World Wide Words -- 08 Jan 05
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Jan 7 19:04:46 UTC 2005
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 425 Saturday 8 January 2005
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Sent each Saturday to 21,000+ subscribers in at least 120 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Turns of Phrase: Homeshoring.
3. Weird Words: Cadge.
4. Sic!
5. Q&A: Gyp.
A. Subscription information.
B. E-mail contact addresses.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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BREAK Apologies for the comparative skimpiness of this issue, but
I'm not in the best of health at the moment. My wife and I have a
long-planned holiday in Egypt later this month, which will help a
lot. For these reasons, there won't be another issue of World Wide
Words during January. I hope to send out the next issue on Saturday
5 February. Rather a lot of e-mail remains unanswered: if you can
hold off sending me any more messages this month, I'd be grateful!
2. Turns of Phrase: Homeshoring
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Many companies, especially in the USA and the UK, have moved jobs
to countries such as India in which costs are lower, a process that
is called offshoring. Not all such transfers have worked out, as a
result of bad management decisions, poor service, and complaints
from customers about difficulties in communication with overseas
call centres. Some companies are starting to consider the potential
of the increasing proportion of people who have broadband Internet
connections into their homes. This permits staff to work from home
on a semi-casual basis while being able to supply a high standard
of service, because they know local conditions. Companies find that
costs are often no higher in real terms than employing a worker in
an Indian call centre. The term "homeshoring" has been coined for
this in the USA, a word - and a technique - which is at the moment
hardly known in the UK but which seems likely to catch on.
* From C-Net News 21 Dec. 2004: IDC said companies are turning to
homeshoring in response to call center challenges such as the need
for superior agent quality, frequent turnover and the seasonal
nature of the business.
* From Commercial Property News, 1 Nov. 2004: Domestic and
international carriers are cutting costs by relocating these
facilities to small U.S. communities, offshoring and nearshoring
them outside the country's borders and even home-shoring them into
employees' residences.
3. Weird Words: Cadge
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To scrounge or beg something from somebody.
This is perhaps most common in British slang, though it is known
from other countries, too. You might hear it as "he cadged a tenner
off me yesterday", or "See if you can cadge a lift to the pub".
Someone who does this is obviously enough a "cadger". If you trace
the verb back, it starts its recorded life with men of that name in
Northern England and Scotland in the late fifteenth century. They
were itinerant hawkers and peddlers with a horse and cart or a
packhorse, who collected butter, eggs, poultry and other farm
produce for sale in the local market and who in return took out
small items to farms from the local shops. They did not enjoy a
high reputation: often hard bargainers and hard swearers ("to curse
like a cadger" was once a Scots simile), they were at the bottom of
the social order. An old Scots proverb says "the king's errand may
come to the cadger's gate yet", meaning that even the highest in
the land may sometimes need the help of the most humble. About 1600
we start to see the verb "to cadge", meaning to carry things about,
as a cadger does.
In the nineteenth century the word went even further downhill, if
that were possible, when it started to be applied in England to men
who pretended to be hawkers or street traders but who were actually
beggars or tramps. An early example, of 1860, is in The Roman
Question, by Edmond About: "Pray give something to yonder sham
cripple; give to that cadger who pretends to have lost an arm; and
be sure you don't forget that blind young man leaning on his
father's arm!"
A little later, the word shifted to refer to men (it seems always
to have been men) who "borrowed" small sums from acquaintances and
friends but conveniently forgot to return them. R Austin Freeman
(an almost forgotten crime writer, well-known in his day) acutely
observed the type in For The Defence, Dr Thorndyke of 1934: "Ronald
Barton was an inveterate cadger, a confirmed borrower; and, as is
the way of the habitual borrower, as soon as the loan had been
obtained, the transaction was finished and the incident closed so
far as he was concerned."
There's another sort of "cadge", in falconry: the padded wooden
frame on which hooded hawks are taken out to the field. This is
often said to be linked to the other senses but it seems instead to
have been an alteration of "cage" under the influence of "cadge" in
the sense of carrying things. The man who carried the cadge was
also a cadger, but despite comments in falconry books this has
nothing to do with the begging sense.
There's also "codger", which often turns up these days as "old
codger", meaning a man who is mildly eccentric and of mature years.
This may well be a variation on "cadger" that comes through the
idea of an old beggar or tramp (at one time in English dialect
"codger" could refer to a disagreeable or miserly old man) but
which has softened somewhat over time. Falconers sometimes like to
say this is also connected with cadges, since those who carried
them were often old men good for nothing better. Again, this just
muddies the etymological waters.
4. Sic!
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Peter Weinrich reports that the online edition of "The New York
Times" of 5 January had a brief classified ad: "Wines. Great deals
on new and used items. Search for wines now! www.eBay.com." He
comments: "On the whole, I would prefer not to search for used
wines."
Garison Piatt e-mail from Hawaii to say: "A local theater has this
warning sign for an R-rated movie: 'You must be 17 years old - no
exceptions'. I assume, since I'm 50, that I'm not allowed to view
that film."
Joseph O'Brien spotted a sign at JFK airport, "All international
passengers with luggage including Canada must be checked in at
ticket counter by agent." He points out: "It would be quite a
suitcase to hold Canada. Or, why commas count."
The e-mail edition of the Scotsman for 1 January 2005 said: "Born
Vivian Hogan in Houston, Texas, Smith was raised mainly by her aunt
after her parents divorced and became pregnant at age 16." Thanks
to Graham Millar for passing that on.
Paul Birch e-mails: "Your latest issue of World Wide Words reminded
me of the recent season of marmalade making here in Canada, where
the appropriate oranges are available for only a limited season.
One local shop advertised 'Seville oranges' while another, being
more clear in its explanation, called them 'marmalade oranges.'
The most appealing sign, however, appeared in a third store, which
described the fruit as 'civil oranges'."
5. Q&A
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Q. My father-in-law often referred to something painful as "giving
me gyp". This does not seem to correlate to the other meaning of
"cheat". Any suggestions? [Joan Wilton, Canada]
A. "Gyp" is a moderately common expression, mainly in the UK, but
also in Commonwealth countries, though my gut feeling is that it's
now mostly used by older people. It appears in fixed phrases that
refer to some part of the body being painful, as in this example
from the London Evening Standard in August 2003: "I turned my ankle
in the game and it's still giving me gyp."
The other meaning you give has no connection - it's a derogatory
term that is usually said to derive from the word "gypsy" (see
http://quinion.com?G91P). The sense of pain seems to be connected
with a northern English dialect word, variously spelled "gip" or
"jip", that only ever appeared in the form "to give somebody or
something jip". It could mean to give a person or an object a sound
thrashing (one example is of a man giving a carpet a beating), or
generally to treat roughly or to cause pain.
We're not certain where it comes from, but the English Dialect
Dictionary gives one sense of the word as "to arouse to greater
exertions by means of some sudden, unexpected action". That fits
with the suggestion in the Oxford English Dictionary that it's a
contracted form of "gee-up", a conventionalised version of the cry
one utters to get a horse to move. Presumably the pain sense
evolved through the excessive use of that unexpected action in
persuading a person or animal to do one's bidding.
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