Toccata and Back Again

This upcoming month is a unique one on my schedule. While my wife is usually nidiculous, this next month will be one of those times when I will spend a week at home, then a week away, then a week at home. I don’t know the last time that happened. In addition, the two of us will be nidifugous while I have two appointments in southern California.

Nidify and its forms are one of the few words to not have etymology in the vast resource that is etymonline.com. But it is found in several dictionaries. Nidify is the verb form, and nidificate is another form of the verb. (Any time I see the –icate suffix I presume it to be a back-formation and prefer the simpler word, in this case nidify, but it could be a cognate.) Nidify is formed from the Latin word nidificare, which means to build a nest. Nidificare  is formed from the words nidus, nest, and facere, to make. Isn’t Latin grand? Nidify came to English from the Latin in the 1650s, and it apparently took until the 1810s for nidificate to arrive. (According to dictionary.com it was formed from the past participle of nidificare, which of course is nidificatus.)

It wasn’t until the 1900s that the adjective nidiculous was used. It means staying in the nest, because the Latin suffix –colere, the root of –culous, means “to inhabit.” The Latin suffix –fugere is the source of the word that means “leave the nest” (nidifugous), and –fugere has a meaning of “take flight”.

Fugere is also the root word for the musical term fugue, which makes fugue a cognate of nidify. Fugue is spelled the way it is because it came to English from “the French version of the Italian word,” according to etymonline.com. It arrived in the 1590s, when fugues were all the rage, showing up prominently on the Billboard charts of the day. Fugue refers to a composition where a melody is introduced in one part, then another part takes up the melody (often a 4^th or 5^th away from the initial statement) and sometimes continuing with multiple statements of the melodic theme in other parts. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, a most interesting form of which you can see and hear for yourself if the tune doesn’t come readily to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te4SqP-X8GA

Unfortunately, the most common and useful form of nidify would be one to describe the empty nest and I wasn’t able to find that word (anyone want to find it?)

I’ve used a word a couple times today that bears defining: cognate. Cognate also comes directly from Latin, from the word for “of common descent”: cognatus. Cognatus is formed by combining the prefix com-, meaning “together”, and gnasci, meaning “to be born”, from which we get the word genus. In other words, a cognate of genus is cognate. (So is nascent, by the way.) As etymonline.com so nicely puts it “cognates are cousins, not siblings”.

For those of you who misread the opening line and thought I called my wife ridiculous, get your eyes checked.

Jive gibes that jibe

I recently came across a misuse (or misspelling) of the word gibe. Because the initial sound is the g that is the same as a j it makes sense that the spelling would be confused. But a more confused set of words I have yet to come across. Let’s go back to the beginning (in English) to see if we can sort out these differences.

The word jibe is the first word to make its appearance in English. It has several meanings. In its noun form jibe came in the 1560s from middle French word giber that meant “to handle roughly”. It may have been an alteration of the French word gaber that meant “to mock”, a meaning that adds confusion.


The verb form arrived in 1813, and while its etymology is uncertain, there are several possibilities, the most likely being a nautical term referring to shifting a sail or boom to be more in agreement with the wind. That meaning is still used today, and a jib is still the name of a particular triangular sail. So the meaning on land is to be in harmony or agreement.

In interesting contribution to this very confusing combination of words, the Oxford English Dictionary, THE authoritative source in English (bow your head), suggests that the etymology is a phonetic alteration of chime in its use “to chime in, or be in harmony with”. Perhaps that makes sense with an English accent, but it doesn’t with an American one unless you have a stuffed up nose.

Gibe is the spelling of the word that now refers to mocking or scoffing or jeering. But it can also be spelled gybe or jibe. Etymonline.com makes no distinction between jibe and gibe except in the noun and verb sense. But dictionaries do, and so does the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which for a few more days is offering free online access since they announced they will no longer offer a printed version (a moment of silence for its demise, please).

The Encyclopedia Brittanica (EB ) suggests that jibe may have been a modification of the Dutch word gijben and agrees on the 1813 source for the verb form. It agrees with the middle French source for gibe, but gives the date more specifically as 1567.

That leaves the word jive. American in original usage, it appeared first in 1928 and came to common usage from the distinctly American musical idiom jazz. According to etymonline.com it may have come from the African Wolof word(s) jev or jeu, “talk about someone absent, especially in a disparaging manner.”

Jive originally referred to a certain style of swing music, but its meaning has broadened since then. Etymonline attaches the meaning by 1938 of “New York City African-American slang.” According to the EB, it has come to also mean “the jargon of hipsters” and “a special jargon of difficult or slang terms”, as in “jive talkin’” (the 1975 Bee Gees hit); its use may now still indicate being “hip” but being hip is passé. Today’s hip is phat (I think: I've consulted my children for confirmation/correction.)

Jive can still refer to a particular style of jazz, or to deceptive, exaggerated, or meaningless talk, or even the jitterbug. According to etymonline.com its adjectival form came in 1964 to have, and they quote the OED, a “fluid meaning and application.” By 1969 it came to mean “not acting right”, and its meaning and usage continues to be fluid.

So, jibe = agree, gibe = scoff or taunt, and jive = hip. Alternative spellings for jibe are gybe and gibe. But jibe can also have nautical meaning, and jive can mean any number of things. Just make sure your jive jibe gibes with these meanings. 

I'm No Aristotle, Part 3

Let me begin by addressing how I ended last week’s blog. Busker is a word I’d never seen before, but found when researching the word peripatetic. It turns out that it is a word much more common in England and even in Canada. A busker can be a street entertainer in England or a person making a showy or loud appeal in Canada. What is interesting in researching the word is that none of the dictionary definitions provide any linkage to peripatetic activity. It is etymonline.com that links the two.

It etymonline’s explanation of the word, it refers to an “itinerant entertainer”, hence its connection to peripatetic and itinerant (3/4/12 blog). Its etymology is uncertain, but etymonline suggests several sources:

• In the 1660s it had a nautical use, referring to tacking or “beat to windward”. This use would have come from the obsolete French word busquer, which meant to shift, filch, or prowl. Busquer is related to the Italian word for filching and prowling, buscare and the Old Spanish word boscar.
•  In 1841 it was used in “in reference to people living shiftless and peripatetic lives.”
•  In 1851, (according to Mayhew) its figurative sense came “perhaps from busk ‘to cruise as a pirate.’”
•  In 1857 a source suggests it was formed from the verb busk which meant “to offer goods for sale only in bars and taprooms.”

Because buskers would often go where the people gathered (streets, bars, theaters) to perform, several of these etymologies make sense.  Someone who has their circuit of entertaining in public in hope of making money would be a busker.

So how do our final two words, errant and arrant, fit? Well, errant is the connection to other words on moving around, and arrant is sometimes confused for errant.

Errant came to English in the mid-14^th century from the Anglo-French word erraunt. Erraunt was formed from two Old French words, errant (the past participle of errer) and errant (the present participle of errer, which meant “to travel or wander”).  These words came from the Late Latin iterare, which came from the Latin word iter from which we derive itinerant (see 3/4/12 blog).

While most dictionaries I consulted define errant as meaning straying from a proper course or simply roaming, some dictionaries tie it to what I’ve found to be its most common usage: the errant knight. These days we would call them “free agent knights” because they would travel around looking for adventure or love.

Very quickly (before the 15^th century arrived) the word errant evolved into another word: arrant. At first it was “merely derogatory”, referring negatively to someone who wanders about, or roams; a vagrant. By the 1540s it acquired the meaning of “thoroughgoing, downright, notorious.” While there may have been arrant knights, most of those who weren’t tied to one particular state or adventure were errant.

And while my travelling is not anywhere near finished, this finishes our three blog posts on it. 

I'm No Aristotle, Part 2

Last week was Albuquerque, this week eastern Pennsylvania. Last week was peregrination and peripatetic, this week is extirpate and deracinative. You may not think they are related (they don’t look alike) but they both are rooted in the same idea.

Extirpate gives away a little of its meaning with the prefix ex-. (Neither extirpate nor deracinate have the corresponding  positive verbs: tirpate or racinate. See blog on prefixes posted 12/26/09 for other ex-amples.) Both extirpate and deracinate mean pull up by the roots. For extirpate it is the secondary meaning; its primary meaning is to completely destroy or exterminate.  (How can exterminate and terminate mean the same thing? I see another post coming…) The secondary definition of deracinate is to isolate someone from their culture, home, or environment.

So, while I may be deracinating this week (as I travel across country) I will not be extirpating. If we decided to move to another state (Texas and Arizona are choices 1 and 2) we would be deracinating.  We may pull up roots (in which case extirpate might qualify) but  deracinate is the better descriptor of moving to a new home in a different state. Those who have suffered from the recent tornadoes might decide to extirpate because of all the extirpation around them.

So why do two such similar words look so different? The original root words (I couldn’t help myself) are Latin. For deracinate the root is racix, for extirpate it is stirpus. Racix is the word from which we get radish, which makes sense. The Latin word stirps refers to a tree root.

Sometime in the 15^th century the word extirpating came to English directly from Latin, where the ex- prefix (meaning “out” had already been added to stirps). It began its English life meaning “removal” and by the 1520s expanded (not just panded) to mean rooting out or eradicating (can one radicate?)

Deracinate came to English in the 1590s over the channel from France, where the French were using the word déraciner, which they got from the Old French word desraciner. The Old French had taken the Late Latin word radicina and shortened it to raciner and added their prefix des-. Radicina  is the diminutive form of the aforementioned radix.

As so often happens, when researching one word I find new words (or related words) that should be included. This week’s two words in that category are itinerant and a new word to me: busker.

Itinerant is a word I’ve read and used to describe someone whose employment requires them to travel considerably, usually an adjective to “preacher” or “evangelist”. But I’d never considered its actual meaning. The dictionaries I consulted all define it as travel relating to work, in which case I could be described as itinerant. One dictionary said it refers especially to travel in a circuit. I know that when Abraham Lincoln was an itinerant judge, he traveled in a specific circuit, so I see where that definition came from.

The word itinerant, according to etymonline.com, arrived in English in the 1560s, “(attested in Anglo-Latin from late 13^th c.)” and referred initially only to circuit courts. I was surprised to find that some circuit court judges still travel a circuit in the U.S. English got the word from the Late Latin word itinerantem, which was formed from the Latin word iter (meaning journey).

Busker will have to wait until next week.