Happy Belated Father’s Day!

I got as far as choosing three words and writing three words last week when other events conspired against getting a blog written. They weren’t great words for Father’s Day anyway, so a week’s delay doesn’t mean you missed using them in a timely manner.

The first word that came to mind was avuncular. Very simply, it means anything pertaining to or having the characteristic of an uncle. That’s assuming we all have the same idea what an uncle is, but that’s an entirely different blog. Proving that you can’t believe every online source, Dictionary.com lists it as coming to English somewhere between 1825 and 1835 while etymonline.com dates it specifically at 1789. Both say it came directly from the Latin avunculus, which means maternal uncle, although its literal translation is “little grandfather”.  While some languages (like Latin) distinguish between a maternal uncle and a paternal uncle (in Latin faedera) English does not.

However, there are several  axiomatic uses of the word uncle that may or may not be familiar to you. In North America, to “say uncle” or “cry uncle” is to indicate during a fight that you concede; it is still in wide use today. Since 1838 the phrase “Dutch uncle” has had currency, to refer to someone who gives stern but kind advice, and as far back as 1747 “Welsh uncle” indicated your parent’s cousin.

I have never noticed in reading old books, but apparently the word uncle was used as a humorous and less embarrassing word for pawnbroker between the 1600s and 1900s (even before referring to your parent’s brother). It is easier to say “I left my ring with my uncle” than to admit you pawned it.

For some reason (and it has nothing to do with any of my uncles) I associate the word ursine with avuncular, probably because I learned them at about the same time, possibly from the same book. Ursine, for astronomers, is easy. The Big Bear and Little Bear are constellations known as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. So astronomers would recognize that ursine means bearlike and comes from Latin. It has been used in English since the 1550s, and is generally used  to refer to a large, hairy man.  However, for large, hairy men who remember the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, you will remember Ursula Andress (in her role as first “Bond Girl” Honey Ryder) dramatically coming out of the ocean. Ursula means “she-bear”, but that isn’t the most descriptive word for Honey Ryder (she certainly wasn’t hairy).  The word vulpine comes more to mind.

Vulpine also comes from Latin, from the word vulpes, which is what those who spoke Latin called the fox. (Honey Ryder was in many ways foxy.) Because we associate foxes with being sly and cunning vulpine is a more obscure way of saying someone is sly and cunning. (“How very vulpine of you.”) It came to English at the same time that the Mayflower came to Massachusetts (1620).  

So whether they’re avuncular, ursine, or vulpine, it’s never too late to say “Happy Father’s Day” to a dad (which while first recorded in about 1500 is probably of much older usage as an informal word for father). 

Magdelene and Emma

Today begins with another word from The Catcher Was A Spy (see 5/27/12 blog post). It’s not an unusual word, but in reading the book I ran across the word maudlin and thought “that’s an unusual word construction”. (I’m sure such a thought occurs to you all the time.)

Maudlin has an interesting etymology, but first its definition: maudlin’s primary definition is foolishly emotional or tearful. Several dictionaries attach drunkenness to the cause of this condition, but usage I’ve seen doesn’t require this state. Another definition is just tearfully or weakly emotional. The most common usage (to the point of almost being a maxim or aphorism – you decide) is in the phrase “don’t be maudlin”, a rejoinder (no blog post yet) that has little meaning if you don’t know the definition of maudlin. Now you do.

But maudlin’s etymology is more interesting. The word came to English in 1607 (quite specifically, but the source is not mentioned) and meant “tearful”. The Middle English name Maudelen (which was adopted – the name, not the person – about 1320) is the source of the word maudlin, a nickname in essence and came from the name Magdalene. Many will recognize Magdalene as the surname to one of the Marys in the Bible. Forgiven by Jesus in a dramatic and mysterious scene in Luke 7:37, she became a favorite subject (one source used the word ubiquitous – another future blog post) of artists in the Middle Ages, and was often depicted as weeping in appreciation for her salvation.

But the other thing that intrigued me about the word maudlin was its unusual construction using “audl”. I could only find one other word in English with those four letters in order: caudle.

A caudle is a warm drink for someone’s who’s sick. It is usually wine or ale mixed with eggs, bread, sugar, and spices, although you can add other ingredients if you wish. It came to Middle English from the Old North French word caudel (which may have also been Anglo-French if you want to argue), which devolved from the Old French word chaudel, and is the origin of the modern French word chaudeau, which of course is a zabaglione.  Caudel also came from the Middle Latin word caldellum, a diminutive form of caldum, which is the neuter of the Latin caldus which means warm and from which we get the word calorie.

Caudle sounds very similar to coddle, and for good reason. Coddle, which most often means to treat tenderly or pamper also means to cook in water just below the boiling point (see the tie-in?), a use we can find in the 1600s. It was used in English in the 1300s to refer to any warm drink for invalids, and came originally from the Latin word calidium that referred to a warm drink or warm wine and water. Of course, calidium is the neuter of calidus, which means hot, and comes from the same Latin word, cadere, from which we get caudle.

The interesting thing about the word coddle is that its first recorded use as a verb to mean “treat tenderly”, the most common usage today, was in 1815 in Jane Austen’s novel Emma. The name Emma has no relation to the name Madeline, but it would be a nice way to close this blog if it did.