World Wide Words -- 06 Mar 04
Michael Quinion
TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Mar 5 19:57:17 UTC 2004
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 382 Saturday 6 March 2004
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Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Topical Words: Chav.
3. Sic!
4. Weird Words: Blurb.
5. Noted this week.
6. Q&A: Proof of the pudding.
A. FAQ of the week.
B. Subscription commands.
C. Useful URLs.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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YESTERSOL My inadequate attempt at rewriting the old Beatles lyric
last week provoked several people into improving it. My favourite
is this from Michael O'Sullivan:
Yestersol, all my troubles seemed negligibol.
Now my Martian Lander's gone AWOL,
Oh I believe in yestersol.
BY AND LARGE It is an immutable rule, I have found, that to write
about anything to do with sailing ships is to invite corrections.
Nigel Lindsey-Renton, a former lieutenant in the Royal Navy, had no
quarrel with the essential facts behind the phrase, but disputed my
comments about some ancillary ones: "Close, but no cigar. 'Full and
by' is sailing as close to the wind as can maintain maximum speed,
without causing a problem when the wind shifts slightly. 'Close
hauled' is a bit more general, but essentially means as close to
the wind as realistically possible."
UPDATE I've done a lot more work on the phrase "the real McCoy"
and have posted the results as an update to the existing piece at
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-mcc1.htm .
2. Topical Words: Chav
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The press in Britain has recently been having fun mocking a group
for which pejorative descriptions have been created such as "non-
educated delinquents" and "the burgeoning peasant underclass". The
subjects of these derogatory descriptions are said to be set apart
by ignorance, fecklessness, mindless violence and bad taste.
To illustrate the last of these, critics point to their style of
dress: a love of flashy gold jewellery (hooped earrings, thick neck
chains, sovereign rings and heavy bangles, which all may be lumped
together under the term "bling-bling"); the wearing of white
trainers (in what is called "prison white", so clean that they look
new); clothes in fashionable brands with very prominent logos; and
baseball caps, frequently in Burberry check, a favourite style. The
women, the Daily Mail wrote recently in a characteristic burst of
maidenly distaste, "pull their shoddily dyed hair back in that
ultra-tight bun known as a 'council-house facelift', wear skirts
too short for their mottled blue thighs, and expose too much of
their distressingly flabby midriffs".
This upsurge of popular distaste towards one group is evidence for
a cultural shift back towards a class-ridden British society that
is being viewed with some alarm in liberal circles. Critics point
to the copying of the style by many younger television celebrities
as a further dumbing-down of that medium. Much of the attention is
due to the experience of a Web site ( http://www.chavscum.co.uk ),
which was intended to be humorous but which was infiltrated by
extremists who threatened to turn it into a hate site.
>From a linguistic perspective the most interesting aspect is the
wide variety of local names given to the type. Scots call them
"neds" (an acronym of "non-educated delinquents"), while
Liverpudlians prefer "scallies" (a term of long-standing for a
boisterous, disruptive or irresponsible young man); "Kev" is common
around London (presumably from Kevin, popularised through the
portrayal on his television show by the comedian Harry Enfield of
an idiotic teenager with that name). Other terms recorded from
various parts of the country are "janners" (from Plymouth),
"smicks", "spides", "moakes" and "steeks" (all from Belfast), plus
"bazzas", "scuffheads", "stigs", "stangers", "yarcos", and "kappa
slappers" (girls who wear Kappa brand tracksuits, "slapper" being
British slang for a promiscuous or vulgar woman).
The term that has become especially widely known in recent weeks,
at least in southern England, is the one borrowed for the name of
the Web site, "chav". A writer in the Independent thought it
derived from the name of the town of Chatham in Kent, where the
term is best known and probably originated. But it seems that the
word is from a much older underclass, the gypsies, many of whom
have lived in that area for generations. "Chav" is almost certainly
from the Romany word for a child, "chavi", recorded from the middle
of the nineteenth century. We know it was being used as a term of
address to an adult man a little later in the century, but it
hasn't often been recorded in print since and its derivative "chav"
is quite new to most people.
Other terms for the class also have Romany connections; another is
"charver", Romany for prostitute. Yet another is the deeply
insulting "pikey", presumably from the Kentish dialect term for
gypsy that was borrowed from "turnpike", so a person who travels
the roads.
Did "chavi" die out, only to be reinvented recently? That seems
hardly likely from the written evidence; what we're seeing is a
term that has been in active but low-level use for the last 150
years suddenly bursting out into wider popular use in a new sense
through circumstances we don't fully understand.
3. Sic!
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Mark Rochefort saw a label on a box in a store: "White Child's
Rocking Chair". No, it's the chair that's white, you see ... Oh,
never mind.
Greg Grove writes: "MSNBC, a cable television news network in the
United States, simulcasts the Don Imus drive-time radio show. MSNBC
posts quotes from Imus and his guests on its Web site, such as this
from Imus about Clear Channel's new 'decency' standards: 'It's
enormously troubling that we are going to have someone like Michael
Powell or anyone else deciding what we are going to listen to or
what's appropriate. Let the morays of society dictate that.' I
agree. Let the eels rule."
Stop the presses. Rewrite the medical textbooks. A headline in the
Observer last Sunday announced, "Most of us are born with ivory-
white teeth". No we're not, a fact for which every nursing mother
regularly gives thanks.
4. Weird Words: Blurb
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A short description of a product written for promotional purposes.
We associate the word "blurb" most closely with books, which is
only fair, since it was invented for a meeting of the American
Booksellers Association in 1907. The American illustrator and
humorist Gelett Burgess had written How to be a Bromide in 1906,
introducing "bromidioms", hackneyed phrases (such as "I don't know
much about art, but I know what I like") uttered by boring and
predictable people whom he named "bromides", after the then
familiar sedative, potassium bromide. These days, the bromides are
more frequently the commonplace statements rather than the people
making them, but Burgess is credited with inventing the word.
For the meeting in 1907, his book, selling well, was presented to
members of the Association attending their annual dinner. As was
usual, a special bookplate was designed, which featured a young
woman, whom Burgess named Belinda Blurb, shouting the praises of
his work in effusive language ( see http://quinion.com?BB ). The
booksellers and publishers clearly found the word an excellent one
for the puffing encomiums on the dustjackets of books and by about
1914 it had become the standard term for them.
Gelett Burgess invented more new words than anybody else at that
period, which he incorporated into several books. An "oofle" is a
person whose name you can't remember; a "voip" is a type of food
that lacks all gastronomic delight; a "floogijab" sounds like a
compliment but has a sting in the tail; a "tintiddle" is an esprit
de l'escalier, a witty comment you think of too late.
None of these gained any circulation whatsoever, but "bromide" and
"blurb" have ensured his linguistic immortality, together with his
most famous poem: "I never saw a purple cow/I never hope to see
one/But I can tell you anyhow/I'd rather see than be one". This was
reproduced so often that he wrote a sequel: "Ah yes, I wrote 'The
Purple Cow'/I'm sorry now I wrote it/But I can tell you anyhow/I'll
kill you if you quote it!"
5. Noted this week
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SCI-FI SOUNDS The first concert to use the newly-invented musical
instrument called the "octachord" (so called because it has eight
strings, which are vibrated by motors turning at up to a thousand
revolutions a minute) took place in London this week in association
with the Dutch-based Mondriaan Quartet. The new instrument did not
find favour with the music critic of the Guardian: "The octachord
looks striking: the player presses buttons on something the size
and shape of a metallic bassoon, while balls run up and down wires
on a contraption like a giant executive toy. The sounds it
produces, though, are shockingly banal: unarticulated continuums
that recall sometimes a washing machine, sometimes a circular saw."
RATNERESQUE The fuss over Coca-Cola's admission that the bottled
water it sells in Britain under the Dasani brand is really purified
tap water from Sidcup in Kent ("eau de Thames Embankment" is how
Rumpole of the Bailey might have described it) has produced fresh
sightings of this term for extreme shooting-self-in-foot marketing
statements. You may recall that Gerald Ratner stunned the British
public in 1991 by announcing at a jovial but all-too-public dinner
that the products of his eponymous jewellers were (I quote) "crap".
The last outing of "Ratneresque" was last October, when the chief
executive of Barclays Bank, Matthew Barrett, admitted that he
wouldn't use his own company's credit card because it was too
expensive.
PRO VERSUS ANTI A small furore has erupted at the Los Angeles Times
because of an inane attempt at a politically correct change that a
sub-editor made to a review by its music critic, Mark Swed, of a
performance last week of the Richard Strauss opera Die Frau Ohne
Schatten. He wrote that it was "an incomparably glorious and goofy
pro-life paean...". The Times blue-pencilled "pro-life" into "anti-
abortion". Since the opera has nothing to do with abortion, Mr Swed
was understandably furious and it has taken two tries at publishing
a correction to mollify him. For more details, see the LA Observed
piece at http://www.laobserved.com/archive/001504.html .
TWO COUNTRIES, ONE LANGUAGE? Speaking of corrections, subscriber
George Mannes told me about one that appeared in the New York Times
on Thursday: "An article on the Fashion page on Tuesday about the
British designer Alexander McQueen misstated a phrase from his
remarks on the common professional desire to create a signature
product. He said, 'And you've just got to keep on striving until
one day you're waking up, having your marmalade on toast, doodling
on a cigarette package - and bingo, Bob's your uncle' - not 'you
bought an uncle'." See http://quinion.com?BY for more on "Bob's
your uncle".
6. Q&A
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Q. I have heard BBC reporters say "the proof is in the pudding".
Surely the phrase should be "the proof of the pudding is in the
eating". [Terry Cleary]
A. Indeed it should.
However, the version you quote is a form that has been appearing
with increasing frequency in books and newspapers, so we ought not
to single out the BBC for censure. As another recent instance, the
Boston Herald had this in its issue of 3 February 2004: "While the
team's first Super Bowl victory back in 2002 could be explained
away by some skeptics as a fluke, the second victory is the proof
in the pudding in cementing the Pats' status as the cream of the
NFL crop."
But examples can be found in American newspapers at least as far
back as the 1920s and it became relatively common from the middle
1950s onwards. Slightly different versions also turn up from time
to time, such as this about a charity considering its links with
Michael Jackson, "Until there's some proof in the pudding, we will
continue to remain neutral" (The Grand Rapids Press, 30 November
2003), and about an election in Canada, "I guess that the proof in
the pudding will be on Oct. 2" (Toronto Star, 29 September 2003).
The principal trouble with "the proof is in the pudding" is that it
makes no sense. What has happened is that writers half-remember the
proverb as "the proof of the pudding", which is also unintelligible
unless you know the full form from which the tag was taken, and
have modified it in various ways in unsuccessful attempts to turn
it into something sensible.
They wouldn't make this mistake if they knew two important facts.
The full proverb is indeed "the proof of the pudding is in the
eating" and "proof" has the sense of "test" (as it also has, or
used to have, in "the exception proves the rule" and in phrases
such as "printer's proof"). The proverb literally says that you
won't know whether food has been cooked properly until you try it.
Or, putting it figuratively, don't assume that something is in
order or believe what you are told, but judge the matter by testing
it; it's much the same philosophy as in "seeing is believing" and
"actions speak louder than words".
The proverb is ancient - it has been traced back to 1300 and was
popularised by Cervantes in his Don Quixote of 1605. It's sad that
it has lasted so long, only to be corrupted in modern times.
A. FAQ of the week
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C. Useful URLs
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Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
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