green drought', when there is enough rain to keep the veldt
green, but not enough for the crops to grow". It's possible that
the newer term "green famine" featured last week originated with a
South African aid worker who knew that phrase.
IT WAS ONLY A WEE US It was a mistake, I acknowledge, to refer to
"us older ones" last week, when "we older ones" was correct. As a
penance, for the past week I have read an entry from Fowler's
_Modern English Usage_ every night before bed. Andy Johnson wrote
from Florida: "Be careful. You influence millions, indirectly".
Such a thought is enough to paralyse anyone ...
COMING FROM DUTCH A lively correspondence followed my reply last
week to a question about "Dutch ..." phrases in English. Lots of
people wrote in with other examples, several to point out that a
Dutch auction is just a Netherlandish way of conducting a sale in
wholesale markets, in which as the price falls, the first person to
lose their nerve and bid gets the goods. Others mentioned many
similar phrases I didn't include, largely because it would have
made the piece twice as long.
Specifically on 'Dutch courage' Tony Furnivall wrote: "While I
loved the recitation of evils that the Dutch have foisted upon an
unsuspecting language, I feel certain that 'Dutch courage' is at
least partly related to the invention that more than outweighs
these trifling nits. I refer, of course, to the invention of gin -
a fluid that supports more of the Royal Navy than sea-water!"
SEARCH ENGINE Many thanks to everyone who tried out my home-brewed
one. Reports are favourable, so it has been put into service today.
NEW SUBSCRIBERS A special welcome to the many people who have just
joined the list following pieces in the Netsurfer Digest, Wordplay-
L digest, at Libraryspot.com, and in the Guardian newspaper.
2. Turns of Phrase: Genetic underclass
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It's now possible to take a number of tests to find out whether you
are a potential sufferer from a disease caused by a genetic defect.
This has led to new ethical dilemmas. Is it right, for example,
that an employer or prospective employer should be able to screen
you for susceptibility for disease? Should insurers have a right to
know that you have tested positive for a possible future condition
and increase premiums? Such fears are leading to the spectre of a
'genetic underclass' forming: a group of people classified as
susceptible to a disease following a genetic test and who are
unable to get insurance or jobs. In Britain, the government has
announced that it intends to outlaw genetic testing by employers
except in rare cases where it might have safety implications.
However, British insurers said last week that they will continue to
ask for the results of the seven currently available genetic tests
if they have been made. It is feared that people will refuse to be
tested in case the results are positive, as has happened with HIV.
Mr Ryan said that in New Zealand, insurers were keen to avoid
creating a genetic elite, because that would automatically create a
genetic underclass.
[_Evening Post_ (Wellington, New Zealand), Aug. 2000]
Civil rights activists are growing concerned that if such Orwellian
practices develop at the same pace as the race to decipher the
human blueprint they could create a 'genetic underclass' considered
unemployable because of the chemical codes they carry inside them.
[_Guardian_, Sep. 2000]
3. Book Review: Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases
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Most people think of a thesaurus as a reference book organised on
the lines set out by Dr Peter Roget in 1852. It was an astonishing
work, quite unlike anything that had gone before; he wrote it in
his retirement after years as a doctor and latterly as Secretary of
the Royal Society.
His classification was thematic; as he said in the introduction to
the first edition, words were arranged "not in alphabetical order
as they are in a Dictionary, but according to the 'ideas' which
they express". He created six main headings, sub-divided into
sections and then into entries. It is a tribute to his powers of
classification that the organisation of the thesaurus today is
broadly the same as his, even after many revisions and vast changes
in the language.
This edition of _Roget_ is from Penguin and is a concise edition of
the full work (published under the Longman imprint, as was the
original 150 years ago, though it seems to be out of print at the
moment). It has been updated to reflect new terms and informal
usages: genetic map, frankenfood, Euroland, fusion cusine, mouse
potato, cybersex and m-commerce are all here. But these new terms
fit comfortably within the structure that Roget created.
[Kilpatrick, Betty (ed.), _Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and
Phrases_, pp810, published by Penguin Books on 12 October 2000;
hardback ISBN 0-14-027736-6, GBP15.99; paperback ISBN 0-14-051422-
8; publisher's UK price GBP5.99]
4. Book Review: The New Oxford Thesaurus of English
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Following the publication of the _New Oxford Dictionary of English_
(NODE) in hardback and CD-ROM (see the reviews respectively at
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/reviews/node.htm> and <http://www.
worldwidewords.org/reviews/node-cd.htm>) we now have the _New
Oxford Thesaurus of English_ (NOTE).
Its compilers claim that, though NOTE is an independent work, it
can also be considered as a companion to NODE; in size and design
it certainly resembles NODE closely. (As an idle aside, staff in
Oxford Dictionaries for some obscure reason pronounce NODE as
'noddy'; they are now rendering NOTE as 'knotty'.)
After the traditional form of _Roget Thesaurus_, the work that
everyone now associates with the word 'thesaurus', this book is a
culture shock. There is no thematic classification at all. Instead
we have what looks very much like a dictionary of synonyms and
antonyms, with entries arranged by an alphabetic listing of
headwords, a subset of NODE's entries. More detailed inspection
shows that NOTE is a highly idiosyncratic publication, unlike any
reference book I can think of; it certainly deserves the title of
'thesaurus', which comes from a Greek word meaning storehouse or
treasure.
Within each entry, synonyms and related terms are organised under
section headings, so that 'extravagance' - to take a case at random
- has the sub-entries 'profligacy', 'ornateness', 'luxury' and
'excessiveness'; in this, the layout is similar to that of _Roget_.
Each section is introduced by a sample phrase or sentence that
illustrates its sense; for instance, the last of these sections
begins with "the extravagance of his compliments". Each section has
cross-references to its opposites. Words that are not considered to
be standard English are tagged to show their nature: informal
usage, technical contexts, vulgar slang, humorous and so on.
Another feature that clearly distinguishes NOTE from _Roget_ is the
plethora of boxed texts. One set consists of 120 guidance notes on
awkward synonyms. Under the verb 'refuse', a note several
paragraphs long explains the differences between it and 'decline',
'reject' and 'spurn'. Under 'lazy', another compares it with 'idle'
and 'indolent'. A second set of notes features sets of words that
are not synonyms but which are easily confused, such as 'principle'
and 'principal', 'seasonable' and 'seasonal', and 'economic' and
'economical'.
Yet another set of boxed texts is of lists. If you need to find out
which of about 300 economic terms and names of theories you need to
refer to, you will find them all conveniently laid out on page 294.
There are 480 of them altogether, some quite extensive, and an
eclectic bunch they are too: film directors, pop musicians, British
prime ministers, American presidents, surgical operations, types of
knot, the world's largest islands, signs of the zodiac, names for
kinds of stew, types of headgear ...
As you may know, I'm biased, because I'm a freelance researcher for
Oxford Dictionaries (though I had nothing to do with this work). So
I stop short of actually recommending it. But a lot of time was
spent just browsing through it when I should have been writing this
review. It's probably fair to say that anyone who buys it will find
it equally fascinating.
[Hanks, Patrick (Chief Editor), _The New Oxford Thesaurus of
English_, published by Oxford University Press on 6 October 2000;
pp 1087; ISBN 0-19-860261-8. Publisher's recommended price in the
UK GBP20.00]
[NOTE is also available on a CD-ROM with other Oxford works; this
will be reviewed next week.]
5. Weird Words: Leiotrichous
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Having straight hair.
Don't expect to find this word turning up in your newspaper any day
soon, as it is now rare to the point of complete disuse. It comes
from Greek 'leios', smooth, plus 'trikhos', hair.
That it exists at all is due to the French naturalist Baron Jean
Baptise Genevieve Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent, who travelled
the world at the beginning of the nineteenth century studying
plants. He also made a stab at classifying peoples into races. He
is now hardly remembered, but in a once-influential book _Homo:
essai zoologique sur le genre humain_, published in Paris in 1827,
he attempted to classify humans with straight and wavy hair into
the 'Leiotrichi' and those with woolly or tufted hair into the
'Ulotrichi', with many sub-groups below these headings.
His classification was seriously studied for several decades, being
quoted - for example - by both Thomas Henry Huxley and Charles
Darwin. The adjective 'ulotrichous' (Greek 'oulos', woolly), from
his other main category is also rare, but the related
'lissotrichous', smooth-haired, is still to be found in the
vocabulary of some specialists, especially zoologists; this comes
from Greek 'lissos', which also means smooth. A third category is
that of wavy-haired or 'cymotrichous' people (from Greek 'kuma',
wave). These last three adjectives have been used to classify types
of hair, for example in forensic identification.
6. 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. Who is Larry and why is he happy? [Karl Haas; a similar question
came from James Cartwright]
A. A neat question, but American readers in particular will need
some background before I can address it. The phrase 'happy as
Larry' seems to have originated as either Australian or New Zealand
slang sometime before 1875. This date is earlier than that given in
most dictionaries, but H W Orsman, editor of the _Oxford Dictionary
of New Zealand English_, has traced it to a New Zealand writer
named G L Meredith, who wrote in about 1875: "We would be as happy
as Larry if it were not for the rats". Unlike other odd phrases -
the Australian 'happy as a boxing kangaroo in fog time' and the New
Zealand 'happy as a sick eel on a sandspit' come to mind - it was
meant positively: extremely happy or content.
There's a suggestion that it comes from the name of the nineteenth-
century Australian boxer Larry Foley (1847-1917), though why he was
especially happy nobody now seems able to say. Perhaps he won a lot
of contests? (He was certainly one of those who originated gloved
boxing rather than bare-knuckle fighting in Australia and his name
is still remembered there.) But this origin is far from certain and
the early New Zealand reference renders it less so, without ruling
it out altogether.
Dr Orsman's suggestion is that it is more likely to come from an
English dialect source, 'larrie', joking, jesting, a practical
joke. Another possible link is with the Australian and New Zealand
term 'larrikin' for a street rowdy or young urban hooligan,
recorded from the late 1860s but known especially in both countries
from the 1880s onwards in reference to a specific subculture. Like
other groups before and since, the larrikins had their own dress
style, in their case very neat and rather severe. The word may well
have come from English dialect 'larrikin' for a mischievous youth,
once common in Warwickshire and Worcestershire, which itself is
closely related to 'larrie'. Either of these sources could
afterwards have been reinforced through a supposed connection with
Larry Foley.
5. Administration
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