World Wide Words -- 16 Nov 02
Michael Quinion
DoNotUse at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Nov 15 16:15:34 UTC 2002
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 316 Saturday 16 November 2002
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Sent each Saturday to 15,000+ subscribers in at least 119 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
<http://www.worldwidewords.org> <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Book Review: Oxford Dictionary of Catchphrases.
3. In Passing?
4. Weird Words: Bankrupt.
5. Q&A: Singular or plural verb with 'none'.
6. Endnote.
A. Subscription commands.
B. Contact addresses.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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ON THE AIR IN OZ Australian subscribers may like to know that Kel
Richards of ABC NewsRadio will be running an interview with me on
his WordWatch feature at various times in the coming week. It will
be about my book "Ologies and Isms", just published in Australia.
YONKS Several subscribers recorded that they had heard the origin
of this puzzling British English word as a convoluted anagram of
"Year, mONth, weeKS". It's intriguing and inventive, but I suspect
it's too clever to be the real origin.
CORRECTIONS Misspelled names last week: the author of "Orlando
Furioso" was Ludovico Ariosto; the former New York State attorney
general was Louis Lefkowitz. Apologies for the errors.
2. Book Review: Oxford Dictionary of Catchphrases
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A catchphrase is obviously enough a phrase (although it can on rare
occasion be a single word) that "catches" the attention to the
extent that it becomes fashionable. A further limitation insisted
on by some writers is that it should have a known source (a radio
or television programme, an advertisement, a song, slogan, or the
like), though others would also allow anonymous traditional sayings
(such as "there's safety in numbers", which Eric Partridge gives in
his "Dictionary of Catchphrases" but the Oxford book doesn't), that
are better regarded as clichés. And a catchphrase is usually taken
to be ephemeral, a fad of the moment, though some manage long
lives.
Whatever the definition, we recognise them when we hear them. It's
this flash of recognition, of mutual communication, of a shared
culture, that is a large part of the value of catchphrases, one
that they share with aphorisms and some clichés. Though many
catchphrases have continued their lives after their source has been
forgotten by most people ("Beautiful downtown Burbank", "Can I do
you now, Sir?"), such orphaned phrases lose much of their impact.
As John Ayto points out in his introduction, we learn catchphrases
when we are fairly young and they stay with us, marking us forever
with a period and a set of interests.
Despite growing international communication, they are also somewhat
regional. British readers will recognise at least some of "Left
hand down a bit!", "Lovely jubbly!", "I don't believe it!", "Here's
one I made earlier", "I have a cunning plan", or "Me main man". But
Americans may prefer "Win one for the Gipper!", "Who killed Laura
Palmer?", "Here's another fine mess you've gotten us into!", "Have
gun, will travel", and "Here come de judge". There's more cross-
fertilisation these days, especially from America to everywhere
else ("Eat my shorts", "It's finger lickin' good!", "Yadda, yadda,
yadda!"), though Britain has scored some international success with
"And now for something completely different", "You're the weakest
link, goodbye", and a knowing rehash recently in the film "Chicken
Run" of the World War II bitter joke about American servicemen in
Britain: "Overpaid, oversexed, and over here".
The value of this book is largely the trip down our personal memory
lanes that it permits. Its paragraph or two about each catchphrase
explains in detail - sufficient but not wearisome - where it comes
from and gives the context. There's a strong bias towards British
catchphrases (the index entry for BBC Radio's "Goon Show" of the
1950s is the longest in the book) but America gets a good share of
entries. Don't expect thoroughness, though - the format doesn't
permit a complete dictionary (as if such a thing could exist) in a
book of reasonable size - but it does include a fair selection of
the better-known ones.
[Farka, Anna, "Oxford Dictionary of Catchphrases"; hardback, pp357;
ISBN 0-19-866280-7; published by Oxford University Press in the UK
on 24 October 2002 at GBP14.99; to be published in the US in
February 2002.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THE BOOK
UK: GBP11.58 (http://www.quinion.com/cgi-bin/r.pl?UA)
[Click on a link or paste it into your browser to order online. If
you do so you get World Wide Words a small commission that helps to
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World Wide Words.]
3. In Passing?
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DINO-DIESEL Dino as in dinosaur. Green advocates of biodiesel made
from chip-pan fat, used vegetable oils, ground-up vegetable matter
and similar materials are deeply dismissive of the diesel fuel from
oil companies to which they give this name. Biodiesel may often
make vehicle exhausts smell like a chip shop on a Friday night, but
they say it's "biodegradable, non-carcinogenic, non-mutagenic, non-
allergenic and more energy efficient".
AFTERNOON APATHY SYNDROME This phrase has been dreamed up by the
publicity people for the makers of Ryvita crispbread to describe
that sleepy feeling you get if you consume a heavy lunch too rich
in carbohydrates. A survey of British office workers suggests 40%
could be affected. Fiona Hunter, the survey's nutritionist, said,
"Rather than using their lunch hours to recharge and re-energise,
most Brits are eating stodgy meals, leaving them lethargic in the
afternoon".
4. Weird Words: Bankrupt
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A person declared in law to be unable to pay his or her debts.
You might connect the first part with a financial institution, and
the second part with "rupture". So could it refer to a person
forcibly torn from the embrace of his bank? It has a weird kind of
sense about it, and actually it's not so far from the truth.
The word actually comes from Italian "banca rotta", a broken bench
(not a rotten one, as the false friend of Italian "rotta" might
suggest - it's from Latin "rompere", to break). The bench was a
literal one, however: it was the usual Italian word for a money
dealer's table (and indeed is the origin of our "bank" for a
financial institution). In his dictionary, the great Dr Johnson
retold the legend that when an Italian money trader became
insolvent, his table was broken. But the Italian word was being
used figuratively - it could also mean "shipwrecked" or "defeated",
for example.
"Bankrupt" arrived in English around the middle of the sixteenth
century via the equivalent French form of "banqueroute". It was
changed into our modern form because people linked the second half
with medieval Latin "ruptus", broken, from the verb "rumpere". That
root also turns up in "abrupt", "corrupt", "interrupt" ... and
"rupture".
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5. Q&A
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Q. I have a grammar question. Your site includes the sentence,
"None of these terms are likely to be taken up". According to my
rather antiquated training, this violates the rules for agreement
of noun and verb regarding number. The rule is that "none" is
logically less than one and consequently requires a singular verb.
Is this still the rule? [Carol Hughes]
A. The language police regularly pull me over for exceeding the
number count on this one. Most messages about it flatly tell me I'm
wrong; you're one of the few who politely queries the matter, so
you get the prize of a definitive answer.
I'm right.
It's uncertain who started the notion that "none" requires a
singular verb, but it's pervasive, both in the US and Britain, and
seems to have been drummed into the heads of generations of
schoolchildren. However, all the usage guides - and the usage notes
in every dictionary that I can find - are unanimous in saying that
it's wrong.
The argument stems from a misunderstanding of where the word comes
from. People assume that "none" is a condensed form of "no one" or
"not one". As both always take a singular verb, the argument goes,
so must "none". However, the amateur etymologisers have got it
slightly but seriously wrong. Our modern form "none" comes from the
Old English "nan". Though this is indeed a contraction of "ne an",
no one, it was inflected in Old English and had different forms in
singular and plural, showing that it was commonly used both ways -
King Alfred used it in the plural as far back as the year 888.
The big "Oxford English Dictionary" has a whole section on the
plural form of "none", pointing out that it is frequently used to
mean "no persons" (with writers preferring "no one" when they mean
the singular) and that historical records show that its use in the
plural is actually more common than in the singular. There are
examples cited in the entry from many of the best English writers
(and there's also an instance in the Authorised Version of the
Bible: "None of these things move me", from Acts, chapter 20). On
modern usage, the "Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage"
says, "It appears that writers generally make it singular or plural
according to whatever their idea is when they write".
Such writers, myself included, follow the sense - we use the plural
or singular form according to whether it's one or many things that
we're writing about. This grammatical construction, which is based
on sense rather than form, has the grand name of notional agreement
or notional concord, and is very common (so common that we often
don't notice we're doing it).
So none of you are right when you accuse me of being ungrammatical.
6. Endnote
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People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is!
Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is
the only secret of style. [Matthew Arnold (1898), quoted in David
and Hilary Crystal's "Words on Words" (2000).]
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