tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76901106756853895132024-03-17T20:03:09.100-07:00WordladyKatherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.comBlogger634125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-58980798532437108482021-03-04T11:05:00.005-08:002021-03-05T11:24:30.288-08:00Dearly Beloved<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0a1jUv3MnRdnIzHIXs77XjCt8PDuo8pIgvGbI7J8DGnosX5-4FVj5MS6wChyphenhyphenFK7nJuBx028UX01u5Yhff0zLej9Q-xze6O_Wwx2eta2dK-nKXgJODUii6fQNDkMRLD3ikDOYoGL0VtU_/s2048/freestocks-Y9mWkERHYCU-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA0a1jUv3MnRdnIzHIXs77XjCt8PDuo8pIgvGbI7J8DGnosX5-4FVj5MS6wChyphenhyphenFK7nJuBx028UX01u5Yhff0zLej9Q-xze6O_Wwx2eta2dK-nKXgJODUii6fQNDkMRLD3ikDOYoGL0VtU_/w400-h266/freestocks-Y9mWkERHYCU-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It seems to me that popular public figures, places, and things are more and more described as "beloved". I am not talking about the long-standing use of "beloved" with relatives and pets, especially in obituaries, but more with inanimate things and public figures with whom one has no personal attachment. It's a little difficult to do a corpus frequency search on this, but recently I have seen the following described as "beloved"</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pizza Pizza, a Canadian pizza chain</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Canadian Tire, a chain of hardware stores ("Beloved Canadian Tire"??? Really?)</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">film and TV franchises and series<br /></span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">jazz performances</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">restaurants (especially when reporting that they are ceasing business)</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">a cannabis brand</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">TV hosts and actors</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">hockey sticks</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">the Snowbirds (Canadian aerobatic team)</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Swiss Chalet rotisserie chicken </span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Corn Flakes and All-Bran</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">loafers<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It all seems hyperbolic to me. Why are restaurants and actors always "beloved"? Do I really feel about my Corn Flakes as I do about my family?<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The <i>New Oxford Dictionary of English</i> does in fact approach this diminished sense, but only in a specific structure:</span></p><h3 class="partOfSpeech"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="partOfSpeech"> adjective </span></span> </h3><span style="font-size: medium;"><span id="m_en_gb0071480.001"><span class="definitionElem"> dearly loved: </span><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">his beloved son</i>. </span> </span></span><ul><li class="subSense" id="m_en_gb0071480.002"><div class="senseInnerWrapper"><span style="font-size: medium;">■ (<b class="wordForm">beloved by/of</b>) <span class="definitionElem"> very popular with (a specified set of people): </span><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">the stark council estates beloved of town planners in the 1960s</i>. </span></span></div><div class="senseInnerWrapper"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="exampleGroup"> </span></span></div></li></ul><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The <i>Canadian Oxford Dictionary</i> does not, sticking with "dearly loved" alone (perhaps because the latter's Editor-in-Chief was being cranky?). But when you see the synonyms the <i>Oxford Thesaurus</i> provides for "beloved", the meaning is a bit over the top:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0001235.001"><span class="exampleGroup"> </span>darling,
dear, dearest, precious, adored, much loved, cherished,
treasured, prized, highly regarded, admired, esteemed, worshipped,
revered, venerated, idolized. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Would you apply any of these to Canadian Tire?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I will admit this annoys me, even though I'm supposed to appreciate sense development of words. Surely "popular" or "well-liked" or "admired" would do? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">What about you? Have you noticed this use of "beloved"? What do you think?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">How do you pronounce this word when used as an adjective before a noun? As two syllables or three? Is it "be LUVV id Canadian Tire" or "be LUVVD Canadian Tire"? Traditionally, dictionaries have recorded </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"be LUVV id" when the adjective is used before a noun or as a noun </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">(as in "dearly beloved") </span></span></span>and </span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"be LUVVD" for when it is used after a noun but I believe this usage is shifting.<br /></span></span></span></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-84604927038553667682021-02-22T12:06:00.001-08:002021-02-22T12:06:42.814-08:00British Place Names<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> </span></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCF_O9LZNfqMOrTr1vBRNylVw_qm01yMvsXPysYKpKrTgEzCCeKXfZ6htq36niKxp8wAnM3HBa7GEVSuAuYo4ssAQMoU7B735Ua24PbeXf8-Qr4DEu8CPiRmmDAGaxAc7PONn1UzRWL8A8/s2048/ivy-barn-EIkozqbAV38-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="2048" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCF_O9LZNfqMOrTr1vBRNylVw_qm01yMvsXPysYKpKrTgEzCCeKXfZ6htq36niKxp8wAnM3HBa7GEVSuAuYo4ssAQMoU7B735Ua24PbeXf8-Qr4DEu8CPiRmmDAGaxAc7PONn1UzRWL8A8/w400-h265/ivy-barn-EIkozqbAV38-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Lower Slaughter<br /></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Following my post about <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2021/02/sutton-what-sutton-where-sutton-hoo.html" target="_blank">Sutton Hoo</a>, many of you wrote in to share your favourite British place names, so I thought I would do some etymological research for you. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">First up, the impossibly picturesque <b>Upper Slaughter</b> and <b>Lower Slaughter </b>(pictured above) in the Cotswolds, near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Lest you think the lovely little river was the scene of some gory battle, the explanation is much more banal. "Slaughter" in this case comes from an <span class="etymSpan">Old English form *<i>slōhtre</i> ‘muddy place’ or ‘ravine, deep channel’, probably related to our word "slough".</span>. Not dripping with blood. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Not far away in Oxfordshire is <b><span class="hi">Chipping</span></b> <b><span class="hi">Norton</span>, </b>originally Old English <span class="etymSpan"><i>cēping</i> ‘market’ <i>Norton </i>'north of' (the opposite of "sutton").<br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Near Salisbury in Hampshire one finds the <b>Wallops</b>: <b>Nether Wallop, Over Wallop, </b>and <b>Middle Wallop. </b>This possibly<b> </b>comes from Old English <span class="etymSpan"><i>wella</i>, <i>wælla</i> </span>‘valley with a spring or stream’. <span class="etymSpan">OE + <i>hop</i></span> 'small enclosed valley'. Alternatively the first element may be <span class="etymSpan">Old English <i>weall</i> ‘a wall’ or <i>walu</i> ‘a ridge, an embankment’</span>. This is not to be confused with our common verb "wallop" which has its own interesting story. See here: <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2010/11/word-of-week-wallop.html">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2010/11/word-of-week-wallop.html</a></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Moving a little further southwest to Dorset, we come across <span face=""Calibri",sans-serif"><b>Piddletrenthide </b>on the </span>River Piddle. <span class="etymSpan">This is not alas from nursery talk; in Old English <i>pidele</i> meant simply ‘a marsh or fen’ and the town meant '</span>Estate on the River Piddle assessed at thirty hides’. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">In Yorkshire someone found the lachrymose-sounding <b>Blubberhouses</b>. This is in fact much cheerier, coming from <span class="etymSpan">Middle Engllsh <i>bluber</i> bubble + Old English <i>hūs</i></span>: ‘(Place at) the houses by the bubbling spring’.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b><span><span>Sheepy</span> <span>Magna</span></span> & <span><span>Sheepy</span> Parva</span> </b><span>Leicestershire.</span><span> </span></span></span></p><div id="m_2538185712153711634m_7844028440282307050gmail-acref-9780199609086-div1-11742"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This one actually does have something to do with sheep: ‘Island, or dry ground in marsh, where sheep graze’. Distinguishing affixes are <span>Latin <i><span>magna</span></i> ‘great’ and <i>parva</i> ‘little’</span>.</span></span></p></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">
</span></span><div class="gmail_default">
<h1 id="m_2538185712153711634m_7844028440282307050gmail-pagetitle"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span>Helions Bumpstead </span><span>, </span><span>Essex.</span><span> </span></span></span></h1><div id="m_2538185712153711634m_7844028440282307050gmail-acref-9780199609086-div1-2466"><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">"Bumpstead" meant ‘Place where reeds grow’, from Old English <span><i>bune </i>reeds + <i>stede</i></span> enclosed pasture. <i>Tihel de <span>Helion</span></i> was the name of a man who held one manor in 1086.</span></span></p></div>
</div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">One reader was entertained to learn that a neighbourhood of York is known as "The Shambles". You can find the explanation here: </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2015/05/in-shambles.html">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2015/05/in-shambles.html</a></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">I hope I haven't been boring you but perhaps it is appropriate to leave you in Norfolk with <b>Gre</b></span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><b>at </b>and <b>Little Snoring </b>(settlement of the family of a man called Snear). </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Photo of Lower Slaughter by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@ivybarn?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Ivy Barn</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/cotswolds?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a> <br /></span></span></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-70956870077989802362021-02-14T16:35:00.046-08:002021-02-16T12:55:52.017-08:00Sutton What? Sutton Where? Sutton Hoo?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7L0fM6PW5VAth0QL1EHNYwYCjuS-24QQ0CK4zEITiRZ2nwDp3F_p6Nj4F9W7N4fMbUpo0FknDbEUYtObtb-cw4y7hlkvjuyGqszjEYb6gntQx-byOz2H3gD9VTkDKTlqpKaEimzmrMn7y/s954/suttonhoo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="954" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7L0fM6PW5VAth0QL1EHNYwYCjuS-24QQ0CK4zEITiRZ2nwDp3F_p6Nj4F9W7N4fMbUpo0FknDbEUYtObtb-cw4y7hlkvjuyGqszjEYb6gntQx-byOz2H3gD9VTkDKTlqpKaEimzmrMn7y/w400-h225/suttonhoo.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Many of you have been watching<i> <a href="https://youtu.be/JZQz0rkNajo" target="_blank">The Dig</a></i>, the movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan on Netflix about the Anglo-Saxon archeological discoveries in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk (the southern part of the bulgy bit on the eastern side of England). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">You are probably thinking, "Yet another bizarre British place name!", although it cannot compete with my family's favourite when we were growing up not far from there: Six Mile Bottom.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">OK, you can stop giggling now and let us apply ourselves to the place name in question. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">"Hoo" has nothing to do with our pronoun "who". In very old Anglo-Saxon, <i>hōh </i>was the word for "heel". </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i>"hōh" </i>gradually morphed into "heel" and by 1300 was not being used any more. But it survived in some place names, because <i>hōh </i>also meant "a projecting ridge of land shaped like a heel".<br /></span></p><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">"Sutton" was
a very common place name, meaning "south farmstead or village", i.e. one to the south of another settlement, </span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Do you have any favourite "weird British Place Names"? <br /></span></div></div><div class="yj6qo ajU"><div aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Show trimmed content" class="ajR" data-tooltip="Show trimmed content" id=":oz" role="button" tabindex="0"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><img class="ajT" src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif" /></span></div></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-31870917354620563462021-02-10T08:37:00.000-08:002021-02-10T08:37:28.900-08:00Slip sliding away: sled or toboggan?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3kpk4RptkmJr0IrXGfV3Grn552cbf888J-W0HIhg_gWN5wpKmzJjX9e_wwm6x2XZDBVNP2dw9jUYcLtf0MTyhVf-x00tvHxX4uWnTE6v4wE5-9W_-pYRi2oICSjo2pbHYbsPIGE51zpgi/s1024/Toboggan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="1024" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3kpk4RptkmJr0IrXGfV3Grn552cbf888J-W0HIhg_gWN5wpKmzJjX9e_wwm6x2XZDBVNP2dw9jUYcLtf0MTyhVf-x00tvHxX4uWnTE6v4wE5-9W_-pYRi2oICSjo2pbHYbsPIGE51zpgi/w400-h297/Toboggan.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When I was a kid I loved to go tobogganing. My siblings and I would take a toboggan like the one pictured above to our local park and hurtle down the toboggan runs that the parks staff set up each year. Never would I have said, "I'm taking my sled and going sledding". For me, a sled has runners and a toboggan does not.<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Furthermore, "sled" is what Americans said for this favourite Canadian winter activity. But it seems to me that I am seeing "sled" more for it. "Toboggan" is certainly not gone: it is the term the City of Toronto uses on its website. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It is hard to compare relative frequencies of "toboggan" and "sled" scientifically since the latter has many meanings other than "toboggan": <br /><h1 id="pagetitle">sled<span class="availabilityIcon unlocked"> <br /></span></h1><ul class="se1"><li class="se2"><strong>1. </strong> <span id="m_en_ca0064471.001"><span class="definitionElem">
a low vehicle mounted on runners for conveying heavy loads or
passengers over snow or ice, usu. drawn by horses, dogs, or people. </span></span> </li><li class="se2"><strong>2. </strong> <span id="m_en_ca0064471.002"><span class="definitionElem">
a similar but usu. smaller vehicle, or any of various devices made of
moulded plastic, used esp. by children to coast down hills for
amusement. </span></span> </li><li class="se2"><strong>3. </strong> <span id="m_en_ca0064471.003"><span class="definitionElem"> a snowmobile. </span></span> </li><li class="se2"><strong>4. </strong> <em class="languageGroup">Cdn (North) </em><span id="m_en_ca0064471.004"><span class="definitionElem"> a covered vehicle mounted on runners and pulled by a snowmobile or tractor with caterpillar treads, used to carry freight or crew as part of a cat train.</span></span></li><li class="se2"><span id="m_en_ca0064471.004"><span class="definitionElem"><b>5 </b>a bobsled </span></span><span id="m_en_ca0064471.004"><span class="definitionElem"></span></span><span id="m_en_ca0064471.004"><span class="definitionElem"> </span></span> <br /></li></ul></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But if we look at 1980-83 in Canadian newspapers we find no uses of "sledding" to mean "tobogganing", whereas from 2017 to 2020 there are several.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We inherited "toboggan" from an Eastern Algonquian language, either
Maliseet-Passamaquoddy (spoken in New Brunswick and Maine) or Mi'kmaq (spoken in
the Atlantic Provinces), probably by way of French. The elements of the
native languages mean "device pulled by a cord". <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A usage of "toboggan" from the South and Midwestern United States that would leave Canadians perplexed to say the least is illustrated by the following quotes:<br /></div><p></p><div class="quotation" id="eid1012203511"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1012203611"><span></span></span></div><blockquote><div class="quotation" id="eid1012203511"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1012203611"><span>1907 </span> <em><a class="sourcePopup" rel="24913736" role="button" tabindex="0">Weekly Sentinel
(<span class="roman">Fort Wayne, Indiana</span>)
</a></em> 24 Apr.</span>
If an infant has been wearing a woolen <span class="quotationKeyword">toboggan</span> this winter, it can now be changed on a warm day to a Swiss bonnet.</div><div class="quotation" id="eid18223359"><span class="noIndent" id="eid18223360"><span></span></span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid18223367"><span class="noIndent" id="eid18223368"><span>1975 </span> <em><a class="sourcePopup" rel="0293214" role="button" tabindex="0">Raleigh
(<span class="roman">N. Carolina</span>)
News & Observer</a></em> 6 Jan. 24/4</span>
The burglar was wearing a red <span class="quotationKeyword">toboggan</span> and tight pants, police said.</div></blockquote><p>Well, now you have a bizarre image in your mind! <br /></p><div class="quotation" id="eid18223367"></div><p>This is what we Canadians would call a "toque" (pronounced TUKE), a close fitting knitted cap, originally with a long tapered end (to wrap around your face to keep it warm). Toques nowadays do not have these long tapered ends, though I can attest from my childhood that they were very practical. In the States this was originally called a "toboggan cap" before being abbreviated.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4PnMmvBWK2UFzuqmwVPBzSacmWyn6fl70iNhyphenhyphenmf0sws3wPaXnYwliXVv9cVFjO-IeU5cuBAKdpwXHhKG0ey3x5QduVA6Z_IRZgdSDC6CoaOGx_MmngdaCye-HDRoRtl7LYrN1YNC56zJi/s700/voyageur-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="700" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4PnMmvBWK2UFzuqmwVPBzSacmWyn6fl70iNhyphenhyphenmf0sws3wPaXnYwliXVv9cVFjO-IeU5cuBAKdpwXHhKG0ey3x5QduVA6Z_IRZgdSDC6CoaOGx_MmngdaCye-HDRoRtl7LYrN1YNC56zJi/w400-h325/voyageur-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Voyageur wearing the original toque<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: left;">If you're Canadian, have you noticed "sled" creeping up on "toboggan"? What do you say? Have you ever heard of a toque being called a toboggan?</p><p style="text-align: left;"> [If you receive this blog post as an email, click on "Wordlady" at the top which will take you to the blog where you can scroll down to "Post a comment".]<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-73189244100514926242021-01-09T08:49:00.002-08:002021-01-09T08:51:31.296-08:00Riots and kangaroos<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Zpq6ac7MNiIZB2nTAZNOMoYANEs2C0r9oQxAo1Sbti94h6t_mBOtm8wriae7voGuj3NkyKSJqqZ1OUfPHScbWl__iVy7yOw53qoj-f4R7Sqb2ZYqJU_PUqTGPAr6D_Rpwe8_BJCsLzsc/s2048/david-clode-yLxQRYpuwqg-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1384" data-original-width="2048" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Zpq6ac7MNiIZB2nTAZNOMoYANEs2C0r9oQxAo1Sbti94h6t_mBOtm8wriae7voGuj3NkyKSJqqZ1OUfPHScbWl__iVy7yOw53qoj-f4R7Sqb2ZYqJU_PUqTGPAr6D_Rpwe8_BJCsLzsc/w400-h270/david-clode-yLxQRYpuwqg-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></p><p>I can't think why, but this week I have decided to talk about the word "mob", a disorderly or riotous crowd, a rabble.</p><p>Surprisingly, this is etymologically an abbreviation, its origin being <span id="etymologySpanBlock1">classical Latin <i>mōbile vulgus</i> (the changeable common people, the fickle crowd). In the 1600s "mobile vulgus" came into English, but very quickly it was being abbreviated to "mobile" and thence to "mob". </span></p><p><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">The essayist Joseph Addison was not a fan of such truncation:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><br /><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span class="noIndent" id="eid167378603"><span>1711 </span> <span class="smallCaps">J. Addison</span> <i>Spectator</i> No. 135. ⁋10</span>
It is perhaps this Humour of speaking no more than we needs must which has so miserably curtailed some of our Words,..as in <i>mob. rep. pos. incog.</i> and the like.</span></span></p><p>Addison's usage objections had as much success as these things usually do, and by 1800 "mob" had pretty much supplanted its parents "mobile" and "mobile vulgus". </p><p>Meanwhile, English migrated to Australia, where "mob" had a resounding success acquiring new meanings there and in New Zealand.<br /></p><p>(definitions from the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian-specific meanings).<br /></p><p></p><p class="chunk" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><i>noun</i> <span id="268"><span class="def-no"><b>1. </b></span>
<span id="258"><span class="def-no"><b>b. </b></span><i>Colloquial</i> a group of people, as friends, not necessarily large: <i>we'll invite the mob over for Saturday night.</i></span></span></p><p class="chunk"><span id="268"><span id="258">an Australian friend of mine tells me that she thinks this is now an older-generation usage.</span></span></p><p class="chunk" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span id="268">
<span id="466"><span class="def-no"><b>c. </b></span> a group of workers: <i>a mob of shearers.</i></span></span><br /></p><p class="chunk"><span id="268">
</span></p>
<p class="def" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span id="557"><span class="def-no"><b>2. </b></span> a collection of animals<i>. </i></span><span id="557"> </span></p><p class="def" style="text-align: left;"><span id="557">In both Australia and New Zealand people refer to "mobs of sheep" as well as "flocks" and "mobs of cattle" as well as "herds".<br /></span></p><p class="def"><span id="557">My favourite of these usages, though, is that "mob" has become the standard collective noun for kangaroos. </span></p><p class="def" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span id="557"> </span>There are birds aplenty to enjoy, plus animals including a <span style="background-color: #ccffcc;"><b><u>mob</u></b></span> <span style="background-color: #ccffcc;"><b><u>of</u></b></span> <span style="background-color: #ccffcc;"><b><u>kangaroos</u></b></span> bounding around a cemetery in Perth</p><p class="def"><span id="557">There's a useful trivia question for you!<br /><i></i></span></p><p class="def" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span id="635"><span class="def-no"><b>5. </b></span><br />
<span id="255"><span class="def-no"><b>a. </b></span><i>Aboriginal English</i> an Aboriginal tribe or language group, </span></span><span id="635"><span id="255"><span class="ind">extended family or community</span>: <i>all my mob</i>; <i>the Big River mob.</i></span></span></p><p class="def" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span id="635"><span id="255"><i> </i></span><br />
<span id="432"><span class="def-no"><b>b. </b></span> a community, whether related by kinship, geography, special interest, etc.: <i>the Newcastle mob</i>; <i>the Music Society mob.</i></span></span></p>
<p class="def"><span id="706"><span class="def-no">Then there is the very cute<b> <br /></b></span></span></p><p class="def" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span id="706"><span class="def-no"><b>6. </b></span> a group or unit of Joey Scouts in the Scout Association.</span></p><p class="def"><span id="706">I love "Joey Scouts"! It is parallel to our 5-7-year-old "Beavers" (also cute) in North America. </span></p><p class="def"><span id="706">If only a gang of kangaroos or cute mini boy scouts had been the ones to invade the US Congress this week!<br /></span></p><p class="def"><span id="706"><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@davidclode?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">David Clode</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/wallabies?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></span></p><div class="_28uSB _3kEvh"><div class="_2tqNT"><p class="KNDj7 _2FfeD" style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">*From the photographer: These
two wild wallabies are actually testing each other’s strength, like an
arm wrestle, but I like the photo because they look like they are
dancing, perhaps a waltz. This species is known as the agile wallaby,
and the photo is taken in North Queensland, Australia.</p> </div></div><p class="def"><span id="706"><span> </span></span></p><p class="def"><span id="706"><span>**If you receive these posts in your inbox, clicking on "Wordlady" at the top will take you to the blog where you can comment or view other posts. </span> </span></p>
Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-24561742037622547182020-12-31T08:40:00.001-08:002020-12-31T08:40:00.402-08:001921 Words<p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjey24yEW2yxO8b2Y8lDxUIHpnLWVLS9KvSHhbe4QRMUfivmSivQYX9lnrRXA9UAH1Glno2RZhqLhUSwdkxpCxsq_gG1i5wxpwgtY4IEF6-860CDwh0RbQJWCDoHVVmjOrk2nH1Q98otx5n/s2048/natalie-dmay-TGe5t2quN8w-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1539" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjey24yEW2yxO8b2Y8lDxUIHpnLWVLS9KvSHhbe4QRMUfivmSivQYX9lnrRXA9UAH1Glno2RZhqLhUSwdkxpCxsq_gG1i5wxpwgtY4IEF6-860CDwh0RbQJWCDoHVVmjOrk2nH1Q98otx5n/w300-h400/natalie-dmay-TGe5t2quN8w-unsplash.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">As always at the New Year, it is interesting to see some words that are celebrating their hundredth birthday, some older than you think and others younger. These are the first appearance in print that the OED has found. <br /></span></p><h1 id="pagetitle"></h1><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">arms race</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/157030#eid27224828" rel="157030" rev="/view/Entry/157030#eid27224828"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></span></h1><div class="top"><h3 id="eid333529022"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span class="numbering"><b>1.</b></span> Competition between nations, regimes, etc., in the accumulation, development, or testing of weapons, esp. nuclear weapons.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid832861001"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid832861011"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="21827535" tabindex="0">San Francisco Business</a></i> 14 Oct. 5</span>
Crushing burden entailed through international arms race.</span></div><p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">atom bomb</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/271687#eid128721550" rel="271687" rev="/view/Entry/271687#eid128721550"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></span></h1><div class="top"><h3 id="eid128728136"><span style="font-size: small;">
A bomb which derives its destructive power from the sudden release of a
large amount of energy by fission of heavy atomic nuclei, causing
damage through heat, blast, and radioactivity. Abbreviated <i>A-bomb</i>. Cf. <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/271687#eid128721550" rel="271687" rev="/view/Entry/271687#eid128721550"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">atomic bomb</span> <span class="ps">n.</span></span></a>, <a class="crossReferencePopup cancelled" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/89974#eid1222563" rel="89974" rev="/view/Entry/89974#eid1222563"><span class="xref"><i>hydrogen bomb</i> <span class="ps">n.</span> at <span class="smallCaps">hydrogen</span> <span class="ps">n.</span> Compounds 1a(b)</span></a>.<span class="note" id="eid206791810">With reference to quot. <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/271693?rskey=kD5buw&result=17&isAdvanced=true&print#eid206791751" rel="271693" rev="/view/Entry/271693#eid206791751"><span class="xref">1921</span></a>, H. G. Wells's use is cited at quot. <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/271687#eid128721552" rel="271687" rev="/view/Entry/271687#eid128721552"><span class="xref">1914 at <span class="smallCaps">atomic bomb</span> <span class="ps">n.</span></span></a></span></span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid206791751"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid206791768"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="1530961" tabindex="0">Color Trade Jrnl.</a></i> <b>9</b> 2/2</span>
There is no remedy excepting that of blowing up Paris by an atom bomb as forecasted by H. G. Wells some years ago.</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid206791751"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid206791751"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">blankie</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></span></h1> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>nursery</i> and <i>colloquial</i> (chiefly <i>North American</i>).</span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid117303470"><span style="font-size: small;"> A blanket, <i title="especially">esp.</i> a child's security blanket.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid118741050"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid118741070"><span>1921 </span> <span class="smallCaps">L. W. Kline</span> & <span class="smallCaps">C. J. France</span> in G. S. Hall <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="1057547" tabindex="0">Aspects Child Life & Educ.</a></i> 257</span>
Had a little blanket she would not go to sleep without. She always cried ‘My blankie, my blankie,’ till she got it.</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid118741050"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid118741050"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">booze cruise</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/45177#eid7670077" rel="45177" rev="/view/Entry/45177#eid7670077"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></span></h1> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>colloquial</i>.</span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid11175135"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span class="numbering"><b>1.</b></span> Originally <i>U.S. History</i>.
During the Prohibition era: a cruise on which passengers were taken
just far enough from the shoreline to be outside U.S. jurisdiction, so
that they could buy and consume alcohol legally; (also, more generally) a
boat trip on which the passengers drink a considerable amount of
alcohol, often as part of a dinner-dance or similar event.</span></h3></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid998909181"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="23653232" tabindex="0">Olympia
(<span class="roman">Washington</span>)
Daily Recorder</a></i> 18 Apr. 1/7
(<i>headline</i>)
</span>
Would be Booze Cruise Ends with Drowning and Loss of Boat and Cargo</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid118741050"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid118741050"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">bugger-all</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span> and <span class="ps">adj.</span></span><i> </i></span></h1><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>slang</i> (chiefly <i>British</i>, <i>Australian</i>, and <i>New Zealand</i>). <span class="numbering"><b> </b></span></span></h1><h1 id="pagetitle"></h1></div><div class="quotation" id="eid118741050"><div class="top"><h3 id="eid12538402"><span style="font-size: small;"> Nothing at all, absolutely nothing.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid993075261"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid993075271"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="0058817" tabindex="0">Notes & Queries</a></i> 19 Nov. 418/2</span>
The word ‘nothing’ was replaced in the Army by ‘b——r-all’—‘I did b——r-all’; ‘There was b——r-all to eat’.</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid993075261"><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /></span><div class="quotation" id="eid843787001"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">comparison shopping</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;">Originally <i title="United States">U.S.</i></span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid113305526"><span style="font-size: small;">
The action of comparing (the prices of) the same or similar products or
services as offered by different retailers, manufacturers, etc. Also in
extended use. Frequently <i>attributive</i>.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid114438021"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid115286300"><span>1921 </span> <span class="smallCaps">M. H. Tolman</span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="1019453" tabindex="0">Positions of Responsibility in Department Stores</a></i> <span class="smallCaps">ii.</span> §D. 84</span>
Two comparison shopping executives had been secretaries to members of the management.</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid114438021"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid114438021"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">ee bah gum</span>, <span class="ps">int.</span> and <span class="ps">adj.</span></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup cancelled" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/82503#eid121995848" rel="82503" rev="/view/Entry/82503#eid121995848"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span> <span class="numbering"><b>A.</b></span> <span class="ps">int.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /></span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid1237569350"><span style="font-size: small;"> <i>English regional</i> (<i>Yorkshire</i> and <i>Lincolnshire</i>). Expressing surprise, delight, wonder, etc.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1015953381"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1015953391"><span>1921 </span> <span class="smallCaps">R. P. Weston</span> & <span class="smallCaps">B. Lee</span> in <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="25346076" tabindex="0">Catal. Copyright Entries: Pt. 3</a></i>
(Libr. of Congr. Copyright Office)
<b>16</b> 305/2
(<i>title of song</i>)
</span>
Eeh! by gum, it were a real fine do!</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1015953381"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1015953381"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">fascism</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span> <span class="numbering"><b>1.</b></span></span> </h1><div class="top"><h3 id="eid302989148"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span class="numbering"><b>a.</b></span>
Usually with capital initial. A nationalist political movement that
controlled the government of Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the
leadership of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945); the principles or ideology
of the <i>fascisti</i> (<a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/389163#eid302896555" rel="389163" rev="/view/Entry/389163#eid302896555"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">fascista</span> <span class="ps">n.</span> 1a</span></a>). See also <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/68377#eid302015299" rel="68377" rev="/view/Entry/68377#eid302015299"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">fascist</span> <span class="ps">n.</span> 1a</span></a>, <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/390043#eid302968046" rel="390043" rev="/view/Entry/390043#eid302968046"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">Fascismo</span> <span class="ps">n.</span></span></a>, and cf. sense <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/68376?rskey=8bKvDx&result=123&isAdvanced=true&print#eid302989153" rel="68376" rev="/view/Entry/68376#eid302989153"><span class="xref"> 1b</span></a>. Now <i>historical</i>.<span class="note" id="eid303533231">The movement grew out of the nationalist <i>fasci</i>
which became prominent at the end of the First World War (1914–18),
esp. with the formation of the militantly anti-communist and
anti-socialist <i>Fasci di Combattimento</i> by Mussolini in 1919.
After the formation of a coherently organized Fascist party in 1921,
Mussolini became prime minister in 1922, leading to the eventual
establishment of a totalitarian Fascist state.</span></span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid303000067"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid303000114"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="0223989" tabindex="0">Syracuse
(<span class="roman">N.Y.</span>)
Herald</a></i> 1 Feb. 2/3</span>
No doubt fascism is a transitory phenomenon.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1015953381"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">Hicksville</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;"></span><div class="forms preEntry" id="formsArray"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="formsSpanBlock1"><b>Forms:</b>
<p><span id="eid51102304">α. 19– <b id="eid10392167">Hickville</b>. </span></p><p><span id="eid51102305">β. 19– <b id="eid51102309">Hicksville</b>.</span>Originally and chiefly <i title="United States">U.S.</i></p></span></span></div><h3 id="eid10392187"><span style="font-size: small;"> (The type of) an unsophisticated, rural, small town.</span></h3><div class="quotation" id="eid10392190"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid72358106"><span>1921 </span> <span class="smallCaps">E. O'Neill</span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="0530123" tabindex="0">Straw</a></i> <span class="smallCaps">i.</span> ii. 46</span>
Making a note that a tug boat towed two barges loaded with coal up
the river, that Mrs. Perkins spent a weekend with relatives in
Hickville.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">junk mail</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/112481#eid38615918" rel="112481" rev="/view/Entry/112481#eid38615918"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;"> Originally <i>North American</i>.</span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid1263207090"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span class="numbering"><b>1.</b></span>
Unwanted or unsolicited mail or post, typically in the form of
circulars, advertisements, etc., sent to a large number of addresses.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1021706941"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1021707231"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="26151242" tabindex="0">Legislative, Executive, & Judicial Appropriation Bill: Hearing before U.S. Senate Comm. on Appropriations</a></i> (66th Congr., 2nd Sess.) II. 2353</span>
What we call the junk mail comes in just the same. There is no let-up at all in that, and all of that has to be handled.</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1021706941"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1021706941"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">oops</span>, <span class="ps">int.</span> and <span class="ps">n.</span></span></span></h1><div class="etymology preEntry" id="eid33612927"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><b>Etymology: </b>Perhaps shortened < <a class="crossReferencePopup cancelled" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/220157#eid16234189" rel="220157" rev="/view/Entry/220157#eid16234189"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">upsidaisy</span> <span class="ps">int.</span></span></a> (compare <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/228767#eid14420731" rel="228767" rev="/view/Entry/228767#eid14420731"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">whoops</span> <span class="ps">int.</span></span></a> and quot. <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87697768#eid14420760" rel="87697768" rev="/view/Entry/87697768#eid14420760"><span class="xref">1925</span></a> </span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> at that entry), or perhaps a natural exclamation which has become confused with <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/220157#eid16234189" rel="220157" rev="/view/Entry/220157#eid16234189"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">upsidaisy</span> <span class="ps">int.</span></span></a></span></span></div> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>colloquial</i>. <span class="numbering"><b>A.</b></span> <span class="ps">int.</span></span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid33612950"><span style="font-size: small;"> Expressing apology, dismay, or surprise, esp. after an obvious but usually minor mistake.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid283318053"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid283318061"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="0174676" tabindex="0">Washington Post</a></i> 1 Nov. 21/4</span>
Oops, muh dear, it's in the last where the dirty work takes place.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">ringtone</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/203150#eid18290115" rel="203150" rev="/view/Entry/203150#eid18290115"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"></span></span></h1> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>Telecommunications</i>.</span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid10975133"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span class="numbering"><b>1.</b></span>
The sound produced in a caller's telephone to indicate that a
connection with the number dialled has been made and the called phone is
ringing; = <a class="crossReferencePopup cancelled" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/166097#eid25433088" rel="166097" rev="/view/Entry/166097#eid25433088"><span class="xref"><i>ringing tone</i> <span class="ps">n.</span> at <span class="smallCaps">ringing</span> <span class="ps">n.<sup>1</sup></span> Compounds</span></a>.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1001043601"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1001043611"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="0042171" tabindex="0">Kansas City
(<span class="roman">Missouri</span>)
Star</a></i> 1 Jan. 9</span>
Listen for the busy signal or the reverting ring tone which tells you your party is being rung.</span></div></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid993075261"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">tear-jerker</span>, <span class="ps">n.</span></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;"><i>colloquial</i> (originally <i title="United States">U.S.</i>).</span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid19080861"><span style="font-size: small;">
Something calculated to evoke sadness or sympathy, usually a
sentimental film, play, song, story, etc. Also applied to a person and, <i>rarely</i>, to an event.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid19080865"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid171481880"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="0543328" tabindex="0">Double Dealer</a></i> II. 143/2</span>
But no one today, I believe, mistakes his [<i>sc.</i> James Whitcomb Riley's] productions for anything but somewhat shallow, fairly easy tear-jerkers.</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid19080865"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid19080865"><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">to-do</span>, <span class="ps">adj.</span></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/56228#eid6331501" rel="56228" rev="/view/Entry/56228#eid6331501"><span class="xref"><span class="ps"></span></span></a></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;"> Originally <i title="United States">U.S.</i></span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid113215829"><span style="font-size: small;"> Chiefly in <span class="lemmaInDef" id="eid1179710000">to-do list</span>:
designating a (notional) list of tasks requiring attention or
completion, sometimes ordered by priority. Also: designating an item in
such a list.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid113215832"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid113215842"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="1085990" tabindex="0">Fort Wayne
(<span class="roman">Indiana</span>)
Jrnl.</a></i> 6 Nov. <span class="smallCaps">iii.</span> 2/8</span>
Again she consulted her ‘To Do’ list.</span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><h1 id="pagetitle"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="hwSect"><span class="hw">zaftig</span>, <span class="ps">adj.</span></span></span></h1><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><div class="etymology preEntry" id="eid13658232"><span style="font-size: small;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><b>Etymology: </b> < Yiddish <i>zaftik</i>, literally ‘juicy’ < German <i>saftig</i> </span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> juicy (already in Middle High German as <i>saffec</i> , <i>saffic</i> ) < <i>Saft</i> juice (see <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/170792#eid24518457" rel="170792" rev="/view/Entry/170792#eid24518457"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">sap</span> <span class="ps">n.<sup>1</sup></span></span></a>) + <i>-ig</i> <a class="crossReferencePopup" href="https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/231078#eid14064830" rel="231078" rev="/view/Entry/231078#eid14064830"><span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">-y</span> <span class="ps">suffix<sup>1</sup></span></span></a>.</span></span></div> <span style="font-size: small;"><i>North American</i>. <i>colloquial</i>.</span><div class="top"><h3 id="eid13658245"><span style="font-size: small;"> Of a woman: having a full, rounded figure; plump.</span></h3></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1025075901"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1025075911"><span>1921 </span> <i><a aria-role="button" class="sourcePopup" rel="21818144" tabindex="0">Broadway Brevities</a></i> Dec. 20</span>
Isn't Diana Allen getting very zoftig?</span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1025075901"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div class="quotation" id="eid1025075901"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@28081995_love?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Natalie Dmay</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/security-blanket?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span> <br /></span></div></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-69735444778390753452020-12-08T12:06:00.002-08:002020-12-09T06:12:56.583-08:00Shots and jabs<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6or3Fxxa_XlM6wR3TRZVUnhhgLEag-NWRSGqGnvC7NjdgTCWRIXdrkp7ZHYAM18gub7f-vM9gVpIJccaCIUsqcID0LFsqT8haIF34WWX29XWQt77iFbjUAjb__X6Q2ad-IBHwWgaV_0h/s2048/kristine-wook-e5lxLcIK1Xw-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6or3Fxxa_XlM6wR3TRZVUnhhgLEag-NWRSGqGnvC7NjdgTCWRIXdrkp7ZHYAM18gub7f-vM9gVpIJccaCIUsqcID0LFsqT8haIF34WWX29XWQt77iFbjUAjb__X6Q2ad-IBHwWgaV_0h/w300-h400/kristine-wook-e5lxLcIK1Xw-unsplash.jpg" width="300" /></a></div> <p></p><p>The news is all about the new COVID-19 vaccines. Thank God (and armies of scientists) for them.</p><p>But have you noticed that while we in North America will be lining up for our "shots", people in Britain go for "jabs"?</p><p>I have to say that "jab" has always had rather violent connotations for me, as if the medical professional were to come hurtling at me and aggressively poke my arm with the hypodermic (possibly even with a blood-curdling yell). I expect for the British these violent connotations have faded away, just as they have for us with "shot". I doubt that any North American heading into the flu shot clinic has visions of their pharmacist whipping out a gun and unloading vaccine-laden bullets into their arm.</p><p></p><p>Both of these words seem to have started their injection-related careers in American drug users' slang in the early 20th century. By the 1930s "shot" had started on its path to respectability, and by the 60s was a quite standard term for injections. <br /></p><p>By the 1980s "jab" had become the standard term in Britain. I have no idea why British English opted for this while other varieties preferred "shot," but such are the ways of language.<br /></p><p>"Shot" is a very old word, dating from Anglo-Saxon times. "Jab" is a much more recent word, dating from the 1820s, but it is derived from an older Scottish word "job", used of a bird poking with its beak, possibly in imitation of the sound made by the bird.<br /></p><p>For the story behind "vaccine", please click here:</p><p><a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2011/12/dont-have-cow.html">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2011/12/dont-have-cow.html</a></p><p> **Please feel free to leave a comment on Wordlady posts below in the "Post a Comment" box. It will not be published immediately as I have to moderate comments to eliminate spam etc. ** <br /></p><p><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kwook?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Kristine Wook</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/syringe?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-62472563148461388232020-12-02T07:07:00.000-08:002020-12-02T07:07:44.236-08:00Sanitizer and sanity<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pZoGlBNik9e6-nveVLV39NWx4aSpojt7J6qoMZLu8Z2uOjxvz6k1ae7xvZGuBQU8qOkF6UAzrYFRGFJM03e9DxaQS595Gbi2xVrw-hYTqe7tQkwERgeQTrzQwY6N47sB22NNCDUpFyrs/s2048/kelly-sikkema-tDtwC11XjuU-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1349" data-original-width="2048" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pZoGlBNik9e6-nveVLV39NWx4aSpojt7J6qoMZLu8Z2uOjxvz6k1ae7xvZGuBQU8qOkF6UAzrYFRGFJM03e9DxaQS595Gbi2xVrw-hYTqe7tQkwERgeQTrzQwY6N47sB22NNCDUpFyrs/w400-h264/kelly-sikkema-tDtwC11XjuU-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>We are all adjured to use sanitizer at every opportunity. </p><p>But, if "sane" means "of sound mind", why does its derivative "sanitize" not mean "make someone sane"? After all, they are derived from the same Latin root, <span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><em>sānus</em> (healthy). How convenient would that be, to have some kind of "sanitizing" shampoo which eliminated all kinds of craziness!</span></p><p><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">But there has been a semantic divergence: "sanitize" and its related word "sanitary" are for physical health, whereas the root word "sane" and its derivative "sanity" are only for mental health.</span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><br /></span></p><p><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"> </span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">"Sane", like so many Latin words, was borrowed into English in the 16th century, a little later than "sanity", at which time both words did refer to physical health (as, of course, <i>sain</i> does in French). This meaning, however, was subsequently overtaken by the "mental health" sense so that by the 19th century the "physical health" sense was lost. This was probably due to the fact that its opposite, "insane", has only ever meant "of unsound mind", dating from when it too was borrowed in the 16th century. This was true also of its Latin source </span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><em>insānus.</em></span></span></p><p><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">"Sanitize" dates from 1836 and "sanitizer" from the mid 20th century, so they were not in fact derived from what "sane" meant in English at the time but from the original Latin meaning. </span> </span></p><p><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><br /></span></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-25062605183459985782020-11-11T03:29:00.002-08:002020-11-11T12:18:17.993-08:00Anxious Days and Tearful Nights<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigWettOE_doZw8uhF4qmW_HRO2scx8A2ygl72przVo1vso39AX0FYz_7gx8b-cFTE5SLxfLTHQx_KyNg2hn54NNJxIcgvhMOulEvqJXT6eJHQeX7S9HhkWRUN9Z0CQ-Q5RFODqpTQ1r7TR/s499/anxious.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigWettOE_doZw8uhF4qmW_HRO2scx8A2ygl72przVo1vso39AX0FYz_7gx8b-cFTE5SLxfLTHQx_KyNg2hn54NNJxIcgvhMOulEvqJXT6eJHQeX7S9HhkWRUN9Z0CQ-Q5RFODqpTQ1r7TR/w268-h400/anxious.jpg" width="268" /></a></div> Dear readers.<p></p><p></p><p>I've taken a bit of a break from Wordlady but hope to return to posting soon.</p><p>In the meantime, appropriately enough for Remembrance Day, I would like to acquaint you with my sister's newly published book. It focuses on the impact of the First World War on women at home. It wasn't just the men in the trenches that suffered.<br />
It is available through amazon and in public libraries.</p><div dir="auto"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc ihqw7lf3 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id="jsc_c_4gl"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql rrkovp55 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d3f4x2em fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" dir="auto"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">What was it like to be a soldier's wife in Canada during the First World War? More than 80,000 Canadian women were married to men who left home to fight in the war, and its effects on their lives were transformative and often traumatic. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Yet the everyday struggles of Canadian war wives, lived far from the battlefields of France, have remained in the shadows of historical memory. Anxious Days and Tearful Nights highlights how Canadian women's experiences of wartime marital separation resembled and differed from those of their European counterparts. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Drawing on the letters of married couples separated by wartime service and the military service records of hundreds of Canadian soldiers, Martha Hanna reveals how couples used correspondence to maintain the routine and the affection of domestic life. She explores how women managed households and budgets, how those with children coped with the challenges of what we today would call single parenthood, and when and why some war wives chose to relocate to Britain to be nearer to their husbands. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">More than anything else, the life of a war wife - especially a war wife separated from her husband for years on end - was marked and marred by unrelieved psychological stress. Through this close personal lens Hanna reveals a broader picture of how war's effects persist across time and space. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Amazon: <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Anxious-Days-Tearful-Nights-Canadian/dp/0228003679/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1604327743&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR0i2cj7L0l4PuI9qaG1D268Gs6ciVZp-SOd2lAlCL3dTZv1kbHaDvtDHPQ" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.ca/Anxious-Days-Tearful-Nights-Canadian/dp/0228003679/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1604327743&sr=8-1&fbclid=IwAR0i2cj7L0l4PuI9qaG1D268Gs6ciVZp-SOd2lAlCL3dTZv1kbHaDvtDHPQ </a></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">amazon.ca: <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Anxious-Days-Tearful-Nights-Canadian/dp/0228003679/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1604327743&sr=8-1" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.ca/Anxious-Days-Tearful-Nights-Canadian/dp/0228003679/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1604327743&sr=8-1 </a></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Place hold at Toronto Public Library: <a href="https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM3954106&R=3954106">https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM3954106&R=3954106</a></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><img class="shelf3-png" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/com.basno.storage/instances/zk5hkdee_1604785140.png" /> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">In honour of my great-grandfather who died at the battle of the Somme, October 2, 1916. <br /></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span><br /></span></div></div></span></div></div></div></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-29576359665423239172020-08-24T09:15:00.003-07:002020-08-24T11:34:09.920-07:00An issue with "issue"<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span> A Wordlady reader has written to complain about the word "<span style="color: red;"><b>issue</b></span>", to wit<br /></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span> What about "issues" which in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic
has replaced all possible synonyms and more to the further
impoverishment of our language. What is its origin and has it always
been abused as it is these days? </span></span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>Whew. Abuse, impoverishment (nay, FURTHER impoverishment), replacing all possible synonyms, that's a lot to pack into two sentences. Hyperbole is not uncommon when people take against new usages. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">"</span><b>Issue</b><span style="color: black;">" </span></span>has been around since 1325 and has 19 meanings, plus more sub-meanings, in the OED, so it's definitely a polysemous word. When it entered English from French (ultimately from <span id="etymologySpanBlock2">Latin <i>exīre</i> to go out, < <i>ex</i> out + <i>īre</i> to go) </span>it had the meanings "a flowing out" and "offspring". If you object to all other usages than those being "abuse", well... good luck with that.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>It certainly has not replaced all its possible synonyms. Let's look at some of them, from the <i>Oxford Paperback Thesaurus</i>:</span></span></p><ul class="se1"><li class="se2"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><b>1. </b> <span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.001"><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">the committee discussed the issue</i>: </span>matter (in question), question, point (at issue), affair, case, subject, topic; problem, bone of contention. </span></span></span> </li><li class="se2"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><b>2. </b> <span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.002"><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">the issue of a special stamp</i>: </span>issuing, publication, publishing; circulation, distribution, supplying, appearance. </span></span></span> </li><li class="se2"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><b>3. </b> <span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.003"><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">the latest issue of our magazine</i>: </span>edition, number, instalment, copy. </span></span></span> </li><li class="se2"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><b>4. </b> <span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.004"><i class="languageGroup"><span class="subjectLabel">(Law)</span> </i><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">she died without issue</i>: </span>offspring, descendants, heirs, successors, children, progeny, family; <i class="languageGroup">informal </i>kids;</span></span></span> </li><li class="se2"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><b>5. </b> <span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.005"><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">an issue of blood</i>: </span>discharge, emission, release, outflow, outflowing, outflux; secretion, emanation, exudation, effluence; <i class="languageGroup">technical </i>efflux. </span></span></span> </li><li class="se2"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span><b>6.</b> <span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.006"><i class="languageGroup">(dated) </i><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">a favourable issue</i>: </span>(end) result, outcome, consequence, upshot, conclusion, end. </span><span id="t-en_gb-msthes-00019-0007656.006"> <br /></span></span></span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>Last time I checked, all these words are alive and well. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>I think what this reader is objecting to is the use of "<span style="color: red;"><b>issue</b></span>" to mean "<b><span style="color: red;">problem</span></b>". This usage has been around since the 70s and has certainly taken off since the 80s. Its origins were in psychology in the US, most likely, I suspect, to avoid the negative judgemental connotation of "<span style="color: red;"><b>problem</b></span>". Personally I don't see anything wrong with avoiding negative judgemental connotations. I like to give the example of a ballet teacher of mine who would give us an exercise and when we were done making a hash of it would say, "Three issues:..." This made me feel much better than if he had said "Three problems". And in the great scheme of things, was I going to turn out as a better ballet dancer if he'd crushed me with a word with demeaning connotations?<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>This is a perfectly normal outgrowth of the sense of "<span style="color: red;"><b>issue</b></span>" meaning "point of contention, difficulty to be resolved" which has been around since, oh, 1400.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>I really do not understand why people claim that some change in the language is an "impoverishment". English has a history dating back to the arrival of the Normans of loving synonyms. When a word acquires another meaning, surely that is an enrichment. "<span style="color: red;"><b>Problem</b></span>" is not going anywhere, but now we can reserve it for really negative difficulties, while we also have "<b><span style="color: red;">issue</span></b>" for the kind of difficulty that is discussed on the psychiatrist's couch (or is susceptible to correction by a patient ballet teacher). I have to admit to having a chuckle on hearing a 6-year-old whose backpack strap had got caught between the seats on the subway saying, "Mum, I have an issue with my backpack"!<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>I have to wonder if, in the late 1500s, people objected to the newfangled meaning of "problem" usurping, or adding to previous words. "What is wrong with ye "hardnesse" or ye "dyffycultie"? This word "<b><span style="color: red;">problem</span></b>" is being abused! It should only mean "riddle"," they might have said.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>Another issue with "<span style="color: red;"><b>issue</b></span>" is its pronunciation. Judging by the medieval spellings, it has been pronounced ISHoo since it first came into English. Probably under the influence of the spelling, British English dictionaries started recommending ISSyoo in the early 20th century, but ISHoo is making a comeback. In North America ISHoo has always been the preferred pronunciation. I can't help it, but ISSyoo sounds precious to me. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><span>There you go, I can be negative and judgemental by moments too.<br /></span></span></p><p></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-45543875822480669882020-08-09T05:19:00.000-07:002020-08-09T05:19:38.709-07:00Normalcy or normality?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMla51tG1H7pbSg0mOMc0dOm7OqK-lobMwlLxsMhCSiaQCN9TzOhYz6hDpWCT4d-Ct9HfRjF_k6X5kVIe6RMVasMHYtf4og5KvWh_LCrJak1sFuidip9F_KJo6s50RmklxsepLybh3KAX-/s2048/jeff-sheldon-JWiMShWiF14-unsplash.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMla51tG1H7pbSg0mOMc0dOm7OqK-lobMwlLxsMhCSiaQCN9TzOhYz6hDpWCT4d-Ct9HfRjF_k6X5kVIe6RMVasMHYtf4og5KvWh_LCrJak1sFuidip9F_KJo6s50RmklxsepLybh3KAX-/w400-h300/jeff-sheldon-JWiMShWiF14-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This picture is relevant. Keep reading to find out how.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">A Canadian Wordlady reader has inquired about the word <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy</b></span>, which she feels is taking over from <span style="color: red;"><b>normality</b></span>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">The fact of the matter is that these words are pretty much of the same vintage: <b><span style="color: red;">normality </span></b>dates from 1839, <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy </b></span>from 1857, along with another but much less successful contender, <b><span style="color: red;">normalness </span></b>from 1854. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Normalcy </b></span>has in fact been the more frequent form in North America and, interestingly, in South Asian English. It is not overwhelmingly more common, however: the proportion is about two-thirds in favour of <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy</b></span> vs. one-third in favour of <b><span style="color: red;">normality</span></b>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">In Britain, however, the numbers are very much more skewed, and in the other direction: over 90% in favour of <span style="color: red;"><b>normality</b></span>. <span style="color: red;"><b>Normalcy </b></span>is seen with some hatred and much opprobrium as an evil Americanism. Indeed, British usage pundits have been withering about <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy</b></span>: H.W. Fowler in his <i>Dictionary of Modern English Usage </i>said it "<span id="etymologySpanBlock2">seems to have nothing to recommend it" and Robert Burchfield in his update said, "In BrE <span style="color: red;"><b><i>normality</i> </b></span>is the customary term, and <span style="color: red;"><b><i>normalcy</i> </b></span>is widely scorned." The 1969 edition of the <i>Concise Oxford Dictionary</i> labelled <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy </b></span>"irregular".</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2" style="font-size: x-large;">In
Canada, a dramatic shift happened between the 80s and the 90s. I certainly remember being taught in the 70s that <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy</b></span> was
WRONG and <b><span style="color: red;">normality </span></b>was RIGHT. In the 1980s, possibly under British (or
more likely WE'RE NOT AMERICAN) influence, Canadian writers were 94% in
favour of <span style="color: red;"><b>normality</b></span>, but by the 90s had shifted to only 37% in favour of <span style="color: red;"><b>normality</b></span>, and since then to only about 25%. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2" style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Normalcy
</b></span>was given a boost in the US by the 1920 election campaign of President
Warren J Harding, who promised a return to <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy </b></span>after the First
World War. Harding's political opponents seized on this as an example of
Harding's shaky grip on the language, saying that <b><span style="color: red;">normalcy </span></b>was not a
real word. They were successful in besmirching his vocabulary, if not in
defeating his presidential ambitions, to the extent that decades later
people were claiming that <span style="color: red;"><b>normalcy </b></span>was a malapropism invented by
Harding, though it wasn't. But certainly his use of it popularized the
word so that it started on its upward trajectory against <span style="color: red;"><b>normality</b></span>. It
must be remembered that <span style="color: red;"><b>normality </b></span>wasn't a terribly common word at the
time either, hard though that may be to imagine.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2" style="font-size: x-large;">This was because the adjective <span style="color: red;"><b>normal </b></span>itself didn't start to become common until the 1840s. Surprising, eh?<br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">It is derived from <span id="etymologySpanBlock1">classical Latin <i>normālis</i></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> (right-angled), </span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2">also </span></span>in the </span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2">4th–5th centuries</span></span> "conforming to or governed by a rule", ultimately from <i>norma </i>(a carpenter's square</span>). It was borrowed into English in the 1500s but remained quite rare until the 1800s. Even then, such little use as it had was restricted to scientific usage.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">It may have been given a boost by the French, starting in 1794. Wishing to centralize teaching, establish "norms" (a word which also did not exist in English until the early 1800s) and wrest the education of children from the clergy, who were in any case in disarray after the revolution, the French government established </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">the "<i>Ecole Normale</i>" for teacher training, based on Austrian and German 18th-century model "<i>Normalschulen</i>" which aimed to instil pedagogical norms or standards into teachers. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">By 1839, teacher training colleges in North America were also being called <span style="color: red;"><b>normal schools</b></span>. Not familiar with this usage, I remember hearing as a child that my grandmother and great aunt had been to "normal school" and wondered why anyone needed to make a point they hadn't gone to "abnormal school"! In English, the term "normal school" is now mostly historical.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">If you are wondering about the name <span style="color: red;"><b>Norma</b></span>, it was apparently</span><span style="font-size: x-large;"> invented by Felice Romani in his libretto for Bellini's opera of that name (first performed in 1832) and seems to have nothing to do with the Latin word <i>norma. </i>It would indeed be odd to name a baby after a carpenter's square. The name soared to popularity in the 1930s, reaching the rank of 25th most popular baby name in the US, before precipitously declining after 1950, until there were <a href="https://connect.health.gov.bc.ca/babynames" target="_blank">no baby Normas in British Columbia, for instance, in 1975 or any year since</a>. </span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">By clicking <a href="https://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=norma&sw=both&exact=true" target="_blank">here</a> you </span>can see the name's "witch's hat" curve typical of names that experience a surge in popularity and then become unfashionable. While you're there you can check out some other names. It's fun!<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;">Would you call a baby "Norma" or do you know any young Normas? (Not that there's anything wrong with the name Norma!)<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">What do you say? Normality or normalcy? </span>Either is fine in North America. Whatever we call it, we all fervently wish for a return to it as soon as possible.</span></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-large;">For more about baby names, see this post. <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2015/03/thats-lady-grantham-to-you-downton.html">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2015/03/thats-lady-grantham-to-you-downton.html</a><br /></span></blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-large;">Have you missed out on previous Wordlady posts? You can click <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here </a>and just keep scrolling to your heart's content. <br /></span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@ugmonk?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Jeff Sheldon</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/right-angle?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></span></p>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-33944969627450966132020-08-05T04:49:00.000-07:002020-08-05T04:49:59.628-07:00Patience on a monument<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SBRChrSm-UEr3KatxTfpU3W3Uj9zEJLUaBIbSiK0-bJ_qc7VXTy06JY4UNV-L9bJGn_2BHYf7-VOo039RYzAAPgzBjsky-SBKhcaTXm1Q5eVvvYMiG7wAfRHD1yXgV7IszTuhV0IiVM3/s2048/k-mitch-hodge-R4DcY0VEeUE-unsplash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1652" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SBRChrSm-UEr3KatxTfpU3W3Uj9zEJLUaBIbSiK0-bJ_qc7VXTy06JY4UNV-L9bJGn_2BHYf7-VOo039RYzAAPgzBjsky-SBKhcaTXm1Q5eVvvYMiG7wAfRHD1yXgV7IszTuhV0IiVM3/w323-h400/k-mitch-hodge-R4DcY0VEeUE-unsplash.jpg" width="323" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Titanic memorial in Belfast<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>Yesterday a nice young man knocked on my door and asked if he might look for a monument in my back yard. Since my garden is quite bereft of statuary, I thought, "Good luck with that!" but let him through.</div><div><br /></div><div>And lo! After some digging and waving around of a metal detector (I was so hoping he would find some hidden treasure), he found the monument! But it was a very unprepossessing square iron peg buried under my fence.</div><div><br /></div><div>I learned a meaning of "monument" that I didn't know before. The young man was a surveyor, and it has a specific meaning in surveying of "a marker of a property boundary". It has had that meaning since the 1650s!</div><div><br /></div><div>At least my surveyor didn't find in my garden a monument in the Scottish sense of "A ridiculous or objectionable person or thing; a laughing-stock, a fool, a rogue."</div><div><br /></div><div><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">"Monument", which came into English in the 1300s, is derived from classical Latin <em>monumentum</em>, <em>monimentum</em></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> commemorative statue or building, tomb, from <em>monēre</em> to remind, which is also the root of "admonish", "monitor" and even "summon". <br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div></div><div><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kmitchhodge?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">K. Mitch Hodge</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/monument?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-50673265971072493932020-07-27T12:14:00.001-07:002020-07-27T12:14:27.726-07:00Don't touch that... (whatever)! Fomite<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqm0qHVFe2v0M8zWerENRjcqLM-DiWSV50puyk5iMHiSOv1quncKJJJb_ZEzP0IFKMUQAUZAPlLJRU94jqDG9QovQEJorSHKAqlMJD2iTvG1AP8aAwThbvCfluBD99bvveWyGkNKkejfd/s2048/elias-S6usVd4NOaw-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqm0qHVFe2v0M8zWerENRjcqLM-DiWSV50puyk5iMHiSOv1quncKJJJb_ZEzP0IFKMUQAUZAPlLJRU94jqDG9QovQEJorSHKAqlMJD2iTvG1AP8aAwThbvCfluBD99bvveWyGkNKkejfd/w333-h500/elias-S6usVd4NOaw-unsplash.jpg" width="333" /><br /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Remember when the object pictured above didn't strike dread into our hearts <span><span>and cause us to go rushing for the nearest Lysol wipe? Remember when the vocabulary of infectious diseases didn't come trippingly off our tongues?</span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">You may think this is an ordinary doorknob, but you may <span><span><span><span>also </span></span>have come to learn that in the language of infectious diseases it is potentially a <span style="color: red;"><b>fomite</b></span> (pronounced FOAM ite), a surface </span>covered with infectious material transmissible from it to our hands and from there to our mucous membranes. <br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This word has an interesting history, as it is an example of <span style="color: red;"><b>back-formation</b></span>. Back-formation,</span><blockquote><p id="eid30192594" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">a word that is formed from an existing word which looks as though it is a derivative, typically by removal of a suffix (e.g., laze
from lazy and edit from editor) </span></p></blockquote></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">is a perfectly legitimate and quite common method of word formation. For instance, "kidnapper" came first, and "kidnap" was a back formation from it. <br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So what's the story with <b><span style="color: red;">fomite</span></b>? Originally, when the word was first borrowed into English around the beginning of the 19th century, it was <span style="color: red;"><b>fomes</b></span><span> (pronounced FOAM eez), the Latin word for "tinder", since it could "spark" an infection. The plural of <i>fomes </i>was <i>fomites</i> (pronounced FOAM itt eez). But by the end of the 19th century people had back-formed a new singular from this, <b><span style="color: red;">fomite</span></b>, and anglicized the pronunciation. I suspect that this was because </span><span><span>the singular <span style="color: red;"><b>fomes</b></span><b> </b>was very rare indeed, </span></span><span><span><span>and</span></span> the word was encountered more in writing than in speech. <br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Many general and specialized medical dictionaries, still give the fomes/fomites listing, with fomites pronounced FOAM itt eez. Merriam-Webster, however, gives only <span style="color: red;"><b>fomite</b></span>, with the FOAM ite pronunciation first and, for the plural, FOAM itt eez only as a variant pronunciation. Looking at current corpus evidence, it seems that singular <span style="color: red;"><b>fomite </b></span>has completely eclipsed singular <span style="color: red;"><b>fomes</b></span>. <br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><font size="3"><span><span>For other examples of back-formation, see my posts about <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2013/11/can-you-buckle-swash.html" target="_blank">swashbuckling</a>, <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2019/01/happy-birthday-to-these-words.html" target="_blank">windsurf</a>, <a href="http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/2011/05/if-im-your-mentor-are-you-my-mentee.html" target="_blank">mentee</a> and <a href="http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/2010/08/florist-on-bike-pedalling-petal-peddler.html" target="_blank">peddle</a>.</span></span></font></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><font size="3"> </font><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@double_e?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">elias</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/doorknob?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-69743088461333001912020-07-19T13:20:00.000-07:002020-07-19T13:20:29.501-07:00Where does bunk come from? Wordlady explains<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4olRUax9rY54aZ4Yu0FFxWuwVRo-efQ9N05tYRX5mCI9fvJqZPE25LGLfmvq2oP_dU-ii1SrgV1KWz-t8-O-L8tQvO_Ykt1eVYOPoDrow52WJ92uq9AS-SQEb6WFopSnH2bQGr-Vzy7a/s2048/cameron-stewart-_bXilonQNQs-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-4olRUax9rY54aZ4Yu0FFxWuwVRo-efQ9N05tYRX5mCI9fvJqZPE25LGLfmvq2oP_dU-ii1SrgV1KWz-t8-O-L8tQvO_Ykt1eVYOPoDrow52WJ92uq9AS-SQEb6WFopSnH2bQGr-Vzy7a/w400-h266/cameron-stewart-_bXilonQNQs-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">Where does bunk come from? It's been around for much longer than the internet, but it seems to be more omnipresent than ever in our social media feeds. If only we could stop it at the source.<br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">Wordlady has the answer. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">Bunk comes from North Carolina! <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">Really, it does.<br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">I am of course talking about the <i>word </i>"bunk", meaning "nonsense", although I expect North Carolina, like most places, produces its fair share of the nonsense known by that name. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">You may not be surprised to learn that "bunk" had its birth in politics, and more particularly in the US House of Representatives.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">In 1820, the Representative for Buncombe County, North Carolina (in the Blue Ridge Mountains about 200 km west of Charlotte) rose to make a lengthy, boring speech that was entirely irrelevant to the subject under discussion. His colleagues implored him to shut up so that they could proceed to the vote, but he persisted, maintaining that his constituents expected it and that he was duty bound to <span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> <i>make a speech for Buncombe.</i></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><i><br /></i></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2">As a result, "buncombe", soon spelled phonetically "bunkum", came to mean any meaningless political drivel uttered to please the electors. From there it was a short step to any kind of claptrap, and by 1900 the word was shortened to "bunk", in time for Henry Ford's famous declaration in 1916: "History is bunk".</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"> Some brave souls devote huge amounts of time to "debunking" the various
flourishing conspiracy theories and misinformation. This word we owe to the American journalist Edward Woodward, who coined it in a book called <i>Bunk </i>in 1923, in which we find this ominously prescient statement: <br /></font></span><blockquote><div class="quotation"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">To keep the United States thoroughly <span class="quotationKeyword">de-bunked</span> would require the continual services of..half a million persons.</font></span></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">As for the other bunk, the stacked beds? Its origin is uncertain.</font></span></div><div class="quotation"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /><span>Photo of North Carolina by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@cameronstewart?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Cameron Stewart</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/north-carolina?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a><br /></span></font></span></div><div class="quotation"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><blockquote><div class="quotation"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5">PS some of you have been having problems with the formatting of my posts. This seems to be because a new version of my platform Blogger is not somehow passing along my formatting to my mailer program Feedburner. The mailed version looks quite different from the version that is actually up on my blog but I have no way of checking that till it goes out. If you have this problem, just click on "Wordlady" at the top of a post and it will take you to the actual blog.<br /><span></span></font></span></div></blockquote> <span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"></span></font></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="5"><br /></font></span>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-10286121509275229392020-07-14T06:27:00.000-07:002020-07-14T06:27:04.385-07:00Fightors and visiters<blockquote><h3 id="eid5387098"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizUYTJD9Hcpgw6z6Jlq16dxMY5U82ImFmJABVbnL3G0PUngc3pJWDGdhKSBdUU1a-Ue_YJ85LXJg4I1WZrtcqfoRkk3s89HKrAkg-mNcnl1fBGEi05LP7XYTBYOVhjwdUOrO_lZwzdA9Ht/s5184/samuel-penn-FX6IcTG5Vsw-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="5184" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizUYTJD9Hcpgw6z6Jlq16dxMY5U82ImFmJABVbnL3G0PUngc3pJWDGdhKSBdUU1a-Ue_YJ85LXJg4I1WZrtcqfoRkk3s89HKrAkg-mNcnl1fBGEi05LP7XYTBYOVhjwdUOrO_lZwzdA9Ht/w400-h266/samuel-penn-FX6IcTG5Vsw-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></font></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="5"><font size="3">Why not a fightor?</font><br /></font></td></tr></tbody></table><font size="5"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></font></h3></blockquote><h3 id="eid5387098"><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Two Wordlady fans have coincidentally written with questions about -or and -er endings.</span></font></h3><blockquote><div><b><span style="color: #d52c1f;"><font size="5">-er vs -or: why are visitors and fighters spelled with different endings. Is there a rule?</font></span></b></div></blockquote><div><font size="5">These two suffixes are called "agent suffixes", creating what are known as "agent nouns". It makes them sound like they work for the FBI: "Agent Noun, please meet Agent Suffix". But they allow us to designate a person or thing that performs the action of the verb. <br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">As usual with situations where we have two ways of doing things, the fault lies with the hybrid nature of English: partly Germanic from the Anglo-Saxons and partly Latin from the Norman French and from Latin itself.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">The easy answer is this:</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><b><span style="color: #b51200;">-er endings</span></b>, which are Anglo-Saxon in origin,<span style="color: #b51200;"><b> go with verbs that are originally Anglo-Saxon</b></span>: <br /></font></div><div><font size="5">fight > fighter, in this example.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><span style="color: #b51200;"><b>-or endings,</b></span> which are Latin in origin, <b><span style="color: #b51200;">go with verbs that are originally Latin</span></b>, some of which came into English by way of French: <br /></font></div><div><font size="5">visit > visitor, in this example.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">Voila! A rule. Easy peasy. Well, that is, if you know off the top of your head whether the root verb is Anglo-Saxon or Latin. Otherwise, as with so much to do with English spelling, you just have to memorize, or check a dictionary. This must be particularly annoying for Francophones, for whom "-eur" covers both -or and -er territory for most words.<br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">This "rule" works for many words, perhaps especially for the -or words.<br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">But...<br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">A rule. Ahahahahaha. This is English after all. We must have many <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>exceptions</b></span>!<br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">The unfortunate OED lexicographer who was gifted with the task of writing the entry for "-er" had this to say (probably while thinking, "I'm throwing in the towel; let's go to the pub!"):</font></div><div><h3 id="eid5387098"><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><blockquote><span style="color: #b51200;">In received spelling, the choice between the two forms [-er and -or] is often
capricious, or determined by other than historical reasons. </span></blockquote><div>Thus we have<span style="font-weight: normal;"> some Norman French agent nouns originally ending in -our</span> which evolved into -er endings, among them:<br /></div><div><br /></div></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b51200;"><b>interpreter </b></span>came from <span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><i>interpretour</i></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> < late Latin <i>interpretātōr</i></span> and was "interpretor" until the late 1500s when it became "interpreter".</div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b51200;"><b>barber </b></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">(such a good word!) started off as Anglo-Norman <i>barbour</i>, from Old French <i>barbeor</i> < Latin </span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><i>barbātōr</i>, and should have become "barbor", but evolved into "barber" by the end of the 1500s. The older form survives in the (especially Scottish) surname Barbour. <br /></span></div></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And then there were many nouns that had -er or -ier endings in Middle French, for instance<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #b51200;"><b>treasurer, gardener, customer</b></span>, and many others.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And with many other words the -er ending just won out in English, despite the root verb being Latin.<br /></div></span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></font><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div>The opposite also happened, though less frequently. </div></span></font><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div><br /></div><div>"<b><span style="color: #b51200;">Sailor</span></b>" is derived from an Anglo-Saxon verb and was in fact originally "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>sailer</b></span>", but "sailor" took over at the beginning of the 19th century. This was partly on the analogy of "tailor", which originally <i>was</i> Latin <span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><i>tāliātōr, </i></span>and partly to make a distinction between professional sailors and amateur sailers. Nowadays, "sailer" only survives as a description of a kind of boat: <i>A fast sailer such as Constitution could make as much as 14 knots under sail. <br /></i></div><div><i></i></div></span></font><br /><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></font></h3></div><div><font size="5">There are some nouns where we haven't made up our minds yet, or are changing our minds, for instance:<br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><span style="color: #b51200;"><b><font size="5">conjuror / conjurer</font></b></span></div><div><font size="5">According to the "rule", this should be "conjuror" (</font><font size="5"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">< Latin <i>conjūrātor</i>)</span>. But in spite of "conjuror" being the first form given in Oxford dictionaries, "conjurer", which has been around since we borrowed the word in the 1300s, is actually somewhat more common, especially in the US, where it is the form given first by Merriam-Webster.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><span style="color: #b51200;"><b><font size="5">impostor / imposter</font></b></span></div><div><font size="5"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">This came from French <i>imposteur</i></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> < late Latin <i>impostor</i> < <i>impōnĕre</i> to <span class="xref"><span class="smallCaps">impose.</span></span></span> "Impostor" and "imposter" co-existed from the 1600s, when the word entered English, but dictionaries came to favour "impostor", as being the original Latin form. However, this has not defeated "imposter" at all, and the two are in a neck-and-neck race as to which is used more frequently. In the <i>Canadian Oxford Dictionary</i>, we took the leap and listed "imposter" as the headword with "impostor" as the variant. I seem to remember getting at least one angry letter about that. But, </font><font size="5"><font size="5">to use the technical lexicographic term, </font>"impostor" just looks weird to me. (Fear not, "looks weird" was not a criterion we used in establishing spellings). <br /></font></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #b51200;"><b><font size="5">adaptor / adapter</font></b></span></div><div><font size="5">Both (on a Latin base) entered English in the mid-1700s, but "adapter" has been consistently more common, and is listed by most dictionaries first. An exception to this is the Australian and New Zealand Oxford Dictionaries, which list "adaptor" first. This is a bit puzzling because Antipodean corpus evidence suggests "adapter" is more common. The lexicographers, however, almost certainly had their own data and their own reasons, and I'm sure "looks weird" wasn't one of them.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><span style="color: #b51200;"><b><font size="5">advisor / adviser</font></b></span></div><div><font size="5">My other correspondent inquires:</font></div><div><blockquote><b><span style="color: #b51200;"><font size="5">When did “advisor” become “<span class="il">adviser</span>”? It seemed to occur overnight and no one told me when the vote was.</font></span></b></blockquote></div><div><font size="5">"Advise" is a French word derived from Latin, so you might expect it to take the -or ending only. But in fact the noun has had an -er ending since it first appeared about 1536, earlier than the -or variant, which dates from about 50 years later. "Adviser" has been by far the more common spelling over the centuries, and it is only since about 1900 that "advisor" has crept up towards it, I suspect under the influence of "supervisor" or even "visor", but more likely "advisory". </font><font size="5"><font size="5">(Please don't ask me why some words are -ory and others are -ary!!) </font> All dictionaries give "adviser" as the more common form, so I'm intrigued to know where this correspondent learned that "advisor" was the original and "adviser" was an upstart.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">In 2017 the CBC reported this bizarre information:<br /></font></div><div><blockquote><font size="5"><span><p>There's a <b><span style="color: #b51200;">difference between a financial adviser and a financial advisor</span></b>: "Advisers" are regulated and have a legal responsibility to act in your best interest. "Advisors" are … not the same.</p> <p>So, be careful: Banks may call them "advisors" so a salesperson sounds impressive, but you could be stuck without protection.</p></span></font></blockquote><div><font size="5"><span><blockquote>The Ontario Securities Commission confirms that "adviser" is a
legal term under securities law that describes a person or company that
is registered to give advice about securities, whereas "advisor" is not.</blockquote></span></font> <font size="5">This seems to me ridiculous, because we are just talking about a spelling variant. It's like saying that a labour negotiator doesn't have the same standing if you call them a labor negotiator instead.</font></div><div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5">Which of these variants do you use? Does "impostor" look weird to you? Or will you defend it to your dying day?<br /></font></div><font size="5"><br /></font></div><div><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We're not quite done with our agent suffixes. Just to be annoying, there are also <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>liar </b></span>and <b><span style="color: #b51200;">beggar</span></b>, where the spelling <i>-ar</i> is a survival of the occasional Middle English variant <i>-ar(e</i>. "Beggar" was in fact spelled more frequently "begger" until the end of the 17th century, at which point, for reasons unknown, "beggar" took over. <br /></span></font></div><div><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></font></div><div><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;">My original correspondents may have thought this was an easy question. Ha! But</span></font> you've borne with me (I hope) through this lengthy and complicated discussion. Suffixes! How exciting is that!!! It beggars* belief. Or beggers it. Whatever. <br /></span></font></div><div><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></font></div><div><font size="5"><blockquote><span style="font-weight: normal;"><font size="5"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(*Yet another one of those <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2010/09/verbs-its-ok-to-do-this-really.html" target="_blank">noun-verb conversions</a> that we don't
bat an eye at.)</span></font></span></blockquote></font><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><font size="5"><div style="text-align: left;">For more about agent nouns (because it's such an exciting topic!), see this post: <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-your-surname-is-your-destiny.html">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-your-surname-is-your-destiny.html</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <br /></div></font></div></div><font size="5"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@samuelpenn?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Samuel Penn</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/fighter?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></span></span></span></font>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-74959099785685486882020-07-04T06:14:00.004-07:002020-07-04T08:44:59.399-07:00What's in a name?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsmBvBWsz4lW-C9RwLTew6kmQlrfhPPbiMLdg5qTyVy_9NWv6XNxLju_ldjckFML3ziJiqNwUX37tbWt8GElFMnJR5hwTu4gKqb-3emfrtIptCLji_9o4iK46mMUlwAymuzrKL6YKwsIZ/s475/barbermap.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="475" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYsmBvBWsz4lW-C9RwLTew6kmQlrfhPPbiMLdg5qTyVy_9NWv6XNxLju_ldjckFML3ziJiqNwUX37tbWt8GElFMnJR5hwTu4gKqb-3emfrtIptCLji_9o4iK46mMUlwAymuzrKL6YKwsIZ/w400-h400/barbermap.png" width="400" /></a></font></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">The Barber map<br /></font></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Wordlady loves the stories behind words, as you know. But she also loves the stories behind names: first names, family names, place names. The study of names is called "onomastics", from the Greek <i class="foreignForm">onoma </i><span class="foreignForm">meaning "name". <br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">She also loves maps, so just imagine how excited she gets about a website that combines names and maps! So with my Namelady hat on, I would like to introduce you to the "Named" website, which I am sure will give you some fun.</span></font></span></div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><b style="backface-visibility: hidden;"><span style="backface-visibility: hidden; color: white;"></span><span style="backface-visibility: hidden; color: lime;"></span></b></span><br style="backface-visibility: hidden;" /><span class="foreignForm"></span></font></span><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">"Named" maps places in the UK where one (or two) surnames have a historically unusually high local population. It uses a recent UK electoral roll and was created in 2016. The data include names that are not originally British as well as names that go back to Anglo-Saxon times. If you have a rare name it won't show the data for privacy reasons as it might allow someone to zero in on your house.<br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br style="backface-visibility: hidden;" /><span class="foreignForm"> All you do is enter your surname, and the website maps where in the UK
there is an unusually high number of people with that surname living.</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /><span class="foreignForm">The creator of the website, geographer <a href="https://oobrien.com/about-me/" target="_blank">Ollie O'Brien</a>, has this to say about it:</span></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"> Although it uses relatively recent data, it may well show you where your surname was historically most concentrated. It has been demonstrated that most traditional UK surname distributions remain surprisingly unchanged
over many years – internal migration in the UK is a lot less than might
be traditionally perceived.</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">The map shows places where you are
unusually likely to bump into somebody with that name. In very rural
areas you don’t need to have very many
people with a name for it to show up as a hotspot, because there aren’t
very many people with any other names either. Whereas, in more
populated parts of the country, you need a large number of people. </span></font></span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">Give it a spin with your family names here</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><a href="https://named.publicprofiler.org/" target="_blank">https://named.publicprofiler.org/</a><br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">Let me know what you find out!</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">If you want to share your map with friends and relatives, you can right-click on the circle with the map in it, and choose "Save image as..."</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><br /></span></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><font size="5">For another post about surnames, see this post: <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-your-surname-is-your-destiny.html" target="_blank">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-your-surname-is-your-destiny.html</a></font><br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"></span></font></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"><br /></span></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm">To see all Wordlady posts, click here: <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/</a><br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="foreignForm"></span></font></span></div></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-52002564978784707392020-06-24T08:13:00.002-07:002020-06-24T08:16:39.989-07:00Whetting your appetite<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrCdpyXaLhmevC-gubNxXBKHqPWqKVpRPrb1LfIg76HcOZXCfK4bqxLoKbS675kFOQdYHstbF4f716gqOkuZaU69zMklr5Vh3uLPPYSviiy1FVi0fbrboSHTdY21d3c3v80w1gxdBHSV3/w400-h266/manki-kim-BtHjHxh-D7I-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@kimdonkey?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Manki Kim</a> on <a href="/s/photos/knife-sharpening?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrCdpyXaLhmevC-gubNxXBKHqPWqKVpRPrb1LfIg76HcOZXCfK4bqxLoKbS675kFOQdYHstbF4f716gqOkuZaU69zMklr5Vh3uLPPYSviiy1FVi0fbrboSHTdY21d3c3v80w1gxdBHSV3/s6000/manki-kim-BtHjHxh-D7I-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">I recently saw someone online criticizing an editor for not correcting the past tense "whet" to "whetted". <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">This got me thinking. <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Is "whet" in fact a possible past tense for "whet"? Is it perhaps a holdover from former days? "Whet" is clearly an Anglo-Saxon word; that "wh-" is a dead giveaway (it would have been "hw-" in Anglo-Saxon).</font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Non Anglo-Saxon words ending in -et, like "vet", all have regular conjugations, i.e. vet, vetted, vetted; jet, jetted, jetted. But i</font></span>f you think of single-syllable Anglo-Saxon verbs ending in -et that are </font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">very much more common than "whet":<br /></font></span></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><blockquote><font size="5"> "set", "let", <br /></font></blockquote></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">they are identical in the present and the past tenses: today I set the table, yesterday I set the table. <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">And thus it was with "whet", the past and past participle of which were "whet" from its origins, and for centuries thereafter. It was only in the Middle English period (after the Norman Conquest) that the regular conjugation "whetted" cropped up, eventually taking over, but not till the 1700s. </font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">The same phenomenon happened with "<a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2011/04/dont-fret.html" target="_blank">fret</a>". </font></span></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">But although "whetted" is clearly dominant at the moment, the past form "whet" has continued to burble along, not dying out in the 1700s as the OED would have it. <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Similarly, "whet"'s homophone "wet" had (and still has) a past and past participle "wet" from earliest times, having acquired the variant "wetted" only since the 1500s. I would say that "wetted" is still a second runner against "wet" as you can see in this chart:</font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"> </font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wet+his+finger%2Cwetted+his+finger&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cwet%20his%20finger%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwetted%20his%20finger%3B%2Cc0" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wet+his+finger%2Cwetted+his+finger&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cwet%20his%20finger%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwetted%20his%20finger%3B%2Cc0</font></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">And although it sounds ok (sort of?) to say "he wetted his finger" rather than "he wet his finger", I don't think it sounds at all idiomatic to say "the child wetted the bed".</font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">So, when you combine <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">the fact that "whet" </font></span>isn't a terribly frequent word (</font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">occurring between 0.1 and 1.0 times per million words in typical modern English usage. ) <br /></font></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">with the very strong influence of common analogous words like "set",
"let", and especially the homophone "wet", <br /></font></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">and the fact that past "whet"
is an old form that still survives,</font></span></li></ol></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">it's not at all surprising that
someone might (and some people do, according to corpus evidence) use "whet" rather than "whetted" as a past tense of "whet". It could be argued that it is a minority variant form. Failing to change "whet" to
"whetted", as editing "errors" go, is hardly the most egregious mistake. <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">As I have said
before, when you come across a usage different than your own, it's so
much more rewarding (though time-consuming) to start with the reaction "I wonder..." than to
simply crow "WRONG!!" and march onward, feeling superior.</font></span></font></span></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"></font></span></div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">"Whet" is a word we don't use much in its literal sense of "sharpen" anymore. Exceptions are historical fiction and poetry, though it is rare there too. "I'm going to whet this knife and then slice me some tomatoes for a sandwich" sounds vaguely ridiculous and somehow sinister. (I do however have an object in my kitchen drawer that I still call a
"whetstone", along with a different object that I call a "knife sharpener"). We don't react to the clanging bell of a van passing through the neighbourhood by saying, "Oh the knife whetter is here!" <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">What we do whet nowadays is someone's appetite or, to a lesser degree, their curiosity. <br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">What we shouldn't whet is our whistle. This is the other "wet". The expression "wet someone's whistle" means to have a drink, the "whistle" in question being the voice.</font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Would you say "it has whet my appetite" or only "it has whetted my appetite"? Would you have to think about it before you chose a form?<br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"></span></font></span><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><blockquote>* The force of analogy is also noticeable with the much more recent verb "pet", about the etymology and past tense of which you can read in <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2015/08/be-pet.html">this post</a>. Since someone asked that question five years ago, I have certainly noticed "pet" being used as a past tense.</blockquote></font></span></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-22675442787716451182020-06-19T08:04:00.001-07:002020-06-19T08:14:09.975-07:00Shingles (the roof kind and the illness)<div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"></font></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-oexmElZgEH9OH8bA0bU8cRzymDOZeHW4iOQWlDDU6NV2oHhUSGKzfDS0nG2b5wXCNXcuCklENjVZYMDG25j4ivGHGk_X4k2T6krdKZEVHNnpzevorWsWvEZKfIhtfcU6pNOCPgrKw2u/s4758/austin-walker-l3lQZ4m9GEE-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3172" data-original-width="4758" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-oexmElZgEH9OH8bA0bU8cRzymDOZeHW4iOQWlDDU6NV2oHhUSGKzfDS0nG2b5wXCNXcuCklENjVZYMDG25j4ivGHGk_X4k2T6krdKZEVHNnpzevorWsWvEZKfIhtfcU6pNOCPgrKw2u/w400-h266/austin-walker-l3lQZ4m9GEE-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></font></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font size="1"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><span>Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@austin?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Austin Walker</a> on <a href="/s/photos/shingles?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></span></font></td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">A friend of mine came down with the painful ailment known as <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>shingles </b></span>last week. All her friends commiserated on Facebook and wished her a speedy recovery. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">I, meanwhile, heartless as usual, was thinking:</font></span></div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">What does that have to do with the <b><span style="color: #b51200;">shingles </span></b>on my roof?</font></span></li><li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Is "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>shingles</b></span>" singular or plural? <br /></font></span></li></ol></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Actually I did wish her well too! Shingles is a horrible affliction.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">First question: <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>What does that have to do with the shingles on my roof?</b></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Well.... nothing.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">These are two entirely different words. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">The roofing shingles, like so many architecture words, apparently came into English from French after the Norman Conquest, <span id="etymologySpanBlock2">though no such word now survives in French. It is thought that it came from Latin <i>scindula</i>, a later form of <i>scandula </i></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2">‘a split piece of wood’.</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">There are a couple of idioms associated with this word:</font></span></div><br /><div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b51200;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="phrase">hang out one's shingle</span></font></span></span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="sense-regions spanish_label">(apparently only North American, though I did not know this before) </span></font></span></div><ul class="semb"><li><div class="trg"><p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="iteration"></span><span class="ind">Begin to practise a profession.</span></font></span></p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="indicators"></span></font></span><div class="exg"><div class="ex"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><i>‘a license to hang out their shingle as a financial adviser’</i></font></span></div></div></div></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">And the ever inventive Australians have come up with <br /></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: #b51200;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="phrase">a shingle short</span></font></span></span></b><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><i><span class="sense-regions spanish_label">Australian </span><span class="sense-registers">informal </span></i></font></span></div><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="iteration"></span><span class="ind">(of a person) stupid or slightly mad.</span></font></span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">The malady "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>shingles</b></span>", on the other hand, which also came into English in the Middle English period, comes from Latin <i>cingulus</i> (a girdle or belt), because the red rash caused by it looks like a belt around the torso. This description can be better detected in the modern German name for the disease,<span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="de"><span title=""> <i>Gürtelrose. </i>The medical name for the condition also includes this idea of a girdle: </span></span></font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="de"><span title=""><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">‘</font></span>herpes zoster</span></span></font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="de"><span title=""><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">’</font></span> comes ultimately from </span></span>Greek <i>zōstēr </i>‘girdle, belt</font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">’</font></span>, and <i>herpēs</i>, literally ‘creeping’, from <i>herpein </i>‘to creep’.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"></font></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">2nd question: </font></span><span style="color: #b51200;"><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">Is "shingles" singular or plural? </font></span></font></span></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">As you can see, the "s" at the end of "shingles" is not etymologically an indicator of a plural; it's just the "s" in the Latin <i>cingulus.</i><span> So technically "shingles" is a singular noun, and treated as such. <br /></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span><br /></span></font></span></div><div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><span style="background-color: #ccffcc;"><b><u>shingles</u></b></span> <span style="background-color: #ccffcc;"><b><u>is</u></b></span> a painful, blistering skin rash that affects more than 1 million Americans every year</font></span></div></div></div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">It can be plural when the emphasis is on the resulting blisters rather than the illness itself (<i>The <span class="hi">shingles</span> were extremely painful</i>), although I don't think it's possible to create a singular "shingle". But most of the people on my friend's Facebook post referred to the disease in the plural, no doubt influenced, as we English speakers are so much, by that final s. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">One good result of this: it reminded me I was due for the booster on my shingles vaccine, so I hustled off to the drugstore to have that taken care of. I wish it hadn't taken her coming down with it to give me that nudge.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5"><br /></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="5">To see all Wordlady posts, click here: <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/</a><br /></font></span></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-58707491131390985102020-06-12T08:17:00.000-07:002020-06-12T08:17:31.397-07:00What's a boulevard?<div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghAAgNFiz3fvWqKfR2H_GhGC1RZSTAuhxFsV1uqZOgzQZsXWPCX_2NgJE_fM1uubGbZviztyLLJGqmTeKi78BK_WLm0xlCr-AN-vtcUXEaPt2FzHjkLxiCZpSG-EmZc3x1ha1a1nfjpMBj/s960/boulevard.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="539" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghAAgNFiz3fvWqKfR2H_GhGC1RZSTAuhxFsV1uqZOgzQZsXWPCX_2NgJE_fM1uubGbZviztyLLJGqmTeKi78BK_WLm0xlCr-AN-vtcUXEaPt2FzHjkLxiCZpSG-EmZc3x1ha1a1nfjpMBj/w360-h640/boulevard.jpg" width="360" /></a></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Thank you to everyone who confirmed the <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2020/06/budgies-and-parakeets.html" target="_blank">Great Budgie/Parakeet Divide</a>. I have to admit, my mind is still blown by this.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Now to something else that goes by different names in different places: <b>the strip of vegetation between a sidewalk and a road</b>. Consider the picture above. This is that thing at Chateau Wordlady (I love irises and chives, what can I say?). You can see the sidewalk in the lower right hand corner.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">I call it a <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard</b></span>, as I think would most Western Canadians. In the <i>Canadian Oxford Dictionary </i>we have this usage of <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard </b></span>labelled "Cdn & Upper Midwest & North Central US".</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Wikipedia has dug up an astounding number of names for this, including "parkway", "verge", "berm", "curb strip", "curb lawn" and even the intriguing "hellstrip". For the full list with their geographical distribution, see here: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_verge" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_verge</a>. And please let me know what you say and where you learned that word (although I have lived in Toronto for 30 years, I will betray my Winnipeg roots with this word to the end of my days).</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Another <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard </b></span>labelled "Cdn & Upper Midwest & North Central US" is the planted median down the middle of a wide road in an urban area. Other names for this elsewhere are "median (strip)" or "central reservation". <br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div class="quotationsBlock" id="eid16230550"><font size="4"><span style="color: #b51200;"><b>Boulevard </b></span>is more generally used to mean "a broad street, often planted with rows of trees." In Winnipeg, what differentiated this kind of boulevard from a mere avenue or street was a median strip planted with trees.<br /></font></div><div class="quotationsBlock"><font size="4"><br /></font><div><font size="4">The model for these was the <span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevards </b></span>of Paris, the first of which was created by Louis XIV's famous military engineer Vauban, who in 1670 demolished the city wall of Paris going from Porte St-Denis to the Bastille, to create a pedestrian promenade. On the modern-day map of Paris you can still detect along this route the outline of the old city wall. I would not recommend strolling down the middle of Boulevard Beaumarchais today though. <br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div>
<font size="4"><iframe allowfullscreen="" aria-hidden="false" frameborder="0" height="450" src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m34!1m12!1m3!1d10499.17963497629!2d2.3579048338346835!3d48.86212114398732!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!4m19!3e2!4m5!1s0x47e67201aca99229%3A0x231eb0c967e5eb10!2sPlace%20de%20la%20Bastille%2C%2075011%20Paris%2C%20France!3m2!1d48.8531827!2d2.3691443!4m5!1s0x47e66e08e982520f%3A0x5c1fc381db69bd20!2sPlace%20de%20la%20R%C3%A9publique%2C%20Paris%2C%20France!3m2!1d48.8676635!2d2.3640304!4m5!1s0x47e66e111512603d%3A0x5ba10446be70ff3b!2sPorte%20Saint-Denis%2C%20Boulevard%20St%20Denis%2C%2075010%20Paris%2C%20France!3m2!1d48.869805299999996!2d2.3526948!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sca!4v1591623171566!5m2!1sen!2sca" style="border: 0;" tabindex="0" width="600"></iframe></font>
<div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">The origin of the word "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard</b></span>" is connected with these city walls. <br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">In the 14th century, both English and French borrowed a Dutch word <i>bolwerc </i>for a defensive fortification, a rampart. By the 16th century this had become "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard</b></span>" in French, and ... "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>bulwark</b></span>" in English. The literal military meaning was extended in English to the figurative "powerful defence or safeguard" sense of "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>bulwark</b></span>": <i>the Plain English Campaign – a force for the
democratic good, a bulwark against jargon, legalese, obfuscation and
spin.</i> In French, "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard</b></span>" continued to designate fortifications, especially the flat horizontal part along the top where sentries walked up and down. So when Vauban eliminated the actual "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard</b></span>", the word survived to designate the broad thoroughfare thus created.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Over the next two centuries, Paris's various city walls came down and were replaced with more "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevards</b></span>". British visitors in the 18th century liked to show off that they'd been to Paris by using French words for things they'd seen there ("hotel" was another borrowing from this time) and so we acquired "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>boulevard</b></span>", little realizing that it was a doublet of "<span style="color: #b51200;"><b>bulwark</b></span>".<br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Parisian boulevards really came into their own with Baron Haussmann's wholesale renovation of the city in the mid-19th century which bequeathed the city with many broad, elegant, tree-lined streets, often tracing the line of the former city walls. Soon every city had to have some, even if they couldn't rival Paris for beauty. <br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Here's the rather unfortunate Lagimodi<font face="Ink Free, cursive"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">è</font></font>re Boulevard in Winnipeg.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsqwbplwT8gL7l0pfvfWptyLPj-R0o6XDpMtmtGRNyDt9V34emkPw39Y1kmoFMkK0jJZppzDoOI6EN_XwzqxzoQhvGiXtNk8T-CxtFdNDLQnOH6XJxzk9Tntl0ECSHzqp9C7Gp_PJ4vLYq/s780/lagimodiere1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="780" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsqwbplwT8gL7l0pfvfWptyLPj-R0o6XDpMtmtGRNyDt9V34emkPw39Y1kmoFMkK0jJZppzDoOI6EN_XwzqxzoQhvGiXtNk8T-CxtFdNDLQnOH6XJxzk9Tntl0ECSHzqp9C7Gp_PJ4vLYq/w640-h276/lagimodiere1.jpg" width="640" /></a></font></div></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Well, it's broad. And it's got a centre median. And some kind of vegetation.<br /></font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div><font size="4">Baron Haussmann is no doubt turning in his grave.</font></div><div><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><font size="4">Don't forget you can easily share Wordlady posts by email or on social media by clicking on the links at the bottom of the post.<br /></font></div><div class="quotation"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><div class="quotation"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><font size="4"><br /></font><div class="quotation"><font size="4"><br /></font></div><font size="4"><br /></font></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-66874722029946358192020-06-05T05:21:00.000-07:002020-06-05T05:21:57.071-07:00Budgies and parakeets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTh3Ie7ymxmoumrlgB7juUO82ssLw6VN6JYwAgH9hNnkZE2FgIygJT05aVyBYe5-X1NM1tP8pYCqt1IuKOioC7tCO-KHpe88LEBJqClroKfosf9gYTZnophZiFZd7-Xa3khZzDPlf1Eoce/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTh3Ie7ymxmoumrlgB7juUO82ssLw6VN6JYwAgH9hNnkZE2FgIygJT05aVyBYe5-X1NM1tP8pYCqt1IuKOioC7tCO-KHpe88LEBJqClroKfosf9gYTZnophZiFZd7-Xa3khZzDPlf1Eoce/w400-h266/bianca-ackermann-uox6mD_d0jE-unsplash.jpg" width="400" /></a></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">I had one of those "What? Americans don't say that?" moments this week when reading <a href="https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2020/05/garden-birds.html" target="_blank">Lynne Murphy's excellent blog about the differences between British and American English,</a> where she asserts</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">But there is a meaning difference for <b><i>parakeet</i></b>. AmE uses that name for the little birds that are kept as pets, what BrE (and some US pet bird enthusiasts) call <i><b>budgerigars</b> </i>or <b><i>budgies</i></b>, for short. <br /></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">Whaaaaat? No <b><span style="color: #d52c1f;">budgies </span></b>in the US? I had no idea. I am pretty sure that "budgie" is the common name in Canada, rather than "parakeet". <br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">A corpus search does indeed reveal a relative dearth of budgies in the US, compared to Canada and other English-speaking countries.</font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">If you are Canadian or American, please let me know what you call this bird**.</font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="dateGroup"><span class="date"><span style="color: #d52c1f;"><b>Budgie</b></span> dates from the 1930s, while its parent, "<span style="color: #d52c1f;"><b>budgerigar</b></span>", was a </span></span></font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="dateGroup"><span class="date"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="dateGroup"><span class="date">mid 19th-century Australian borrowing of </span></span></font></span></span></span><span class="language">Aboriginal</span> origin, perhaps an alteration of <span class="language"></span></font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="language"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><i class="foreignForm">gijirrigaa</i>, the bird's name in </font></span>Kamilaroi (the language of </span><span class="st">an Indigenous Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland)</span>. A <span style="color: #d52c1f;"><b>budgerigar </b></span>is a <i>kind</i> of <span style="color: #d52c1f;"><b>parakeet </b></span>(a small parrot):<br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="ind"><br /></span></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="ind">a small gregarious Australian parakeet which is green
with a yellow head in the wild. It is popular as a cage bird and has
been bred in a variety of colours. <br /></span></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="ind"><br /></span></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="ind">I have always loved it when dictionaries use the word "gregarious" in fauna definitions. I can't help having images of the budgies getting together with their pals for a tea party.<br /></span></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">"<span style="color: #d52c1f;"><b>Parakeet</b></span>", on the other hand, is a mid 16th-century borrowing from Old French <i>paroquet</i>, Italian <i>parrocchetto</i>, and
Spanish <i>periquito</i>; its origin is uncertain, perhaps (via Italian) based on a
diminutive meaning ‘little wig’, referring to head plumage, or (via
Spanish) based on a diminutive of the given name Pedro.</font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">Now, I know that </font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">if I don't head you off at the pass,</font></span> some of you are going to mention </font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">in the comments or in emails </font></span>a famous Australianism / New Zealandism:<br /></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><h2 class="hwg"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="hw" data-headword-id="budgie_smugglers">budgie smugglers</span></font></span></h2><h3 class="ps pos"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="pos">plural noun</span></font></span></span></i></h3><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="transitivity"></span><i><span class="sense-registers">informal </span><span class="sense-regions spanish_label">Australian, New Zealand </span></i></font></span><p><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="iteration"></span><span class="ind">Men's brief, tight-fitting swimming trunks. [what other varieties of English call "Speedos"]<br /></span></font></span></p></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><i>‘Tarzan, as we dubbed him, took to wearing the tiniest pair of
purple budgie smugglers while sunbathing on his corrugated iron roof </i></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">The OED, which dates this term from 1998, explains its etymology primly thus:</font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 id="eid1208783050"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span class="note" id="eid1209452870">With reference to the appearance of the male genitals in figure-hugging trunks.</span></font></span></h3><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">Here's a picture if you lack imagination. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"></font></span><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">"Parakeet smuggler" just doesn't have the same ring to it.</font></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEW35OAX_49Wd4eIXpkrxXQx6oacP78TZTrmEeF3eUR6sT-F2erm-gPfdmjvs1hlgtB44PK-lFVqHY4ad60YuQzij_7MBfFiSjKAwDvUFeCejZJuJDgqA5_4vj-AEcbjxccFYJZYfCid81/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEW35OAX_49Wd4eIXpkrxXQx6oacP78TZTrmEeF3eUR6sT-F2erm-gPfdmjvs1hlgtB44PK-lFVqHY4ad60YuQzij_7MBfFiSjKAwDvUFeCejZJuJDgqA5_4vj-AEcbjxccFYJZYfCid81/w266-h400/mika-uBysuAVwiH0-unsplash.jpg" width="266" /></a></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">**By the way, it was lovely hearing from so many of you about "<a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2020/05/chesterfield-not-quite-dead.html" target="_blank">chesterfield</a>"
and your linguistic bios. It would seem that "chesterfield" is still
alive and well among the over-seventies. So not dead! But it certainly
has faded away amongst those younger than that. <br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">Those in their forties, fifties and sixties reported "I used that as a kid, or my parents used it, but sometime in the 1970s/80s I switched over to couch or sofa." <br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">There is a furniture chain </font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">in greater Toronto </font></span>called The Chesterfield Shop. According to their website it is, tellingly, "</font></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4">a family-owned furniture store since 1948", but, equally tellingly, the tabs on their website are for "sofas" and "sofa beds". So I think "chesterfield" in their name is a kind of fossil.<br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="_3bJ2H CHExY"><div class="_1l8RX _1ByhS"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span>Budgie photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@biancablah?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Bianca Ackermann</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/budgie?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a><br /></span></font></span></div><div class="_1l8RX _1ByhS"><div class="_3bJ2H CHExY"><div class="_1l8RX _1ByhS"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><span>Swimmer photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@mikafinland?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Mika</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/speedos?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></font></span></div></div><span style="font-family: "trebuchet";"><font size="4"><br /><span></span></font></span></div></div></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-2138293999440236602020-05-30T11:29:00.000-07:002020-05-30T11:29:00.914-07:00Chesterfield: not quite dead<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">The cockles of my little Canadian heart were warmed this week when I read that the Crime Writers of Canada 2020 Arthur Ellis Prize has been awarded to 58-year-old Albertan author Wayne Arthurson's <i>The Red Chesterfield</i>, which features a severed foot found in an abandoned sofa. Coincidentally, I had just seen another mention of "chesterfield" in a novel by 62-year-old Nova Scotian Anne Emery the night before. (This is called the first law of lexicography: just when you think a word might not exist, you read it in the paper or hear it on TV.)<br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">For decades in the 20th century, "chesterfield" was a shibboleth of Canadian English. Canadians, and only Canadians, called a multi-seated upholstered piece of furniture a chesterfield rather than a couch or a sofa. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">In other varieties of English, a chesterfield is a specific kind of sofa, the kind you might find in smoky gentlemen's clubs, upholstered in tufted leather, with the back and the arms of the same height.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9zO7Qk8zM-pMs1i0vs5EDlEW9m38l9S8qYaiCDTmjSErNGmRZlDa2oUcV-JnD9YmHyO_-_xmm9EeCH6254gxOuswroHsro2IRjIsSQ1797af4XCvdYEaw5lwOqEk65NgXpW4QkUzPcOX3/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9zO7Qk8zM-pMs1i0vs5EDlEW9m38l9S8qYaiCDTmjSErNGmRZlDa2oUcV-JnD9YmHyO_-_xmm9EeCH6254gxOuswroHsro2IRjIsSQ1797af4XCvdYEaw5lwOqEk65NgXpW4QkUzPcOX3/w400-h266/1024px-University_Arms_Hotel%252C_Cambridge%252C_July_2010_%252801%2529.JPG" width="400" /></a></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">But starting in the early years of the 20th century, Canadians started to apply the word generically to any kind of sofa. There were scatterings of this usage in the US but they faded away. In Canada, "chesterfield" had its heyday through the 1970s, but started to wane, until by the 1990s, fewer than 10% of Torontonians in their twenties were saying "chesterfield", having abandoned it in favour of "couch". <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">I grew up calling this piece of furniture a chesterfield, but shifted to "sofa", sometime in the eighties, which seems to have been "peak sofa" time in North America. I do use "couch" occasionally. But "sofa", too, has lost the battle to "couch" with most North Americans, although it is still the preferred term for the British.</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">But "chesterfield" is not yet dead, especially outside Toronto, witness the two authors I have mentioned, who though not spring chickens, are not really old either (I may be a bit biased in this assessment). Where they live is also significant. Searches in Canadian newspapers for the last three years turned up a few dozen chesterfields (fortunately not including severed feet) in the Prairies, BC, and Atlantic Canada. They were, however, vastly outnumbered by couches (over 20,000 hits) and, struggling along, sofas (5,800 hits).</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">If you're a Canadian, what do you call this item of furniture? Have you ever called it a "chesterfield"? And if so, how old are you and what part of the country are you from? I would love to keep "chesterfield" alive, but I fear it is doomed. The language evolves organically and there is little we can do to change it.<br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">A bit of etymology for these three words:</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><b><span style="color: #d52c1f;">Sofa </span></b>ultimately goes back to Arabic <span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><i>ṣoffah, </i>a slightly raised platform covered with carpet and cushions, on which people could sit or recline. It was applied to what we know as a sofa in the 1700s.</span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><b><span style="color: #d52c1f;">Chesterfields </span></b>are named for one of the 19th-century Earls of Chesterfield. <br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><b><span style="color: #d52c1f;">Couch </span></b>comes from<span id="etymologySpanBlock1"> French <i>coucher</i>, a typical squishing-down of </span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> Latin <i>collocāre</i> to lay in its place, from <i>com-</i> together + <i>locāre</i> to place.</span><br /><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"></span></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4"><br /></font></span></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><font size="4">A HUGE thank you to the many of you who generously contributed to <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2020/05/wordlady-has-request.html" target="_blank">Wordlady's crowdfunding campaign</a>! MWAH! Those of you who did, there is a special Wordlady bonus post waiting in your mailbox (if you haven't seen it yet).<br /></font></span></div>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-71674970842410723702020-05-25T11:35:00.000-07:002020-05-27T07:51:40.954-07:00Wordlady has a request<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-58422533999553500752020-05-23T09:26:00.000-07:002020-05-23T09:26:39.691-07:00Object lesson<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A Wordlady reader has inquired whether<span id="eid34071565"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">a striking practical example of a principle or ideal</span></span></span><br />
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">is an </span></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">object lesson </span></span></span></span></b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">or an </span></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">abject lesson.</span></span></span></span></b></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">One can see how these two words can be confused in some varieties of North American English where a "short O" and a "short A" can be pronounced very similarly.</span></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">Also "<b><span style="color: red;">object lesson</span></b>" is hardly transparent.</span></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div id="eid34071559">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">But "<b><span style="color: red;">object lesson</span></b>" it is. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071565">Originally, an <span style="color: red;"><b>object lesson </b></span>was</span><span id="eid34071563"> a lesson in which a pupil's examination of a material object was the basis for teaching, to help understanding of an abstract notion. For instance, students would hold in their hand a familiar object (a seashell, a thimble...) and describe it in depth.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071563"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading" lang="en">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="eid34071563">This type of lesson was promoted by the late 18th century Swiss educator </span>Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, in contrast to the then current practice of rote learning, memorization, and recitation. Object lessons became very popular in Victorian times. The object being described would have been considered a typical example of its kind.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By the late 1800s, "<b><span style="color: red;">object lesson</span></b>" had taken on its current figurative meaning of a striking example. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In current practice, it is also used in religious education to mean a type of demonstration with real objects that illustrates a moral or religious principle.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"<span style="color: red;"><b>Abject</b></span>" on the other hand is an adjective with a few meanings:</span></span><br />
<ul class="se1">
<li class="se2"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>1. </b> <span id="m_en_gb0001380.001"><span class="definitionElem"> (of something bad) experienced or present to the maximum degree: </span><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">his letter plunged her into abject misery</i> | </span><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">abject poverty</i>. </span> </span></span></span><ul>
<li class="subSense" id="m_en_gb0001380.002"><div class="senseInnerWrapper">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">■ <span class="definitionElem"> (of a situation or condition) extremely unpleasant and degrading: </span><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">the abject condition of the peasants</i>. </span></span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="se2"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>2. </b> <span id="m_en_gb0001380.003"><span class="definitionElem"> (of a person or their behaviour) completely without pride or dignity; self-abasing: </span><span class="exampleGroup"><i class="exampleElem">an abject apology</i>.</span></span><span id="m_en_gb0001380.003"><span class="exampleGroup"> </span></span></span></span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="m_en_gb0001380.003"><span class="exampleGroup">Now, some people may have very unhappy memories of school, and so they may consider those days as "extremely unpleasant and degrading", but all the same, they were not "abject lessons". </span></span><span id="m_en_gb0001380.003"><span class="exampleGroup"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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</ul>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="sc"></span> <span class="dateGroup"><span class="date">Obviously, these words are etymologIcally related. Both came into English in about 1400 from</span></span><span class="language"> Latin</span>. "<span style="color: red;"><b>Object</b></span>" is from <i class="foreignForm">objectum</i> <span class="translation">(thing presented to the mind)</span> from <i class="foreignForm">ob-</i> <span class="translation">(in the way of)</span> + <i class="foreignForm">jacere</i> <span class="dateGroup">(to throw). <span class="date">"<span style="color: red;"><b>Abject</b></span>"</span></span> came from <span class="language">Latin</span> <i class="foreignForm">abjectus</i> (rejected), from <i class="foreignForm">ab-</i> <span class="translation">(away)</span> + <i class="foreignForm">jacere</i> <span class="translation">(to throw)</span>.</span></span> <br />
<ul class="se1">
</ul>
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Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-26364900151206697652020-05-20T05:44:00.000-07:002020-05-20T05:44:37.707-07:00Garnish and garnishee<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@callmefred?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Frederick Tubiermont</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/parsley?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A Canadian (this is significant) Wordlady fan has written with the following question:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The latest TIME magazine features ... </span>One woman [who] had to
contend with having her wages "garnished" by a collection agency after
losing
her job [i.e. she had some money taken off her wages and given to a collection agency before the money even landed in her bank account]. I thought the legal term was "garnisheed"? And is there any
connection to the usual meaning of "to garnish," i.e. to enhance or
improve by some adornment? How odd that the word can imply both
subtraction and addition! Can you explain?</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is a very complicated word. Bear with me; I will get there eventually!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We borrowed "<b><span style="color: red;">garnish</span></b>" from French <i>garnir</i> in the 1400s. In Modern French, <i>garnir</i> means "to furnish or provide", and this is what it meant back in the 15th century too, but more specifically </span></span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To furnish (a place) with means of defence; to garrison; to supply with men, arms, and provisions.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The means of defending a place, and the soldiers who defended it, were called a "garnison". In time this morphed into "garrison" in English, but <i>garnison</i> is still the word in French.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The French word was probably derived from a Germanic word that had also given Anglo-Saxon the word "<b><span style="color: red;">warn</span></b>". (There are quite a few g-/w-pairs like this between English and French, see also <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2010/11/word-of-week-wallop.html" target="_blank">wallop</a>). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At this point the words "<span style="color: red;"><b>warn</b></span>" and "<b><span style="color: red;">garnish</span></b>" shared the idea "prepare someone to defend themself, by providing </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">either </span></span>advance knowledge or arms, soldiers, etc."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">At the same time, "<b><span style="color: red;">garnish</span></b>" was used less bellicosely to mean "provide with embellishments", and by 1600 this was being used particularly of decorating food. By this time, the verb had long since also become a noun.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The early martial senses died out, and we were left with... parsley.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Meanwhile however, the connection of "<b><span style="color: red;">garnish</span></b>" with "<b><span style="color: red;">warn</span></b>" took on a life of its own. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Starting in the 1500s, "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnish</b></span>" was being used in legal circles to mean "warn a debtor to pay up"; the action of doing this was also called a "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnish</b></span>". The person who was subject to such a court order was called the "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnishee</b></span>". </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">By the late 1800s, things had gone beyond warning to action, and both "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnish</b></span>" and "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnishee</b></span>" were being used as verbs to mean "take a debtor's wages by court order".</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Although both verbs exist in this sense in all varieties of English, it appears that the verb "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnishee</b></span>" is <b><span style="color: red;">more popular in Canada</span></b> than elsewhere, because Canadians are more likely to "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnishee</b></span>" someone's wages than to "<b><span style="color: red;">garnish</span></b>" them (though both terms are used). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the US, the verb "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnish</b></span>" is preferred, with "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnishee</b></span>" being reserved for the noun designating the person being garnished. In British law, a "garnishee order" is now known more transparently as a "third party debt order". </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The following, however, is definitely a mistake:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="t1_53"> A few weeks later however a more organised rally <span style="background-color: #ccffcc;"><b>garnished</b></span> fifty-thousand protesters</span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The word they wanted was "<span style="color: red;"><b>garnered</b></span>", which originally referred to grain being stored up and comes from the same root as "granary" and French <i>grenier</i> (attic).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Unless of course someone sprinkled parsley over the 50,000. Or took part of their wages.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Hey Wordlady fans! Wordlady would love it if you could share her posts with your friends on social media! </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For previous Wordlady posts, click <a href="https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2020/" target="_blank">here </a></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></blockquote>
Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7690110675685389513.post-88313104905760456192020-05-17T07:33:00.000-07:002020-05-18T16:40:03.241-07:00Pretentious, moi?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A Wordlady fan inquired recently about the word "<span style="color: red;"><b>pretentious</b></span>", and I was surprised to learn that it is much younger than I would have suspected. Here's the OED's earliest quotation</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid182676152">1832 <span class="smallCaps">T. Carlyle</span> in <i>Fraser's Mag.</i> May 382/2</span>
[He] lived no day of his life without doing and saying more than one <span class="quotationKeyword">pretentious</span> ineptitude.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But surely there were pretentious people and things before 1832? What did we call them?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There are many words in this semantic field that are still in common use today: </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">affected</span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">artificial </span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">overblown </span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ostentatious </span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">pompous</span></span></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But there are others that in my opinion deserve a revival for this sense:</span></span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">flatulent</span></span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid163811755">1863 <i>Notes & Queries</i> 3rd Ser. <b>4</b> 284</span>
Much of the poetry is little more than very <span class="quotationKeyword">flatulent</span> declamation.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><b>hi cockalorum </b></span>("cockalorum" was a magician's incantation like "abracadabra" or "hocus pocus" and thus came to stand for meaningless speech)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1024943741">1887 <i>Hardwicke's Sci.-gossip</i> Apr. 83/2</span>
The dogmatic <span class="quotationKeyword">hi-cockalorum</span> style of men absolutely certain of their own correctness.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The Scots and Irish apparently have at their disposal</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: red;">long nebbed </span></b>(literally, having a long beak; figuratively, inquisitive; of language, polysyllabic)</span></span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But I think my favourite is </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">coxcombic(al),</span></span></b></span> </blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">(roosters being notorious for being full of themselves).</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Consider this fabulous stream of insults and see if you can think of anyone you would like to apply it to currently:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span class="noIndent" id="eid1021766181">1879 <i>Reynolds's Newspaper</i> 21 Sept. 3/1</span>
That feeble-minded, self-opinionated, <span class="quotationKeyword">coxcombic</span> mixture of imbecility, assurance and inordinate self-esteem. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">SPELLING</span></span></b></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"Pretentious" and "pretension" constitute possibly one of the most annoying pairs of words in English. Why is "pretentious" spelled with a "t" whereas "pretension" is spelled with an "s"? </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As we have seen, "<span style="color: red;"><b>pretentious</b></span>" is a fairly recent addition to English. We borrowed it from </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">French <i>prétentieux</i></span><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"> which in 1789 or thereabouts had acquired the meaning "making an exaggerated outward display, ostentatious, showy"</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2">"<span style="color: red;"><b>Pretension</b></span>" is much older in English; we borrowed it from Latin in the 1400s. The classical Latin form was </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><i><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><i>praetention </i></span></i><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">(the act of pretending) but a post-classical form </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span id="etymologySpanBlock2"><i><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><i>praetension </i></span></i><span id="etymologySpanBlock1">had cropped up. In the early days we merrily spelled the word with a -tion ending, an -sion ending, or even a -cion ending. Quite frankly, I don't know why the -sion ending won out, but by the 1700s it was firmly established, and it is the only spelling listed in Samuel Johnson's dictionary.</span><i><span id="etymologySpanBlock1"><i></i></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So by the time "pretentious" came along, imitating the French spelling, it couldn't win against the entrenched spelling of "pretension". </span></span><br />
<div class="frame">
<div class="quotationsBlock" id="eid28248766">
<div class="quotation" id="eid28248767">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If I were Queen of English, I would definitely do something about this. Since there are no current (and very few obsolete) words in English ending in -sious, I would decree that instead of changing <span style="color: red;"><b>pretentious </b></span>to pretensious, <span style="color: red;"><b>pretension </b></span>should be changed to pretention. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It is true that the following verbs ending in -d form their derivative in -sion:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">ascend ascension</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">apprehend apprehension</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">comprehend comprehension</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">extend extension</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">condescend condescension</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">suspend suspension</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But on the other hand (God forbid that English should be consistent) </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">we have</span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">intend intention </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">contend contention</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">French lives quite happily with <i>prétention</i> and <i>prétentieux.</i> Why do we have to make our lives complicated? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Warning: I am not (alas) Queen of English, so you'll have to keep spelling <b><span style="color: red;">pretension </span></b>with an s. </span></span></div>
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Katherine Barberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06775090067364948963noreply@blogger.com3