 Consider this quote:
“The higher they went, the darker it became, though it wasn’t the darkness of night, but rather more like a mixture of lurking shadows & evil intentions which oozed from the slimy, moss-covered cliffs & blotted out the light. A cruel wind shrieked through the rocks & the air was thick & heavy, as if it had been used several times before.” This was written by Norton Juster in his classic middle grade novel, The Phantom Tollbooth. I think it’s rather brilliant. Let’s take a look at the origin of some selected words from the passage. Lurking comes from lurk, which showed up in English in the 1300s from a Scandinavian source. It originally meant to hide or lie hidden, but since the late 1300s has meant to move about secretly or to escape observation. Oozed (the past tense of ooze) came to English from early Germanic tongues. Over the years ooze & its kin have had the meanings to flow as ooze, to percolate through pores, to emit in the shape of moisture, plus the nouns juice, & sap. Slimy comes from the word slime, which originated in Proto-Indo-European and came through Germanic languages to English. Along the way it’s had the meanings viscous, sticky, phlegmy, slippery, snail-like, smooth, miry, & muddy. Moss started out as a Proto-Indo-European word meaning damp. That original word not only grew into our word moss, but also grew into the words mucus, must, & musty, & the Lithuanian word for mold. Blotted is the past tense of blot, which is a bit of a mystery. It may have come from an Old French word meaning boil (the boil on one's skin sort of boil), or perhaps it came from an Old Norse word meaning stain. But have no fear; hard-working etymologists continue to duke it out over the source of blot & they are bound to have an answer at some point in the future. Heavy comes from Proto-Indo-European through Old English. It originally comes from a word meaning to grasp, which morphed in time to mean something having weight, then oozed further to pick up its figurative meanings important, grave, oppresive, slow, & dull. Juster’s word choice really served him well in this passage. May your word choice this week serve you well. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Collins Dictionary, Etymonline, Merriam Webster, the OED, & Jules Feiffer.
2 Comments
 Given world events, I’m compelled to share these wise women’s thoughts on war. “[There is an] erroneous impression that this and other countries are at war with one another. They are not. Their governments, composed of men and responsible only to the men of each country, and backed by the majority of men who have caught the war and glory fever, have declared war on one another. The women of all these countries have not been consulted as to whether they would have war or not…” —Harriette Beanland “When we carry our eyes back through the long records of our history, we see wars of plunder, wars of conquest, wars of religion, wars of pride, wars of succession, wars of idle speculation, wars of unjust interference, and hardly among them one war of necessary self-defence in any of our essential or very important interests.” `—Anna Barbauld "If brains have brought us to what we are in now, I think it is time to allow our hearts to speak. When our sons are killed by the millions, let us, mothers, only try to do good by going to the kings and emperors without any other danger than a refusal.” —Rosika Schwimmer “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” —Jeanette Rankin “But the havoc wrought by war, which one compares with the havoc wrought in nature, is not an unavoidable fate before which man stands helpless. The natural forces which are the causes of war are human passions which it lies in our power to change.” —Ellen Key “If a child grows up with the idea of violence, that you get what you can by force, what kind of world will this be?” —Julinda Abu Nasr It’s a crying shame this wisdom doesn’t seem to penetrate the heads & hearts of the decision-makers. Thanks to this week’s sources: Women in World History, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women, & Adobe.  This week, let’s take a look at words that appear to be disparaging, but are often used in a loving fashion — the words you might use to describe your best pal, sidekick, grandmother, or that “interesting’ neighbor.
Scrappy, meaning inclined to fight, showed up in English in the 1890s, & appears to have come from the word scrape (something one might be inclined to get if one is inclined to fight). Plucky showed up in the 1830s, meaning spiritied, determined, or courageous. It came from the adjective pluck, a colloquial synonym for courage. In the 1820s nutty meant crazy-in-love, but by the 1890s, crazy eclipsed the earlier meaning. Feisty showed up in American English in the 1890s, meaning exuberant, touchy, or aggressive. It may have come from one of two sources, or a marriage of the two. One possible source is a Middle English word that referred negatively to dogs (usually that fysting curre). Another possible source is a Norse word meaning fart. Wacky appeared in English in the 1930s, most likely from the idea that someone who acted wacky had been whacked in the head once too many times. It seems the noun whacky (fool) preceded the adjective wacky. Quirky appeared in the early 1800s meaning shifty or irregular. It wasn’t until the 1960s that quirky began to mean charmingly idiosyncratic. Attributed to the beatniks, kooky, meaning slighty strange or eccentric, showed up in American slang in the 1950s & is likely derived from the word cuckoo. May any apparently disparaging words thrown your way be delivered in a loving fashion. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Merriam Webster, Collins Dictionary, the OED, Etymonline, & Dreamstime.  Consider this John Gardner quote
“The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.” Along with pondering Gardner’s worthy idea, here are a few etymologies from the quote: Exalted (or exalt) comes from Proto-Indo-European through Old French. In exalt’s long history it has meant to grow or nourish, to give off vapor or flow out, to glorify, praise, or extol, & to raise or elevate. The word shoddiness has been around since the 1800s. It was born during the American Civil War & referred to the poor quality of government supplies arriving on the front lines. It seems to have come from a noun that established itself in the carpet factories, labeling the scraps left over after carpet making. The word plumbing comes from the Latin word plumbum, lead. In the 1400s it referred to lead fishing weights, then plumbing was used to mean working in lead, & soon came to mean pipes used to convey water (which these days might be made of copper, plastic, PVC, ABS, or galvanized steel). The word humble showed up in the 1200s from Proto-Indo-European through Old French. It comes from the word humus, meaning earth, & came to mean on the ground, or lowly. These days it mostly means submissive, respectful, modest & unassertive. May we exalt both the plumber and the philospher. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Carnegie, Merriam Webster. Etymonline, Collins Dictionary, the OED & Shutterstock.  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.  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. |
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.
To receive weekly reminders of new Wordmonger posts, click on "Contact" & send me your email address. Archives
November 2023
|
RSS Feed
