World Wide Words -- 13 Mar 10
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Mar 12 18:37:27 UTC 2010
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 681 Saturday 13 March 2010
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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. Weird Words: Mononymous.
3. What I've learned this week.
4. Q and A: Honky-tonk.
5. 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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SEE-SAW AND TEETER-TOTTER Lots of messages arrived from American
readers about these two words. It wasn't the intention of either
the questioner or me to assert that "teeter-totter" was the only
term used in the US. The difference between our two countries is
that "teeter-totter" is unknown in the UK. As many people told us,
"see-saw" is the usual term in large parts of the US, with "teeter-
totter" being regional - one online dictionary says that it is
"Chiefly Northern, North Midland, and Western US". For easterners,
"teeter-totter" is usually known only from books. Other names for
the device have been used, as this writer notes:
The literary word "seesaw" is, of course, known
throughout New England, but it does not as readily slip
from the tongue of the country people and of many a city
dweller as some local term, such as "teeter" or "tilt" or
"dandle". In many quarters "seesaw" is still felt as a
high-flown or as a book word.
[New England Words for the Seesaw, by Hans Kurath, in
American Speech, Apr. 1933.]
2. Weird Words: Mononymous /mQn'QnIm at s/
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If you are mononymous, you have become well known by one name only,
like Napoleon, Shakespeare, Einstein, Morrissey, Pelé or Cher.
The parade of mononyms on the pop chart is getting
monotonous: Beyoncé, Pink, Adele, Rihanna, Duffy, Akon,
Usher, Mims, Eminem, Seal, Brandy, Joe et al. Estelle
knows how to set herself apart from [the] mononymous
pack. She put on a terrific show Friday at First Avenue
in Minneapolis, one that suggested that she's the best
all-around mononym to come along since Beyoncé.
[The Star Tribune, Minneapolis, 1 Mar. 2009.]
Occasionally, the word is used to refer to sole authorship of a
work, particularly in cases in which the hidden contribution of a
collaborator is suspected. The periodical Household Words is a
famous case:
"The periodical is anonymous throughout," remonstrated
Dickens, one day, when he had been suggesting to Mr.
Jerrold to write for it. "Yes," replied the caustic wit,
opening a number, and reading the title, "'Conducted by
Charles Dickens.' I see it is - mononymous
throughout."
[The Life and Writings of Charles Dickens, by Phebe A
Hanaford, 1871.]
The ending "-onymous" includes the Greek "-onym" (from "onuma",
name), plus the Latin-derived adjectival ending "-ous". Some words
in "-onymous" are well known: anonymous, eponymous, pseudonymous
and synonymous. Others are less-familiar adjectives that have been
formed from nouns: "homonymous" (from homonymy) and "metonymous"
(from metonymy). Some are rare: "onymous" (of writing that bears
its author's name) and "tecnonymous" (relating to the practice of
naming a parent after their child).
3. What I've learned this week
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INITIALISMS These financial wizards love their abbreviations. In
the UK, we've had a NICE period, which Mervyn King, Governor of the
Bank of England, coined for "Non-Inflationary Constant Expansion".
Now we're entering a long DRAG, which stands for "Deficit Reduction
and Anaemic Growth".
MORE TELEVISION Scott John e-mailed me from Edinburgh, following
my item about "steam television" last week, to ask if I'd heard of
the term COUNCIL TELLY. I hadn't. It refers to the British free-to-
air terrestrial television channels. "Telly" is a common British
colloquial shortening of "television" and "council" is a reference
to "council houses", low-rent social housing, built and owned by
local authorities. The idea is that occupants of council houses
can't afford the rental costs of cable or satellite TV and are
restricted to the basic five terrestrial channels.
4. Q and A: Honky-tonk
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Q. Do you know the origin of "honky-tonk"? A firm called Ernest
Tonk made pianos in New York in the late nineteenth century, and
their heavy and robust pianos (a few of them are still around) will
have found their way into many a dive where they may well have
given rise to the term - but do you know any different? [Marcus
Patton]
A. Yes.
The term "honky-tonk" is frequently linked to the firm of William
Tonk & Bros of Chicago and New York, founded in 1880, whose sturdy
upright pianos began to be manufactured in 1889 under the name of
Ernest A Tonk (William had a nephew named Ernest A Tonk but he was
born in 1889 and was never associated with the business; he became
a well-known painter). The firm may have assembled pianos earlier,
using a German action.
It's equally often stated that the link is with Tin Pan Alley in
New York, which is said to have employed Mr Tonk's pianos in the
1890s. This supposed link is used to explain how "honky-tonk"
became a term for a type of ragtime piano music.
However - and this is where yet again I shoot down a common belief
- "honky-tonk" is also first recorded in 1889, although it was
clearly already sufficiently well known not to need explaining. It
meant a type of low entertainment. Though a piano was often used to
accompany performances, there hadn't been enough time for "tonk" to
have become associated with pianos and then shift its meaning to
refer to the whole entertainment. The other objection is that its
first appearances are a long way west:
A petition to the council is being circulated for
signatures, asking that the Honky Tonk theater on Main
Street be reopened.
[Daily Gazette (Fort Worth, Texas), 24 Jan. 1889.]
Myself and him set and talked awhile and he got up and
said he wanted to go to the honk-a-tonk (variety
show).
[Morning News (Dallas, Texas), 6 Aug. 1890.]
"Variety show" was a euphemism employed by their proprietors, who
hoped, unsuccessfully, to present them as reputable establishments.
Honky-tonks in the Old West were a mixture of bawdy music hall,
casino, saloon cheap dance hall and brothel, frequently linked to
lawlessness and violence. By the time they began to be given that
name, some of the crude energy of the frontier had faded from them,
although they were still low-class dives catering for working-class
men, with a reputation for fleecing their customers. This is why
"honky-tonk" later came to mean something disreputable and squalid.
The Daily Gazette quotation refers to a battle between owners and
the Fort Worth city council, which a year earlier had closed a
couple of them on Main Street as part of a long-running and largely
unsuccessful attempt to crack down on bars that also housed less
savoury activities.
>From some distance in both time and space, it was possible to look
back on them with misplaced nostalgia. An article that originated
in New York remarked sadly, "The once popular institution is dying
off." It described a sentimental vein in their performances that
appealed to their rootless and lonely male customers:
Ordinarily, the honkatonk opens about nine o'clock,
and continues in full blast until one, or thereabouts, as
long as its patrons will patronize the bar. ... The
programme is made up largely of specialties. Whatever the
feeling of a long-suffering public, the honkatonk
vocalists never will permit "Sweet Rosie O'Grady" and
"Just One Girl" to perish from the earth, and coon songs
are sung as May Irwin never did and never will sing them.
Always at least one drama is presented, the entire
company, vocalists, dancers and all, participating.
[Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada), 3 Feb. 1900. This is
a syndicated reprint of an article in the New York Sun of
unknown date. May Irwin, by the way, was a vaudeville
actress and singer of the period. Thanks to researcher
Barry Popik for finding this.]
Having firmly refuted popular understanding of the origin of the
term, you will be awaiting my definitive alternative. Alas, there
isn't one. Nobody has the slightest idea where the word comes from,
though the scholarly opinion is that it must surely be another of
those rhyming duplications, most probably based on the raucous
nature of the establishments.
Other false etymologies include the suggestion that "honky" refers
to the derogatory black slang term for a white person, which didn't
appear in print until the 1960s. Some early references, such as the
definition in the Century Dictionary of the 1890s, called them "low
groggeries" patronised by the blacks of the southern United States,
which might suggest a link, but as the examples above show, this is
a false view of their geographical spread, function and clientele.
We may also disregard the following story, though it is coated with
the patina of ages and has often been retold:
Every child of the range can tell what honkatonk means
and where it came from. Away, away back in the very early
days, so the story goes, a party of cow punchers rode out
from camp at sundown in search of recreation after a day
of toil. They headed for a place of amusement, but lost
the trail. From far out in the distance there finally
came to their ears a "honk-a-tonk-a-tonk-a-tonk-a," which
they mistook for the bass viol. They turned toward the
sound, to find alas! a flock of wild geese. So honkatonk
was named.
[Evening Gazette (Reno, Nevada), 3 Feb. 1900.]
5. Sic!
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In an article by Michelle Hanson in the Guardian on 5 March: "If
the government are considering competency tests for dog owners, I
say go for it - and compulsory microchipping, neutering, third-
party insurance." All very good, but what about the dogs?
David Marshall-Martin was delighted to read the AAP wire service
report on 28 February about the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras:
"Many were disappointed they couldn't penetrate the thong of
onlookers."
If I squint out of an upstairs window, I can just see the River
Severn, famous for its tidal bore. We've recently had the largest
for eight years, which led the BBC Web site to announce "Big Bore
Attracts Crowds." No surprise to find it's since been changed.
The Daily Telegraph quoted on 7 March from an MI5 manual of 1945
about suitable surveillance personnel: "From experience it has been
found that the ideal watcher should be 5ft 7in or 8ft in height,
looking as unlike a policeman as possible." David Overton notes
that it needs revising, "as the day of the 5ft 7in policeman has
indeed arrived. The 8ft-tall spy, on the other hand, would now be
no more conspicuous than in 1945."
A Guardian editorial on Thursday presumably slipped through a time
warp from the year 3998. It quoted a speech by the British Foreign
Secretary, who - by a quirk of nature - was still David Milliband:
"In 1988, I would never have believed that 2010 years later I would
be British foreign secretary explaining a war in Afghanistan."
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