Tag Archives: word tasting notes

yule

Posted on December 9, 2008 | 1 comment

Long a quaint, archaic, seasonal word restricted mainly to a narrow set of contexts (although in more general use still in the northern parts of Great Britain), this word got a bit of a boost from J.K. Rowling, who used it rather than, say, Christmas. Most who know this word will likely think of a yule log or or yuletide, or perhaps of the song “Welcome Yule!” Its main use outside of that for many people has likely been seasonal wordplay (“yule love it” as a phrase gets 8750 hits on Google). But it is an evocative word, smooth like a glass of eggnog and just as ready to bring thoughts of the season to mind. The y may help it to maintain its “olde tyme” air, as y‘s tend to show up in faux archaism, not just in silliness like olde tyme but in the well-known ye olde. (The thing about that ye, however, is that it’s not the same as the pronoun in ye shall die; in fact, it’s not really ye at all. Old English had a character, thorn – þ – which was not present in the continental type faces English printers bought, so they used y in its place. Ye olde is really þe olde, i.e., the olde. This is unlike the y in yule, which, if it were a thorn in disguise, would make the word þule, thule – which, one must admit, would at least be appropriate to the wintriness of the season. But it’s a y fair and proper; in Swedish yule is jul.) This is a concise word, four letters, which means three days of partying per letter. Oh, yes: the twelve days of Christmas (which, retail ads notwithstanding, start on December 25 and end with twelfth-night just before Epiphany) were first the twelve days of yule. So what’s the difference? Well, yule was the pagan celebration that the Church co-opted (if you can’t beat ’em…) by making it a celebration of the birth of Christ. Some might complain that if we now call it yule we’re leaving the Christ out of Christmas. Fair enough, although most people seem to do so anyway; but it would at least make it parallel to another pagan celebration co-opted by Christianity, a spring celebration of fertility (eggs, rabbits) that kept its name, mutated by time: originally named after Eostre, the goddess of dawn, we now call it Easter. And speaking of eggs, I fancy a sip of some nog now.

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wassail

Posted on December 8, 2008 | Leave a comment

A word of Christmas, drinking, and song. Most who know it will immediately think of one or more lusty old English yuletide tunes enjoining all to wet their whistles. Those pronouncing it can be forgiven for stressing the second syllable, as though it were some nautical term, since one well-known song does just that, but actually it is stressed on the first syllable, with the second often reduced so much it might sound like Ensign Chekhov referring to a vassal (perhaps one of the vassals drinking to his master’s health in the same song). So what are we looking at? The w could be two cups, and the ss two wisps of steam arising from a warm beverage made with spice and ale (ail?). And when you’ve had too much, you might meet a copper who will say, “Wass all this, then,” and book you as an (w)assailant. After all, the idea was often to go from house to house singing and being rewarded with beverage, and after an evening of full-throated singing followed by full-throated drinking, one might be excessively boisterous – and perhaps a bit green about the gills… ironically, because wassail comes from wæs hæil, “be healthy,” a drinking toast.

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gossip

Posted on December 5, 2008 | Leave a comment

A word like a half-whisper over a cup of coffee. The central hiss, like a snake (or two snakes: ss), seems appropriate, for when gossips go sip coffee to gossip their gossip, we think it a very sordid thing practiced by small-minded people getting little digs in. And surely the faint hint of guess must be relevant, for how often is gossip founded firmly on fact? The image is further backed up by the g, the ugly letter found in gargoyle and goblin and pug: gossips are as unpleasant of face as of voice, no? Well, you tell me – go look in the mirror and report back. For who doesn’t share reported tidbits about others behind their backs? The worst of this is of course destructive, but in the main it serves valuable social functions, negotiating and constructing our worlds. (Besides, there is no other way to talk about celebrities than behind their backs, unless you happen to know them in person – though they all seem so familiar we find them suitable subjects. Note that next to idle and monger among common collocations for this word is columnist.) Gossip the verb comes from gossip the noun, which, before it was anyone who liked to share stories, was a close friend, and before that, specifically a godfather or godmother. The original word was godsibb: the god from god (not from the other Anglo-Saxon god, which became good), and the sibb from sib. Oh, and sib, not much used by itself anymore, means “blood relation.” A diminutive derivation of it is still common: sibling. (Odd, isn’t it, to see a more formal – scientific or bureaucratic-sounding – term coming from Old English rather than from Latin or Greek?) Fair enough: even still you may go and gossip with your sistahs and hear something that makes you say “Oh, brother!” …or possibly words more related to the first half of this word.

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burglar

Posted on December 4, 2008 | 3 comments

A word that sounds like a security alarm going off. It may have a reflection of a ground meat sandwich, and may even make one think of a bugler; the beginning echoes a German town and the end the glare of security spotlights; but most of us know it well enough… hopefully not by personal experience. Many people say it with three syllables rather than two, backforming a verb burgle (which does have a sort of jumble and tumble and jiggle and boggle sound of a person going through drawers and jewellery boxes looking for goodies) and then construing this as the agentive derivation of it. But the real story of this word is one as much of gain as of loss. It came in the 16th century from the Anglo-Latin burglator (an easy little pocketing of the to there), which in turn came from burgator – and how that l got there we don’t know; perhaps someone sidled in and, having marked the to for later theft, found when outside again that an instrument had been left behind. As to burgator, it is thought that the burg comes from burgh, “castle or fortification.” A man’s home is his castle, after all. Which is why so many install that most common collocation of of burglar: an alarm.

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demesne

Posted on December 3, 2008 | Leave a comment

With the three wheels of e‘s, the linking letters between them and the d sticking a stack up in front, this word looks almost something like a steam train. But unless you happen to possess a steam train, it doesn’t have much to do with one. The de could seem French or lower-class urban; dem could give a whiff of politics; esne, to the historically literate, reminds one of when humans could be chattel. And what would those esnes be working on? Why, their Lord’s demesne. Not to demean it, but dat’s de main ting. On hearing this word spoken, you may mistake it for for demean, in which case you may feel demeaned by the speaker – perhaps justly so, given that the speaker is likely a lawyer – or you may mistake it for domain, and there won’t really be many, if any, contextual clues to tell you otherwise. Demesne, after all, is historically just an alternate spelling of domain – both came into English by way of French, and this version took on an unetymological s to indicate a long vowel and perhaps to indicate a link with mesne lord and mesnie (household establishment). Sound a bit fancy? Well, this is legal language. It was the law clerks who kept this version in ink since medieval times, and its uses are pretty much all legal. And what is it, then, legally? Nine points of the law (to be less cute, possession). It tends to show up in court with other members of the bar: hold in demesne, in his demesne as of fee, in ancient demesne (does that sound like something from the Anglican hymnal?), demesne of the Crown, Royal demesne, or, referring to estate possessed, demesne lands. And if somone attacks you, you fight back, and he complains, your lawyer will insist it was son assault demesne. And, after reading all those, do you still want to pronounce the s? I can’t blame you if you do, but you can’t take it away, say it aloud, or otherwise demean it; it’s not your demesne.

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onomastics

Posted on December 2, 2008 | 2 comments

This word sounds like a name for many things, some of them quite improper. Onanistic gymnastics? With mastication? Is there something about a mast, about tics or other insects, or mass, or sticks, or no-no antics, or John Lennon’s second wife, or… oh, no mas. But, in fact, it is the study of proper names. Visually, this word has two halves with different styles: the rounds and mounds (with combs or fingers) of onom and the snaky shapes and sticks of astics. And in fact in origins it may be disassembled along similar lines: classical Greek onoma, “name,” transmuted into a verb, in past particle was onomastos and that in turn gained an ik for “of or belonging to,” to make onomastikos. The os was dropped to make the English adjective onomastic, which gained an s for the field of study. So when you buy a book of baby names – or wonder “Where the heck did that last name come from?” – there’s a name for that.

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ostracize

Posted on December 1, 2008 | 1 comment

A word that looks askance with a high eyebrow, almost like the eye of an ostrich – but not. Nor is it a form of exercise. The o at the beginning has the look of the mouth formed in shock and dismay and the sound of the condeming “aw,” complete with downward tone, as it’s the primary stress. The tra is perhaps for the transgression or the trash who committed it. The ostra together may make one think of the extraordinary action that led to this punishment. The cize is for what you will cut the malfeasor down to – and for the condemnatory sighs that will execute the act. The condemnation couldn’t involve words, of course; talking would imply inclusion, and to ostracize someone is to give him or her the coldest of shoulders. At least we don’t drive them out of town now, let alone hold an official vote to do so. This is what the ancient Greeks did when ostracizing – they wrote down the name of the miscreant on potsherds (ostraka, plural of ostrakon) and dropped them into a vase (an election of sorts was held wherein people could vote on whom, of anyone in Athens, they wished to see leave town for ten years, and the one with the most votes had ten days to beat it). A similar method was used to vote for officials, only in that case they dropped balls into one of two vases, depending whether they wished to vote for or against (funnels and opening both hands at once masked the choice). The ball voting method was taken up by the Freemasons to vote whether to accept a candidate, but they use one box and the fate is determined by the choice of colour of ball dropped in: white or black. If just one member votes against a candidate, then he is… yes.. blackballed. Which is not to say ostracized: he can always try again.

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boffin

Posted on November 30, 2008 | Leave a comment

Not a bird. Not necessarily something so good as to be called “boffo.” Not a buffoon per se. Certainly not a big hairstyle or an overgrown cupcake. Not a marine mammal… well, perhaps: the first known use, in 1941, was for an “older” (over 32) naval officer. Then it came to be used for a person engaged in “back-room” scientific research, for example on radar. Now it refers to an egghead, a nerd, a geek, a wonk – not a mere buff or (as in golfing) duffer, but a guy who knows how to fix the world but still doesn’t get invited to parties. Does the word somehow have the sound of a propeller spinning on a beanie? The b imparts a rosy-cheekedness quite lacking in coffin. There is a definite effect from the off in, but what is it? Perhaps we can’t know. There is much that boffins know that is forever opaque to the world at large. It may be that out there is some boffin who even knows with some certainty where the word boffin comes from. If so, he ought to tell the rest of us. The best we can guess is that it’s somehow an eponym; Boffin is a Welsh surname.

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burdock

Posted on November 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

A rather hard- and bucolic-sounding word for something you may find caught on a bird-dog’s tail. The bur can make one think of a snagging plant, a Scottish accent or a chill lake; burd adds an avian echo; dock is the wood platform on a lake but it’s also chopping, cutting short – what one may do to a paycheck or a tail. Those who know it’s some sort of plant will get a sense of hickory or perhaps something medicinal like myrrh; it may sound like something the village wiccan keeps in her sack. It has three points sticking up, making it like a bed of needles; the different facings of the b, d and k can make it seem almost wily, watchful, like a meerkat triumvirate (or, more locally, prairie dogs looking up from the herb). The plant, in fact, has many of the characteristics the word may seem to suggest. It has a prickly, burry head, looking almost like a spiky brush-cut human head – and its root is used to help maintain and promote healthy hair growth. It is also used as a blood purifier. And it may show up in your sushi – or, in England, in your soft drink. The prickly head inspired the invention of Velcro. So where does the word come from? The mists of Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic languages. Bur is from a word meaning a ring or protective casing – in this case a rather prickly one. The dock refers to a whole family of plants of various names all containing dock; it is unrelated to wharves or short tails.

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album

Posted on November 27, 2008 | 2 comments

This word, which was quite current 30 years ago, now sounds almost quaint to many people, yet it hasn’t lost its usability. Many a person, of course, will fondly recall youthful listening experiences – with their fathers saying “Al, you bum, put away that Beatles record and get studying!” Other people will think more happily of scrapbooking. Certainly the common collocations are all one or the other: photo, wedding; record, cover, White. Ah, the White Album – not its official name, of course (which is The Beatles, and nothing more), but the name it’s known by. It illustrates this word more perfectly than most, because it’s white. You see, there’s a reason album and albumen look similar: they’re family – them and Dumbledore too: the source is Latin albus, white (Dumbledore’s first name, of course). Albumen is egg white, so that one’s easy. An album – just a neuter version of albus – was first of all a blank (i.e., white) tablet on which public notices were written. From that the word came to be used for such things as autograph books and guest books, and from that scrapbooks. All of these had the book format in common (fortuitously hinted at by the book-spine-like gusset between the l and the b in the word), and so when records were brought out in similar presentations, they, too, were albums (at least since 1957). And now, of course, since nearly all CDs are presented in folding presentations, they also can be albums – though the reference has transferred to the medium itself for some people, leading them to mock one who refers to a CD as an album. But I say the mockers are all bums.

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