World Wide Words -- 19 Jun 04
Michael Quinion
TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Thu Jun 17 12:42:03 UTC 2004
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 397 Saturday 19 June 2004
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Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
<http://www.worldwidewords.org> <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: M-government.
3. Weird Words: Haruspex.
4. Q&A: Bloke.
5. Sic!
6. Q&A: Dry run.
A. Subscription commands.
B. Useful URLs.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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HOLIDAY My wife and I should about now be starting to enjoy the
delights of the Italian lakes. As a result, next week's newsletter
will be sent out a little later than usual. The Web site will not
be updated until I return. Messages and comments will be as welcome
as ever - just don't expect a prompt reply! Please note the request
above to put "XYZZY" in the subject line of your e-mail - my mail
box will contain at least 15,000 messages on my return, some 14,000
of which will be spam. There's no way I'm going to search through
that amount of rubbish to find any misfiled gems!
2. Turns of Phrase: M-government
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Most of us in Britain are only very slowly coming to terms with the
idea of "e-government", communicating with government departments
using our PCs and the Internet. But many countries - apart from the
UK they include Sweden, the Netherlands, Malta, Singapore, Hong
Kong, South Korea, China and the Philippines - are working towards
talking to their citizens via the almost universal mobile phone.
The technique has been dubbed "m-government". Examples include
security alerts sent out by London's Metropolitan police; people in
Malta can opt to get reminders to renew licences; Singaporeans can
learn the results of medical examinations; the Hong Kong government
uses the system for emergency announcements; in Norway and Sweden,
people can confirm via an SMS text message if their tax returns are
accurate; and in Finland they can buy bus tickets. At the moment,
most of the initiatives are fairly small-scale and to varying
extents experimental, but experts in the field suggest that the
rate of innovation means that the system will soon be in routine
use almost everywhere.
>>> From the Guardian, 10 Jun. 2004: After e-government, m-
government. The idea of the state permanently streaming data to and
from your mobile phone may be some people's nightmare. In Sweden,
it's already reality.
>>> From Europemedia, 15 Jan. 2003: Despite its infancy, mobile
government (m-government) is a growing and important set of complex
strategies and tools that will change completely the roles and
functioning of traditional governance.
3. Weird Words: Haruspex
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A religious official in ancient Rome who interpreted omens by
inspecting the entrails of sacrificial animals.
The haruspices in ancient Rome were part of a group of seers or
auguries whose official function was not so much to foretell the
future as to work out whether the gods approved of some proposed
course of political or military action. Nothing of importance was
undertaken until the auguries had been consulted. Many omens were
actively watched for, such as the flight of birds, the pecking
behaviour of sacred chickens, or the sound of thunder. The Romans
borrowed these techniques from their predecessors, the Etruscans.
Edward Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was
disdainful of what he saw as the barbarous rites of the period:
"Amidst the sacred but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior
ministers, and of female dancers, who were dedicated to the service
of the temple, it was the business of the emperor to bring the
wood, to blow the fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the
victim, and, thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the
expiring animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read,
with the consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future
events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant
superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of prudence
and decency."
The second part of the word is clearly from Latin "specere", to
look at, but the first part is more mysterious; it may be related
to Sanskrit "hir", an artery. The technique is called "haruspicy".
Another word for it is "extispicy", a word whose the first element
we do know the origin of - it's from Latin "exta", entrails.
4. Q&A
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Q. I hope you can help me discover where the word "bloke" comes
from. We all know it but does anyone know anything about it? [Sid
Crawford, UK]
A. In British slang a "bloke" is a male person, a term known from
the middle of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, it turns up
slightly earlier in Australia, where it referred to the boss or the
man in charge (also as "big bloke"). It's still common in the UK,
where it has much of the sense of the American "guy" ("There was
this bloke down the pub ...") and where to say "He's a good bloke"
is to give high praise. Americans often think of it as British
slang, but in the nineteenth century it was common in the USA and
is still to be found. However, at one time, Americans also used it
in the sense of a stupid person.
For a long time, the experts were unsure where it came from. Some,
especially in the United States, suggested it derived from the
Celtic word "ploc", a large, bull-headed person. Others have
suggested that the "stupid person" sense may be from the Dutch
"blok", a fool, which is where we get "blockhead" from.
This "stupid person" derivation is probably correct, but we're now
fairly sure that the word in the sense of a man derives either from
Romany, the language of the Rom or gypsies, or more probably from
Shelta, an ancient secret language used by Irish and Welsh tinkers
and Gypsies. It may ultimately derive from Hindi "loke", a man.
A slightly earlier word of the same sense, "gloak", may come from
the same source (in the slang of the early nineteenth century, a
"buzz-gloak" was a pickpocket, where to "buzz" was to pick a
pocket).
5. Sic!
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Mara Math tells me that a new electronic road sign in San Francisco
flashes the message, "Stop for peds" followed by "Violations will
be strictly enforced". Ed Spence's comment on his own experience
sums up my reaction perfectly: "While traveling on the Oklahoma
Turnpike this past week, I saw a sign that read, 'FAILURE TO PAY
TOLL STRICTLY ENFORCED.' This was an obvious lie: I saw dozens of
people who did not fail to pay their tolls, and not one was
reprimanded."
Alan Jackson writes from Cardiff: "I have just returned from the
Isle of Skye and ate at a local restaurant a couple of times. It's
a very good restaurant so I feel a bit guilty at pointing out an
overly modest disclaimer at the bottom of their web page: 'It is
strictly Creelers policy that GM [genetically modified] products
are not knowledgeably used in our dishes'."
6. Q&A
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Q. We had just concluded practicing for a major presentation when
my boss's boss popped off this question: "Why is a dry run dry?"
We all agree that a "dry run" is a practice session but haven't a
clue how the phrase came about. [Kery Gray]
A. The sense of rehearsal is known in the United States from the
early 1940s. The oldest example I can find is from the Gettysburg
Times for August 1941 in reference to an army operation: "The
occasion was a 'dry run' for the maneuvers that will begin within
the next ten days."
The obvious explanation is that it is linked to a much older North
American sense of an arroyo, a stream bed that is normally dry or
almost dry but which floods after heavy rain. These are common in
the USA, as witness the many places called Dry Run. ("Run" here
just means a course or route.) This sense dates back to the 1840s.
One might guess that the idea behind the rehearsal sense is that
it's like a dry river bed before a storm, in waiting for the big
event when the rain comes and it fulfils its potential function.
If I have a lingering doubt, it's partly because that explanation
seems a slight stretch of meaning. (Incidentally, I've also come
across a story, in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, that it
refers to "the reconnoitring by bootleggers of the route they plan
to use before transporting their illicit goods along it". That's so
stretched it broke the elastic.) But in researching this answer, I
also found several newspaper items about motor oil.
Several firms in the early 1930s produced oils containing graphite.
This continued to lubricate the engine even if the sump leaked its
contents. As an advertisement, firms would send out representatives
to drive cars that had been filled with the special oil and then
emptied, to show they still worked. These trips were called "dry
runs". An example is from the Stevens Point Daily Journal of
Wisconsin for June 1932: "A demonstration of Pyroil, a product for
car motors, was made Thursday by J. H. Rain, representative, who
drove his car from Stevens Point to Junction City and back without
any oil in the crank case, at a speed of 25 to 50 miles an hour.
Harold Thompson, traffic officer, was an official witness of the
'dry run.'"
Could this have something to do with the matter? Might I be adding
yet another layer of supposition to an already puzzling matter?
Probably so. The dry stream bed has to remain the favourite.
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