 This week let’s consider synonyms & near-synonyms of the word uncouth.
Boorish arrived in the 1560s meaning uncultured, uncouth, or offensively low-bred. It came from the word boor, meaning rustic countryman or peasant farmer from the Latin word for cow, bovis. Crass came from Latin & showed up in English in the 1500s meaning thick, coarse, or gross. By the 1600s it meant obtuse or grossly stupid. And today crass means insensitive or blundering. Vulgar appeared in English in the 1500s meaning usual, ordinary, or pertaining to the common people. What a surprise! Vulgar morphed within a century to mean coarse, illbred, or depraved. Why is it always the fancy rich people who determine such things? Crude, in a raw or unprepared state, appeared in English in the 1300s through Latin from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning raw flesh. By the 1600s it begane to mean lacking in the social graces. In the 1700s the word tacky appeared in English to refer to something sticky or adhesive. By the 1800s it added the meaning shabby, seedy, or in poor taste. In the 1300s, rude came to English meaning coarse, rough, or without finish from a Latin word meaning crude or unlearned. A bit later it morphed into meaning boorish, ignorant, or uncultured, which is its primary meaning today. And uncouth comes from Old English. It originally meant unknown or unidentified, which morphed to mean unusual, strange, unfamiliar, or suspicious, which oozed from there into unkind, unfriendly or rough. By the 1400s uncouth meant awkward, crude, & clumsy. And what about couth? Though modern English speakers joke as though couth isn’t a word, it was a word back in Middle English, meaning, to have power, to be able to, then in the 1890s English speakers embraced it as a back-formation of uncouth, meaning cultured or refined. Somehow it slipped out of usage during the 1900s. May couthness return to our beleaguered world. Thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, the OED, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, & Anamilla.
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 In English, the glottal stop doesn’t get the respect it deserves, but it’s a rare bird, so here’s my attempt to throw some light on the beauty of an underappreciated phoneme. In English, the often reclusive glotttal stop is most easily observed in the word uh-oh. When an English speaker says uh or oh there is no glottal stop, but upon joining those two simple syllables, the glottal stop comes to light, a glorious tap of the back of the tongue to roof of the mouth — stopping the flow of air for a split second & providing a glimpse of the oft-overlooked glottal stop. A double t or double d can also offer a glimpse of the glottal stop when English speakers get tired or lazy or speak too quickly, & instead of clearly articulating little or middle or rattle, we jump over the double letter & simply tap the back of our tongue to the roof of our mouth. Across the pond, the glottal stop is easily observable in multiple dialects, including cockney & Liverpuddlian. Imagine Eliza Dolittle saying, “rotten little puddle.” Glottal stops are rife in Polynesian languages & are typically represented by an apostrophe: Hawai’i, Maita’i roa (I am fine in Tahitian), ‘ohana (family in Hawaiian), & ‘ura (dance in Maori). Finnish, Arabic, Wakashan, Salish, Semitic, Malay & Indonesian languages employ glottal stops, too. Hawaians call the glottal stop ʻokina, Tahitians, ‘eta, the Maori call it ‘amata, & the Samoans, koma liliu. In Arabic, a glottal stop is noted with a character called the hamza (ء). The next time you utter the word uh-oh, may you find yourself appreciating the beauty of the glottal stop. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Te Reo Maori Kuki 'Airani , Merriam Webster, Wikipedia, The OED, & PencilKings.  In lieu of etymologies, idioms, word-play and quotes from wise women, here’s a response to the recent events in our beleaguered nation — a little gem from Stevie Wonder.
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep Keep hatred from the mighty and the mighty from the small Heaven help us all Indeed. Next week we’ll return to our regular programing. Thanks to Saatchiart for the fabulous image  What with AI running rampant, filling the ether with slop (low quality AI generated content), that new meaning of slop is getting a lot of attention. In response, our friends at Etymonline have chosen their “Dead Word of the Year,” a much older meaning, & a slop of a different color — the slop that means ready-made clothes. Slop takes up almost a whole page of the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), which cites thirty-one meanings, plus slop-basin, a basin for holding slops, & slop-dash, a sloppy, liquid compound used as food, beverage, or medicine. The OED’s first noun meaning of slop started out as *sleubh- a Proto-Indo-European verb meaning to slip or slide, which in Old English became the noun sloppe, cow dung, & by the 1650s came to mean any sort of household liquid waste. By the 1800s slop also began to mean sentimental or affected material. The second noun meaning (ready-made clothes) may have come from the surname Sclopmongerie, or an Old English noun meaning a diagonally slanting neckline, or an earlier verb meaning to slip into or onto something. It’s the reason tailors’ shops in merry old England were known as slop shops. All this gives me the opportunity to bring up a fabulous woman named Geneva. Like my mother, she was a resident in what our squeamish culture refers to as a facility. She was wheelchair bound, gregarious, exuberant, happy, & the only two words she was able to utter were slop & sloppy. She could hold entire conversations with those two words, all through tone & context. She really was remarkable. What a shame our present internet slop isn’t nearly as clear, welcoming, & cordial as Geneva was. Thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, the OED, & Vecteezy.  Homophones are words that are spelled differently, but sound alike. Because of that, they account for a substantial number of misspellings.
Flower, the blossom of a plant, came to English through Latin & French. The noun flour, the finer portion of ground grain, came from flower, as both a flower and & flour were considered to be “the finest part.” The verb to break means to violently divide solid matter into parts or fragments. It comes from Proto-Germanic, & gave birth to its homophone brake, originally an instrument for crushing or pounding. An idol is an image of a deity. It came to English from Latin, as opposed to idle, a Proto-Germanic word meaning empty, void, vain, wothless, or useless, which didn’t come to mean unemployed until the 1500s. The verb to pray is to ask or earnestly beg, & showed up in English through Old French from Proto-Indo-European. The noun prey, an animal hunted for food, started as a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to seize or take, then made its way through Latin & Old French to English. We’ve had the word whether since Old English. It means which of two, & comes from Proto-Indo-European through Proto-Germanic. Chances are very good it wouldn’t be a homophone had we held onto the Proto-Germanic spelling — *gihwatharaz. Ouch. Our modern word whether gets confused with our modern word weather, which in Old English meant air, sky, breeze, storm, or tempest, & like whether, it came through Proto-Germanic What homophones get in the way of your spelling (or your spellcheck’s spelling)? Big thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, the OED, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, & Florals Your Way.  The verb rub is a bit of an etymological mystery. We’re not sure where it came from, & all three identified potential source words (from East Frisian, Low German, & Norwegian) have unidentified sources. On top of all that, rub is an important element in some spiffy idioms: to rub elbows to rub shoulders to rub noses to rub up against to rub someone or something down to rub someone the wrong way to rub someone’s fur the wrong way to rub something in to rub something off to rub someone’s nose in something to rub salt into a wound to rub one’s nose in the dirt to rub off on something/someone therein lies the rub / there’s the rub give someone the rub to not have two pennies/nickels/brain cells to rub together This week, may nobody rub you the wrong way. Thanks to this week’s sources: The Free Dictionary, Etymonline, NTC’s American Idioms Dictionary, & Vecteezy.  A whole lot of scoffing went on this last year, especially in the political realm, so here’s a look into scoff & some of its synonyms. The verb scoff came to English from an un-agreed-upon Scandinavian or German source. Perhaps an Old Norse word meaning mockery or ridicule, perhaps an Old High German word meaning sport, jest, or derision, or a Middle Danish word meaning jest & mockery. In Modern English, scoff means to show contempt by derisive acts or language. To deride is to laugh at or insult contemptuously. Deride comes through French from the Latin word deridere, to ridicule, laugh at, or scorn. Like scoff, the verb jeer, to deride or mock, is a mystery. It may have come from Dutch or German, but we’re not sure. And some etymologists suggest jeer may be an ironic mispronunication of the verb cheer. A near-synonym is the verb revile, to subject to verbal abuse. Revile came from Old French & is related to villain, & vilify, & of course, vile. Another near-synonym is mock, to behave with scorn or contempt, or to mimic derisively. It most likely came through Old French from Latin, though it may have come from a Vulgar Latin word meaning to blow the nose. To ridicule is to make fun of, mock, or deride. This verb showed up in the 1680s from a French word meaning to treat with contemptuous merriment. Contemptuous merriment? Hmmm. And sneer first appeared in English in the 1550s meaning to snort or scorn, though by the 1670s it had morphed to a word meaning to grin or smile contemptuously, & by 1707 it had come to mean to speak derisively or insinuate contemptuously. The meaning to curl the upper lip in scorn joined us in 1775. As the new year dawns, may all sneering, deriding, mocking, reviling, ridiculing, & scoffing be behind you. Big thanks to his week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Thesaurus.com, Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, & Steve Lowtwait Art.  Many parts of the northern hemisphere are experiencing precipitation this time of year, so here we go. The word snow comes through Middle (snou) & Old English (snaw) from a Proto-Germanic word (snaiwaz) meaning, well, snow. It has some very cool sounding relatives: Dutch --sneeuw Old Irish — snechta Old Church Slavonic -- snegu Old Norse -- snjor Gothic -- snaiws The word rain has also been with us a very long time & comes from a Proto-Germanic word meaning, well, rain. The noun hail, meaning pellets of ice falling from the sky, is also of Proto-Germanic origin. And the word sleet comes from Proto-Germanic, too. Originally slautjan, sleet is precipitation of mingled snow & rain. Deluge comes through Middle English & Anglo-French from the Latin word deluvium, meaning flood or inundation. Drizzle comes from an Old English verb meaning to fall. And the lovely & under-appreciated word mizzle comes from Middle English. It’s related to a Dutch word meaning fog or mist. My sister in Montana, uses the word grapple to describe a snowy/rainy mix, though Merriam Webster spells it graupel, & cites it’s the diminutive form of a word meaning pearl barley. Hmmm. My pals in Ohio refer to the same sort of precipitiation as sniz, a combination of snow & drizzle. May your winter holidays be sweet & may any precipitation stay outside, so you can best appreciate it. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, the OED, Etymonline, How Stuff Works, Collins Dictionary, & Alamy.  After unexpectedly spending a couple rainy evenings rearranging the tarps on our roof & getting the bucket in the bedroom in just the right spot to catch the drips, why not look into the word roof? To begin with, I feel fortunate to have a roof (even if it’s not perfect). So many people don’t, & this is a tough season for rooflessness. The noun roof appeared in Old English. Forms of it exist in many Germanic languages, though hardworking etymologists haven’t successfully traced it back further than that. In English is has meant upper covering of a house, ceiling, highest point, top, summit, the sky, & heaven. In other Germanic languages its meanings include cover, deckhouse, cabin, penthouse, & coffin lid. Roof has applied to the top of the mouth since it first showed up in Old English. And the language is rife with roof idioms: Hit the roof. Raise the roof Through the roof Cat on a hot tin roof Under one roof Roof over one’s head Roof rats Roof came crashing down Take the roof off On the roof Roof fell in Snow on the roof I invite you all to appreciate roofs. They really do a lot of unsung good work. And if you have anything to say about the post, please do. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, phrases.com, the OED, EngDic, Etymonline, & Megavtogal.  The verb touch appeared in English as early as 1300. It came through Old French from Vulgar Latin. Touch is crucial to human existence, so over the years touch has had many meanings: To move or reach so as to make direct physical contact with To touch, hit, knock, mention or deal with To pertain to To pass over To border on To lay hands upon with intent to heal To come close, to verge To make a brief stop on shore while traveling on water To extend to reach, or attain To affect physically To affect emotionally To stain, lay hands on for harm or cause injury or pain To handle or have to do with To be felt as the concern of To strike the keys or strings of an instrument To get or go as far as To meet without overlapping or penetrating To perceive to the tactile sense To attain equality with To partake of food To commit violence upon To draw or delineate with light strokes To leave a mark or impression on To take in hand To handle gentlly with the intent to understand or appreciate To hurt or wound the mind or feelings Idioms involving touch include: touch a sore spot touch & go touch base touch off touch down touchdown touch on something touch someone off touch something up touched in the head to be touched by something Anything I forgot to touch on? Big thanks to this week’s sources: the OED, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, NTC’s American Idioms Dictionary, Etymonline, & Inspired Pencil. |
I write for teens & tweens, bake bread, play music, and ponder the wonder of words in a foggy little town on California's central coast.
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