FUTPNBC Part IV - Mostly About Santa's Clothing

Yes, by popular acclaim it’s time again for that serial installment in the popular Follow Up to The PedanticNight Before Christmas. Okay, there has been no “acclaim” and it’s not really “popular” but it keeps me off the streets.

This week: cuirass, culm, tatterdemalion, and surfeit.

Let’s begin with the cuirass of fur St. Nick wore. A cuirass originally was the armor that covered the chest and back on a suit of armor. Actually it originally was a covering of leather worn to protect from harm, but with the invention of armor leather became passe. Cuirass comes from the Middle French word cuirasse and dates in English from the 15^th century. The Middle French took it from the Late Latin phrase coriacea vestia, which meant garment of leather. The meaning of cuirass has broadened, even referring to armor that covers a ship. So any protective garment is a cuirass. And certainly St. Nick’s garb qualifies, since the culm from the millions of chimneys down which he goes could be destructive.

Culm is the word used for coal dust, especially anthracite. There’s another culm that has an entirely different meaning and etymology (something about grass stalks) but that obviously has nothing to do with Christmas or St. Nick. The culm of which we speak came down from Middle English (in the early 1300s when it was spelled colme). Prior to that we can only guess. But the gathering culm on St. Nick’s cuirass wouldn’t make him tatterdemalion.

Tatterdemalion’s meaning is given away from its first two syllables: tatter. It means “a shabby person”, one whose clothing is in tatters. I’ve heard it used most often of children, but it can apply to anyone in tattered rags. Tatter comes from the Old Norse word toturr, or rag, and came into English as a verb in the mid-1300s. The –demalion ending was originally separated by hyphens with a double l and an a instead of an o (tatter–de-mallian). Where de-mallian came from is unknown, but it is now a family name, as are Demillion and Demallion. But then Hostetler is spelled various ways as well and we don’t know what it meant originally either. There is a surfeit of possibilities.

A surfeit is an excessive amount of anything, like toys. It is often but not exclusively used of food, causing either general disgust or a “crapulous feeling” (that's the word my dictionary used) of being uncomfortably full. The original meaning, which arrived in English in the early 1300s, meant an excess amount of anything. Food didn’t come into the meaning until the late 1300s. It comes from the Old French word surfet, which meant excess, and was created from the parts sur- (meaning “over”) and faire (meaning “do”). Faire came from the Latin word facere, which means “to make” and from which we got nidificate among other words.

Surfeit is a good word, and can be used to describe a buffet of substantial proportions (anyone been on a cruise with a midnight buffet?) or political discourse, or excessive jabbering of any sort. (Not that I know anyone who is an excessive talker.) This is probably a good time to stop. I don’t want to have a surfeit of expressions about talking.

Worthless, worthless, worthless

It has been a while since I didn’t have something to follow up on, so today it’s writer’s choice. And today, three words for worthless. It’s always nice to have good words to call someone that may actually sound like a compliment. Gimcrack has an element of showiness that nugatory doesn't, and otiose is more about leisure than uselessness. My favorite of the three to use in referring to someone else is gimcrack because it sounds like a compliment; my favorite in referring to myself is otiose.

Gimcrack as a noun means a showy or useless trifle. The synonym provided is gewgaw, which doesn’t help if you’re not familiar with that word. The adjective form means showy but useless. It originally (in the 1610s) simply meant a showy person (think Liberace or Elton John or Lady Gaga, depending on your generation), but by 1839 had come to refer to any showy trifle that has no use. Its etymology is uncertain, but could have come from furniture making. In the mid-1300s a kind of ornament on furniture was given the name gibecrake, which may have come from the combination of the Old French word for rattle or shake, giber, and the Middle English word for a sharp noise crak. Or not. At any rate, it’s a short jump from an ornamental but useless feature on furniture to an ornamental but useless feature sitting on furniture. There is an element of showiness to this that isn’t present in the word nugatory.

A more familiar word that may have developed from gimcrack is gimmick. In 1926 it was defined in Maine and Grant’s Wise-Crack Dictionary  as “a device for making a fair game crooked.” Gimmick is an American English word, and may have been a form or gimcrack or an anagram of magic (gimac). Take your pick.

Nugatory is an adjective that refers to anything that has no value, effect, or validity. Not negative, but not positive either. It came to English about 1600 from the Latin word nugatorius, which means worthless, trifling, or futile. It is a form of the word nugator that refers to a jester or a braggart  and is a form of the Latin word for joke: nugae.

Today’s third word is otiose. (Not to be confused with odious, the adjective form of odium.) Otiose first appeared in 1794, and it is just coincidence that 1794 was five years after congress was first formed. Otiose comes from the Latin word otiosus, meaning “having leisure or ease, unoccupied, idle, not busy.” It is a good word for being at leisure or not having to do anything. I think I will call my retirement home otium cum dignitate, which is translated leisure with dignity.

But I don’t yet have my retirement home or ornamental furniture to put in it. As Gershwin didn’t put it in his great American opera Porgy and Bess: I got plenty of nugatory stuff.

Take It Away

Let me begin today with the word I paired with gallimaufry in my post Pedantic Night Before Christmas. It is the word rapine, which is sometimes confused with raping. It is used in the phrase rapine and pillage, an emphasis by redundancy. (Although there is a difference between the two words.)

Rapine is a noun for someone else’s property that is violently seized and carried off . It came to English in the early 1400s from the Middle French word rapine, which they got from the Latin word rapina, a word meaning robbery or plunder. It is a form of the Latin word rapere, which means to carry off or seize. We get the word rapid from the same root word, because it is important to be quick when robbing or plundering. Don’t hang around – grab it and go. Rapine's use in the aforementioned poem PNBC may have been slightly off, as it referred not to what Santa was carrying off from the house, but what he was carrying to the house. In essence he was delivering the children’s rapine, although neither the children nor Santa seized it by force. I just renewed my poetic license at the PMV.

Pillage has a more personal sense to it, and means to strip of money or goods by force. There is a sense of taking it off the person, where rapine may not be as a result of any personal contact. Pillage comes from the Old French word pilage, which came from pillier, which meant to loot or ill-treat. It may have come from the Vulgar Latin word piliare, which means to plunder, and was probably from a figurative use of the Latin word pilare, which means to “strip of hair”. Scalping comes to mind, but that’s more severe and isn’t what’s meant here. Pilare may also have meant skinning or plucking of feather or fleecing; perhaps less violent than scalping. We get the word depilatory from the same root word.

Scalp, as a verb, has two meanings (in the same way as fleece). It means to tear or cut the scalp off someone. In that sense it has been in use since the 1670s and was originally used in reference to a practice of Native Americans. The word scalp originally came into English to describe the skin atop the head. It has been used in English since about 1300, and it may have come from the Old Norse word skalli, which is the word for a bald head. Another possible source from Old Norse is skalpr, which sounds closer but means “sheath.” I like the skalli option better. It seems that the French scalpe and the German and Swedish scalp both came from the English word.

The second meaning of scalp is to sell (usually tickets) at an inflated price. It has an interesting story behind its etymology (thank you, etymonline.com). In the late 19^th century it was used of people who would sell the unused portions of railway tickets. It seems that the longer you traveled the cheaper the fare on a per-mile basis. So someone going from the east coast to the Midwest could buy a transcontinental ticket, get off at their destination and sell the remainder of the ticket for more money than if they’d bought the ticket for only their portion of the trip. While it was used as early as 1869 of theater tickets it developed a sense by the late 1800s for not only selling of tickets for a profit but also as “scalper” to describe any con-man or cheater.

Fleece has a longer history of meaning cheat or swindle. It developed that meaning in the 1570s, only 40 years after arriving in English as a description of the shearing of sheep. The noun form, meaning the coat of wool that covers a sheep, came to Old English as fleos, and came to Old English from a West Germanic word flusaz, although there’s no written proof of that.

So don't get fleeced by a scalper, and don't let them take any rapine or pillage.

Not Joking About Jocularity

We begin today’s follow up to last week’s post with the oldest English word formed from the Latin root word iocularis. The word arrived in the 1620s, and was instantly greeted with mirth, but no gold or frankincense (for those not knowing the mis-reference, see Matthew 2:11). Iocularis, of course, became our English word jocular, an adjective meaning funny or comic. According to etymonline.com it “implies evasion of an issue by a joke.” But my dictionary gives no such shade of meaning, nor have I heard it used in such a manner. Dictionary.com defines it as “given to, characterized by, intended for, or suited to joking or jesting.” 

Is it simply the adjective form of “joke”? I suggest it has a shade of meaning slightly less serious than joking, which is the doing or saying of something intended to produce laughter.

Joke also came from the same Latin word, and is both a verb and a noun. The verb arrived at the same time as the noun, in the 1660s, but the noun was originally spelled joque. It was originally a slang word, and its use to describe something not worthy of being taken seriously only appeared in 1791, a mere 13 years before the phrase “practical joke”. Practical joke, which so characterizes activities on April Fools’ Day, is something intended to provoke laughter at someone else’s expense.

Jocose came to English a decade after joke (or joque) and is the closer adjective to joke. Where jocose is an adjective that describes the act of joking, jocularity refers to a general characteristic of fun and joking or jesting.

Which begs the question: what’s the difference between joke and jest? While a jest can be a witty remark or a joke, it is more often used as an interactive word to describe the kind of joking that takes place during conversation with someone, or in relation to someone. Joke is not always directed at someone in particular. Jest is. It may have some serious intent, or it may be simply playful taunting, but it is directed at another person.

Jest is an older word than joke, and was initially used in English in the early 1200s. It came from the Old French word geste, their word for action or exploit, and was originally spelled geste. The Latin word from which the Old French got geste was gesta, which means deeds or exploits. By the mid-1300s it developed a noun to describe the teller of these exploits, jestour. The original function of a jester was to recite a tale, since in the 1300s most people could not read. It was the equivalent in the middle ages of today’s television, movies, or internet. (The use to describe a “buffoon in a prince’s court” is from about 1500.)

By 1520 jest also developed into a verb that described a less-than-serious manner of speaking. It didn’t have a sense of joking until the 1550s.

So at one time you may have gested and joqued, but now you jest and joke. Since the initial sound is the same, it only makes sense to use the same initial consonant; and k sounds the same as q but saves a letter. I’m not joking, even though I may be jocular.