 While working on revisions for a manuscript I hope will someday become a novel, I’ve been thinking about the word revise & its synonyms. Though statistics vary greatly, it’s fair to say that Modern English comes from about 40% Latinate & Greek, and about 40% Germanic or Anglo-Saxon. So, shouldn’t revision synonyms reflect that?
Apparently not. Here’s Merriam Webster’s list of revise synonyms, with any Germanic or Anglo Saxon word parts in red: Modify, change, alter, remodel, rework, transform, recast, redo, remake, refashion, revamp, & vary. WordHippo offers most the same options, plus: Amend, correct, adjust, edit, adapt, reorganize, overhaul, emend, redraft. restyle, update, rephrase, upgrade, debug, recalibrate, rescript, rebrand, rehash, redraw, scrub, cut, make over, copy-edit, & blue-pencil. And neither of these sources offers the word fix. Does this imbalance suggest that Latin & Greek speakers were more focused on getting things right? Or might this reflect a prejudice that developed after 1066 when English upper classes (who had time for such things as revision) conversed & wrote in French (a Latinate language), while hardworking peasants spoke that terribly low-class language known as English? No idea. But I’m nonetheless pondering it. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Stack Exchange, WordHippo, Etymonline, Word Origins, & Vecteezy.
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 What’s the deal with the word crock? It started out back in Old English as crocca or croc, a pot, earthen vessel, or jar. These are good things, right? Vessels for water, soup, ale, wine. Pots to press one’s cheese in, store one’s root vegetables, or to ferment one’s sauerkraut. Crocca or croc seems to have come from Germanic languages meaning pitcher or pot, & has cousins in Dutch, German, Old Norse, Irish, Greek, Old Saxon, & Old Church Slavonic.
But what about Well, that’s a crock of @%$@! or what a crock! & the possibly related He’s a crackpot! How did a word for such a useful item collect these negative meanings? Crock's downfall all started in the 1800s. It may have come from the idea that a female sheep past the point of being able to reproduce was just an empty vessel (elder ewes were known as crocks), or it may have had something to do with the unseemly contents of crockery chamber pots, or it may have come from the Scottich pejorative, crock, which referred to invalids or debilitated folks, or possibly even the Middle English word croke or crok, meaning a husk, hull, thing of no value, soot, smut, or refuse. The modern usage of crock can be used both positively & negatively, & has no etymological connection to the amphibian, crocodile, or the footwear known as Crocs. Big thanks to this week’s sources, Merriam Webster, Collins, the OED, Etymonline, & freepic.com.  I’m among a pile of very fortunate authors and aspiring authors spending this week at the Highlights Foundation retreat center with our writing guru, Patricia Lee Gauch. So here are some observations about the word guru. Guru entered English in 1806 through Hindi from a Sanskrit word meaning one to be honored, teacher. Its Proto-Indo-European root was a word meaning weighty. Though my particular guru weighs very little physically, those of us fortunate enough to work with her definitely feel the weight, the gravity, the profundity of her teachings. Over forty modern English words share the root with guru, & like the word gravity, some apply quite nicely. She’s mentoring a small group of us, and like any brigade, we are devoted to one another. We gravitate toward one another for support. Like a barometer, she measures our progress. When she suggests we kill our darlings, we become aggravated, but we know she’s right, so with that brutal weapon, the delete key, we follow orders while grieving, knowing those darlings needed to die. And after a week with her, we all head home with new grist for the mill (or the mill’s synonym, the quern). I hope this week’s brief post will inspire you to take a moment to honor your own gurus. Big thanks to this week’s soiurces: Merriam Webster, Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, the OED, & Highlights Foundation.  The “language” etymologists label Proto-Indo-European may have never been spoken. It’s been assembled based on evidence from the languages that appear to have evolved from it. One of the proposed Proto-Indo-European words is *men-, which meant to think. In English alone this word appears to have given birth to over forty words we use today. Here’s a sampling of some of them: Mental, mention, mentor, comment, & memento — pretty easy to see how a word meaning to think might have morphed into these words. A few more that fall in that category are premonition, reminisce, reminsicent, mnemonic, & mantra. And, of course, we have some that require just a bit more of a mental stretch to connect: amnesia, amnesty, demented & dementia. And some that take more of a stretch: muster, summon, muse, monitor, & money. And these: museum, music, monument, money, mania, maniac & manic. And those that are downright puzzling: muster, monster, mantis, & Mandarin. All from a little word meaning to think -- all, I suppose, fodder for thought. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, the OED, Dreamstime, & Etymonline.  Recently, Joan Baez made quite a splash by wearing a shirt that wasn’t even slightly euphemistic. However, since I’m appreciating euphemisms these days, her shirt got me thinking about euphemisms for dead. So here are some: Resting in peace Slipped away Reached the heavenly shores Bit the dust Breathed their last Taking a dirt nap Passed away Pegged out Entered eternal rest Took thier last breath Six feet under Wandering the Elysian fields Went to meet their maker Pushing up daisies Shuffled off their mortal coil Gave up the ghost Sleeping wiith the fishes Bought the farm Meet the grim reaper Traveled beyond the veil Kicked the bucket Called home Crossed over Got their wings Reached the finish line Laid to rest Cashed in their chips Gave up the ghost Kicked the oxygen habit Bid farewell to this world Playing the great gig in the sky Immortality-challenged Interesting how we’ve found so many ways to avoid directly mentioning something that’s an integral part of life. Hmmm. Thanks to this week’s sources: joincake.com, US Urns Online, & Fluent Slang.  Last week’s post (Askew #1) taught me that many synonyms of askew are re-duplications (an eytmological term meaning a part of one word is repeated in a slightly different fashion to create a nearly doubled word).
So here’s a sampling of askew synonyms that are reduplications: hurry-scurry (1730s) turmoil shilly-shally (1780s) to vacillate in an irresolute manner arsy-versy or arsy-varsy (1530s) head over heels or backward hubbub (1550s) confused noise, turmoil, uproar flim-flam (1500s) deceptive nonsense fiddle-faddle (1500s) nonsense, or to waste time over trivial matters hurly-burly (1530s) commotion or tumult twinkum-twankum (1700s) confused foolishness or a careless, jolly refrain of a song Topsy-turvy (1500s) confused or disorganized Is this all a bunch of fiddle faddle? Perhaps. Still I hope it entertained. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, The OED, Emma Fraser Art  English has some fascinating words that mean askew, or something close to it. Here are a few:
askew: in an oblique position -- 1570s, of uncertain origin catawampus: askew or awry — 1830s, also of uncertain origin, though defintiely Appalachian farrago: a confuseed mixture -- 1600s, from a Latin word meaning mixed fodder awry: with a slant or a twist, askew -- 1400s, from Middle English wonky: shaky, unstable, or not functioning properly -- 1919, from an Old English word meaning tottering helter-skelter: in undue haste, confusion, or in a haphazard manner — 1590s, probably a reduplication of skelte, to hasten or scatter hurriedly hodgepodge: jumble — 1500s, an alteration of hotchpotch, a type of stew mish-mash: a jumble — 1500s, a reduplicatoin of mash higgledy-piggledy: confusedly or hurriedly — 1598, most likely a reduplicated slur towared pigs & the mess they live in (when domesticated) I’m compelled to include a word which has shown up in Wordmonger before & appears to have been my mother’s invention: oscispudle (ah-skee-spew-dull), meaning offbalance, crooked, or awry. It turns out there are a slew of askew-related words. More will appear in next week’s post. Anything to say about all this askew-ness? Comment away! Big thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, The OED, Merriam Webster, Phil Cousineau’s The Word Catcher, & Doodle Characters.  My great grandmother once commented on an unfortunate woman in the old folks’ home, “that one there, she’s lost her buttons.” It’s a euphemism I’ve never heard anyone else use, but its meaning was clear.
Euphemisms are the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant. Sometimes euphemisms are simply lies, & sometimes they’re laughably obfuscatory. Here are a few I’m appreciating at the moment: To be made redundant (to be fired) To be chronogloically challenged (to be late) To commit a terminological inexactitude (to tell a lie) To embark upon a journey of self-discovery (to be jobless) Genuine imitation leather (vinyl) To slip one’s moorings (to engage in an extramarital affair) And here’s a pile more to appreciate free of parenthetical definitions: To see a man about a horse A bun in the oven Alternate facts Enhanced interrogation Gentleman’s club Not the sharpest sandbag in the dam Kicking the tires Courtesy call Sleeping with the fishes As sharp as a sock full of soup Domestic engineer Sleeping together More foam than beer Couch potato Tugging the buttons Thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Mum’s Lounge, Inspiration Feed, Smart Blogger, Make a Living Writing, & Online Labels.  Murmur is a fine word — a fun word to say. Try it out loud right now, a few times: murmur murmur murmur murmur.
Murmur came to English in the 1300s through Old French & Latin from an imitative Proto-Indo-European word — the same word that became in Greek, to roar or boil, in Sanskrit, a crackling fire, & in Lithuanian, to murmur. An online search for synonyms for murmur can be frustrating. The “closest match” suggestions usually include fuss, lament, whine, rumble, hum, buzz, complain, grievance, grumble, undertone, croak, & moan. Really? Closest match? Murmur means a continuous flow of words or sounds in a low indistinct voice which may express satisfaction or dissatisfaction. I have a hard time connecting murmur’s meaning with most the offered online synonyms, but in my good old 1959 Webster’s New World Dictionary, murmur’s synonym list includes only two words — mutter: angry or discontented words or sounds, & mumble: to utter almost inaudible or inarticulate sounds in low tones with the mouth nearly closed. These work better for me. Perhaps because, like my Webster’s New World Dictionary, I am mid-century. And these two words pass the out-loud-right-now-a-few-times test. They are fun to say. But undertone? Grievance? Complain? I think not. Thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Power Thesaurus, Webster’s New World Dictionary, 1959, Inspired Pencil, & Etymonline.  The noun back appears to be have solely Germanic roots. Many languages use different words for the vertical back of a human vs. the horizontal back of most critters. Not so in English. And because our backs are “behind” us, the noun back has picked up that meaning also.
I hope you enjoy this selection of back idioms, terms, and words. 1200s backbiting 1520s literal meaning of backdoor 1520s the chair back 1600s back-ache 1640s figurative meaning of backdoor (shady, illegal, devious) 1670s setback 1680s backlog 1690s backhand 1767 back up to stand behind &/or support 1819 backstop 1832 backseat of a coach 1859 back down to withdraw a charge 1868 figurative meaning of backseat (least prominent position) 1883 blowback 1888 throwback 1923 backseat driver 1876 a position in US football, specialized later into quarterback, halfback, running back, fullback, etc. 1887 back-formation etymologiacl term referring to a word formed from an existing word by removal of part of the original word (for instance, the word babysitter came first, then the back-formation to babysit) 1891 backstage 1898 ladderback first referring to chairs, then to woodpeckers 1899 backspace 1903 flashback in engines or furnaces 1916 flashback as a plot device 1928 back-beat (an emphaiszed beat falling on a normally unaccented beat in a bar of music) 1938 back off By now you’re probably thinking it’s time to back off! Eh? Please comment with anything that surprised you. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, Merriam Webster, & PaintingValley.com |
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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