World Wide Words -- 14 Nov 09
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Nov 13 14:06:00 UTC 2009
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 665 Saturday 14 November 2009
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent each Saturday to at least 50,000 subscribers by e-mail and RSS
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448
http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A formatted version of this e-magazine is available
online at http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/wdwx.htm
To leave the list or change your subscribed email address, see
Section A below or go to http://wwwords.org?SUBS. Don't e-mail
me with subscription matters unless you are having problems.
This e-magazine is best viewed in a fixed-pitch font.
For a key to phonetic symbols, see http://wwwords.org?PRON
Contents
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Niddering.
3. What I've learned this week.
4. Q and A: Bull in a china shop
5. Sic!
A. Subscription information.
B. E-mail contact addresses.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
-------------------------------------------------------------------
ACERSECOMIC "Not to forget 'sphragidonukhargokometes'," e-mailed
Michael Keating, "as coined by Aristophanes to mean a rich lazy
long-haired youth". A word ending in "-comic" that's not in the
Oxford English Dictionary is "gerocomic", which Peter Weinrich told
me about. It refers to a "practice of rejuvenating an old body by
the proximity of the breath of a fresh, blossoming youth", as it
was described in a book he found, Die Kunst das Menschliche Leben
zu Verlängern (The Art of Extending Human Life) of 1798. But this
is misleadingly similar, since the "-comic" ending is from a
different Greek word, "komia", a tendency.
MUGGINS Several readers pointed out - I'd forgotten it - that the
term has a special meaning in the card game cribbage. If a player
fails to claim his full score on any turn, his opponent may call
out "Muggins" and take the overlooked points for himself. It is, as
I have now discovered, the only optional rule in American cribbage
tournaments. The Oxford English Dictionary has its first example
from as recently as 1946, but it seems to be somewhat older: it
turns up in an American edition of Hoyle dated 1922. It is clearly
from the same source; a person who omits to record his full score
allows himself to be exploited by his opponent. An old card game -
from the mid-nineteenth century - is also called Muggins; in this
the person left with cards at the end, and hence has lost, or who
puts cards down in the wrong order, is given that name.
SARCASTIC FRINGEHEAD My puzzled enquiry last week about why this
fish should be sarcastic has exposed my limited grounding in the
classical languages, as numerous better-informed readers explained.
The word derives from Greek "sarkazein", to tear flesh or to gnash
teeth. (It has ameliorated its meaning somewhat in moving between
languages.) As the fish is an ambush predator that's aggressive in
attacking its prey and defending its territory, the common name is
appropriate, but is probably an academic joke.
Christopher Joubert responded: "I have added it to my short list of
animals with names suggestive of emotion. The other two I have come
across so far are the Blushing Snail, endemic to St Helena; and the
Depressed Mussel, found in Wicken Fen near Cambridge." A fourth he
might add is the Pacific Black Duck, whose scientific name is "Anas
superciliosa", as Ronald Besdansky notes from Australia. He queried
how a duck could possibly be described as supercilious, until the
Oxford English Dictionary told him that an old sense of that word
was "pertaining to the eyebrows" (it's from Latin "supercilium",
literally an eyebrow, though its adjective could mean "haughty"
even in Roman times). The duck has white stripes above and below
the eye.
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN Several readers pointed out that last
week's UK press reports about the average colour of the universe
being beige were old news. The story dates from 2002 and there have
been no developments since. Ivan Baldry, one of the astrophysicists
who carried out the original research, tells me NASA's Astronomy
Picture of the Day chose to feature the story on 1 November for
reasons unknown (a quiet day on the astronomy front?), and the UK
press pack ran with it, believing it to be topical.
2. Weird Words: Niddering /'nId(@)rIN/
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This obscure word - meaning a coward, or cowardly - is the result
of an error, but one which has been rubbed true by time. It's very
rare, but can carry a special punch when it appears:
Stripped of its outer integuments of salacity and
fraud, the inner man is revealed as timid and niddering,
lying to the last firm handshake and as sickly yellow as
a poisonous toadstool.
[Paul Johnson, writing in the Spectator, 22 May
1999.]
The historically correct form, which is now even rarer still, is
"nithing". The fault was that of the printer in the 1590s who had
the job of setting William of Malmesbury's historical works in
type. He misread the eth character in the old spelling "niðing" as
a "d" followed by a mark, which he assumed meant an "e" had been
omitted. The result was "nidering", which later writers made to
conform with the usual rules of English spelling by adding a second
"d".
Its original, "nithing", derives from an ancient Scandinavian legal
term, the Oxford English Dictionary explains, that meant a person
"who has committed a crime so heinous that no possible compensation
may be made for it." It was taken over into the legal system of
England before the Norman Conquest in the sense of a coward or
outlaw. Later, it came to mean a miser or a treacherous person.
Conversely an "unnithing" was an honest or generous man.
"Niddering" owes much of what little circulation it has had in the
past two centuries to the once-popular Sir Walter Scott, who used
it in Ivanhoe in 1819.
3. What I've learned this week
-------------------------------------------------------------------
VERBING NOUNS "I heard it and thought of you," Paul Hoffman wrote
recently. "The word was DILIGENCING. It was in a conversation by
two people in the airport queue behind me, who sounded like venture
capitalists or accountants, or both. It clearly was shorthand for
'performing a due diligence examination'. It takes a lot to make me
gag, but this one did." Generations ago, one could speak of
"diligencing" in a different transport setting - taking a vehicle
called a diligence through continental Europe (it was a stage-
coach, a shortening of "carrosse de diligence", a coach of speed).
It appeared, for example, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine in 1857
in an article about Americans taking the waters in Europe:
"steaming to Trieste; diligencing and railroading to Vienna".) The
modern sense appears a few times in print, as in Business Wire in
January 2009: "[He] is involved in working on business strategies
with the firm's partner companies, in addition to originating and
diligencing new investment opportunities." Most definitely jargon
of the trade.
AN E-WORD TOO FAR? Trendy words beginning in "e-" for "electronic"
(frequently meaning electronic communications) have been created in
increasing numbers over the past 15 years. Recent examples include
"e-pharmacy" (an online retailer of medication), "e-forensics" (the
study of electronic communications to defeat crime), "e-petition"
(an online petition, in particular one posted to the Web site of
Number 10 Downing Street), "e-tailer" (an online retailer) and even
"e-fridge" (an Internet-linked device that will re-order items when
they run out). One that seems odder than most is the adjective E-
BANDONED that I came across a few days ago, which describes those
members of a community who have no computer and no online access -
either because they can't afford them or because they are older and
feel unable to learn how to use them. The term first appeared in
the UK in October 2007.
POSSIBLY PAINFUL With cattle it's irreversible, but it's different
with trains, I've learned. The British government has taken the
London-to-Edinburgh rail route back from its private operator and
will run it for the next couple of years as a public service. One
result, according to a letter recently sent to all staff, is that
station signage will be DE-BRANDED.
4. Q and A: Bull in a china shop
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Your site makes the study of English more fascinating! I always
wondered as to what might be the origin of the phrase "a bull in
the china shop". We studied English composition in school and this
phrase cropped up many times. [Gautam Y Utekar, India]
A. It's still common, though rarely meaning reckless destruction of
a physical kind. More usually, it's a way to express a metaphorical
clumsiness. The damage is caused by want of diplomacy or tact or
through mindless aggression that falls short of actual violence.
One minute he's a bull in a china shop; the next an
impervious super negotiator.
[Boston Globe, 24 Oct. 2009.]
It's on record from the beginning of the nineteenth century. It's
one of those idioms that seems to have arrived fully formed without
anybody having to go to the trouble of creating it. Was there ever
a real bull that rampaged through a real china shop, leaving chaos
and destruction behind him, so giving rise to the simile? Perhaps
not, though an open-fronted shop in a market town might easily have
had such an encounter with an escaped animal. But if you wanted to
form a phrase that suggested uncontrolled and uncaring actions with
disastrous results, to set a bovine rampaging though a porcelain
emporium would be as good as you could wish for.
By 1834, the idiom was well enough known that a music-hall song
full of bad puns was written about it:
Whate'er with his feet he couldn't assail,
He made ducks and drakes with his horns and his
tail.
So frisky he was, with his downs and his ups,
Each tea service proved he was quite in his cups.
He play'd mag's diversion among all the crates,
He splinter'd the dishes, and dish'd all the
plates.
[A Bull in A China Shop, an anonymous contribution to
The Universal Songster or Museum of Mirth, 1834. "Mag's
diversion", or "Meg's diversion", was then a common term
for boisterous behaviour or unruly antics.]
The following extract suggests that it might have had its origin in
a minor theatrical production, though we shouldn't read too much
into this review from two centuries ago. It is, on the other hand,
the first recorded use of the phrase I've been able to find:
The business is whimsical and amusing; the changes are
numerous, and the tricks, though highly ludicrous, are
for the most part original; - at least, we do not
remember to have met with any thing like them before. The
extraordinary spectacle of a _Bull in a China Shop_
afforded great entertainment; and an artificial elephant
introduced, was welcomed with loud plaudits.
[The London Review and Literary Journal, Jan. 1812,
reporting a performance of a pantomime called The White
Cat, or Harlequin in Fairy Land.]
By the way, the only recorded incident I know of in which a bull
was deliberately introduced into a china shop was by the famous
American publicist and press agent Jim Moran, who in January 1940
led a bull through a New York City china shop as a publicity stunt.
The bull didn't damage anything, but some china was broken when a
bystander backed into a table while getting out of the way.
5. Sic!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Unfortunate inversion of sense department: Susan Bradley found a
news story in The Times about a young man up in court for having
urinated on a war memorial during a pub crawl. His solicitor was
quoted: "He has suffered considerable public approbation."
"Unreal, man!" was the comment of Mícheál Ó Doibhilín from Dublin.
He was referring to the blurb on the packet of Walkers sensations
crisps [potato chips] he recently bought. It boasted that they're
"Infused with _real ingredients_ ensuring each and every one of our
crisps delivers a _real taste sensation_."
Department of post-mortem struggle: The Sydney Morning Herald of 7
November, David Killeen tells us, reported on the release of three
young green sea turtles. It told of the enormous trials and risks
facing baby turtles in crossing beaches from their nests to get to
the sea. "By the time the baby turtles reach the open ocean, at
least one-third are dead".
A. Subscription information
-------------------------------------------------------------------
To leave the list, change your subscription address or resubscribe,
please visit http://www.worldwidewords.org/maillist/index.htm .
You can also maintain your subscription by e-mail. For a list of
commands, send this message to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org:
INFO WORLDWIDEWORDS
This e-magazine is also available as an RSS feed, whose source is
at http://www.worldwidewords.org/rss/newsletter.xml .
Back issues are at http://www.worldwidewords.org/backissues/ .
B. E-mail contact addresses
-------------------------------------------------------------------
* Comments on e-magazine mailings are always welcome. They should
be sent to me at wordseditor at worldwidewords.org . I do try to
respond, but pressures of time often prevent me from doing so.
* Items for "Sic!" should go to wordsclangers at worldwidewords.org .
Submissions will not usually be acknowledged.
* Questions intended to be answered in the Q and A section should
be addressed to wordsquestions at worldwidewords.org (please don't
use this address 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 . To
allow me more time for researching material, please don't e-mail
me asking for simple subscription changes you can do yourself.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The World Wide Words e-magazine and Web site are free, but if you
would like to help with their costs, there are several ways to do
so. Visit http://www.worldwidewords.org/support.htm for details.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2009. All rights
reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org .
-------------------------------------------------------------------
You may reproduce brief extracts from this e-magazine in mailing
lists, newsletters or newsgroups online, provided that you include
the copyright notice given above. Reproduction of substantial parts
of items in printed publications or Web sites needs permission from
the editor beforehand (wordseditor at worldwidewords.org).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the WorldWideWords
mailing list