World Wide Words -- 04 Jul 09
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Jul 3 17:07:18 UTC 2009
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 645 Saturday 4 July 2009
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Factotum.
3. My new book: Why is Q Always Followed by U?
4. Q and A: Two hoots.
5. Q and A: Ducks in a row.
6. 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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I BEFORE E Following my piece about this last time, many readers
reported having learned different versions of this rule. It was
noticeable that nearly all were Americans - British readers were
presumably in my situation of only having learned the "I before E
except after C" basic rule. Many versions were no more than slight
variations on the ones that I quoted, but others introduced new
ideas. Sister Mary Elizabeth Mason was taught "I before E except
after C when the diphthong rhymes with KEY." A F Dias learned an
addition: "When I and E in separate syllables go, you only need
listen to know." Several learned a rider listing common exceptions.
Larry Sewell's version was "Neither leisured foreigner seized the
weird heights", while Jane Steinberg had learned the longer form
"Neither leisurely foreigner could be inveigled into seizing the
weird heights." (As I pointed out in the piece, "neither" and
"either" are exceptions to the rule in the US because of the way
they're pronounced.)
ESPERANTO I didn't realise until messages began to come in after
my book review last week that Esperanto had dialects. I wrote that
I had learned the Esperanto words for "Do you speak Esperanto?" as
"^Cu vi parolas Esperanton?" Several readers wrote to say that they
had learned it as "^Cu vi parolas Esperante?". Kim Braithwaite told
me this was the version that he learned many years ago: "The '-e'
is an adverbial ending and seems originally to have been motivated
by the counterpart adverbial structure of the inventor's Polish or
Russian, something like 'Do you speak in the Russian or Polish
manner?'" Both forms appear online, though mine is about ten times
as common. A third form is also common, which leaves out the "-n"
ending on "Esperanto" that indicates a direct object. Arika Okrent
noted this in her book; there is a strong tendency, perhaps under
the influence of English, to lose the case marker. While searching,
I also turned up "Esperanglish", the term for a hybrid Esperanto-
English argot.
WHY IS Q ALWAYS FOLLOWED BY U? Several clever readers pointed out,
having read the title of my new book, that it isn't always, for
example in words imported from Arabic, such as "qat", the narcotic
drug obtained by chewing the leaves of a shrub. That, of course, is
part of the point and is thoroughly explained in my answer in the
book. Penguin has no intention of renaming it Why is Q (Nearly)
Always Followed by U?
ISSUE DELIVERY PROBLEMS Some subscribers have reported not getting
the last couple of issues or that issues have arrived very late.
The problem is particularly severe for those on the various Yahoo!
systems. We're not sure what's causing it, but we're working on it.
2. Weird Words: Factotum /fac't at Ut@m/
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When the word first appeared, it was always paired with another to
make what looked like a personal name. Dominus Factotum was a ruler
with absolute powers, Magister Factotum was a master of all, while
a Johannes Factotum was a would-be universal genius who could turn
his hand to anything. His modern equivalent is Jack-of-all-trades,
which probably derives from it.
For there is an upstart crow, beautified with our
feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a
player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out
a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute
Johannes fac totum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-
scene in a country.
[Robert Greene, A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a
Million of Repentance, 1592. Spelling modernised. The
object of his ire was William Shakespeare.]
Greene wrote "factotum" as two words, as was common at the time,
since he would have known very well that it derives from two Latin
words, "fac!", the imperative of "facere", to do, plus "totum", the
whole thing. The experts aren't sure where it was coined, since
similar expressions turn up in French and German in the middle to
late sixteenth century at about the same time as they appear in
English.
Since then, "factotum" has gone down in status. It now refers to a
servant or employee of lowly status who is expected to turn his
hand to any job that comes up.
Uncle Fred continued his job as roundsman and general
factotum when Mr Wigley replaced the horse-drawn vans
with new electric delivery vehicles around 1952.
[Derby Evening Telegraph, 25 May 2009.]
3. My new book: Why is Q Always Followed by U?
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Not only a new book, but the first to be published by Particular
Books, a new imprint of Penguin Books. It came out officially on
Thursday and should soon be available worldwide. The question of
the title is just one of 200 that I answer. Though all have been
taken from this e-magazine and its associated Web site, every one
has been freshly researched with new information not available at
the time the answer was originally written. Indeed, such is the
pace of etymological discovery at the moment, several had to be
rewritten a second time to accommodate new facts that came to light
during the writing of the book. Almost every one is illustrated by
annotated quotations that help readers to understand how words and
phrases evolved and place them in their cultural context. A review
by Erin McKean, formerly editor in chief of the second edition of
the New Oxford American Dictionary and editor of Verbatim, will
appear here shortly.
[Michael Quinion, Why is Q Always Followed by U?, published by
Particular Books, an imprint of Penguin Books, on 2 July 2009;
hardback, 352pp; publisher's UK list price £12.99. ISBN-13: 978-1-
846-14184-3; ISBN-10: 1846141842.]
AMAZON PRICES FOR THIS BOOK
Amazon UK: GBP11.69 http://wwwords.org?WQFU1
Amazon US: No price http://wwwords.org?WQFU3
Amazon Canada: CDN$16.38 http://wwwords.org?WQFU6
Amazon Germany: EUR15,99 http://wwwords.org?WQFU8
[Please use these links to pre-order your copy. They get World Wide
Words a small commission at no extra cost to you.]
4. Q and A: Two hoots
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Q. I wonder if you could tell me the origin of "I couldn't give two
hoots" meaning "I couldn't care less". It is an expression that was
used widely when I was a boy (a long while ago) in Australia though
I don't hear it used much these days. I was told that it was an old
expression based on the old British word for the hoot of an owl. If
so, why two hoots? Is it English or is it a more recent Australian
and New Zealand idiom? A theory I've heard is that the word came
from Maori "utu" meaning a small amount of money. [Peter Evans,
Australia]
A. I like the theory about the Maori origin, even though it's quite
wrong. There's nothing Australasian about it at all but the phrase
isn't British either. The evidence shows it's from the US.
A hoot in this slangy sense is the tiniest little bit of something,
a whit or jot. To care not even that much shows just how little you
really do care about some matter. The original form - which started
to appear in the 1870s - had just the one hoot, but it got doubled
up later for dramatic effect, around the time that it started to be
elaborated into phrases like "I don't care a hoot in hell!" My
first example of the dual hoot is this:
New Russian doesn't give two hoots for a warm water
port or for the state of the southern Slavs; he considers
himself a citizen of nothing less than the world
[The headline (no need to read the story) over an
article by Charles Edward Russell in the Sheboygan
Journal of Wisconsin, 24 Aug 1917.]
It might refer specifically to the hoot of an owl but some examples
suggest it's more general than that, most likely harking back to
two senses known in the seventeenth century: either a loud cry or a
shout of disapproval (as in "hoots of derision"). The owl hoot was
taken from the human cry and doesn't appear until near the end of
the eighteenth century; the slang sense of an amusing situation or
person ("your mother's a real hoot!") is of the early 1920s.
5. Q and A: Ducks in a row
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Q. What is the origin of the phrase, "getting your ducks in a row?"
It seems to be common in the English-speaking world, and I know
that the meaning conveys the idea of getting one's affairs sorted,
but how and why did the phrase come out this way? Why ducks? When
you get them in a row, do you shoot them all with just one bullet?
[Leo Campbell]
A. It does indeed refer to having matters neatly and efficiently
organised and all your duties taken care of. It became known in the
1980s as a management exhortation to staff but is now a cliché.
This is an early example:
"Be there eleven earliest," Toby had said; "Eleven is
already too early, George, they won't arrive till
twelve." It was only ten-thirty but he wanted the time,
he wanted to circle before he settled; time, as Enderby
would say, to get his ducks in a row.
[Smiley's People, by John le Carré, 1980.]
Until recently, it was thought that the first written example was
only a year earlier, in Stephen King's novel The Stand with the
variation "to line up one's ducks", from 1978 (though I've since
found it in a report of a Congressional hearing from 1956). Then
Barry Popik of the American Dialect Society found it in an issue of
the Washington Post dated 13 June 1932 ("We have a world filled
today with problems and we are trying to get our economic ducks in
a row"), suggesting that it had been around much longer. I've now
found this:
"Didn't we have a grand meeting?" she said, nodding
lightly to first one and then the other. "I believe it's
going to be all right, and you can tell your wives their
children will go to a high-school yet. I'm so glad all
you men came. Thank you very much --" "You didn't need
us." The man standing next to the steps laughed. "The
work was done before to-night. You had your ducks in a
row all right."
[Miss Gibbie Gault, by Kate Langely Bosher, 1911.]
The first image that comes to mind when I hear the expression is of
a lower middle class living room in Britain in the 1950s or 1960s,
which might well have a set of three painted plaster ducks marching
in a neat diagonal line up the wall. They are not now often found,
the fashion for them having been mocked out of existence by middle-
class commentators.
Writers have suggested that the idiom comes from the game of pool,
in which a ball in front of a pocket, an easy shot, is sometimes
called a duck. To have a row of balls ready to be potted was to
have all one's ducks in a row. The term is known (it derives from
"sitting duck") but there's no evidence it has anything to do with
the idiom. More plausibly, it's been suggested that it derives from
the fairground amusement of shooting at a row of mechanical ducks.
But in view of the known age of the expression, it is most likely
that it comes from real ducks. Think of a mother duck taking her
brood from nest to water with her ducklings waddling in a line
behind her. That's an image that could have led to the idiom being
created at almost any time.
6. Sic!
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Bernard Madoff's financial crime has been described as "violent" in
its effects, noted Martin Turner, but one investor appears to have
suffered exceptionally. The BBC News site reported on 29 June: "'I
think it was certainly a justified sentence,' said Judith Welling,
who lost $2.5m along with her husband."
Still on the BBC News site, Susie Elins says she's worrying about
Michael Jackson's posthumous drug habit after reading this on 26
June: "Celebrities and fans pay tribute to Michael Jackson amid
concerns over the singer's use of pain medication following his
sudden death." Worry not, Ms Elins, the BBC has since changed it.
In a story in the New Zealand Herald on 22 June about José Manuel
Barroso, Iain MacLean found this sentence: "The President of the
European Commission is dismissed by some as a bland pragmatist and
by others as an invertebrate opportunist." Lacking backbone, eh?
What are we to make of the comment in the New Zealand Sunday Star
Times on 28 June, noted by Cliff Walker, that obesity was "a
growing problem"?
Mike Troy asks what turns out to be a pertinent question, "Are pigs
hogging the show in your halls of education?" They're not in New
York State, since a headline in the Putnam County Times on 24 June
announced, "Health Department Confirms Brewster Schools Clear of
Swine."
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