Idiom Du Jour

Today we have, "to pull the wool over one's eyes" - what does it mean and where does it come from?

Well the meaning implies fooling, tricking, or hoodwinking...

The origin, as always, is rather more complex, as the assumption is that the wool being referred to is a woolen wig, fashionable for men and women in the 16th and 17th centuries, but less popular in 1839, the year the phrase is first found on paper.

Funny Words

One month left of this...try not to cry...

I am actually quite busy of late with work and appointments and whatnot, and so I am taking the easy route yet again and simply linking to another Wikipedia page on language.  Sorry.  Tomorrow will be better (maybe...I am going to a lecture on writing in c-shell after work so maybe not).

Here you go: Interesting English Words

And to whet your appetite (or attempt to get you to click the link)...

A large number of Modern English words spell the /ɪ/ or /aɪ/ sound with the letter y, such as rhythm, my, by, try, sky, why, wry, fry, gym, hymn, lynx, lynch, myth, pygmy, gypsy, myrrh, nymph, lymph, flyby, and syzygy.

Rhythms is the longest common word containing only y as a vowel. Gypsyfy, gypsyry, symphysy, nymphly, and nymphfly are as long or longer, but are not as common. The word twyndyllyngs, an archaic word for twin, has been cited by Guinness World Records as the longest, though it is not in OED.

Fun with Text and Bellols

Poetry time...but poetry in itself is not enough, not when it comes to the manic Mr. Poe.

So we shall try it with Wordle!

...and how about Flipped!

sllǝq ǝɥʇ ɟo ƃuılʞuıʇ ǝɥʇ puɐ ƃuılƃuıɾ ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ
- sllǝq 'sllǝq 'sllǝq
'sllǝq 'sllǝq 'sllǝq 'sllǝq ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ
sllǝʍ ʎllɐɔısnɯ os ʇɐɥʇ uoıʇɐlnqɐuuıʇuıʇ ǝɥʇ oʇ
'ǝɯʎɥɹ ɔıunɹ ɟo ʇɹos ɐ uı
'ǝɯıʇ 'ǝɯıʇ 'ǝɯıʇ ƃuıdǝǝʞ
;ʇɥƃılǝp ǝuıllɐʇsʎɹɔ ɐ ɥʇıʍ
ǝlʞuıʍʇ oʇ ɯǝǝs suǝʌɐǝɥ ǝɥʇ llɐ
ǝlʞuıɹdsɹǝʌo ʇɐɥʇ sɹɐʇs ǝɥʇ ǝlıɥʍ
¡ʇɥƃıu ɟo ɹıɐ ʎɔı ǝɥʇ uı
'ǝlʞuıʇ 'ǝlʞuıʇ 'ǝlʞuıʇ ʎǝɥʇ ʍoɥ
¡sllǝʇǝɹoɟ ʎpolǝɯ ɹıǝɥʇ ʇuǝɯıɹɹǝɯ ɟo plɹoʍ ɐ ʇɐɥʍ
¡sllǝq ɹǝʌlıs
- sllǝq ǝɥʇ ɥʇıʍ sǝƃpǝls ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥ

Guessed the poem yet?  Oh fine...here's the original in full.

Idiom Du Jour

It's been a while since I've done one of these...

And today we're talking about clay feet. 

To have feet of clay implies that one has flaws that are not immediately apparent...it typically refers to people who at first seem invincible but who in fact have hidden faults that lead to their own downfall or loss of reputation.

Apparently this idiomatic expression was first used around 1600 or so, but its source is rather older.  Biblical, even - in the book of Daniel (2:31-34), there is a description of a dream had by the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar that depicts a large statue with a head of gold, but with feet of iron and baked clay.  These materials cannot withstand a thrown stone, and are crushed into fragments and blown away by the wind.  Sounds obvious enough to me about what all that might imply...although interestingly, the entire statue, gold and all, gets smashed to smithereens.  But perhaps "head of gold" is less poetic.

A Poem by A.A. Milne

Christopher Robin
Had wheezles
And sneezles,
They bundled him
Into
His bed.
They gave him what goes
With a cold in the nose,
And some more for a cold
In the head.
They wondered
If wheezles
Could turn
Into measles,
If sneezles
Would turn
Into mumps;
They examined his chest
For a rash,
And the rest
Of his body for swellings and lumps.
They sent for some doctors
In sneezles
And wheezles
To tell them what ought
To be done.
All sorts and conditions
Of famous physicians
Came hurrying round
At a run.
They all made a note
Of the state of his throat,
They asked if he suffered from thirst;
They asked if the sneezles
Came after the wheezles,
Or if the first sneezle
Came first.
They said, "If you teazle
A sneezle
Or wheezle,
A measle
May easily grow.
But humour or pleazle
The wheezle
Or sneezle,
The measle
Will certainly go."
They expounded the reazles
For sneezles
And wheezles,
The manner of measles
When new.
They said "If he freezles
In draughts and in breezles,
Then PHTHEEZLES
May even ensue."

Christopher Robin
Got up in the morning,
The sneezles had vanished away.
And the look in his eye
Seemed to say to the sky,
"Now, how to amuse them to-day?"

Argot (and so on)

Wowww okay so I have been meaning to write this post since January 16th...or maybe even since Summer '08.  Trouble is, I've had the note on my desktop so long that I kind of forget what I meant to write about.  Still, when has that ever stopped me..?

So actually, back in the summer of 2008, when I was living in Aix-en-Provence, I had a number of interesting conversations with French people about their language.  And yes, these conversations were held in French.  (I touched on this, actually, in one of those old entries.) That period in my life will never cease to astonish me.

Everyone knows that the language one learns in a classroom doesn't have much in common with the language one will be butchering on the street when one visits the country where said language is spoken.  This runs deeper, though, than never having the opportunity to use the phrase, "my pink pencil case was under the boiler last Thursday"; it's more than commonly-used vocabulary and not being taught the swear-words (nom d'un nom d'un nom d'un nom!), because there are whole language systems that they'll never teach in school.

French slang - and I'm discussing French because it is the language I am most familiar with (aside, obviously, from English) - comes in a myriad of flavors.  There's Verlan and Louchébem, languages that use a traditional French technique of syllabic inversion, working sort of like Pig Latins (but rather more complex).  These also have elements of secret coded rhyming slangs like Cockney, it seems.

Anyway, an example of Verlan that has made it into mainstream, in order to make this less confusing.  Keep in mind that Louchébem has completely different rules.  But okay: we start with arabe, Arab (the nationality)...this is inverted to form the Verlan equivalent beur (you have to remember that, in French, phonemes and graphemes play fast and loose).  This in turn has become further inverted now that the original slang meaning is common knowledge, so that the new term rebeu has been born.  Interestingly, it would seem that the semantic meaning also shifts with each transformation...while the first word refers to someone from northern Africa, the second appears to mean anyone of Arabic descent, and I haven't had this confirmed by any native speaker, but might the third version be the next generation?

Also interestingly - and I was told this by a French native speaker, although I'm not sure I believe it (not to mention that I am recalling it correctly) - apparently there are no racial slurs in these street slangs, just racist constructions and contexts. 

Right.  seven paragraphs in and I still haven't mentioned my title.  Technically everything I've discussed up to now has been Argot, a word that, translated from French to English, itself means slang.  The wonderful thing about French Argot is how dynamic it is (as seen above), how adaptive and how democratic.  Like I said, you can't learn it in a classroom, and dictionaries really don't do it justice.  However, if you're interested despite my warnings, there's a dictionary here of basic slang vocabulary, and there are also a surprisingly large number of scholarly articles online if you're feeling rather more highbrow. 

Wordy

Sorry...today's another link.  (It's been pretty hectic lately - on the one hand, deconstructing my entire life into suitcase-sized pieces, while on the other, rapidly constructing an entire dining room set.  Moving van comes on Tuesday...)

This one is pretty interesting though, to me at least.  This guy has compiled a gigantic list of words commonly found in historical fiction that shouldn't be there.  If you're feeling less negative, at the top there's a link to a list of words that have been around for longer than one would expect.  Not completely sure where he gets his information - although the OED seems to be frequently cited - but it's an interesting skim.

Anyway, some interesting excerpts: 

beige: 1858 as a fine soft woolen cloth, used for dresses. This was originally made from raw wool, hence the color name (first attested in 1879), but it was occasionally dyed, so it was theoretically possible for a lady to wear a bright blue beige dress. Cf. ecru (1869), another color word from French, which is literally “crude” or “raw”, used to describe unbleached linen. 

bit of muslin: I’ve seen this in fifty Regency novels as a disparaging euphemism for “woman” and particularly, “loose woman”, but it isn’t recorded until 1823, and then simply to mean “woman”. Georgian or Regency use is due to Heyer. Cf. “barque of frailty”, “muslin trade”, etc. 

corgi: No problem if the person is speaking Cymric (it’s Welsh for “small dog”), but the word is not recorded in English until 1926. 

grandfather clock: This term for a floor-length pendulum clock is from a popular song written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work. Prior to that time, the style was called a case clock or a long clock. (Accurate floor length clocks are easier to build, since in Earth’s gravity a 40-inch pendulum has a one-second “tick”.) 

marzipan: It was marchpane (French marcepain) from 1394, but English didn’t adopt the German version of the word until 1901. (The original meaning was a candy box, not the candy itself.) 

pervert: This did not have the current sexual usage until the 1890’s. Before then, a pervert was a religious apostate, a convert seen from the rear. For example, in 1860 Thackeray called Henry of Navarre “a notorious pervert” for his “Paris is worth a mass” conversion. In 1879 a religious tract mentioned that Paul was regarded as a pervert by Jews for becoming a Christian. An extreme pervert was the semi-legendary Vicar of Bray, who was twice a Catholic and twice a Protestant in maintaining his position during the reigns of Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth. When accused of having no principles, he said he had one principle, to live and die as the vicar of Bray. The song about him, however, updates his career to the “glorious revolution” reigns of Charles II, James II, William of Orange, and George I a hundred and fifty years later.  

Viking: 1840 as a Scandinavian marauder. The correct “vikingr” was recorded in 1807. In Old Norse and Icelandic, “viking” meant marauding or piracy, while a “vikingr” was an individual. (In other words, a vikingr would get in his boat and go viking.)

Kismet

More definitions today...

This time the word is kismet, which (I believe) is borrowed directly from Turkish and Urdu both; its roots go back (with little variation in phonetic form) to Persian and Arabic.  It has also been loaned into other languages, including Croatian dialects.  As to meaning...fate, destiny; providence.

Childe Harold

Click here for the full-text version of Lord Byron's scandalous breakthrough work.  Ooer!

Meh

meh.

Cake du Jour

Everyone enjoys cake - although some prefer pie - but I don't know anyone who particularly likes the expression, "to have one's cake and eat it too."  This is probably because it is so darned confusing (and also because it seems to insinuate that we aren't allowed to eat cake).  I shall try to clarify.

Firstly, what does it mean, precisely?  It's almost always used in the negative, or if it isn't, the feeling is that someone is getting away with something they shouldn't have.  There's a vague idea, generally, that having one's cake and eating it is tantamount to "having it both ways"...which, as everyone knows, you can't.  More specifically, having one's cake and eating it too means that a person has benefitted from two scenarios, one of which should naturally preclude the other; a person has both preserved and eaten a cake.  An entire cake.  The pig!

We were actually talking about this idiom at the dinner table the other night, and someone suggested that taking cake out of the picture would make it more palatable (go figure)...although the offered alternative - have your tree and chop it down and burn it as firewood too - doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Outside of getting bogged down in confectionary imagery, the uncertainty this phrase promotes seems to come from two areas.  Firstly, the word 'have'...an innocuous enough word, but with enough ambiguity to throw a monkey wrench (and that's another idiom I'll have to address) into the semantics of the sentence.  'Have,' in this case, simply means 'keep,' but even though we are aware of this, there's probably been enough exposure to "Will you have some of the Triple Chocolate Torte or the Red Velvet?"  "Oh I think I'll have the Angelfood with Strawberry Preserves" to send me, at least, into a state of confusion.  Keep the cake and eat it too or Eat the cake and eat it too?

The second area of uncertainty probably results from a question of sequence.  The earliest recorded usage of the idiom was in 1546, and is, "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?"  The reversal of order found in the original phase seems to make more sense, chronologically.  I'm not sure why it was corrupted...the phrase appears flipped around 1812.  I feel that expressing it as "eat one's cake and have it too" even reduces the ambiguity of the word 'have'...maybe because, in the confusing (non-keep) sense of the word, it doesn't exactly mean 'eat', but more 'acquire to eat later'.

Anyway, there you have it.  Hope I've cleared things up, or at least made it so that you aren't sick of the sight of this less-than-delicious phrase.

To Mrs. Reynold's Cat

I have a document full of poems, and most of them seem to be about love (O_o) or war (O_O)...

except this one, by Keats:

Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy'd? -- How many tidbits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears -- but pr'ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me -- and upraise
Thy gentle mew -- and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists --
For all the wheezy asthma, -- and for all
Thy tail's tip is nick'd off -- and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter'dst on glass-bottled wall.

Grammar is for Nerds

Pop quiz!  Is it...

lighted or lit?
weaved or wove?
dived or dove?
sneaked or snuck?
hanged or hung?
waked or woke?
thrived or throve?

Hm, "simple" past tense, my eye.

Old Emotions

In Greek, as you're probably aware, there are multiple words in place of the single verb we English-speakers use when we're talking about love.  Which is really fantastic and, I imagine, cuts down on those awkwardly ambiguous conversations like the one in which so-and-so supposedly hooked up with so-and-so and what does that even mean?  (Although I guess, if we're continuing along that train of thought, so-and-so number one would probably have been an old politician, while so-and-so number two would probably have been a young boy...and so what we end up with is simply replacing one awkward situation for another.)

Regardless. 

We've got the undervalued and overlooked philia, which implies the virtuous love that accompanies loyalty and friendship.  Then there's agápe, a sense of deep, true, stable affection and regard - in the New Testament, this is a kind of sacrificial love.  And don't forget bad-boy éros...that's sexy, passionate love, although Plato also said it also had to do with a more general spiritual appreciation of beauty.  Lastly, storge, which tends to be left off these sorts of lists, and seems to be used exclusively within the family to mean affection, tolerance, and acceptance.

I was wondering, though, if Latin had a similar subdivision of the sentiment commonly known as love.  Well...not really, as it turns out.  The Latin distinction is basically equivalent, as near as I can tell, to the English distinction between 'like' and 'love'...although, upon further reflection, this isn't totally surprising, given that Hellenic (Greek) and Italic (Latin) come off different branches of the Proto-Indo-European language tree.

Idiom Du Jour

This time, it's the colorful expression: to warm the cockles of one's heart.

What does this mean???

Actually, that's probably the wrong question...for some reason, no one misses the warm-and-fuzzy feeling this little phrase connotes.  If anything, people (at least, people who think about language) are scratching their heads wondering, "why the heck does this mean what it means?"  Well.  Excellent question.

The idiom popped up towards the end of the 1600s as to rejoice the cockles of one’s heart.  And so, this time period (the era of Enlightenment, Rennaissance, and Words Stemming From Latin and Greek) leads those in the know to suggest that 'cockles' is simply a corruption of the Latin cochleae cordis, heart's ventricles.  This implies that the whole expression is a rather plebian gaffe based on a less-than-witty academic joke.  ...yes, nerds.

However, before we call this idiom "done and dusted" (??? okay that's for next time.  I bet it's got something to do with letter-writing.), there are a few other hypotheses out there for what got this one started.  And this explanation has got some muscle behind it...or should I say mussel.  Aha.  Cockles, you see, are a type of shellfish (specifically, a bivalve mollusc) commonly eaten throughout British history and found in at least one other bit of linguistic folklore (re: contrary Mary's garden - and that's yet another story).  Allegedly, cockles, or their shells, look like hearts, or their inner chambers.  So that would lay that to rest, although not everybody buys it.

One final explanation is something that I'm not sure I buy.  I can't verify it, but supposedly a lesser-known definition of 'cockle' refers to the chamber of a baker's oven or potter's kiln.  Just possibly, through some kind of metaphoric extension, the idiomatic phrase came about from the image of a kiln heating up.  Lovely and poetic...but again, I'm not sure about the historical or linguistic truth.

In Living Color

Quoted from the book The Art of Looking Sideways, but I remember this stuff from...somewhere else.  A neuroscience class, maybe.  Or a free lecture.  Or perhaps anthropology.  Who knows.

All languages have black and white.
If there are three words, the third is red.
If there are four, then it is green or yellow.
If five then whichever didn't make four, yellow or green.
If six, it is blue.
If seven, it is brown.
If eight or more, then purple, pink, orange, and grey are added in any order.

I was rather surprised about blue.  And, as you are probably thinking, it isn't precisely this simple...but essentially this is the rule. 

Also, apparently English has only thirty color words.

Idiom Du Jour

Today's selection: "mad as a hatter"

Conjures up images of Alice and Wonderland, no?  But this one doesn't actually stem from the opium-laced mind of Lewis Carrol (although that may well be what's kept it alive).  Everyone knows this phrase refers to an extremely crazy person - certifiably insane, even - and this is how that came about.

It comes, not surprisingly, from the world of millinery.  Not straw boaters or lace caps though...we're talking felted beaver hats.  For a fascinating detailed history of this process (no, really!), click here - but essentially it all boils down to glue.  In order to get the individual beaver hairs to stick together and form a felt, they had to be treated with a mercury solution, which is all well and good until the hats are later steamed and molded...this process releases mercury fumes that, over prolonged exposure, attack the nervous system with very nasty results.

Interesting - as a culture, we've already lost the association between insanity and felted hat-making...I wonder how this idiom will hold up (in America at least) when the word "mad" stops referring to crazy and only means angry?

A Poem From My Childhood

(This might explain a good deal about why I am the way I am...)

When awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
   Through the long, long wintry nights;-
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore;-
   When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore:-

Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
   A lonely spark with silvery rays
   Piercing the coal-black night, -
   A Meteor strange and bright:-
Hither and thither the vision strays,
   A single lurid light.

Slowly it wanders, - pauses, - creeps, -
Anon it sparkles, - flashes and leaps;
And ever as onward it gleaming goes
A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws.
And those who watch at that midnight hour
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light passes along, -
     "The Dong! - the Dong!
   "The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
     "The Dong! - the Dong!
   "The Dong with a luminous Nose!"

     Long years ago
   The Dong was happy and gay,
Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl
   Who came to those shores one day.
For the Jumblies came in a Sieve, they did, -
Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd
     Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
   And the rocks are smooth and gray.
And all the woods and the valleys rang
With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang, -
     "Far and few, far and few,
     "Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
     "Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
     "And they went to sea in a Sieve."

Happily, happily passed those days!
     While the cheerful Jumblies staid;
   They danced in circlets all night long,
   To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,
     In moonlight, shine, or shade.
For day and night he was always there
By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair,
Till the morning came of that hateful day
When the Jumblies sailed in their Sieve away,
And the Dong was left on the cruel shore
Gazing - gazing for evermore, -
Ever keeping his weary eyes on
That pea-green sail on the far horizon, -
Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
As he sate all day on the grassy hill, -
     "Far and few, far and few,
     "Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
     "Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
     "And they went to sea in a Sieve."

But when the sun was low in the West,
   The Dong arose and said, -
"What little sense I once possessed
   "Has quite gone out of my head!"
And since that day he wanders still
By lake or forest, marsh and hill,
Singing - "O somewhere, in valley or plain
"Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
"For ever I'll seek by lake and shore
"Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!"

   Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
   Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
   And because by night he could not see,
   He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
     On the flowery plain that grows.
     And he wove him a wondrous Nose, -
   A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back of his head.
   - In a hollow rounded space it ended
   With a luminous Lamp within suspended,
     All fenced about
     With a bandage stout
     To prevent the wind from blowing it out;-
   And with holes all round to send the light,
   In gleaming rays on the dismal night.

And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams the Dong;
And above the wall of the Chimp and Snipe
You may hear the squeak of his plaintive pipe
While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain
To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
Lonely and wild - all night he goes, -
The Dong with a luminous Nose!
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night, -
   "This is the hour when forth he goes,
   "The Dong with a luminous Nose!
   "Yonder - over the plain he goes,
     "He goes!
     "He goes;
   "The Dong with a luminous Nose!"

by Edward Lear

Idiom Du Jour: In Over My Head

I just checked, and the correct expression is deep-seated, rather than deep-seeded.

No doubt the latter expression arises from a combination of folk etymology and phonetic 'laziness' (although, as my Oxford sociolinguistics tutor points out, 'laziness' is a term that should be discouraged, it being critical and often incorrect).

The correct phrase (deep-seated) was first used in it's figurative use in 1847, so it's not terribly old.  However, the word it stems from - seated - is not commonly used these days in the way it's meant when it is referring to something that's ingrained and deeply-rooted (and doubtless this is where the confusion starts to arise).  However, to seat not only implies, well, sitting...it also means that something is situated inside, firmly placed, planted, rooted...

And we come full-circle, both to the botanical and also to the image of something - an object, an idea - well and truly positioned and deposited in a certain locale.

Edward Woodward

Why has Edward Woodward got so many R's in his name?
     Because otherwise he'd be Edwad Woodwad.

Why has Edward Woodward got so many D's in his name?
     Because otherwise he'd be Ewar Woowar.

Why has Edward Woodward got so many W's in his name?
     Because otherwise he'd be Edard Oodard.

Why has Edward Woodward got so many vowels in his name?
     Because otherwise he'd be Dwrd Wdwrd.

Why has Edward Woodward got so many consonants in his name? 
     Because otherwise he'd be Ea Ooa.

Conclusion: Best. Name. Ever.