World Wide Words -- 22 Jun 02

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 294           Saturday 22 June 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. Turns of Phrase: Neurobics.
3. Sic!
4. Weird Words: Orismology.
5. Out There: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang.
6. Q&A: Chunder; Piffy on a rock bun.
7. Endnote.
8. Subscription commands.
9. Contact addresses.


1. Feedback, notes and comments
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INJECTING ROOMS   The credit to the first citation example in the
Turns of Phrase piece last week should have read "Sydney Morning
Herald", not "News".


2. Turns of Phrase: Neurobics
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Alzheimer's disease, with its attendant confusion and memory loss,
is rapidly replacing the Big C as the condition people fear most.
Though pharmaceutical companies are pouring money into finding new
drugs to treat it, success is as yet elusive. Some researchers say
that vitamin B12 and regular exercise help to slow the progress of
the disease. Others advocate a "use it or lose it" view, arguing
that keeping the brain active into middle and old age helps to
stave off symptoms. "Neurobics" was coined after "aerobics" (it
seems by Dr Lawrence C Katz and Manning Rubin in their 1999 book
"Keep Your Brain Alive") to cover mental exercises invented to help
do that. Remaining mentally active, it's argued, keeps the links
between brain cells alive and busy. An example might be brushing
your teeth with the other hand, or moving items around so you don't
get in a mental rut, or doing things with your eyes closed. Such
claims are viewed with scepticism by the medical profession, but
everyone agrees that at least they can do no harm. Unlike so many
briefly fashionable terms that explode into the night sky of the
popular press but soon fade, this one shows slight signs of
continued life.

Others insist that you cannot separate the mind's software from its
hardware and that the true aim of neurobics ought to be to keep the
connections between brain cells flexible and strong, perhaps even
growing new connections and new brain cells.
                                       ["New Scientist", Nov. 2001]

He [Lawrence C Katz] and co-author Manning Rubin developed a series
of mental exercises they say increases the range of mental motion
by activating different parts of the brain. Called "neurobics,"
they "enhance the brain's natural drive to form associations
between different types of information," Katz says.
                                     ["Washington Post", Feb. 2002]


3. Sic!
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DEPARTMENT OF SILENT SIBILANCE. "Lem," he heard someone hiss. "Over
here." [From "Perdido Street Station", by China Miéville (2000).]


4. Weird Words: Orismology  /QrIz'mQl at djI/
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The science of defining technical terms.

This word rarely sees the light of day. Its only recent outing I
can find was in the 2001 National Spelling Bee in the US, but then
the easy words, like the poor spellers, get weeded out early in
that contest.

You will find it only in the larger dictionaries. It is defined in
two slightly different ways. One is that given above, but it is
also used less rigorously as an alternative for "terminology". If
you go by the original Greek (which is always a dangerous move),
you have to accept my definition, as it comes from "horismos", a
definition (literally, the marking of a boundary, related to our
"horizon") plus the "-ology" ending for a field of study.

The first persons to use it were the pre-eminent experts on insects
in the early nineteenth century, William Kirby and William Spence.
They didn't like the way that in "terminology" a Latin stem had
been joined to a Greek suffix, so in their textbook in 1816 they
created "orismology" as an alternative.

They were better entomologists than etymologists, since the word
really ought to have an initial "h". The linguistic purity of
"orismology" was not enough to ensure its widespread adoption, and
it now languishes as a hard word for expert spellers and a topic of
pieces like this one.


5. Out There: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang
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If you're gripped by the odd (and, it must be said, often invented)
slang of fictional gangsters in the period of Philip Marlowe, Sam
Spade and Mike Hammer, this site will interest you. William Denton
has put together a glossary he titles "Twists, Slugs and Roscoes".
See <http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html>. [Many thanks to Craig
Bodhi for the reference.]


6. Q&A
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Q. A common Australian euphemism for vomit is "chunder", as you
undoubtedly know. Is the derivation from "watch under"? This was
supposedly shouted out by upper-deck passengers on emigrant ships,
before vomiting over the rails to the peril of those below. As an
explanation, it sounds a bit too cute. And how long has the word
been around? I don't remember it at all prior to its use in the
Barry McKenzie comic strip by Barry Humphries in the 1960s. Perhaps
we Australians are the victims of another Humphries practical joke?
[Peter McCarthy, Australia]

A. Barry Humphries certainly popularised "chunder", but be
reassured that he didn't invent it. The first recorded use is
actually in the 1950 novel "A Town Like Alice", by Nevil Shute. Mr
Humphries himself mentioned the "watch under" story in an article
in the "Times Literary Supplement" in 1965. He believed it, but -
like you - I treat it with the very greatest suspicion, as it
sounds like a classic bit of folk etymology.

The writer of the "TLS" article recorded that he remembered it as
being common in the mid 1950s in "Victoria's more expensive public
schools". Others have suggested that it was actually World War Two
military slang.

But the most common explanation is persuasive, though it is a
little tentative because it is based on anecdotal associations
rather than hard evidence. It is said that it comes from a series
of advertisements for Blyth and Platt's Cobra boot polish. These
appeared in the "Bulletin" newspaper in Sydney from 1909 on, was
which originally drawn by the well-known Australian artist Norman
Lindsay. The ads featured a character named Chunder Loo of Akim Foo
and were popular enough that Norman's brother, Lionel Lindsay,
wrote and illustrated "The Adventures of Chunder Loo" for Blyth and
Platt in 1916. The character's name became a nickname in World War
One (sometimes abbreviated to "Chunder"), which is where the idea
of a military link may have originated.

It's suggested that the term is rhyming slang (Chunder Loo = spew)
and that it was first taken up as public school slang. It moved
into surfing slang in the 1960s, which was where Barry Humphries
seems to have found it. Because he used it in his Barry McKenzie
strip in "Private Eye" (along with inventions like "point Percy at
the porcelain" and "technicolor yawn"), the word became widely
known in Britain almost before it did so in Australia.

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Q. Someone just emailed me to ask about the expression "piffy on a
rock bun". I Googled it and it does seem to exist, and basically
refers to the idea of feeling "left out" like "piffy on a rock bun
(or cake)". But who or what in the heck is piffy? [Toni Savage and
Jill Williams]

A. It's a real expression all right. It is yet another example of a
curious Northern English expression, in the same category as "big
girl's blouse", "all mouth and trousers" and "I'll go to the foot
of our stairs".

It has featured in the ITV soap "Coronation Street", which is set
in Manchester, and is known in that city and other North Country
areas. It turns up especially in irritated statements, like this
one I found online: "I simply can't believe that I'm being made to
stand here like piffy on a rock bun until some barmaid notices I'm
gasping for a pint".

Nigel Rees, in "Oops, Pardon Mrs Arden!" says an early form, known
from the 1930s, is "sitting here like Piffy" or "sitting like Piffy
on a rock bun". It seems to be a humorous echo of "sitting like
Patience on a monument". As you say, it refers to a person who is
being left out, ignored, or kept hanging about pointlessly.

Where it comes from is quite unknown and in particular we have no
idea who or what piffy was. My guess is that it comes from a music-
hall or other popular entertainment catchphrase now lost to us.


7. Endnote
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"I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me." [A A
Milne, "Winnie-the-Pooh" (1926)]


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