World Wide Words -- 02 Aug 03

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 352          Saturday 2 August 2003
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Sent each Saturday to 17,000+ subscribers in at least 120 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK      ISSN 1470-1448
<http://www.worldwidewords.org>      <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
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1. Feedback, notes and comments
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HONEY, I SHRUNK THE NEWSLETTER  As I mentioned last week, the next
five issues will be tiny things, because I'm taking a sort of semi-
break during August. Normal service will be resumed in September.

MONUMENTAL MAIL PILE  One result of my break is that large numbers
of e-mails still await an answer. I will respond to them, promise,
but it may take a while.

RUSHING THE GROWLER  My piece on this obsolete American phrase for
sending a person to a bar with a can to get beer was posted on the
mailing list of the American Dialect Society, where it provoked an
interesting discussion. The results are too detailed to summarise
here; please visit http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rus1.htm to
see the updated item.


2. Weird Words: Coulrophobia
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An irrational fear of clowns.

What, fear those delightful purveyors of slapstick comedy? One may
as well go in terror of Santa Claus (but then a few people do that,
too). But clown humour has always embraced cruelty in its teasing
and insulting of other clowns and members of the audience. Clowns
represent anarchy, the personifications of unreason, and a force of
nature out of control. Who knows what actually lies behind their
unchanging painted faces and outlandish costumes? These are all
good enough reasons for even the strongest and most adult of us to
feel unease in the presence of a clown. Some children are terrified
by them and a surprisingly large proportion of adults confess to
finding them creepy and disturbing, so much so that this word for
their condition has had to be invented. It's not old: perhaps from
the 1980s. It's from Greek "koulon", a limb, which seems strange
until you find the related "kolobathristes" was a stilt-walker.
This seems to have been the nearest its unknown coiner could get to
a suitable classical allusion, since classic Greek didn't have a
word for a clown in our modern sense.


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