World Wide Words -- 14 Feb 04
Michael Quinion
donotuse at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Feb 13 20:35:41 UTC 2004
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 379 Saturday 14 February 2004
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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: Freecycling.
3. Weird Words: Pinchbeck.
4. Sic!
5. Q&A: Tapping the Admiral; Long johns.
A. FAQ of the week.
B. Subscription commands.
C. Useful URLs.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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CONTINUING E-MAIL DELAYS Many people still haven't had replies to
messages. The backlog was made worse by my computer system becoming
faulty last weekend. It's restored now, and no messages have been
lost so far as I know, but it couldn't have happened at a worse
time. And about 1000 email messages a day are still arriving, most
of them as a result of the MyDoom worm. You might describe me as
careworn, and you would be right!
IS THAT SO? From PC Magazine's "50 from the Best of the Internet"
(http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1516960,00.asp): "Tracing
word origins is an intellectual exercise that Quinion clearly
loves. His pages of weird words can keep you reading for days, and
he's also very good about paying attention to the zeitgeist and
edifying his readers on the etymologies of new words within weeks
of their arriving in our collective consciousness. Quinion is one
of those eccentrics you could only have met via the Web."
2. Turns of Phrase: Freecycling
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What do you do with all the stuff you collect that you no longer
want but which is too good to throw away? At one time you might
have given it to some charity; these days you could sell the more
presentable items on eBay, but a new alternative is to freecycle it
( see www.freecycle.org ). This initiative was invented last May by
Deron Beal, who works for an American nonprofit organisation called
RISE, Inc, whose aim is to reduce waste. Local communities form
groups, each with a volunteer organiser and an electronic forum on
which members can post details of items they don't want, or of
things they do. Members whose needs match then organise a hand-
over. The only rule, strictly enforced, is that no money must
change hands and there must be no bartering.
>>> From Salon, 25 Nov. 2003: In the face-to-face world, it's often
hard to find that deserving person who needs your specific load of
useless castoffs. Enter the Internet, which not only makes such
networking easy but also has long been suffused with an ethic that
promotes gift giving. Since May, the Freecycle concept has
exploded, spreading from city to city with the speed of a grass
(roots) fire.
>>> From the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service; 26 Jan. 2004: A
couple of freecycling abuses have been identified. Illegal drug
paraphernalia has turned up on some sites across the country, and
donated items occasionally are snatched up for resale elsewhere by
visitors exploiting the free-for-all spirit of the arrangement.
3. Weird Words: Pinchbeck
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Cheap or tawdry.
That is perhaps the more common meaning of the word today, on the
rare occasions on which it turns up in print at all, though those
versed in the fields of jewellery, clocks and other objets d'art
will know that strictly it refers to an alloy of zinc and copper -
so a type of brass - that looks remarkably like gold.
Outside these specialist areas, the word's most common appearance
is as a family name, which is only fit and proper, since we are in
the area of eponyms here - things named after people. The man who
invented the alloy was one Christopher Pinchbeck, a clockmaker born
in Clerkenwell in London, though his shop was at the "sign of the
Astronomico-Musical Clock" in Fleet Street. He was also a well-
known maker of musical automata such as singing birds. His name
probably came from the place called Pinchbeck near Spalding in
Lincolnshire; that name is from Old English words meaning either
"minnow stream" or "finch ridge" (from which we may deduce the
uncertain state of the study of English placenames).
He seems to have invented his eponymous metal sometime in the early
1700s, though there's no contemporary reference and we have to rely
on statements by his sons. He created it as a way to make ornaments
that looked like gold but were less expensive. There was no attempt
at deception here - he clearly labelled the metal for what it was.
To start with, it was a respected alternative to gold: jewellers in
the eighteenth century used it legitimately to make nice-looking
jewellery that could be worn in places in which theft was frequent,
such as on stagecoach journeys, without fear of losing valuables.
However, so many jewellers used it for inferior goods, passing off
pinchbeck as gold, that the word took on the sense of something
that was of poor quality or a cheap imitation. Nineteenth century
authors found in the word a neat metaphor for all that is spurious
or counterfeit, as Anthony Trollope did in Framley Parsonage:
"Where, in these pinchbeck days, can we hope to find the old
agricultural virtue in all its purity?"
4. Sic!
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One of the better consequences of being away on holiday was that we
missed all the furore about the publication of the Hutton report.
Caroline O'Reilly found a little gem in a report on the matter in
the Irish Independent on 28 January (the single quotes were in the
original text): "And Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, had his
'knuckles wrapped'." Clearly he expected a bruising encounter.
Bernard Ryan supplied another instance of the unconscious humour of
official signs, this time on the light-controlled pedestrian
crossings in suburban Melbourne, Australia: WHEN FLASHING GIVE WAY
TO PEDESTRIANS. Indeed.
Dorothy Wink found this advertisement in the issue of the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution for 4 January 2004: "High quality accredited
pre-school seeks Lead 3-Year Old Teacher. Degree or CDA a plus.
Also have openings for Assistant Toddler and 2 year old Teachers.
Experience needed." She remarked: "We are still trying to ascertain
how one becomes an assistant toddler; and we wish them luck with
those requirements!"
5. Q&A
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Q. What is the origin of the phrase "tapping the Admiral", meaning
to take a small quantity of strong drink? The story I have read is
preposterous, but I can't refute it because I don't know the real
background. [Wade Evans]
A. Readers of a sensitive disposition should skip to the next item.
Various versions exist of this wild tale but all purport to
describe what happened to the body of Admiral Nelson after his
death at the battle of Trafalgar. His remains, it is said, were put
in a cask of rum to preserve them on the voyage back to Britain.
Sailors who would do anything for a drink bored a hole in the cask
with a gimlet and drew off quantities of the rum through a straw.
So many did so that when the body arrived in London the cask was
found to be nearly empty.
Though Nelson's body was preserved in this way, albeit in brandy
not rum, the story is clearly a folk legend. Similar ghoulish tales
have been told in many circumstances, including one of a couple who
bought a house that had once been an inn and who were delighted to
find that one of the old casks in the cellar still held rum. Only
after they had emptied it and cut the cask in two to make plant
containers for the garden did they find the well-preserved remains
of a man inside. Jan Harald Brunvand, the American academic who has
made a lifelong study of such legends, has told versions in one of
his books, including a related one dating back six hundred years
about some tomb robbers in Egypt. Other tales tell of containers
holding similarly preserved bodies of monkeys or apes that spring a
leak on their way from Africa to museums; the leaking spirits are
consumed with a gusto that turns to horror when the truth of the
situation emerges.
Though the story about Lord Nelson is folklore, like all good tales
it's grounded in an acute understanding of the cupidity of human
beings, provides a moral lesson, and is based on real situations.
Important persons who died at sea in centuries past did indeed have
their corpses preserved in a barrel of spirits so they could be
brought home for proper burial (embalming didn't arrive until the
1860s and even then wasn't available at sea). A related expression,
"suck the monkey" was current in the London docks in the nineteenth
century to describe the practice of boring a hole in a cask of
spirits to steal the contents; this might conceivably have built on
the tale about monkeys' bodies preserved in casks of spirits,
though it is more likely to have had a different origin.
The expression "tapping the Admiral" appeared in the Royal Navy in
the late nineteenth century in the sense you describe. We may
deride the folk tale about sailors sipping from the cask containing
Nelson's body, but it does seem to be the origin of the expression.
-----------
Q. Where did the name "long johns" for the underwear come from.
The "long" is easy, why "johns"? [Bob Dahl]
A. I was afraid somebody might ask me this, because it forces me to
adopt that foot-shuffling, hang-dog posture that indicates to the
discerning spectator that my reputation for omniscience has taken
another tumble. We just don't know for sure. However, I can salvage
my standing with some new facts.
The earliest references to the garments strongly suggest the name
was given to the long underwear issued to American soldiers during
World War Two. Until this piece appeared, the first known reference
to them was in a publication of 1943, but I've succeeded in taking
that back a couple of years, to a letter home by a new recruit
published in the Sheboygan Press, Wisconsin, on 16 October 1941:
"We have had but three days of rain in the nine weeks we have been
here. Last Friday it turned a little cool so we were issued our
winter clothes. We all hope we don't get our 'long Johns' for a
while because it is too warm yet."
Another local newspaper reference, this time from the Wisconsin
Rapids Daily Tribune of 3 June 1944, suggests an origin: "Many a
rookie has been ridiculed and laughed at the first time he
swallowed his pride and donned his LONG JOHNS. They are the winter
underwear issued by the Army, and have the disturbing effect of
making a G.I. look like a scarecrow trapeze artist. It might be
added that they itch but good! After a soldier finally gets into
his LONG JOHNS, he invariably swells his chest, flexes his biceps
and struts around the barracks like a John L. Sullivan, after whom
these practical if not sightly garments have been named."
Do I believe this? The rule of thumb that 99% of such stories about
the origins of expressions turn out to be rubbish suggests that I
ought not. But this might just be the exception, since the classic
pictures of the famous boxer show him wearing long white drawers or
skivvies tucked into his socks. Stranger origins are known.
A. FAQ of the week
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