World Wide Words -- 20 Dec 03
Michael Quinion
DoNotUse at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Dec 19 19:07:17 UTC 2003
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 372 Saturday 20 December 2003
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Sent each Saturday to 18,000+ subscribers in at least 120 countries
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: Freegan.
3. Weird Words: Gooding.
4. Sic!
5. Q&A: Egg on your face; Bun-fight; Cup of joe.
A. FAQ of the week.
B. Subscription commands.
C. Useful URLs.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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NO PEACE FOR THE WICKED This year I shall not be skipping an issue
over Christmas. Expect the next newsletter on 27 December. All good
wishes to you and yours for the festive season. In celebration, all
the pieces in this issue are connected with food in some way.
EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES Many subscribers have pointed out that the
story that supplied the title of Lynne Truss's book is a cleaned-up
version of a raunchy one about an animal whose sexual behaviour is
a direct reflection on that of some human males (Australians tell a
similar tale to explain the slang term "wombat" for a certain kind
of man, who "eats, roots and leaves", "root" here having a relevant
sense in their expressive language).
2. Turns of Phrase: Freegan
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The idea behind "freeganism" is that you get as much of your food
as you can from stuff that has been thrown out by supermarkets,
restaurants and street markets. Though the practice is also known
as "voluntary simplicity" and "monetary minimalism" it's only
partly about living cheaply. It's more a political philosophy, a
statement of defiance against what freegans regard as the wasteful
consumerist culture of the developed world, which is why it has
also been called "ethical eating" and "the ultimate boycott".
The name is usually said to be a blend of "free" and "vegan", since
early practitioners were either vegetarian or vegan (not least
because it is much more dangerous to eat discarded meat or fish
than vegetables and grains). But it has also been argued from a
political perspective that it's short for "free gain". The evidence
is that some normally vegan freegans will take animal products,
since there's another term, "meagan", for vegans who will eat meat
if they can get it for nothing.
The culture lives on the edge of illegality, since many firms
regard taking food from skips or dumpsters as theft. Some extreme
freegan practices would be considered unacceptable by most people,
such as "table diving", in which freegans hover in a restaurant and
grab discarded food from diners' plates after they leave.
>>> From the Sacramento Bee, 27 May 2003: Freegans come from a
larger community of young, do-it-yourself punks. Many are
anarchists, opposing all forms of government and embracing ideals
such as individual freedom and cooperation. Some, though, don't
identify as anarchists - or as punks - or they resent being
labeled. But all of them despise the American-style consumerism
they call destructive.
>>> From the Observer, 23 Nov. 2003: An unwritten rule of
freeganism is that you leave enough for people who genuinely need
the food. So when I found discarded boxes of carrots, I only took a
few handfuls.
3. Weird Words: Gooding
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Soliciting alms.
On the morning of the feast of St Thomas the Apostle, 21 December,
it was once the custom in parts of England for women to go from
house to house for ask for money to cheer their Christmas. This was
called "going gooding" or "goin' a-gooding", because it was the
custom for grateful recipients to wish all that is good to their
benefactors for the festive season. As a result the day was in some
places called "Gooding Day". The practice was also known as "going
a-Thomasing" or "going a-corning".
This last phrase came from another tradition of the day, that the
women would carry two-handled vessels called "gossiping pots" or
"pads" in which to get donations of wheat (which is what "corn"
often means in England, it being the usual term for the principal
cereal crop of the area). From this they would make furmenty or
frumenty (a drink of hulled wheat boiled in milk and seasoned with
cinnamon and sugar; its name comes from "frumentum", the Latin for
corn). In 1854 Anne Elizabeth Baker remarked in her Glossary of
Northamptonshire Words and Phrases that "My good old grandfather
always, on this day, gave a bowl of wheat to any of the poor in the
village who chose to come for it." She said sadly that the custom
was "going fast into disuetude".
In 1847, the Hampshire writer Charlotte M Yonge wrote in Scenes and
Characters that "St. Thomas's day was marked by the custom, called
at Beechcroft 'gooding.' Each mother of a family came to all the
principal houses in the parish to receive sixpence, towards
providing a Christmas dinner, and it was Lily's business to
dispense this dole at the New Court."
4. Sic!
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Mark O'Reilly spotted this line on the cover of a recent issue of
Woman's Own: "I've had four holidays from hell". Glad to hear the
Devil lets people out occasionally ...
Talking of holidays, Anna O'Keeffe found an intriguing reference in
a New Zealand travel brochure advertising a resort in Noumea, of
which she sent me an image: "Le Pacifique offers air-conditioned
moderate guestrooms, featuring a microwave, tea & coffee facilities
and a fridge with a choice of pool or oceanviews". What they can do
with fridge technology these days! It might seem astonishingly
truthful for a brochure to refer to a guest room as "moderate", did
one not suspect they meant to write "modern" ...
Julane Marx was reading a career-related e-newsletter: "It included
an article about how to promote oneself as a professional writer.
In bold red letters, the article was entitled, 'Tell 'em Your A
Writer'. I am not kidding".
Next Tuesday's online programme guide for BBC7, a radio channel
that specialises in repeats, advertises this unmissable gem: "The
News Quiz. Half an hour of topical merriment from March 2002".
6. Q&A
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Q. I'm interested in the history of the saying, having "egg on your
face". It means you made a big mistake. [Kim Parker]
A. It often implies that you have made a serious mistake, but more
strictly it indicates that something you have done (or some turn of
events) has left you looking extremely embarrassed or foolish.
It feels like one of those expressions that have been around for
ever, but the evidence suggest that it's an American expression
from the middle of last century (its first known appearance was in
an American television series about 1951). It's possible, though,
that it is somewhat older, though I haven't been able to find it in
my large collection of out-of-copyright e-texts, which suggests it
is more recent than the 1920s.
I know of two possibilities for where it came from. My assumption
to start with was that it was a comment on a minor social gaffe at
a meal, when poor manners or sloppy eating left egg around your
mouth. The late John Ciardi, however, suggested an origin in the
lower and more rowdy kind of theatrical performance, in which an
incompetent actor would have been pelted with eggs and forced off
the stage.
Neither is wholly convincing, but there - as so often - matters
must rest.
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Q. I can't find the origin of the phrase "bun fight", though I
suspect P G Wodehouse might be responsible. Could you help, please?
[Vivienne Mawson]
A. P G Wodehouse has been responsible for several things, most
notably the best comic writing in English, but we're fairly sure he
didn't invent this one. Who did is lost in the anonymity of slang
history, but it seems to have first appeared in the late nineteenth
century, a bit early for Wodehouse.
If it sounds to you like a Victorian children's nursery at teatime,
that's the original allusion behind it. Imagine children having
tea, squabbling over the buns, teacakes, muffins, and - this being
a British expression - crumpets. Two similar expressions are known
from the middle of the nineteenth century: "crumpet-scramble" and
"muffin-worry"; these haven't survived.
Interestingly, some of the early uses of "bun-fight" (these days,
also often "bunfight") borrowed the idea of afternoon tea in the
nursery but left out the fighting: it could refer to the most
decorous of engagements, such as those one was invited to by
elderly aunts of the Wodehousian persuasion, at which squabbling
over food was inconceivable. Then, as now, a bun-fight could more
generally be any occasion at which food was served, it often being
a sarcastic term describing rather formal ones for which guests had
to dress up. In 1994, a newspaper report told of a British MP who
turned up improperly dressed (in a lounge suit) at an engagement
that was described as the "annual bunfight of the Institution of
Electrical Engineers, at which black tie and decorations are de
rigueur".
Another sense of "bun-fight", also still with us, borrowed the
fight sense but left out the food. Often this refers to a heated
altercation, but one that the describing observer feels is of no
importance, rather like the nursery squabble that started the
expression off.
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Q. Any idea where the phrase "a cup of Joe" in reference to coffee
came from? [Bob Newitt]
A. We wish we knew for certain. The absence of any clear origin for
the use of "joe" to mean coffee has, as usual, led to stories being
created to explain where it came from.
A persistent one alleges that it derives from the ban imposed by
Admiral Josephus "Joe" Daniels, Secretary of the Navy, on serving
alcohol aboard US Navy ships, except on very special occasions.
Coffee, it is said, became the beverage of choice and started to be
called "Joe" in reference to him. The problem with this story is
the dates. "Cup of joe" appears in the written record in 1930 but
the order to ban alcohol - General Order 99 - was issued on 1 June
1914. It banned officers' wine messes, which had only been
permitted since 1893; ships had otherwise been dry since the spirit
ration was abolished in 1862. It seems hardly likely that the loss
of a wine mess limited to officers on board otherwise alcohol-free
ships would have led to a nickname for coffee that only started to
be written down 16 years after the order.
Professor Jonathan Lighter, in the Random House Historical
Dictionary of American Slang, leans towards another story: that it
came from the Stephen Foster song Old Black Joe, with the resultant
mental link between "black" and "coffee". It is true that the song
- written in 1860 - was extremely popular at one time, but it makes
no reference to coffee, so linking the two is implausible.
The most boring, but most probable, suggestion is that it is a
modification of "java" or "jamoke" for coffee, perhaps under the
influence of one or other of the many expressions at the time that
contained the word "Joe" - for example, "an ordinary Joe" (though
"GI Joe" for an enlisted man in the US military is from the next
decade). It is significant that an early example appears in 1931 in
the Reserve Officer's Manual by a man named Erdman: "Jamoke, Java,
Joe. Coffee. Derived from the words Java and Mocha, where
originally the best coffee came from".
[See http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jam1.htm for more on
jamoke.]
A. FAQ of the week
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