World Wide Words -- 19 Jan 02

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS         ISSUE 272         Saturday 19 January 2002
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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 Suffix: -nomics
 3. Out There: The influence of American English on British.
 4. Weird Words: Mugwump.
 5. Q&A: Artefact versus artifact.
 6. Over To You: Not this little black duck.
 7. Beyond Words.
 8. Subscription commands.
 9. Contact addresses.


 1. Feedback, notes and comments.
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RUDE WORD ALERT  Next week's issue will contain a piece on a word
that some people will consider to be coarse slang. One reason for
mentioning this is that its presence will trigger the profanity
filters on some e-mail systems. so, if your copy of the mailing
doesn't arrive next week, that might be the reason.


 2. Topical Suffix: -nomics
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Poor old Thomas Carlyle, permanently and irretrievably burdened
with having described economics as "the dismal science". He was
really talking about political economy, at the time a slightly
different beast. But whatever one's view of economics (I failed
the
only exam I ever took in the subject, so may be considered
biased),
lexicographically speaking it has been a fruitful term.

These slightly opaque musings were prompted by what journalists
have just started to call "Enronomics", in reference to the
accounting practices of the failed US corporation Enron and their
implications for the Bush administration. It's not as popular yet
as "Enrongate" for the same imbroglio, but shows slight signs of
fashionableness, having appeared in several US newspapers last
weekend, and having even made it across the Atlantic to a British
Sunday newspaper within hours. However, its chances of taking a
permanent place in the language seem vanishingly small.

Before we tar journalists too heavily with the brush of knee-jerk
word invention for the sake of novelty, in fairness it has to be
said that people have been borrowing that ending for at least 150
years. "Agronomics", for example, was briefly fashionable in the
1860s as a term for what is now usually called "agronomy", and
"ergonomics" was invented about 1950.

The Greek original of "economics" splits nicely in two to make the
ending "-nomics", since its source was "oikos", house, plus
"nemein", to manage (so "economics" literally means "household
management", which really brings it back to earth, or at least to
home and hearth).

But its move into the overtly political arena really dates from
late 1969, when "Nixonomics" was invented as an umbrella term for
the economic policies of President Richard Milhous Nixon. But the
word which settled its popularity came in the early eighties, when
"Reaganomics" was invented; it was followed in the early nineties
by "Clintonomics". In the eighties, Britain had "Thatchernomics",
though it was never very popular; New Zealand's former Minister of
Finance, Roger Douglas, provoked the coining of "Rogernomics" (a
rare example of a politician's first name rather than family name
being borrowed). Other British politicians have had it applied to
them in a half-hearted way ("Majornomics", "Haguenomics") and
Americans may remember "Dolenomics" from 1996.

These examples settled the ending firmly into the grab-bags of
topical writers. A sign of its acceptance is that it now pops up
from time to time attached to words other than politicians' names.
Back in 1996, a report by Kleinwort Benson described the policies
of Malaysia as "Noddynomics", which displeased that country's
government. "Burgernomics" has been applied to the global economic
policies and impact of certain fast-food firms. "Cybernomics" has
been used for the economic implications of the digital economy.
And so on.

So we ought not to be surprised that "Enronomics" has popped up,
though it sets a further precedent in being the first such term to
be attached to the name of a corporation.


 3. Out There: The influence of American English on British.
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For a British journalist's view (read lament) of the influence of
American English on British, see a piece by Matthew Engel at:
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4336189,00.html>.


 4. Weird Words: Mugwump
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A person who remains aloof from controversial issues.

This archetypal American word derives from the Algonquian dialect
of a group of Native Americans, the Naticks, of Massachusetts. It
was used by the Puritan missionary John Eliot in his translation
of
the Bible into that language in 1661-63 to convey the English
words
"duke" and "centurion".

"Mugwump" was brought into English in the early nineteenth century
as a humorous term for a boss, bigwig, grand panjandrum, or other
person in authority, often one of a minor and inconsequential
sort.
This example comes from a story in an 1867 issue of "Atlantic
Monthly": "I've got one of your gang in irons - the Great Mugwump
himself, I reckon - strongly guarded by men armed to the teeth; so
you just ride up here and surrender".

It hit the big time in 1884, during the presidential election that
set Grover Cleveland against the Republican James G Blaine. Some
Republicans refused to support Blaine, changed sides, and were
labelled "little mugwumps" by the New York Sun. Almost overnight,
the sense of the word changed to "turncoat". Later, it came to
mean
a politician who either could not or would not make up his mind on
some important issue, or who refused to take a stand when expected
to do so. Hence the old joke that a mugwump is a person sitting on
the fence, with his mug on one side and his wump on the other.

There also used to be a slangy sense - less known these days, I
believe - of a person who has been persuaded by his possession of
a
minor official position into a sense of self-importance, often
becoming obnoxious as a result.


 5. Q&A
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Q. Could you give a note on the historical or geographical divide
between "artifact" and "artefact"? I was brought up to stick with
"artefact", much as the incompatibility with "artificial" annoyed
me, and I was surprised to see you use "artifact". I suppose I
could look it up, but your explanations are more fun. [John Weiss]

A. Flattery will get you everywhere ...

Presumably you are referring to the recent piece on "ecofact" (see
<http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-eco4.htm>)? In the
newsletter I was inconsistent, using "artefact" one week (while
noting that Americans spelled it "artifact"), but the next week
accidentally spelling it "artifact" (I put in as evidence for the
defence a saying of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "a foolish consistency is
the hobgoblin of little minds").

In saying that the British spelled it with an "e", while Americans
spelled it with an "i", I was guilty of a sweeping generalisation
that needs some qualification and footnotes.

Both spellings may be found in both countries. In Britain, the
preferred form given in dictionaries is "artefact", though the
other often appears as an alternative. The Oxford Dictionary for
Writers and Editors firmly suggests spelling it with an "e", as
does Bill Bryson in The Penguin Dictionary for Writers and
Editors.
However, the style guide of The Economist, with a large
international circulation, suggests using "artifact", since it is
acceptable, it says, both to American and British readers.
Americans prefer the "i" form by a large majority, but not
exclusively so - newspaper practice seems to vary considerably,
some insisting on the "i" form, others being more relaxed about it.

The spelling with "i" seems to have been around for rather more
than a century, though my impression is that it only started to
become common in the US from the 1920s on, and in the UK much more
recently still (American usage has had considerable impact on
British, one reason why I didn't spot my inconsistent spelling).

The form in "i" was obviously influenced by "artifice" and
"artificial", both of which contain the same Latin word "arte", by
or using art, which is also the basis for "artefact". So, if we're
arguing from etymology, "artefact" wins without a contest, but
then to be consistent we would have to write "arteficial" and
"artefice". The confusion of spelling actually goes back to
classical times, since the direct ancestor of "artifice" and
"artificial" is Latin "artificium", a thing made by skill or art.

For most people, the word is a technical term which they encounter
rarely enough that they are neither sure how to spell it, nor care
very much about which form to use. The difference is minor, after
all, and the risk of confusion small.


 6. Over To You
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Last week, Samantha Dickinson wrote: "Where does the phrase "not
this little black duck" originate? It's used quite extensively in
Australia, and when doing a bit of research on it, I found a
reference to young Australian Aborigines taking up the expression
from Daffy Duck. But if it's from Daffy Duck, why don't Americans
use it? Do you have any ideas?"

Lots of people responded - thank you all. Several Americans wrote
to say that it is by no means unknown in the US, though to judge
from the number of replies, much less common than in Australia,
where some subscribers have confirmed it is often heard (while
others - confusingly - claim it to be long obsolete).

The consensus is that it does come from the Warner Brothers Daffy
Duck cartoons, Daffy, of course, being a small black duck who used
it as his catchphrase. Quite why Australians took this particular
character to their hearts is a topic for some sociologist in need
of a thesis. Some subscribers pointed out that it may have
reminded Australians of the Pacific black duck, the most
widespread and common Australian duck, or perhaps of the black
swan, emblem of Western Australia.

I would hesitate to suggest that Australians found something of
themselves in Daffy - even the Warner Brothers' site says of him:
"As his personality gained depth at the hands of Warner Bros.
cartoons' directors, the little black duck became more self-
analytical, competitive, peevish, paranoid, and neurotic". But it
goes on more positively: "Daffy, like the Greek hero Sisyphus, is
a
victim of injustice who continuously protests. And it's his
refusal
to surrender his will to the whims of the conspiring universe that
makes him heroic".

Could this - discounting the tongue-in-cheek pop psychology about
99% - be what rang a bell? Daffy's catchphrase is indeed said to
have appealed first to black Australians. Presumably they were
able to identify with this black underdog character, or at least
find a rallying cry in his catchphrase as an indicator of ethnic
pride. But how it shifted into the wider Australian community is
still far from clear.


 7. Beyond Words
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Somehow I missed the annual outburst of frivolity that is the
award by the Bookseller magazine in Britain for the oddest title
of a book published in that year. The 2001 awards were announced
at the end of November 2001, so I'm last with the news. But
they're always worth a smile, so here, eventually, are the short-
listed entries (all of which, I must assure you, are real book
titles):

  * The Flat-Footed Flies of Europe
  * Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself
  * Tea Bag Folding
  * The Art and Craft of Pounding Flowers: No Paint, No
      Ink, Just a Hammer
  * Lightweight Sandwich Construction.

The winner was "Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service", a
serious legal treatise on corporate manslaughter (the concept that
a business, and hence its directors, can be held as responsible
for
the deaths of customers or employees as can individuals).


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