World Wide Words -- 19 Apr 03

Michael Quinion DoNotUse at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Apr 18 16:51:50 UTC 2003 

WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 337          Saturday 19 April 2003
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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: Caffeinol.
3. Weird Words: Tantivy.
4. Book Review: Dubious Doublets.
5. Sic!
6. Q&A: Lead-swinger.
7. Endnote.
A. Subscription commands.
B. Contact addresses.


1. Feedback, notes and comments
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ULTRACREPIDARIAN  Several subscribers mentioned that I might have
given a fuller version of the story behind the classical allusion
involving the Greek painter Apelles. The story goes that he would
exhibit his pictures where the public could see them and stand out
of sight so he could listen to their comments, which he valued. A
shoemaker once faulted the painter for a sandal with one loop too
few, which Apelles corrected. The shoemaker, seeing the next day
that the great painter had taken his advice, was emboldened by this
acceptance of his opinions to criticise the subject's leg. Apelles
popped out from behind the picture and rebuked him, saying that a
shoemaker should not go beyond his shoes: stick to what you know.


2. Turns of Phrase: Caffeinol
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It's a medical mixture of caffeine and alcohol, which sounds like
the refined essence of an Irish coffee. It has been in the news in
the last few days because researchers at the University of Texas
Medical School led by Professor James Grotta have announced that a
study has shown it to help limit the effect of strokes on the brain
in elderly patients. It's an interesting example of synergy, in
which two compounds given together have an effect that neither has
by itself. A full trial is needed to find the ideal mixture of
caffeine and alcohol and study possible side-effects before it can
be approved, but doctors are interested in it because there's no
equivalent existing treatment. As both drugs are regularly consumed
by people anyway, the researchers feel it is likely to be safe.

Researchers found that brain damage in rats was reduced by up to
80% if caffeinol was given within three hours of a stroke.
                                           [Guardian, 17 Apr. 2003]

Prof Grotta said a "randomised, placebo-controlled trial" was
needed to determine the extent of caffeinol's protective effect in
humans. He is also planning a study combining caffeinol with
thermo-cooling in stroke patients. Other studies have suggested
that cooling the brain might limit stroke damage.
                                         [The Mirror, 11 Apr. 2003]


3. Weird Words: Tantivy
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Riding at full gallop.

This archaic British English word has strong associations with the
hunting field. Those dictionaries that mention it say it imitates
the sound of the hooves of galloping horses, but I can't help but
feel that a better origin lies in the three notes of the huntsman's
horn when rallying the riders, one that is echoed in a hunting song
of 1787 by the Irish dramatist John O'Keefe: "With a hey, ho, chivy
/ Hark forward, hark forward, tantivy". ["Chivy", or "chevy", is
another old hunting cry.]

A once-common common figurative usage was "to ride tantivy", to go
at something full speed or headlong, of which a late example is in
Australia Felix by Henry Handel Richardson (1917): "He was of a
nature to ride tantivy into anything that promised excitement or
adventure".

A century earlier, the ubiquitous Sir Walter Scott had a character
say in Peveril of the Peak, published in 1824: "There are those
amongst us who ride tantivy to Rome, and have already made out half
the journey". This used the word in another sense, of a nickname
given to high churchmen and Tories after the Restoration of the
monarchy in 1660. It came from a caricature published in 1681 that
showed a group of churchmen riding the horse of the Church of
England madly towards Rome, that is, turning to Catholicism.


4. Book Review: Dubious Doublets
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Stewart Edelstein has come up with a neat approach to explaining
etymology by putting together incongruous pairs of words that
derive from a single source.

Mr Edelstein conjoins "lettuce" with "galaxy" (both of which are
from words meaning "milk"), connects "bully" with "friar" (both
from an Indo-European root meaning "brother"), links "canary" with
"cynic" (from words meaning "dog"), puts "king" together with
"pregnant" (like many other words, derived from an Indo-European
root meaning "to give birth", which led into the idea of kinship),
ties "salary" to "sausage" (since both come from the Latin word for
salt), and associates "witch" with "vegetable" (through an Indo-
European root meaning "to be lively" that brings in "bivouac"). He
points out that an unlikely sentence like "The puny but ingenious
general has malignantly imposed on my innate naiveté to engineer my
pregnancy" contains nine words from the same source.

There are 112 other such pairs in this book, from "aardvark" (which
is matched with "porcelain") through to "zodiac" (which shares an
origin with "whiskey"). Some pieces are brief; others lead into
longer discussions about words, such as acronyms, portmanteau
words, eponyms, semordilaps, toponyms, even smiley faces (the
comments on which are in the article on "OK", would you believe).

As well as pointing out the associations between such surprising
doublets (the title is yet another pair) Mr Edelstein makes many
excursions into wider matters of cultural history and literary
endeavours in order to give the context and background. Articles
are illustrated with line drawings by James Grashow.

[Edelstein, Stewart, Dubious Doublets, published in March 2003 by
John Wiley and Sons. Paperback, pp206; ISBN 0-471-22764-1;
publisher's pricees: £11.50 / €19.00 / US$14.95.]

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helps to pay for the Web site and general operating expenses.]


5. Sic!
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Malcolm Pack was driving to work one day when he was overtaken by a
lorry: "I almost drove into the crash barrier when I caught sight
of the printed sticker affixed to the back of the cab: MISS USE OF
EQUIPMENT MAY RESULT IN DAMAGE TO HEALTH. There is no hamlet by the
name of 'Equipment' in my road atlas, but if I ever happen upon it
I shall take great care to avoid the unmarried daughter of Mr and
Mrs Use".

David Overton was momentarily bemused by a misplaced hyphen in an
advertising e-mail he received last weekend, which exhorted him to
take a trip on the Isle of Wight ferry: "Why not take advantage of
the Easter Hopper Day Trip ticket and 4-foot passengers can travel
for the price of 2?" Do they mean dogs or very short people?

I nearly choked on my breakfast muesli last Monday on reading this
in the Guardian: "The US forces possess confirmed samples of Saddam
Hussein's DNA with which they can determine whether he has been
killed or is still at large". Clairvoyant DNA: what will science
bring us next?

Jonathan Roberts saw a job advert in the Maidenhead Advertiser last
week for a "Blind Systems Installer". This turned out to be for a
person to install window blinds, but you probably guessed that.


6. Q&A
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Q. What is the origin of the expression "that's a different kettle
of fish"? Is it British or American? [Heather Rechtman; Geoff
Genford]

A. It's originally British.

There are actually two common idioms based around the phrase "a
kettle of fish". One is yours, which means "This is a different
matter from the one previously mentioned". The other is more of an
exclamation: either as "a pretty kettle of fish!" or "a fine kettle
of fish!", meaning that some awkward state of affairs has arisen.
The latter is much older, dating from the eighteenth century, while
yours is twentieth-century and seems to be derived from it.

Nobody is really sure where the expression comes from, but we do
know that the phrase "a kettle of fish" was originally a literal
term. These days, especially in Britain and Commonwealth countries,
we think of a kettle as a small enclosed container with a handle
and spout for boiling water to make tea. (I believe that Americans
are less familiar with this essential item of kitchenware.) In the
eighteenth century, though, a kettle was any large vessel used to
boil stuff in.

There was, it seems, a custom by which the gentry on the Scottish
border with England would hold a picnic (though that term was not
then known; see http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pic1.htm) by a
river. The custom was described by Thomas Newte in his Tour of
England and Scotland in 1785: "It is customary for the gentlemen
who live near the Tweed to entertain their neighbours and friends
with a Fete Champetre, which they call giving 'a kettle of fish'.
Tents or marquees are pitched near the flowery banks of the river
... a fire is kindled, and live salmon thrown into boiling
kettles".

What puzzles scholars is how this literal reference became an idiom
- assuming, of course, that the phrase comes from the custom, which
is far from certain. There is a clue in early examples, in which
the term was used in the sense of a mess, muddle or confusion that
was caused by one's own misguided actions. For example, in Captain
Francis Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue of 1811, it's
explained like this: "When a person has perplexed his affairs in
general, or any particular business, he is said to have made a fine
kettle of fish of it". And a little later, Thomas Chandler
Haliburton of Nova Scotia used it the same way in his "Clockmaker":
"There's an end to the Clock trade now, and a pretty kettle of fish
I've made of it, haven't I? I shall never hear the last on it".

Could it be that the contents of the kettles of fish looked messy
after the fish had broken up under the influence of the boiling
water? It would make sense of the early examples. But that's just a
guess!


7. Endnote
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These two Evils, Ignorance, and want of Taste, have produced a
Third; I mean the continual Corruption of our English Tongue;
which, without some timely Remedy, will suffer more by the false
Refinements of Twenty Years past, than it hath been improved in the
foregoing Hundred. [Jonathan Swift, The Tatler (28 September 1710)]


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