From King Charles II to Sarah Palin in One Word

I have been reading a biography of Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It is written in English (as opposed to American or Australian) but there are few words unfamiliar to me.

The one word that has cropped up most often is the word prorogue, in reference to the King's actions regarding Parliament. Prorogue is defined as "to discontinue a session of (the British Parliament or a similar body)" or "to defer or postpone." It came into use in the 1400s (200 years before King Charles II) from the Old French word proroger or proroguer. Of course, the Old French got the word from Latin, from prorogare, that literally translated is "to ask publicly." It is formed by combining the prefix pro- meaning before (a good meaning for a prefix) and rogare meaning to ask.

Etymonline.com suggests the original sense in Latin may have been to ask the public for consent to extend someone's term in office, but the legislative meaning of "temporarily discontinued" has been around since the mid-1400s.

How it changed from asking consent to postponing is not explained. But etymonline.com does connect it with another word, rogation, a word my spellcheck doesn't recognize. Neither did I. It is apparently an ecclesiastical term for "solemn supplication", and is especially related to the chanting that occurs in the three days before Ascension Day (called in some places Rogation Days). Ascension Day is the 40th day after Easter. The history of Rogation Days goes far back into the early few centuries of the church.

Rogation also comes from the Latin word rogare. So does a more familiar word that either prorogue or rogation. The word derogatory comes from rogare, by adding the prefix de-, meaning "away." Derogare means both to diminish and to partly repeal or modify. Derogatory came into English in about 1500 directly from Latin, and is the word for that which lessens the merit or reputation of a person or thing.

The verb form of the adjective derogatory (derogation) followed another 50 years later.

You may have been wondering how our word rogue relates (or if it does) to prorogue. One would be forgiven for thinking that when a legislative body is temporarily discontinued is has something to do with giving time off "for the rogues." But, alas, it doesn't.

Rogue, while it may also have come from rogare, has a different and more colorful course into English use. Ten years after the arrival of derogation it appeared, and there are two theories for its source. One is that it comes from a Celtic word akin to the Breton word for haught: rog. But the Oxford English Dictionary (all bow) says there is no evidence of a connection to the French word for haughty, rogue. Another theory is that it is a shortened form of the word roger, pronounced with a hard "g", which was thieves' slang for a beggar (rogare: to ask) who pretends to be a poor scholar (poor monetarily, not necessarily in scholarship) from Oxford or Cambridge.

Before the onset of the 15th century the word was used more affectionately (and less derogatorily) for a mischievous individual.

It was not until 1859 it was first used for a large beast living apart form the herd, most commonly it seems of a rogue elephant. I always wondered why we didn't call them rogue dogs or rogue rabbits, but it is most often used with elephants in my experience. That's the same year the phrase "rogue's gallery" came into use for the collection of police mug shots.

Apparently until 1964 no one thought to use it of other things that are undisciplined or uncontrolled, and now it has been transmogrified into the phrase "going rogue," which was used as the title of Sarah Palin's political memoir.

And that is how you get from King Charles II to Sarah Palin in one word: rogare.

Quiescence

It is quiescent this morning, and before there is any ruction or I get the paroxysm of energy necessary to mow the lawn I thought I’d post on three of the (still) over 200 remaining words on my list.

Actually, paroxysm might be a slight misuse of the word. It is a sudden (applicable) or violent (not accurate) outburst, or a fit of violent (not accurate) action or emotion (not accurate). It is also used in medicine of some quick growth of a disease or a seizure or convulsion. It has been in English since it came from Middle French word paroxysme in the early 1400s. The Medieval Latin word paroxysmus referred to a fit of a disease or an incidence like I had as a youth at summer camp with poison ivy. Para- means beyond and oxynein means to sharpen or goad, according to etymonline.com. Oxynein is from the Latin word oxys that means sharp or pointed and from which we get the word acrid.

Acrid only came into English in 1712, when it was formed (irregularly according to etymonline) from the Latin word acer, that means “sharp, pungent, bitter, eager, fierce.” But nowhere in the etymonline.com explanation does the word oxys appear, so I don’t know why it’s included as part of the listing on paroxysm.

At any rate, paroxysm was only used as a medical word until about 1600 when its meaning broadened to include any outburst or fit or strong emotion.

A ruction is a disturbance, particularly between two individuals. Its etymology is unknown, and is somewhat colloquial or even dialectical, but has been around since 1825. It may be a portmanteau word (like brunch) formed from eruption and insurrection. Brunch is a portmanteau of breakfast and lunch reported in the Aug. 1, 1896 issue of “Punch” as introduced by Mr. Guy Beringer. (Smog is another portmanteau word, formed in 1905 from smoke and fog. It seems to have been coined in reference to London’s air. Its first attestation is in a paper read by Dr. H.A. des Voeux, treasurer of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society in the “Journal of the American Medical Association” issue of Aug. 26, 1905. Take that, Los Angeles!)

Quiescent is a wonderful word that describes the calm, quiet stillness of a summer’s day when the world is inactive and motionless. The word comes from the Latin word quiescentem, which is a form of quiescere, described by etymonline.com as an “inchoative verb formed from quies.” Quies is the Latin word from which the Old French got their word quiete and which supplied us (in about 1300) with the word quiet. Since about 1500 we have had the adjective quiescent in English, and since the 1630s the noun form, quiescence, but only since 1821 the verb form: quiesce.

So on this day of rest in the Christian world, quiesce a little. Avoid ruction and don’t engage in any paroxysms. 

Returning to Visit

Time to play a little catch-up and revisit some posts.

First, a February post about unpaired words continues to inexorably affect me. I used the word inexorable a few posts ago and wondered if there is a word such as exorable. Since there is it does not qualify for unpaired word status.

But neither inexorable nor exorable have been covered in this blog. Inexorable means not able to be moved or unyielding or unchanging. Exorable means able to be moved or persuaded. Inexorable arrived in English in the 1550s, twenty years before exorable. While the word inexorable came directly from the Middle French word of the same spelling, its original source is the Latin word inexorabilis that means "that cannot be moved by entreaty".

In reading some of Emerson's essays this week I ran across the word educe, which made me think of the words deduce and adduce (which I found in reading a Perry Mason mystery). Adduce means to bring something forth as evidence in an argument (argument is also used in legal cases for one side's contentions in the courtroom) or to cite as pertinent or conclusive. Adduce was formed in Latin by adding the prefix ad-, that means "to", to the word ducere, that means "to lead." While that sounds like it would result in "to to lead" it results in the meaning "to lead to" or "to bring to." Adduce appeared in the early 1400s as did deduce and educe. All of which leads us to another word from ducere.

In my post on educe I mention the connection of ducere to the word Duke and conduce. But I never discussed conduce. It means to lead to a result. The original Latin word, conducere is formed by adding the prefix "com-" to ducere. Com- means together, so conduce is reminiscent in my mind of the mother duck and her ducklings, as she conduces them to the nearest pond. While conduce appeared about 1400, the word conduct followed shortly after (like a duckling).

Conduct is formed from the past participle of ducere. It originally had the general sense of convey, like a railroad conductor, then by the 1630s added the meaning of managing or directing. In about 1710 it began to be used to refer to behavior.

In case you wonder when the word came to be used specifically as the name of the leader of an orchestra, it was 1784. Conductor was first used in the 1520s for anyone who guides or leads, but when educe and deduce and adduce were coming into use the word being used for a leader or a group was "conduitour," from the Old French word conduitor. But once the word conductor came on the scene it won out. The railroad conductor got its name in 1832. The scientific uses meaning to pass electricity is from 1737 and to pass heat is from 1745.

You can now adduce that ducere inexorably leads to many words in English.

Much Ado About Zero, Cipher, Naught

As a Cincinnati Reds fan there has not been much to cheer about this year. But this last week the Reds took their first series in St. Louis from the Cardinals in the last ten visits. Not only that, but they had back-to-back shutouts, which means the Cardinals scored - wait for it - zero, zilch, zip runs! That's the first time they've accomplished that feat since 1937. The "redbirds" scored in only one inning of the 27 they played, the last 24 in a row. That is 26 "goose eggs" in 27 innings for Reds' pitchers.

Which gets me to today's post. Zeroes, or ciphers - particularly if you're British (in which the previous paragraph may be a different kind of cipher: a coded message requiring interpretation/deciphering if you will) - are known in baseball colloquially as "goose eggs" because of the resemblance of zeroes to eggs. According to the book 2107 Curious Word Origins, Sayings, & Expressions, by Charles Earle Funk, its first recorded use was in 1886, by the New York Times, in its report on a baseball game: "The New York players presented the Boston men with nine unpalatable goose eggs in their contest on the Polo Grounds yesterday." Britain has its own version: in 1863 Charles Reade's Hard Cash described a failure to score at cricket achieving a "duck's egg."

The concept of zero is interesting. Etymonline.com has a posting on it here that explains, basically, that the concept didn't exist except in Babylonian, Mayan, and Indian number systems. The word zero came to English in about 1600 from the French word zéro, or directly from the Italian zero. Either would have come from the Medieval Latin word zephirum from the Arabic word sifr, a translation of the Sanskrit word for desert, empty place, or nought: sunya-m.

The word cipher is older. It also ultimately comes from sunya-m, although it's easier to see its etymology from sifr. It arrived in English in the late 1300s. Again according to etymonline.com it "came to Europe with Arabic numerals.Originally in English 'zero,' then 'any numeral' (early 15c.), then (first in French and Italian) [a] 'secret way of writing; coded message' (a sense first attested in English 1520s), because early codes oftn substituted numbers for letters."

In the paragraph before last the word nought is used. I remember it being used most often when there were people alive talking about the first decade of the 20th century, in which a year was often referred to as "nineteen-nought...."  Nought (or naught - both are acceptable) comes from Old English (where it was nowiht) and has meant "zero, cipher" since the early 1400s.

Since we're on the subject, Zero Mostel (1915-1977) was a comedic actor born in Brooklyn as Samuel Joel Mostel. He was nicknamed Zero by the press agent for a club at which he was hired as a comedian who said "here's a guy who started from nothing."

And finally, Shakespeare wrote Much Ado About Nothing in the late 1500s. He could have called it Much Ado About Zero or Much Ado About Cipher. But he didn't.

"Just Take This Thing" - A Phrase My Wife Used in Parturition

So what I thought would be one blog post has turned into three. Parturition, parturient, and pare are still left from the subject of the last two posts. Then we'll get to some other words.

Parturition and parturient are related forms, parturition being the noun and parturient being the adjective . 

Parturient is the older, having come into English in the 1590s, and means bearing young or about to do so, although it is sometimes used of an idea, although nascent is a more common word for that concept. Parturient comes from the Latin word parturientem, a form of the word parturire that means to be in labor. It literally means "desire to bring forth" according to etymonline.com, being the desiderative (I didn't know there was such a thing in Latin) of parere, which means "to bear."

Parturition, which came from the Latin word parturitionem, which is a "noun of action" (no wonder I flunked Latin...twice) from the past participle stem of parturire. Parturition came into use in English in the 1640s, so for 50 years in England you could only talk about the process, not the act of giving birth. It would be another 136 years before men would gather in Philadelphia to parturition a nation.

The Latin word parere gives us another English word, pare. Pare means to cut off or cut away the outer layer of something (in my experience most often an apple). It is the oldest of these three words, having arrived about 1300 into English from Old French, where the word was parer, which the Old French got directly from the Latin parere. Parere had many meanings, according to etymonline.com. Their list is "make ready, prepare, furnish, provide, arrange, order; contrive, design, intend, resolve; procure, acquire, obtain, get; get with money, buy, purchase." I suppose today the difference between provide and purchase is not great, and maybe it wasn't so in ancient Rome, either. The point is that it the word pare had other meanings derived from French and Latin and it was not until the 1520s that the meaning of taking a peel off came into preeminence. 

So instead of saying “in labor” or “act of giving birth” you can say parturient or parturition. Not that it’s much shorter. “In delivery” or “delivery seem to be the more common usage.

We have space to look at an unrelated word today. 

I ran across a post on Mental Floss.com (which today highlights a post "11 Paraprosdokians That Will Make You Think Twice") written by Arika Okrent entitled "11 Weirdly Spelled Words and How They Got That Way.  One of the words was "knead" and I thought what was written was interesting:

Two things happened in the early 1500s that really messed with English spelling. First, the new technology of the printing press meant publishers - rather than scribes - were in charge, and they started to standardize spelling. At the very same time, the Great Vowel Shift was underway. People were changing the way they pronounced vowels in vast groups of words, but the publishers weren't recognizing the changes yet. This is why we ended up with so much inconsistency: 'ea' sounds different in knead, bread, wear, and great. Along with the vowel changes, English lost the /k/ shound from /kn/ words, the /w/ from /wr/ words, and the /g/ from gnat and gnaw. But by the time the change was complete, the writing habits has already been established.  

While that is great, the two things not said were that knead is a verb that means to work into a uniform mixture by pressing folding, and stretching (and punching and throwing and squeezing) or that it comes from the Old English word cnedan (Saxon, Dutch, German, and Old Norse all use the k in their forms of the word, in case you wonder.)

Not that you kneaded to know.

Shakespeare and Hunka Hunka Burning Love

Last week I ended the blog post by saying we never got to the words fornication or parturition or priapic or pudendum. With the anticipation building to a fever pitch, without further ado let's get back to what for some are prurient interests.

Fornication is the most commonly used of today's words. It is not just any sexual intercourse, it is specifically the voluntary sexual intercourse between two people who are not married to each other. The noun form is older than the verb form, fornicate. Fornication came to English in about 1300 from the Old French word fornicacion, which came from the Late Latin word fornicationem, both of which came from the Latin word for brothel, fornix. The verb came directly from the Latin in the 1550s, or it may just be a back-formation from fornication. 

Fornix is actually a word, but it is anatomical, referring to various arched formations. Huh? Well, fornix in Latin originally meant an arch or vaulted chamber or opening, or a covered way, and the supposition is that prostitutes in Rome used such architectural features as their place for solicitation. By the time of Juvenal and Horace fornix meant brothel,

Another interesting etymological possibility from fornix is that the arched meaning has some kinship to fornus, which is the Latin word for a brick oven with an arch or dome. It is the word from which we get furnace, which is any structure or apparatus in which heat is generated. So perhaps Elvis's song hunka hunka burning love has Latin roots.

Since fornix is an anatomical word, let's look at the words priapic and pudendum, which are also anatomical in nature. 

Priapic means something is like Priapus, who I am sure you remember as the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, and is the god who personified male reproductive power. Priapic, the adjective formed from his name, has been in use since 1786, perhaps as a more obscure word for the more commonly used word phallic, although priapic came into English three years before phallic. Priapism has been used in English since the 1620s, and refers to the "persistent erection of the penis." If it lasts more than four hours, call your doctor.

Phallic means pertaining to the phallus, and came from the Greek word phallikos, which came from the Greek word phallos, meaning penis, from which we get the noun form of phallic, phallus. Phallus has been used in English since the early 1600s, and is defined as "an image of the male reproductive organ." The Greek word for whale is phalle. I'm not sure there is a connection, I'm just saying.... Since 1924 phallus has been used not just of an image, but of the penis itself. Phallic symbol has been used in English since 1809. 

In case this post makes you uncomfortable, you might be interested to know that the word pudendum, which refers to external genital organs, comes from the Latin word pudendum which literally translated is "thing to be ashamed of." It has been used in English since the late 1300s, and while originally it would refer to either male or female genitals it now primarily refers to female genitalia, specifically the vulva. 

And we're out of space, so parturition, parturient, and pare will have to wait until next week. Paring the post here may be, as Shakespeare wrote, "the most unkindest cut of all." 

Sex

During a recent visit to the doctor the television show “Big Bang Theory” came to mind (Sheldon’s use of the phrase “voiding my bladder,” if you must know) and I was reminded when I looked at my list of unblogged words of another of Sheldon's idiomatic use of English.

It seems that in English there are subjects and words that are avoided in “polite society,” like Sheldon’s use of “void my bladder” rather than some euphemistic expression. I looked a little bit through previous posts for a good example of the proliferation of words to describe uncomfortable subjects and didn’t quickly find one. If you remember one, feel free to add a comment for others.

Today’s subject matter is sex. To get back to my “Big Bang Theory” opening, another of Sheldon’s “polite society” words is the use of the word coitus for having sex. Having sex is an idiomatic expression for coitus or copulation or fornication or the act of sexual intercourse. It is a general term for various acts (not all of which will be covered in this blog post.)

Sex as a word came to English in the late 1300s as a noun for genders collectively. It comes from the Latin word sexus that means the state of being either male or female. And so it remained for hundreds of years until D.H. Lawrence used the word in 1929 to refer to the act of sexual intercourse. Within 10 years it came to be used to refer to genitalia.

Some other “sex” phrases are older. Sex drive is from 1918, according to etymonline.com, and sex object from 1901. Sex symbol was used in anthropology starting in 1871, but in 1959 a modern anthropologist first used it to describe a woman (Marilyn Monroe, if you must know). Prior to that sex objects were known primarily as pin up girls (the most iconic being Betty Grable), a phrase first attested to in 1941 as Americans joined World War II and sent their men overseas with reminders of what they were fighting for.

But back to “Big Bang Theory.” Sheldon’s use of coitus is correct. Coitus is sexual intercourse, particularly between and man and a woman. Etymonline.com indicates it is synonymous with copulation, and gives its entry date into English as 1713. It comes from the Latin word coitus that means “a meeting together; sexual union.” Before deriving its sexual meaning it referred to any inexorable attraction, as in magnetic force or planetary conjunctions. Coitus interruptus (according to the Collins English Dictionary the deliberate withdrawal of the penis from the vagina before ejaculation) was first used by Havelock Ellis in 1900. Havelock Ellis also is credited by Wikipedia with “introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism.”

Another similar word, coition, is a noun that has been in English since the 1540s and comes from the Late Latin word coitionem, a noun of action developed from the Latin word coitus and was used in English for sexual intercourse 100 years before coitus. I don’t remember ever seeing it used. There's a word for you, Sheldon.

Copulation (the word) came to English from Middle English in the late 1300s. It comes from the Latin word copulationem, a noun of action from the past participle stem (thank you, etymonline.com) of copulare, from which we get copulate. It originally referred to any coupling and has been used of the sex act since the late 1400s; now it is almost exclusively used of sexual intercourse.

Copulate is a verb meaning to engage in sexual intercourse, and has been used in English since the early 1400s. It came from the Latin word copulates, the past participle of copulare. Originally meaning “to join” it eventually (by the 1630s) was used of sexual intercourse.

In usage, coitus is a more scientific term while copulation is a slightly more coarse word, but still acceptable since there are so many euphemisms for sexual intercourse.  

And we haven't gotten to fornication or parturition or priapic or pudendum. Check back next week. 

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

A couple of words come from last week's post: hobo and ephemeral.It is the nature of their passing along that unites them.

A hobo is a class of homeless, traveling man. The origin of the word is unknown, except that it seems to have come into vogue in California in the 1890s. There are a number of conjectures for its etymology, Etymonline.com quotes Barnhart comparing it to an early 19th century English word, hawbuck, which referred to a "clumsy fellow, country bumpkin." It may have come from trainmen calling out "ho, boy" to those using rail cars illegally. Or it could have come from "hoe-boy" meaning a farmhand.

H.L. Mencken, in his monumental work "The American Language" (Supplement 2, p. 679), writes that the first use of the word hobo is in a magazine article by Josiah Flynt dated 1891, but doesn't give the magazine's name. He quotes the Dictionary of American English as positing that it comes from "Hello Beau," or "Ho, beau." Another suggestion he gives (my favorite) is that it comes from homus bonum, meaning a good fellow. But he concludes by saying that all of the suggestions sound improbable to him. So more ideas, but nothing definite.

My dictionary defines a hobo as a tramp or vagrant, but those who call themselves hobo would make a distinction between the three. They would suggest a tramp is one who will only work when they need to and a vagrant as one who will never work, while a hobo works to support their lifestyle as a vagabond, the original American migrant worker. It was the depression in the 1930s that increased the hobo population dramatically. They would "ride the rails" from town to town, setting up "hobo camps" and even developed a literature that included poetry.

If you want to learn more about the history of the hobo and "hobohemia," a trip to Britt, Iowa is de rigueur. It hosts a hobo convention every year (this year's is August 3-9); for more information you can go to http://www.brittiowa.com/hobo/.


Ephemeral is a much older word. It means lasting a very short time, and is very similar to transitory. But the difference is in the potential continued existence of something that is transitory while that which is ephemeral has a sense of ceasing to exist in a very short time.

Ephemeral came to English in the 1560s and was originally used only of diseases and lifespans. It wasn't until the 1630s that it expanded to anything that would quickly cease to exist. According to dictionary.com a second definition is for something that lasts only one day, giving an example of "an ephemeral flower."

Ephemeral is formed from making an adjective of the noun ephemera, which took place after ephemera had been in English for over a century (it came into English in the late 1300s.) The word ephemera comes from the Medieval Latin word ephemera that referred to a fever that would last but one day. Ephemera comes from the Greek word ephemeros that means daily or just for the day. The Greek word was formed by combining the Greek word for "on" (epi-) with the word for "day" (hemera). But it was a while before ephemera developed the broader application to anything that quickly ceases to exist; it wasn't until 1751 that this meaning is first recorded.

By the way, I read that due to the increased speed of rail transportation the life of the hobo has become much more dangerous and the population of hobos has dwindled. It might even be called ephemeral.

Enjoy Life

Last week I used the phrase joie de vivre, a French phrase that when translated literally means joy of living. Its meaning is given as a delight in being alive or a carefree enjoyment of living. Its first recorded use in English was in 1889. It is descriptive of a character trait rather than an emotion.

There is no word in English that is a synonym, so to describe someone with a joy of living or a love of life requires three words in English or in French. Ebullient comes closest, but it refers more to a transient state than a character trait.

Etymonline.com gives a couple of other French phrases along with its succinct etymology of joie de vivre: savoir-faire and feu de joie.

I have not encountered feu de joie, but then I have not been to a lot of military ceremonies. A feu de joie is a volley of gunfire beginning at one end of a line of soldiers, going down the line and returning back down the line to the first soldier. The best audio/visual example I could find was here; you can hear the sound of it, even if you can't see the shooting. I found examples of this impressive ceremony on YouTube from around the world. According to some accounts it was a sunset ceremony as a fort's gates were closed and the soldiers retreated into the security of the fort.

Savoir-faire is a far different phrase. According to etymonline.com it is "instinctive knowledge of the right course of action in any circumstance," and came into use in English in 1815. A literal translation is "to know [how] to do." Savoir means "to know" and comes from the Latin word sapere from which we get sapient. Faire comes from the Latin word facere that means to make or do and from which we get our word factitious.

I used the word transient above. It has several meaning in common use. Perhaps the most common use is as a noun, to describe a person or thing that is temporary. But is is often used in the U.S. of a homeless person and is somewhat akin to a hobo (next week's post). But its original meaning, still in use today, is of anything not durable or that is about to pass away or pass on. Transient comes from the Latin word transientem. Transient has meant "passing through without staying" since the 1680s; while the noun has existed since the 1650s its use to describe a guest or boarder has only been used since 1857.

What is the difference between transient and transitory? While the words by definition seem to be synonyms, transitory has a sense of passing away while transient more of passing on. Transitory has been used in English even longer than transient. It arrived in the 1400s from the Old French word transitoire that came from the Late Latin word transitorius that in classical Latin meant "allowing passage through." The best synonym for transitory is ephemeral (also next week's post), not transient.

In other words, something that ceases to exist is transitory. Something that continues to exist after briefly being present is transient. A circus or carnival is transient; the excitement from their presence is transitory.

But for someone with joie de vivre both are thoroughly enjoyed.

Happy Father's Day

As one who for the first time in his life is not able to say "Happy Father's Day" to his father, I am obviously at the age where one must turn his attention to the idea of "What qualities and wisdom can I leave to my children that will make them as pleased with me as a father as I have been with my father?" As I approach my senescence I reflect on what qualities I hope to imbue in my children.

I would like for them to know how to be abstemious without abjuring joie de vivre (next week's post) or needing to be a bon vivant. It would be nice, too, if they were insouciant and have perspicacity and equanimity,

I hope they would enjoy (as much as do I) badinage and a good bon mot, and become a deipnosophist. While they have a burgeoning reputation among their friends as being sagacious they are also winsome and ebullient even if not(yet) considered to be a philologue.

I would hope they will learn to avoid being captious, mendacious, obstreperous and (they knew it was coming) contumacious.

Finally, I will be pleased if in the efflorescence of their inchoate denidified adulthood they learn to be polymaths without being pedantic, can solicit without being solicitous, are voracious for knowledge without being a quidnunc, and sapient without being sappy.They don't need to be fecund as long as they are not feckless. And I hope they always supererogate and have ruth.

To the extent that I exhibit any of these qualities I am indebted to my father. And to every father out there I wish you a happy father's day.

Ensconcing a Sconce

It was during our department lunch that a discussion ensued. Was ensconced a word or not? It didn't take long for someone to ask me for my opinion.

I told them "Yes, ensconce is a word" and attempted to define it. The best I could come up with was something along the lines of being fully engulfed or inundated or installed. Then I looked it up, because it occurred to me that it likely has nothing to do with the word sconce, as in a wall sconce (I've never read of a floor sconce or table sconce.) Later I heard them discussing the word scone, which bears an eerie resemblance to sconce, as does eerie to Erie.

First, ensconce is defined (at dictionary.com) as "to settle securely or snugly" or "to cover or shelter or hide securely." So my definition wasn't far off, but apparently there's an element of security that of which I was not aware. Its etymology I checked on my phone (anyone else notice that it's a phone unless it has an office or - at home - a cord to the wall, in which case it's an office phone or land line?) and found that its etymology is uncertain, perhaps coming from the French but probably from the Dutch word schans that means "earthwork." An earthwork is certainly firmly settled and is meant to add security. Etymonline.com defines ensconce as "to cover with a fort" and dates its arrival in English to the 1580s.

Sconce, on the other hand, has been used in English since the 1300s. A sconce is a bracket for candles or other lights that is placed on a wall, frame, or mirror (or the hole that holds it). Originally it was a candle with a screen, and was shortened from the Old French word esconce that was used for both a lantern and a hiding place. (Hence the speculation about ensconce coming from French.) But the Old French got esconce from the Medieval Latin word sconsa, which developed from the Latin word absconsa, the feminine past participle form of abscondere, from which we get abscond. It wasn't until the mid-1400s that it referred to the lighting fastened to the wall.

Removing yet another letter gets us to scone. Dictionary.com defines it as a small, light, biscuitlike quick bread made of oatmeal, wheat flour, barley meal, or the like. The scones I've had have been neither small nor light, but that's probably just the American "bigger is better" mentality. Etymonline.com says they are a "thin, flat, soft cake." Again, the ones I've had have not been thin, flat or soft. Etymonline also says the word (and likely the scones) came from Scotland in the 1510s and was probably shortened from the Dutch schoon brood, which with a heavy Scottish accent probably sounded to the English like scone bread. (In Dutch schoon means bright and beautiful while broot is the word for bread.

So three words so similar in appearance have little or no relation to each other. Now you know.

In Memorium

Yesterday was a thanatopsis, as we ceremonially assisted Charon in his task.

Thanatopsis is a word formed from the Greek words for death (thanatos) and opsis (view or sight). It was also the name of an 1817 poem by William Cullen Bryant. You can read the poem here. It is more about the dying (or is it dyeing?) than about the prospect of eternal life, and while there is mention of others who have gone before it is not as if there is a reunion with them, just a joining in death. So I don't quote it here. I am convinced my father joined my mother in heaven. (In fact, my brother Bob tells the story that follows.)

A couple weeks before my Dad died, he was waiting for me at the door of his retirement home when I came in for a visit--which NEVER happened. I always had to find him. But this time, I pushed his wheelchair over to an armchair and asked him why he was waiting for me. "I want to go see Millie," he said. That was also strange, because for at least the last year, maybe two or more, he would look puzzled when I mentioned Millie (my Mom) to him. But that day, he seemed as clear as could be, as if he could just get in my car and go see Millie.

It was just curious to me at the time....but last night it dawned on me that maybe he had a sense of going to see Millie before I had any idea that he would soon leave this life. 

So yesterday much of the family gathered for a memorial service for my father. Thanatopsis, a view of or musing upon death, was a word for it, but in reality it was more of a musing on the life of someone dear to us, recounting his foibles (foremost among them the odd use of his handkerchief - you'll have a to ask me about that one) but also the reprise of some of his favorite solos - he was renowned for his vocal presentations. And the meditation was brought by my nephew David, a Greek Orthodox priest serving as a chaplain in the Navy. I particularly enjoyed the Greek portion of the meditation that included a Greek hymn sung first by David and his three sons then by all the assembled.

And so we assisted Charon, according to Greek mythology the name of the boatman who ferried the souls of the newly departed over the river Styx. (The word charon can be used of any ferryman, but should only be used ironically.)

In the opening paragraph I mused over death. Actually, I mused over the word dying. Why is the word die but the form of the word dying? (I'm not sure whether the form is present participle form or gerund or even a deverbal noun; I'm more interested in the etymology.)

While the word die, meaning to cease to live, is common and dates back in English to the mid-1100s, it also refers to one of a pair of dice or for a stamping or cutting device that forms or cuts material from cloth to metal. The process of stamping or cutting won the battle over the use of the word dieing. If you are using a stamp to form (for instance) a coin, you are dieing. While the word die (ceasing to live) probably came from a Dutch or Norse word (there are many English words with their roots in Old Norse, since the Vikings ruled England until the Battle at Stamford Bridge in 1066, as I'm sure you remember.)

The word could not be spelled dyeing lest it be confused with the process of coloring

An interesting (to me) etylological thanatopsis from etymonline.com:

Languages usually don't borrow words from abroad for central life experiences, but "die" words are an exception, because they are often hidden or changed euphemistically out of superstitious dread. A Dutch euphemism translates as "to give the pipe to Maarten." Regularly spelled dege through [the 15th century], and still pronounced "dee" by some in Lancashire and Scotland. Used figuratively (of sounds, etc.) from [the] 1580s. 

I cannot leave the Lancashire/Scottish pronunciation without mentioning (since I mentioned my younger brother, Bob, earlier) that my older brother Don's middle name is "Dee."

So why is the noun form of the act of dying called death? I would prefer to think it comes from the Old Irish word dith but etymonline.com informs us that it comes from the Old English where it was deað.

Finally, one of my favorite poems (ever since son Joe learned it as part of his presentation in high school's Rotary speech contest) has been John Donne's poem "No Man Is An Island" which contains these words: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

So I am diminished today, but joyful because, as Dad anticipated rejoining his loved ones in heaven, so I look forward to that reunion as much as I enjoyed the one that took place this weekend. Or, as it's put in Revelation 21:4,

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. 

RIP Charles Vernon Hostetler, April 26, 1920 - March 9, 2015

Reasonable or Rational?

Last week we looked at the word reason but ran out of space before we could get to other forms, or to get to the question why reasonable has an s and rational has a t. 

Reasonable is the adjective form of the noun reason. It developed in about 1300 (it is reasonable to wonder what they used for an adjective for 100 years) but came from the Old French word raisonable which they got from the Latin word rationabilis. Etymonline quotes Erich Fromm, who in 1968 wrote in “The Heart of Man”, “What the majority of people consider to be ‘reasonable’ is that about which there is agreement, if not among all, at least among a substantial number of people; ‘reasonable’ for most people has nothing to do with reason but with consensus.” I disagree slightly, because there is still a certain amount of reasoning to it.

Reasonable meaning “moderate in price” came into use by the 1660s. When I use reasonable in this sense, what I mean is that the price stands to reason.

Rational is also an adjective, and came into English in the late 1300s. It may have come from the Old French word racionel, directly from the Latin word rationalis, or a combination of both. It originally meant “pertaining to reason” but by the mid-1400s also meant “endowed with reason.” It has a closer meaning to the noun reason than reasonable.

Reasonable would be similar in meaning to "making sense" while rational is similar in meaning to "having sense." Sanity is involved in rational, but not necessarily in reasonable. One can be insane and still reasonable.  

One interesting thing about these words is that their Latin words are all forms of the Latin word ratio, from which we get our English word ratio. In Latin ratio means “reckoning, numbering, calculation; or business affair and procedure.” When ratio came into use in English in the 1630s it meant reason or rationale, but by the 1650s it developed the meaning of a relationship between two numbers, its most common English meaning today.

But the Latin meaning brings us to another related word, rationale. When it appeared in the 1650s it referred to an exposition of principles, a meaning it retains today. But its primary meaning today is “the fundamental reason or reasons serving to account for something,” a meaning it developed in the 1680s. It came to English from the Late Latin word rationale, which is (as I’m sure you reasoned out) the noun use of the neuter of the Latin word rationalis. The final e makes a big difference in meaning. One must be rational to have a rationale.

From reviewing the etymologies it seems obvious that in adopting words from Latin the Old French would change the “ti” that sounds like “sh” in current English into an “s”. I was not able to find confirmation for this being the reason behind this change, but it is reasonable to assume it to be the case if you use the rationale that I am rational.

I'm Posting for a Reason

It is interesting how one post can lead to other posts. As with last week, part of the post from April 26 leads to today’s post. The exact phrase concluded with the words “reason and rational are words for another week.” This is the week for reason and being rational.

Why does reason have an s but rational has a t? And why do we have both reasonable and rational? Do we need both words?

Let’s begin with reason. It can have several meanings, but the most common is the one that has a meaning of a basis for a cause for some belief or action. Originally reason meant both “an intellectual faculty that adopts an action to ends” and/or a statement in an argument or explanation or justification. Within 100 years the added meaning of sanity or degree of intelligence developed. It was not until the early 1300s that today’s most common meaning developed. There are seven (or 10) meanings for reason in my dictionary, including one in Logic and one (or three) in Philosophy.

A couple of phrases that don’t make sense to us today use the word reason. For instance, the phrase “rhyme or reason” has nothing to do with what we mean by reason today. It refers to a defunct meaning from Middle English (the early 1300s) of reason to mean significance or meaning. The phrase “stands to reason” is from the 1630s, but the part that needs explanation is not reason, but stand. (See how it happens? Another week another “word for another week.” Or go to Languagehat, a website I discovered in researching this phrase.) Other phrases, like “by reason of” and “within reason” still have connection to the current primary meaning. 

Reason came into English in about 1200 from Anglo-French, where it was spelled resoun. The Old French word was raison and meant, according to etymonline.com, “course, matter, subject, language, speech, thought, opinion.” The Old French got raison from the Latin word rationem that meant “reckoning, understanding motive, cause.”

Reason as a verb (“I reasoned that it would be a verb.”) appeared in the early 1300s and originally was spelled resunmen. It meant “to question (someone)” or “to challenge” and came from the Old French word raisoner that meant to speak or discuss, argue or address. Raisoner comes from the Latin word rationare that also has to do with discourse. The meaning of thinking in a logical manner comes from the 1590s.

More next week.

Literally Illustrate, Please

In my April 26 post I used the parenthetical comment “figuratively, not literally.” It has become part of common use to misuse the word “literally” as emphasis rather, as in “I literally died.” Used in such a phrase the word literally cannot be accurate, but is used as an intensive adjective. But it is better as an intensive than the even lazier and increasingly pervasive use of the expletive “fucking.”* You can be “literally mortified” but not “literally die.” In the hilarious television series Will and Grace one of the funniest expressions Jack McFarland uses (you have to see Sean Hayes to get the humor) is the correct but hyperbolic expression “I would die! I would just die!”

The word that is accurate instead of “literally” is “figuratively” but it has no force if used in a phrase “I would figuratively die.” But let’s look at the difference so everyone understands. We’ll look more at die and death in a couple of weeks.

Literal means in the strict meaning of the word or words: true, factual, or actual. Figurative means not literal, and can mean using a figure of speech or represented by a figure or likeness. It can also mean metaphorical. Metaphorical refers to a specific figure of speech: using a metaphor. It may be true that all metaphorical expressions are figurative, but not all figurative expressions are metaphorical.

A metaphor and a simile are similar. A simile is a comparison using the word “as” or “like,” as in “you eat like an animal.” A metaphor is a direct comparison without use of “like” or “as”: “you are an animal.”

Where did all these words literally come from?

Literal was originally used of scripture, and the opposite was not figurative but mystical or allegorical (you’ll have to wait until next week for the post on those words). It came into use in English in the 1300s from the Old French word literal which came from the Late Latin word literalis (or litteralis). The Latin word for letter is litera. It did not gain its current meaning of exact in essence until the 1590s. Its misuse is long-standing. Etymonline.com provides the following:

Erroneously used in reference to metaphors, hyperbole, etc., even by writers like Dryden and Pope, to indicate “what follows must be taken in the strongest admissible sense” (1680s), which is opposite to the word’s real meaning and a long step down the path to the modern misuse of it.

We have come to such a pass with this emphasizer that where the truth would require us to insert with a strong expression ‘not literally, of course, but in a manner of speaking’, we do not hesitate to insert the very word we ought to be at pains to repudiate; …such false coin makes honest traffic in words impossible. [Fowler, 1924]

Figurative is also from the 1300s and also comes from the Old French, from figurative. The Old French also got it from Late Latin, from figurativus, which means “of speech.”

Metaphor came later, in the late 1400s, but followed the same path: through Old French (metafore) from Latin (metaphora). But Latin got it from the Greek word metaphora that means transfer. Meta means over or across and pherein means carry or bear. So metaphora literally means to carry over or bear across.

While we’re engaged in etymology: simile also arrived in the late 1300s but directly from the Latin word simile, meaning a like thing or a comparison or parallel. Simile is the neuter form of similis, from which we get the word similar. (I find it interesting that similar arrived in English much later – in the 1560s – but was originally similary and didn’t drop the “y” until the 1610s.)

Etymonline.com has a nice quote from Samuel Johnson with which to end this post: “A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject.”

*I wondered about using asterisks in place of three letters in the word fuck in the first paragraph; it fools no one so you might as well write it out. It’s the same thing for “the n word” in place of nigger. If you think of the word it is indicative of the way your mind works. Using an asterisk or some other construction like “the n word” or “frigging” means you know it’s not right to say it but it came to mind anyway and you can’t come up with a more appropriate word.

Follow Up on Last Week's Post

Last week I mentioned the word virus, thinking it would be a good start for a follow up post. And so it is. But in researching virus I realized for the first time that there are two adjectives related to virus that seem like they would have the same meaning: viral and virulent. Let’s begin with virus, the first word to arrive in English.

It comes from the Latin word for things as disparate as poison or plant sap or any slimy liquid. It probably comes from a Proto-Indo-European root weis, meaning to melt away or for a bad-smelling fluid, especially one that could be poisonous. In Sanskrit poison is visam, in Avestan vish-. Avestan is an eastern Iranian language, the language or Zoroastrianism. 

Very quickly after the introduction of virus into English came the adjective form, virulent. Originally describing fluids, within 200 years it developed the addition meaning of violent or spiteful (or both). But its meaning was still relating to poisonous or at least very noxious. It had nothing to do with viruses. And so matters remained for over 500 years. 

In the late 1900s a Russian scientist named Dmitri Ivanovsky studied what became known as the tobacco mosaic virus, and then began the study of viruses. Viruses came to be defined as a biological agent that causes cell reproduction in its hosts. (But that doesn't make them violent or spiteful.)

According to etymonline.com the adjective viral was first used in 1948. My dictionary puts the date as between 1935 and 1940, Merriam Webster says 1937. None cite the reference. 

The internet-related meaning (e.g., “Larry’s blog has gone viral”) is from 1999, “originally in reference to marketing and based on the similarity of the effect to the spread of a computer virus,” according to etymonline.com. 

Another word I used at the very end of the blog was desalinization. Let’s start this analysis with the base word: salt. Salt is an Old English word with cognates in many other languages, including Latin, where the word is sal. Add the prefix de- indicating “remove” and you have the verb desalt. Desalt was the word of choice for a long time.

But alongside salt came the adjective saline, meaning “made of salt”, that has been around in English since about 1500, its form probably influenced by the Latin word for salt container – salinum.

By 1650 the noun salinity was formed to indicate gradation of saltiness. Then in 1705 the back-formation of the adjective saline into salination took place. (Probably the result of efforts by The Salination Army.)

But it wasn’t until 1943 that someone decided to try and take the salt out of something, and rather than use the old unfamiliar word desalt they decided upon desalination. Then in the early 1960s someone decided to create a verb from desalination and came up with desalinize (or desalinise in Britain). Eventually someone took desalinize and back-formed yet another noun from it: desalinization. Desalinization can be found in Random House dictionary and the American Heritage Science Dictionary. 

When it opens in 2016 (at a estimated cost of over $1 billion) the plant in Carlsbad, California that is designed to take the salt out of salt water will not be a desalinization plant; it will be a desalination plant. Score one for reverse back-formation.

From now on I’m going with desalt. As in "pass desalt, please."

From Poison to Potable

In December last year I discussed the word gift (12 21 14). But what I did not share at that festive time is that in German Gift means poison (as it does in Swedish, Dutch, and Danish). Last month I could have expounded upon poison on the Ides of March, but my father’s passing made that inappropriate. So let’s get into some poison today (figuratively, not literally).

Poison, while now both a noun and a verb, entered English as a noun first, in about 1200. It was first used as a verb around 1300. The word for any substance that is injurious to health up to and including being deadly can be used both figuratively and literally. It comes to English from Old French where it was spelled puison or poison until Modern French settled on poison.

In Old French poison was initially a drink, especially if medical in intent, then later a magic potion. The Old French got poison from the Latin word potionem which was a form of the word potare. (Raison and rationem had the same changes of t in Latin to s in French, but reason and rational are words for another week.) While Latin is the source of the Italian pozione and the Spanish pocion, etymonline.com suggests “the more usual Indo-European word for this is represented in English by virus.” The Old English word for poison was ator, and we retain ator in a word for a spider (or a person who’s as bad as a spider), attercop. (Attercop was an entirely new word to me. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered it before.)

The Old French had the word enerber or enherber to use when talking about killing with poison plants, hence poison took time to develop the English meaning in French.

Perhaps you realized that the word potion shares the Latin root word potionem. Potion also came to English from Old French, where it had become pocion. It then (as now) is a drink especially if it is medicinal or magical, although it can also refer to a poisonous drink. And etymonline.com shares that potus (now an acronym for President of the United States) “as a past participle adjective in Latin meant ‘drunken.’” Remember: they said it, not me.

Potus is a form of the word potare which is also the source of the word potable. Potable as an adjective refers to any liquid suitable for drinking. It came to English in the early 1400s, also from Old French, where it was also spelled potable. “Drinkable” in Late Latin is potabilis, explaining how the Old French got from potare to potable.

And that is how you get etymologically from poison to potable. It is easier than the process of getting from salt water to potable water (which, in one word, is desalination).

The Measure of a Man

I was talking with my wife recently (Hey! It could happen!) and we were speculating whether gram is a measure of weight or volume. Then I started wondering why volume is a descriptor of size, one of a set of books, and loudness. So here we go with this week's post. 

It is difficult when talking about weights and measures to define what you're talking about. Take gram, for instance. It is defined as a metric unit of mass or weight equal to 15.432 grains or one thousandth of a kilogram. A grain is not just any grain. It is a plump grain of wheat (don't try and cheat me with a skinny grain of wheat - I'll have none of that.) That weight called a grain is the same amount in avoirdupois, troy, apothecary, British and American systems. So take 16 plump grains of wheat, cut the 16th one into 1000 pieces (wear your glasses) and put 432 with the other 15 to weigh the same as a gram. Take 15,432 plump grains of wheat and you have a kilogram. A paperclip is about the weight of one gram.

The word gram came to English (the English spelling is gramme) in 1797 as the metric system was being developed during the French Revolution. The French got it from the Late Latin word gramma, which came from the Greek word gramma, both of which mean "small weight." The metric system in France was officially adopted in 1799.

Volume can mean one of a set of published works, or it can mean the amount of space that an object of substance occupies, or it can be a measure of loudness. How do we get three such different meanings for one word? When volume came into English in the late 1300s from the Old French word volume it already had two of the three meanings, both one of a set of written works (printing wasn't invented yet) and size/girth. It referred primarily to a roll of parchment or a bound book. It had come to French from Latin, where volumen means "roll" or "that which is rolled." In the 1520s the sense developed that anything about the size or weight of a book was/had a volume of.... Within 100 years both meanings took hold in both French and English.

So where did the meaning of loudness come from? Unfortunately I have been unable to uncover that development. I consulted things like "The History of Audio and Sound Measurement", a paper presented at the 94th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society in Berlin in 1993. But I found one explanation that said "The phrase 'volume of sound' is a natural application of the 'bulk, mass, quantity' meaning. It occurs in a review of the third performance of Handel's 'Messiah' from 1784." That works for me. Eventually the "...of sound" became understood. 

There is a word above that hasn't been covered in this blog: avoirdupois. While the French adopted the metric system, the standard system of weights in England (except for gems, precious metals and medicine) since the late 1400s has been called the avoirdupois system. Avoirdupois is a misspelling of the Middle English (@1300) phrase avoir-de-peise which is a change in spelling from the Old French avoir de pois meaning "goods of weight" according to etymonline.com. The word for weight comes from the Latin word for "to weigh", pendere, from which we get the word pendant. In case you wonder, one of the early means used to measure length was the distance of a pendulum swing. (If you want to read more about the efforts of Picard and Huygens and Wilkins and Jefferson to use pendulums to establish a standard length, click here.) 

So the volume of my avoirdupois is significantly more than a gram, or a kilogram. 

Downing Q Shots

A couple of words in queue to question are quench, quell, and squelch. And maybe if there's time we can get to queue/cue, too. (As opposed to too, too cute.)

Quench is defined by several words: slake (I think quench is more commonly understood than slake), satisfy, or allay (again, allay is less understood). When it comes to fires, it means put out or quell, the same word used when using quench in response to a rebellion (something I haven't encounter lately, since there have been few rebellions quenched recently). Basically, the meaning of quench is to do what is necessary to make the situation go away. You can quench a thirst or a fire with water. It takes more than water to quench a rebellion.

Quench is the modern spelling of the Old English word acwencan, It may have come from the Old English word cwincan, or from (my favorite language I know nothing about) the Old Frisian kwinka.

Quell, on the other hand, comes from the Old English word cwellan that meant to murder or kill, which I find interesting because in my mind it has a sense of peace and quiet. Perhaps that's because it is often used in regards fears. You quell fears, not quench them But both are used of rebellions; when quenched is used I take it to mean it took some violence but when quell is used I take it to mean it was somewhat peaceful suppression of the uprising. The milder sense of extinguishing that I attach to the word came into use in about 1300.

One of the defining words for quench was slake. It also comes from Old English, from slacian or sleacian. That word (however it was spelled) meant the same as our word slack: loosen in tension or remiss in doing. Then in the early 1400s the sense of making slack or inactive was applied to the use of slake and it took off in the direction of allaying thirst, hunger, or an emotion like desire or wrath. That has now become the meaning of slake and we have (since the 1510s) used slack for the original meaning of slack. The word slacker is "an agent noun" (according to etymonline.com, not James Bond) from slack and was only popularized in 1994 though it dates back to 1897.

Fears can be quelled or allayed. The difference? Quelled has a sense of calmed, allayed a sense of relieved or done away with. My fears, when quelled, remain but are no longer relevant; my fears when allayed are set aside, no longer existing. The Old English word from which we get allay (alecgan) meant put down or give up (I like the symmetry) or remit.

How you get from alecgan to allay may be interesting to one or two people: in early Middle English (but may be not in late Old English) the differentiation between the pronunciations of the y and g sounds were not very distinct, so the word alecgan was confused with alloy and allege. The Oxford English Dictionary (bow in reverence, pardner!) explains it thusly: "Amid the overlapping meanings that thus arose, there was developed a perplexing network of use of allay and allege, that belong to no one of the original vbs., but combine the senses of two or more of them." And etymonline explains the movement from one to two "l"s thusly: "the double -l- is 17c., a mistaken Latinism."

So where does squelch fit? And why does it have an s? While squelch came into use in the early 1600s its etymology is less distinct. It originally meant simply to drop, fall, or stomp on something soft so that it crushes. Perhaps it is onomatopoetic in origin. very early in its existence, perhaps because of its similarity to quench and quell, there was an attempt to drop the s from the word. You can still find it in the dictionary; it's a little harder to find it elsewhere.

It is interesting to note that while the primary meaning in America is still listed as to crush it also has a second (and in my experience more common) meaning of to silence or suppress. Squelching applies to words rather than emotions in American use. In British dictionaries the primary definition is the onomatopoetic sense: "to walk laboriously through soft wet material or with wet shoes, making a sucking noise." Only the third definition mirrors the American use: "to crush completely or squash."

Now we add squash to the mix. The verb squash is the first word for today that does not come from Old English. It came from Old French, in the early 1300s. It was originally spelled squachen because the Old French word was esquasser, or escasser. The Old French may have gotten esquasser from Latin, from combining the prefix ex- with the Latin word for shatter, quassare. The Old French word also meant crush, which is the primary meaning in English, whether of something tangible or not. Squash is used most often in regards to something tangible. You squash a bug or a food but not often a rebellion or an emotion. When that happens I think people mean to use squelch.

You may think the noun squash, referring to the gourd fruit, got its name because it needs to be squashed to be eaten, but that's not the etymology. The Narraganset or Algonquin word for the gourd is askutasquash, which literally translated means "the thing that may be eaten raw." I've never eaten raw squash, nor do I desire to do so.

Any desire I had to eat squash has been quashed, though my hunger is not quenched. So don't quell the fire if you plan for me to eat squash, and you'll quell my concerns. They'll be allayed when I sit down to eat.

Dinty Moor Maurice

A couple of weeks ago I almost included the word dint in an email. Realizing it wasn't what I wanted to say I chose another word, but it made me think it might be a good jumping-off point for a post. It's not a word I hear much any more, and is its most common use seems to be in the phrase "by dint of."

So let's look at it. Dint means force or power in the phrase (q.v.) but can also mean dent. In fact, dent is a dialectical variant of dint or dynt, dynt being an Old English word meaning a strike with a sword during fighting (tomorrow being opening day of the baseball season, I thought I'd use the word strike). Apparently a dent in armor is caused by a dint. While dint is old, the phrase "by dint of" comes from the early 1300s, the same time as the word dent appeared in English. But dent was not used as a short word for indentation until the 1560s.

As the title of the post suggests, another word for today is Moor. First, should it be capitalized or not? And what exactly is a Moor? I've encountered it particularly in Shakespeare and in architecture, so this seemed like a good post in which to clarify some more about moor. And what is the difference between moor and Moor? (If there is one.)

Let's take the various meanings for moor in chronological order.

The first moor to arrive in English is the noun that is synonymous with heath, but refers to the wet high ground (in latitude and altitude) that is peaty and often covered with heath. Moor is an Old English word (spelled mor in Old English) used of any swamp. According to etymonline.com the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names says "The basic sense in place names is 'marsh', a kind of low-lying wetland possibly regarded as less fertile than mersc 'marsh.' The development of the senses 'dry heathland, barren upland' is not fully accounted for but may be due to the idea of infertility."

For a long time that is the only moor (or mor) in English. Until the late 1300s when the Latin word for someone from Mauritania (northwest Africa, now Algeria and Morrocco), Maurus (or Morus in Medieval Latin) came through Old French as More, which would have been even more confusing. The Romans actually got the word Maurus from the Greek Mauros. The Greek word for "black" is mauros, so even though north Africans are lighter skinned than sub-Saharan Africans they are still darker than Europeans. This word Moor should always be capitalized. A great history of Moor can be found at taneter.org.  

The final moor is a word that can be a noun or a verb. This moor is the place where, by lines or cables, you secure a ship or airship. It is also the act of securing the ship. But the place can also be called a mooring, which is a gerund and adds to the confusion. The word mooring came first, in the early 1400s, while the verb came to modern English in the late 1400s. While the verb's etymology is uncertain it is probably from the Old English word for the mooring rope, maurels, although it could have come from the Middle Low German word of the same meaning, moren. But etymonline says the noun mooring came from the verb moor, Curiouser and curiouser.

And before we leave the morass (another synonym for moor) of moor, let's look in on Maurice.

This name is French, from the Late Latin Mauritius (q.v.). For fans of Steve Miller Band the name is familiar, from the song The Joker, which also has a reference to the 1954 song by The Clovers, "Lovey Dovey", that my wife Dovie has never liked, even though it says "You're the cutest thing that I ever did see." A sentiment with which I agree.

So it is possible for a dinty Moor to moor at a moor and be named Maurice.

High or Low Dudgeon? An Umber Umbrella in Umbria knows.

I recently used the phrase "he was in high dudgeon." I've never heard anyone speak of someone being in low or mid-level dudgeon, only in the high version. Dudgeon is a mystery word. In the 1300s the word dudgeon was used for a kind of wood used in knife handles, and may have come from a French word. But that has nothing to do with dudgeon of any elevation.

Dudgeon now, and since the 1570s, means furious or resentful or a bit of both, and is similar to umbrage. While it may have come from the Italian word aduggiare that means "overshadow" (it was originally spelled duggin; my cousin Marvin Duggins is rarely even in low dudgeon), its etymology, according to etymonline.com, is unknown.

I think it likely to be tied to aduggiare, since umbrage has a similar etymological and current sense. Umbrage, if you didn't know, means offense, annoyance, and/or displeasure. Its etymology is more certain. It came to English in the early 1400s from the Middle French word ombrage, which meant shade or shadow. The Middle French got it from the Latin word umbraticum, which meant "of or pertaining to shade", and was the neuter form of umbraticus (same meaning), which came from umbra, the Latin word for shade. While there were many figurative uses of umbrage until the 1600s the only one that is used today is the shadow of offense, which was first recorded in the 1610s. The phrase "to take umbrage at" has been used since the 1670s.

Of course, umbra is a good word for shadow, particularly in astrology. But it originally - in the 1590s - was used of a ghost (see good words for ghost here) and wasn't used of the shadow caused by an eclipse until the 1670s.

The word adumbrate also comes from the Latin root, as does the color umber.

Umber arrived in English in the 1560s, coming from Latin either through Middle French (ombre, as in terre d'ombre) or Italian (terra di ombra) or from Umbra, the feminine form of Umber that means "belonging to Umbria." Of course the color Sienna also came from that region of Italy, but that's a post of another color.

We have all these words coming from the Latin word for shade and have yet to talk about umbrella. The Late Latin word umbrella (meaning sunshade or parasol) was actually altered from the Latin word umbella because of the influence of umbra. Bet you didn't know umbra was influential, did you?

While an umbrella is protection from the sun in Umbria (and throughout the Mediterranean region) it is shelter from the rain in England. It was used first by women in England, starting about 1700, but by the 1750s the men realized they were getting wet, too.

So don't take umbrage if your umber umbrella creates an umbra in Umbria. It might lead to you being in low dudgeon.

Great Grandparents or Great-grandparents.

This past week my father died. He, and my grandfather and my great-grandfather all lived to be in their 90s. So it bodes well for this blog to go on for another few decades. I was wondering why we call our parent's parents "grand" and their parents "great." So let's find out and see where it goes.

The use of grand- in talking of your parents' parents came originally from Latin and Greek. Grandis in Latin means big or great, or full or abundant. (Perhaps the abundant meaning is the reason behind the appellation. Many grandparents delight in the abundance of the number of grandchildren they have. I know my dad did.)

The use came into English in 1200 or earlier. It came from Anglo-French, where the words were graunde dame. 

But where did "great" come from? It was apparently first used to describe a relationship once-removed, and the earliest attested use if of a great uncle. In Old English you would have referred to your great-grandfather as your þridda fæder, which literally translated is "third father." By Middle English the term was furþur ealdefade. (Any Middle English people out there know what furþur ealdefade is, literally translated? My guess is "further old father.)

Great-grandfather was first used in the 1510s, and it took a decade for great-grandmothers to be included.

I used removed earlier to mean "distant in relationship by a degree," in this case once-removed. I thought that while we're in the 1500s we might as well cover its meaning, since it came into use in the 1540s.

Removed in a genealogical sense refers to a generation. So your great uncle is your uncle once removed, or your father's uncle. So your grandparent's relatives are twice removed, and your great-grandparents relatives are three times removed. I just filed a photo of my grandmother and her brother Milt: my uncle twice removed.

Does the hyphen need to be in great-grandparent? Yes. For instance, my grandson Noah no longer has any great-grandparents, But he has some great grandparents, if I do say so myself. Our family is blessed with great ancestor, even though one more was "removed" this week.

The Long and (Mostly) the Short of it

This week’s readings (a book and a magazine) were replete with words appropriate for blogging: aperçu, divertissement, embonpoint, mordant, and rigmarole. Two of them have been posted on previously (the ones in purple, which will take you to their post when clicked on), so that leaves three for today’s post. Let’s take them in reverse alphabetical order just because I can be contumacious sometimes.

Rigmarole is a word I remember hearing my mother say, although she pronounced it as if it were spelled rigamarole. It is apparently an accepted variant spelling of rigmarole, because the Collins English Dictionary says so. But the preferred spelling is rigmarole; the word is a noun for any long or complicated procedure, or for a set of pointless statements or just garbled nonsense. Rigamarole is more fun for an utterance; it has a cadence to it and works well in dactylic tetrameter poetry, as the first part of this sentence might illustrate. (You provide the aperçu.)

Its etymology is almost as much fun as its utterance. While it came to English in 1736 to describe “a long, rambling discourse,” according to etymonline.com, it seems to have come from a colloquial Kentish use from the 1520s, a form of “ragman roll,” which coincidentally will be the name of my next album. “In Middle English a long roll of verses descriptive of personal characters, used in the medieval game of chance called Rageman” was the reference. But the name of the game (rhyme of the ancient blogman) may be from “Anglo-French Ragemon le bon ‘Ragemon the good,’ which was the heading on one set of the verses, referring to a character by that name.” For two hundred years it referred to a long, rambling discourse until 1939 when the idea of a foolish activity or commotion was added. The etymological explanation in itself may qualify as a rigmarole.

Our next word today is divertissement. It is NOT synonymous with diversion, because a diversion can be anything that entertains or distracts, while a divertissement is defined as anything that serves as an interlude in a performance. It is short, while a diversion is of indeterminate length. It is also related to performances: if you’re not watching a performance of a play, opera, or concert, that which provides entertainment between pieces is a diversion. For those who have never been to a play, opera, or concert, consider the Super Bowl commercials or halftime show as divertissement and you have the idea. Short entertainment between the main entertainment.

Divertissement came to English directly from the French in about 1720. The French word means amusement or diversion, but its English meaning is influenced by the Italian word divertimento, used in music for a piece of music either providing light amusement or using a small group of performers.

Finally, let’s get an aperçu at aperçu. Aperçu (pronounced to rhyme with “at her sea” if you’re still on that poetry kick) is a quick glance, or a glimpse of something. It can also mean a quick estimate or insight, or just an outline or summary. Whatever your use, it should be short and quick, not a rigmarole.

Aperçu, it won’t likely surprise you given the cedilla, is from the French word of the same spelling (although cedillas are also used in Portuguese, Catalan, Old Spanish, and Visigoth, which is probably where you encountered it.) It came to English in the 1820s. The French got it from Latin, from ad percipere, to perceive. Get it? Or was that too much of an aperçu?

Anyway, that’s the long and the short of it. Mostly the short.