World Wide Words -- 17 Sep 11
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Sep 16 17:13:02 UTC 2011
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 754 Saturday 17 September 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: Ansated.
3. Wordface.
4. Q and A: Blue murder.
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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PLATFORM Following my musings on current British train terminology,
several readers told me the verb "platform" has long been common in
the US, particularly around New York. Others pointed out that, for
obvious enough reasons, Scillonians much prefer their archipelago to
be described as the Isles of Scilly rather than the Scilly Isles.
Several British readers commented that their particular linguistic
railway horror was the term "station stop", presumably introduced by
lawyers fearful that passengers would attempt to leave a train that
was merely waiting at signals.
LORD COPPER Loren Myer wrote, "In your most recent newsletter you
wrote, 'Up to a point, Lord Copper'. This expression is unfamiliar
to my American ears, although I understand its meaning from context.
It would appear to be a set phrase - a Britishism probably requiring
no explanation to the British. I would appreciate your providing me
with some explanation of its origin." No problem. It is from every
journalist's favourite book about their profession, Evelyn Waugh's
Scoop, published in 1938, which satirises the press barons of the
time, particularly the owner of the Daily Mail, for whom Waugh had
worked. Early in the novel, the foreign editor of The Beast is
having dinner with his proprietor: "Mr Salter's side of the
conversation was limited to expressions of assent. When Lord Copper
was right he said 'Definitely, Lord Copper'; when he was wrong, 'Up
to a point'".
CARABIDOLOGIST Rendering the international phonetic symbols of IPA
into a form that can be e-mailed results in code that isn't easy to
read. But it's made worse when I get the transcription wrong. Last
week's Weird Word is pronounced /kar at bI'dQl at dZIst/ and not as I gave
it. Apologies.
2. Weird Words: Ansated /'anseItId/
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If you wish to confuse your hearers, you might describe the cup or
mug from which you drink your breakfast cuppa as ansated. But it
would merely be an irritatingly superior way of asserting that the
drinking vessel in question has a handle.
When Galileo turned his primitive telescope on Saturn, its famous
rings looked like two blobs either side of the planet (he thought
they were moons). A little later, astronomers with slightly better
instruments saw what seemed to be handles and referred, in a nicely
euphonious phrase, to ansated Saturn (or, as Hevelius described the
planet in 1655, a spherico-ansated figure).
The word now most often turns up in descriptions of ancient sacred
signs. An "ansated cross" is a T shape with a circle at the top, a
symbol that's more commonly called a ankh (from the Egyptian word
for life or soul).
Also known as the Key to the Nile and, to the early
Christians, as an "ansated cross," the ankh was believed
to ensure the immortality of every god and goddess.
[Exploring Spellcraft, by Gerina Dunwich, 2001.]
"Ansated" is from Latin "ansa", a handle. In Latin the plural of
"ansa" is "ansae" but in English it has most often been "anses",
perhaps under French influence, in which "anse" is the usual word
for a handle.
[Thanks go to Victor Charlton for suggesting this word.]
3. Wordface
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A NECESSARY TERM? It's not every day, or even every decade, that a
new term for a part of speech turns up. One appeared the other week
in an article in the Observer newspaper: NOUNJECTIVE. It's obviously
enough a blend of "noun" and "adjective" and a couple of dictionary
sites say that it does indeed refer to a noun used as an adjective
(as in "television programme", in which "television", definitely a
noun, is used adjectivally to modify the following noun). It isn't
used by grammarians or linguists and the earliest I've found is from
2000. So where did it come from? My guess is some online forum in
which an inventive individual wanted a word for the grammatical
construction but didn't know "attributive noun" (you might instead
know of "noun adjunct" or "noun premodifier"; mine is the term that
Oxford's dictionaries prefer).
GONE FORTH When somebody says that a job is like painting the Forth
Bridge they mean that it's never-ending. Although the famous railway
bridge across the Firth of Forth north of Edinburgh was opened in
1890, research by the Oxford English Dictionary has shown that the
simile first appeared in print only in 1955. But the symbolism of
the endless task was around long before then. As early as 1894, it
was reported in the Glasgow Herald: "The Forth bridge receives a new
coat of paint every three years, and one-third is done each year, so
that the painters are continually at work." In 1901, US papers noted
"The Forth bridge is constantly being repainted" and that minor fact
was repeated down the years until it was embedded in the public mind
on both sides of the Atlantic. An expensive refit using epoxy resin
and polyurethane coatings in place of traditional paint, though in
the same rust-red colour, is about to be finished. News reports last
week noted that the completion date is set for 9 December, that the
bridge will then be clear of scaffolding after 10 years work and
that it won't now need repainting for at least two decades. But how
long will it take for the cliché to die?
4. Q and A: Blue murder
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Q. I've checked your World Wide Words dictionary, but the expression
"blue murder" doesn't appear. A friend remarked about his child when
she was restrained in a supermarket, "she screamed blue murder". I
know its meaning, but why "blue", and why "murder"? [Evan Parry, New
Zealand]
A. This idiom is largely restricted to Commonwealth countries. North
Americans prefer to cry bloody murder, which is both more expressive
and easier to understand. Either way, it means to make a noisy and
extravagant protest.
As long as the bite does not come in the form of
double-digit inflation, it's all sweetness. Cross that
mark, and they're all screaming blue murder. The middle-
class loves a free lunch, subsidised healthcare and
education.
[The Hindustan Times, 6 Aug. 2011.]
Using colours as metaphors for emotion is probably as old as human
language, though they're deeply determined by culture. In English we
have phrases such as "white with rage", "green with jealousy", "see
red", "yellow streak" and "tickled pink". The emotional associations
of blue are more varied than those of most colours. It has among
others indicated constancy ("true blue"), strained with effort or
emotion ("blue in the face"), indecent or obscene ("blue movie") and
fear or depression (as in "blue funk", which in the UK means to be
in a state of fear but in the US to be depressed).
In an old entry, the Oxford English Dictionary puts "blue murder" in
a section that links it with hurtful things, particularly plagues or
pestilences, which may come from an old superstition about candles
burning blue as an omen of death. But it seems just as likely that
it derives from the same sense as that in the English version of
"blue funk", which dates from much the same period - the early part
of the nineteenth century.
"Bloody murder" in its semi-literal sense is much older: it goes
back at least to the sixteenth century:
There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
No vast obscurity or misty vale,
Where bloody murder or detested rape
Can couch for fear but I will find them out.
[Titus Andronicus, by William Shakespeare, c1591.]
This sense was still the usual one in Britain in the period in which
"blue murder" appeared and remained so afterwards. The figurative
meaning of "bloody murder" is peculiarly American and began to
appear in the 1860s, usually in the form "yell bloody murder". There
seems to be no direct link between the two phrases. In particular,
"blue murder" doesn't appear to be a euphemism for "bloody murder".
This feline couplet is the earliest example I've so far found:
Till in the trap caught, by their tails both so
taught,
Molrow and blue murder, they cried, sirs.
[The Cats, An Original Comic Song, by Michael Hall, in
The Melodist, and Mirthful Olio: an Elegant Collection of
the Most Popular Songs &c., London, 1829. "Taught" is an
old spelling of "taut"; "molrow" may be from "miaow" but
is nearer in sense to caterwauling; one sense of the close
relative "molrowing" is defined by the Oxford English
Dictionary as "the practice of socializing with a
disreputable woman".]
The expression must have been fairly common by then, because it
turns up in another song in the same collection.
The association with murder came about because our instinct on being
faced with violent assault is to shout loudly in fear. Here's a case
where the link is made explicit:
He was quite naked at the time, and screamed out
"Murder," when the prisoner said, "I'll give you blue
murder," at the same time striking him repeatedly over the
back, shoulders, and arms, until the handle of the whip
broke in two.
[Morning Chronicle (London), 9 Jan. 1855.]
However, most shouts of blue murder have been about more trivial
matters and the expression has become a disapproving comment that
points up the disparity between the amount of noise and the petty
nature of the protest: "anyone would think you were being murdered,
the noise you were making".
5. Sic!
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David Ashton spotted an unconventional big-cat attack story in the
Herald Sun newspaper of Melbourne: "Tiger hit me, says woman". It
turned out that the Tiger in question is a player for the Richmond
Football Club, whose nickname is The Tigers.
On 1 September, as Robert A Wake tells us, the Lakes Region Weekly
of Maine reported the tragic death of a couple during Hurricane
Irene. The article explained that they: "died sometime Monday night
or Tuesday morning after leaks in the generator exhaust system
malfunctioned."
"I just received an e-mail," wrote Laurie Camion, "titled 'Free fall
creative writing workshops'. Assuming I even had the presence of
mind to write in free fall, I fear it would be a very short note."
Tim Conway in Australia was browsing the BBC News and came across an
article dated 6 September about a Lincolnshire firm: "At just 1.5m
(5ft) long and costing £7,500, a Lincolnshire company claims it is
the UK's smallest legal road car." Mr Conway suggests that it's "a
truly versatile, if tiny, company."
Graeme Hirst recently received an advertisement informing him that
his home was "not protected against interior plumbing and drainage
repairs".
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