Note: These appear as a regular column in the Denver publication Community News.
In ordinary use, this word means false, spurious, or doubtful,
especially
when
referring
to
stories
about
the
past
that almost
certainly never happened - for example, George Washington chopping down
the cherry tree and then refusing to lie about it to his father. It
comes from a Greek word meaning something that is hidden away.
Originally, around 500 years ago, it referred to books of magic or
other special, supposedly sacred knowledge that was to be kept hidden
away from ordinary people. During the 16th century, European scholars
were trying to decide which books belonged in the Bible - i.e., were to
be considered canon - and which ones didn't. A lot of very
strange books were proposed and rejected, especially books filled with
magical stories - apocryphal books. During this process, apocryphal
took on its modern meaning. The word also has a non-negative meaning,
however. Certain books were felt to be religiously important but not
truly canonical; collectively, these were called the Apocrypha.
(Precisely what books those are has varied over time and varies from
one religious group to another.)
Appeared in the July 2008 Community News
When people are at loggerheads, they are in conflict and unable to
agree. The origin of the phrase is apparently unclear. In 16th-century
England, a loggerhead was a heavy block of wood to which horses were
tethered to keep them from wandering away. In those days, loggerhead
also meant a stupid person, a blockhead. In the next century, a certain
kind of heavy iron tool was also called a loggerhead. The assumption is
that people who were in conflict were said to be at loggerheads because
the conflict makes one think of fighting with such dangerous items. The
original meaning of loggerhead survives in the name of the loggerhead
turtle, which is named that because of its unusually large head.
Appeared in the April 2010
Community News
Something that indicates a trend or leads the way. For example, in
an election, people pay attention to certain states that they feel
indicate how the country as a whole will go. Those states are bellwethers
for the election. You'll sometimes see this word misspelled bellweather.
Perhaps
some
people
think
that
it has to do with a bell that warns of
bad weather. Nope. In old English usage, a castrated ram was called a
wether. English farmers would put a bell around the neck of a wether
and let it lead a flock of sheep. That way, a farmer could find his
sheep by following the sound of the bell on the neck of the bellwether.
I suppose no farmer is his right mind would try to put a bell around
the neck of an uncastrated ram.
Appeared in the June 2009
Community News
A type of restaurant, typically small and with a fairly simple menu and
reasonable prices. My Russian teacher in college told us that the word
comes from the Russian word bistro, meaning quickly,
because Russian soldiers occupying Paris after the defeat of Napoleon
used to yell that at the French waiters, who weren't as easily
intimidated as Russian serfs. Bistros evolved to serve the Russians but
then became popular with the French, who decided that this Russian idea
of fast service and low prices wasn't such a bad one, after all. I've
since read that linguists dispute this origin of the word, but it does
make a nifty story.
Appeared in the April 2007 Community News
An adjective describing platitudes, trite sayings, clichés. A person who constantly utters such stuff can also be called bromidic. This describes a lot of politicians and speakers at graduations. In the great musical "South Pacific," Nellie Forbush describes herself as bromidic - boring, ordinary, and "a cliché coming true." The adjective bromidic comes from the noun bromide, which refers to such platitudes and clichés. A person who tends to utter bromides can also be called a bromide. In turn, bromide comes from chemistry. Yes, chemistry! Not because chemistry is a cliche, but because a bromide is a compound of the element bromine and some other element, and 100 years ago, certain bromides, in particular potassium bromide, also called bromide of potassium, were commonly used as sedatives. Hence bromide came to mean something that puts you to sleep - like the typical graduation speech. Interestingly, the element bromine, where all of this started, has a very pungent smell, and the name bromine comes from a Greek word that refers to the stench of billy goats, which is not something that any of us would consider bromidic.
The Scrabble word score of bromidic is 15.
Appeared in the October 2010 Community News
A reader asked me to define
these two words and explain how to use them. They're closely related
words, very similarly spelled and pronounced, so it's easy to see why
people get them confused. Affect is the verb, the action word.
"The tragic story affected him deeply." Effect is the result.
It's the noun, the thing. "The tragic story had a powerful effect on
him." Perhaps it would help to think of the word effective.
Something is effective if it has an effect. Unfortunately, and to make
things more confusing, there are a couple of cases where the situation
is reversed. Effect does have one use as a verb: to bring
something about, to cause something to happen. "The prisoner effected
his escape by jumping from the police car." And affect has one
use as a noun, meaning one's mental state. Fortunately, both of these
uses are rare in ordinary English. Affect can also be used as a
verb in the sense of "pretend": "He affected an air of cynicism." I
think that use is rather old fashioned, though. I hope the effect of
all of this is to leave you less confused, rather than more.
Appeared in the July 2010
Community News
This is commonly misused to mean "really, really big." "He was amazed
by the enormity of the mountains." That is incorrect. Enormity
does come from the same Latin root as enormous, but the two
words drifted apart long ago. Enormity came to mean something
extraordinarily evil or immoral or shocking. So you can speak of the
enormity of a crime (meaning its awfulness, not its magnitude). Or you
could refer to a major social transgression, such as behaving very
badly at a very formal event, as a social enormity, although that
meaning is somewhat old fashioned. If you simply want to say that
something is really, really big, then talk about its hugeness or its
immensity or its enormousness, but not its enormity.
Appeared in the July 2007 Community News
Earthquakes don't happen at the surface of the Earth. They originate
inside the Earth, often at very great depths, for instance where two of
the immense slabs of rock called tectonic plates suddenly slide against
each other, or one slips a bit further under another. The place on the
Earth's surface directly above the deep point where an earthquake
originates is called its epicenter, from the Greek word epi,
which means upon. It's not necessarily the point on the surface
where the effects of the earthquake are most strongly felt; it's just
the point vertically above the real center of the quake. You'll often
hear epicenter misused to mean a more intense sort of center.
Years ago, I heard a preacher refer to Boulder as the epicenter of
various kinds of behavior he disapproved of. That would have been
clever if he'd been implying that the behavior was demonic and its real
center was somewhere inside the Earth, but I'm sure he was just
misusing the word and trying to impress upon us that Boulder was, like,
you know, really, really the center of that bad stuff, man.
Appeared in the October 2008 Community News
An eponymous person is the person something is named after. For
example, Hamlet is the eponymous protagonist of Shakespeare's play of
the same name. Queen Victoria is the eponymous monarch who reigned
during the Victorian age. Andrew Jackson is the eponymous American
president whose political philosophy is known as Jacksonian Democracy.
The practice of using a famous name to refer to something is ancient,
but the word eponymous only dates to the middle of the 19th
century. What's curious is that in recent times, the word has begun to
be used to refer to the thing being named, instead of to the person. If
opera singer John Hugevoice puts out a CD named John Hugevoice, you
might hear the CD referred to as eponymous. But that's hugely
wrong. It's the man who's eponymous, not the CD.
Appeared in the September 2008 Community News
An action is feckless if it is ineffective or worthless. An
incompetent person could also be called feckless. It’s an old word in
some Scottish and English dialects, and it comes from the word feck,
which
is
a
variant
of
the
English
word
effect. So something is
feckless if it has no effect. Those dialects also had the word feckful,
which
is
the
opposite
of
feckless, but feckful never
caught on in mainstream English.
Appeared in the January 2008 Community News
Etymology is the history of the evolution of words over time.
Look up a word in a dictionary, and, in addition to its definition,
you'll find a brief version of its etymology - how it changed from a
Latin or French or German or other word into the English word we now
use. Folk etymology is a popular but mistaken idea about a
word's etymology. It often seems to make sense - for example, the
origin I gave for bistro a couple of months ago. Or it may be
amusing - for example, the story that the sirloin steak got that name
when an English king was so delighted with his steak that he knighted
it, saying, "I dub thee Sir Loin." (Actually, sirloin comes
from the French "sur," above, and "longe," loin, and used to be spelled
surloin in English.) In some cases, the folk etymology catches
on and the spelling or meaning of a word changes as a result. An
example is shamefaced, which didn't start out referring to
shame in one's face but rather as shamefast or shamfast,
meaning
"held
fast
in
shame."
Which
is
sort
of how I feel about that bistro
definition.
Appeared in the May 2007 Community News
Those of us who are old enough remember when frock was used to
refer to a woman's dress. It's a much older word than that, going back
at least to the 14th century. In those days, it could mean any item of
clothing, for men or women, that was long, loose, and had full sleeves.
Over the centuries, frock was applied to various types of
clothing, from women's dresses to men's frock coats to various items of
sailor's clothing. The clothing worn by a priest was called a frock. If
a priest was thrown out of the priesthood, he had to give up his
priestly clothes, and he was said to have been defrocked.
Because the robes worn by judges are commonly believed to have evolved
from the clothing of priests, a judge who is expelled from the bench is
also said to be defrocked.
Appeared in the February 2008 Community News
Nowadays, this generally refers to a person who doesn't do his part, a
loafer, someone who shirks his work. In earlier days, especially during
the World Wars, it usually referred to a soldier who didn't do his part
of the work. It can also refer to an investment that looks good but
turns out to be worthless. Supposedly, the word originated in late
19th-century America, when people were fooled into buying bricks of
gold that were only gold on the outside. In World War One, new recruits
were sometimes promoted to lieutenant before they knew what they were
doing, earning the scorn of their men and being called goldbricks
because of the color and shape of their insignia. From there, the term
became general, first for lazy soldiers and then for lazy civilians.
Personally, I think this story smacks of folk etymology and we'd know
the real origin of this word if the etymologists would just stop
goldbricking.
Appeared in the August 2008 Community News
Unfortunate, luckless, unlucky. It comes from an old
word, hap, which originally meant luck or chance and then later
came to mean good luck. We don't use hapless in modern English,
but we do use other words that come from the same root. For example, happen
was originally happenen and it meant "occur by hap." If you're happy,
you
possess
hap, good fortune. Haphazard, meaning
irregular or disordered, comes from combining hap with hazard,
which
was
a
game
of
played
with dice.
Appeared in the
February 2010 Community News
Chickens are nasty creatures. It's no wonder we consider them food
instead of pets. They peck at each other, and I'm not talking about a
love peck. Under some conditions, such as overcrowding, they may even
peck each other to death. If one chicken is injured, the others may
peck it to death. Under more normal conditions, they have a social
hierarchy, called a pecking order, in which the top chicken pecks any
other chicken it wants to, and each chicken pecks the chickens below it
and is pecked by those above it. The ones at the bottom can be pecked
by any of the others but can never peck back. A husband with a nagging
wife can find himself at the bottom rung of his household pecking order
-- cowed, dominated, unable to peck back. He is said to be henpecked.
Appeared in the July 2007 Community News
The man in a marriage. Originally, the word had a rather different
meaning, which survives in specialized ways. It comes from the Old
Norse word husbondi meaning "master of a household." That word
had nothing to do with whether the man was married. When the Norsemen
settled in England, they often married local, Anglo-Saxon women. The
Anglo-Saxon word for a married woman, wif, continued to be used
for those women. That became our word wife. But because such
marriages were so common, the Anglo-Saxon term for a husband, wer,
was
gradually
replaced
by
the
Norse
husbondi, which became our
word husband. The master of a household took care of the land,
the animals, and all the other resources associated with his property -
good care, if he was a good husbondi. So farming was once
called "husbandry," and taking care of farm animals is still called
"animal husbandry." We also still speak of "husbanding resources" -
i.e., taking care to preserve them. In nautical usage, the person who
manages a ship's expenses and receipts is called the "ship's husband."
Appeared in the August 2009
Community News
An object implodes when it collapses inwards. For example, to
prevent damage to surrounding structures, buildings are sometimes
demolished by timed explosions that destroy their internal supports,
resulting in those spectacular implosions we all love to watch on
television. Physics teachers sometimes demonstrate the force of air
pressure by drawing the air out of a container (evacuating it) so that
the container collapses in upon itself - it implodes. This is obviously
the opposite of explode, in which something breaks apart and
the parts fly outwards. Unfortunately, implode is now often
used for any kind of collapse. People say that the Soviet Union
imploded, when in fact it fragmented - broke apart into a number of
separate countries, a common process when an empire dies. In this
election season, when a politician withdraws from the presidential
race, you'll hear that his campaign imploded, but of course it really
just fizzled out, a very different kind of catastrophe.
Appeared in the March 2008 Community News
Unavoidable, inevitable. This rare word tends to be
used to refer to major things, such as an ineluctable fate. A
related word of opposite meaning, even more rare, is eluctate,
meaning to struggle your way out from something. If you're taking an
English literature class in college, you might discover that the novel Ulysses
by James Joyce is ineluctable. In that book, the third chapter begins
with the sentence: "Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that
if no more, thought through my eyes." You might want to switch majors.
Appeared in the July 2009 Community
News
Something is inflammable if it tends to ignite at commonly encountered
temperatures. Other English words that come from the same Latin root
are inflammation, inflame, and inflammatory. At
one time, trucks hauling materials that could catch fire easily had
signs on them saying INFLAMMABLE. However, too many people apparently
thought that flammable means "easily set on fire" and that
those the loads on those truck were not easily set on fire. So
now such trucks have signs saying FLAMMABLE. That's not really a word
in English, but presumably, because of those signs, it soon will be,
and inflammable will disappear.
Appeared in the January 2007 Community News
When used to refer to an event, it means contrary to
what's expected, in a striking or poignant or tragic way. It derives
from a Greek word meaning "to lie" or "to be insincere." Here's an
example of irony: "The speaker, who was famous for his command of the
English language, clearly didn't know the difference between ironically
and coincidentally." People do often confuse those two words.
Here's an example of coincidence, with nothing ironic about it: "The
speaker had a third cousin named Hepzibah. So did the man who
introduced him." There's nothing about this coincidence that is
strikingly contrary to what you expect, so it's not ironic.
Appeared in the March 2010 Community
News
Generally used to mean an achievement of outstanding
quality and accomplishment. Frequently used to mean an artist's
greatest work, the capstone of his career. "This painting/book/musical
composition is his masterpiece!" Interestingly, the original meaning
was almost the opposite. In the Medieval European guild system, an
apprentice had to produce a work of proper professional quality - a
master piece - to prove that he was qualified to become a master. Thus
his masterpiece was merely the beginning of his true professional
career, and he would produce much better work later, as his experience
grew.
Appeared in the October 2008
Community News
Something is meretricious if it seems
attractive and flashy but really isn't. The attraction may be false or
it may be vulgar and showy. It can apply to people, to clothing, or to
television commercials, for example. It can even refer to showy,
misleading arguments, such as the ones we hear during political
campaigns (but only from the other party, of course). It's an insult
that sounds like a compliment, so you might be able to use it against
someone with a small vocabulary. It sounds like a compliment because it
sounds like the positive word merit, to which it is actually
closely related. The root is the Latin word meretrix, meaning a
prostitute, and that word comes from mereri, "to earn," which
is also the root of the word merit. Here's a surprising related
word. There was an earth-colored spice the Romans valued for its
medicinal value. They called it terra merita, meaning "earth of
merit." After passing through Medieval French and Old English and then
finally into modern English, that name had become distorted into
"turmeric" - a spice whose attractions are quite genuine and thus the
opposite of meretricious.
Appeared in the May 2009 Community
News
To bring something up for discussion. At one time, moot
could also refer to the discussion itself. This usage no longer
survives in ordinary English, but it's still used in law school, where
a moot court is a simulated court proceeding, part of the
training of law students. Originally, a moot question was one
that could be debated or was subject to argument. At some point in the
19th century, it came to mean a question that was no longer worth
discussing, or one that had no practical application outside the realm
of debate. The word traces back to 12th century England, when it
referred to a meeting of the freemen of a shire to discuss local
issues. In turn, it came from the even older word gemot, which
was a meeting of freemen assembled to discuss issues or impose justice.
Appeared in the December 2009
Community News
The act of giving a job or other preference to a relative because of
the relationship and not because of competence. For example, President
Kennedy was accused of nepotism when he appointed his brother Robert to
the post of Attorney General. The word comes from the Latin word for nephew.
In
the
Middle
Ages,
when the Pope had a son and wanted to give him some
kind of office in the Church, he would introduce the young man as his
nephew. Of course, he couldn't admit that the young man was actually
his son, but everyone knew that he really was. So the Pope's "nephew"
would get a nice job, thanks to nepotism. A related abuse is cronyism,
where
people
give
preference
to their friends. That word probably comes
from the 18th Century English criminal underworld, where partners in
crime were referred to as a man's cronies.
Appeared in the September 2009
Community News
A nicety is a small, important detail that can make a large difference.
The word is commonly misused to mean an appealing characteristic, but
in fact a nicety may not be nice in that sense. For example, knowing
which knife and fork to use for which food at a formal banquet is one
of the niceties of formal etiquette, but most of us would agree that
such rules are silly, not nice. The confusion arises because the word nice,
on
which
nicety is based, has changed meaning over time. The
Latin word it comes from meant foolish or silly, but in English, in
different centuries nice has meant timid, then dainty, then
precise, then pleasant. Some of the older meanings survive. A subtle
difference between two things is still called a nice distinction.
Appeared in the October 2007 Community News
Or nit-picking, or nit picking, or picking nits.
Nits are lice eggs. In the old days, people used to get rid of lice
infestations on their kids' heads by shaving off all the hair and then
picking off the nits, so that there wouldn't be another generation of
lice. (The parents had to pick the nits off because lice use their
saliva to glue their eggs to your scalp. Lice don't find that
disgusting.) So nitpicking is looking for tiny details.
Appeared in the March 2007 Community News
At a loss for words. Also used in a more general way
to mean bewildered. From the Latin non plus, no more,
no further. That's simple enough. The word has been in use since the
late 1500s. What's really odd is that, starting about ten years ago, it
acquired the meaning "unimpressed" or "unmoved." No one knows how this
happened. Perhaps people thought that it meant that someone was "not
plussed." But there is no word "plussed" in English. This strange, new
trend leaves me bemused - perplexed, lost in thought. "Bemused" has
been around for 300 years. What strange, new meaning will it suddenly
acquire?
Appeared in the November 2009
Community News
When you repeat something you read or heard,
preserving the meaning but using your own words instead of the original
words, that is a paraphrase. People often say that they are
quoting something when they are actually paraphrasing it. A quotation
must use the original words without change. For example, suppose
someone says, "To quote the Declaration of Independence, all
people are created equal." That is a paraphrase, not a quotation. If
you want to quote the Declaration, you must say, "To quote the
Declaration of Independence, all men are created equal."
Appeared in the March 2009 Community
News
This can refer specifically to an inheritance, such as what's left to
you in a will, or more generally to your heritage, such as the customs
and laws handed down to you from previous generations. It derives from
the Latin word pater, father, and originally meant what you inherited
from your father. Thanks to the Romans, a lot of our words derive from
pater. Some are obvious, such as paternal and patriarch. A less obvious
one is patriot. The Romans referred to a man's country as his patria,
his fatherland. Thus, a patriot is one who is devoted to his
fatherland.
Appeared in the August 2007 Community News
A journey, especially a journey on foot to a foreign
country. The root is a Latin word that means foreigner. The
word pilgrim comes from the same root. Peregrination is
not a word you run into normally in modern English, but we do still
speak of a peregrine falcon, which is called that because at one time
it was standard practice to capture those birds on their first flight,
or pilgrimage, from their nest.
Appeared in the January 2010
Community News
In modern usage, this almost always means a person
who controls the flight of an airplane. We also use it as a verb: To
pilot a plane. The word first appeared in English in the early 1500s,
and originally it referred to the person who controls the direction of
a ship. In the 1800s, it came to mean the person who controls a
balloon. It didn't take on the airplane meaning until the early 20th
century. It stems from a Greek word, pedon,
meaning
"steering
oar."
That word is related to the Greek word pous, "a foot." So pilot is
distantly related to octopus ("eight-footed") and podiatrist (someone
who treats ailments of the feet). At one time, podiatrists treated
ailments of the hands as well and were called chiropodists, from the
Greek word for hand, chiro,
combined with the Greek word for foot. A related word is chiropractor,
combining the Greek word for hand and the Greek word praktikos, "practical." Which
brings us back to pilot, because after you spend a few hours crammed
into a modern airline seat, you need a chiropractor to straighten you
out again.
Appeared in the May 2010 Community News
Wal, pardner, I reckon we all know this one! It's a
group the sheriff gets together and deputizes quickly in order to head
the bad guys off at the pass, and it's as American as Western movies,
right? Not exactly. It does indeed refer to a group assembled by a
sheriff when the public peace is under threat, but the idea and the
name predate movies by centuries. The word and the practice come to us
from Medieval England, when a sheriff or other county legal official
had the power to gather a group of able-bodied men to help in time of
emergency. Such a group had legal status as an arm of the power of
the county -- or in Medieval Latin, the posse comitatus. By
the 1600s, that had been shortened to posse. Since England is
short on mountain passes, I wonder where they headed the bad guys off?
Appeared in the February 2009 Community News
A restive person is resistant to being controlled. It can also
mean that the person is impatient or unhappy when an attempt is made to
control or restrict him. The word comes from the French word rester
- which used to have the meaning to resist. Restive is a nifty
word, but it's easy to confuse with restless, which has nothing
to do with being controlled and comes from an entirely different root -
the old Germanic word rasta. One could lead to the other,
though. For example, parents whose restive child refuses to go to bed
will end up restless. Both will probably get whiney, which comes from
another Old English word.
Appeared in the April 2008 Community News
To be reticent is to be reluctant to speak. It comes from the Latin
word for being silent. It can refer to someone who is taciturn - that
is, simply doesn't talk much. Or it can refer to someone who is
reluctant to speak about something specific. For example, a politician
who is being cagey about his plans to run for President might be
reticent on that one subject but loquacious (very, very talkative) on
all others. Many people misuse reticent when they mean reluctant. They
might say, "He was reticent to act." That should be, "He was reluctant
to act." Reticent can only refer to speech, not to action.
Appeared in the September 2007 Community News
Laughable, but in a negative sense. You wouldn't call a comedian's jokes risible if you liked them. If he was a painfully bad comedian, you could say that his attempt at comedy was risible. This is not a common word in modern English. It usually only shows up in pompously written book or movie reviews or political essays - the sort of thing written by people who can't see that their stuffy prose isn't admirable but is instead risible. The word appeared in English in the 1500s. Back then, it meant able to laugh, capable of laughing. By the 1700s, it had come to mean evoking laughter, laughable, but it didn't have a negative connotation yet. That's more modern. The root is the Latin word ridere, to laugh. Our word "deride" comes from the Latin combination de (down) combined with ridere. Someone who uses "risible" in ordinary speech is likely to encounter derision.
Appeared in the August 2010 Community News
This is a nifty word with a few related meanings, only one of which
you're likely to hear in contemporary English. That one meaning is
"noteworthy" or "conspicuous." For example, a reporter might list the
"salient points" in an important political speech, meaning the most
important points. More generally, a salient is something that
sticks out, such as a big rock projecting from the side of a mountain
or a military fortification that projects into enemy territory. It
comes from the Latin word salire, meaning to leap, and so salient
can also mean "leaping." Thus in heraldry, a depiction of a leaping
lion is "a lion salient." From the same root, we get the word sally,
which can refer to a sudden invasion of enemy territory or a sudden,
very clever remark that leaps out at you.
Appeared in the April, 2009 Community News
These are interesting words that are famous because each has two
diametrically opposite meanings.
Cleave, from an old Germanic word meaning to stick, can
mean to stick to. The Bible refers to a man "cleaving to his
wife." But another old Germanic word gives us the meaning of cutting
apart - for example, a cloven hoof, meaning a hoof that is split in
two.
Sanction, from the Latin sancire, to make holy, can
refer to approval or disapproval. The world can sanction Iran's nuclear
program by saying that it's peaceful and can go forward, or the world
can disapprove of it and impose sanctions.
It's a good thing we English speakers are so logical, orderly, and
rational. Otherwise, words like these would get us all confused - which
comes from a Latin word meaning to mix together, which
certainly describes these two words.
Appeared in the June 2008 Community News
Nowadays, we use this word to mean old and infirm, weak from old age. This usage dates from the mid-19th century. Originally, the word just meant having to do with old age. It comes from a Latin word meaning old. Other words that derive from the same Latin root are senior, senescent (growing old, characteristic of being old), and the Spanish title señor. The medieval English word seneschal, a senior servant, comes from the same root combined with a Germanic word, skalk, for servant. I haven't been able to find out if skalk has any connection to our word skulk, which can mean to evade work. Presumably, one of the duties of the seneschal was to make sure that the lower-level servants didn't skulk.
The Scrabble word score of senile is 6.
Appeared in the September 2010 Community News
This word has three meanings, and they're all closely
related. It can refer to the pound, the unit of currency in the United
Kingdom and some of its dependencies. It can refer to a grade of
silver. It can refer to a high level of character, for example, "He is
a man of sterling character." In Medieval England, a common type of
coin was a silver penny. It was stamped with a small star - in Medieval
English, a sterling. The coin itself came to be called a
sterling. People who dealt in large payments would measure them in
pounds of silver pennies. Eventually, a pound of sterlings became a
standard unit of currency itself - a pound sterling. When the
government standardized the amount of silver that the pennies had to
contain, silver of that quality came to be called sterling silver,
and
anything
of
reliable,
standard
quality was said to be sterling.
Appeared in the October 2009
Community News
This is an archaic word that survives mostly in
combinations. It came to us via Medieval French from the Latin word strictus,
meaning difficult, strict, narrow. It once had those meanings in
English as well, as you can see from the expression straitened
circumstances, meaning difficult circumstances. It's still
used to describe a narrow waterway between land masses -- for example,
the Bering Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Hormuz.
Dangerously violent people can be put into a constricting piece of
clothing called a straitjacket, which is sometimes incorrectly
spelled straightjacket. That misspelling is similar to the
incorrect straight and narrow. The original phrase, from the
King James Version of the New Testament Gospel of Matthew, is "Strait
is the gate, and narrow is the way." There, too, strait was
used to mean difficult or strict.
Appeared in the November 2008
Community News
To toe the line is to fall in line with a group and to follow
its rules and customs. Linguists think it originated in the 19th
Century, from athletes putting their toe to the line at the beginning
of a race. In some old books, the phrase toe the mark is also
used, with the same meaning as toe the line. Another suggested
origin is from navies having sailors line up with their toes at the
line formed by one of the deck planks. Tour guides at the House of
Commons in London claim that the expression comes from two straight
lines drawn on opposite sides of the room. They tell tourists that,
back when gentlemen wore swords, when parliamentary discussions got too
heated, the Speaker would shout, "Toe the line!" The Members would have
to stand behind the two lines, which were deliberately painted more
than a sword's length apart, so that the only blood drawn would be
rhetorical. It's a great story, but the present House of Commons was
built after World War Two, the older one having been damaged in the air
raids, and old paintings of Parliamentary meetings from the days when
men did wear swords don't show those lines, so that tale is probably
untrue. You'll often see this phrase misspelled as tow the line,
which
is
incorrect
and
makes
no
sense.
Perhaps
people think of barges
being towed, but then the phrase would refer to a heavy burden, not to
falling in line.
Appeared in the May 2008 Community News
Hard work, especially painful or extremely unpleasant work. It used to also refer to the painful experience of giving birth. It comes from the old French word travailler, which could mean to work hard or to torture. In turn, that came from the Latin word trepaliare, to torture. In case you care, that Latin word came from the Latin word tripalium, a three-pronged instrument of torture, which in turn came from the Latin tri, three, and palus, stake. We get our world pole from that last Latin word. Think of all of this when the alarm goes off tomorrow morning. By the way, you might suspect that our word travel also comes from the French word travailler, because they look so similar. Indeed it does. Travel showed up in English in the 1300s, a time when traveling was a pretty arduous and dangerous undertaking. At least they didn't have alarm clocks, although some of those old English travelers must have fantasized about torturing the roosters that woke them up.
Appeared in the June 2010 Community News
To vilify someone is to say extremely nasty things about him. Those
things may be true or false, just so long as they're really nasty. Its
root is the Latin word vilis, meaning cheap. The English word vile
comes from the same root. In both cases, the words acquired much
stronger meanings in English. Vilify isn't commonly used in
conversational English, but we can expect to see it in action a lot
during the upcoming election season. The candidates will be vilifying
each other. Vilification will fill the air.
Appeared in the November 2007 Community News
A smart aleck, a wisenheimer, an egotistical
person who thinks he knows more than he really does and proves it. It
can also mean someone who jokes a bit too much, who cracks wise. It's
actually a very old word, deriving from a Middle Dutch word that meant
soothsayer or prophet. The word wiseacre showed up in English
in the late 1500s, so although you might think it's a word that was
invented in America, it ain't. Instead of being an old-fashioned
American word, it's actually an old-old-fashioned English word, just
like the word ain't itself. Now I'm being a wisenheimer
- which actually is an American word, having been invented about 100
years ago by combining the English word wise with the ending enheimer
to make it sound like a German name, because in those days everyone
thought of German scientists as being the most brilliant in the world.
Appeared in the January 2009
Community News