World Wide Words -- 03 Mar 01
Michael Quinion
editor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Sat Mar 3 08:45:01 UTC 2001
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 226 Saturday 3 March 2001
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Sent each Saturday to 11,000+ subscribers in at least 104 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion ISSN 1470-1448 Thornbury, Bristol, UK
<http://www.worldwidewords.org> E-mail: <editor at worldwidewords.org>
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Orthorexia.
3. Weird Words: Costus.
4. Q & A: Pear-shaped, Tracklement, Oxford comma.
5. List commands, pronunciation guide, and copyright.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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WEB SITE UPDATES Recent visitors will have noticed that I've made
various changes to the visual design of the site. I've improved the
navigation to the general index, too, so that pointer buttons now
appear on all pages. The In Brief section now shows the dates on
which pieces were created. As a result of your suggestions, I've
started to update the page of links to other sites, though more
needs to be done. I've also added a "Surprise me!" button that
takes you to a randomly selected page on the Web site - with 1050
items available, you might end up anywhere!
BODGER Further correspondence and investigations suggest that this
application of the word to a pointed instrument, or to something
for making holes in things, may well be a modification of another
word, 'podger'. I've updated the Web archive piece with the details
at <http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-bod1.htm>.
2. Turns of Phrase: Orthorexia
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In full, 'orthorexia nervosa', showing its close link to the much
better-known psychological condition 'anorexia nervosa'. Instead of
an obsessive desire to lose weight, sufferers from 'orthorexia'
have an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. In their search
for dietary purity, they may become so restrictive about what they
eat - for example, avoiding fatty foods, those with preservatives,
those with salt or sugar - that they become as dangerously thin as
an anorexic. The word, and the identification of the condition, is
attributable to a Colorado specialist, Dr Steven Bratman, who has
recently published a book on the subject. He coined 'orthorexia' in
1997 on the pattern of 'anorexia', from Greek 'orthos', correct or
right, plus 'orexis', appetite. Though the word is beginning to
appear in the US and Britain, largely as a result of his book, it
is not a recognised medical condition.
"I have no numbers, but orthorexic behavior is probably as common
as the other eating disorders. Perhaps more common, as it is less
extreme and promoted as allegedly good behavior," says Thomas E.
Billings, a vegetarian for more than 30 years and whose Web site is
a forum for former food fanatics.
[_USA Weekend_, Jan. 2001]
Whereas anorexia nervosa and bulimia are afflictions that involve
an obsession with the quantity of food consumed, orthorexia nervosa
occurs when the victim becomes obsessed, explains Bratman, "not
with the quantity of food eaten but the quality of food."
[_Toronto Star_, Dec. 2000]
3. Weird Words: Costus
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An Asian spice.
It was well-known in the classical world, but it is comparatively
rare today in the West. It wasn't used much in food, as the Greeks
and Romans disliked its burning taste, but they appreciated what
Pliny called its "exquisite scent" and also used it in medical
prescriptions.
It is the root of a tall herb, whose botanical name is 'Saussurea
lappa', which even today grows only in the highlands of Kashmir.
Its name comes to us from Sanskrit through Greek and Latin. Another
name for it is 'putchuk', from a local language, variously
suggested as being Telugu, Hindi or Malay. It is recorded in the
Anglo-Indian Dictionary _Hobson-Jobson_ of 1886; the authors
remarked that it was exported from Bombay and Calcutta to China,
where it was used as the chief ingredient in joss sticks.
The English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper knew of it under the name
of 'cost' or 'coste': "Being boiled in oil, it is held to help the
gout by anointing the grieved place with it". In modern usage, its
name has reverted to 'costus', the Latin form. It is still used as
a medical herb in some places, being antiseptic and helpful against
asthma and bronchitis, among other things. Its oil is used in
perfumery and sometimes in aromatherapy.
In the fourteenth century another herb with a similar aroma, from
the Mediterranean this time, was introduced to Britain. The English
name of the oriental herb was borrowed for it, but as it was often
used to flavour ale, it became commonly known as 'alecost'.
(Another name was 'costmary', because it was widely associated with
St Mary.) However, that herb's popularity declined after hops
appeared on the scene in the early fifteenth century.
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. If
you wish to comment, please e-mail <editor at worldwidewords.org>.]
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Q. What's the history behind 'pear-shaped'? [M-C Seminario]
A. It's mainly a British expression. "It's all gone pear-shaped",
one might say with head-shaking ruefulness, in reference to an
activity or project that has gone badly awry or out of control.
There are plenty of things that are literally pear-shaped, of
course, such as a person's outline, a particular cut of a diamond,
or the shape of a bottle, anything in fact that is bulbous at the
bottom but narrows at the top, like the pear. It isn't immediately
obvious how the literal meaning turned into the figurative one,
though we do know that it started to appear in the 1960s.
A common explanation, the one accepted by Oxford Dictionaries, is
that it comes from Royal Air Force slang. However, nobody there or
anywhere else seems to know why. Some say that it may have been
applied to the efforts of pilots to do aerobatics, such as loops.
It is notoriously difficult (I am told) to get manoeuvres like this
even roughly circular, and instructors would describe the resulting
distorted route of the aircraft as 'pear-shaped'.
I've not seen firm evidence to convince me of this explanation,
which sounds a little far-fetched, but that's the best I can do!
[The _Oxford English Dictionary_ researchers will be looking into
this in more detail when they get to the letter P sometime soon; if
anybody has any information to offer, do let me know and I'll pass
it on.]
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Q. Can you tell me if the word 'tracklements' is just obsolete or a
non-word? [Jay Coughlin]
A. It's a real word, a delightful one. It's not obsolete, but it's
not widely known; it is used almost exclusively in Britain, and not
especially often there. It refers to any kind of savoury condiment
served with meat, such as rowan jelly. I first learned the word
when we bought a pot of mustard many years ago from the Wiltshire
Tracklement Company, and in databases the word turns up most often
in that firm's name.
Even among cookery writers it seems to be an occasional relish to
enliven dull prose. A rare sighting comes from the _Independent_
newspaper in 1999: "In the best of Kosher kitchens, another
delicious relish made from beetroot and horseradish (known as
chrain) is the traditional tracklement".
The English cookery writer Dorothy Hartley claimed to have invented
the word, which she used for the first time in her book _Food in
England_ in 1954. She said, though, that she had borrowed it from
an English dialect word meaning "appurtenances, impedimenta". The
problem for those tracking down its antecedents is that the dialect
word concerned is not easy to identify unambiguously.
There are a number of possibilities. One is the Yorkshire word
'tranklement', which has numerous variant spellings. This means
"ornaments, trinkets; bits of things". It appears in Joseph
Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_ of 1906, and also in several
other dialect glossaries of the end of the nineteenth century, that
relate to places like Sheffield, Huddersfield and Leeds. Joseph
Wright also records 'tanchiments' from Cheshire and Lancashire with
a similar meaning.
We've no way of knowing for sure which of these is the word that Ms
Hartley had in mind when she coined her new term, but it looks
highly plausible that it is the Yorkshire one.
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Q. Can you tell me what the 'Oxford comma' is? I came across it
recently in _The Remorseful Day_ by Colin Dexter. I wonder whether
it may refer to the practice of putting a comma after the
penultimate item in a list, before the 'and' - for example "eggs,
bacon, and sausage" rather than "eggs, bacon and sausage", which is
how I would write it. [Sheila Jones, South Africa]
A. You have it exactly right. That form of punctuation is uncommon
in British English, as it obviously is in South Africa, but it's a
characteristic part of the house style of the Oxford University
Press, hence the name.
I'm suffering from it at the moment: I don't use it naturally, but
have to remember to do so in the text of the book I'm writing for
OUP, or my editor (Hi, Elizabeth!) reprimands me with gentle but
absolute authority; when you see it in these newsletters, as you
sometimes do, it's because I've been thoroughly indoctrinated. It's
also called the 'Harvard comma' from the house style of the Harvard
University Press, but the more general term is 'serial comma'. It's
common in American English and it is recommended in the _Chicago
Manual of Style_ and other US style guides.
The argument for using it is that it reduces the risk of ambiguity.
For example, if you were to write "He studied Roman history,
international politics and economics" it is not obvious whether
'international' refers only to 'politics' or also to 'economics'.
Putting the serial comma in removes that doubt. In practice, an
alert writer will spot the potential problem and can often write
around it.
5. List commands
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