World Wide Words -- 21 Jan 06
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Jan 20 18:11:51 UTC 2006
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 477 Saturday 21 January 2006
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent each Saturday to at least 32,000 subscribers by e-mail and RSS
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Cenatory.
3. Noted this week.
4. Q&A: No names, no pack drill.
5. Book review: Words, Words, Words.
6. Sic!
A. E-mail contact addresses.
B. Subscription information.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
--------------
A formatted version of this newsletter is available
online at http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/kevt.htm
--------------
1. Feedback, notes and comments
-------------------------------------------------------------------
WALE Having survived the chorus of voices that told me I'm an out-
of-the-loop, ancient fuddy-duddy with no fashion knowledge, since
everyone in the world except me has always known what the "wale" of
corduroy is, I came to other messages asking me about "gunwale",
the upper edge or planking of the side of a ship (OK, so you all
know that, too). This is definitely an application of "wale" in the
sense of ridge, since it originally served to support the guns.
CHAOS AND CONFUSION ALL AROUND ME LIE It's been EDAD week here
("Every Day Another Disaster") as my wife describes it. Computer
equipment has been failing to right and left of me and one of my
mailboxes was inaccessible for nearly a week with 112 messages in
it. So if you haven't had a reply to a recent message, the reason
is probably in that list somewhere.
2. Weird Words: Cenatory
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Relating to dinner or supper.
This is one of 22,889 words and senses marked in the Oxford English
Dictionary as being both obsolete and rare. The OED's only record
for it is from a work of 1646 by the physician Sir Thomas Browne.
He's immortalised in the OED by 3792 other citations, which include
many equally rare words, such as "bicipitous" (having two heads);
"elychnious" (having the nature of a wick); "latirostrous" (broad-
beaked); "stillicidious" (falling in drops); and "zodiographer" (a
person who writes about animals).
"Cenatory" isn't quite so rare as the OED entry might suggest. It
turns up, for example, in Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field, by Thomas W.
Knox, published in 1865: "On one line of boats, the cold meats on
the supper-table were from carefully selected pieces, cooked and
cooled expressly for the cenatory meal." And it's in James Branch
Cabell's Chivalry (1921), in a passage that follows a description
of a meal: "Richard was replete and contented with the world. He
took up the lute, in full consciousness that his compliance was in
large part cenatory."
"Cenatory" is from Latin "cenatorious", relating to dinner. It has
a similar meaning to "prandial" (Latin "prandium", meal), which the
OED describes as "affected or jocose" and which usually appears in
the compounds "pre-prandial", before dinner (sometimes also "ante-
prandial"), and "post-prandial", after the meal. ("He went through
dinner talking on such events of the time as usually form the
subject of prandial conversation." - The Man Who Bought London, by
Edgar Wallace, 1915.)
3. Noted this week
-------------------------------------------------------------------
GAY-ADJACENT Much media mockery has exploded about this term. It
turned up last week in a press release from Sony Records, who as
well as creating a label devoted to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual
and trans-gendered) artists, are working with Wilderness Media to
launch a syndicated radio show called Twist to "target the gay and
'gay-adjacent' communities". Does this, as one newspaper argued,
fall into the category of "spurious demographics" designed solely
for marketing purposes, or is it a coded reference to the friends
and family of LGBTs, or does it mean anything at all?
MY PERSONAL WORD OF THE WEEK Are you kidding, after last week?
4. Q&A: No names, no pack drill
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. You used the phrase "no names, no pack drill" in the 7 January
newsletter. What does this mean? I can't find it on your Web site
or in any of my dictionaries. [Chris Johnston; related questions
came from Mary Louise Lyman and Tony Apted]
A. That phrase bubbled up from my subconscious. I realised at once
that it might not be understood, but left it in from a mischievous
desire to learn whether anybody would query it.
The immediate source of the expression was my father, who served in
northern France throughout the First World War. Introduced in the
nineteenth century, pack drill was a common military punishment in
that war, though not one he ever suffered. Rudyard Kipling gave a
description in Soldiers Three in 1890: "Mulvaney was doing pack-
drill - was compelled that is to say, to walk up and down in full
marching order, with rifle, bayonet, ammunition, knapsack, and
overcoat." Pack drill was often required to be done at the double,
at twice the normal marching pace, as Arthur Guy Empey explained in
Over The Top (1917): "Then comes 'Pack Drill' or Defaulters'
Parade. This consists of drilling, mostly at the double, for two
hours with full equipment. Tommy hates this, because it is hard
work." You may know Kipling's poem with the lines, "O it's pack
drill for me and a fortnight's CB / For 'drunk and resisting the
Guard'." ("CB": "Confined to Barracks".)
The full expression "no names, no pack drill" seems to have been of
First World War origin, but has survived the punishment itself. It
means that if nobody is named as being responsible, then nobody can
be punished, the point being that in some situation or other it's
wisest not to name the person being discussed.
5. Book review: Words, Words, Words
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Heavens, is this man prolific! David Crystal has written more than
a hundred books, with no cessation in sight. And he has another out
next week from another publisher (who hasn't sent me a review copy,
so I can't speak about it). When you've written that many, overlap
in subject matter and illustration is perhaps inevitable, so that a
regular reader (this is the seventh book of his I've read in recent
years) will recognise a retread of a lot of stuff he has previously
come across. All the quotations, for example, are taken from his
earlier work Words on Words.
Professor Crystal's book is a brief introduction to lexicology, the
study of the form, meaning, and behaviour of words (as opposed to
lexicography, which is about making dictionaries). In six parts and
33 short chapters, he covers a lot of ground, mostly at a smart
trot. He discusses the size of our vocabularies, arguing (as he has
in earlier works) that they are much larger than we think they are.
He goes on to describe the way that we pick up language, the rise
of the dictionary, where words come from, and the borrowings that
form part of the modern English vocabulary. Other chapters focus on
spelling, pronunciation, slang, affixes, compounding, dialect, the
birth and death of words, the future of English, word games and
wordplay. A final section is entitled "Becoming a word detective",
which is a collection of sources on etymology and other topics (in
which World Wide Words is mentioned).
I'm not altogether sure about the audience he's aiming at. My gut
feeling is that he hasn't quite got the level and tone right. It's
certainly not for children, despite a faint feeling that it could
be repackaged as the Ladybird Book of Lexicology. But adults will
find it a bit basic unless they're real beginners. However, if you
want an authoritative yet painless introduction - Lexicology for
Dummies you might say - this is definitely the one.
[David Crystal, Words, Words, Words, published by Oxford University
Press on 19 January; ISBN 0198614446; hardback, pp216; publisher's
list price GBP12.99.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THIS BOOK
Amazon UK: GBP9.09 http://quinion.com?WW9W
Amazon USA: US$16.50 http://quinion.com?W7WW
Amazon Canada: CDN$17.13 http://quinion.com?WWW5
Amazon Germany: EUR22,90 http://quinion.com?W893
[Please use these links to buy. More information at C below.]
6. Sic!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Buxton reports, "It's fire danger time here in Australia and
the Country Fire Authority impose all manner of restrictions. Their
latest missive includes the following 'Outdoor caterers may not
light a barbecue or spit without permission.'"
Chuck Crawford found a Web site which described "a temporary rest
bite" in the flow of news. A Google search found dozens more cases
of the same error.
An e-mail from somebody identifying himself only as Greg pointed me
to an online listing for Blackberry's restaurant, which described
dining "In a causal, family friendly atmosphere that is ascetically
pleasing." He commented, "I wondered about those last two words,
but when I took my wife and mother-in-law for lunch on a day the
restaurant claimed to be open, I found it closed, and went away
hungry. Hence, I suppose, our pleasure was indeed and strictly
speaking ascetic."
A. E-mail contact addresses
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to respond to something in a newsletter, ask a question
for the Q&A section, or otherwise contact Michael Quinion, please
send it to one of the following addresses:
* Comments on newsletter mailings are always welcome. They should
be sent to wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
* Questions intended to be answered in the Q&A section should be
addressed to wordsquestions at worldwidewords.org (please don't
use this to respond to published answers to questions - e-mail
the comment address instead)
* Problems with subscriptions that cannot be handled by the list
server should be addressed to wordssubs at worldwidewords.org
Please do not send attachments with messages.
B. Subscription information
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To leave the list, change your subscription address, or subscribe,
please visit http://www.worldwidewords.org/maillist/index.htm .
You can also maintain your subscription by e-mail. For a full list
of commands, send a message containing the following two lines to
listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org:
INFO WORLDWIDEWORDS
END
The "END" ensures that the list server doesn't get confused by your
signature or other text added to the outgoing message.
This newsletter is also available as an RSS feed. The address is
http://www.worldwidewords.org/rss/newsletter.xml .
Recent back issues are archived at
http://www.worldwidewords.org/backissues/
C. Ways to support World Wide Words
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The World Wide Words newsletter and Web site are free, but if you
would like to help with their costs, here are some ways to do so.
If you order any goods from any of these online stores (not just
new books), you can use one of these links, which gets World Wide
Words a small commission at no extra cost to you:
Amazon USA: http://quinion.com?QA
Amazon UK: http://quinion.com?JZ
Amazon Canada: http://quinion.com?MG
Amazon Germany: http://quinion.com?DX
If you would like to contribute a sum to the upkeep of World Wide
Words through PayPal, enter this link into your browser:
http://quinion.com?PP
You could also buy one of my books, of course. See
http://www.worldwidewords.org/posh.htm and
http://www.worldwidewords.org/ologies.htm .
-------------------------------------------------------------------
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2006. All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org .
-------------------------------------------------------------------
You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online
newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include
this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed
publications or on Web sites requires prior permission, for which
you should contact wordseditor at worldwidewords.org .
-------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the WorldWideWords
mailing list