World Wide Words -- 16 Nov 13
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Nov 15 19:13:37 UTC 2013
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WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 858 Saturday 16 November 2013
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Contents
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1. Feedback, Notes and Comments.
2. Jobsworth.
3. Snippets.
4. Crackerjack.
5. Sic!
5. Subscriptions and other information.
1. Feedback, Notes and Comments
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COMPRISE Dave Hay commented, "I don't have a problem with the
active form of 'comprise', as in 'Scissors, thread and sewing cards
comprise the kit'. Indeed I use the expression more often than the
more 'correct' one you cite. But 'comprised of' is an abomination.
This is because people really want to say 'composed of', but imagine
that somehow 'comprised of' is classier. It is not. It is simply
wrong. Say 'composed of' instead."
Several readers noted that "comprise" is a term of art in patent law
and means "include", the exact opposite of its everyday sense. Many
US patents include this preamble: "Throughout the description and
the claims, the words 'comprise,' 'comprising,' and the like are to
be construed in an inclusive sense as opposed to an exclusive or
exhaustive sense; that is to say, in the sense of 'including, but
not limited to.'" Jonathan Bentley added, "In patents, the opposite
of 'comprise' is 'consisting of', which means that the invention is
limited to what follows, nothing more or less."
Of all the criticism I feared might follow this mildly contentious
piece, I wasn't expecting most would refer to my use of singular
"their" in "for a serious writer who values their reputation". I
stand firm: http://bit.ly/singthey. But see Sic! below.
2. Jobsworth
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"Jobsworth" is a censorious British term for an official who upholds
rules at the expense of humanity or common sense.
How on earth could we have created a system that allows
a little jobsworth social worker to throw his weight
around in this absurdly dehumanised way, which makes a
complete mockery of the claim that the system's only
concern is to put "the interests of the child" first?
[Sunday Telegraph, 13 Oct. 2013.]
"Jobsworth" has been in use since the early 1970s, sometimes in the
mock polite form "Mr Jobsworth" (jobsworths are usually presumed to
be male). The BBC television programme That's Life! popularised it
in the early 1980s through its creation of the Jobsworth Award for
obstructionism beyond the call of duty. Esther Rantzen, the show's
presenter, said it was for "the stupidest rule and the official who
stamps on the most toes to uphold it".
In origin "jobsworth" is a neatly abbreviated reference to "it's
more than my job's worth", either the ostensible excuse for his
action by a minor functionary delighted to be able to use his
authority to thwart his fellows or the cry of someone frightened of
using his initiative and risking his position. The longer expression
is well enough known that when Howard Lester collected examples of
jobsworths at work in a book in 2012 he did so under that title.
It began to appear at the beginning of the twentieth century, though
in this early example the policeman isn't a jobsworth but is afraid
that a rule-bending good turn will attract the ire of his superior:
The policeman wheeled round again and spoke in a
hurried whisper. "You can't do it now, sir," he said. "The
inspector's coming along. It's more than my job's worth if
he sees you. You walk round and come back again in five
minutes. Quick now, sir."
[The Compleat Oxford Man, by Arthur Hamilton Gibbs,
1911.]
3. Snippets
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IN VERBIMORIAM Friday 22 November is the fiftieth anniversary of
the assassination of John F Kennedy. By an awful coincidence, his
end overshadowed the deaths the same day of the British authors C S
Lewis and Aldous Huxley. Lewis is recorded in the Oxford English
Dictionary as first recorded user of several words that you may not
recognise: "planetolatry", the idolatrous worship of the planets;
"poetolatry", immoderate veneration of poets; and "rhetoricisation",
presentation in line with the principles of rhetoric. He is also
credited with the first use of "Tolkienian", relating to his close
friend J R R Tolkien or to his writings, and "escapist", someone who
seeks distraction from reality or routine. Huxley's most famous
creation was "hypnopaedia", sleep-learning, which he used in Brave
New World in 1932 alongside "sexophone", a musical instrument that
produces sexual sensations. His recorded first uses are more worldly
than those of Lewis. They include "good-timer" (a person who pursues
pleasure recklessly), "nymphomaniacal", and "callipygous" (having
beautiful buttocks, a less common form than "callipygian", which
I've written about here: http://bit.ly/callypyg ).
OUT TO GRASS Frances Beith asked about the origins of "gardening
leave" (also "garden leave"), a period of enforced leave from a post
in a commercial or public organisation. The practice is widely used,
especially in the UK, to prevent a disaffected employee from gaining
access to sensitive information or to stop someone accused of a
disciplinary offence from influencing a subsequent investigation.
But its origin seems to lie in the armed services, as it's mentioned
in a question to Parliament in June 1917 in connection with pay for
servicemen on leave; as it appears without any explanation it may
have been a customary term even then. It's described in Brassey's
Defence Yearbook for 1978 as "the military euphemism for what is
colloquially known in theatrical circles as 'resting'." As any actor
will forcefully tell you, the difference is that gardening leave is
paid.
RILED-UP NEEBS Jonathan Meades wrote about picture postcards in the
Guardian last week. He mentioned that the line down the middle that
separates the message from the address is called the "rile", though
he can't find its origin. He adds that the rectangular box top right
showing where to stick the stamp is called a "neeb", from "Dieter
Neeb, the publisher from Fulda in Bavaria who invented the marking".
I can find nothing about either word in the postcard sense anywhere
and suspect a leg pull somewhere along the way.
4. Crackerjack
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Q. I was of the impression that "cracker jack" was originally used
to describe a squared-away US sailor, related to the early meaning
of the term "crack" which you described in a recent article, and
with "jack tar" for a sailor. Then it was appropriated for a brand
of candied corn. Is this right? [James Agenbroad]
A. "Crackerjack", spelled like that, is now widely known everywhere
English is spoken as a way to identify something as excellent. (Here
in Britain it's inextricably linked to a BBC children's TV programme
of that name, which ran from 1955 to 1984.) In origin, though, it's
as American as you are, Mr Agenbroad.
Let's start with the candied corn. North American readers will know
of this long-established proprietary snack of sugary peanuts and
popcorn, for which advertisements first appeared in newspapers in
1896. An often-retold story about its naming has an early customer
saying "it's crackerjack" on tasting it. That must be apocryphal,
though it's certainly possible that an early user could have
described it that way.
That's because "crackjack" for something excellent had appeared
about a decade earlier, initially as a slang term in horse racing,
and sometimes as two words:
Among horsemen generally, the opinion was that Proctor
Knott would, in time, be put in first-class condition and
that it will take a "cracker jack" to beat him next
year.
[New York World, 3 Sep. 1889.]
It quickly became fashionable and was applied to champions in the
new sport of cycling, to excellent baseball players, successful
gamblers and generally to anything or anyone superb or superior in
quality. It was a savvy choice of name for the snack.
You're right to link the first part of the term with the much older
user of "crack" as a term of approval, a usage I discussed recently
in connection with "crack shot" (http://bit.ly/crcksht). "Jack" here
was probably added to rhyme with "crack" to make the epithet more
bouncy, although it could be - as you suggest - the generic term for
a man (as in "jack tar" and "jack of all trades"), which would make
"crackerjack" a person with excellent qualities.
US Navy sailors have been called "crackerjacks", though that's a
transferred term from the nickname for their blue uniforms, which
are formally called enlisted service dress blues. Its source is
advertisements for the Cracker Jack snack, which from 1916 began to
feature a uniformed Sailor Jack (and his dog Bingo) and the term was
taken up by US Navy sailors themselves.
In short, the usage has changed greatly over time: "crackerjack"
first denoted excellence, then it became a trade name, then it was
transferred to a particular US naval uniform and then sometimes to
the sailors who wore it.
5. Sic!
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John Pearson found this in an article of 5 November on the website
of the Smithsonian Magazine: "In an attempt to consolidate the power
of their two businesses, Mr. Ponsardin and Mr. Clicquot did what any
shrewd business owner in the 18th century would have done: married
their children." To each other, it transpired.
"It seems an odd mandate," was Bill Snowden's response to November's
issue of the Atlantic: "The most recent example is Tuesday's defeat
of Washington state's Ballot Initiative 522, the latest of several
statewide initiatives to require GMO labeling to fail."
"Laid-back drivers escape electric-car battery fire", the Detroit
News might have headlined a story of 7 November on the basis of a
sentence in it which Dan Aldridge submitted: "The good news is that
drivers have enough time to get out of the car, and don't appear to
initially be as intense as an exploding gas tank, Kane said."
A piece in the Independent on 2nd November about the last episode of
the Poirot TV series was spotted by Len Blomstrand and Oscar Heini.
It contained the revelation that "The wrap party was held in a
marquis in the grounds of the house".
An anonymous contributor reports that the website of WDIV-TV in
Detroit had an article on 12 November that could have been better
punctuated: "As he was walking through Meadowbrook Hall he saw
something that made his heart stop hanging in a dark corner of one
of the rooms."
Paul Madarasz pointed out that the care2.com website wrote about an
attack on a "gender-neutral" California teenager who wanted to be
referred to as "they". The website respected their wish but tripped
over its pronouns: "Sasha suffered second- and third-degree burns to
the legs that will require significant skin grafting. They will
probably be hospitalized for two to three weeks." Just the legs?
6. Useful information
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