World Wide Words -- 03 Aug 13

Thu Aug 1 22:02:00 UTC 2013

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WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 843           Saturday 3 August 2013
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Contents
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1. Culprit.
2. Pony up.
3. Sic!
4. Subscriptions and other information.

1. Culprit
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This is a common word with a strange genesis, arising out of an old 
legal abbreviation, compounded by popular etymology.

When England was conquered by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings, 
French became the language of the law. It remained in use among 
lawyers even after the language of the courts changed to English in 
the fourteenth century, latterly in a stylised and degenerate form 
called law French. Fragments of law French survive even to this day 
in parliamentary proceedings. "Culprit" is another survivor. 

The records are sparse, but the usual explanation goes like this: if 
a prisoner in a medieval court pleaded not guilty to the charge, the 
prosecutor would respond with the words, "Culpable: prest d'averrer 
nostre bille", which may loosely be translated as "We believe him to 
be guilty and I am ready to prove the charge". This was recorded in 
the court rolls as "cul prest" or "cul prist".

The two key words are "culpable" and "prest". The former remains in 
English in the sense "deserving of blame", ultimately from Latin 
"culpa", blame or fault. "Prest" is Anglo-Norman, meaning "ready", 
which survived in English until the eighteenth century, but which 
has become "prêt" in modern French (as in "prêt à manger", ready to 
eat, or "prêt à porter", ready to wear).

The abbreviation "cul prest" became modified down the years and was 
somehow misunderstood very late on in the history of law French to 
be the way that the accused was to be addressed. It turns up first 
in the record of the trial in 1678 of the Earl of Pembroke for 
murder; he was asked: "Culprit, how will you be tried?"

"Culprit" became part of the language in the sense of the accused 
person. During the following century people came to believe that it 
meant a guilty person, perhaps in part because of a confusion with 
"culpa".

2. Pony up
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Q. Where does "pony up" come from? [David Shapiro]

A. This is a classic American expression, but one now widely known 
in other parts of the English-speaking world. To "pony up" means to 
pay what you owe or settle your debt. It usually refers to a 
smallish sum of money:

    The promotion offers Virginians 16 and older the chance 
    to fish without a license for three days in the hopes some 
    of those folks will have so much fun they'll decide to 
    pony up a few bucks for the privilege of fishing for the 
    next 12 months.
    [The Roanoke Times (Roanoke, Virginia), 2 Jun. 2013.]

It dates from the early nineteenth century. This is the earliest 
example so far known:

    The afternoon, before the evening, the favoured 
    gentlemen are walking rapidly into the merchant-tailors 
    shops, and very slowly out, unless they ponied up the 
    Spanish. 
    [The Rural Magazine and Farmer's Monthly Museum, May 1819.]

("Spanish" here is slang for money, a term known a little earlier in 
Britain - Francis Grose recorded it in the 1788 edition of his 
Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. It's short for "Spanish 
money", from an association of Spain with rich treasure fleets, 
doubloons and pieces of eight.)

It seems very likely that "pony" similarly derives from English 
slang. It appears in several works at about the same time, including 
the 1796 edition of Grose's book. It also turns up in another famous 
work, which will expand even further your knowledge of long-obsolete 
slang terms for money:

    It's everything now o'days to be able to flash the 
    screens - sport the rhino - show the needful - post the 
    pony - nap the rent - stump the pewter.
    [Tom and Jerry, by W T Moncrieff, 1821.]

The presumption is that it comes from the equine pony because it was 
a small horse, as relatively small as the sums of money which users 
were concerned with. Among the moneyed classes a "pony" at this time 
meant 25 guineas (later 25 pounds), a very large amount at the time 
by most people's standards, but presumably not thought excessive by 
individuals who paid their bills in guineas. Horses for courses, you 
might say.

3. Sic!
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"The quote below," emailed Hal Norvell, "is from a local newspaper 
here in central Maine. The source is the Associated Press. 'A court 
in Cameroon found two men guilty under the country's law banning gay 
sex on Tuesday, a lawyer said ....'"

Nancy Miller found this in the Premier Traveler magazine for June & 
July, reviewing ANA business class: "The meal was expertly finished 
off with a decedent Pierre Hermé Paris dessert: vanilla and dulce de 
leche ice cream with raspberry sauce."

Speaking of decedents, the New York Times obituary of 26 June for 
the photographer Bert Stern contained this sentence, Kate Schubart 
reports: "His death was confirmed by Shannah Laumeister, a longtime 
friend, who said she and Mr. Stern had been secretly married since 
2009. No cause was given."

It-could-have-been-better-punctuated department: in a story about 
acute oak decline, a bacterial disease which is afflicting British 
trees, the Guardian on 16 July referred to "Brian Muelaner, an 
ancient oak adviser at the National Trust."

Detlef Pelz read a Reuters report dated 1 August on the website  of 
The Age in Australia: "Mr Chong's lawyers have said that he was 
arrested at the home of friend during a raid by a drug enforcement 
task force investigating an ecstasy trafficking ring that included 
DEA agents, sheriff's deputies and San Diego police officers."

4. Useful information
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