World Wide Words -- 31 May 03
Michael Quinion
DoNotUse at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri May 30 15:34:56 UTC 2003
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 343 Saturday 31 May 2003
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Sent each Saturday to 16,000+ subscribers in at least 119 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: Neuroeconomics.
3. Competition.
4. Weird Words: Hobbledehoy.
5. Sic!
6. Q&A: Break a leg.
7. Endnote.
A. Subscription commands.
B. Contact addresses.
C. FAQ of the week.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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PICAYUNE The place of that name in Mississippi does have a direct
link with the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The Picayune history Web
page at http://www.picayuneonline.com/history.htm says that it was
given by Eliza Jane Poitevent Nicholson, owner and publisher of the
New Orleans Daily Picayune, who grew up in nearby Pearlington. And
many subscribers said, notwithstanding my unsuccessful attempt to
find a recent printed example, that the word is familiar to them.
WEB LINKED ARTICLE Thank you all for your comments. The consensus
was that it is better to put such long pieces online rather than
extend the newsletter even further, though - understandably - the
idea was less popular among subscribers using dial-up systems. I
shall also take up the suggestion that if I were to do this again
it would be good to include a synopsis or the first couple of
paragraphs in the newsletter.
The most frequent comment on the piece itself, interestingly in
view of its topic, took the form of criticism of the phrase "refer
back", which I used twice. I know that many subscribers have been
taught that "back" is redundant - one grammarian called the phrase
"a crude pleonasm"; objections to it are based on an argument from
etymology, since it comes from Latin "referre", to carry back. But
there's nothing in "refer" as it is used in English that indicates
a direction and, in common with most writers, I use "refer back"
when it seems necessary to clarify what is being referred to.
2. Turns of Phrase: Neuroeconomics
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It's yet another new term in "neuro-", suggesting that the prefix
is becoming a successor to "e-", "cyber-" and other fashionable
affixes of the last decade. The earliest example of this term I've
traced is in an article that appeared a year ago in The Flame, the
magazine of Claremont Graduate University in California. The
proponent of this new field is Paul Zak, Associate Professor of
Economics at that university. He said in the article, "Most
economists theorize about how human beings behave instead of going
out to observe. In neuroeconomics, our goal is to observe and
measure what's happening in the brain when people are making
decisions". His team uses magnetic resonance imaging and blood
sampling to observe the way a person's brain works during the
decision-making process, for example during a game of trust with
other players. It's starting to look as though there may be
biochemical underpinnings to our willingness to be co-operative and
generous in our economic negotiations, perhaps associated with a
hormone called oxytocin. The field is expanding: the University of
Minnesota held the first conference on neuroeconomics in October
last year and plans to hold a second this year.
One definition of neuroeconomics might be "animal spirits
explained."
[Minneapolis Star Tribune, 17 Nov. 2002]
Zak is a leading protagonist in the relatively new field of
neuroeconomics, which aims to understand human social interactions
through every level from synapse to society.
[New Scientist, 10 May 2003]
3. Competition
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Candida Frith-Macdonald e-mailed me, appropriately from a British
domain named "brainstorm", to ask whether there is a good word for
the deliberate misspelling of words to evade spam filters.
She continued: "I say this after the fifth copy of a spam promising
'PEN1S ENKARGEMENT' has arrived today. (It's a depressing picture
of the world presented in the average spam haul, don't you think?
Men apparently all wanting to add inches, women to lose them. There
ought to be an elegant solution in there somewhere.)
"As 'enkargement' is the one I see most often I'd be inclined to
use this as a word for the practice, or perhaps 'hyding'. But there
are probably better ideas. Or perhaps a word that could cover all
such distorted forms, including ones like 'Kwik Save' [A British
discount store chain - Ed]. Any chance of a World Wide Words hunt
for the perfect name?"
There certainly is. I've turned the suggestion into a competition.
Send your entries for a new word to describe such deliberately
misspelled words to competition at worldwidewords.org (entries sent to
any other address will not be included). The closing day is Sunday
8 June. I'll try to post the results in the issue of 14 June.
As always, originality and wit are the watchwords. The three best
contributions will be awarded prizes of copies of the new hardback
edition of Tony Augarde's Oxford Guide to Word Games, which Oxford
University Press has kindly donated (see next week's issue for a
review). Tony Augarde has generously agreed to judge the entries,
his decision on which will be final.
4. Weird Words: Hobbledehoy
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A clumsy or awkward youth.
You will not find a better description of the type than in Anthony
Trollope's The Small House at Allington: "Such young men are often
awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle
with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease,
when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates.
Social meetings are periods of penance to them, and any appearance
in public will unnerve them. They go much about alone, and blush
when women speak to them. In truth, they are not as yet men,
whatever the number may be of their years; and, as they are no
longer boys, the world has found for them the ungraceful name of
hobbledehoy".
But where the world found it is far from clear. The word seems to
have been around at least since the sixteenth century, but was long
distinguished by seeming never to be written the same way twice. It
may well be related to "Hoberdidance" or "Hobbididance", the name
of a malevolent sprite associated with the Morris dance (and whose
name is from "Hob", an old name for the Devil; nothing to do with
hobbits). It may also be linked to "hobidy-booby", an old English
dialect word for a scarecrow. The modern spelling seems to be the
result of popular etymology, which has changed a puzzling word into
something that looks as though it might make more sense.
5. Sic!
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Mike Nott e-mailed as follows (with photograph to prove his point):
"A slogan in Zambia is intended to discourage drinking and driving.
Zambia has historic links with the UK and appears to have adapted
the British 'Don't drink and drive' slogan to suit local culture,
with humorous results. Their slogan reads 'Drink, don't drive'.
Sounds like my sort of country!"
Kristy Foulcher contributed this to our collection of odd signs:
"Outside a little town in northern New South Wales, Australia, is a
roadside cafe specialising in home-made pies. The cafe also has a
petrol pump out front - probably the only one for miles. The sign
reads: The Famous UNCLE TOM'S PIES Unleaded 69.9 - Leaded 71.9".
Richard Bollard, from Canberra, found this in the Sydney Morning
Herald of May 26: "The superbly preserved specimens were collected
by a Western Australia Museum team of palaeontologists and cavers
who were washed out of the area by rains a week ago". Man, that's
some rainstorm!
6. Q&A
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Q. What is the origin and meaning of the expression "break a leg",
said to persons who are preparing to appear in a theatrical
production? [G A Michael]
A. Of all theatrical superstitions, this attempt to ward off the
forces of darkness by wishing one's fellow performers the opposite
of good luck is the one that's perhaps best known outside the
profession. It belongs with other superstitions, such as that it's
bad luck to whistle in a theatre, that you should never utter the
final line of a play at the dress rehearsal, or that you must never
say the name of the Scottish Play in the green room. Actors have
always been a superstitious bunch, as you might expect from a
profession in which employment is sporadic, audiences fickle and
reputations fragile.
The saying is widely used among actors and musicians in the theatre
today, sometimes before every performance, but more often reserved
for first night. Where it comes from has for decades been a source
of dispute and I've collected the following speculations:
* In earlier times, actors wished one another "may you break your
leg", in the hope that the performance would be so successful
that the performer would be called forth to take a bow - to bend
his knee.
* At one time audiences showed their appreciation by throwing money
on the stage; to pick the coins up, actors had to break their
legs, that is, kneel or bend down.
* The curtains on either side of a stage were called the legs, so
that to pass through the legs was to make it out on to the stage
ready to give a good performance, or perhaps expressing the hope
that you will need to pass through them at the end of the show to
take a curtain call, implying your performance had been good.
* The saying really refers to getting one's big break, that the
performance will be good enough to ensure success in one's
career.
* The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt had a leg amputated in
1915, which didn't stop her performing; it is considered good
luck to mention her in the hope that some of her theatrical
prowess will rub off by association.
* John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated President Lincoln,
broke his leg when he jumped on to the stage to escape afterward.
Somehow, reminding fellow actors of this event is supposed to
lead to good luck in the performance.
We may discard all of these on the grounds of varying degrees of
implausibility. A key factor is that most of the stories assume
that "break a leg" is an old expression, whereas it's actually
quite modern. The earliest known example in print refers to a show
with that title in 1957. The saying must, of course, be older for
it to have been borrowed for the title and there is anecdotal
evidence from theatrical memoirs and personal recollection that it
has been around since the 1930s, but not before.
Similar expressions are known from other languages: the French say
"Merde!" (a term that has been borrowed by dancers in the English
and American theatre) and Germans say "Hals- und Beinbruch", "neck
and leg break", as ways of wishing someone good luck without any
fear of supernatural retaliation. It is sometimes said that the
German expression is actually a corruption of a Hebrew blessing
"hatzlakha u-brakha", "success and blessing". Whatever its source,
the most plausible theory is that "Hals- und Beinbruch" was
transferred, perhaps via Yiddish, into the American theatre (in
which immigrant Jews were strongly represented) sometime after
World War I.
[Thanks to Julane Marx for helping to research this piece.]
7. Endnote
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"The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to
do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible." [Somerset
Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1949); from the Oxford Dictionary of
Thematic Quotations (2000)]
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C. FAQ of the week
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