This week it’s time for a birdwalk inspired by a conversation with fellow writer Dennis Miller - a little wordplay – the spoonerism.
Spoonerisms are named after the Reverend William A. Spooner, who suffered from a speech disorder involving involuntary transposition of sounds in words, typically initial sounds. Though historians question the authenticity of many gaffes attributed to Reverend Spooner, lists of his gaffes typically include this bungled tribute to Queen Victoria, “Three cheers for our queer old dean!” In tribute to Reverend Spooner, those who enjoy playing with language have mercilessly tweaked any number of perfectly fine stories, many of which can be found on Matthew Goldman’s Goonerisms Spalore, the most well known being the many versions of Indercella (in which our unhortunate feroine attends a bancy fall and slops her dripper). For something a bit different, here’s Goldman’s take on the climax and denouement of another old fairy tale: “May I come in, and hee your sitty prome?" "Tho, Tho, a nousand times, Tho, " pied the crig, "Not by the chair of my hinny hin, hin!" "Then I'll huff, and I'll duff, and I'll hoe your blouse down," growled the wolf. And with that, the wolf chuffed up his peeks, blew the smith to housereens, and sat down to a dine finner of roast sau and pigerkraut. If you haven’t indulged yourself in this manner before, take the hull by the borns & spoonerize the following list of random well-known names: William Shakespeare Judy Garland Ella Fitzgerald Trevor Noah Marie Curie Groucho Marx Benito Mussolini Virginia Woolf Thanks for putting up with this week’s wirdbalk. Please comment with any favorite spoonerized names, or a spoonerization of your own name. My thanks go out to this week’s sources, etymonline.com, Spoonerisms Galore, & the OED.
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Last year I had the pleasure of producing The Long Steep Path, the audio version of an intriguing & inspirational book written by award winning author Catherine Ryan Hyde. I really enjoyed recording & producing it, & spending some time with Catherine. Her earnest narration sets her book off perfectly. So why not look into the word record? Both the noun & the verb showed up in English in the early 1300s, the noun meaning testimony committed to writing & the verb meaning to get by heart. We can see that heart in the second bit of the modern word record, as –cord. It comes to English through French, from the Latin –cordis, meaning heart (related to cardiac). We’ve hung onto that original meaning in terms like learn by heart. I like the fact that the folks who recorded records (whether vinyl, cassette, audiobook, CD or MP3) all offer us a little bit of heart. It wasn’t until 1892 that the verb record meant to put sound or pictures on disks, though the noun record (with emphasis on the first syllable) meaning disk on which sounds & images have been recorded appeared as early as 1878. This post is concise, as I’m hoping you’ll have time to zip on over to Audible to listen to a brief sample of Catherine reading from The Long Steep Path. My thanks go out to this week’s sources, etymonline.com, OxfordDictionaries.com, & the OED. In stuffy, book-filled offices all over the English speaking world, hard-working etymologists & Irish folklorists are duking it out over the source of the word leprechaun.
The word leprechaun involves the blending of Gaelic and Latin. The earliest written English record of the term occurred in 1604, spelled lubrican. This spelling - and a boatload of early alternate spellings - start with lu-. the Gaelic combining form for small. In Old Irish leprechaun was spelled luchorpan, which allows us to see a hint of the Latin part of this word (chor- or cor-, meaning body. This same combining form is used in the words corpuscle, corporation, Corpus Christi, and corporeal. So leprechaun translates simply to little body. Irish folklorists, however, argue that because leprechauns are sprites known for making or repairing a single shoe, the name comes from leithbragan, which marries leith, meaning half to brag, (a form of brogue), or shoe. While one source bestows leprechauns with little lisping, falsetto voices, another Irish tale defines the leprechaun as a pygmy sprite who always carries a purse containing a schilling. Despite all this information, if you're ever at a bar & someone sits at the next stool, slaps a single shoe onto th bar & begins repairing it while speaking in a lisping falsetto, &/or carrying a purse, it’s wisest to keep your assumptions to yourself. And isn’t that always true. Good followers, what do you have to say about leprechauns, or about the wisdom of keeping one’s assumptions to oneself? My thanks go out to this week’s sources, etymonline.com, OxfordDictionaries.com, & the OED. Inspired by my little recording/writing space out in the veggie garden (known as the shedio), I find myself intrigued by the etymologies (or lack thereof) of shed & its various synonyms. Shed is of questionable parentage. It appeared in English in the 1400s. It may have its roots in the word shade, but no certain evidence has jumped forth into the sunlight to prove this theory. Similarly, the term shack has no definite parentage. It first appeared in print in 1878. Some etymologists argue that it may be a variant of shake, or may have come from ramshackle (both of which predate it). Others claim it might have come from the Nahuatl word xacalli, wooden hut, through Mexican Spanish. Still nobody really knows from whence the word shack came. The word hovel isn’t really a synonym for shack or shed, but a hovel is a small building, & I have a fondness for the word. I lived a year in a place friends & family referred to as "hovel sweet hovel." It was one of seven tiny, decrepit buildings near San Luis Obispo Creek. I had to duck to enter, it wasn't possible to close the bathroom door if one was sitting on the toilet, & the mushrooms growing from the floor were not an interior decorating decision. Hovel showed up in English back in the 1300s, meaning a vent for smoke, & within a century had come to mean a shed for animals. It wasn’t until the 1600s that it came to mean a rude or miserable cabin. This last definition is particularly apropos for my hovel. I learned afterward that the compound of seven hovels had been used in the 1940s to house the county’s Japanese residents as they waited to be delivered to internment camps. Misery indeed. So, dear readers, please leave a comment with a tidbit of a tale regarding any shed, shack, or hovel experiences you’ve “enjoyed.” My thanks go out to this week’s sources, etymonline.com, merriam-webster.com, & the OED. The other day a lurking follower laughingly commented on the capricious nature of the topics for Wordmonger posts. It would be poetic if I were to claim that upon hearing this, my hair stood on end, but I have little hair left to engage in such shenanigans, and the capricious shoe fits, so I’m perfectly happy to wear it.
Capricious is one of those wonderfully rich words of questionable heritage. More traditional sources mention the flighty, capering nature of goats, and cite the Latin word capriolus, or wild goat as the grandmother of capricious. In the late 1500s and 1600s capricious and its relatives meant prank or trick. It can be argued that the goat is a tricky critter, & that goat-like satyrs of myth were most decidedly pranksters. My two most trusted sources, Etymonline, and The Oxford English Dictionary definitely connect capricious with those flighty, tricky, pranking goats. Less traditional sources disagree. The folks at Wordinfo, and Anu Garg’s A Word a Day (a fascinating daily glance into etymology), appear to have used a bit more scrutiny. These sources explain that the similarity of capro, or goat, to the word capricious shifted the meaning toward flighty, pranking, goatlike behavior, and away from its original meaning. These sources claim capricious was actually constructed from the word parts, capo-, head, & riccio, hedgehog. That’s right; the word in question may have initially meant hedgehog-head. In the early 1500s, capricious started out meaning afraid, or hair-standing-on-end, like the spines of the hedgehog. After years, the similar term capro- rubbed off enough to shove the meaning of the word toward goatliness (or, goat allies might claim, toward perceived goatliness). Pranking, tricky goats or hair-on-end hedgehogs? Which story carries the ring of truth? Please weigh in with your comments. My thanks go out to this week’s sources, etymonline.com, wordinfo.info, wordsmith.org, & the OED. Last week’s entry took a look at the words learn & study. This week we’ll take an etymological look at a topic that (in my humble opinion) gets an inordinate amount of focus – the purported measurement of learning.
The word test came to English in the 1300s through Old French from Latin, originally meaning an earthen pot used in assaying precious metals. It took until 1590 for it to generalize to mean trial or examination to determine correctness. In the last few decades, the educational community has become fond of the word assessment, which showed up in English in the 1540s, and, like test, came through Old French from Latin. It originally referred to a value of property for tax purposes. Assess comes from the Latin word assidere, to sit by (referring to the fact that the judge or assessor was usually seated while proclaiming property’s value). By the 1640s assessment also meant an estimation. Assessment didn’t discover its application to education until the 1950s. The verb quiz, showed up in English in 1847 from the Latin qui es?, who are you? (the first thing one must answer on a quiz). By 1867, quiz made its way into the world of nouns, however, at that point quiz meant an odd or eccentric person. Quiz’s next life as a noun started in 1807, when a quiz was a hoax, a practical joke, or piece of humbug. By 1891 the noun quiz began its long association with the classroom & began to mean the act of questioning, specifically of a class or student by a teacher. So, dear blogophiles, what irony, humor, or intrigue do you find in these word histories? My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com MerriamWebster.com, & the OED. Modern American society appears to be ambivalent about learning. We all claim it’s of paramount importance, but oddly, those who excel at it are seldom considered heroes. After looking into the etymologies of these two words, I find myself wondering whether the concept so many of us really admire and aspire to is that of studying more than learning.
To my surprise, the word learn covers only 2/3 of a page of the OED. To be truthful, the entry isn’t fascinating reading. Learn has roots in all the Germanic languages (except for Dutch, for some unknown reason). Ever since it entered English about 900 AD, learn has meant to acquire knowledge. About the most intriguing story learn has to tell us is that back in the 1400s, “I learned him his lesson,” was considered proper English. The word study, on the other hand, is worthy of some study. It covers nearly three pages of the OED. It’s related to studio, student, & etude. Study comes from Latin through French, and originally referred to zealousness, affection, seeking help, & applying oneself. It made its way into English writings when Chaucer employed it in 1374, and has countless shades of meaning. The verb alone includes, but is not limited to these varied nuances: -devotion to another’s welfare -the action of committing to memory -friendliness -an employment, occupation or pursuit -careful observation or examination -a state of mental perplexity -a state of reverie or abstraction -application of mind to the acquisition of learning -attentive reading -desire, inclination, pleasure or interest in something -reflection What a world it would be if we all immersed ourselves in study in all its various meanings. Even that state of mental perplexity can be a great thing. When I’m perplexed about something, it often leads me to, well, further study. Dear followers, what connections do you make with the various meanings of study, or what theories do you have regarding society’s apparent ambivalence regarding this topic? My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com MerriamWebster.com, & the OED. One would think that boggle, bogus, & bogey would all be closely related. They may be. Or not. It seems the queens & kings of etymology can’t always dig up enough dirt to prove anything, so instead, we have speculation, but fascinating speculation it is. Here are some bits & pieces of it:
Bogey, bogie or bogy, may be derived from bug, meaning scarecrow, bugbear or terror, OR bogy meaning the devil, OR from bogle, meaning goblin Over the years, this derogatory term has been used to mean: -one who spoils the game or interferes with the pitch -a tax collector -a curse -bad luck -a dissatisfied customer -a lump of mucus or slime (& there’s a verb to go bogy, which means to become prophetic or develop a second sight) Bogus may have originated as a term for a machine which printed counterfeit money, OR may have come from tantrabogus, a term used in Vermont to refer to ill-looking objects, OR from near Devonshire, where bogus was used to refer to the devil. Over the years, bogus has been used to mean: -a sham -counterfiet -anything spurious -something unpleasant, dull, or silly Boggle is somewhat straightforward in its etymology. Most agree boggle came from the French word bogle, a spectre. Over the years the verb boggle has meant: -to start with fright -to take alarm -to shy, as a startled horse -to hesitate -to play fast or loose -to scare -to make a mess of The noun form of boggle has meant: -a goblin -an objection -an enjoyable word game from Milton Bradley It’s all pretty boggling. Any thoughts on all this, stalwart followers? My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com Partridge’s Concise Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English, Hugh Rawson’s Devious Derivations, & the OED. English is rife with colorful terms referring to irrelevant, useless, or empty words. As we ramp up to ramping up to elections, let’s celebrate a few of them.
Bunk appeared in American English about 1900 as a shortened form of bunkum, meaning nonsense. By most accounts the term was born in the US House of Representatives when North Carolina Representative Felix Walker threw in his two cents regarding Missouri’s statehood in relation to the Mason-Dixon Line. He needed to say something that would appear in the papers back home in Buncombe, so he unabashedly made a "long, dull, irrelevant speech." In time, Buncombe shifted to bunkum, which got shortened to bunk. Blatherskite was born during the American Revolution, & refers to both the words spoken by a talkative, nonsensical person & the person him/herself. It comes of blather, meaning to babble. Blather is a Scottish term derived from an Old Norse word meaning to wag the tongue; added to skite, meaning a contemptible individual. We see a related ending in the word cheapskate, & a related beginning in the term blithering idiot. Skite also originated in Old Norse, from a word meaning to shoot, which apparently is what the Old Norse thought should be done with blatherers. Bosh came to English in the 1830s from Turkish. Its literal Turkish meaning of empty applies in English only to meaningless speech or writing. Claptrap appeared in the 1730s & meant a stage trick to catch applause. Since then we’ve lost the applause-inducing element of the term & it simply means cheap, nonsensical or pretentious language. There are so many great synonyms for bunk, blatherskite, bosh & claptrap. Followers, what empty-word words would you add to the list? My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, Hugh Rawson’s Wicked Words & the OED. This week’s etymology is pleasingly contentious. Hazard came into English about 1300 from the Old French word, hasard or hasart, a game of chance played with dice. Most etymologists agree that the French word stems from the Spanish word, azar, an unfortunate card or throw at dice. From there, some etymologists see no source. One school argues for the Arabic term yasara, he played at dice, while another argues for azahr or al-zahr, meaning, the die. By the mid-1500s the English word hazard shed its specific connection to games of chance & became generalized to refer to any chance of loss, harm, or risk. What I find fascinating is that by most accounts, the word entered English due to the Crusades. Soldiers don’t spend all their time lopping off heads; they have a little down time to learn the local customs & play the local games. Throwing dice was one of the games Crusaders learned during their travels. Isn’t it wickedly ironic that games of chance, & eventually a word referring to risk & chance of loss was born of the recreational time of Christian soldiers heading to the Holy Land with violent intent? That’s not just irony, that’s exponential irony. Good followers, what might you have to say about irony, Crusaders, the Holy Land, and risk? My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, Interesting English Borrowed Words & the OED. |
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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November 2023
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