World Wide Words -- 06 Apr 02
Michael Quinion
do_not_use at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Apr 5 15:46:46 UTC 2002
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 283 Saturday 6 April 2002
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Sent each Saturday to 14,000+ subscribers in at least 116 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
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. Weird Words: Foudroyant.
3. Out There.
4. Q&A: Skosh, Beggar on horseback, See a man about a dog.
5. Endnote.
6. The LINGUIST list.
7. Subscription commands.
8. Contact addresses.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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NORMAL SERVICE RESTORED I'm back, to a mass of mail that requires
more fortitude to clear than my post-holiday tristesse permits. But
all messages will be responded to, given time and a fair wind!
LAKE MEMPHRÉMAGOG I may have been globe-trotting these past five
weeks, but it hasn't stopped me being geographically challenged. A
chorus of subscribers has pointed out that to have a lake on the
Ontario-Vermont border isn't possible. It actually lies across the
Quebec-Vermont border.
HE SPEAKS! While in Australia, I had the pleasure of meeting Kel
Richards, who runs the WordWatch feature heard daily on the ABC
NewsRadio channel. We recorded a piece to be used a number of times
on Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 April. Kel says it is impossible to say
for sure when most of those broadcasts will go out. However, he
plans that one will be aired between 5pm and 5.30pm, Sydney time,
on Sunday. Visit <http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/listen.htm> to
hear NewsRadio online. (Sydney is on GMT/UTC plus 10 hours; visit
<http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc> or <http://www.
timeticker.com> for time zone conversions. In North America this
translates to late Saturday night or the small hours of Sunday, but
remember that clocks change that night to Daylight Saving Time!)
2. Weird Words: Foudroyant /fu:'dr at I@nt/
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Of disease that comes on suddenly and severely; dazzling, stunning.
These days, the medical fraternity almost has a monopoly on this
word (as an alternative to the much more common "fulminant", which
means the same thing), though only the most academic of clinicians
seem to use it.
Outside medicine, it is if anything even more rare, an alternative
to words like "brilliant" or "dazzling", as here in a review in the
Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1999: "Heavy on elan and the damper
pedal, pianists such as Simon, Earl Wild, Jorge Bolet and Byron
Janis wow you with foudroyant playing".
But anybody with an interest in naval history will know it best as
the name for several Royal Navy ships at various periods, such as
one of Nelson's flagships in the Mediterranean in 1799 (and there
is now a French submarine with the same name). The word is indeed
French, from "foudroyer", to strike with lightning, so it makes a
very good name for a fighting ship.
3. Out There: The Century Dictionary
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The Century Dictionary was published in eight volumes between 1889
and 1891; by the time of its last edition in 1914 it had risen in
size to 12 volumes, beautifully printed and illustrated. Even now
it is considered by many to be the finest dictionary ever produced
in the US. It remains the largest English dictionary ever published
apart from the Oxford English Dictionary, whose first editors cited
it more than 2000 times. The online version is partly a labour of
love by Jeffery Triggs, formerly the OED's North American editor,
partly a public demonstration of an image capturing and indexing
application called DjVu (to see the pages in that format, you will
need to download an add-in module). The dictionary is searchable.
You will find it at <http://www.global-language.com/century/>.
4. Q&A
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Q. The word "skosh" appeared recently in a Wall Street Journal
crossword puzzle and, apparently, means "a little bit". Can you
tell me about the derivation of his word? I have checked the OED,
Onions on etymology, etc. and have found nothing. It looks like an
acronym but I can find none listed in various sources I have
checked. Your help will be greatly appreciated. [J L Nelson,
Kentucky, USA]
A. It does indeed mean "a little bit". You surprise me a little by
your question, since to me "skosh" is one of the most American of
all words, and yet here am I, based in Britain, telling an American
about it.
Though it looks like one, it isn't an acronym. Its odd appearance
is due to its having been imported from Japanese. The original was
"sukoshi", in Japanese a little bit or a smidgen. It first appeared
in American English about 1951. Word researchers think American
servicemen based in Japan brought it back at the time of the Korean
War. It is a member of a group of words imported from Japanese in
the post-war years, others being "origami", "teriyaki", "shiatsu",
and "karate". "Skosh" is a close imitation of the way that Japanese
speakers themselves would say "sukoshi" in rapid conversation,
suggesting that it was primarily communicated orally.
It usually turns up as an noun meaning a little bit, a jot, a small
amount ("he solved the problem in a skosh more than 13 days"). One
of its earlier appearances in print was in advertisements for
Levi's jeans that offered a fuller fitting for the middle-aged
under the slogan "Just a skosh more room".
Though it is now listed in American dictionaries, my impression is
that it is still considered to be slang - it doesn't often appear
in books or newspapers, for example. Dictionaries say it is said as
/sk at US/, with the same vowel sound as in "post" or "roach" (it
seems to rhyme with no other word in English that one can use as a
model).
Having said all that, may I put a small lexicographical spanner
into the works (since we are discussing American English, perhaps
that should be "small lexicographical monkey wrench") by pointing
out that L Frank Baum used the word in his book The Lost Princess
of Oz in 1917: "Now that pool, it seems, was unknown to the Yips
because it was surrounded by thick bushes and was not near to any
dwelling, and it proved to be an enchanted pool, for the frog grew
very fast and very big, feeding on the magic skosh which is found
nowhere else on earth except in that one pool". Just a coincidence,
I think. I think ...
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Q. Would you be able to tell me the origin of the phrase, "Put a
beggar on horseback and he'll ride to hell"? [Sheila Davis]
A. I'm not at all sure that it is possible to say where it comes
from, at least not exactly. It's one of those "lost in the mists of
time" things. But the saying is first recorded in Robert Burton's
Anatomy of Melancholy of 1621, in the form "Set a beggar on
horseback, and he will ride a gallop". Yet another version is "Set
a beggar on horseback, and he will ride to the devil".
In its various forms, the saying means that if one gives an
undeserving person an advantage, he will misuse it. A little later,
it was shortened to the idiom "a beggar on horseback", meaning a
person, originally poor, who has been made arrogant or corrupt
through achieving wealth and luxury. The shorter phrase has been a
frequent choice for the titles of books and at least one play.
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Q. The saying "I've got to see a man about a dog" seems to be
getting good use in films these days. Any idea of its origin?
[Rich, Johannesburg, South Africa]
A. This has been a useful (and usefully vague) excuse for absenting
oneself from company for about 150 years, though the real reason
for slipping away has not always been the same.
Like a lot of such colloquial sayings, it is very badly recorded.
However, an example turned up in 1940 in a book called America's
Lost Plays, which proved that it was already in use in the US in
1866, in a work by a prolific Irish-born playwright of the period
named Dion Boucicault, The Flying Scud or a Four-legged Fortune.
This play, about an eccentric and superannuated old jockey, may
have been, as a snooty reviewer of the period remarked, "a drama
which in motive and story has nothing to commend it", but it does
include our first known appearance of the phrase: "Excuse me Mr.
Quail, I can't stop; I've got to see a man about a dog".
I don't have access to the text of the play itself, so can't say
why the speaker had to absent himself. From other references at the
time there were three possibilities: 1) he needed to visit the loo
(read WC, toilet, or bathroom if you prefer); 2) he was in urgent
need of a restorative drink, presumed alcoholic; or 3) he had a
similarly urgent need to visit his mistress.
Of these reasons - which, you may feel, encompass a significant
part of what it meant to be male in nineteenth-century America -
the second became the most common sense during the Prohibition
period. Now that society's conventions have shifted to the point
where none of these reasons need cause much remark, the utility of
the phrase is greatly diminished and it is most often used in a
facetious sense, if at all.
5. Endnote
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[King George IV, describing what happened when he offered snuff to
the actor, John Kemble]: "[I said] 'If you will take a pinch ...
you will much obleege me.' Kemble paused for a moment, and, dipping
his fingers and thumb into the box, replied, 'I accept your Royal
Highness's offer with gratitude; but, if you can extend your royal
jaws so wide, pray, another time, say oblige.' And I did so, ever
after, I assure you." [Mrs Matthews, "Memoirs of Charles Matthews,
Comedian" (1839)]
6. The LINGUIST list
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