World Wide Words -- 28 Aug 04

Fri Aug 27 17:38:34 UTC 2004

WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 407         Saturday 28 August 2004
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Sent each Saturday to 20,000+ subscribers in at least 120 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK      ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org        wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Vlogger.
3. Sic!
4. Weird Words: Pecksniffian.
5. Responses to recent Over To You requests.
6. Q&A: Cop-out.
7. Noted this week.
A. Subscription commands.
B. E-mail contact addresses.

1. Feedback, notes and comments
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INTERNET  Several subscribers pointed out that in the early days of
networking several other internets existed, such as BITNET, so that
the capitalisation of "Internet" distinguished it from the others.
With the loss of many of these other networks, or their subsumption
within the Internet, the need to mark the latter this way is less
acute. Some technically minded readers argued it's worth retaining
a distinction between "an internet", any set of networks that might
exist within a large organisation (such as a telecoms company or an
academic network such as JANET in Britain), and "The Internet", the
publicly available federated network. However, I suspect this will
cut little ice with the general public, which is generally unaware
there is any other internetwork apart from the Internet.

SPAM  While we're discussing the origins of "Internet", Norm Brust
provides a historical perspective on a contemporary social evil:
"In the 1970s I was an executive with a firm, Network Analysis
Corp, that was deeply involved in the design of the ARPAnet. As
such, we were a node on the original experimental system. One
morning, our president walked into my office and said, 'It's
starting. Junk mail on the net. Someone just sent a message to the
entire user population advertising a used Volkswagen.'"

2. Turns of Phrase: Vlogger
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First we had "web logger", or "blogger" (http://quinion.com?A27V),
for a person who creates Web pages called "blogs", that contain
diary entries detailing their activities, interests or thoughts on
life. The concept was extended by adding photographs (often taken
using the camera functions of mobile phones, so it's often called
"moblogging"), then sound (which some call "audio blogging", though
there doesn't seem to be a common abbreviation for it).

In the past year or so, some bloggers have experimented with video,
taking advantage of cheap digital camcorders to provide a kind of
continuing television news report on personal events. Obviously
enough, this is called "video blogging" or "video weblogging",
"vlogging" for short, with the person creating the "vlog" being the
"vlogger". Many observers feel that it will be slow to catch on,
because the tools are relatively expensive, video demands too much
bandwidth to transmit, and - above all - too few potential vloggers
have the technical skills to make watchable recordings. I've never
heard any of these words, but I assume they're all said with an
initial "v", for example, "vee-logger".

An extension of blogging is to collect, display and store all types
of digital information about one's life in a single place for one's
family and friends to access. Such a collection has been called a
"lifelog", though trendwatching.com recently dubbed it "life
caching". One pundit sourly remarked that it was an excellent way
of proving to everyone how boring one's life really is.

>>> From the Guardian, 7 Aug. 2004: In its most basic form,
vlogging does not require very hi-tech equipment: a digital video
camera, a high-speed connection and a host are all that is needed.

>>> From Time, 19 Apr. 2004: Jeff Jarvis, an early champion of
vlogging and founder of BuzzMachine.com, a blog that deals with
politics and the media, sees great potential in the phenomenon.
"Vlogs are a weird, new kind of way that people can document their
lives," says Jarvis.

3. Sic!
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Richard Gallotta e-mailed thus: "I read in the Southport State Port
Pilot (North Carolina) a real estate advertisement for a lot with a
'probable ocean view'. I suppose that means it depends on whether
the ocean decides to show up or not."

Shonna Froebel e-mailed: "I was watching the local news on Saturday
(CITY-TV in Toronto) and they said that in Mauritania the locusts
were disseminating crops. I bet the Mauritanians wish that were
true."

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, reports Mike Anglin, commented on the
renewed US presidential campaign activity recently with a headline
of high metaphor density: "Both Camps Hit the Trail Swinging".

Nancy Maclaine read a headline in the e-mail edition of the Toronto
Globe and Mail, dated 23 August: "Bird flu spreading faster than
thought, WHO warns". Faster than thought? Is that faster than a
speeding bullet?

4. Weird Words: Pecksniffian
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Unctuously hypocritical.

We are in the company of Messrs Pumpkinskull, Sweedlepipe, Bumble,
Tappertit, Honeythunder, Pumblechook, and Muddlebranes, whose names
all came out of the mind of Charles Dickens. His ability to create
memorable and frequently sarcastic names for his characters, his
villains in particular, is surely unmatched in literary history.
"Pecksniffian" derives from his Martin Chuzzlewit of 1844, in which
Seth Pecksniff is a land surveyor and architect, though the author
remarks that the only surveying of land he did was of the view of
the country from his windows and that "of his architectural doings,
nothing was clearly known, except that he had never designed or
built anything." In truth, Mr Pecksniff, though in appearance the
most moral of men, who prated about benevolence and high moral
principles, was an awful hypocrite, full of meanness and treachery.
Dickens remarked scathingly that "Some people likened him to a
direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and
never goes there." In common with some other Dickens' characters,
including Gradgrind, Micawber, Podsnap, Scrooge and Uriah Heep,
Pecksniff has become an archetype. He was turned into an adjective
as early as 1851 and later became a noun, "Pecksniffery".

5. Responses to recent Over To You requests.
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UMVAH  Last week, I passed on a query from Christine in Maine about
this term that she knew from childhood, which was used when someone
did something wrong, such as swearing or breaking something. Lots
of subscribers responded, some mentioning an Australian exclamation
that sounded similar and one suggesting an Irish origin. However,
the majority asked whether Christine was brought up in one of the
Scandinavian areas in Maine. Morgiana Halley said: "The exclamation
sounds suspiciously like 'uffdah!' or 'ooftah!', variant spellings
of an all-purpose exclamation of Scandinavian-American communities
such as those in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Washington State. The
best definition I could give would be something like 'Wow!' with
overtones of 'Oops!' In other words, it has a slightly negative
implication, but this is not strong." I asked Christine (something
I should have done before posting her query, I realise now), who
said that her background wasn't Scandinavian, but French-Canadian.
The only person to suggest a possible French connection was David
Lewis, who pointed out that as a result of the influence of French-
speaking immigrants a few French words have become part of the
local dialect, though he was unable to put his finger on a precise
origin. Conclusion: nobody seems to know for sure.

A WIGHT MAN NEVER WANTED A WOPPAT  Three weeks ago, I asked about
this odd expression, which is said to be carved on a tower in Fife,
Scotland. A few comments came in which suggested that the last word
of the phrase may be a mistransliteration and that it ought instead
to be "A wight man never wanted a weapon". The phrase in that form
is the motto of the Wightman family, an obvious play on words. In
the motto, "wight" is a variant form of the old Scots and northern
English word "wicht" meaning "strong", "vigorous", "valiant" or
"courageous", so the motto can be taken to mean "a valiant man is
never at a loss for a weapon". The same phrase occurs in various
books, notably John Ray's A Compleat Collection of English
Proverbs, published in 1768.

6. Q&A
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Q. Can you shed any light on the evolution of the word "cop-out"?
Webster appears to define it as a confession of a crime to the
police, but in my lifetime, every time I've heard it used it
doesn't have that criminal connotation. I've always understood it
to mean an evasive action or comment that avoids making a difficult
decision. [George Mannes]

A. The Webster definition you mention refers to a much older form
of the verb "to cop out", which has had a variety of senses in
American slang. Your form has evolved from it.

It's first recorded about the end of the nineteenth and beginning
of the twentieth centuries, meaning to take something for oneself
("He simply can't lose, can't fail to cop out the best-looking girl
with the biggest bank-roll in town". That's from The Fortune
Hunter, by Louis Joseph Vance, published in 1910). This was based
on one of the many standard English senses of "cop" - to snatch,
steal or grab. Around the 1930s, "cop out" began to take on another
of the senses of "cop" - to catch or apprehend (which is what a cop
in the sense of a policeman does, a slang term which came from the
same source but rather earlier). To "cop out" here meant to plead
guilty, especially to a lesser charge as the result of plea
bargaining.

The big change came in the 1950s. To "cop out" evolved to refer to
making a full confession of some crime or misdemeanour, usually but
not necessarily to the police. From this it moved to mean backing
down or surrendering, or giving up your criminal or unconventional
lifestyle; in the 1960s it developed still further to mean that a
person was evading an issue by making excuses or taking the easy
way out.

In parallel with this, your noun form, a "cop-out", developed from
the late 1950s onwards until it, too, became nationally known in
the mid-1960s (and quickly spread to Britain and other countries,
too) to mean an excuse, a pretext, a going back on your
responsibilities to avoid trouble, a cowardly or feeble evasion.

7. Noted this week
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TOYOTARISATION  This term appeared in several British newspapers
last Friday, taken from a presentation by Professor Andrew Goudie
to the annual meeting of the International Geographical Congress in
Glasgow. He described the way that people living on the edge of the
southern Sahara were swapping their camels for Toyota Land Cruisers
- the almost ubiquitous vehicle of choice. The thin desert crust of
stone and lichen was being broken up by the vehicles, resulting in
much increased dust storms, often affecting communities thousands
of miles away and contributing to climate change. Similar problems
were being caused by 4WD users in the southwestern USA and also in
other desert areas worldwide.

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Michael Quinion
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