World Wide Words -- 20 Aug 11
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Aug 12 16:53:27 UTC 2011
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 749 Saturday 13 August 2011
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Author/editor: Michael Quinion US advisory editor: Julane Marx
Website: http://www.worldwidewords.org ISSN 1470-1448
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Contents
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1. Feedback, notes and comments.
2. Weird Words: Lagan.
3. Q and A: The weakest go to the wall.
A. Subscription information.
B. E-mail contact addresses.
C. Ways to support World Wide Words.
1. Feedback, notes and comments
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BASKET CASE A number of readers argued that I had underemphasised
a second figurative meaning, of a person who has suffered a mental
breakdown as the result of stress or unbearable emotion. Several
others implied this by noting that they had assumed, or had been
told, that the term came about through basket-weaving therapy in
mental institutions.
TAGARENE Han Groen e-mailed from the Netherlands to say that a
closely similar Dutch word exists: "It is not a weird word, but
old-fashioned for someone who buys and sells old ship materials.
The Dutch word is "tagrijn" and it is supposed to come from the
Aramaic language. Until a decade ago the word was still used in the
Penal Code." This is a fascinating cross-language similarity; might
it have been the origin of this odd English dialect word? J de
Vries's Nederlands Etymologisch Woordenboek of 1971 points out,
alas, that the word is late entering Dutch and may derive from the
northern English term rather than being its source. He also says
"the origin of the Aramaic may be said to be questionable".
2. Weird Words: Lagan
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In the way they employ language, lawyers are like scientists. They
use words in specific, closely-defined ways that laypeople often
misuse or misunderstand. Take the four terms flotsam, jetsam, lagan
and derelict, a euphonious collection from the law of the sea that
sounds like a Groucho Marx firm of lawyers. We may think that we
know the meanings of all these - apart from the rare and specialist
"lagan" - but lawyers and seafarers will tell us differently.
Many people are confused about the difference between "flotsam" and
"jetsam", one idea being that flotsam is goods that float on the
sea while jetsam is goods that have washed up on the beach. This
confusion can be traced back to the sixteenth century because of a
misunderstanding of the wording of a law. Any shipwrecked goods
that reach the shore are instead legally called wreck. It's also
often assumed that they're much the same thing, which is why the
two words have become the set phrase "flotsam and jetsam":
What might seem to be the material flotsam and jetsam
of everyday life, for some people is emblematic of the
process of change. It is collected as an outward
reassurance to oneself and a testimony to the world that
they have existed.
[The Independent, 26 Jul. 2011.]
Lawyers make a subtle distinction between them. "Flotsam" (from the
Anglo-Norman "floteson", connected to our "float" and to late Latin
"flottare", to float) is goods from a ship that has sunk which can
be recovered because they remain afloat; "jetsam" (a variant form
of English "jettison" formed by association with the slightly older
"flotsam") is goods that have been deliberately thrown over the
side of a ship in an emergency to lighten it and so save it from
shipwreck.
Of the other two, "derelict" in this context has a technical sense
of goods that have sunk to the seabed, can't be retrieved and are
regarded as having been abandoned by their owner. "Lagan" - which
derives from Old French but may be linked to an Scandinavian word
associated with English "lie" and "lay" - also refers to goods or
wreckage that has sunk to the seabed, but marked, usually with a
buoy, so it can be retrieved later.
3. Q and A: The weakest go to the wall
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Q. My parish magazine has an article which relates the meaning of
"the weakest to the wall" to the provision of seats at the back of
churches for the infirm, at the time when congregations stood in
the nave. Having taken your newsletter for some years, I have
learned to ask, "Is this correct?" [Brian Hudson]
A. Aha, a convert. This story, and variations, are frequently given
as the origin of this saying, especially in histories of ancient
churches. Where etymology is concerned, it's always worth querying
the wisdom of the commons. On the other hand, since the expression
is so ancient, I expected little could be said about it. Research
proved how wrong I was.
What we do know for sure is that the expression is recorded first
in the Coventry Mystery Plays of about 1500 in a form that's very
close to our modern proverb: "The weakest go ever to the wall". It
must surely have already been a well-known saying. A century later,
Shakespeare uses it as a witty riposte by one Capulet servant to
another:
SAMPSON: A dog of that house shall move me to stand. I
will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague's.
GREGORY: That shows ye a weak slave, for the weakest goes
to the wall.
[Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare, 1595-
96.]
This is where matters get complicated. A surprisingly large amount
of ink has been expended in arguing, largely on the basis of this
exchange, that the public road is the origin of the expression. It
all hangs, you may be astonished to learn, on the profile of the
narrow streets of crowded medieval towns. One theory assumes that
they were cambered like modern ones, sloping from the centre to
gutters on either side:
In the days of our forefathers the streets were
narrow, and there were no pavements; while discharging
pipes and running gutters by the sides of the walls made
the centre of the road the more agreeable place for the
traveller. Wheeled conveyances of divers sorts passing
and repassing forced the foot-passenger to the side of
the road. Hence the proverb, "The weakest goes to the
wall."
[Proverb Law, F Edward Hulme, 1902.]
However, the most recent edition of Shakespeare that I have on my
shelves, from the Royal Shakespeare Company, argues that streets
sloped down from the sides to a gutter in the centre. It says that
Sampson's "I will take the wall" means he proposes to walk or ride
in the best place, along the edge of the street by the wall, so
forcing everybody else (Montagues in particular) into the gutter in
the middle. From what little I know about medieval town drainage
and the phrases in question, I'd guess that the RSC has this right,
though as most streets have two sides, why the Montagues couldn't
simply walk along by the other wall puzzles me.
Perhaps the most widely held of the theories, after the church
seating one, is to link a connection with medieval streets with
another idiom, "to have one's back to the wall", meaning to be in
dire straits with no way to escape. In a skirmish or melée, it's
argued, the weakest fighters would be forced to retreat until they
could back no further. Contrariwise, you may feel that a position
against a wall during a fight meant nobody could come at you from
behind, limiting the number of assailants you had to cope with. The
idea is often linked to a crush in a narrow street caused by heavy
traffic or a riot. Bystanders would be forced against the walls
with no place to go, a highly undesirable situation. The weak would
literally be forced against the wall.
This doesn't exhaust the theories. In no particular order of date
or verisimilitude: "To lie by the wall" once referred to a ship
laid up against a dock or harbour wall, hence useless; much has
been made of a reference to the dialect of Norfolk and Suffolk in
Francis Grose's Provincial Glossary of 1787, "He lies by the wall.
Spoken of a person dead but not buried"; one writer insisted that
in the days of communal beds, the youngest and feeblest were placed
on the inside against the wall, with the father on the outside of
the bed ready to repel danger.
Modern references I've consulted, such as the Oxford Dictionary of
Proverbs, cautiously subscribe to the origin you quote. They point
to the installation of seats - usually stone benches - around the
walls of churches in the late Middle Ages. These were reserved for
the old or infirm, since everybody else stood during the services.
As a result, it's suggested, a link was created in people's minds
between being at the wall and incapacity or failure. But all the
references accept there's no evidence for it except common belief.
A. Subscription information
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