Jocularity, Jocularity

[For those disappointed this isn't an Easter post, please see this post.]

Tomorrow being April Fool's Day it is only fitting that we address jocularity today. Whenever I hear that word I am reminded of the character Father Francis Mulcahy, played by William Christopher in the television show M*A*S*H. The gang was doing imitations at a party and Col. Potter (played by Henry Morgan) did an imitation of Father Mulcahy and said "jocularity, jocularity". It is a particularly appropriate expression to illustrate how uncomfortable with humor the good Father was.

While we've already covered chuckle and chortle there are some funny words (funny among them) that we haven't covered, and we certainly should take a look at fool.

So let's start with the apparently easy ones: fool and funny.

Fool is a word that can be used as a noun, verb or adjective. In April Fool's Day it is ostensibly a verb, as in to fool someone with a trick. This post is not one of them. The word fool has a long history, beginning with its entry as a noun in the late 13th century. As a noun its primary meaning is "silly or stupid person", but it still retains a secondary meaning of a professional jester, a meaning it first gained in the late 14th century, when it may have been used either to describe an entertainer or an "amusing lunatic" as etymonline.com has it. Sometimes the two are difficult to differentiate even now. It originally came to English from Old French, where the word fol referred to a madman, insane person, rogue, idiot or jester. The Old French got it from the Latin word follis, which describes the blacksmith's bellows and when applied to people was an apt description for an empty-headed windbag, which these days also sounds like a politician.

The word funny is a much more recent immigrant, having first appeared in its adjective form in 1756. The original noun form, fun, is not much older, having arrived in 1727 and originally meant "trick or amusement,"  a very appropriate meaning for April Fool's Day. Funny originally meant (and still does) humorous, and didn't gain the meaning "odd" until 1806, having originated in the southern U.S., although there is nothing to suggest there are more odd people in the southern U.S. than elsewhere. Its etymology is uncertain.

Speaking of humorous, the word humor came to English as a physiological term in the mid-14th century. It meant "fluid or juice of an animal or plan" and came from the Old North French word humour, which came from the Old French word humor, which came from the Latin word umor that mean "body fluid." How did it come to mean something comic causing amusement? Since the prevailing wisdom at that time was that body fluids determined state of mind, humor came by the 1520s to refer to state of mind, and by the 1560s to a sense of whim or caprice, and by the 1680s to its current primary meaning. Apparently the pronunciation of the initial h is of recent vintage, and has predominated much more so than has the initial h in the word herb; honor still retains the silent h. Hinteresting, eh?

And we never got to jocularity or jocose. Wait until next week.

FUTPNBCIII (Follow Up - The Pedantic Night Before Christmas, Part III)

Due to next week being a holiday, the recurring FUTPNBC series is springing forward a week.  For those who are new to the blog, FUTPNBC refers to the December 23, 2012 post and stands for Follow Up To Pedantic Night Before Christmas. It’s taken three posts so far to cover words used in that post, and there are more to come (we’re only about halfway through the poem after today’s post.)

Our first word is diminutive, which means small or little. It is often used of people, but can be used of anything tiny, like Santa’s reindeer and sleigh. It has been used in English since the late 1300s, when it came as both a noun and an adjective from the Old French word diminutif. The Old French got their word from the Latin word diminutivus, which is from the past participle stem of deminuere. We also get the word diminish from this Latin root word.  

Our next word has a classical Greek mythology etymology (for those who like ologies). Myrmidon goes back to the story of Achilles in the Trojan War. Some of you (maybe one or two) will remember the Thessalian tribe of warriors that Achilles led into battle. They had been changed from ants (myrmex in Greek) to men, and were still referred to as Myrmidones. The word came into use in English about 1400, and at some point in the next 200 years came to refer to a person who executes commands without questioning them. When used in that sense, myrmidon need not be capitalized. When referring to the ant-men of the Trojan War it should be capitalized.

Recrudescent is the adjective form of the noun recrudescence. (The verb form is recrudesce.) I don’t have etymology of recrudescent, but it’s in my dictionary so I used it. The earliest form of the word in English is the noun form, which means breaking out again into activity. Its first use in English was in 1721, and came directly from the Latin word recrudescere, which literally translated means to become raw again, but also means to re-open (like wounds). Crudescere comes from the Latin word crudus, that means “raw” and from which we get our word crude. It is indeed a good word for renewed activity like the reindeer who had settled on the lawn only to be recrudesced to the roof by Santa.

Gallimaufry is a noun that refers to a jumble or hash or ragout; it is a bunch of things thrown together. It came to English in the 1550s from the French word galimafrée, which I will now call any hash or stew I create. It sounds so much more delectable. Galimafrée came from the Old French word calimafree, which was a “sauce made from mustard, ginger and vinegar; a stew of carp”. We’re not sure where that word came from; one suggestion is that it is a combination of the Old French word for “to make merry, live well”, galer, and the Old North French word for eating a lot, mafrer. Makes sense to me. Now I’m hungry.

Happy St. Patrick's Day, Pope Francis

This week the first pope from the new world, the first pope to take the name Francis, was elected. While he has not been eremitic or peccant, everyone hopes he will have limpid vision for the church and be apotropaic if not alembic.

Eremitic is one of those words to come from Church Latin. Back in the time of St. Francis of Assisi, in about 1200, it came into use in English from the Latin word eremita. It is defined as a hermit or recluse, especially one who is so because of a religious vow. Eremite is used as a “learned form” of the word hermit and for the last several hundred years has been used mostly in poetry or rhetoric except when used to describe specific examples from church history. Pope Francis was definitely not eremitic – early accounts of his lifestyle indicate he was known to take public transportation as a Cardinal.

Pope Francis also is not peccant, a word that primarily means sinful or guilty of a moral offense but also can mean violating a rule or established practice. While his papacy is historic one account calls him theologically orthodox and socially conservative. Peccant came to English in about 1600 from another Latin word, peccantem, the present participle form of the Latin word for “to sin,” peccare. We also get the more common English word peccadillo from this root word. 

Limpid is a word that means a lot of good things. Primarily used to describe something clear or transparent, like water or air, it also means lucid and free from obscurity and even more appropriately can mean completely calm or without distress or worry. It came to English about the same time as peccant, but came through French from Late Latin. The French word limpide was derived from the Latin word limpidus, which meant clear. Limpa was the word for “water goddess” and sometimes was the word for water. We are all hopeful that Pope Francis’s leadership is one of clarity and peace.

Alembic, which used to refer to a vessel formerly used in distilling, now describes anything that transforms, purifies, or refines, a good word for what the church needs now. It came into English back in the late 1300s, from the Middle French word alambic, which they got from Old Spanish who got it from the Arabic al-anbiq, or “distilling flask.” The Arabs got the word from the Greeks, who called their cup an ambix, and the Greeks may have gotten the word from an unknown Semitic source.

We also hope Francis’ papacy is apotropaic, which is from the Greek word apotropaios which means “averting evil.” It came to English only 130 years ago, and is still an adjective used to describe something that is intended to ward off evil.

Since today is St. Patrick’s day, the blog would not be complete without an Irish reference. It is given to us by etymonline.com, whose description of apotropaic is accompanied by their use of the word in their etymology of the English noun sheela na gig or sheela-na-gig, which came from the Irish Sile na gcioch, which is literally translated “Sheila of the breasts.” The phrase refers to figurative carvings of naked women with exaggerated vulvae, and one theory proposed, according to etymonline.com, that they are “meant as an apotropaic gesture to ward off the devil.” Of course, now you know that adding “…to ward off the devil” is redundant. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

From The Canting Crew to The Army of the Potomac Part II

What is the strumpet to which Samuel Johnson refers in last week's post? It’s nothing to do with trumpets or crumpets. It’s another word for a prostitute or harlot. Its origin is also unclear, but according to etymonline.com

One theory connects it with Latin struprata, [the] feminine past participle of stuprare “have illicit sexual relations with,” or [the] Late Latin strumpum “dishonor, violation.” Others suggest Middle Dutch strompe, “a stocking,” or strompen “to stride, to stalk” (as a prostitute might a customer). The major sources don’t seem to give much preference to any of these. Weekley notes “Gregory’s Chronicle (c. 1450) has streppett in [the] same sense.”

Harlot, now a synonym for prostitute, also had a less negative original meaning. (Makes one wonder why we devolved so many different words for prostitute.) When it came to English in about 1200 it referred to a vagabond or rogue or a man with no fixed occupation. It came to English from the Old French word herlot or arlot, the equivalent of our hobo. Chaucer also used this word, both in a positive and in a pejorative sense. By the 15^th century it developed its use to describe a woman of ill repute, a sense reinforced and solidified by its use in 16^th century translations of the Bible. Etymonline says it may be Germanic if its first element is derived from hari, the word for “army.” But how it changed from army to vagabond to prostitute doesn’t seem like a natural progression to me.

While we’re on the prostitute thing, a common word in America for prostitute is hooker, and its etymology bears recounting. A popular story is that it was due to the poor morality of General “Fighting Joe” Hooker’s men in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War, in early 1863. But about 1845 it was used in a letter warning against “…any number of pretty Hookers in the Brick row not far from French’s hotel” in Norfolk, Virginia. But it was also used to refer to a resident of Corlear’s Hook in the New York City in 1859, many of which were employed in a number of houses of ill-repute frequented by sailors. At any rate, no matters its earlier usages the word hooker came to refer to a prostitute in the 1800s.

Another interesting word is succubus, and while it is another word for a prostitute it also has an interesting etymology with a retained meaning. It is a late 14^th century alteration of the Late Latin word succuba, which was used of a female demon who would have intercourse with men in their sleep. The Latin word was formed by combining the prefix sub-, which still means under as it did in ancient Rome, with cubare, which means to lie down. The combination formed the word succubare, which meant “to lie under.”  Succubus is still used for this demon.

Some day we’ll get to nice words for women. Maybe for Mother’s Day. 

From The Canting Crew to The Army of the Potomac Part I

In an email I asked one of the readers of this blog if she felt like she was being a harridan. Since she didn’t respond at all to the use of the obscure word it’s time to give some more attention to the proliferation of negative words describing women and compare/contrast it with negative words about men.

I’ve posted on three words describing men exclusively or primarily: avuncular, bon vivant, and cuckold. But of these words only cuckold has any negative sense. Avuncular and bon vivant are both positive words.  The words we’ve already covered that refer exclusively to women are not positive words: demimonde  and ecdysiast both would not be good words to use in polite society. And there are other not positive words that are as yet untouched upon. Although several of them were not originally as negative as they’ve come to mean.

Harridan is a word that refers to a woman who nags and scolds, and is just a vicious shrew. Etymonline.com has some definitions from literature (it usually doesn’t include as much as it did with harridan): in 1700 the Dictionary of the Canting Crew, a dictionary that captured a significant number of slang and non-standard words, defined harridan as “one that is half Whore, half Bawd.”  While etymonline.com will only state that it is found from the 16^th century on, it admits its origin is unknown.  The World English Dictionary suggests that it may be related to the French word haridelle, which is literally a broken-down horse. By 1755 Samuel Johnson defined a harridan in his dictionary as “a decayed strumpet.”

A slattern may be a nice woman, but is not a good housekeeper.  Whereas harridan usually is used of an older woman, slattern can be used of any age, even a girl. It is defined primarily as a slovenly, untidy woman. In the 1630s, when it came to English it referred to a rude, ill-bred woman.  It may have come from the Low German word Slattje, the Dutch word slodder, or the dialectical Swedish word slata, which means slut (not the slut you’re likely thinking). But its meaning has come to be more closely associated with slatter, an English verb that means to spill or splash or waste, and describes the kind of activity that an untidy or slovenly woman would pay little attention to when cleaning. It now has a secondary definition of slut.

Slut originally meant the same thing as slattern: a dirty, slovenly, or untidy woman. But that was back in the 1400s, before slattern came along. Dictionary.com still lists dirty and slovenly as a secondary definition, but indicates its use in that sense is obsolete. According to the Oxford English Dictionary it first appeared in written English in 1402, and also originally was used to describe a kitchen maid.  But by the end of the century it referred to an immoral or improper woman.  Etymonline.com refers to Chaucer’s use of the word sluttish in the late 1300s in reference to an untidy man.  But by the middle of the 1400s it also refers to a woman of loose morals.

Some other interesting uses of slut developed: in the 18^th century hard pieces of a bread loaf that developed because of imperfect kneading were called  slut’s pennies, doubtless a reference to lazy kitchen maids. In the 19^th century it was also used as a synonym for bitch, in referring to female dogs.

More words for bad women next week.