World Wide Words -- 15 Dec 01

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS        ISSUE 267         Saturday 15 December 2001
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent each Saturday to 13,000+ subscribers in at least 113 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK      ISSN 1470-1448
<http://www.worldwidewords.org>   Mail: <editor at worldwidewords.org>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
       This newsletter is best viewed in a monospaced font.


Contents
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Book Review: Oops, Pardon Mrs Arden!
3. Turns of Phrase: Euro-creep.
4. Cornucopia: Coffees.
5. Weird Words: Therianthrope.
6. Q&A: Widget.
7. Subscription commands.
8. Contact addresses.


1. Feedback, notes and comments
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CHRISTMAS BREAK  There isn't going to be one for World Wide Words
this year, because the dates of the next two Saturdays neatly lie
either side of Christmas Day. Enjoy!

MULLIGRUBS  Australian subscribers were quick to point out that the
word has evolved in that country into 'mully-grub', another name
for a witchetty grub (possibly because immigrants considered this
Aboriginal food to be only suitable for giving one a stomach-ache).
It has extended still further to refer to a kind of badly-bowled
ball in cricket, a 'mullygrubber', which doesn't bounce but rather
skids along the ground.

Alison Hill e-mailed from Teignmouth in Devon to point out that the
nineteenth-century sporting writer R S Surtees called one of this
characters in "Handley Cross" Marmaduke Muleygrubs. I pass this on
mainly in order to include Surtees' wonderful description of the
man: "He was a little, round-about, pot-bellied, red-faced, bald-
headed, snub-nosed, chattering chap, who, at first sight, would
give one the idea of being very good-natured, if it were not
notorious that he was the most meddling, officious, ill-conditioned
little beggar in the county".


2. Book Review: Oops, Pardon Mrs Arden!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The subtitle is "An Embarrassment of Domestic Catchphrases", which
pretty much sums up the contents of this weirdly-named collection
from British quotation-monger and word-hunter Nigel Rees, perhaps
best known for his BBC radio series "Quote, Unquote".

The book features phrases that have been recorded from domestic or
informal situations, as gleaned by Nigel Rees from listeners to his
radio programmes, from discussions at lectures around the UK, from
personal information, and even a few from reference books, though
by their nature only a proportion of these sayings have previously
been recorded. Each phrase gets its own entry, varying in length
from a puzzled one-liner to a page or more, quoting people who have
told him about it and, where possible, following it back into
history.

Some of his examples verge on the proverbial and have become quite
widely known, such as "queer as Dick's hatband" (which has various
meanings based around something being odd, none of which Mr Rees
explains), "Bob's your uncle" (in reference to something easy or
simple), "bless your little cotton socks" (said to a child, it
means "thank you"), "I've got a bone in my leg" (an all-purpose
excuse for not doing something), "fine words butter no parsnips"
(it's not talk that matters, but deeds), "no expense spared - throw
the cat another goldfish" (an all-purpose exclamation relating to
an intending extravagance), "not so green as cabbage-looking" (not
such a fool as he or she may appear), "I'll go the bottom of our
stairs" (a Northern England expression of surprise). Some seem to
be confined to one family, such as "'Disappeario crescendo', as the
monkey said when the marble clock fell over the precipice".

As you may have gathered, this is a very British book: only a few
of the sayings here, mainly those which have become proverbial,
have reached beyond the shores of the UK.

Expressions of this sort are among the hardest to investigate, as
subscribers to World Wide Words will have realised after our recent
discussion of "it's so blunt you could ride to China on it". So do
not be surprised that in only a few cases does he get to the origin
of a saying.

I'd class this book as a stocking-filler: a fun book to while away
an hour or two, and in the process possibly even discover that an
old family saying was actually more widely known.

The title? Oh, yes. That comes from the saying "Oops, Pardon Mrs
Arden, there's a pig in your garden", a surprisingly well-known
apologetic nonsense phrase for use after one has belched. Origin,
as so often, totally obscure.

[Rees, Nigel "Oops, Pardon Mrs Arden!", published by Robson Books
on 6 December 2001; hardback, pp 235; ISBN 1-86105-440-8;
publisher's price GBP12.95]


3. Turns of Phrase: Euro-creep
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Not a reference to an obnoxious European, but a term in finance for
one consequence of the move to the euro. This becomes the currency
of twelve European nations on 1 January 2002, replacing the franc,
the mark and the lire, among others. The UK remains outside this
group, but a survey recently showed that about half of Britain's
larger retailers will be accepting the euro as payment for goods.
This is true even of chains whose proprietors are strongly opposed
to Britain adopting the single currency - profits, it seems, are
triumphing over principles. Many multinationals and foreign-owned
companies based in Britain already require suppliers to invoice
them in euros, and this is likely to become even more common in the
future. "Euro-creep" is the tendency for EU nations outside the
euro group to adopt it by stealth in this way; some economists
expect it to lead to the UK adopting the euro whether it wants to
or not.

The informal appearance of the euro is known in government circles
as 'euro-creep'. Its encouragement will become a central plank of
the Prime Minister's campaign to prepare the country for a
referendum on the issue.
                                            ["Observer", Nov. 2001]

Whether or not Britain joined, Mr Fabius said, it was likely that
euro notes and coins could be widely circulated in the UK. "The
changeover will probably step up the 'euro-creep' phenomenon in the
'out' countries," he said.
                                     ["Financial Times", Dec. 2001]


4. Cornucopia: Coffees
------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're a coffee lover you may have been reassured by a recent
report that drinking up to three cups a day is not addictive. To
celebrate this welcome news, here are some types of coffee: Brazil
Bourbon Santos, Celebes Kalosi, Colombia Medillin Excelso, Costa
Rica La Minita, Ethiopian Yrgacheffe, Guatemala Maragogype, Indian
Mysore, Venezuelan Maracaibo, Jamaica Blue Mountain, Java Mountain
Supreme, Malawi Mapanga, Mexican Pluma Altura, Mocha Yemen Mattari,
Rarebean, Monsoon Malabar, New Guinea Tagari, Nicaragua Maravilla,
Old Brown Java, Padang Sibolga, Panama Boquete, Pico Duarte, and
Sumatra Mandheling Kasho. The ultimate coffee must be the rather
rare Caphe Cut Chon from Vietnam, whose unique characteristic is
that the beans are processed through the digestive system of a
civet cat before being put on sale.


5. Weird Words: Therianthrope  /,TI at rIan'TrQp/
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A being that is part animal, part human.

The usual meaning of the adjective "therianthropic" is of a god
that is represented as combining animal and human forms. The best
known examples are the animal-headed gods of ancient Egypt, such as
Bast (with the head of a cat) or Anubis (whose head was that of a
jackal). The noun is rarer, but it appeared recently in reports of
investigations into ancient cave art. The researchers found that
some showed hybrid beings, such as cat-headed humans or men with
the heads of antelopes. They argued these are the ancient relatives
of such mythical human-animal hybrids as the minotaur (which had a
man's body but a bull's head), satyr (part human, part goat), and
werewolf. In the last of these, the creature exhibits its animal
and human aspects serially rather than simultaneously, an extension
of the usual definition, though a usage that is common online. The
word combines the Greek "therion", wild animal, with "anthropos",
human being.


6. Q&A
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. I have a question about "widget". In my family of part Celtic
origin, it was used to refer to little ones who were cute and often
annoying. I've come to understand that the word is also used to
refer to a particular tool or a screw of some kind, although I'm
not sure what it is. [Terrie Relf; a related question came from
Christopher Key]

A. You are right to be puzzled, as am I by your explanation. The
usual sense of "widget" is some small device or mechanical
contraption not sufficiently important to be graced by a name of
its own. I've not come across any reference to small children, not
even winsomely tiresome ones. The word seems to be a variation on
"gadget", perhaps influenced by "whatsit" or "whoosit".

A "widget" is often a term for some small manufactured item,
otherwise not particularised. It has long been used in business
studies, and sometimes in advertisements, as a generic name for an
item. It also turns up from time to time in computing as an example
of a generic product, for example in tutorials explaining how to
write and use databases. In recent years in Britain it has become
the name for a specific thing: a plastic device in the bottom of a
can of beer that introduces nitrogen into the liquid to give it a
creamy head, in order to make it looks more like draught beer.

H G Wells invented a family called the "Widgetts" in "Ann Veronica"
in 1909. It would be nice to think that this was the source of the
word, but it looks - alas - like a coincidence, since the word's
debut is otherwise in America more than a decade later.

It appears in the play "Beggar on Horseback", by George Kaufman and
Marc Connelly, which was first performed in 1924. The play is a
parable that warns of the perils of trading one's artistic autonomy
for filthy lucre. The character Neil McRae is a struggling young
composer, engaged to the daughter of a rich but philistine
businessman. In a nightmare sequence, he visualises what life would
be like in a big bureaucratic business, in which ideas come from
the Inspiration Department. His possible future father-in-law
explains that his firm is in the "widget" business: "Yes, sir! I
suppose I'm the biggest manufacturer in the world of overhead and
underground aerial widgets". The joke, of course, is that the young
composer never finds out what these widget things really are.

Apart from those beer cans, we still don't know for sure ...


7. Subscription commands
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To leave the list, change your subscription address, or subscribe,
please visit <http://www.worldwidewords.org/wordlist.htm>.

Alternatively, you can contact the list server by sending an e-mail
message to <listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org> from the address at
which you are subscribed:

To leave the list, send:
     SIGNOFF WORLDWIDEWORDS

To subscribe, send:
     SUBSCRIBE WORLDWIDEWORDS First-name Last-name

To obtain a list of commands, send:
     INFO WORLDWIDEWORDS


8. Contact addresses
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments on newsletter mailings are always welcome. They should be
sent to <editor at worldwidewords.org>.

Questions intended to be answered in the Q&A section should go to
<qa at worldwidewords.org>.

For a key to the pronunciation symbols used in mailings, please see
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/pronguide.htm>, or send a blank e-
mail to our autoresponder at <pronguide at worldwidewords.org>.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
WORLD WIDE WORDS is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2001. All rights
reserved. You may reproduce this mailing in whole or part in other
free media online provided that you don't alter the text, you give
the source as World Wide Words, and you quote the World Wide Words
Web site address of <http://www.worldwidewords.org>.
-------------------------------------------------------------------