World Wide Words -- 03 Jan 09
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Jan 2 19:48:14 UTC 2009
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 620 Saturday 3 January 2009
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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. Turns of Phrase: Mari-fuel.
3. Recently noted.
4. Weird Words: Candent.
5. Elsewhere.
6. Q&A: Capitulate and recapitulate.
7. Sic!
A. Subscription information.
B. E-mail contact addresses.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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ROUND THE TWIST Several subscribers queried this expression, used
here by a correspondent two weeks ago. It's British and Australian,
meaning eccentric, mad or crazy. It came into the language some 50
years ago as a variation on "round the bend"; it's first recorded
in a play by Danny Abse of 1960: "I knew he was barmy. I knew that
man was round the twist, sayin' things like that."
SIC(K)! The many subscribers who were concerned about the absence
of the Sic! section from the past two issues will be reassured by
its reappearance in this one. It was just a temporary malaise.
2. Turns of Phrase: Mari-fuel
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So far as online records show, this word burst upon the world for
the first time on 17 December 2008, in a press release announcing
that European Union funding of EUR6m (£5m or $8.5m) had been won
for the BioMara project. This is a cross-border project involving
researchers from Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland. The aim is to find ways to convert seaweeds and marine
algae into fuels. One hope is that it will help rural communities
in these countries, who may be able to use fast-growing seaweeds
such as kelp to make a locally produced and cheap fuel that won't
take up valuable agricultural land. "Mari-fuel" is an obvious
parallel to the better-known "agri-fuel", for fuels derived from
agricultural products.
* Daily Telegraph, 18 Dec. 2008: The development of mari-fuels
could have a lasting impact on remote and rural communities by
providing locally produced, relatively cheap, low impact fuel as
well as serving the local public transport infrastructure.
* Guardian, 18 Dec. 2008: Motorists may soon be driving cars
powered by kelp and algae after scientists in Scotland and Ireland
won European funding today for a new research project to create
"mari-fuels" - the marine equivalent to plant-based biofuels.
3. Recently noted
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WII KNEE The story was first reported, so far as I can discover,
in the Daily Telegraph on 19 December. One feature of the Nintendo
Wii (pronounced "we") is that it's possible to play various active
games on it using its motion-sensitive remote. Researchers at Leeds
Teaching Hospital are said to have invented "Wii knee" for injuries
suffered by people playing games such as Wii Tennis with too much
enthusiasm or while out of condition, injuries similar to those
caused by playing the real sports emulated on the machine. However,
the Telegraph article included references only to injuries to the
hand and back, not the knee. But the rhyme in "Wii knee" is too
good to let facts get in the way. The term is actually a little
older - it appeared in an article in CNet Asia in October 2007:
"Wii wrist and Wii elbow were soon followed by Wii shoulder, Wii
neck, and down to Wii knee and Wii hip. Wii ailment has quickly
acquired the notoriety of [the] next national disease in Japan."
A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY Andrea Alam e-mailed from New Jersey, having
seen the repeat on Christmas Day of the 1999 version of A Christmas
Carol starring Patrick Stewart as Scrooge. Early in the film, two
men come to his office asking for charitable donations:
VISITOR: Is this the office of Scrooge and Marley?
SCROOGE: It is, sir.
VISITOR: May I press your cudiles, Sir?
Ms Alam is understandably puzzled by this word "cudiles", which is
the spelling that is used in the TV captioning, though I hear it
more like "caleels". No such word exists in the English language,
of that I'm pretty sure. Dickens certainly didn't write that line
into his story. What could have been meant?
Was it a slip of the tongue by Edward Petherbridge, the actor who
played the charity collector, which was left uncorrected for some
reason? Did Peter Barnes, who wrote the television script, invent
it to keep us guessing? (I can't ask him, unfortunately, as he died
in 2004.) A person may certainly press another's hand, and Edward
Petherbridge takes his glove off and proffers his hand to Scrooge
as he speaks, but my ingenuity fails in trying to turn "cudiles"
into "hand". He could hardly have been asking to press Scrooge's
suit (though it could have done with a trip to the cleaners). My
spellchecker offers "cuddles" and "cudgels" as replacements, which
evoke intriguing images but no sensible solution.
A search online shows that the question has been asked several
times with no response. Unless one of the actors can remember (I've
sent messages to ask but hold out little hope of a reply) this must
remain a minor mystery.
4. Weird Words: Candent /'kand at nt/
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Glowing, as if with white heat.
Though only large dictionaries include it and the Oxford English
Dictionary says it is obsolete or archaic, "candent" has retained a
toe-hold on usage, largely in SF and fantasy novels whose authors
delight in obscure language.
Neal Asher used it in The Voyage of the Sable Keech: "The rock blew
apart in a candent explosion, hurling pieces of itself out into
space", as did Robert Asprin in his fantasy anthology Shadows of
Sanctuary: "Shards punched through knife holes and widened them to
let quicklime spill down in a candent stream". Clark Ashton Smith
wrote it into The Black Abbot of Puthuum: "Noon, with its sun of
candent copper in a blackish-blue zenith, found them far amid the
rusty sands and iron-toothed ridges of Izdrel", and Poul Anderson
borrowed it for The Long Night: "The stars were scattered about in
their myriads, dominantly ruby and ember, some yellow or candent,
green or blue."
It was almost completely replaced by "incandescent" in the first
decades of the nineteenth century. Both are relatives of "candour",
"candid" and "candidate", the linking thread being the concept of
whiteness. The last three are from Latin "candidus", white (Roman
candidates for public office wore white togas and white was then
figuratively the colour of innocence and frankness). "Candent" is
from the verb "candere", to be white or to glow, and "incandescent"
derives from the related verb "candescere", to become white.
5. Elsewhere
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BANNED WORDS Lake Superior State University has issued its annual
list of words that ought to be banished from the English language
because of misuse, over-use and general uselessness. Among those to
be figuratively cast out are "maverick", "green", "first dude",
"carbon footprint", "bailout" and "staycation". Go via my link
http://wwwords.org?LSSU for more details.
6. Q&A: Capitulate and recapitulate
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Q. Could you shed some light on the utter disconnection between the
meanings of "capitulate" and "recapitulate"? [Qi Xiao, China]
A. It hadn't struck me before you wrote, but these verbs, the first
meaning to surrender, the second to state again the main points of
a matter, strangely seem to have no sense in common. "Recapitulate"
certainly doesn't mean to surrender again. However, as their forms
suggest, both derive from the same Latin word, "capitulum", a
diminutive of "caput", head; "capitulum" meant a chapter or title,
in general the heading of a discourse. Both "capitulate" and
"recapitulate" came into English within a few years of each other -
near the end of the sixteenth century - but their paths have
diverged greatly.
The early users of "capitulate" meant by it much what the Romans
did by its progenitor - the verb "capitulare" that derived from
"capitulum" - to list by chapters or headings, to enumerate or
specify. In English "capitulate" took on the sense of drawing up
articles of agreement or proposing terms, specifically to bargain
or parlay to end a military conflict. Shakespeare is the first
known user, in the first part of Henry IV. The king says, "Percy,
Northumberland, / The archbishop's grace of York, Douglas,
Mortimer, / Capitulate against us." By this the king means that
these individuals were parlaying with him. Over the next century,
"capitulate" moved further to suggest concluding an agreement; by
the end of the seventeenth century it came to refer in particular
to agreeing a surrender, the sense which it still retains.
"Recapitulate", on the other hand, has stuck closely to the meaning
of its Latin progenitor, actually to a late Latin derivative, the
verb "recapitulare". This meant to go through a text again, heading
by heading. "Recapitulate" has always had the idea of going over
something a second time, usually in a summary or more concise form.
7. Sic!
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"In our local market," notes Bob Bendesky, "I saw an egg box which
proudly proclaimed 'Vegetarian fed hens'. Animal rights groups may
be dedicated to their cause, but allowing chickens to eat them is
going too far."
Noreen Ramsden mentioned a notice she once saw at a farm gate near
the Biggin Hill aerodrome: "Do it yourself manure £1 a bag."
Muddled metaphor alert. A San Francisco Chronicle story with the
dateline 19 December started: "San Francisco office rents dropped
22 percent during the fourth quarter from the previous year, the
largest decline in seven years, as the shrinking financial services
industry flooded downtown with empty space." Jim Tang wonders if
he's the only person who has trouble visualising the process.
A message from Ann Jones in Auckland pointed me to the online New
Zealand Herald and an article dated 1 January under the headline
"Flat beer market forces innovation". Lost its head, perhaps?
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