World Wide Words -- 23 Aug 14
Michael Quinion
wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG
Fri Aug 22 18:53:02 UTC 2014
World Wide Words
Issue 892: Saturday 23 August 2014
This mailing also contains a formatted version of the text.
This issue is also available online (http://wwwords.org/nbkw) .
Feedback, Notes and Comments
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CRITICISE. "It might be worth mentioning," emailed Michael Bawtree,
following my comment last week, "that because the verb 'criticise' is
no longer used in a neutral sense, the verb 'critique' has taken its
place. As a verb and a noun, 'critique' refers to a neutral judgement
of something. Why the French form has kept this objectivity is an
interesting question." Peter King made the same point and added, "The
noun 'critic' seems to swing both ways, as it were. The expression 'it
has its critics' suggests only disapproval but it is still possible to
say 'the critics loved it' without apparent contradiction."
ANIMADVERT. Patrick Martin sprang to the defence of this word, which
I discussed last week: "I must protest. It must be tough on a word to
be called obsolete in its primary meaning by the writers of
dictionaries. I have used it for years to mean 'refer to', maybe in a
mock-pompous way. I never even knew that it had a derogatory meaning."
ROGETISMS. Of this word in the last issue, Malcolm Ross-Macdonald
mused, "Combining Rogetisms with homophones could produce an almost
uncrackable code, as in 'Cos brisket rump velocipede castoff'. By the
time the spooks had parsed the first word as 'lettuce' the proposed
meeting behind the bicycle shed would surely have come and gone."
TWIGGING IT. I used the verb "twig" in last week's issue, which
provoked this reply from Ben Wise: "I have no idea what this means,
although you used it in passing, with no indication it might be as
research-worthy as everything else in today's collection of mystery
words. 'Twig' is also used in the BBC article you linked under
'uptalk'. I suspect it's a Britishism which hasn't yet made the
hazardous journey across the pond. Please clarify for us benighted New
Worlders in your next post. Thanks."
My pleasure. It is a British colloquial term, meaning to understand or
comprehend something. It dates from the eighteenth century, meaning to
watch or inspect and then to discern or recognise. Near the end of the
century the noun came to mean style or fashion, from which came "in
twig", "in fine twig" and "in prime twig", all meaning stylish or
admirable and all long since defunct, though the root verb has
survived. The Oxford English Dictionary says of this sense of "twig",
"Origin unascertained"; Jonathon Green tentatively suggests an origin
in dialect "twick", to jerk.
Raparee
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This might look like one of the many words ending in "-ee" for a
person affected in some manner by the action of the associated verb,
such as "employee", "inductee", "internee", "interviewee", or
"licensee". But the ending is accidental, as in "dungaree", "squeegee"
and "jamboree".
A "raparee" was once an Irish foot soldier, armed with a weapon that
in Irish was called a "rápaire". This is a cousin of English "rapier",
though not the same sort of weapon, the Irish one being a short pike.
The Irishmen so armed were an irregular soldiery who fought on the
Catholic Jacobite side during the war that William III waged in
Ireland in 1689-91. During and after the war, many took up thieving
and banditry, which is why their name is thought also to contain
another Irish word, "rapaire" or "ropaire", a violent person,
irregular soldier or robber.
Raparees became a menace and in 1695 the government passed An Act for
the Better Suppressing Tories, Robbers, and Rapparees. "Tory", the
nickname of members of the Conservative Party in the UK, is from Irish
"toraidhe", a highwayman or outlaw, and initially referred to Irish
peasants dispossessed by English settlers and living as robbers. It
was taken up as a term of political abuse in the 1680s for those who
opposed excluding the Catholic James from succeeding to the English
crown.
"Raparee" is now solely of historical interest, but this modern
example demonstrates that its relevance soon spread far beyond
Ireland:
We were building a schooner from the wreckage when a
horde of ill-favoured raparees attacked us - Dyaks and
Malays led by a nasty confident quean, a bloody-minded
covetous froward strumpet.
[The Nutmeg of Consolation, by Patrick O'Brian, 1991. A
quean was an impudent or badly behaved woman, from Old
English cwene, a woman, hence also queen. A froward
person was one difficult to deal with.]
The idiom "not giving a rap", meaning not caring, is said to be
connected. In the eighteenth century, Ireland was short of coinage and
counterfeit equivalents of coins of small value such as the halfpenny
or farthing were widely used instead. These came to be known as
"raps", in part from Irish "rap" for a bit or piece but also as a link
to "raparee". The idiom is recorded from later in the century.
Wordface
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VACATION BLUES. A cry of linguistic distress arrived from David Rosen:
"The Boston Globe of Saturday 16 August carries a picture of a golfer
in the buff and describes taking a naked vacation as 'nakationing'. I
suppose, like 'staycation' for those who do not travel for vacations,
it is a variation on 'vacation'. What's next? Will the equine set take
'neighcations'? Those who like the sea take 'baycations', and will
fresh water enthusiasts take 'lakeations'? Will those who do not have
vacations as a work benefit envy those who have 'paycations'? The
possibilities are limitless."
BY THE WAY. A "Sic!" item last week mentioned Rhosllanerchrugog, a
place name that will look strange to anybody not acquainted with Wales
and the Welsh language (roughly translated, it means "the moor of the
heathery glade"). Stephen Phillips pointed out that it's of linguistic
interest, being an enclave of Welsh speakers in an English-speaking
part of Wales, near Wrexham, noted for its unique Welsh words. He
quoted Wikipedia: "The main example is a word that has become
synonymous with the village: 'nene', meaning 'that'. It is pronounced
as 'nair-nair', and is sometimes used in association with another
unique word, 'ene' (air-nair), meaning 'there'. An example is the
question 'Be 'di nene ene?" - 'What's that there?'."
NEOLOGISM. Reader Norma Bates pointed out the recent growth in use of
a verb that's not yet in any dictionary, the ugly "amnetize" (from
"amnesty"). It's not new - I've found an example from 2006 - but it's
currently being used in right-wing US political debate specifically to
refer to regularising the status of illegal immigrants. It seems to be
associated in particular with Fox News.
ELSEWHERE. An interesting extract from Steven Pinker's forthcoming
book, The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in
the 21st Century, appeared in the Guardian (http://wwwords.org/pnkrgr)
last Saturday. He argues that many supposed rules of grammar can often
safely be ignored, including when to use "that" and "which", dangling
modifiers, split infinitives, "very unique" and "who" versus "whom".
I hope to be able to say more about the book next month. He doesn't
mention "hopefully", which is discussed in an article in Slate (http://wwwords.org/hpysl) to illustrate the value of the Hyper Usage
Guide of English, a collection of 123 usage problems from 75 usage
guides being created as part of the Bridging the Unbridgeable Project
at the Leiden Centre for Linguistics. The British slang lexicographer
Jonathon Green tells me that he has put together some timelines of
slang terms based on his 2010 dictionary of slang. One details terms
for being drunk (http://wwwords.org/grntml1), a second terms for having
sex (http://wwwords.org/grntml2).
Footloose and fancy free
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Q. From Pieter Bosman: We have a virtual Babel of official languages
in South Africa, eleven of them, with English the "de facto" language
of communication. I am often asked to explain the meaning and origin
of seemingly obvious expressions and find myself stumped, as I tend to
be satisfied with knowing the meaning without thinking of their
etymology. Thus it was recently with "footloose and fancy free".
Searching the internet provided some answers, but they seem too glib
to be true.
A. That's certainly true. I've found one story which claims that it's
from the foremost member of a prison chain gang in the American south,
who had one ankle left free so he could move more easily and lead the
others. Another has it that the expression derives from one-time
Thames river barges, which didn't have a boom to which the lower edge
of the mainsail could be lashed, which therefore hung free and was
said to be loose-footed. We may safely disregard both of these.
The idiom means that a person is without responsibilities of any kind
and can go wherever he wants. Its first part, "footloose", also has
this meaning. It's American, dating from the 1840s:
The Senate declared this connection unlawful, and
immediately divorced this great financier from the
revenue bill, sent the bill back to the House without
its defilement, leaving the great financier again foot
loose in the world.
[Indianapolis Journal (Indiana), 16 Jan. 1843.]
It didn't become common in Britain until the 1940s, earlier
appearances being in despatches from the US, for example in reports of
presidential speeches or as here:
You see, I was defending one of the worst horsethieves
in Western Texas this afternoon, and I cleared him. He
is foot-loose now, and I'm afraid he will come around
to-night and steal my horses. Nobody's horses will be
safe until that double dyed scoundrel is out of town.
[Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 19 Jun.
1886. In a column headed "American Cuttings".]
"Fancy-free" is natively British and means to be unconstrained by
amorous entanglements, having no sweetheart to tie one down.
Shakespeare is the first recorded user, in A Midsummer Night's Dream
of about 1600. "Fancy" originally had the meaning of a fantasy, a
ghost or a hallucination. It came to mean a whim or caprice and
briefly an inclination towards love. This second sense was no longer
current when Tennyson wrote, "In the spring a young man's fancy
lightly turns to thoughts of love", but "fancy-free" kept the
association.
The evidence suggests that the two words were put together about 1880
in the US to make a neatly balanced alliterative phrase. This is the
first I've been able to find:
All of which, fellow citizens, means that the people
are footloose and fancy free.
[Jackson Sentinel (Maquoketa, Iowa), 19 Oct. 1882.]
The combined expression "footloose and fancy-free" isn't recorded in
the UK until the 1950s, presumably a wartime import by US armed
forces. The first appearance in the "Times" is in 1954 and refers to a
revue with that title. It only becomes common in the 1960s.
Sic!
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Tom Barrett supplied an extract from an Associated Press item dated 15
August in the Province, Vancouver: "Private and foreign groups have
for years been trying to retrieve the historic treasure. Believed to
be buried deep beneath heavy silt, they have been deterred in part by
murky waters and strong currents."
The trailer for this week's Open Country programme on the BBC's
iPlayer site begins, "Revered by fly fishermen, Helen Mark visits the
famous chalk streams of Hampshire and Wiltshire." David Sutton found
it and commented, "I am sure many of us would like to join these
discerning anglers in their proper appreciation of Ms Mark."
Megan Zurawicz tells us that on 15 August the website of WTHR, a TV
station in Indianapolis, reported that "Speedway police are looking
for a man wanted in a theft of a local restaurant earlier this week."
But how did he carry it away?
The magazine of the Inland Waterways Association's South West region
is appropriately entitled Sou'Wester. John Gray read this in its
August issue: "Back in 1969 Ian built his first boat in the form of a
flat bottomed punt with a roof powered by a 4 horsepower outboard
motor."
Niall McLaren came across this Australian report in the Daily Mail of
15 August: "Officers have appealed for a helping hand in order to
catch a bearded bandit responsible for a string of burglaries in
Victoria. The man has had a few close shaves at various factories
south-east of Melbourne."
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