World Wide Words -- 02 Sep 06
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Sep 1 17:37:31 UTC 2006
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 503 Saturday 2 September 2006
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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. Weird Words: Etheromaniac.
2. Recently noted.
3. Q&A: When Hector was a pup.
4. Q&A: Losing one's marbles.
5. Sic!
A. E-mail contact addresses.
B. Subscription information.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Weird Words: Etheromaniac
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A person addicted to ether as an intoxicant.
Some have been known to inhale it, but true etheromaniacs drank it.
The imbibing of ether was a widespread practice in parts of Ireland
during the nineteenth century. Some contemporary reports point to a
temperance campaign by one Father Matthew in 1838 for starting it,
while others say it was an unintended result of a crackdown by the
authorities at that time on the illegal brewing of poteen, whiskey
made from potatoes.
The effects of ether were like those of alcohol, but the drinker
passed through the stages of intoxication to insensibility much
more quickly. He also sobered up after only a few minutes with no
hangover. One problem with drinking ether was that it turns into a
gas at body temperature. To get around this, the usual technique
was to drink a glass of cold water followed by a shot of ether. The
water cooled the mouth and throat sufficiently to get the ether
into the stomach in liquid form. A frequent side effect was violent
belching of flammable gas. Since houses were lit by naked flames,
ether drinkers sometimes set themselves and others alight.
The practice was etheromania and drinkers were sometimes described
as etherists and etheromanes as well as etheromaniacs. An article
in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1891 wrote of
local women in Ireland holding "ether bees".
Etheromania was also recorded from Scotland, Norway, Russia, Italy,
France, parts of the USA, and Britain - an article in the Nebraska
State Journal in 1897 said, "In London the keepers of the various
squares and parks often find under the trees empty vials labelled
'ether' that have been thrown there by the maniacs who quit their
homes in order to indulge their favorite passion at their ease".
The practice died out in the 1890s in Ireland after the government
reclassified ether as a poison that could be sold by registered
pharmacists only.
[Thanks to Ian Simmons, whose letter to the New Scientist alerted
me to this astonishing practice and its vocabulary.]
2. Recently noted
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STICKLERISM Robert Smallwood told me about a series on language,
And Sometimes Y, that has just finished on CBC in Canada. When I
visited its Web site, almost the first word I noted was this one.
It clearly means the state or condition of being a stickler - over
language in this case - and it's an obvious enough formation that
turns up a couple of hundred times in Google search results. But it
hasn't yet been included in any dictionary that I've consulted. It
has a history of sorts, with a few examples in books. The earliest
I've found is in a work of 1898 (still in print), The Heart-Cry of
Jesus by Byron J Rees: "Sanctification destroys sticklerism for
non-essentials and the lust for fine distinctions in dogmatics."
CBC page: http://www.cbc.ca/andsometimesy/pastshows.html?episode1
PLUTO THE VERB At the risk of boring you all speechless with more
about the Great Demotion, there's some small amount of evidence
that the name of what we must now learn to call a dwarf planet has
turned into a derogatory verb meaning that a person has been
downgraded or sidelined in some way: "I thought the girls liked me,
but they've plutoed me completely." You may feel - as I do - that
its lifetime will be short.
GHOST-RIDE THE WHIP Younger Californians will know that I've been
slow to spot this one, but do bear with me while I expound. It's
one part of a West Coast black cultural phenomenon called "hyphy"
(short for "hyperactive") that's been around for the better part of
a decade. "Whip" means a car; to ghost-ride it is to crank your car
stereo up to 11 with your favourite music, put the car into drive
(it's an automatic, of course, this is America), then get out and
dance on the hood (bonnet in Britspeak) or alongside. The craze was
given a big push when the rapper E-40 issued a track called Tell Me
When to Go that featured ghost-riding.
MOBIFICATION This word has popped up in news items this week. It
is said to have been invented by Orange, the mobile telephone firm,
as a blend of "mobile" and "modification". It accompanied reports
about a survey that claims to have found that 86% of mobile phone
users aged 16-18 have modified their handset in some way, though
the majority have just downloaded a new ringtone. The fashion for
painting or drawing designs on handsets or attaching charms to them
is much more a Japanese thing than a British one, but Orange says -
or hopes - it is catching on. Orange has set up a site to promote,
judge, and reward phone modifications, and also to sell ringtones
and graphics to the less artistically inclined.
3. Q&A: Since Hector was a pup
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Q. A Canadian friend of mine, born 1938, is fond of the phrase
"since Hector was a pup", meaning since long ago. Comment? [Anton
Sherwood]
A. Only those of us with long memories will know this one well:
it was in fashion at about the time that Hector really was just a
pup. It began to appear in North American newspapers around 1906
and almost immediately became a catchphrase that later spread
around the English-speaking world.
There's quite a variety of ideas behind it. "Hector" seems to
have been a fairly common name for dogs at the time. This was
borrowed from the name of the hero of the Trojan War, the son of
Priam and Hecuba, who became a symbol of the consummate warrior.
By the early twentieth century, "pup" was also well established
as a mildly dismissive name for a young person, particularly an
inexperienced beginner. So Hector was a pup a very long time ago
indeed. Another expression of the period using his name was "as
dead as Hector", known from the 1860s. Those versed in Greek
mythology (there were more then than there are now) would have
remembered that in later life Hecuba was turned into a dog for
killing Polyxena, the murderer of her son Polydorus, so you might
consider Hector to have been a literal pup, perhaps even the
original son of a bitch.
Those associated with the RAF in World War Two will know that it
was common to speak of a period in the past as one "when Pontius
was a pilot". An older example from sailing-ship days, according
to Eric Partridge, speaks of a time "when Adam was an oakum boy
in Chatham dockyard" (1).
There are others. A variation on the theme is "when Pluto was a
pup". As the first example I can find is from a newspaper advert
dated 1947, that looks as though it derives from Disney's dog,
who was named in 1931 after the then newly discovered (and now
late) planet.
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(1) Oakum was the loose fibre created by untwisting old rope, a
word derived from Old English "acumbe", literally "off-combings".
With tar, it was used to caulk the seams between the planks of
wooden ships; an oakum boy unpicked the oakum (a tedious job
often used as a punishment on board ship) and was considered the
lowliest worker in the yard. Chatham dockyard was a major British
naval shipbuilding centre on the Thames down-river from London.
4. Q&A: Losing one's marbles
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Q. Can you tell me the origin of the expression, "He has lost his
marbles", meaning gone mad or lost his reason or done something
really stupid? Being a Londoner myself, I suspected it might be a
Cockney expression but I recently heard it in Peter Pan where the
uncle (who is not quite 'compos mentis') is said to have found
his lost marbles. Is this the origin? [Mike Pataky]
A. There's no mention of marbles in J M Barrie's original 1904
play, Peter Pan. Might you have been confused by Hook, the film
that was made from it in 1991? That includes the exchange:
Peter: Ha ha ha! He really did lose his marbles, didn't he?
Tub: Yeah, he lost them good!
which clangs discordantly on my British ear, since "lost them
good" is a classic Americanism, not natively known this side of
the big water, and therefore an expression that the Scottish
Barrie could not have used. "To lose one's marbles" is equally
American and the same comment applies.
It is, as it happens, pretty much contemporary with the play. The
earliest example given in the standard references is from It's Up
to You; A Story of Domestic Bliss, by George V Hobart, dated
1902: "I see-sawed back and forth between Clara J. and the smoke-
holder like a man who is shy some of his marbles."
That certainly sounds like the modern meaning of "marbles" which
as you say refers to one's sanity. But in an earlier appearance,
the writer used it to mean angry, not insane ("mad", that is, in
the common US sense rather than the British one). It was printed
in the Lima News of Ohio in July 1898: "He picked up the Right
Honorable Mr Hughes on a technicality, and although that
gentleman is reverential in appearance as Father Abraham and as
patient as Job, he had, to use an expression of the street, lost
his 'marbles' most beautifully and stomped on the irascible
Harmon, very much à la Bull in the china shop."
The origin must surely come from the boys' game of marbles, which
was very common at the time. To play was always to run the risk of
losing all one's marbles and the result might easily be anger,
frustration, and despair. That would account for the 1898 example
and it's hardly a step from there to the wider meaning of "mad" -
to do something senseless or stupid.
5. Sic!
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Last Monday's issue of The EE Times Newsletter, Robert Smallwood
discovered, reported that "In an elaborate effort to promote the
virtues of renewable energy, a crew of New Zealanders is aiming to
break the world record for circumventing the globe in a powerboat
using a 78-foot craft powered exclusively by biodiesel."
"In Australia," comments Larry Thomas, "We do not have Tennants
Beer but the firm must be coming here - there are so many signs
erected on vacant sites with the words 'Will Develop to Tennants
Requirements'. I wonder if people that take up a career as sign
writers have ever heard of a dictionary!"
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