World Wide Words -- 26 Nov 05
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Nov 25 19:04:25 UTC 2005
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 468 Saturday 26 November 2005
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Sent each Saturday to at least 25,000 subscribers by e-mail and RSS
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: Mociology.
3. Weird Words: Ninnyhammer.
4. Q&A: "An" before words starting with "h".
5. Sic!
A. E-mail contact addresses.
B. Subscription information.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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STOOZING Grant Barrett, who runs the Double-Tongued Word Wrester
site and who is also project editor for the Historical Dictionary
of American Slang, tells me that this word I featured last week is
known to have been created in the discussion forums of the Motley
Fool financial Web site, where a user with the nickname "Stooz"
advocated such actions in early 2004. Thanks to Chris Sunderland
and Clariman for the same information.
CORRESPONDENCE I've had my head down for the past week, finishing
the first draft of my next book. It's done, but it has left me with
a head full of cotton wool and a very long list of other important
jobs left undone. One result is an overflowing mail inbox. Sorry
about that - I'll try to catch up next week sometime!
2. Turns of Phrase: Mociology
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This word has gained some public attention following its use in the
title of a conference in London on 7 November 2005 organised by the
Royal Society of Arts: "Mobile technology and culture change: how
mociology is changing the way we live".
The introduction to the conference described it in some detail. It
seems that mociology is the study of the innovative ways people use
their mobile phones or wireless systems in daily life. Examples
given including buying concert tickets by phone or having medical
information about your diabetic condition sent to you the same way.
It has been described as the sociology of the mobile lifestyle,
which seems to be the genesis of the word ("mobile" + "sociology"),
though the coinage is unprepossessing (the blending suggests that
the "c" is pronounced as an "s"). It is said to have been invented
by Ralph Simon of the Mobilium Group of Los Angeles and London,
whose fertile mind has also created "mocio-economics", described as
"the underlying economics that drives the fast emergence of mobile
entertainment revenues and economics".
The same text described mociology as a "new and emerging science",
which seems to be a PR overstatement of a particularly egregious
sort. It is notable that the word has so far appeared in only one
newspaper that I can trace, though bloggers have reported on it.
It will be interesting to see if it catches on.
3. Weird Words: Ninnyhammer
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A fool or simpleton.
It's long since vanished except in works that consciously seek to
evoke a bygone age through antique language. The most likely place
to encounter it is in Volume Three of J R R Tolkien's The Lord of
the Rings: "You're nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee: that's what
the Gaffer said to me often enough, it being a word of his." At one
time, it was an excellent addition to one's armoury of invective,
as here in John Arbuthnot's satirical pamphlet of 1712, The Law is
a Bottomless Pit: "Have you no more manners than to rail at Hocus,
that has saved that clod-pated, numskull'd ninnyhammer of yours
from ruin, and all his family?"
"Ninnyhammer" is first recorded from the late sixteenth century.
Its origin isn't altogether clear. The first part, "ninny", looks
like the word we still know today, which is thought to come from a
shortened and modified version of "an innocent", because "innocent"
at this time could mean a person lacking in intelligence or sense,
who was silly, half-witted, or imbecilic. However, it's far from
certain from the dates when they were first used whether "ninny"
comes from "ninnyhammer" or the other way around. The second part
is less obvious, but might be from "hammer-headed", which could
also then refer to a person who was dull-witted or stupid.
4. Q&A
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Q. I was interested in your use of "an" before "heraldic" in a
recent issue because I've never known the "rule" for using "an"
with words beginning with "h". The famous example of course is "an
hotel". Though I admit it's just an affectation, I also use "an"
with "hilarious" and several other words. But I wouldn't think of
doing it with "homily" though I have no idea why. And I always
pronounce the "h" in these examples. What rules do you follow? [Tym
King; related questions came from many other subscribers]
A. The number of comments and queries that arrived after that issue
demonstrates that my usage here is open to debate. The fact is, as
happens often in real English, the rules are more complicated than
the ones we learned in school. And there's some difference between
spoken and written English.
The school rule is that "an" must be used before words beginning
with "h" in which the "h" is silent, such as "honourable". That's
correct, but many people - often without knowing it - follow an
extended rule: that in speech "an" appears before a word beginning
with "h" if the first syllable of that word is unstressed, whether
or not the "h" is silent. If you listen carefully you can tell in
such cases that the "h" is also partially or wholly elided away;
that's because it's quite hard in rapid speech to articulate an
unstressed "a" before an unstressed "h" without putting some other
sound in between and losing the full strength of the "h". But it's
common to write "a".
But not always. In the Independent of 14 November 2005, a story
included the line, "being housed in an historic building with very
particular architectural features". The Newcastle Evening Chronicle
for 15 November 2005 had "Today they addressed Tories at an hotel
near Newcastle". It would be possible to find thousands of other
examples in recent decades, to which could be added copious cases
of "an hypothesis", "an heroic", "an horrific", and others. All
these reflect the actual spoken usage.
The situation is complicated by a shift that has been taking place
in the pronunciation of words with initial "h" over the past couple
of centuries. At one time, many more were said with the "h" silent.
This explains the appearance of "an" in old texts where we would
now use "a"; the classic case is that of the King James Bible,
where - to take the first example out of dozens - in Genesis the
text reads "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years".
A good example is that of "herb", which Americans today continue to
say the way their English forefathers did, without the initial "h".
British English has moved on, and it is now thought uneducated for
British speakers to say "erb". But British and American speakers
mostly put the initial "h" on such words.
To complicate the matter, usage is shifting. Younger people prefer
"a" more often in such cases in speech as well as writing. Forms
like "an hotel" are heard from, and written by, older people in the
main. I use "an hotel" consistently in both speech and writing, and
count myself old-fashioned as a result. The form "an heraldic" you
mention is by no means unknown, though it is less common than the
others, but that may just be because we have less cause to use the
phrase than ones like "an hotel".
5. Sic!
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Anthony Massey has been keeping his usual keen eye on the vagaries
of British human resources jargon: "They're opening a new branch of
Woolworths in Putney High Street, near where I live, and they're
looking for staff. Not that you would know from the advert outside
the shop. 'Colleague Roles Available', it proclaims. What? Since
when has a job been a 'colleague role'? But a close reading of the
notice reveals that it is indeed a recruitment ad. Application
forms, it says, are available from the local Job Centre. At least
we can assume that no one is ever fired by Woolworths. Staff -
sorry, colleagues - would simply find that Former Colleague Roles
are compulsorily available."
"Yob" is British slang for a rude, noisy, and aggressive young man,
whose name is backslang, from "boy". Chris Church found a headline
featuring it in the Burnley Express this week: "Police boss's plea
to stone yobs" and commented that "zero tolerance meets community
action". But, under the dreadful headlinese, it turned out that it
was the yobs who were actually throwing the stones - 169 incidents
in the last month alone.
A. E-mail contact addresses
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