World Wide Words -- 23 Mar 02

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS         ISSUE 281           Saturday 23 March 2002
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Dracontology.
3. Out There: The Jargon File.
4. Q&A: Peruse, Kissing the gunner's daughter, A real stemwinder.
5. Endnote.
6. Subscription commands.
7. Contact addresses.


1. Feedback, notes and comments
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HOLIDAY ARRANGEMENTS  I am away till 2 April. Newsletters are being
sent from where I happen to be every Saturday, so transmission may
be somewhat erratic. If you would like to respond to anything in
this newsletter or ask a question for the Q&A section, please do so
in the usual way, but you will have to wait a while for an answer!


2. Weird Words: Dracontology
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The study of lake animals unknown to science.

Strictly, "dracontology" should refer to the study of dragons. It
derives from Greek "drakon", serpent (plus "-ology" from a Greek
ending that indicated the study of a subject). It's kissing cousin
to the equally rare adjectives "draconiform" and "dracontine", both
of which refer to a thing like a dragon. ("Draconian", of some law
or punishment that is excessively severe, comes from "Draco", an
Athenian legislator of the seventh century BC who made Attila the
Hun look like a pussycat.)

However, those enthusiasts who have an interest in this specialist
branch of "cryptozoology" - the study of animals unknown to science
- have hijacked the word for the investigation of such fabulous
beasts as the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland and the serpent of Lake
Memphrémagog on the Ontario-Vermont border. A site devoted to the
latter claims that the word was coined by "a monk at the monastery
of St Benoit-du-Lac in response to a request by Jacques Boisvert, a
Quebec monster enthusiast who needed a name for the specific study
of lake monsters".

That small group of researchers who use "dracontology" for the
study of dragons would wish that the good brother had found a less
confusing term. How about "cryptolacustribestiology"? No? I can't
blame you - it's almost as long as Nessie herself.


3. Out There
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The Jargon File, at <http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/>, is a vast
repository of terms from the computing business, collected over two
decades of enquiry by a large number of volunteers, and edited into
shape by Eric Raymond. It has been published as a book, now in its
third edition, under the title of "The New Hacker's Dictionary".
The site carries the most recent version, presented in HTML.


4. Q&A
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Q. I always thought that "peruse" meant to skim over but now note
that this is the second meaning in most dictionaries. The first
meaning is to read very carefully. Are there many words that seem
to have contradictory meanings like "peruse"? [Joe Mihm, Vermont]

A. Let me start by discussing the meanings of "peruse", since its
sense is not as clear-cut as some usage guides and dictionaries
might have us believe. It is now rather a literary word, one that
passes the lips of few people these days. Even in writing it isn't
all that common, though my impression is that it is used more often
in American publications than British ones.

Most of my (mainly British) dictionaries don't give a meaning of
"to skim over" at all, though some do have a looser sense of "to
browse; to read in a leisurely way" as an alternative to the main
sense of "to read thoroughly; to examine in detail". One only, the
New Oxford Dictionary of English, notes that "it is sometimes
mistakenly taken to mean 'read through quickly; glance over'".

Much of the time, it's hard to be sure exactly what modern users
had in mind beyond borrowing it as a posh alternative to "read", as
here from the British Daily Telegraph: "Mr Mogg perused a battered
copy of Watership Down and tried to look relaxed." At times, it
doesn't even have to refer to reading, but can have a sense of "to
look at, examine", as here, from the same newspaper: "Many can be
seen this summer perusing French and Italian fashions".

The controversy over its meaning - such as it is - seems to have
arisen in the early twentieth century. An American writer, Frank
Vizetelly, argued that it didn't mean just "read" but "read with
care and attention". The trouble is, historical records of usage
conflict with this interpretation - most writers seem to have taken
it to be virtually a synonym of "read", and added modifiers when
they meant that the process was more or less careful than usual.

To move on, at last, to your main question: the most obvious word
with contradictory meanings is the closely related "scan", which
many people take to mean "look at quickly", instead of "examine in
detail". Its modern meaning may have been affected by its use in
television and related technologies for the passage of an electron
beam across the face of a display tube, in which the process is
both very quick and very thorough. People sometimes seem to have
focused on the first characteristic at the expense of the second.

Another, of a slightly different sort, is "inflammable", which
really means "capable of burning", but which some people mistakenly
think means "incapable of burning", a potentially disastrous error
(hence the modern use of "flammable" in safety instructions). There
are also some homophone pairs with opposite senses, such as "raise"
and "raze", which can be confused in speech.

Other than those, I can't think of examples. No doubt subscribers
will be able to help me out ...

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Q. I came across a phrase in a novel that went something like
"kissing the gunner's daughter". Apparently it was some sort of
punishment meted out to sailors long ago. Do you know anything
about it and what it entailed? [Ken Davy]

A. You're certainly in the right area here. It was a naval term
from the latter part of the eighteenth century (it's recorded first
in A Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Francis Grose in 1785, but
is probably a good deal older).

There were several forms of the saying, of which yours was one;
others were "marry the gunner's daughter" and "hug the gunner's
daughter". A sailor about to receive punishment (usually flogging)
was lashed face-down on a cannon (the "gunner's daughter" of the
phrase). The sexual associations were clear enough, with "marry"
being an obvious euphemism.

Here's a typical example of its use, from Billy Budd, by Herman
Melville:

  "And is that all you did about it, Foretopman?" gruffly
  demanded another, an irascible old fellow of brick-colored
  visage and hair, and who was known to his associate
  forecastlemen as Red Pepper; "Such sneaks I should like to
  marry to the gunner's daughter!" by that expression meaning
  that he would like to subject them to disciplinary castigation
  over a gun.


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Q. I recently heard - not for the first time - a vigorous speech
described as "a real stemwinder". Any thoughts on the origin or
significance of the term? [Alan Bloom]

A. If you were in the US in the years just after the Civil War, the
latest and neatest thing to possess was a "stem-winding" watch.
This had been perfected by a French maker, Adrien Philippe, while
working in Geneva in the 1840s for a business known today as Patek
Phillippe. Before his invention, watches were wound just the same
way as clocks, using a key. This was an awkward procedure and wise
watch owners kept the key on their fob chain to be sure of not
losing it.

M Philippe added a knurled knob attached to a rod (or stem), which
was permanently connected to the spring mechanism, making it much
easier to wind. Hence "stem-winding watch" or "stem-winder" (this
was the US name: in Britain it was called a "keyless watch"). The
idea of winding a watch at all now seems odd to most people,
accustomed as we are to possess one with a battery or other energy-
providing mechanism that doesn't require us to think about it from
month to month. But in the second half of the nineteenth century, a
"stem-winder" watch was state-of-the-art, something to boast about.

As a result, by the end of the nineteenth century the term "stem-
winder" had taken on a figurative meaning of something first-rate
or excellent. As a further extension it meant something powerful or
persuasive, and became attached in particular to somebody who was
an effective public speaker or impassioned talker. Later still it
was used of the speech itself, if it were entertaining and tub-
thumping oratory.

Most of these senses have vanished, just as the literal sense of
"stem-winder" has been lost outside horological circles, but in
the US, the single remaining meaning is that of a persuasive and
rousing political speech.


5. Endnote
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I was not a philological prodigy. I lacked that uncanny gift which
some people have for language structure which seems akin to a gift
for music or calculation. I never became concerned with the
metaphysical aspects of language... And I never thought of myself
as a "writer" or tried to become one. I was just a brilliant
plodder with an aptitude for grammar and an adoration for words.
[Iris Murdoch, in "A Word Child" (1975), quoted in David Crystal
and Hilary Crystal, "Words on Words" (2000).]


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