World Wide Words -- 30 Aug 03

[Michael Quinion]

WORLD WIDE WORDS         ISSUE 356          Saturday 30 August 2003
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
-------------------------------------------------------------------


Feedback, notes and comments
-------------------------------------------------------------------
END OF THE FAMINE MONTH  This is the last of the brief issues of
August. Normal service will be resumed next week.


Weird Words: Dumbledore
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A type of bee.

Not the Headmaster of Hogwarts, though J K Rowling must surely have
borrowed his name from the insect. And a nicely echoic word it is,
which evokes the drowsy hum of bees on summer afternoons.

Its first part is one of a set of rhyming words from English of
some centuries ago, the others being "bumble" (from a root meaning
to drone or buzz) and "humble" (from an old Germanic word meaning
to hum). All three have been used to form names for those furry,
blundering, slow-moving bees that are so large you wonder how they
get off the ground ("bumblebee" is now the usual term almost
everywhere, "humblebee" was once common in Britain but is now much
less so; "dumbledore" is the rarest). To some extent all imitate
the insect's buzz; the final "dore" of "dumbledore" is an Old
English word for any insect that flies with a loud humming noise.
Charlotte M Young used our word in The Daisy Chain, published in
1875: "Those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute
blossom of the moor - thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple
thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow-
banded dumbledores".

The image of Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
takes a knock when you discover that our word is linked with the
archaic or dialect "dummel", for someone who is stupid and slow
(our "dumb" and the German "dumm" are cousins) and "dumbledore" has
also appeared in dialect as a name for a blundering person (Thomas
Hardy put it into the mouths of a couple of rustics in Under the
Greenwood Tree). Moreover, it has sometimes been applied in English
dialect to a far less pleasant insect, the pestiferous cockchafer.


Subscription commands
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To leave the list, change your subscription address, or subscribe,
please visit http://www.worldwidewords.org/maillist/index.htm  You
can also send a gift subscription: see the same page for the link.

Or, you can send a message to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org
from the address at which you are (or want to be) subscribed:

  To leave, send: SIGNOFF WORLDWIDEWORDS
  To join, send: SUBSCRIBE WORLDWIDEWORDS First-name Last-name

If you have a problem with your subscription that none of these
methods can solve, feel free to contact me at

  MailSubs at worldwidewords.org


-------------------------------------------------------------------
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2003.  All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at <http://www.worldwidewords.org>.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online
newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include
this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed
publications or on Web sites requires prior permission, for which
you should contact <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>.
-------------------------------------------------------------------