World Wide Words -- 24 Sep 11
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Sep 23 16:08:08 UTC 2011
WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 755 Saturday 24 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: Inenarrable.
3. Wordface.
4. Q and A: Political stripe.
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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GONE FORTH Readers mentioned that the story about the never-ending
task of painting has been attached to other bridges, notably the
Golden Gate Bridge and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Since both were
built many years after the Forth Bridge, it is possible that local
knowledge and pride provoked a transfer of location, rather than
independent creation.
Andrew Haynes responded to my question about how long it will take
for the cliché about eternally painting the Forth Bridge to die: "A
survey of other popular clichés suggests it may take a very long
time. We still talk about sending people to Coventry, even though it
is nearly 350 years since the English Civil War, when Royalists
captured in Birmingham were sent to the Parliamentarian stronghold
of Coventry. Other outdated place-related clichés that remain in
popular use include 'carrying coals to Newcastle' and 'shipshape and
Bristol fashion'. And dozens of other clichés have survived for
centuries even though users often no longer understand their literal
meanings: 'hoist by one's own petard', 'beating about the bush',
'Hobson's choice', 'loose cannon', and 'beyond the pale'."
BLUE MURDER An accidental phrase in my piece last week resulted in
some criticism from Canadians. I'd written, "This idiom is largely
restricted to Commonwealth countries. North Americans prefer to cry
bloody murder." It was "north" that roused them to complain, quite
rightly - since Canada is a Commonwealth country my second sentence
contradicted the first.
2. Weird Words: Inenarrable /Inen'ar at b(@)l/
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It doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, which may have contributed
to its rarity in modern English. We also have other words to express
the same idea, such as indescribable and inexpressible. Some writers
have chosen it as an alternative to "ineffable", something that's
unutterable, too great for description in words:
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
[The Great Lover, by Rupert Brooke, 1914.]
It's ultimately from Latin "enarrare", to recount or describe fully,
whose root has bequeathed us "narrate" and its relatives. Classical
Latin scholars attached the negative prefix "in-" to make the
adjective "inenarrabilis" for something that's inexpressible or
which defies description. In the fifteenth century, the adjective
"inenarrable" based on this arrived in English via French.
More prosaically, some authors have borrowed it to demonstrate the
breadth of their vocabularies or to enpurple their prose:
A long draught of the corrosive nectar, to be savoured
with the inenarrable contentment which the divine fruit of
such a pilgrimage deserved, washed gratifyingly around Mr
Uniatz's atrophied taste buds, flowed past his tonsils
like Elysian vitriol, and swilled into his stomach with
the comforting tang of boiling acid. He liked it.
[The Saint in Miami, by Leslie Charteris, 1941.]
3. Wordface
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COSTUME NOT REQUIRED You may remember that back in May I discussed
the craze called PLANKING, in which you lie stiffly horizontal on
top of some object, the odder the better, and get your photograph
taken to prove you've done it. This was followed by OWLING, in which
you had to do nothing more taxing than crouch on your haunches and
stare into the middle distance like the bird. Then there was the
short-lived stunt called HORSEMANNING, in which two people pose so
that it looks as though one person's head has been removed and put
somewhere else. Reports say that this was prompted by the posting
online of an old photo from the 1920s showing such a scene (though
the accompanying suggestion that this was a craze of the time would
seem to be incorrect, as I can find no reference to it anywhere in
the historical record). Its name - from the story of the Headless
Horseman in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - is new. Part four of this
sequence of activities is BATMANNING, a name and action derived from
the fictional character and from the mammals. To be a BATMANNER, you
suspend yourself upside down with your toes hooked over some object,
such as a street sign, a door or a wall.
GOING, GOING, WITHDRAWN A British legal property website scored a
PR success this week through spicing up a press release about the
poor state of the housing market with a word that its founder had
invented: GAZANGING. Many British newspapers used the word in their
reports of the release, which claimed that one in four house sellers
were pulling out at the last minute, either because they couldn't
find a suitable property themselves or were worried about the state
of the market. The new word is a play on the much older GAZUMP,
known mainly in British and Australian English, in which a seller
accepts an offer to buy but abandons the buyer before the legal
formalities are completed in favour of a better offer (it's probably
from Yiddish "gezumph", to overcharge or cheat). The new word blends
"gazump" with "(left) hanging". It's reminiscent of another blend
that was created during the 1980s: GAZUNDER (from "gazump" and
"under" - nothing to do with the colloquial term for the china
receptacle that "goes under" the bed). In this bit of trickery, a
buyer reduces the offered price near the date of exchange of
contracts when there is little chance of the seller finding another
purchaser, forcing the seller either to accept the lower bid or
abandon the sale.
4. Q and A: Political stripe
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Q. In Canada we recently lost the Leader of the Opposition, Jack
Layton. Describing the tributes from diverse sources, the phrase
repeated in TV, radio and newspapers was "of all political stripes".
After a few days I began to wonder whether we are a nation of zebras
and tigers and pyjama manufacturers, and I have to ask where this
idea of political stripes originated. [Jo Leath]
A. First off, it's not new, by any means. The earliest I've so far
unearthed is in a speech to the US Congress in 1852 but it must be
older. Commentators have found it a useful phrase to mean a person's
affiliations. It's now more popular than it has ever been.
Over the past decade, the easiest way of bonding with
an American of any political stripe has been to make a
joke about the French or praise Blair.
[Daily Telegraph, 4 Sep. 2011.]
It would be good to think that the source was an animal association,
but the only link of that sort which turns up in the record are
idiomatic references to a cat of a different stripe. That phrase
"different stripe" is also common and shows that "political stripe"
is a special case of "stripe" in a related figurative sense. Like
"political stripe", "stripe" by itself is known from US politics of
the 1850s onwards in the same sense.
Where it comes from is - for a change - indisputable. It derives
from a slangy term of the 1820s onwards for the narrow strips of
coloured material sewn to military uniforms to indicate rank, such
as the three stripes of a sergeant.
Although I used to wear the colonel's livery, yet I had
the full corporal's stripes on my coat.
[London Labour and the London Poor, by Henry Mayhew,
1861.]
In the armed services, a person's stripes were a mark of his status
or position. "Stripe" soon shifted colloquially to refer generally
to a person's views or affiliations, or to his type or category, not
only in politics but also in religion and other matters ("criminals
of all stripes", "hero of a different stripe", "a guest artist of
some stripe") and more recently has extended to inanimate objects
("magazines of every stripe", "well-designed games of any stripe",
"folk music in many stripes").
5. Sic!
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On 14 September, the Advertiser in Adelaide had an article entitled
"Snacks to cure your cravings", reports Julia Miller: "Start your
day with a good breakfast or cure your afternoon cravings with the
specials at the supermarkets this week. Foodland is selling Quilton
toilet rolls 6pk for $2.99 ..." High in fibre?
Henry Peacock saw a report on the website of the Lancashire Evening
Post website on 14 September: "The spokesman said: 'A man and a baby
were found deceased at the address.' Residents said the man, who is
believed to be in his 40s, confirmed police and ambulance were at
the house."
The Financial Times of 17 September confused Jacob Morgan by saying
that "An Oxford University spin-off started in a researcher's garden
shed on Monday marks a milestone in its 51-year history as it joins
the FTSE 250 index of leading medium-sized listed companies."
Hyphenation problems, in the Wall Street Journal of 16 September:
"The Emmys keep buying what 'Mad Men' is selling. The 1960s Madison
Avenue saga won its fourth consecutive best drama series award
Sunday, while big-hearted romp 'Modern Family' claimed its second
best comedy trophy." Joel Karasik felt that it was about that that
they started giving awards for second best.
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