World Wide Words -- 25 Aug 01

Sat Aug 25 08:05:24 UTC 2001

WORLD WIDE WORDS         ISSUE 251          Saturday 25 August 2001
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Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK      ISSN 1470-1448
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Topical Words: Farrago.
3. Weird Words: Clinquant.
4. Q & A: Tchotchke.
5. Beyond Words.
6. Subscription commands and copyright notice.

1. Feedback, notes and comments
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NUMBER KNOWLEDGE  Observant readers will have spotted that we seem
to have had no edition 250. It was not an attempt to avoid marking
an anniversary, but because the issues of 4 and 11 August were both
labelled as issue 248, so numbering has jumped one to correct for
the error. Last week's issue was actually number 250. And several
subscribers noticed that I had managed to turn the clock back last
week by putting the wrong year in the subject line of the mailing -
apologies for the temporary chronological confusion.

2. Topical Words: Farrago
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When the London _Daily Mirror_ reported a British television
personality as saying "It was terribly bad timing after the farrago
of the chocolate bar wedding photo" (don't ask), or when a writer
recently said in the _Washington Post_ that a film shoot "was a
famous farrago of disaster", one begins to wonder whether a new
sense of the word is developing.

'Farrago', in its more usual sense of a confused mixture, turns up
so often in phrases of condemnation like "a farrago of excuses and
obfuscation", "a farrago of deceit and lies", or "a rambling
farrago of half-digested knowledge", that it has become one of
those all-purpose dismissive words that ought to appear in public
only when attached to a health warning. The word, I suspect, has no
meaning for most people apart from negative associations in such
set phrases. To judge from the company it keeps, it is much
favoured by judges and journalists but by hardly anybody else.

It's hard to be sure from the evidence, but there are indications
that people are sometimes using 'farrago' to mean a lot of noise
and argument about nothing very much, or some happening or event
which has gone disastrously wrong. The Oxford English Dictionary
has on file an example from as long ago as 1989 that looks as
though it is going that way - David Kalstone wrote in _Becoming A
Poet_: "Recalling the 'farrago' years later, Bishop said that she
never again sent Moore any of her poems for suggestions or
approval".

But then, 'farrago' has been a negative word right from its first
recorded appearance, in the middle of the seventeenth century in
John Row's _Historie of the Kirk of Scotland_: "A strange
miscellanie, farrago, and hotch-potch of Poperie, Arminianisme, and
what not".

This is only a few years after 'farrago' appeared in the language
in its original literal sense. It was at first applied to mixtures
of things, such as a dish of food (so it was close in meaning to
'salmagundi'), and also to mixed races of people. Its origin was
the Latin word spelled the same way, which meant mixed fodder for
cattle. This was taken from 'far', the name the Romans had for a
type of wheat that we now call spelt, much cultivated at the time
in Southern Europe. So 'farrago' is actually a close relative of
'farina', the breakfast cereal.

However, few people seem to have ever used 'farrago' in English to
mean a literal mixture and that sense is long defunct. The
figurative sense seems to have been come in almost immediately and
has been dominant ever since. Perhaps a further change is taking
place, but we will have to wait a few years to be sure either way.

3. Weird Words: Clinquant /'klINk at nt/
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Glittering with gold or silver; a false and showy glitter.

If your instincts tell you that this word looks French, then your
instincts are correct, and if they tell you that it sounds as if it
might be related to 'clink', then they would also be right. It
comes from the obsolete French verb 'clinquer' which meant to clink
or tinkle, probably taken from Dutch 'klinken', to clink or ring,
which is where we get 'clink' from. It was applied to the ringing
noise that gold pieces make when they clink together in one's
purse. By an obvious enough association, it came to refer to the
glittering appearance of polished gold as well as the noise it
makes, particularly in the phrase 'or clinquant' for gold leaf.
English borrowed the idea of something glittering, and it was in
that sense that Shakespeare used it in _Henry VIII_: "To-day the
French, / All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods, / Shone
down the English". But - to borrow a proverb from an even earlier
age - "all that glisters is not gold", and the word has since come
to be used for any showy glitter, especially something with gold
decoration. The French now use it in much the same way, to describe
tinsel and the like. You won't find the word appearing very often -
it's definitely one of those poetic terms used more for effect than
utility.

4. Q&A
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Q. Within the past month, I have seen two references to the word
'tchotchke'. One was in the _Smithsonian Magazine_: "Microsoft ...
invites weary attendees loaded with product literature and
promotional tchotchkes to rest on comfortable chairs positioned in
front of software demonstrations". Could you tell me the origin of
this word and can I expect to see it any time soon in the Oxford
Dictionary? [Lila Schwartz]

A. It's already in the big _Oxford English Dictionary_, as a matter
of fact, though the entry is listed under the older and now rather
rarer spelling of 'tsatske'. It's one of those delightful
Yiddishisms that do so much to enliven American prose. They're used
so often in certain situations that it's easy to forget they're not
well known throughout the rest of the US, let alone elsewhere.

The basic sense is something inexpensive and decorative, a trinket,
ornament, or souvenir. At one time, according to Leo Rosten in his
_Joys of Yiddish_, it could mean "a sexy but brainless broad", but
that sense has long since gone, if it was ever widely known. To
Jewish people it means any useless gewgaw, but to everyone else it
has most commonly come to mean those promotional items that are
handed out at trade shows. In that sense the fact that it's Yiddish
isn't generally known ('bagel' has likewise moved away from its
ethnic roots). The word has entered the technical goods marketing
mainstream - some computer trade shows like Comdex give away 'Best
Tchotchke' awards. The writer you quote in the _Smithsonian
Magazine_ is using it in this sense.

It probably comes from a dialect Polish word 'czaczko', a trinket,
knick-knack or ornament. American Jews say it as /'tSQtSk@/,
roughly 'choch-ka', though I am told that when it is used in
reference to promotional stuff people say it more like /'tSQtSki:/,
roughly 'choch-key'.

5. Beyond Words
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It is the Silly Season, but the date isn't April 1, so one just has
to take on trust the BBC news story this morning. It reported that
the British supermarket chain Tesco was surveying its customers to
ask whether the pudding called Spotted Dick should be renamed. It
seems that some customers are embarrassed to ask for it. Tesco has
suggested that it should be renamed ... Spotted Richard.

6. Subscription commands
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