VOL IX, No 3 [Winter, 1983]

Southern Amerind Lexical Contributions

Robert Devereux, Falls Church, Virginia

A very productive, albeit little known, source of loanwords in English has been the Southern Amerind languages, i.e., languages spoken by the Indian tribes living south of the Rio Grande and in the Caribbean area. By some rather extensive scanning of the word entries in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (MW3), I turned up 547 such loanwords. A scrutiny of every MW3 word entry would almost certainly increase that figure considerably. However, I think that observations about this sample of 547 words should be valid for the totality of the Southern Amerind lexical contributions to English. I should probably mention at this point that my exemplars do not include the names of the literally hundreds of tribes listed by MW3 or any place names based on Southern Amerind words.

Perhaps the most striking fact about these loanwords is that, although there are or were literally hundreds of different Indian tribes south of the Rio Grande and in the Caribbean, only ten different languages account for 484 (88.5%) of my examples. These languages are

Tupí-Guaraní: A language spoken over an area from far eastern Brazil to the Peruvian Andes and from the Guianas to Uruguay. The Tupí are a people of Brazil, especially of the valleys of the Amazon, Araguaia and Xingu Rivers; the Guarani inhabit Bolivia, Paraguay (Guaraní is one of Paraguay’s two official languages) and southern Brazil. Of my 547 exemplars, 162 (29.6%) come from Tupí-Guaraní (133 from Tupí, 18 from Guaraní, and 11 attributed by MW3 to both). MW3 says that 91 of the Tupí loanwords entered English via Portuguese, 4 via Spanish, 5 via both Spanish and Portuguese, 16 via French, 11 via New Latin, and 6 directly. Of the Guaraní loanwords, 3 entered via Portuguese, 13 via Spanish, 1 via French, and 1 directly. Tupí loanwords include such relatively familiar words as ai, ani, buccaneer, cashew, cayenne, cougar, manioc, maraca, paca, petunia, tanager, tapioca, tapir, and toucan. Guaraní contributions include agouti, cay, and jaguar.

Nahuatl: the language of a group of peoples of Mexico and Central America, including the Aztecs. This language accounts for 97 (17.7%) of my exemplars. All but ocelot, which entered via French, came to English via Spanish. Among the best known Nahuatl loanwords are avocado, cacao, chicle, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, istle, mescal, mesquite, peyote, pulque, tamale, and tomato.

Taino: an extinct language of a people that lived in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas, especially in Hispaniola. Taino accounts for 62 (11.3%) of my exemplars, of which 55 entered English via Spanish, 2 via French, 1 via Portuguese, 3 via New Latin, and 1 directly. The best-known Taino loanwords include barbecue, cassava, hammock, hurricane, mangrove, potato, savanna, and tobacco.

Quechua-Aymara: Quechua is a language spoken by the people of central Peru, believed to be originally Aymara, and by Amerinds in Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina; Aymara is spoken in Bolivia and Peru. Quechua-Aymara accounts for 63 (11.5%) of my exemplars (Quechua 59 and Aymara 4). Among the well-known Quechua loanwords are condor, gaucho, guano, jerky, llama, oca, puma, quinine, and vicuna. Aymara has contributed alpaca, chinchilla and pampa.

Cariban: spoken by a group of peoples of northern South America, the Lesser Antilles and the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Guatemala, and British Honduras. It accounts for 19 (3.4%) of my exemplars, of which 9 entered English via Spanish, 3 via French, 1 via New Latin, and 6 directly. The best known include canoe, manatee, peccary, pirogue and yaws.

Araucanian: spoken by an Indian people of north central Chile and adjacent regions of Argentina. It accounts for 17 (3.1%) of my exemplars, of which 15 entered English via Spanish, 1 via Portuguese, and 1 via New Latin. The only relatively familiar loanword is poncho.

Mayan: spoken by a group of peoples of Yucatán, British Honduras, northern Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Tabasco. It accounts for 21 (3.8%) of my exemplars, of which 8 entered English via Spanish and the rest directly. Cenote and cigar (whence also, of course, cigarillo and cigarette) are the best known Mayan loanwords.

Arawakan: spoken by a people formerly occupying most of the Greater Antilles but now scattered in small numbers along the coast of Guyana. It accounts for 15 (2.7%) of my exemplars, of which 6 entered English via Spanish, 1 via New Latin, and the remainder directly. Arawakan loanwords include cacique, cannibal, guava, and iguana.

Galibi: spoken by a Carib people of French Guiana. It accounts for 15 (2.7%) of my exemplars, of which 5 entered English via French, 4 via New Latin, 2 via Dutch, 1 via Portuguese, and the other 3 directly. None of the Galibi loanwords is what could be termed widely known, even to crossword puzzle fans, e.g., cabassou, carapa, courlan, parinari, peai, pipa, pirai, querimana, tamarin, and tinamou.

Carib: spoken in northern Brazil, the Guianas, Venezuela, Colombia, the Lesser Antilles and the Caribbean coast of Honduras, Guatemala, and British Honduras. It accounts for 12 (2.1%) of my exemplars, of which 6 entered English via Spanish, 1 via French, 1 via New Latin, and the other 4 directly. Cayman (or caiman) is the only Galibi loanword that may be readily recognizable to an educated English-speaker.

Fourteen other Southern Amerind languages account for a total of 18 (3.2%) of my exemplars. Mapuche, spoken by an Araucanian people of southern Chile, is the ultimate source of 5 of them: maqui, peumas, pudu, quillai, and rauli. The other 13 languages have provided: Allentiac, pichiciago; Calinago, manjak; Cuna, chicha; Haitian Creole, bocor; Huichol, hikuli; Kekchi, kelep; Maipure, arrau; Mom, chiman; Miskito or Mosquito, dory; Opata, saguaro; Quiche, tala; Tarahumara, rutuburi; and Yaqui, pascola.

The remaining 45 of my exemplars are attributed by MW3 simply to “a native name in —” (13 in the Guianas, 7 in the West Indies, 6 in South America, and 4 in Central America) or to “an Indian word” without reference to the precise area involved. The only words in this group that are readily recognizable are grouper, papaw (or papaya, papaia, pawpaw), and yucca. Even crossword puzzle fans are unlikely ever to have encountered such words as manbarlak, morabukia, yetapa, yariyari, haiari, kakarali, and calolu, to cite only a few.

The largest number of my 547 exemplars entered English via Spanish, namely 302 (55.2%), followed by 103 (18.8%) via Portuguese. French was the channel for 37 (6.7%), New Latin for 32 (5.8%), and Dutch for 3 (.5%). Although Spaniards, Portuguese, and to a much lesser extent, Frenchmen were the primary explorers and colonizers of the regions inhabited by the Southern Amerinds, a surprisingly large number—70 (12.7%)—of my exemplars entered English directly.

In some cases, the Southern Amerind loanwords acquired by English through the filter of Spanish, Portuguese, French, and New Latin had already passed through another language. For example, of the words acquired from Spanish, the latter had previously borrowed two of them from Portuguese and one from French. The same phenomenon (if I may call it that) applies to the other languages involved. Portuguese had earlier borrowed two of its words from Spanish; French, seven from Spanish and six from Portuguese; and New Latin, eight from Spanish, six from Portuguese, and three from French (in the case of one word, caretta—a genus of marine turtles—French had already adapted it from the Spanish carey, based on a Taino word).

As is perhaps not too surprising, not all of the Southern Amerind loanwords on my list are totally Amerind. Pulqueria, for example, consists of a Spanish ending added to pulque, derived from Nahuatl poluihqui or puluihqui ‘decomposed or spoiled’ (a not inappropriate designation, since pulque spoils 24 to 36 hours after its preparation). The Spanish diminutive suffix -illo (or -illa) also appears in a number of my exemplars, for example, chinchilla, coyotillo, huajillo, mamoncillo, ocotillo, and popotillo, as well as cigarillo, based on cigar, which is the Spanish version of the Mayan si’c ‘tobacco’ (the French diminutive suffix -ette added to cigar gives us, of course, cigarette). Another Spanish suffix, -ero, appears in pampero, based on the Quechua-Aymara loanword pampa. A French suffix accounts for part of buccaneer, which derives from buccan (or bucan or boucan), a French version of the Tupí makem, meaning a wooden frame for roasting, smoking, or drying meat over a fire. In French, a boucanier was a person who so prepared meat; eventually the word, which became buccaneer in English, came to mean a freebooter or pirate because of the habit of such persons to use a buccan to cure their meat.

English words and suffixes also form part of some of my exemplars. Wood and grove, for example, are found in macawood and mangrove, based on, respectively Tupí and Taino words. English adjectival suffixes appear in papayaceous and guaniferous. New Latin or International Scientific Vocabulary (ISV) elements appear in such words as guanidine, guanine, guanisine, guanyl, guaiacol, papainase, papayotin, papayaceae, and quinine.

The European (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch) versions of the Southern Amerind words that were borrowed are, in the main, very close to their Amerind originals, although allowance must be made, of course, for the phonetic demands of the various languages involved. Nahuatl words ending in -atl, -itl, and -otl, for example, generally ended up in Spanish as words ending in -ate, -ite, and -ote, e.g., coyote from coyotl, otate from ottatl, camachile from cuauh-mochitl. The Tupí acaju became the Portuguese caju, which English borrowed as cashew. Other words that underwent changes include, to cite only a few:

agouti from acuti Tupí)
ipecac from ipeksaguene (Tupí)
burgao from perigoa (Tupí)
abussu from cacahuatl)
istle from ichtli (Nahuatl)
cacao from cacahuatl (Nahuatl)
jacamar from jacama-ari (Tupí)
cassáva from caçabi (Taino)
jararacussu from jararaca- (Tupí) cayenne from kyinha (Tupí)
wassu (Tupí)
chicle from chictli or tzictli (Nahuatl)
petunia from petyn or petyna (Tupí)
chocolate from xocatl (Nahuatl)
pisote from pitzotl (Nahuatl)
rauli from ruylin or ruili (Mapuche)
condor from kuntur (Quechua)
gravata from carawata or Curuwata (Tupí)
tule from tollin or tullin (Nahuatl)

These are only some of the examples that could be cited. Perhaps the best illustration of the changes undergone by a Southern Amerind loanword in its voyage into English began as the Tupí suasuarana or çuçuarana ‘false deer,’ from suasu or suusa ‘deer’ and rana ‘false’ (from its color). In Portuguese it became, variously, cuguardo, cuguacuara, and cuguacano. French borrowed it as couguar, probably influenced by jaguar. In English it became cougar.

Of the 477 Southern Amerind loanwords on my list that English acquired through a European language, most entered English in the same form they had in the contributing European language. The keyword here is most, for there are exceptions. Avocado, for example, is the English version of the Spanish aguacate, derived from the Nahuatl ahuacatl, a short-ended form of ahuacacuahuitl meaning, literally, ‘testicle tree,’ from ahuacatl ‘testicle,’ and cahuitl ‘tree,’ so called from its use as an aphrodisiac. Another good example is sacahuiste, sacahuista, or sacaguista, the English version of the Spanish zacahuiscle, derived from Nahuatl zacatl.

In many cases (at least three dozen of my exemplars), English recognizes variant spellings of the Southern Amerind loanwords. The top spot is taken by tania, a plant name which entered English via French (the origin is obscure; it may be Arawakan, Cariban, or Tupí, for which MW3 also gives the variants tanier, tannier, tannia, tanya, and tanyah. Loanwords with four recognized variant spellings include guacimo, guasima, guacima, huasima (Taino); manioc, manioca, mandioc, mandioca (Tupí); papaw, pawpaw, papaya, papaia (precise Amerind language unknown); piassava, piasaba, pias-saba, piasawa (Tupí); and tacamahac, tacamahaca, tacama-hack, takamake (Nahuatl). A number of others have three recognized variant spellings, for example:

bacuri, bacury, bakuri (Tupí)
ouricuy, ouricuri, aricuri (Tupí)
burgao, burgo, borgo (Tupí)
cabuja, cabuya, cabulla (Taino)
peccary, pecari, pecary (Cariban)
calpulli, calpolli, calpul (Nahuatl)
posol, posole, pozole (Nahuatl)
charqui, charquy, jerky (Quechua)
quetzal, quetzal, quesol (Nahuatl)
cherimoya, cherimoyo, cherimoja (Nahuatl)
sapucaia, sapucaja, sapucaya (Tupí)
guaiacum, guajacum, guayacan (Taino)
vizcacha, viscacha, viscache (Quechua)
hicatee, hicotee, hicotea (Taino)

Those with two variant spellings are too numerous to list.

When European explorers and colonists first arrived in the Western Hemisphere, what they needed most, in the linguistic field, were words for the unknown species of plant and animal life they encountered. No doubt many existing words of their respective languages were pressed into service, but many new words were borrowed or adapted from native Amerind tongues. This is certainly reflected by the meanings of my 547 exemplars: 169 (30.8%) denote various species of trees, shrubs, and vines; 40 (7.3%), various mammals; 40 (7.3%), various species of birds; 34 (6.2%), various kinds of fruits, vegetables, and condiments; 18 (3.2%), various fish and shellfish; 16 (2.9%), various reptilian species, including snakes, crocodiles, and turtles; 9 (1.6%), various insects; and 12 (2.1%), various beverages, alcoholic and otherwise. These eight categories account for 367, or roughly 67%, of my exemplars. Admittedly, they are mostly words that the average English-speaker is unlikely ever to have encountered in any context, even though they all do rate an entry in MW3. Some individual words in most, although not necessarily all, of the categories have already been cited in this article, but most of the loanwords concerned must be considered exotic by any standard. I can illustrate the point best, perhaps, by citing three loanwords in each category (the Amerind language source of each word is shown in parentheses):

trees, shrubs, vines: bakupari (Tupí), caraipai (Tupí), parinari (Galibi)

mammals: cacajao (Tupí), guariba (Tupí), saimiri (Guarani)

birds: anhinga (Tupí), guanay (Quechua), mitu (Guarani)

fruits, vegetables, condiments: chayote (Nahuatl), jagua (Taino), tallote (Nahuatl)

fish, shellfish: arapaima (Tupí), guavina (Tupí), querimana (Galibi)

reptiles: arrau (Maipure), jacare (Tupí), matamata (Tupí)

insects: chigoe (Cariban), sauba (Tupi), pinacate (Nahuatl)

beverages: cassiri (Carib), guarana (Tupí), sotol (Nahuatl)

The remaining exemplars fall into various categories, including the following (two representative loanwords are given for each category):

boats: cayuco (indefinite), pirogue (Cariban)

buildings: jacal (Nahuatl), chullpa (Aymara)

colors, dyestuffs: annatto (Cariban), chili (Nahuatl)

drugs, chemicals: caroba (Tupí), oorali (Carib)

fibers: cabuja (Taino), caroa (Tupí)

garments: huipil (Nahuatl), llautu (Quechua)

gums, saps: balata (Cariban), copaiba (Tupí)

household items: cacaxte (Nahuatl), jicara (Nahuatl)

musical instruments: huehuetl (Nahuatl), maraca (Tupí)

persons: caboclo (Tupí), kalina (Carib)

topographic terms: pongo (Quechua), talpatete (Nahuatl)

weapons: atlatl (Nahuatl), macana (Taino)

miscellaneous: nanduti (Guarani), quipu (Quechua)

The “persons” category merits a few special comments. It includes, among others, seven words derived from Quechua which reflect the structured, hierarchical society that existed among the Incans. There are, first of all, curaco (Indian noble) and palla (Indian princess), followed by guaso (agricultural laborer) and yanacona (serf). The other three words all have a somewhat deprecatory meaning: chino (woman of mixed blood), mitimae (member of a race conquered by the Incans), and chuncho (an “uncivilized” jungle native).

I did not include religious terms in the secondary categories listed above, but that does not mean such Southern Amerind loanwords do not exist. Rather, I decided they merited more specific discussion. My 547 exemplars include 15 such words. Although none is comparable to or as well known as the Northern Amerind manitou, they do include balam (Mayan), a supernatural being; chaac (Mayan), a native god; chacmol, chacmool (Mayan), a native god; kanaima (Nahuatl), an evil spirit; zemi (Taino), ‘spirit or fetish’; and zip (Mayan), a god. They also include 4 words for a ‘medicine man, shaman, witch doctor,’ or call him what you will: bocor (Haitian Creole), chairman (Mom), machi (Araucanian), and peai (Galibi). As for the other religious terms, 2 are Nahuatl: teocalli ‘temple’ and teopan ‘temple grounds’; 2 are Quechua: huaca or guaca ‘an ancient Peruvian sacred object, such as a mountain, animal, shrine, or artifact, inhabited by a god or spirit’ and huaco or guaco ‘a pre-Columbian relic of Peru,’ as an object discovered in a tomb; and one is Mayan: cenote ‘a natural well or sinkhole into which sacrificial offerings were thrown during ceremonies.’ (The cenote at Chichen-Itza in the Yucatán is world-renowned.)

Finally, mention must be made of the loanwords having what may be called a technical connotation. The Mayans, noted for their calendrical skills, have contributed haab ‘year’ and tun ‘a year of 360 days composed of 18 months (uinal) of 20 days each, to which was added a period of five nameless days (uayeb) to make a 365-day year’; katun ‘20 years’; baktun ‘400 years’; and pictun ‘8000 years.’ Another Mayan calendrical term to be found in the MW3 is tzolkin ‘a period of 260 days.’

The fields to which the other Southern Amerind technical terms apply are varied. Pian (Tupí-Guaraní) and yaws (Cariban) are names of diseases; mitote (Nahuatl), paixtle (Nahuatl), and rutuburi (Tarahumara) are names of dances; and hurricane (Taino), pampero (Quechua-Aymara), and puna (Quechua) are meteorological terms. Sambaqui (Tupí-Guaraní) is a term for a certain type of archaeological refuse heap. Tepetate (Nahuatl) is a synonym for caliche, the nitrate-bearing gravel or rock of the sodium nitrate deposits of Peru and Chile, while manjak (Calinago) is a type of asphalt found in Barbados. Guano (from the Quechua huanu ‘dung’) is well known as a type of fertilizer, rich in phosphates and nitrogen, that is simply bird dung. Finally, I will cite jaborandi (Tupí), ‘the dried leaves of a rutaceous shrub, Pilocarpus jaborandi, that are a source of philocarpine,’ and pataua (Tupí) ‘a fatty oil similar to olive oil obtained from the fruit of a Brazilian palm.’

As this discussion clearly illustrates, the lexical contributions of the Southern Amerind languages have been primarily to Spanish and Portuguese and only secondarily to English. I can only speculate on how many Southern Amerind loanwords are to be found in Spanish and Portuguese, at least in the versions spoken in Spanish America and Brazil. They undoubtedly include a large number of loanwords that have never found their way into English.

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary

R.W. Burchfield, ed., (Volume III O-Scz, Oxford University Press), 1579pp.

The logophiles and wordsmiths who are the readers of VERBATIM are likely to find this the most entertaining as well as the most important book published this year. We have now reached the three-quarter stage of one of this century’s great works of lexicographical scholarship, proportionately as far as Sir James Murray reached in the original OED before he died in 1915. Murray himself was responsible for the installments covering words beginning with O, which appeared between 1902 and 1909. Meanwhile Henry Bradley was working on S, the most productive initial letter of the alphabet. He reached the words beginning with Sc in 1911. This penultimate volume of Burchfield’s Supplement treats 18,750 words, divided into 28,000 senses, which have come into the language since the founding fathers toiled in their scriptorium or which (e.g., Peisitratid) slipped through their net at the time. More than 142,500 illustrative quotations map the growth of the words throughout the century, starting from their first appearance in a printed source. As always, the Oxford lexicographers have hunted for their quotations among the best writers of the century as well as the technical innovators on the Wild West frontiers of the language, so browsing is like reading an anthology of great and witty writers of the twentieth century.

To attack such a majestic Establishment exercise may seem a bit like piling Pelion on Ossa, or Ossa on Pelion if you prefer Virgil’s order, to turf the gods out of Olympus. But it has been done. There was arcane Structuralist criticism in The Times Literary Supplement, which got at not just Burchfield but Murray himself for arranging their dictionary in alphabetical order rather than by categories and deep structures. The trouble with some Structuralists who specialize in linguistics in the United Kingdom is that they have retreated into a private ivory tower impenetrable by outsiders. So have some academics in philosophy, which used to be and ought to be the queen of the sciences. Of all scholars, philosophers and linguists ought to be able to express their important and often difficult ideas in English accessible to the intelligent layman. What sort of “ought” is that, pray, Philip? Why, the intelligent layman’s, I hope.

I have heard more damaging criticism of the OED than that expressed by the silly Structuralists. This is that by concentrating on printed sources, the Oxford Dictionary misses the most vigorous and volatile part of the language in the second half of the twentieth century: the spoken word. Randolph Quirk’s monumental Survey of the English Language at University College, London, spends a lot of time and money recording speaking at different levels and in different contexts, to get at the spoken as well as the written word.

I believe that the criticism of the OED for neglecting spoken English is largely mistaken. It seems to me that a new word or new use is written down somewhere almost as soon as it is coined. Even in The Times, which is linguistically though not politically conservative, I observe reporters and reviewers trying to sneak into their copy the latest slang or vogue word from the disco or the university junior common room. Journalists, even on The Times, are neophiliacs. Think how much more receptive to the latest trend in spoken English must be the mass-circulation newspapers and the top music and cinema magazines, which sell themselves by pretending to be more up to date than tomorrow. I can detect no evidence that this volume of the Supplement is starved of the spoken word. It deals learnedly with such demotic spoken words as Oo-er, an English expression of surprise, Orl right, outasight, and polis, the Glaswegian pronunciation of police. Lexicographers have to make a judgment about what slang is so ephemeral that they can leave it out. Maybe they are sometimes mistaken, but not often. Nor can we get at them, I think, for neglecting other mansions of the English house than the British. It is true that the dictionary is edited and published from Oxford, but the editor in chief is a New Zealander, and his staff consists of a mixed team from all round the English-speaking world. This volume is rightly strong on black English, originating mainly from the United States, from Oreo to righteous moss and the slow sexy dance called a scronch. Black English is a growth area. But it also includes new Eskimo English, new Hawaiian English, and accretions to the language from all over the world.

On the other hand, I have seen criticism that the dictionary errs by recording literary nonce words from writers like Joyce, words that are never going to grow into regular use in the language. They are at it again in this volume, with everything from Beckett’s prosticiutto ‘a female prostitute regarded metaphorically as an item on a menu’ to ringround-about to ‘surround,’ from Ulysses: “The faithful hermetists ringroundabout him.” The OED is surely right to record even absurd nonesuch words in our great writers, because they are going to be of interest to the coming centuries. Deciding who is a great writer is one of the creative but ticklish functions of a historical lexicographer. But I do not think that any substantial critic is going to object to the selection of Joyce.

It is unkind to draw attention to this. But I have found one misprint, a “Finegans Wake” in the illustrative quotation for quark. The same entry prints the correct spelling twice. Enough. I wish we had space to go into the treasury of slang, from pants rabbit, insouciant American army slang for a ‘body louse,’ to parp, invented by Enid Blyton as the voice of Noddy’s car, a word that has caught on. I am astonished by the age of some trendy slang. The first citation of preppy is in 1900. George Eliot’s publisher wrote to her in 1877 about “a steady ongoing thing.” The dictionary is as usual magisterially dismissive of folk etymologies. I am afraid that posh does not come from ‘port outward, starboard home,’ the derivation approved by a hundred radio programs. No documentation acceptable to the OED editors has been found for the mirage that O.K. represents an American Indian word oke meaning ‘it is,’ or French au quai, or a West African word brought to America by slaves, or an abbreviation of “Old Kinderhook.” I am afraid that it is not more complicated than the first letters of the jocular “orl korrect.” In this as in everything else, Oxford rules, O.K.?

Philip Howard

Of Chuffs, Topers, and Queans

Barbara Sarkesian, North Scituate, Rhode Island

“Nothing, surely, is more alive than a word.”

—J. Donald Adams

With all due respect to Mr. Adams, there are a number of words that could be considered no longer among the living. These are both words that have gone completely out of fashion over the years and those whose original meanings have changed. Perhaps it’s only nostalgia for the “good old days,” but we must admit that these obsolete words and meanings did have a certain straightforward charm.

From an early (1829) Speller and Definer (“Or, Class-Book No. 2, Designed to Answer the Purposes of a Spelling-Book, and to Supersede the Necessity of the Use of a Dictionary as a Class-Book”) here are some colorful words and definitions of another day:

abortion—miscarriage

alcohol—rectified spirits

backfriend—a secret enemy

bewilder—to lose in pathless places

blinkard—one who has weak eyes

brunette—woman with brown skin (Says nothing about hair)

chuff—a blunt clown

chum—a chamber fellow

crime—a great fault

dandruff—scurf of the head

devil—a fallen angel

ding—to dash with violence

dirge—a mournful ditty (Ditty?)

emotion—a disturbance of mind

errand—a message (Note: The message itself)

exist—death

fabulous—full of fable

flavour—odour

gloom—imperfect darkness

housewife—a female economist

hunk—a miser

imp—a puny devil

infant—a child under seven

jade—a bad woman

jangle—to quarrel

jole—the cheek

kimbo—crooked

kiss—to salute with the lips

lubber—a sturdy drone

luncheon—a handful of food

melancholy—a kind of madness (A bit strong?)

morals—the practice of the duties of life

nickname—a name given in contempt

oakum—ropes untwisted

obscene—disgusting

passion—a violent commotion of the mind

pickthank—an officious person

pie—a crust baked with something in it

pill—a small ball of medicine

quean—a low, worthless woman

reverie—loose musing

romp—a rude girl

schedule—a small scroll

scull—the brainpan

stingo—old strong beer

toper—a drunkard

town—a large collection of houses

usher—an assistant teacher

uxorious—dotingly fond of a wife

valetudinarian—one very careful of his health

villain—a wicked wretch

wafer—a paste to close letters with

yelk—the yellow part of an egg

you—the plural of thou

youth—the third stage of life

The author of this Speller and Definer notes that his purpose is to provide a “valuable assistant in acquiring knowledge of the English language.” However, he takes pains to point out that where he is wrong in his endeavor, he “has been misled by acknowledged authorities…”

Source: E. Hazen, The Speller and Definer, New York: 1829

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Teachers Only—Comedy. Diana (Lynn Redgrave) is in hot water over an interview in the school literary magazine in which she revealed her candid views on premartial sex.” [From TV Guide, Springfield-Chicopee-Holyoke Edition, 23 September 1983, p. A-96. Is that what is engaged in by the opposite of a camp follower?]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“[The Duke of Edinburgh] criticized the importuning of more than 300,000 parrots into the United States every year, asking: ‘Are there really quite so many people who see themselves as Long John Silver?’ ” [From The Times, 23 September 1982, p. 6. Perhaps they beg to differ…]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

The name of a computer products company in England reflects—at least metaphorically—the growth of that industry: it is called Fungus. One of its representatives is Andy Trollope.

SIC! SIC! SIC!

For American Readers Only: “New Life for British Ass” [Headline on editorial in The Times, 11 September 1982, p.7. The reference is neither to the Rump Parliament nor to Britons' sexual proclivities but to the British Association for the Advancement of Science.]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Benedicta

Reinhold Aman, ed., 12pp, qtrly, 1982. By Dr. Reinhold Aman, 331 South Greenfield Avenue, Waukesha, Wisconsin 53186, U.S.A.

What is rude, ribald, scurrilous, raunchy, funny, uninhibited, iconoclastic, dirty, and the best sociolinguistic catharsis in print?

Benedicta!

Reinhold Aman, who could probably qualify as the linguist’s Archie Bunker (but might deplore the label), has now arrived with Benedicta, Son of Maledicta. Benedicta is a quarterly newsletter intended to curb the frustrations of the semiannual Maledicta addicts who cannot wait for six months between issues. J.P. Donleavy looks like a milquetoast in comparison with Aman’s forthrightness, though some may think “forthwrongness” the more appropriate term. It takes balls to publish this sort of thing, and some of Maledicta’s testimonials come from people whose language used to be somewhat strained because of their inability to utter four-letter words—until they exposed themselves to the unutterably ineffable articles published by its editor. No dashes or asterisks in Benedicta, either; not a dash is to be seen. Aman sells it like it is: all out in the open.

I know someone whose ancient grandmother, when she became senile, merely scrunched down among the shawls in the armchair alongside her bed and, with the most benign expression on her face, uttered a never-ending litany of foul language. When I first learned of this phenomenon, I was shocked—you know, sweet old ladies simply don’t know such language! But later on, reminded of the Paul Bunyan tale of the winter of the blue snow, I concluded that the old lady’s brain had finally thawed, releasing all those pent-up, frozen words and expressions she had been storing in her mind all those years.

Well, between Maledicta and Benedicta, the winter of the blue snow has passed, and, with the thaw, it can now be revealed what turned the snow blue. The slur, especially the ethnic slur, seems to find its most popular expression in what are called Polish jokes in America and Irish jokes in England. That is where the Archie Bunker in all of us comes out. Watching Carroll O’Connor on TV is not very different from reading parts of Maledicta. The main difference is that Dr. Aman is an observer, a collector, and a reporter. (If he isn’t, he is worse than Father Coughlin and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn rolled into one.)

The line he walks is a thin one: on the one side, humor (in which, they say, there is always a smattering of truth); on the other, genuine, deep-rooted hate-mongering prejudice. Aman, the linguist, treads the catwalk of scholar, describing it all but removed from it, as a scholar ought to be. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy his work and go at it with gusto. Whether you will rejoice and delight in his researches is a matter for you to decide…

Laurence Urdang

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“I have had … surgery to cut the vegas nerve in my stomach.” [From a written statement by a claimant applying for disability benefits, New York State Department of Social Services. Submitted by Edward Buckler, Brooklyn, New York: Who says there’s no quick cure for gambling addiction?]

RhoDislan Says It Different

Frank J. Jones, Flagstaff Arizona

A while ago—in the nineteen-fifties—I made a study of Providence, Rhode Island, which attributed to the population at that time no less than 78 different national origins.

Half a dozen of these origins, besides those of the indigenes, whose families had been around town since the original settlement in 1636, were British—represented by soft-spoken Devonshire folk, incomprehensible cockneys, equally incomprehensible Scots, and soccer enthusiasts from Yorkshire and Lancashire cheering on their teams: “Ee, bah goom! Chompion! Chompion!”

Irish manned the police and fire departments; Portuguese supplied and tended fish markets; Chinese, Japanese, and other Orientals provided chop suey and exquisite manners; Italians mended the roads.

Yankees naturally controlled the economy and all branches of government. In the absence of bilingual instruction, the children of everybody else spoke the family tongue at home and learned enough English in the public schools to make a living at salesmanship or factory work or school teaching; their children, often as not, studied to enter the more remunerative professions and ran for Congress.

To me it was obvious that in another generation Providence would be as polyglot as Paris. But now comes a report from Dr. Elaine Chaika, Professor of Linguistics at Providence College, called “A Guide to Understanding and Speaking Rhode Island English.”¹

Dr. Chaika cites her qualifications for this task: “I was born in Milford, Massachusetts, and moved to Rhode Island when I was three. I have lived in southern California and Maine, but the bulk of my years have been spent in Rhode Island.” Her project was carried out under a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Providence Public Libraries for the programs entitled “A Lively Experiment.”

In flawless RhoDislan English, Dr. Chaika’s foreword explains: “Most East Coast speech, like British and Australian, is called ah-less. Actually, this is a misnoma, as speakas from these eahvias do pronounce ah except as noted in Rules (1)—(4), below. The RhoDislan rules for ah dropping are identical to those used by Queen Elizabeth, the Beatles, Dudley Maw, and speaks of Brooklynese. As you can see, these rules ah very complex. Although we admit the difficulty of achieving true competence in RhoDislan English, with practice and perseverance it can be done by those who were not to the manna bawn.

“This Guide is divided into two pots: pronounciation and word choice. Just as the ah pronouncing rules ah sheahed with otha dialects, British and American, so ah some of the words. Whereva there ah different words for an item or activity in the United States, the one prevalent in RhoDislan is given, even if it is heard in otha places.

“IMPAWTANT!!” she stresses. “Wawning: although outsidas get the impression that RhoDislandas stick rs in and leave them out chaotically, actually this is not so. As the following rules show, the rules for r pronouncing are of an unusual delicacy and intricacy. The autha knows of no rules of simila complexity in any of the so-called r pronouncing dialects of American English. To pronounce r aw not to pronounce ah, these ah the rules:

“Rule 1: r is neva pronounced before a consonant². For instance, say ‘four o’clock,’ but ‘faw boys’ and ‘Fawth of July.’ It’s ‘the fahmer in the dell,’ but ‘fahma Jones.’

“Rule 2: (a) if a word ends in r do not pronounce it if the word is said alone or in lists, or if it comes at the end of an utterance… For instance, ‘what a great dance flaw,’ or ‘one, two, three, faw, five…’

“Rule 3: If a word ends in the sounds ‘h,’ ‘uh,’ or ‘aw’ and the next word stahts with a vowel, put in an r even if it isn’t spelled that way, as in: ‘Ma-r ate,’ ‘umbrella-r is,’ ‘thaw-r it out.’

“Rule 4: The r sound heard in words like bird, her, word, heard, and hurt is quite different from that used by most otha Americans. Since we sheah that sound with many British speakas, if you cahn’t find a RhoDis-landa to say it faw you, you can hear it on the Beatles recawding of Yaw Gonna Lose That Girl…. It is not at all certain that outsidas can eva learn to pronounce it right; but to approximate it, lift the center of the tongue to the palate as if you ah gawna say ‘eee’ and, at the same time, make yaw lips round.

Then Dr. Chaika proceeds to the meat of her report, her actual Glossary of 166 essential words, from “ah—belonging to you ‘n’ me; letter after q; third-person present plural of verb be (e.g., am, is, ah)” to “wondaful—real great.” Included are much-used place names like “CAHventry—Coventry, R.I.,” “Creeyanston—city in RhoDislan reputed (undeservedly) to have a funny accent (the Brooklyn of RhoDislan),” “Eas' Greenwich—reputedly the true native pronounciation of Eas' Grenich, Eas' Grinwich,” and “Newpawt—chahming seaside city, a must faw tourists.”

RhoDislan English, in spite of the incursion of patois, lingoes, and dialects from around the world, obviously has triumphed. From the Glossary, Mark Patinkin, a columnist of the Providence Journal, assembled a typical RhoDislan conversation published in the Evening Bulletin, March 10, 1982:

“Be keaful, Mawgrit, yaw gonna teea that map.”

“Lemeelone, Ma. I’m jus trine to figya how ta get to Newpawt on Saddaday.”

“Weah not going anyweah on Saddaday, young lady. Weah stain right heah in Creeanston.”

“Cmon. I’m sicka Creeanston. Can I at least go to Prawvidence—sleepova Judy’s? We could go to the Hill, wawk on Thaya Street. Please, please, please. Cou’int ya let me?”

“Why not oscar if she wants ta sleepova heah?”

“I’d ratha go ta hers. Or to Newpawt. It’s so chahmin.”

“We’ll see, Mawgrit—now go down cella and play with yaw bruther Mock. Mrs. Cawllins is at the daw faw cawfee…. Dahris! HowAHya?”

For the non-native, especially from outlying parts of the United States between Bawston and Organ, proper RhoDislan speech may prove formidable. Study of Dr. Chaika’s Glossary is recommended for any outlander tourist whose heart is set on an afternoon gamboling in the surf at Newpawt Beach.

---

EPISTOLA {M.M. Kreeger}

Your article on the slang of other languages reminded me of an incident that caused considerable merriment in Havana in the fall of 1947, while I was chief correspondent there for The Associated Press.

A flier from Lynchburg, Virginia, flew from Washington to Havana to set a new capital-to-capital speed record—something that seemed important to some people in those days. His sponsor, a Lynchburg packing company, gave him a Virginia ham to take along, purportedly as a present from the governor of Virginia to the president of Cuba. Nobody in Lynchburg could have been expected to know that jamon ‘ham’ meant ‘graft’ in Cuban slang—and the Cubans were quite cynical about the part jamon played in the careers of their leading politicians.

The flier took the ham to the palace and presented it to President Ramón Grau San Martin. The palace photographer took a shot of the event, and—why, I have never understood— prints were made available to the press. Nearly all the Havana dailies, and there were a slew of them, were opposed to the administration. The picture was played with such cutlines as “the first official photograph of a president of Cuba taking ham.” Cartoonists had a field day. A month later, a cartoon would sometimes have a tiny ham in one corner, even though it had nothing to do with the subject of the cartoon. I don’t know if Grau ever ate his present. Personally, I’ve always found Virginia hams too salty.

While international misunderstanding of a slang term seldom has such an impact as that, every year many thousands of norteamericanos would make a booboo by ordering papaya in Cuban restaurants. The fruit was very popular, but it was always called fruta bomba. In Cuba, papaya was something you got in a whorehouse, not a restaurant.

[M.M. Kreeger, Metairie, Louisiana]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Pears Book of Words

Gyles Brandeth, (Pelham Books, 1979), 204pp., index.

As Robert Burchfield points out in the foreword, “the book is divided into two sections, Word Work (the serious half) and Word Play (the rest).” As it turns out, the first section is a tiresome rehash of subjects covered much better in several of the books in the bibliography. It also contains an unbelievable amount of padding, in the form of long lists of what are supposed to be examples. In one place, for instance, there is a three-page list of words and expressions P.G. Wodehouse contributed to the English language. In another section, Brandeth provides a seventeen-and-a-half-page list of various suffixes to illustrate how “elements appended to words, usually to change the part of speech, make a noun into a verb, an adjective into an adverb, etc.” Brandeth says, “I think they (i.e., the examples) will give you an idea of how this word formation works.” After seventeen and a half pages of examples, if I didn’t have an idea of how it worked, I doubt I ever will.

If you can wade through the first half of the book without flinging it down in disgust, you might find the second half somewhat more interesting: it is composed of word games, puzzles and quizzes. Even many of these, however, are hackneyed. In the section under palindromes, for instance, Brandeth included the following:

Able was I ere I saw Elba.
A man, a plan, a canal-Panama.
Lewd did I live & evil did I dwel.

As most students of language will undoubtedly recognize, these palindromes are so commonly used that they are hardly worth commenting on.

In short, this book is not worth the money that is being asked for it. To use a colloquial but apt expression to describe it, it is a rip-off.

[Carl Withey, Elbridge, New York]

A Harvest of Heteronyms

Donald Drury, Long Beach, California

Try these out on the first ten people you meet: (1) homonym, (2) homograph, (3) heteronym. My guess is that all ten of them will know homonym, fewer than half will be familiar with homograph, and possibly one or two may recognize heteronym. If you get a higher ratio of correct responses to (2) and (3), you were cheating—that is, you took your survey at a Mensa meeting or during a lexicographers' convention.

Heteronym is not even recognized by Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged), though the supposedly definitive “Webster 3” really ought to be ashamed. One does find the term defined with reasonable accuracy in two less compendious desk dictionaries: Webster’s New World Dictionary (Second College Edition) and the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. The former gives heteronym as “a word with the same spelling as another but with a different meaning and pronunciation (Ex: tear, drop of water from the eye, tear, to rip)”; the latter says, “one of two or more words that have identical spellings but different meanings and pronunciations; for example, row (a line) and row (a fight).” What is lacking in both definitions is the further requirement that “pure” heteronyms be words of differing origin.

I first became aware of heteronyms in 1969 when I wrote an article on “Homographs and Pseudo-Homographs” for WORD WAYS: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. At that time I had “discovered” a grand total of ten heteronymous pairs of words. Since then—with valuable assistance from my wife, especially, and from colleagues at Long Beach City College—I have added substantially to my lists in all three word-categories: homonyms, homographs, and heteronyms. Doubtless the following augmented list of heteronyms (along with some pairs I have arbitrarily designated as “quasi-heteronyms”) is still far from complete:

I. Pure Heteronyms

(1) agape (a) AG-a-pee ‘a primitive Christian love-feast’; (b) a-GAPE ‘full of wonder; amazed.’

(2) acedia (a) a-SEE-dee-ya ‘spiritual ennui; apathy’; (b) ASS-uh-dee-ya ‘kind of fish.’

(3) bass (a) ‘kind of fish’; rhymes with lass; (b) ‘singer, bass viol, etc.'; rhymes with face.

(4) bow (a) ‘rainbow, weapon for propelling arrows, etc.'; (b) ‘front end of a ship’; rhymes with now.

(5) buffet (a) BUFF-et ‘bang about’; (b) buf-FAY ‘sideboard, refreshment table, etc.’

(6) bustier (a) BUST-ee-yer ‘more bosomy’; (b) BUST-ee-YAY ‘garment.’

(7) cave (a) ‘cavern’; rhymes with rave; (b) CAY-vee; CAH-vay; from Latin ‘beware.’

(8) console (a) CON-sole ‘cabinet’; (b) con-SOLE ‘offer sympathy.’

(9) desert (a) DEZ-ert ‘barren place’; (b) duh-ZERT ‘merited reward or punishment’—usually plural. Also see under Quasi-heteronyms.

(10) does (a) third-person singular of do; rhymes with fuzz; (b) DOZE ‘female deer, rabbits, etc.’

(11) dove (a) a bird related to the pigeon; rhymes with love; (b) a past tense of dive; rhymes with cove.

(12) entrance (a) en-TRANCE ‘enchant, beguile’; (b) EN-trance ‘doorway.’ (13) excise (a) EX-cize ‘tax’; (b) ex-CIZE ‘cut out, remove.’

(14) felly (a) ‘part of a wheel’; rhymes with belly; (b) FELL-ly in a fell or sinister manner.’

(15) gill (a) with hard g ‘fish’s breathing organ’; (b) JILL quarter-pint measure.’

(16) hinder (a) HIN-der ‘impede’; (b) ‘pertaining to rear or hind part of’; rhymes with binder.

(17) incense (a) In-cense ‘perfumed substance’; (b) in-CENSE ‘anger; outrage.’

(18) invalid (a) IN-va-lid ‘person suffering from illness or incapacity’; (b) in-VAL-id ‘not valid.’

(19) lather (a) TH pronounced as in then ‘foam from soap, shaving cream, etc.'; (b) TH as in thin ‘workman who applies laths as a base for plaster.’

(20) lead (a) ‘metal’; (b) ‘guide, conduct, act as leader.’

(21) lower (a) rhymes with mower; (b) ‘scowl’; rhymes with power.

(22) manes (a) ‘neck hair of horses’; rhymes with canes; (b) MAY-neeze; MAH-nays ‘ancestral gods or spirits.’

(23) moped (a) ‘brooded, sorrowed’; rhymes with SLOPED; (b) MOE-ped ‘kind of motorized bicycle.’

(24) number (a) NUM-mer; comparative of numb; (b) NUM-ber ‘a quantity or figure.’

(25) pace (a) ‘step or rate of travel, etc.'; (b) PAY-see; PAH-chee; Latin ‘peace.’

(26) palsy (a) PAWL-zee ‘affliction producing tremors’; (b) with a as in “palsy-walsy.”

(27) proceeds (a) pro-CEEDS ‘goes forward’; (b) PRO-ceeds ‘net or gross revenues.’

(28) putting (a) participle of put; rhymes with footing; (b) golf term; rhymes with cutting.

(29) ragged (a) RAG-ged ‘tattered, torn’; (b) RAGG’d ‘teased, bantered.’

(30) raven (a) RAY-ven ‘black bird’; (b) RAV-ven ‘devour greedily.’

(31) router (a) ROO-ter ‘one who plans delivery or transportation routes’; (b) ROW-ter ‘carpentry tool.’

(32) row (a) ‘line of objects’; rhymes with toe; (b) ‘quarrel or commotion’; rhymes with now.

(33) sake (a) ‘end, purpose, benefit’; rhymes with take; (b) SAH-kee ‘Japanese beverage.’

(34) sewer (a) SO-er ‘one who sews clothing’; (b) SUE-er ‘conduit for sewage.’

(35) shower (a) ‘one who shows’; rhymes with mower; (b) light rain, etc.; rhymes with flower.

(36) slaver (a) SLAY-ver slave-trader or slave-ship’; (b) SLAV-ver ‘slobber or drool.’

(37) slough (the only triple heteronym so far encountered by this investigator): (a) SLAU ‘deep mud or mire; a state of dejection or moral degradation, as in Bunyan’s “Slough of Desmond” ‘; (b) SLOO ‘a tidal flat, inlet from a river, etc.'; (c) SLUFF ‘cast-off skin, etc.’

(38) sow (a) ‘broadcast seed, etc.'; rhymes with go; (b) ‘female pig or hog’; rhymes with now.

(39) stingy (a) STING-ee ‘having a sting’; (b) STIN-jee ‘mean or ungenerous.’

(40) tarry (a) ‘linger’; rhymes with carry; (b) ‘covered with or full of tar’; rhymes with starry.

(41) tear (a) ‘moisture from the eye’; rhymes with hear; (b) ‘rip apart’ and ‘a torn place’; rhymes with bear.

(42) tower (a) TOE-er ‘one who or that which tows’; (b) ‘high structure’ and ‘loom over or dwarf something or someone else (with above or over)'; rhymes with flower.

(43) vale (a) ‘dell or valley’; rhymes with dale; (b) VAH-lee; VAY-lee; WAH-lay; Latin ‘farewell.’

(44) wind (a) ‘breeze, gale, etc.'; rhymes with sinned; (b) ‘entwine, twist and turn, etc.'; rhymes with find.

(45) wound (a) WOOND ‘injure’ or ‘injury’; (b) WOWND past tense of wind.

II. Quasi-heteronyms

These are words of identical spelling and different pronunciation that have very different meanings but ultimately share the same derivation. Some surprising examples follow. (Question: Which pair in Part I really belongs here among the “quasis”?)

(1) curate (a) KEW-rit ‘assistant of a rector or vicar, clergyman’; (b) kew-RATE ‘act as curator of a museum or special collection.’ (Both words derive from Latin cura ‘care.’

(2) desert (a) DEZ-ert ‘barren place’; (b) duh-ZERT ‘abandon, etc.’ Also see under Pure Heteronyms.

(3) lineage (a) LIN-ee-idge ‘descent, ancestry’; (b) LINEidge ‘the number of lines of type.’

(4) multiply (a) MUL-ti-ply; ‘to perform multiplication on’ or ‘increase’; (b) MUL-ti-plee; ‘repeatedly’ or ‘several times.’

(5) peaked (a) ‘having a peak, coming to a peak’; rhymes with beaked; (b) PEEK-ed ‘thin, emaciated.’

(6) primer (a) PRIM-mer ‘beginning reader and speller’; (b) PRY-mer ‘base coat of paint.’ (Both are related to Latin primus ‘first.')

Much more obvious as “impure” heteronyms are noun-verb pairs from the same root, though with different sounds, stresses, or both, such as CONduct and conDUCT, CONtract and conTRACT, RECord and reCORD, REFuse and reFUSE. Noun-adjective pairs include CONtent and conTENT, PATent and the adjective rhyming with latent. There must be many other examples in these two categories.

Finally, we might note a sub-category of “semi-demiheteronyms”—words and phrases of identical spelling whose difference in sound depends on hyphenation. Examples: reside ‘dwell’ and re-side ‘put new siding on,’ preposition and preposition, recreation and re-creation, light-housekeeping and lighthouse-keeping.

The author welcomes additions to any of these lists from other VERBATIM readers (address: 4436 E. 5th St., Long Beach, CA 90814).

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“It was Feshbach who, two years ago, first disclosed an increase in Soviet infant morality.” [From an article in The Daily Herald, Wausau-Merrill, Wisconsin, 31 August 1982, p.14. Submitted by George Johnson, Wausau, Wisconsin, who believes that this may be a response to President Reagan’s criticism, at a recent press conference, of a lack of ethics on the part of Soviet leaders.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

(Woman’s voice): “I told my Goodyear mechanic that all I needed was a simple lube and oil change.” [From a commercial on WRTN (radio), New York, 20 September 1982. Submitted by Bernard Witlieb, Bronx Community College, Bronx, New York. And there she is, waiting for Mr. Goodyear.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“Tennis Titlist Back for UA” [Headline in The Cincinnati Enquirer, 8 September 1982. Submitted by Joseph W. McNair, Cincinnati, who asks Who is to do the seeding? Is this what they mean by women’s doubles?]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“No matter where you live in Cleveland, we’re only twenty minutes from downtown.” [From a commercial on WVAB-TV, Cleveland, 27 August 1982. Submitted by Dr. Dorothy Branson, Columbus, Ohio.]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Hammond Medallion World Atlas

(Hammond, Inc., 1982, 9½" × 12½"), 672pp.

[A VERBATIM Book Club Selection]

Although the rationale for reviewing an atlas in VERBATIM and for offering it as a Book Club Selection may seem a bit farfetched, in fact it is less remote than one might think; first, an atlas fits in well with the general scheme of reference works that are offered in the Book Club; second, the coverage of place names in the Hammond Medallion is quite extensive: 100,000 entries in the A—Z index and 48,000 in individual map indexes.

As a reference work, the Medallion is complete and thorough. It contains 192 pages of foreign and world maps, in addition to 128 pages of state maps and a 12-page illustrated section on environment. The names in the Chinese People’s Republic are given in Pinyin, with cross reference from the older, more familiar Wade-Giles system. Other special sections include a 48-page atlas of Bible lands, a 48-page world history atlas, a 64-page U.S. history atlas, and a 4-page section of city maps of Washington, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It is printed in 8 colors.

We have used the Medallion for years and have found its maps accurately and clearly drawn and its demographic and other information both accurate and up to date. The new edition lists new countries (Vanuatu, Antigua and Barbuda, etc.) and new territories (Bophuthatswana, Venda, etc.).

Laurence Urdang

The Way of a Wag

Edward C. Pinkerton, Baltimore, Maryland

[Reprinted from Word for Word, by Edward C. Pinkerton, Verbatim, 1982. Information about ordering Word for Word can be found on page 2 of the Verbatim Book Club Catalogue.]

The reason a quipster like Groucho Marx is called a WAG is not that his tongue WAGS so much (plus, in Groucho’s case, WAGGLING eyebrows and cigar), but that jokers like him are apt to end their days WAGGLING from the end of a hangman’s rope. In other words he’s what was called in 16th-century England a WAGHALTER ‘one who is likely to swing from a halter; a gallows bird.’ This term of opprobrium was early shortened to WAG and applied humorously to mischievous boys and habitual pranksters. At least that’s one theory advanced to explain the meaning of the noun WAG ‘a jester; one full of sport and humor,’ even though in the OED the earliest use of WAG ‘a mischievous boy’ (1553) antedates the earliest use of WAGHALTER (1570). More commonly used is the verb WAG ‘to move briskly and repeatedly from side to side’ [from Middle English waggen; from the root of Old English wagian ‘to move about; to totter, to sway’], as a friendly or excited dog does his tail. WAGGLE ‘to move back and forth or up and down repeatedly’ is labeled by the authorities a “frequentative” of WAG, thus meaning ‘to wag frequently’ (though it strikes me as being a diminutive meaning ‘to wag a little’). A WAGTAIL is ‘one of a genus of birds characterized by long, constantly waggling tails.’

The source of all these words is Indo-European *wegh- ‘to move, to set in motion; to go, to transport in a vehicle.’ The more specialized sense of ‘to transport in a vehicle’ hints at the fact that WAG, WAGGLE, WAGHALTER, and WAGTAIL are all first cousins to English WAGON ‘a four-wheeled vehicle’ [from Middle Dutch wagen], a vehicle in which things are transported. Wagons range all the way from children’s go-carts through the homely VOLKSWAGEN ‘people’s wagon’ to that once luxurious mode of travel, the WAGON-LIT (literally) ‘wagon-bed’; ‘a continental European railway sleeping car’ [French lit ‘bed’]. The Old English words for four-wheeled vehicles were wægen, wægen, and wæn, predecessors of English WAIN ‘a large horse-drawn farm wagon.’ The very similar Dutch word wagen > WAGON was first adopted as a military term learned in the continental wars of the 16th century. Related words are WAINWRIGHT ‘a builder of wagons’ and WAINSCOT (etymologically) ‘planking for wagons’; ‘wood paneling applied to the walls of rooms’ [from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German wagenschot (schot ‘wooden partition’)]. However, the identity of this Middle Dutch or Middle Low German wagen- with wagen ‘wagon’ is doubted by some, who refer it to Old Frisian wāch = Old English wāg ‘wall.’

A less easily recognized cognate of WAG ‘to move to and fro’ and WAGON ‘a vehicle (for moving things)’ is WEIGH (obsolete) ‘to carry from one place to another’; ‘to hoist; to raise a ship’s anchor; to ascertain the heaviness (WEIGHT) of anything; to consider, to compare’ [from Old English wegan ‘to move, to carry, to weigh’]. An Anglian (northern English) variant of Old English wæge ‘weight’ was wēg, wēge, which became in northern Middle English wei, we, and was usually associated with the word ‘little’ so that ‘a little wee’ meant ‘a little weight,’ also ‘a little bit (of anything).’ Eventually the noun wee ‘weight’ came to be used as an adjective meaning ‘very small’: WEE ‘tiny’ (a WEE lad, a WEE drop, the WEE hours, the WEE folk).

The connection between WAGONING and WEIGHING is not hard to grasp, especially for a trucker, who would also appreci- ate the connection of both of these words with yet another cognate, that is, WAY ‘a passage, road, street, track or path’ [from Old English weg]. (In Modern German we have Weg ‘way,’ and bewegen ‘to move.') Additional cognates are AWAY (originally) ‘on the way’; ‘from this place, from that place; at a little distance; in a different direction’ [from Old English aweg, onweg; from on weg ‘on the way, on one’s way (from)']; ALWAYS ‘in every way; at all times’ [from Middle English alle wei, genitive alles weis, alleweyes, alwayes; from Old English (e)alne weg ‘all way’]; SIDEWAYS; LENGTHWAYS; WAYLAY ‘to lie in waiting along the road; to ambush’; WAYFARER ‘a traveler along the road’; and WAYWARD = AWAYWARD ‘straying from the path.’ Yet another cognate is WIGGLE ‘to squirm; to move back and forth quickly; to move slightly to and fro,’ described by some linguists as a “thinning” of WAGGLE, and certainly cuter.

The Latin word for ‘way’ is via ‘way, road, street, route, highway; march, journey.’ According to some etymologists, via traces back to Indo-European *wegh- ‘to move; to go’ by way of Old Latin veha and Indo-European *wegh-ya-. Others, however, link Latin via to Indo-European *wei- ‘to go after something’ or associate it with Latin vis, vim ‘force.’ In English, the Latin word via is used to mean ‘by way of,’ but via shows up in other English loanwords, like VIADUCT ‘a bridge carrying a road over a valley or other low-lying area’ [from Latin via ‘road’ + ductus ‘a leading’] (by analogy with aqueduct, from Latin aquaeductus ‘an elevated structure for supporting a water conduit over low-lying ground’) and VIATICUM ‘supplies for a journey; an allowance for traveling expenses; the Eucharist given to a person in danger of death’ [from Latin viāticum ‘money for a journey; a soldier’s savings’; from viāticus ‘of a journey’ (via ‘way’ + -āticus ‘pertaining to’)]. Late Latin viāticum evolved into Old French veiag, veage, viage, voiage, whence Anglo-French, whence Middle English veiage, viage, voiage, whence Modern English (and French) VOYAGE ‘a long journey to a distant land; a journey across the open sea.’ Thus, what started out as a road, then preparations for taking to the road, now applies to trips across the trackless ocean, or into outer space (and what started out as a day’s trip, that is, a journey < journée ‘a day’s traveling’ stretches out into years, and what started out as a step, that is, a trip ‘to step lightly’ becomes a journey).

The element via ‘road’ appears in many compound English words, for example DEVIATE ‘to turn aside from the path, to stray off the road; to digress’ [from Late Latin dēviāre, dēviātus ‘to go off the road’]. Late Latin dēviāre is based on the Latin adjective devius ‘out of the way; off the road,’ which is also the ancestor of English DEVIOUS ‘roundabout, circuitous; not straightforward, underhanded’ and OBVIATE ‘to remove from the way; to make unnecessary by anticipating or circumventing’ [from Late Latin obviāre, obviātus ‘to meet, to encounter,’ hence ‘to prevent’ (ob ‘against, facing’ + via ‘(in) the way’)]. Here again the Late Latin verb is based on an earlier Latin adjective, this one obvius (< obviam) ‘(standing) in the way,’ forerunner of English OBVIOUS (archaic) ‘standing in the way’; ‘easily perceived.’

In Latin a place where three roads meet is called a trivium. One might expect the related adjective triviālis to have something to do with forks in the road, but instead Latin triviālis means ‘commonplace, ordinary; what can be met with anywhere, at any crossroads.’ Triviālis has been borrowed into English as TRIVIAL ‘ordinary, commonplace; of little importance.’ The plural noun TRIVIA ‘insignificant matters, trifles’ is a recent coinage, although in Roman antiquity trivia meant ‘a crossroads,’ and capitalized, ‘Diana as the three-faced goddess, Hecate.’ Essentially a back formation from TRIVIAL, Modern English TRIVIA is not listed in the OED nor the OED Supplement of 1933, but it is in MW2, published 1934. In the Middle Ages a new meaning was assigned to the Latin word TRIVIUM ‘the three liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic forming the elementary division of the seven liberal arts in medieval schools and required of all who would obtain a bachelor’s degree.’ The other four liberal arts were arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Together these were known as the QUADRIVIUM, which in Latin means ‘crosswords; place where four roads meet.’ According to Henry Hallam’s Introduction to the Literature of Europe, the TRIVIUM and QUADRIVIUM were introduced into the halls of learning in the 6th century.

To go along with DEVIOUS and OBVIOUS we have PREVIOUS ‘having gone that way before; existing or occurring before something else’ [from Latin praevius ‘going before, leading the way’ (prae ‘before’)] and PERVIOUS ‘open to passage, allowing passage through’ [from Latin pervius ‘passable, unobstructed’ (per ‘through’)]. The last word is more often encountered in the negative IMPERVIOUS ‘incapable of being penetrated.’

As already seen in the development of the word VOYAGE, Latin via ‘way’ changed to French voy-, or more correctly, to French voie ‘way.’ Similarly, Late Latin inviāre ‘to send on a journey’ became Old French envoier ‘to send,’ and has resulted in the two English words ENVOY ‘a messenger sent on a mission; an emissary’ and INVOICE ‘a detailed list of goods shipped.’ INVOICE is a variant spelling of the plural of French envoi ‘parcel, package; goods forwarded,’ i.e., invois, construed as a singular and respelled with -ce to conform with English usage. Also used in English literature is French ENVOI ‘a short concluding stanza of certain verse forms; a parting word.’

Similar words are CONVOY ‘to accompany on the way; to escort’ [from Old French conveier, conveier, from Vulgar Latin *conviāre (con < cum ‘together with’)] and CONVEY ‘to carry from one place to another; to communicate, to make known’ [from Old French conveier, convoier and Vulgar Latin *conviāre].

The Classical Latin verb descended from Indo-European *weigh- ‘to move, to transport in a vehicle’ is vehere, vectus ‘to carry, to transport.’ The most obvious English borrowing is VEHICLE ‘any device for carrying passengers or goods; a medium of expression’ [via French véhicule from Latin vehiculum ‘conveyance’]. The Latin suffix -iculum, whence English -icle, usually indicates a diminutive, as in particle ‘a little part,’ auricle ‘a little ear,’ versicle ‘a little verse,’ and article ‘a little joint, division,’ but in this case it seems to be used as an instrumental suffix meaning ‘means of (carrying).’

A word that is listed in some English dictionaries as foreign and not listed at all in others (although well known to members of the American Legion, especially the Forty-and-Eight Division), is French VOITURE ‘a carriage; a railway coach; a railway car’ [from Latin vectūra ‘carrying; conveyance’]. In the American Legion, a VOITURE is ‘a local constituent unit of the Forty-and-Eight Division’ (MW3), who took their name from the French railroad cars that were marked during World War I as capable of transporting forty men or (sardonically “and”) eight horses ‘voiture à quarante hommes ou huit chevaux.’

Latin vehere, vectus has many compounds, but only one that has been adopted into English as a verb, that is, INVEIGH (etymologically) ‘to carry into; to sail into’; ‘to assail with words; to give vent to a denunciation’ [from Latin invehere, invectus ‘to carry into,’ passive invehī ‘to burst into; to attack’]. The past participle invectus yields Late Latin invectīvus ‘vituperative’ and Medieval Latin invectīva (ōrātiō) ‘abusive (speech),’ whence English INVECTIVE ‘an abusive expression; a vehement denunciation.’

Speaking of vehement and VEHEMENCE ‘forcefulness of expression; great or excessive ardor’ [from Latin vehemēns = vēmēns ‘violent, furious; forcible’], some etymologists suggest the possibility that these words may also derive from Latin vehere ‘to carry, to transport.’ (One speaks of an incensed person as being “transported” with rage.) The suffix -ment (< Latin -mentum) is used to express the result of an action (fragment ‘what is left after something is broken’) or the instrument of an action (ornament ‘that which embellishes’). If vehemence stems from vehere that would make it either ‘the product of being transported’ or more likely ‘the instrument of attacking’ (invehī ‘to attack’). However, other etymologists believe that the vehe- of Latin vēhemēns = vēmēns is derived from Latin vē- ‘lacking,’ so that the etymological meaning would be ‘lacking in or deprived of mind’ (mēns ‘mind’).

Another English word based on the Latin past participle vectus ‘carried, transported’ is CONVECTION ‘the process of transmitting or conveying’ [from Late Latin convectiō, from Latin convehere ‘to carry together’]. CONVECTION is mostly restricted to scientific meanings in physics and meterology (the fact that hot air rises is an example of thermal convection ‘the transmitting of heat by motion of the hot materials’). In Latin, convector means ‘fellow passenger.’

A related term is Latin convexus ‘valuted, arched.’ This is apparently an old past participle of convehere, convectus ‘to carry together,’ and the meaning arises because in forming an arch the extremities of the surface are “drawn together to a point” (ODEE). The English loanword from convexus is CONVEX ‘curved like the outside of a circle or arch.’

Other English borrowings from the past participle vectus are more abstruse; for example VECTOR (biology) ‘an organism that carries pathogens from one host to another’; (mathematics) ‘a quantity specified by a magnitude and a direction’ [from Latin vector ‘bearer, carrier’]; ADVECTION ‘a local change in a property of a system’; and EVECTION ‘solar perturbation of the lunar orbit’ [from Latin ēvectiō ‘a carrying out; a raising up’]. (A defaulting tenant’s furniture is “carried out” when he is evicted, but this is a different word, from Latin evincere, evicted, but this is a different word, from Latin ēvincere, ēvictus ‘to conquer completely.') Note, also, PROVECTION ‘the carrying forward of the final sound of a word to a following word.’ Examples of provection are a nickname < an ekename (‘an additional name’); a newt < an ewt; the nonce < then ones; Nash < an ash, Powell < ap Howell; and Price < ap Rhys. This linguistic phenomenon also takes place in the opposite direction. Examples are an umpire < a nompere; an adder < a nadder; an apron < a napron (compare napery); and an orange < a narancia (compare Spanish naranja). TRANSVECTION, labeled rare in most modern dictionaries, refers to the ‘transportation through the air of a witch by a devil,’ fortunately a relatively uncommon occurrence these days.

The Latin verb vexāre ‘to agitate; to torment, to harass’ is also thought to be related to Latin vehere, vectus, probably by way of the past participle. Since vehere, vectus ‘to carry’ implies transportation, and transportation in Roman days was by horseback, in springless vehicles, or on a boat or ship, one can see how the ‘to agitate’ meaning of vexāre arose, and the extended meanings of ‘to torment, to harass.’ (Compare the semantic progression of Vulgar Latin tripāliāre ‘to torture’ > Old French travailler ‘to travail’ > English travel.) Obvious English borrowings from Latin vexāre ‘to harass’ are VEX ‘to irritate, to annoy’ and its derivatives VEXATIONS and VEXATIOUS.

Returning to Germanic derivatives of Indo-European *wegh- ‘to move, to set in motion; to go, to transport in a vehicle’ that have come down to English, we are buoyed up by the English noun WAVE ‘a swell moving along the surface of a body of water; oscillations’ [from Middle English wawe, waghe; from Old English wæg ‘motion, wave’]. This is the derivation given by some, but others trace the noun WAVE to the same source as the verb to wave, which comes from Indo-European *webh- ‘to weave.’ What seems to have happened is that as the two forms approached each other phonetically, the one for ‘moving the hand back and forth as a signal’ (from *webh- ‘to weave’) superseded the Middle English waw ‘a moving swell of water’ (from *wegh- ‘to move, to go’). Note, also, VOGUE ‘the prevailing fashion’ [from French vogue ‘rowing, sailing, going,’ voguer ‘to row (a boat)']. This elegant word had a slangy origin, that is, to be in VOGUE was something like ‘to be in the rowing, sailing, going.’ (Compare to be in the swim.) French voguer ‘to row’ has Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish counterparts, respectively vogare, vogar, and bogar ‘to row.’ They all presumably come from a Germanic source related to Middle High German wogen ‘to float, to be borne by the waves’ and descended from Indo-European *wegh- ‘to set in motion.’ Another derivative of Indo-European *wegh- is EARWIG ‘an insect once thought to be able to penetrate a person’s head through the ear,’ a creature known in German as Ohrwurm ‘earworm.’ The -WIG of EARWIG comes from Old English wicga ‘earwig; “thing that moves quickly” (AHD), related to WIGGLE (although some authorities tie the element - wig to vetch, which would make it a descendant of Indo-European *wei- ‘to turn’ or *weik- ‘to bend’). Still other derivatives of Indo-European *wegh- are NORWAY ‘northern way; northern region’ [from Old Norse Norvegr] (the Modern Norwegian word is Norge); GRAYWACKE ‘a kind of dark gray sandstone’ [from German Grauwacke, from grau ‘gray’ + Wacke a German miners’ word adopted as a geological term; from Old High German wacko, waggo ' “boulder rolling on a river bed” (AHD)]; and WALL-EYED ‘having a light-colored, whitish eye or eyes; having one eye that turns out with a divergent squint; having bulging eyes’ [from Middle English wawileghed, from Old Norse vagleygr]. The wall- element is thus traced to Old Norse vagl ‘wooden beam, roost, perch.’ Vagl also survives in Icelandic vagl ‘a film over the eyes’ and in Swedish vagel ‘a sty in the eye.’ However; the connection with ‘to set in motion’ is not exactly obvious. MW3 has Old Norse vagl ‘beam, roost; beam in the eye’ akin to Old Norse vega ‘to move, to carry, to lift,’ so the semantic connection may be by way of the notion of ‘carrying.’

English wall- < Middle English wawil- < Old Norse vagl-trace further back to Germanic *waglaz, and thence to a “suffixed o-grade form (of Indo-European *wegh-) *wogh-lo-” (AHD). From this same *wegh-lo- comes Greek okhlos ‘disturbance, trouble; populace, mob; moving mass.’ Note that Greek drops the initial digamma, or w-. Okhlos ‘mob’ gives us the English terms OCHLOCRACY ‘mob rule’ and OCHLOPHOBIA ‘morbid fear of crowds; fear of mobs.’

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: The Pronunciation of English in Australia

Rev. ed. by A.G. Mitchell and Arthur Delbridge, (Angus & Robertson, 1965), xiv + 82 pp.

“Why do these people talk with an accent?” an American boy asked his father when they arrived in New Zealand. This amused New Zealanders, who think it is Americans who speak with an accent. It is normal to be aware of another group’s way of speech and to think of accents as something other people have, but sometimes for historical or sociopolitical reasons a community takes the speech of another group as “better” or “more correct” than its own. So it has been in Australia, where the local accent has often been regarded as deviant and has only comparatively recently been studied systematically and objectively. Then it was one of those cases where the first serious book on the subject has remained the best, the standard work.

A.G. Mitchell’s The Pronunciation of English in Australia appeared in 1946, and a revised edition in collaboration with Professor Arthur Delbridge came out in 1965. The first edition was reprinted five times, the second already three times. Other writers have added details to our understanding of Australian speech but no one has challenged the outlines of Mitchell’s analysis of its phonemes. His view that Australian English is not differentiated locally but has various levels that are roughly related to education, described in the revised edition in terms of the three main categories of broad, general, and cultivated, has likewise survived without serious challenge.

In the preface to the revised edition, the authors apologize for retaining a description that compares Australian speech point by point with Educated Southern English. For overseas readers, however, comparison with a better known variety can be helpful; even in Australia, most generally available books on phonetics describe this variety. In any case, readers outside Southern England may be assured that the most distinctive Australian sounds, the vowels and diphthongs, are also constantly described with reference to cardinal vowels (the vowel quadrilateral) as described by Daniel Jones.

Apart from its segmental sounds, Australian English differs from other varieties in its rhythms, stress, and intonation. Stress tends to be more even than in British English but, in words at any rate, probably rather less even than in typical varieties of American English. Mitchell illustrates with the sentence “It’s a long way to go.” Spoken with stress on long and go and a rapid pronunciation of the other syllables it will sound British; with slower delivery and stress on long, way and go it begins to sound Australian. Intonation likewise differs. An Englishman pronouncing “Have you any matches?” might begin with a high pitch at have, then rapidly at the same high level pronounce you any, then drop low to begin match- but glide upwards until the termination -es reaches the initial high level. An Australian begins with low pitch on have you any (the -y of any rising a bit), to arrive at the moving tone match- from below. Such low initial tones may sound rather glum or even menancing to British speakers, who might in turn seem over-brisk and birdlike to Australians. It is in the suprasegmentals, stress and tone, that Australian English differs most markedly from Cockney.

As a science grows it accumulates technicality, so that pioneer studies often stand out as very readable (witness Sapir or Bloomfield). Mitchell was no exception. The revision, making use of large-scale statistical studies, is able to add precision to the initial observations, perhaps with some departure from the urbanity of the original text here and there, but not so as to endanger in any serious way its pleasantly readable flavor. For anyone wanting to have a look at the sound system of a not-too-foreign language or communicate with a speech community twice as large as Denmark, this book can be thoroughly recommended.

[G.W. Turner, University of Adelaide]

EPISTOLA {Leslie R. Axelrod}

As an electrical engineer involved with computers, I’m quite familiar with the word kludge [IX, 2]. It is most emphatically not a “term of endearment for a pet computer.” A kludge is a term of derision for either hardware or software that is put together awkwardly, like a “lash-up” or a “jury-rig.” To kludge means to put together some hardware (or write a program) by combining parts of existing computers or their programs. The general tone is that such an approach is temporary, perhaps to demonstrate a concept or perhaps to repair a system that would otherwise remain inoperative. Incidentally, the word is pronounced with a long u sound, as if it were spelled klooj.

[Leslie R. Axelrod, Highland Park, Illinois]

EPISTOLA {P.S. Falla}

Dr. Macey says in his letter [IX, 2] that he has not encountered the use of rabbits in the ‘good luck’ sense in Australia. However, it was familiar to me in a New Zealand childhood in the 1920s; so was hares in a related sense. Quotations for both will be found under rabbit (sense l.d.) in vol. III of the Supplement to the OED. It does not confirm the etymology orabitis, and I should be interested to know Dr. Macey’s authority for this.

[P.S. Falla, Bromley, Kent]

EPISTOLA {Gary Muldoon}

In his review of The Morrow Book of New Words [IX, 2], John T. Gage criticizes the work for including words which have been around for a long time. He also notes several words omitted from the book, including “pathetic fallacy.” According to A Handbook to Literature, by C. Hugh Holman, this term (“false emotionalism in writing resulting in a too impassioned description of nature”) was coined by John Ruskin. Ruskin died in 1900.

Mr. Gage also notes the omission of PB (for ‘personal best,’ a sports term). While I cannot write for enthusiasts of other sports, we who jog refer to it as PR ‘personal record.’

[Gary Muldoon, Rochester, New York]

EPISTOLA {John Brunner}

In re Leonard Cochran on “Witchcraft” [IX, 1] the attention of the readership should be drawn to the two mock articles by Paul Jennings under the joint title “1066 and All Saxon,” included in his collection I Was Joking, Of Course (Max Reinhardt, 1968), which may still be available via Bibliophile Books, the source whence I obtained my own copy. I can think of no other modern writer of English who would have had the gall to revise Hamlet’s major soliloquy into the kind of English we might now speak had the Normans lost at Hastings…and got away with his “improved” version!

[John Brunner, South Petherton, Somerset]

EPISTOLA {David A. Freeman}

In the first column on the first page of “Holy Water,…” [IX, 1], you refer to the word horse as an English slang word for ‘heroin.’ I think you may find that the English word comes from Canada. Canadian narcotic policing is done by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Amongst the heroin consumers and trafficers the Police are therefore known as “horsemen.” Hence the use of the word horse for heroin.

[David A. Freeman, Vancouver, B.C.]

EPISTOLA {Harold Mann}

Along the road from here is a cast iron drain cover set in the pavement (=sidewalk). The lettering on it is still bold and reads “THOMAS CRAPPER, MARLBOROUGH WORKS, CHELSEA.” Hardly a sophomoric joke, though it is of course true that the worthy Thomas did not bequeath a word to the language, as a decent dictionary reveals. This distinction, however, did fall to another worker in the same field, one Joseph Bramah. In 1778, he took out a patent for a water closet with two valves which was considered to be the best on the market for nearly a hundred years, and the word Bramah came to be associated with anything of first-rate quality. This information is from the Thames Water Authority Bulletin, and I can add that it was so used in Essex (England) in the 1940s. An acquaintance from there assures me it is still in use, the usual form being “That’s a bramah!” or some such phrase.

[Harold Mann, Faversham, Kent]

EPISTOLA {Donald R. Ricklin}

Zelling Bach [IX, 1] misread “theater-ese” as a Stefan Kanfer misuse of Aleichem as a last name. Stefan Kanfer was reviewing the play The World of Sholem Aleichem not talking about the individual in the quote about Gilford.

Among Theater People (and reviews of plays would-should? —certainly reflect such usage) one often abbreviates a play’s title to one word (e.g., Love’s Labour’s Lost would be called Love’s, or just Pond for On Golden Pond). Therefore, Gilford is a peasant (of whatever kind) in Aleichem, the play, as one might say “in Shakespeare” instead of “in Love’s Labour’s Lost.”

[Donald R. Ricklin, Worcester, Massachusetts]

EPISTOLA {Garland Hicks}

The appearance of the letter from Frank E. Day [IX, 1] puzzled me a bit. His explanation of hooker was along the lines of my explanation (which you said you would print but didn’t), but he gave the location as Falmouth, not Washington.

He may well be right; I said I could give no source more authoritative than my memory.

However, I think it extremely unlikely that the term applied only to women imported for Hooker’s own pleasures (assuming that such was his bent; you may hear from Hooker’s descendants on this point). I think it much more plausible that the term referred to camp followers in general.

[Garland Hicks, Mt. Kisco, New York]

Pairing Pairs No. 10

The clues are given in items lettered (a-z); the answers are given in the numbered items, which must be matched with each other to solve the clues. In some cases, a numbered item may be used more than once, and some clues may require more than two answer items; but after all of the matchings have been completed, one numbered item will remain unmatched, and that is the correct answer. Our answer is the only correct one. The solution will be published in the next issue of VERBATIM.

(a). Slacker is down on his luck.
(b). Knowledge of what goes to waste.
(c). Early settlers first tend to these.
(d). Roland choreographed this.
(e). Openwork shoes.
(f). Corner the flour market.
(g). Insane duvet.
(h). Gangester rubs out heroin dealer.
(i). Literarily, a healthy communist.
(j). Important dockmaster.
(k). Superior to the pound.
(l). Nursing quadruplets.
(m). What a microcephalic nanocerebral ninnyhammer ought to do.
(n). Huey’s son.
(o). What poor sick Achilles wasn’t.
(p). Turned by inattentive one.
(q). Tennis on the house creates judges. Nein?
(r). Additional rendition adds to outgoing variety.
(s). In this place, at present, but not in evidence.
(t). How to greet students in school for elite.
(u). Woman jailor in armor.
(v). Crazy turnkey got away?
(w). Quarry layout.
(x). Site of Huey’s seat.
(y). Haberdashery makes custom curse.
(z). Lease on torture device is exorbitant.

(1). Abreast.
(2). Ahead.
(3). Baby.
(4). Boot.
(5). Button.
(6). Chez.
(7). Class.
(8). Court.
(9). Crazy.
(10). Deaf.
(11). Dress.
(12). Ear.
(13). Ere.
(14). Extra.
(15). Feather.
(16). Game. (17). Get.
(18). Healed.
(19). Here.
(20). High.
(21). Hole.
(22). Intelligence.
(23). Key.
(24). Lace.
(25). Long.
(26). Longue.
(27). Loose.
(28). Man.
(29). Men.
(30). Merchant.
(31). Navel.
(32). Now.
(33). Old.
(34). Over.
(35). Petit.
(36). Plan.
(37). Point.
(38). Quilt.
(39). Rack.
(40). Read.
(41). Rent.
(42). Ride.
(43). Scores.
(44). Screw.
(45). Slay.
(46). Swear.
(47). Two.
(48). Version.
(49). War.
(50). Weight.
(51). Well.

Winners will receive one of the following: the Collector’s Edition of Thomas H. Middleton’s Light Refractions (retail value, $30 or £15); English English by Norman W. Schur (retail value, $24.95 of £12.50); three copies of Wordsmanship, by Claurène duGran (retail value, $29.85 or £14.85); twelve copies of Definitive Quotations, by John Ferguson (retail value, $35.40 or 18); Word for Word, by Edward C. Pinkerton (retail value, $39.95 or £20); four one-year subscriptions to VERBATIM (retail value, $30 of £15); any two of the following: Verbatim Volumes I & II, Verbatim Volumes III & IV, Verbatim Volumes V & VI, Verbatim Index: Volumes I-VI; or a credit of $25 or £12.50 towards the purchase of any other title or titles offered in the VERBATIM Book Club Catalogue.

Those living in the U.K., Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa should send their answers to VERBATIM, 2 Market Square, Aylesbury, Bucks, England. All others should send them to VERBATIM, Essex, CT 06426, U.S.A.

You need send only the correct solution, not the answers to all of the clues. Please indicate your choice of prize along with your answer.

N.B.: To allow for the slouth of the various postal systems and to make it fairer for those residing far from either office, we shall arrange to collect correct answers for 21 days, starting with the day the first correct answer is received, and to draw one winner from each office.

Pairing Pairs No. 9

(a). Shoes that give some young girls a real lift. (29, 24) Mary Jane.
(b). Hearty contingent from New York City? (1, 9) Apple Corps.
(c). He gets only the sweet he merits. (25, 11) Just Dessert.
(d). Dame Sheep has it all together. (15, 26) Ewe Knighted.
(e). Shadow Boxing? (17, 44) Feinting Spell.
(f). Okay-he has the price of a ticket. (16, 14) Fare Enough.
(g). Is The Birds treacherous? (20, 37) Fowl Play.
(h). Play bridge to become aroused? (19, 37) Four Play.
(i). Special device for watching Persian fairies. (34, 40) Peri Scope.
(j). Defendant opposed to ordinary squabble. (36,48) Plain Tiff.
(k). Doubly contemptible musical instrument. (4,49) Base Vile.
(l). Slippery scene. (43,42) Slide Show.
(m). Naval person. (5, 10) Belly Dancer.
(n). Alley’s just dessert. (3,39) Baba Rum.
(o). Forget to put out the cat. (30,31) Nocturnal Omission.
(p). Where they wait for the flowers to grow. (38, 21) Queue Garden.
(q). Marcel reported heavily Zeus has it with Leda. (46,50) Swans Weigh.
(r). Impressionable leather pendulum. (13, 45) Easily Suede.
(s). Flagg or nut? (51, 22) Which Hazel.
(t). Taxi queue at night club. (6, 2) Cab Array.
(u). Did Porter know film director? (41, 32) Ship Ophuls.
(v). Cockney camp follower to ask for a fight. (33,7) Order Combat.
(w). Patch. (12,28) Dutch Man.
(x). Has it rung up for him? (23,27) Jacob’s Ladder.
(y). Order of the day. (1,35) Apple Pie.
(z). Swindler leads broker a merry dance. (8, 47) Con Tango.

The correct answer is (18) File. The solutions are given below. The winner of No. 9 was Janet R. George, Worcester, Massachusetts.

The winners of Paring Pairs No. 8 were Nancy L. Walden, Schenectady, New York, and Emlyn Stephenson, Greenwich, England.

EPISTOLA {Lillian Mermin Feinsilver}

Bryan A. Garner writes a lively letter [IX, 2], but he apparently reads too hastily. So intent he is on attacking my criticism of John Simon’s Paradigms Lost in “When Paragons Nod” [VIII, 4], that he misinterprets much of my material.

Allowing that “some” of my complaints—regarding both PL and Michaels & Ricks’s The State of the Language—are justified, he notes that the “majority” of my criticisms of Simon are “subtle miscorrections of illusory falls from grace.” Well, out of my presentation of seven sample defects (plus variations on two) in the Michaels & Ricks volume, Garner rejects but one part of a triple comment on one author. With regard to Simon’s work, my piece detailed-besides the title’s failings— eight imperfections (plus variations on two). Three of my objections (to the wrong verb form after a conditional clause, to et cetera for et alii or et al., and to like as conjunction) are sustained by Garner. Two of the same infelicities are examples of usage which Simon himself disparages, as are four others (past tense for present perfect; poor punctuation; and—albeit with somewhat different emphasis—inappropriate use of less; and non-agreement of subject and verb). Garner’s judgment therefore hardly absolves Simon, for if the latter’s falls are mostly illusory, so too must be his faultings of other writers.

Moreover, the cited stylistic inadequacies are not, as Garner implies, “rarities.” If proof be needed, witness the redundancy on p. 72: “It would perhaps not be an excessive oversimplification…” (Simon rails at others’ redundant expressions over a dozen times); or the confusion of comprise with are comprised of on p. 136: “…one should say… that all segments of the industry ‘are staffed with’ responsible people or ‘comprise’ them…”; or the non-parallel construction with not only on p. 178: “…it is not only not needed, it may even be a hinderance” (this is inconsistant with the call for strict parallelism with either… or on p. 45); etc.

Space is too limited for all the surprising violations of espoused principle. Let’s pick up a few of the specific darts thrown at my text:

Concerning less, I did not recommend the expression Garner attributes to my “literal-mindedness”: “Two readers, no fewer…, have sent me….” I did mention that “Two readers, no less…” conflicted with Simon’s disapproval of less for fewer, but I asked why no less was used at all, since two is not a large number and the other meaning of the phrase-as in “The King and Queen, no less, will address our party”—does not fit the situation.

The “perfectly lucid sentence” Garner refers to still stops me. Without quoting it again, may I suggest that it does not fulfill the goal projected by Simon on p. 58: “to forestall misunderstanding—to make some hypothetical reader’s sailing a little smoother.” If it did meet that standard, surely the editor of this quarterly would have challenged my effort to improve it.

Regarding my call for a plural verb in “What good is correct speech and writing…?,” Garner asserts: “What, as subject, takes the singular verb, whether the noun that follows is singular or plural. Here the subject happens to be the noun phrase what good rather than what alone, but that makes no difference.” He seems unaware that What good is not the subject here but a predicate nominative phrase. (I assume he would not recommend “What is your motives?”) Garner is attempting to exploit, in his first sentence, a statement from Partridge’s Usage and Abusage (1942, p. 354), as quoted by Simon on p. 172, without recognizing that the models Partridge offers—“What I like is sprouts”; etc.—are syntactically different from the sentence under discussion. He also is not cognizant (along with Simon) that Partridge’s guideline falls short of being a hard-and-fast rule even for the relative-pronoun construction, as may be seen in the following quotation, one of several provided in Curme’s Syntax (1931, p. 214): “What have been censured as Shakespeare’s conceits are completely justifiable.”

Garner might more convincingly have limited his argument to the point he makes concerning “Why, you may ask, is correct speech and writing important…?” —namely, that correct speech and writing expresses a single idea-correct use of language—and that the single verb is therefore an acceptable choice. (It is still not my choice or that of other readers who perceive speech and writing as discrete, particularly in the question on p. 176: “What good is reading and writing to people who cannot think?”

Garner dismisses as vogue words viability (which I used) and viable; but the terms still have legitimate meaning, in which Simon employs the latter on p. 40: “Slang is like a joke: funny and viable only while it is new.”

I have no objection to Garner’s revision of a sentence in either the recent piece or an old one, but I must reject his statement that my “tone is iconoclastic, as if by wrangling over Simon’s punctuation and phraseology we can [sic] dispose of Simon forever and invalidate all his linguistic notions.” The inference is illogical. My article decried the decline of standards as exemplified by two books which should have been unrepresentative of that process, and I noted that Simon is “more than half right when he charges (p. 92): ‘The real culprits are the editors….’ ” (Although Simon is there referring to a specific journal, he also makes the accusation against publishing media generally on p. 50: “The deterioration of copy editing and proofreading, incidentally, is a token of the cultural entropy that has overtaken us in the postwar years.”)

In the instance of Paradigms Lost, the previously published discourses seemed to have been collected without any attempt at rewriting or copy editing; and when the volume went into paperback, it did so almost entirely without change (I spotted only one problem sentence-not quoted in my article—that was improved in the paperback issue). The criticism therefore had to be expressed. It makes me, according to Garner, a “tarnished carper.” The pun is clever. Some might say that the phrase is applicable to John Simon.

The same designation may fit Garner as well. His tone in part mimics the disdain of Simon’s; and besides the signs of tarnish already noted, Garner is guilty of what Simon considers, on pp. 44,172, and 186, to be an egregious solecism: using the indicative in place of the subjunctive (can, quoted above, for could). He also slips into a locution that Simon on pp. 40-41 derogates except for “informal usage”: can for may—in “But one… should not gloat… nor can one really use such lapses to discredit exemplary writers….” His punctuation, too, is careless in several places.

Most incriminating is the fact that Garner could at once be seeking a successor to Follett and be able to go through Simon’s volume even casually without noticing its—yes—“fla-grant or frequent” shortcomings. This may be further evidence that Garner reads too hurriedly. It may also point up the ultimate effect of declining standards: from the drop in conscientious workmanship and quality control that I spoke of comes a drop in readers’ perceptions of quality itself. Even literate readers have shrinking reserves of resistance to such undermining influence. Unless the current level of performance is raised, verbal precision will turn out to be a lost cause—in which event my husband’s joking comment on “When Paragons Nod” will have become accurate prediction: “We ain’t seen nodding yet.”

[Lillian Mermin Feinsilver, Easton, Pennsylvania]

BIBLIOGRAPHIA: Maine Lingo: Boiled Owls, Billdads, & Wazzats

John Gould, (Down East Magazine, 1975; Second printing, 1980), xiv + 342 pp.

John Gould explains on page 1 of his Maine Lingo, under the first entry—B, begin with—that superstitious seamen used to believe they could avoid dire mishaps by giving their vessels names that did not begin with A. So in this book the A entries come after the Bs. If you comprehend the logic of this, if you note that this “dictionary” deals not with language or speech but lingo, and if you recall that Gould’s other books are “fun books,” you have struck the right approach. His entries—many of them very amusing—are as miscellaneous as the words that go into them, and they are full of his own comments and quotations, with frequent illustrations from the speech of his fellow Mainiacs (q.v.): nothing (God forbid!) prescriptive in it.

The book exists, I suppose, to amuse dabblers in language and to educate Maine’s summer complaints or summercators— sometimes known as tourists—who are bewildered by its money cats, mitten money, and the scurryfunging or teakettling of a house (‘tidying up’). And the Obbligato at the end of the volumes may help tourists—if they’re patient—in spotting on their road maps some of the places they hear the natives mention. These placenames are listed (the As first, no doubt at some risk) under their rightful spelling, so it may take time to find Shar-l’t under Charlotte and Eel-a’-hut under Isle au Haut.

What’s included in the “dictionary”? God’s plenty. Mainers breed words, Mainers continue to use old words— sometimes preserving old dialect—and Mainers are quick to extend the meaning of words—to swamp out, for instance. In the old logging days, the workers swamped out to clear away trees and brush; now, when company is coming, a woman swamps out her parlor or front room, whatever she calls it. Some of the old words preserve the old pronunciation, like heist for hoist; or old-fashioned verb forms, perhaps never acceptable, like drug, sot for both set and sat, clim, het up. Several of Gould’s entries are succinct answers to questions that non-Yankees frequently ask. What’s the difference between a clambake and a shore dinner? Clambakes are picnics, usually on beaches, where clams and other delicacies are steamed or baked; at a shore dinner you will have the same foods but in a hotel dining room. He comes to grips with the repeated query about tomato in clam chowder. If it’s Maine clam chowder there will be no tomatoes; Manhattan clam chowder will contain tomatoes, perhaps other vegetables—and it may not even have clams in it. New Yorkers, says Gould, can’t tell a clam from a quahog. Then there’s downeast. Anyone who looks at a map might wonder why a person who goes from Boston to Portland is going downeast. The term, he explains, goes back to the old sailing days when windjammers sailed out of Boston for Maine and the Maritimes. Sailors took advantage of prevailing westerlies, sailing down wind. Then when people no longer depended on the winds, they still sailed down, now downeast for some reason.

Are all the words Maine words? It depends on what you mean by Maine words. All the words and expressions certainly are or have been used in Maine. Some of them are of Maine origin and have never had occasion to escape to other parts of the country—sannup, let’s say, from Abnaki Indian, “loosely used throughout Maine for a boy-child and usually a mischievous one,” coodle, ‘a small cove or backwater.’ Consider these entries, all from the Gs: gaffle (several men gaffle into something heavy and lift it together), goose greens, grinding sheep, gundalow, gunkhole, gurnet, gurry and gurrybutt, guzzle hole. Most of us live our whole lives without encountering a single one.

Many words and expressions infrequently heard in other parts of the country are Yankee, perhaps eastern, but not unique to Maine. I recognize many Maine Lingo words that I never hear in the Middle West as words current when I was growing up in central Massachusetts about the time of WWI, for instance: dropped eggs (on toast, of course), wizzled up (old ladies and old apples), nicely and poorly as in “Well, how are you?” “Nicely now but I was poorly all winter.” I would still reply “No, I never” if anyone asked me, “Did you ever?”

There are too a good many words and expressions that turn up farther away than New England. I suspect that catch it ‘get scolded,’ connections ‘near-relatives,’ old duffers, and gin-gerbread (on houses) are general terms now, as is dead used as an adverb in dead wrong and dead right—to mention only a few. I have seen fish or cut bait used as the caption of a political cartoon in a Wisconsin paper, and during the extra long snowy winter a few years ago there was much talk of cabin fever. With the publication in the near future of the Dictionary of American Regional English, edited by Professor Frederic G. Cassidy, it will be considerably easier to sort out these three categories.

I mistrust (to use one of Gould’s words I have been familiar with all my life) that I am not the only reader to object to some of his attempts at representing Maine pronunciation. Not that anyone would expect IPA in Maine Lingo—even big dead-serious American dictionaries eschew that. There are a few idiosyncrasies in New England pronunciation that a person must face up to if he tries to record them with letters of the alphabet. There are the so-called “broad a” heard sometimes in words like bath and last: the “r-less vowel” heard in both stressed and unstressed positions—park your car in the lumber yard would give you four examples; and what is sometimes referred to as the New England short o, falling between the o of go and the u of cut, which makes road sound like rod, or boat like bot, to name two. In the bath words Gould follows the usual practice of inserting an h-in bahstid (bastard) for instance. The r-less vowels do not fare so well: he does not use any special spelling to represent this vowel in a stressed position. The r itself is not pronounced by Mainers—it indicates that the preceding vowel is “broad.” He does tell us that palm is pronounced PARM in Maine; and he says balm and barm are pronounced alike. YES-MARM is his spelling of yes-ma’am, probably to indicate that it is not YES-MA’M. In unstressed syllables he handles the vowel in two ways: he uses UH in such words as POW-DUH and HAH-BUH (harbor) to represent almost a secondary stress in such words; and he uses the apostrophe in words like BAR’L (barrel) and KARM’L (Carmel, a town near Bangor) where the vowel is almost nonexistent. An apostrophe sometimes serves other functions: in PA’TRIDGE (partridge) it is used in a stressed syllable to show, I would guess, that this r- less vowel has the a sound in cat, for I have heard both partridge and cartridge so pronounced in central Massachusetts.

Sometimes the author neglects to indicate where the stress falls, in PEE-KID, for instance. Usually a reader’s educated guess will be right, but it is asking a good deal of a “foreigner” to give him such a thing as ESK-UH-HORS (Aziscoos), with no indication. Most annoying of all is his frequent use of two letters where only one is needed: POLE-LOCK for Polack, FAYYET for Fayette, PLERM-MO for Palermo.

Once in a while, in explaining pronunciation or the origin of words, Gould waxes a bit romantic for scholarly tastes. For instance, he explains that doze is a kind of interior wood rot, an infection which causes disintegration only when the wood is burned. “Likely,” he suggests, “this use of doze derives from a person’s dropping off for a nap, because the wood seems palpably to go to sleep.” And in discussing the New England short o, he says that some (is he among them?) fancy that “o-at” words have a “mannerism…lingering from very old Anglo-Saxon, when there was almost a two-syllable tingle to go-at, bo-at, co-at, etc.” A likely story! But far from romantic is his unconvincing explanation of tomally ‘the liver of a lobster.’ This term, Gould claims, originated in Maine. Webster 3 says it is “of Cariban origin akin to Galibi tumali sauce of lobster and crab livers.” With all due respect to the Mainiacs, I find Webster more convincing.

It is a good book and an attractive one. There are margins, plenty of space for one’s own observations and criticisms. Typographical ornaments give it a dressed-up look. Several sections of pictures, chiefly photographs, easily take a reader back into a Maine of the years between the Civil War and the early 1920s: pictures of all sorts of horsedrawn vehicles— buggies, a watercart, a circus wagon, a fire engine, a snow roller, a stagecoach, a trolley; of workers engaged in hauling granite, hauling lumber, cutting ice, lobstering, clamming; sailing vessels of many types. One more recent close-up says Maine as clearly as the old photographs do. One elderly woman, at what may well be a town meeting, is saying to another sotto voce as she covers her mouth with something that may well be an agenda, “Who you doctorin’ with this winter?”

God’s plenty it is.

[Margaret Waterman, Associate Editor Emeritus, DARE]

EPISTOLA {Library Staff Member}

Mr. Garner [VIII, 3] should check up on his Thaises—the second one is supposed to have lived in the 4th century A.D. (not the 1st century B.C., when it might have seemed strange to have become a nun on any account). She was converted by Saint Paphnutius (some say Bessarian and, in Massenet’s opera, Athanasius).

[Library Staff Member, Smith College]

EPISTOLA {Madeleine Macanlay}

Harry Zoshak [VII,3] seeks the name of the author of the pun, “Is life worth living? That depends on the liver.” While thumbing through the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Second Edition, 1953, I noted the following [p.403:25]: “ ‘Is life worth living? …’ he suspects it is, in a great measure, a question of the liver, from Punch, Vol. lxxiv, p. 210, 1878.”

[Madeleine Macanlay, White Rock, B.C.]

OBITER DICTA: The Misplaced Stop

John Levitt, University of Keele, Staffordshire

It was interesting to read Herman Doh’s account of the use of misplaced stops for comic effect in Udall and Shakespeare [IX, 1], but readers should be warned that these are far from being the earliest uses of this device in English literature. There are three short satirical poems reprinted in R.H. Robbins’s edition of Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (Oxford, England, 2nd edition 1954) which probably date from a good century before the examples from Elizabethan drama. They occur in two Cambridge University Mss. The most effective of them, No. 111 in Robbins, is

Nowe the lawe is ledde by clere conscience.
fful seld. Couetise hath dominacioun.
In Euery place. Right hath residence.
Neyther in towne ne feld. Similacion.
Ther is truly in euery cas. Consolacioun.
The pore peple no tyme hase. but right.
Men may fynd day ne night. Adulacioun.
Nowe reigneth treuth in euery mannys sight.

The trick, of course, is to read the poem with the mid-line stop taken as the real point of the line division in each case. “Right hath residence neither in town nor countryside,” etc. The few words which might give a modern reader a little trouble are: seld, ‘seldom’; couetise, ‘covetousness’; similacion, ‘dissimulation.’ The last sentence should be read “Adulation now reigns as truth in every man’s sight.” This particular poem was quite popular, being found scribbled on the fly-leaves of no fewer than four manuscripts.

EPISTOLA {Peter A. Douglas}

I was intrigued by the idea suggested by Mary Patterson of Toronto [IX, 2] that the increasing popularity of digital clocks and watches might push into disuse such terms as clockwise and anti/counterclockwise. While some traditionalists will always have clockwork watches and many public clocks will always be of the conventional type and thus preserve the visible meaning of the words, it is nevertheless interesting to consider possible replacements. In speculating on this I wandered along some fascinating linguistic byways.

Obviously just right and left will not do since they convey no sense of circular movement. Realistically, that alternatives will ever be needed is highly doubtful, but a perusal of a few dictionaries showed me that there are far more candidates than I ever suspected. The most appealing is sunwise or sunways ‘moving in the direction of the sun,’ which is clockwise at least in the northern hemisphere (when facing south), and does suggest circular movement. It is likely to lead to confusion, though, since neither of these words would mean the same in Australia as in England. Most of the words I unearthed belong to the province of science and do not have the simple unpretentiousness of clockwise or, in fact, the same specific meaning. Some are not true or synonymous candidates because their strict meaning includes a spiral motion. Dextrose and dextrorsal are botanical words referring to climbing plants which twine upwards in a spiral from left to right. Other plants twining spirally around an axis from right to left are called sinistrorse or sinistrorsal. The Latin dexter ‘on the right’ and sinister ‘on the left’ feature frequently in these terms. Here they are combined with vorsus, a variant of versus from vertere ‘to turn.’

From the world of the marine biologist comes dextral, referring to gastropod shells that have the spire or whorl ascending from left to right as viewed by the observer. Its opposite in the field of conchology is sinistral. Also applying to shellfish are dexiotropic and laeotropic, where the shell’s spire turns to the right and left, respectively. These two terms refer, I gather, to the right and left side of the creature, not the observer, as is the case with dextral and sinistral, says the OED, quoting from the 1883 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sounds like an additional complication to me.

As if that were not enough to ensure the longevity of refreshingly ordinary words like clockwise, further along the avenues of science we come across the adjectives dextrorotatory or dextrorotatary, dextrogyrous, dextrogyrate and dextrogyre. All refer, somewhat exorbitantly, to a clockwise rotation chiefly in connection with certain substances whose properties cause the plane of a ray of polarized light to rotate in a clockwise direction. (Hence dextrose ‘the dextrorotatory isomer of glucose.’ Rotation in the opposite direction is known to the initiated as laevorotatory or laevogyrate, from the Latin laevus meaning ‘left.’ From this we get levulose ‘the fruit sugar with a laevorotatory effect on polarized light.’

It is evidently far from likely that any of these words will ever trespass into everyday writing, let alone speech, as they are cumbersome and obscure in their classical unfamiliarity and lack the homey straightforwardness of clockwise and anticlock-wise. Even those unacquainted with old-fashioned clockwork timepieces would be more comfortable with clockwise than any of these arcane technical terms. The everyday words we now use are, moreover, more useful since they may be employed both adjectivally (a clockwise turn) and adverbially (he turned clockwise) without any change to the word. The long Latinate adjectives require further lengthening with the adverbial suffix, and who would ever use dextrogyrately or sinistrorsally?

In passing it may be of interest to note that other languages tackle the matter in various ways and somewhat uncomfortably too. For clockwise my French dictionary has “dans le sens des aiguilles d’une montre,” the inadequate “à droite” and the rare “dextrorsum” (=Latin ‘turned towards the right’). Spanish also prefers to define clockwise rather than provide an equivalent word: “en el sentido de las agujas del reloj.” Italian is more concise with destrorso, while the German is more akin to English: im Uhrzeigensinn ‘in clock-handssense.’

Like many words, clockwise, to me, has a meaning in itself which is not inseparable from the progressively more extraneous image of the hands and face of a clock. This is another reason such words will outlive the object which they are initially associated with: their meaning transcends that of their components. When I use clockwise I give no more thought to a clock than I do to honey when I use honeymoon (or to moon, for that matter), or to a pig when I write pig-iron. I think that clockwise has reached—or will eventually reach-that stage. Some other words where the components are so separated that they are really remote from the word as a whole are window “wind-eye,” daisy “day’s eye,” scapegoat, gossamer “goosesummer,” handicap “hand-in-cap,” bonfire “bone-fire,” halibut “holy butt” or flatfish, etc. Centuries of use have blurred the words’ elements as well as awareness of the original elements of their composition.

Technical changes are always likely to take us further from familiar objects which gave rise to words and expressions, but if the words and expressions are useful, essential, picturesque or more convenient than other expressions, then they are likely to survive.

[Peter A. Douglas, Albany, New York]

Light Refractions

Thomas H. Middleton

“It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,” said Edgar Guest. No more. Today, it just takes an advertising copy writer of moderate intelligence. You never see advertisements for luxurious houses. What you see advertised are “luxury homes.” Out here in Southern California, where, as someone once said, you have to brush aside all the fake tinsel to get to the real honest-to-God tinsel that underlies it, a developer creates an enormous, oddly shaped, serpentine ditch that meanders over a few hundred acres, fills it with water, and calls it a lake. He has designed his lake to have a long and tortuous shoreline that twists and turns all over the acreage so that he can build as many “waterfront homes” as possible. Then he crowds that shoreline with a hundred or so houses, installs identical stoves, washing machines, and refrigerators in all of them, and instantly, with a stroke of a copy writer’s pen, they are homes. Forget that heap o’ livin’.

You can’t blame the copy writer. He was just doing what we all do—using the warmest-sounding word to make something appear most attractive. This is a ploy related to euphemism, the use of a more pleasant-sounding term for an unpleasant fact, such as “pass away” or “pass on” for die or “disadvantaged person” for pauper or “slow learner” for knucklehead.

“Home” for “house” can’t really be classed as a euphemism, as there is nothing necessarily unpleasant or offensive about a house; but the use of “home” for a newly erected building is a step in the same general direction as euphemism. A house really isn’t a home until someone lives in it. To that extent, at least, Edgar Guest was right.

Cars have been subjected to the same sort of treatment in advertising recently. It used to be that automobiles were advertised as automobiles, autos, or cars. Then some huckster-wizards got fancy-schmancy, and not many years ago, we were addressed on television by a very ritzy-looking English doll who looked like the type who gets strings of diamonds and emeralds in her Crackerjack box and who purred over Lincoln Continentals. She never referred to the Continentals as “automobiles” or “autos” or simply “cars.” They were “motorcars.” The way she said “motorcars” made these machines sound very high-class, indeed. I suppose Continentals are, in fact, pretty high-class. They’re way the hell out of my reach, anyway. This veddy-veddy U-looking blonde with her veddy-veddy U-sounding “motorcars” simply reeked of riches and crushing hauteur. I didn’t for a second question “motorcar” as a perfectly legitimate word for “car,” but she’s the only person I’ve ever heard actually refer to an automobile as a motorcar. Some may think that “motorcar” is common in England, but I’ve never heard it over there. Maybe it’s used mostly by filthy-rich blonde beauties. The only filthy-rich Brits I know are a couple who customarily barrel around London in a Land Rover—one of those oversized Jeep-spinoffs you see in the movies jouncing over the Serengeti, terrorizing the giraffes and zebras. My friends do a pretty fair job of terrorizing their own local citizenry, and it has crossed my mind that if the British version of the Jacquerie ever takes charge, my friends’ heads will have every right to be among the first to roll. But they would never call their juggernaut a motorcar.

The term I actually object to for a car, though, isn’t motorcar; it is one the Chrysler Corporation and the BMW folks share a liking for—or did until quite recently. Their term-of-choice for a car was driving machine. BMW last year ran ads for “the ultimate driving machine.”

It seems to me that a driving machine should be a machine that drives something, just as a sewing machine is a machine that sews. But a “driving machine” doesn’t drive a damned thing (unless you own an only slightly mitigated lemon like my Dodge Omni, in which case your car has by now driven you ‘round the bend, making it a true driving machine). There is something disturbing about calling a car a driving machine, though. The implication is that the primary purpose of a car is to be driven. I suppose there are some people who buy cars just so that they can drive them. These guys—I say “guys” because I think women are generally brighter and more practical about this sort of thing—are apt to buy things like driving gloves for driving their driving machines.

For most of us, the purpose of a car is to transport ourselves and our families and friends from one place to another, and our concerns are mundane, like how many adults, children, and dogs will fit into the damned things, how much luggage they’ll take, how many skis and bicycles we can lash to the outside, and how many miles they’ll get to the gallon. These concerns are not germane if what you have is a driving machine.

We’re all familiar with the obscenely euphemistic style of nomenclature developed by the Pentagon—stuff like “delivery systems” to designate not United Parcel and Railway Express, but incredibly sophisticated means of inflicting mass destruction. During my own illustrious military career, while World War II was taking place elsewhere, I encountered a piece of military hardware called the M1 Space Heater. There were instructions on the bulletin board of our barracks in Freeman Field, at Seymour, Indiana—instructions titled “How to Fire the M1 Space Heater.” I had no idea what an M1 Space Heater was. It sounded pretty Buck Rogers-y to me. I was shortly disabused of this notion. The instructions said “1. Place some wadded newspaper in the bottom of the space heater. 2. Put some wood scraps on the paper to serve as kindling. 3. Light the paper, using a match or cigarette lighter. 4. When the kindling has caught fire and is burning steadily, place lumps of coal in the space heater. 5. Close the door of the space heater and adjust the damper for proper burning of the fuel. 6. Add coal as needed.” The barracks were heated by a row of four coal-burning pot-bellied stoves running down the center of the floor. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to call a pot-bellied stove a space heater, but of course, that’s what it is.

Personally, I’d have been tempted to call it a G.I.-warmer, but there were more effective flesh-and-blood G.I.-warmers in town, some in houses, and a gratifyingly goodly number in their cozy homes.

You Said a Mouthful

Richard Lederer, Concord, New Hampshire

In an earlier VERBATIM [IX, 2] I exposed the hidden herds of animals, flocks of birds, swarms of insects, and universities of fish that metaphorically gallop, fly, creep, and swim through our English language.

Now it is time to nibble on another spicy, meaty, juicy topic—the veritable banquet of mushrooming food metaphors that grace the table of our language and season our tongue. As we chew the fat about the food-filled expressions that are packed like sardines and sandwiched into our everyday conversation, you’ll have a meal ticket to a cornucopia of food for thought.

I know. I have heard through the grapevine that you don’t give a fig because you think that I’m out to lunch and nutty as a fruitcake; that you’re giving me the raspberry for asking you to swallow a corny, mushy, soupy, cheesy, seedy, syrupy, sugarcoated, saccharine topic that just isn’t your cup of tea; that you’re beet red with anger at the idea of a pot-boiler that’s no more than a tempest in a teapot; and that you’re simmering because I’m out to cook your goose and egg you on by rehashing an old chestnut that’s just pie in the sky and won’t amount to a hill of beans.

But nuts to all that. You may think that my gastronomic metaphors are garbage, tripe, and a lot of baloney, but I plan to bring home the bacon without hamming it up. This fruitful topic is no lemon; it’s a plum.

Rather than crying over spilt milk, I’m going to put all my eggs in one basket because I’m cool as a cucumber and confident that you’ll relish this crackerjack, peachy-keen feast that I’ve cooked up. I don’t wish to become embroiled in a rhubarb, but your beefing and stewing sound like sour grapes to me. In fact, if you’ve digested the spoonfed culinary metaphors up to this course in my meat-and-potatoes article, the rest will be gravy—duck soup, a piece of cake, and easy as pie: just like taking candy from a baby.

Just think of the people whom we meet every day. Some have taste; others we take with a grain of salt; and still others drive us bananas:

the young sprouts and broths of lads who feel their oats and are full of beans;

the crusty oldsters who are wrinkled as prunes and no longer in their salad days;

the peppery smart cookies (no mere eggheads, they) who use their beans and noodles to cut the mustard;

the half-baked, pudding-headed vegetables, meatheads who drive us nuts with their slow-as-molasses pea brains, who gum up the works, and who are always in a pickle, a jam, hot water, or the soup;

the unsavory, crummy, hard-boiled, ham-fisted types, with their cauliflower ears, who can cream us, beat the stuffing out of us, make us into mince meat and hamburger, and knock us flatter than a pancake;

the mealy-mouthed marshmallows and cream puffs whose knees turn to jelly as they gingerly waffle on every issue to see which side their bread is buttered on;

the carrot-topped, pizza-faced string beans and bean poles who, with their lumpy Adam’s apples, are long drinks of water;

the top bananas, big cheeses, and big bread-winners who ride the gravy train by making a lot of lettuce and dough and who never work for peanuts or small potatoes;

the honeys, tomatoes, dumplings, cheesecakes, and sweety pies with their peaches-and-cream complexions, strawberry blonde hair, almond eyes, and cherry lips;

the saucy tarts who wiggle their melons and buns and fritter away their time buttering up and milking their sugar daddies dry;

the salt-of-the-earth good eggs who become the apples of our eye and make life a bowl of cherries.

Hot dog! I hope you’re pleased as punch that this souped-up topic is the berries, not the pits. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this cream of the crop of palate-pleasing food figures is bound to get its just desserts and sell like hotcakes. And if I’m wrong, I’ll eat crow and humble pie.

In a nutshell, you now can see how often we truly eat our words.

Crossword Puzzle

Across

1. I’d bear it badly, getting such angry criticism. (8)
5. Head light? (6)
9. Astronauts view this place with mixed emotions. (4,4)
10. Fighter running back to meet the barbarian is anxiously nervous. (4,2)
11. Mental blocs. (15)
13. A thing impelled to be reborn. (8)
14. Fellow who may err so, yet go back in and make it all right. (5)
15. Honey gets her degree, and she’s a peach! (5)
17. Automobile in smart reverse among other vehicles. (8)
20. Strange treat is no dish for the Home Office. (7,8)
21. Finds out the mad king is facing two different poles. (6)
22. If I sign it I only will see power to use the car. (8)
23. So you can’t have a rose garden. How about a string of beads? (6)
24. The little woman joins other little women, and that’s it. (8)

Down

1. A fool for dark humor. (6)
2. Pelota’s champion has a religious bent. (7)
3. Steal fresh steaks for the chuckwagon? (6,2,1,6)
4. Putting a modest sum on a nag, I gave it to a bent gent. (7,1,3)
6. Chess moves to offset the attack. (15)
7. Gin is for the gangbuster’s constant complaints. (7)
8. Former sham now tells all. (7)
12. Reading rendered in a poor tone is not exactly this charming for the audience. (9,2)
15. It could be all wool and a yard wide when you buy it for the jalopy. (7)
16. Lines thrown for a lot of bull. (7)
18. Nastier tot of liquor, and the Greeks have a word for it…(7)
19. …but if you really want to get a bag on, it’s better than Brand X!

SIC! SIC! SIC!

“I am sure the leaders in the Kremlin are enjoying to the hilt the aura of low esteem in which teachers in the United States are held.” [From “The teacher has a quick quiz for you,” by Susan Schan, in the Kalamazoo Gazette, 3 October 1982. Submitted by Michael B. Huston, Kalamazoo, Michigan.]

SIC! SIC! SIC!

300 platers at British Shipbuilders’ Scott Lithgow yards on the Clyde walked out last week after one shop steward was dismissed and another was suspended for allegedly doing The Financial Times crossword during working hours.” [From The Times, 29 September 1982. They had to send them down to get the point across.]

Crossword Puzzle Answers

Across

1. Hav-‘er-sack
6. PHASE (SHAPE)
9. WATER POLO (R-A WET POOL)
10. Armor
11. T-ale-NT
12. F-ire-ARMS
14. EVIL KARMA (A VILE MARK)
16. e-X-its (Crossties)
19. Sense
20. Belittled
21. M-edit-ATE
23. Pen(n)-on
26. ME-dia
27. Kama Sutra
28. Cheek
29. Stride-NCY.

Down

1. HOWITZERS (SIZE WORTH)
2. VITAL SIGN (VIGILANT’S)
3. Rerun
4. AWOL
5. (K)NO-WIT-all-S
6. PLA-cement
7. AI-me-R
8. Earns (urns)
13. Grub-stakes
15. Keep track
17. I-sling-ton
18. S-Eden-TARY
21. Mimi-c
22. Dodge
24. Eased (teased)
25. O-mar.

Internet Archive copy of this issue

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1. A Guide to Understanding and Speaking Rhode Island English© copyright by The National Endowment of the Humanities and by Yankee Magazine. ↩︎

2. The glaring exception to this occurs when Rule 3 applies. If a plural ending must be used, but the r glide would apply if the word were being said in the singular, then it is stuck before the plural—as in ‘His idears ah good,’ or ‘Those umbrellers ah handy’ … This does not happen with words that are spelled with r as the final sound. No true RhoDislan speaka would eva say ‘fahmers,’ for instance—only ‘fahmas.’ ” ↩︎