One of the pleasures of getting older is hearing the next generation but two still using quaint out-of-date slang like cool, with it and so on, thus showing themselves to be just as old-fashioned now as they once told us we were.
It is pleasant to find them occasionally using words which they believe to be modern but which we know to be around a hundred years old. Here’s one, its use and origin comprehensively explained in the OED:
def, a.
Excellent, outstanding; fashionable, ‘cool’.
slang (orig. U.S., esp. in African-American usage).
Forms: 19- def, def', irreg. deaf. [Prob. alteration of DEATH n., originating in the non-standard Jamaican English pronunciation and spelling def, and the use of the word (in both forms) as a general intensifier (see quot. 1907).
Cf. DEATH a.2 The form in quot. 1979 is often interpreted as being a use of DEF a., and is in fact spelt def in many later transcriptions of the song, including that in L. A. Stanley Rap: the Lyrics (1992). However, in the original published lyrics, the word is spelt death, although the pronunciation on the recording itself is indistinct. This song, one of the most celebrated and influential hip-hop records and one of the first to enjoy international commercial success, may in part account for the enduring use of def within the genre and the strength of its association with hip-hop culture.An alternative derivation def' in quot. 1982.]
[1907 W. JEKYLL Jamaican Song; Story lxviii. 171 ‘I never do him one def ting,’ a single thing. ‘Def’ is emphatic, but is not a ‘swear-word’. 1979 G. O'BRIEN et al. Rapper's Delight (song, perf. ‘Sugarhill Gang’), Someone get a fly girl, gonna get some spank and drive off in a death O.J.] 1981 W. SAFIRE in N.Y. Times Mag. 18 Jan. 6/3 Deaf [sic] a mispronunciation of ‘death’ is the current superlative. (In topsyturvytalk, death is the liveliest and baad-baaader-baaadest is the equivalent of good-better-best.) 1982 in S. Hager Hip Hop (1984) 89 A sureshot party presentation... Thurs. January 21... ‘Aanother def' bet’. 1986 Village Voice (N.Y.) 4 Nov. 24/2 ‘It's Yours’ T LA Rock and Jazzy Jay (Partytime, 1984) Here's the first def jam that made the others possible. 1992 Buffalo (N.Y.) News 23 Aug. G1/2 No self-respecting teen-ager in Buffalo who wants to be def listens to the bubble-gum music on classic hits radio. 1996 V. WALTERS Rude Girls xiii. 277 Yeah, that's a def idea. 1999 Y (S. Afr.) June 75/2 Premier's ‘New York State Of Mind Pt II’ is def, the bombest joint.
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label words. Show all posts
Friday, 30 March 2012
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Free OED, but you have to wait
I have written many posts about the mighty Oxford English Dictionary, and this one described a way of getting access to the online version for nothing.
There is another way: simply sign up to the OED Word of the Day and you will be emailed daily with a link to the dictionary's entry for a word or phrase which, for one reason or another, is considered interesting. A recent example is Ps and Qs; the etymology of this is uncertain, and the OED lists seven possibles, likely or unlikely.
But does this mean, I hear you cry, that they will email you the entries for every one of the OED's 600,000 words and 3 million quotations? Well, yes, they will, but it will take them over 750 years, even if there are no new entries (the last quarterly update noted that 1,200 new words and meanings had been added).
.
There is another way: simply sign up to the OED Word of the Day and you will be emailed daily with a link to the dictionary's entry for a word or phrase which, for one reason or another, is considered interesting. A recent example is Ps and Qs; the etymology of this is uncertain, and the OED lists seven possibles, likely or unlikely.
But does this mean, I hear you cry, that they will email you the entries for every one of the OED's 600,000 words and 3 million quotations? Well, yes, they will, but it will take them over 750 years, even if there are no new entries (the last quarterly update noted that 1,200 new words and meanings had been added).
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Thursday, 5 January 2012
Streisand, Poe, Sturgeon and Arkell
The first is an Effect, the second and third are Laws and the fourth is a Response: all these are familiar to users of the internet. They have been described by Wikipedia or the Oxford English Dictionary as follows:
The Streisand Effect: This is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters, to suppress numbers, files and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.
...The term was coined after Streisand, citing privacy violations, unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have an aerial photograph of her mansion removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs. Adelman said that he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the government-commissioned California Coastal Records Project. As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month.
Poe's Law: Named after its author Nathan Poe, this is an Internet adage reflecting the fact that without a clear indication of the author's intent it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and an exaggerated parody of extremism. Its core is that a parody of something is by nature extreme. That makes it impossible to differentiate from sincere extremism.
A corollary of Poe's law is the reverse phenomenon: legitimate fundamentalist beliefs being mistaken for a parody of that belief. A further corollary, the Poe Paradox, results from suspicion of the first corollary. The paradox is that any new person or idea sufficiently extreme to be accepted by the extremist group risks being rejected as a parody or parodist.
The magazine's response was, in full: "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that your client's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off."
In the years following, the magazine would refer to this exchange as a euphemism for a blunt and coarse dismissal: for example, "We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram". As with "tired and emotional" this usage has spread beyond the magazine.
(There is also Godwin's Law, but this is not so much a law, more an adage or a memetic tool.)
.
The Streisand Effect: This is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity. Similar attempts have been made, for example, in cease-and-desist letters, to suppress numbers, files and websites. Instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity and media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, often being widely mirrored across the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks.
...The term was coined after Streisand, citing privacy violations, unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have an aerial photograph of her mansion removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs. Adelman said that he was photographing beachfront property to document coastal erosion as part of the government-commissioned California Coastal Records Project. As a result of the case, public knowledge of the picture increased substantially; more than 420,000 people visited the site over the following month.
A corollary of Poe's law is the reverse phenomenon: legitimate fundamentalist beliefs being mistaken for a parody of that belief. A further corollary, the Poe Paradox, results from suspicion of the first corollary. The paradox is that any new person or idea sufficiently extreme to be accepted by the extremist group risks being rejected as a parody or parodist.
Sturgeon's Law: A humorous aphorism which maintains that most of any body of published material, knowledge, etc., (or, more generally, of everything) is worthless: based on a statement by Theodore Sturgeon, usually later cited as ‘90 per cent of everything is crap’, typically used of a specific medium, originally science fiction, and now frequently also of information to be found on the Internet.
The aphorism was apparently first formulated in 1951 or 1952 at a lecture at New York University and popularized at the 1953 WorldCon science fiction convention.
The aphorism was apparently first formulated in 1951 or 1952 at a lecture at New York University and popularized at the 1953 WorldCon science fiction convention.
The Response of Pressdram to Arkell: An unlikely piece of British legal history occurred in what is now referred to as the "case" of Arkell v. Pressdram (1971). The plaintiff was the subject of an article [in Private Eye] relating to illicit payments, and the magazine had ample evidence to back up the article. Arkell's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: "[My client's] attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply."
(There is also Godwin's Law, but this is not so much a law, more an adage or a memetic tool.)
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Updated words
As always, the report on the latest quarterly update to the Oxford English Dictionary is a good read:
For me, Tex-Mex food is ugh, but I enjoyed hearing about the lengthy search for the origin of "nachos".
Modern technology has some cool new words, but "digital" dates from the fifteenth century
Never forget that the original meaning of "engine" in English was ‘ingenuity, artfulness; cunning, trickery’. Google is a search engine.
For me, Tex-Mex food is ugh, but I enjoyed hearing about the lengthy search for the origin of "nachos".
Modern technology has some cool new words, but "digital" dates from the fifteenth century
Never forget that the original meaning of "engine" in English was ‘ingenuity, artfulness; cunning, trickery’. Google is a search engine.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
It used not to be like that, usen't it not to be?
There has been much huffing and puffing about the inclusion of such words as thang, blingy and tik (methamphetamine) in the latest Collins "official" list of Scrabble words, but of course this is a matter of total indifference except to those daft enough to play Scrabble with people who take the game so seriously that they will pay £16.99 for the book.
Real dictionaries have detailed criteria for the acceptance of new words rather than depending on mere editorial whim. The realest of them all, the OED, accepted for inclusion this year (for example) LOL, couch surfer, fnarr fnarr and OMG (about time too; this one's nearly a hundred years old).
But not yet innit. This, though, is only a question of time, for it is unquestionably in sufficiently wide and probably permanent currency to warrant inclusion, and certainly fills a lacuna in our language: we have no invariant tag other than the crude eh? or huh? enabling us to ask for the agreement of the listener, and have to use a huge number (pity the poor foreign student of English!) of clumsy phrases like don't you? or shouldn't we?. But innit, which is a rather neat contraction of Is it not so?, can be used in any context, being the equivalent of n'est ce pas?, ¿verdad? or nicht wahr?
So we should all start using it now, without waiting for the OED to catch up, innit?
Real dictionaries have detailed criteria for the acceptance of new words rather than depending on mere editorial whim. The realest of them all, the OED, accepted for inclusion this year (for example) LOL, couch surfer, fnarr fnarr and OMG (about time too; this one's nearly a hundred years old).
But not yet innit. This, though, is only a question of time, for it is unquestionably in sufficiently wide and probably permanent currency to warrant inclusion, and certainly fills a lacuna in our language: we have no invariant tag other than the crude eh? or huh? enabling us to ask for the agreement of the listener, and have to use a huge number (pity the poor foreign student of English!) of clumsy phrases like don't you? or shouldn't we?. But innit, which is a rather neat contraction of Is it not so?, can be used in any context, being the equivalent of n'est ce pas?, ¿verdad? or nicht wahr?
So we should all start using it now, without waiting for the OED to catch up, innit?
Sunday, 10 April 2011
Allegro ma non troppo
If I have any kind of individual writing style then it is a careless blend of the highfalutin' and the demotic or even racy; in other words, people may need a dictionary for one sentence and are offended by the coarseness of the next. This means that am often taken to task for faults in my writing, being condemned either for pretentiousness or crudity.
The atmosphere during many a convivial evening at Reginald's has become ill-natured or even violent when I have been forced to defend myself against attacks by Grumio or other soi-disant linguistic experts expressing their contempt for some trivial syntactical or stylistic error in something I have published.
Nearly always these strictures are totally unjustified; a typical example is the criticism of my excessive use of "selah", on the grounds that I do not actually know what the word means. This is unfair: if we all restricted our vocabulary to words of which we fully comprehend the meaning then discourse would be stifled and politicians, for example, would have to remain permanently mumchance (a pleasing prospect).
Anyway, in the case of "selah", there is every excuse for not knowing the meaning, for no-one really does. The Oxford Dictionary has:
selah, exclamation
(in the Bible) occurring frequently at the end of a verse in Psalms and Habakkuk, probably as a musical direction.
This is not much help and is probably wrong: musical directions are not exclamations. So never mind what Habbakuk meant, I use it to mean any one of a number of things, for example: amen; what d'you think of that?; so there!; you know I'm right; QED; here endeth the lesson, or whatever.
Selah!
[The title of this post really is a musical direction and has an interesting story behind it.]
The atmosphere during many a convivial evening at Reginald's has become ill-natured or even violent when I have been forced to defend myself against attacks by Grumio or other soi-disant linguistic experts expressing their contempt for some trivial syntactical or stylistic error in something I have published.
Nearly always these strictures are totally unjustified; a typical example is the criticism of my excessive use of "selah", on the grounds that I do not actually know what the word means. This is unfair: if we all restricted our vocabulary to words of which we fully comprehend the meaning then discourse would be stifled and politicians, for example, would have to remain permanently mumchance (a pleasing prospect).
Anyway, in the case of "selah", there is every excuse for not knowing the meaning, for no-one really does. The Oxford Dictionary has:
selah, exclamation
(in the Bible) occurring frequently at the end of a verse in Psalms and Habakkuk, probably as a musical direction.
This is not much help and is probably wrong: musical directions are not exclamations. So never mind what Habbakuk meant, I use it to mean any one of a number of things, for example: amen; what d'you think of that?; so there!; you know I'm right; QED; here endeth the lesson, or whatever.
Selah!
[The title of this post really is a musical direction and has an interesting story behind it.]
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Cops and Rozzers
We like naming things, so much so that a multilingual glossary of some groups of names would be a hefty volume.
Take insects, for example; in hundreds of years entomologists have already named millions of the little chaps, but there may still be many whole species which remain anonymous. Then there are our naughty bits: there are thousands of terms for these—technical, demotic or vulgar—although those in the last group are never uttered in polite society; any English translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel will contain several hundred names for the items relevant to both genders.
A similar restriction applies to deities, many of whom are said to wax exceeding wrathful if their name, or one of their many names, is actually spoken. An extreme case of such divine paranoia is described by Arthur C Clarke in The Nine Billion Names of God, but I will not reveal the appalling punishment meted out if anyone lists these, for that would spoil the enjoyment of those who have never read this classic 1953 short story.
Police officers are another group bearing many names; a few are affectionate, most are insulting; Wikipedia lists two hundred of them. Inexplicably, a disproportionate number seem to originate in Turkey, such as this one:
Aynasız
The most common slang word to address a police officer in Turkish. The word literally means "mirrorless", and its attribution to a police officer suggests that a cop is perceived as someone who constantly accuses others of vice, whereas he himself has no mirror to see his own vice. It is the semi-official equivalent of the English word "pig" (only when used to refer to the police), and commonly used when translating English-spoken movies into Turkish. Pronunciation is roughly I-nuh-suzz. (Plural: Aynasızlar)
Few of the terms Wikipedia lists are as sophisticated as that. Most are rather dull:
Hot Dogs
a Chinese term referring to stationary traffic cops and guards who are standing in the sun all day.
or:
Bängen
Swedish slang term for the police. Originally an old Swedish word for devil, from Romani Beng with the same meaning.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Salutations in Cochinchina
When visiting one of the many parts of the world where they speak a language of which I have no knowledge, I always try to master a few phrases before I go. To help me with this I used to use Babel Fish but now I find Google Translate is better, and will pronounce the phrase for you as well as translate it. It is important to practise: get an intonation only slightly wrong and, with Asian languages in particular, you might ask your neighbour at dinner to pass the salt and find that you have insulted the fellow's grandmother in a most unmentionable manner.
It is useless to learn how to ask for directions, or indeed any kind of question other than rhetorical ones, for you will not understand the answer: cheery greetings and courtesies are what you need. Here, for example, are translations into Vietnamese of some phrases which might be useful when you are strolling in the vibrant market streets of Saigon:
Get out of here
Có được ra khỏi đây
Why don't you get out of here?
Tại sao bạn không nhận được ra khỏi đây?
If you don't get out of here, I will knock your block off / kick you in the mouth
Nếu bạn không nhận được ra khỏi đây, tôi sẽ rời khỏi khối / đá bạn trong miệng
[For the technically minded: Google Translate uses statistical machine translation, which has made substantial advances in recent years, while Babel Fish uses SYSTRAN rule-based technology.]
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Misunderstanding
I have just discovered that several versions of this probably apocryphal story have been circulating for years. Why had I never heard it until now?
On a visit to the Elysée Palace, Dorothy Macmillan said to Mme de Gaulle: "Now that your husband has achieved so much, is there any particular wish you have for him?", to which Madame replied: "Yes, a penis."
There was a stunned silence until General De Gaulle looked up and said: "Ah yes, 'appiness is what we all want."
On a visit to the Elysée Palace, Dorothy Macmillan said to Mme de Gaulle: "Now that your husband has achieved so much, is there any particular wish you have for him?", to which Madame replied: "Yes, a penis."
There was a stunned silence until General De Gaulle looked up and said: "Ah yes, 'appiness is what we all want."
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Location, location
Earlier this month I wrote about the incorporation of the Oxford Thesaurus into The Online Oxford Dictionary. Exciting news indeed, but I omitted to mention that one year's subscription to the combined work costs GBP205 or US$295.
But it needn't cost you anything at all. If you are a true-born, full-blooded Englishman there is no problem; if you are not true-born, or full-blooded, or English, or a man (or not even a UK resident), then you will have to go to a little trouble, but of course it will be well worth it. This is what you must do:
1. Choose a town in the UK where you could bear to live. Tastes vary so much that I cannot advise on this, but there are plenty of publications which will guide you, either negatively or positively, such as Crap Towns of Southeast England, Essex for Gourmets, We Ban Members of the Bullingdon Club, No LibDems Here, The Top 100 Scottish Towns for Posh Totty, Havens in Dorset for Hedge Fund Managers, Muggers' Cumbria, Slough: The Stamp Collector's Paradise and many others.
2. Log on to the website of the town you have chosen, find the telephone number of its public library and phone to find out whether it is covered by the agreement with the Oxford University Press permitting them to enable their subscribers to access OUP online publications (most UK library authorities are) from their home computers without charge.
3. If the answer is yes, move yourself (and your family if you like) to that town and join its library. You will be given a PIN.
4. Enjoy the OED and the Thesaurus for the rest of your life or until the British government closes down all the public libraries and sells the OED to Houghton Mifflin.
.
But it needn't cost you anything at all. If you are a true-born, full-blooded Englishman there is no problem; if you are not true-born, or full-blooded, or English, or a man (or not even a UK resident), then you will have to go to a little trouble, but of course it will be well worth it. This is what you must do:
1. Choose a town in the UK where you could bear to live. Tastes vary so much that I cannot advise on this, but there are plenty of publications which will guide you, either negatively or positively, such as Crap Towns of Southeast England, Essex for Gourmets, We Ban Members of the Bullingdon Club, No LibDems Here, The Top 100 Scottish Towns for Posh Totty, Havens in Dorset for Hedge Fund Managers, Muggers' Cumbria, Slough: The Stamp Collector's Paradise and many others.
2. Log on to the website of the town you have chosen, find the telephone number of its public library and phone to find out whether it is covered by the agreement with the Oxford University Press permitting them to enable their subscribers to access OUP online publications (most UK library authorities are) from their home computers without charge.
3. If the answer is yes, move yourself (and your family if you like) to that town and join its library. You will be given a PIN.
4. Enjoy the OED and the Thesaurus for the rest of your life or until the British government closes down all the public libraries and sells the OED to Houghton Mifflin.
.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Les Mots Justes
When people stumble across a blog which seems to have no obvious theme or purpose, they naturally wonder what it is about. What's the point?, they ask themselves...what's the fellow's game?
So right from the start I have made it absolutely clear what themes OMF conspicuously lacked, and exactly what range of purposes it was not intended to serve: the blog is basically a confused and confusing assortment of disparate bits and pieces, if you will pardon the cliché, and with the help of the good Dr Roget, I compiled a list of all the words which seemed to me to describe its essence. These sixteen words are listed in ABOUT.
Now, as OMF lumbers into its seventh year, it occurs to me that this brief description of it is inadequate. By a happy coincidence, there was a historic event in the publishing world last month which provided me with a wonderful tool to help me flesh it out: this was the incorporation into the mighty Oxford English Dictionary of the equally mighty Oxford Historical Thesaurus of the English Language (see note at the foot of this post) into the online version of the OED.
So it was the work of a moment to search for "medley" in the great thesaurus and get a list of thirty-two more words or phrases describing OMF. Here they are:
a mishmash 1475 A confused mixture or jumble; a muddle.
a peasemeal 1525 (figurative) A hotchpotch, a mess.
omnium gatherum 1530 A gathering or collection of all sorts of people or things.
a mingle 1548 A mingled mass, a mixture.
hotchpotch 1549 A confused mixture of disparate things; a medley, a jumble.
mingle-mangle 1549 A mixture, a mishmash; a confused medley of things, ideas, persons, etc.
a rhapsody 1574 A miscellany or medley; esp. a muddled collection of words, ideas, etc.
a sauce-medley 1579 A concoction, a mixture compounded by art.
a pell-mell 1586 An indiscriminate mingling, a confused mixture or throng.
a linsey-woolsey 1592 (figurative) A strange medley; confusion, nonsense.
a wilderness 1594 A mingled, confused, or vast assemblage or collection of persons or things.
a brewage 1599 (figurative)
a macaronic 1611 A jumble or medley.
an olla podrida 1635 A diverse mixture of things or elements
a consarcination 1640 Anything patched up, a heterogeneous combination.
a porridge 1642 A jumble, a mess; something without structure or substantial content; something dull or turgid.
an olio 1649 Any mixture of many heterogeneous elements.
a jumble 1661 A confused or disorderly mixture or assemblage
a motley 1698 An incongruous or confused mixture.
a capilotade 1705 (figurative) A cooked-up story, hash, medley.
a hash 1733 A mixture of mangled and incongruous fragments; a medley; a spoiled mixture; a mess
a salmagundi 1761 (figurative) A mixture
a pasticcio 1785 A confused mixture, a hotchpotch; a mess.
a macédoine 1820 A medley or mixture of unrelated things.
a job lot 1828 A motley assortment brought together (freq. cheaply)
a conglomerate 1837 (figurative) A mixture of various materials or elements, clustered together without assimilation.
a pot-pourri 1841 A diverse collection or assortment of people or things
a chow-chow 1850 A mixture or medley of any sort.
a jumbling 1852 What is produced by the action of the verb jumble
a haggis 1899 A mixture, hodge-podge; a mess.
a casserole 1930 (figurative) A variety of things cooked together.
Paradoxically, the forty-eight words together make up a precise and accurate specification of Other Men's Flowers, which is a perfect epitome of imprecision and inaccuracy.
Other Men's Flowers wishes a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all conglomerate fans, pasticcio buffs, chow-chow lovers, linsey-wolsey enthusiasts and peasemeal aficionados.
[The Oxford Historical Thesaurus is a taxonomic classification of the majority of senses and lemmas in OED Online. It can be thought of as a kind of semantic index to the contents of the OED, and can be used in OED Online to navigate around the dictionary by topic, find related terms, and explore the lexical history of a concept or meaning. Each class (a list of senses and lemmas sharing a particular meaning) is arranged chronologically, giving a historical overview of the concept represented by that class.]
So right from the start I have made it absolutely clear what themes OMF conspicuously lacked, and exactly what range of purposes it was not intended to serve: the blog is basically a confused and confusing assortment of disparate bits and pieces, if you will pardon the cliché, and with the help of the good Dr Roget, I compiled a list of all the words which seemed to me to describe its essence. These sixteen words are listed in ABOUT.
Now, as OMF lumbers into its seventh year, it occurs to me that this brief description of it is inadequate. By a happy coincidence, there was a historic event in the publishing world last month which provided me with a wonderful tool to help me flesh it out: this was the incorporation into the mighty Oxford English Dictionary of the equally mighty Oxford Historical Thesaurus of the English Language (see note at the foot of this post) into the online version of the OED.
So it was the work of a moment to search for "medley" in the great thesaurus and get a list of thirty-two more words or phrases describing OMF. Here they are:
a mishmash 1475 A confused mixture or jumble; a muddle.
a peasemeal 1525 (figurative) A hotchpotch, a mess.
omnium gatherum 1530 A gathering or collection of all sorts of people or things.
a mingle 1548 A mingled mass, a mixture.
hotchpotch 1549 A confused mixture of disparate things; a medley, a jumble.
mingle-mangle 1549 A mixture, a mishmash; a confused medley of things, ideas, persons, etc.
a rhapsody 1574 A miscellany or medley; esp. a muddled collection of words, ideas, etc.
a sauce-medley 1579 A concoction, a mixture compounded by art.
a pell-mell 1586 An indiscriminate mingling, a confused mixture or throng.
a linsey-woolsey 1592 (figurative) A strange medley; confusion, nonsense.
a wilderness 1594 A mingled, confused, or vast assemblage or collection of persons or things.
a brewage 1599 (figurative)
a macaronic 1611 A jumble or medley.
an olla podrida 1635 A diverse mixture of things or elements
a consarcination 1640 Anything patched up, a heterogeneous combination.
a porridge 1642 A jumble, a mess; something without structure or substantial content; something dull or turgid.
an olio 1649 Any mixture of many heterogeneous elements.
a jumble 1661 A confused or disorderly mixture or assemblage
a motley 1698 An incongruous or confused mixture.
a capilotade 1705 (figurative) A cooked-up story, hash, medley.
a hash 1733 A mixture of mangled and incongruous fragments; a medley; a spoiled mixture; a mess
a salmagundi 1761 (figurative) A mixture
a pasticcio 1785 A confused mixture, a hotchpotch; a mess.
a macédoine 1820 A medley or mixture of unrelated things.
a job lot 1828 A motley assortment brought together (freq. cheaply)
a conglomerate 1837 (figurative) A mixture of various materials or elements, clustered together without assimilation.
a pot-pourri 1841 A diverse collection or assortment of people or things
a chow-chow 1850 A mixture or medley of any sort.
a jumbling 1852 What is produced by the action of the verb jumble
a haggis 1899 A mixture, hodge-podge; a mess.
a casserole 1930 (figurative) A variety of things cooked together.
Paradoxically, the forty-eight words together make up a precise and accurate specification of Other Men's Flowers, which is a perfect epitome of imprecision and inaccuracy.
Other Men's Flowers wishes a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all conglomerate fans, pasticcio buffs, chow-chow lovers, linsey-wolsey enthusiasts and peasemeal aficionados.
[The Oxford Historical Thesaurus is a taxonomic classification of the majority of senses and lemmas in OED Online. It can be thought of as a kind of semantic index to the contents of the OED, and can be used in OED Online to navigate around the dictionary by topic, find related terms, and explore the lexical history of a concept or meaning. Each class (a list of senses and lemmas sharing a particular meaning) is arranged chronologically, giving a historical overview of the concept represented by that class.]
Thursday, 30 December 2010
Tidings of comfort and joy
No, we had that one in the cookhouse a few days ago.
On a similar theme is the remarkable anagram devised for a crossword clue by that great compiler John Graham ("Araucaria"), who will be 90 in the New Year: O hark the herald angels sing the boy's descent which lifted up the world (5,9,7,5,6,2,5,3,6,2,3,6).
If you need a hint, I can tell you that you probably heard these twelve words more than once in the last week.
Yes, that's right: While shepherds watched their flocks by night all seated on the ground.
But my favourite crossword clue is this one, which is much easier to solve: "-" (1,6,3,1,4)
On a similar theme is the remarkable anagram devised for a crossword clue by that great compiler John Graham ("Araucaria"), who will be 90 in the New Year: O hark the herald angels sing the boy's descent which lifted up the world (5,9,7,5,6,2,5,3,6,2,3,6).
If you need a hint, I can tell you that you probably heard these twelve words more than once in the last week.
Yes, that's right: While shepherds watched their flocks by night all seated on the ground.
But my favourite crossword clue is this one, which is much easier to solve: "-" (1,6,3,1,4)
Friday, 3 December 2010
Has he or hasn't he?
Sly innuendo is not something you expect to encounter when you consult the Oxford English Dictionary.
However, in announcing the publication this week of the new version of the OED Online, its editor has given this question as an example of the kind of thing it can answer: Would Prince William have 'joined giblets' with Kate?
For the benefit of those sad individuals who cannot afford the subscription and do not belong to an English library or other institution which gives you free access to the OED, I will tell you what I found in the Historical Thesaurus now incorporated with it. The answer is 'No, not yet'. (To join one's giblets means to get married.)
On second thoughts, this is probably not the only instance of impropriety to be found in the great work. I haven't looked for others, but scattered among its thousands of pages there must surely be more examples of suggestive interpretations, definitions or etymologies. If anyone can find some and pass them on to me, I shall be happy to publish a list for the gratification of the more prurient of my readers.
I am referring of course only to gentle indelicacies. Everyone knows that the OED, aiming to be comprehensive in its coverage of the English language, contains on almost every page a plethora of explicit obscenity. I won't have any of that sort of thing in OMF: if you are keen on this, you will have to take out a second mortgage or join a library so that you can subscribe to OED online and search it for filthy words.
However, in announcing the publication this week of the new version of the OED Online, its editor has given this question as an example of the kind of thing it can answer: Would Prince William have 'joined giblets' with Kate?
For the benefit of those sad individuals who cannot afford the subscription and do not belong to an English library or other institution which gives you free access to the OED, I will tell you what I found in the Historical Thesaurus now incorporated with it. The answer is 'No, not yet'. (To join one's giblets means to get married.)
On second thoughts, this is probably not the only instance of impropriety to be found in the great work. I haven't looked for others, but scattered among its thousands of pages there must surely be more examples of suggestive interpretations, definitions or etymologies. If anyone can find some and pass them on to me, I shall be happy to publish a list for the gratification of the more prurient of my readers.
I am referring of course only to gentle indelicacies. Everyone knows that the OED, aiming to be comprehensive in its coverage of the English language, contains on almost every page a plethora of explicit obscenity. I won't have any of that sort of thing in OMF: if you are keen on this, you will have to take out a second mortgage or join a library so that you can subscribe to OED online and search it for filthy words.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Going to the loo
Privy, jakes, house of easement, water-closet, lavatory, bathroom, toilet, bog..... The list is endless; supposed indelicacy is shunned, euphemisms develop, fashions come and go. Those who are scatologically minded can spend many a happy hour in research on the history of these terms, 99% of which are obsolete.
"Loo" is so common and seemingly long-established that some would be surprised to learn that the OED can find no written trace of it before 1922 (in Ulysses). And what is its origin?
The invaluable Oxford Dictionaries Online (formerly Ask Oxford) has this prim comment:
"Loo" is so common and seemingly long-established that some would be surprised to learn that the OED can find no written trace of it before 1922 (in Ulysses). And what is its origin?
The invaluable Oxford Dictionaries Online (formerly Ask Oxford) has this prim comment:
There are several theories about the origin of this common term for a familiar article of sanitary furniture. The first, and most popular, is that it is derived from the cry of "gardyloo" (from the French regardez l'eau or "watch out for the water") which was shouted by medieval servants as they emptied the chamber-pots out of the upstairs windows into the street. This is historically problematic, since by the time the term "loo" is recorded, the expression "gardyloo" was long obsolete.The OED will have none of these, and simply says "origin obscure".
A second theory is that the word derives from a polite use of the French term le lieu (the place) as a euphemism. Unfortunately, documentary evidence to support this idea is lacking. A third theory, favoured by many, refers to the trade name "Waterloo", which appeared prominently displayed on the iron cisterns in many British outhouses during the early 20th century. This is more credible in terms of dates, but corroborating evidence is still frustratingly hard to find.
Various other picturesque theories also circulate, involving references to doors numbered "00" or people called "Looe".
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Let me have men about me....
No, on second thoughts let me not. Samuel Johnson noted a useful word for the one in four men and one in three women in the UK who are overweight:
gorbelly [from gor, dung, and belly, according to Skinner and Julius. It may perhaps come from gor, Welsh, beyond, too much; or, as seems to me more likely, may be contracted from gourmand, or gourmand's belly, the belly of a glutton.] A big paunch, a swelling belly. A term of reproach for a fat man.
(According to the OED, Skinner and Julius were right.)
gorbelly [from gor, dung, and belly, according to Skinner and Julius. It may perhaps come from gor, Welsh, beyond, too much; or, as seems to me more likely, may be contracted from gourmand, or gourmand's belly, the belly of a glutton.] A big paunch, a swelling belly. A term of reproach for a fat man.
(According to the OED, Skinner and Julius were right.)
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Riffage, n
This is a word which has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in its June quarterly update. The OED says of it:
One surprise of this range was the fecundity of riff, n (and riff, v) in producing new nouns referring to the playing of catchy musical phrases. Besides riffage, this update also includes new entries for the whimsical riffola, n. and the retro rifferama, n. These words entered the English language amid an explosion of popular music journalism in the second half of the twentieth century, coined by critics who apparently felt limited by the staid predictability of riffing, n. The three new entries are only the tip of a neologistic iceberg: OED's files also contain examples of riffery, riffdom, riffmongery, and riffology, among others which may eventually be considered for inclusion in future updates.
I would never have thought of harmless little riff in terms of "the tip of a neologistic iceberg", and I daresay that neither would the great players of them (Buster Bailey, clarinet, for instance). I must let the editors know that in listing other derivatives for possible future inclusion they have failed to mention many important ones such as: rifflike, rifferoo, riffmanship, and of course the ever-popular if slightly vulgar phrase riff off, all of which have appeared in print and therefore qualify for an entry.
One surprise of this range was the fecundity of riff, n (and riff, v) in producing new nouns referring to the playing of catchy musical phrases. Besides riffage, this update also includes new entries for the whimsical riffola, n. and the retro rifferama, n. These words entered the English language amid an explosion of popular music journalism in the second half of the twentieth century, coined by critics who apparently felt limited by the staid predictability of riffing, n. The three new entries are only the tip of a neologistic iceberg: OED's files also contain examples of riffery, riffdom, riffmongery, and riffology, among others which may eventually be considered for inclusion in future updates.
I would never have thought of harmless little riff in terms of "the tip of a neologistic iceberg", and I daresay that neither would the great players of them (Buster Bailey, clarinet, for instance). I must let the editors know that in listing other derivatives for possible future inclusion they have failed to mention many important ones such as: rifflike, rifferoo, riffmanship, and of course the ever-popular if slightly vulgar phrase riff off, all of which have appeared in print and therefore qualify for an entry.
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Rough talk
American authors Brett and Kate Mackay have written a book about The Art of Manliness and have included examples of manly vernacular from the nineteenth century. Here are some of them:
Admiral of the Red: A person whose very red face evinces a fondness for strong potations.
Admiral of the Red: A person whose very red face evinces a fondness for strong potations.
Bellows to Mend: A person out of breath; especially a pugilist is said to be “bellows to mend” when winded.
Blind Monkeys: An imaginary collection at the Zoological Gardens, which are supposed to receive care and attention from persons fitted by nature for such office and for little else. An idle and useless person is often told that he is only fit to lead the Blind Monkeys to evacuate. Another form this elegant conversation takes is for one man to tell another that he knows of a suitable situation for him. “How much a week? and what to do?” are natural questions, and then comes the scathing and sarcastic reply, “Five bob a week at the doctor’s— you’re to stand behind the door and make the patients sick. They won’t want no physic when they sees your mug.”
Blinker: A blackened eye. Also a hard blow in the eye.
Bone Box: The mouth. Shut your bone box; shut your mouth.
Bully Trap: A brave man with a mild or effeminate appearance, by whom the bullies are frequently taken in.
Bunch Of Fives: The fist. Pugilistic. [still in use]
Cat-heads. A woman’s breasts. Sea phrase.
Colt’s Tooth. Elderly persons of juvenile tastes are said to have a Colt’s Tooth, i.e., a desire to shed their teeth once more, to live life over again.
Drumsticks:Legs.
Drumstick cases: pants
Earth Bath: a grave.
Eternity Box: A coffin.
Fart Catcher: A valet or footman, from his walking behind his master or mistress.
Fimble-Famble: A lame, prevaricating excuse.
Fizzing: First-rate, very good, excellent; synonymous with “stunning.”
Flag of Distress: Any overt sign of poverty; the end of a person’s shirt when it protrudes through his trousers.
Floorer: A blow sufficiently strong to knock a man down, or bring him to the floor. Often used in reference to sudden and unpleasant news.
Follow-me-lads: Curls hanging over a lady’s shoulder.
Gentleman of Four Outs: When a vulgar, blustering fellow asserts that he is a gentleman, the retort generally is, ” Yes, a Gentleman Of Four Outs”—that is, without wit, without money, without credit, and without manners.
Go By The Ground: A little short person, man or woman.
Gunpowder: An old woman.
Half-mourning: To have a black eye from a blow. As distinguished from "whole-mourning”, two black eyes.
Heavy Wet: Malt liquor—because the more a man drinks of it, the heavier and more stupid he becomes.
How’s Your Poor Feet!: An idiotic street cry with no meaning, much in vogue a few years back.
Keep a Pig: An Oxford University phrase, which means to have a lodger. A man whose rooms contain two bedchambers has sometimes, when his college is full, to allow the use of one of them to a Freshman, who is called under these circumstances a PIG. The original occupier is then said to Keep A Pig.
Ladder: “Can’t see a hole in a Ladder,” said of any one who is intoxicated. It was once said that a man was never properly drunk until he could not lie down without holding, could not see a hole through a Ladder, or went to the pump to light his pipe.
Monkey with a Long Tail: A mortgage.
Muckender: A pocket handkerchief, snottinger. Nose-ender. A straight blow delivered full on the nasal promontory.
Nose in the Manger: To put one’s nose in the manger, to sit down to eat. To “put on the nose-bag” is to eat hurriedly, or to eat while continuing at work.
Perpendicular: A lunch taken standing-up at a tavern bar. It is usual to call it lunch, often as the Perpendicular may take the place of dinner.
Pot-hunter: A man who gives his time up to rowing or punting, or any sort of match in order to win the “pewters” which are given as prizes. The term is now much used in aquatic and athletic circles; and is applied, in a derogatory sense, to men of good quality who enter themselves in small races they are almost sure to win, and thus deprive the juniors of small trophies which should be above the attention of champions, though valuable to beginners. Also an unwelcome guest, who manages to be just in time for dinner.
Sneeze-lurker: A thief who throws snuff in a person’s face, and then robs him.
Rumbumptious: Haughty, pugilistic.
Rusty Guts: A blunt, rough, old fellow.
Saucebox: A pert young person, in low life also signifies the mouth.
Saw Your Timber: Be off!” equivalent to “cut your stick.” Occasionally varied, with mock refinement, to “amputate your mahogany.”
Scandal-water: Tea; from old maids’ tea-parties being generally a focus for scandal.
Sit-upons: Trousers.
Smeller: The nose; “a blow on the Smeller” is often to be found in pugilistic records.
Sober-water: A jocular allusion to the uses of soda-water.
Tune the Old Cow Died of: An epithet for any ill-played or discordant piece of music.
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Fantastic!
It would be interesting—well, fairly interesting—to know how many words we have in English to express approval or admiration.
One way to find out would be to look up, say, "good" in an online thesaurus or synonym dictionary, then follow the trail of all the words you get through all the other thesauruses you can find online and paste all the lists into a database. Write a few lines of code to eliminate the duplicates, then decide how far you go in excluding obscure, obsolete, slang, dialect 'gradely'), and facetious coinages ('splendiferous'), and you will finish up with a very long list. Anyone who would like to attempt this task (or has a better way of doing it) should send me his or her list, and if it has a total of two thousand or more (and I agree with the principle of the exclusions) I will send a cheque for $50 to some appropriate charity.
Some readers may ask why I am doing this.
Having obtained such a list I would present a copy of it to certain moderately well educated people of my acquaintance (no names, they know who they are) in order to shame them by pointing out that they demean themselves by the way in which they always use the same adjective when they want to tell you that they like something. With thousands to choose from, they cannot be bothered to find something fresh and really apt, so from laziness and habit out comes the same tired old word, time after time, whether they are describing the weather, a play, an ascent of Everest, a steak, a pole vault, a book, a hat, a pile ointment, a lover, or whatever....he (she, it) is (was) FANTASTIC!
Or, often, absolutely fantastic!
One way to find out would be to look up, say, "good" in an online thesaurus or synonym dictionary, then follow the trail of all the words you get through all the other thesauruses you can find online and paste all the lists into a database. Write a few lines of code to eliminate the duplicates, then decide how far you go in excluding obscure, obsolete, slang, dialect 'gradely'), and facetious coinages ('splendiferous'), and you will finish up with a very long list. Anyone who would like to attempt this task (or has a better way of doing it) should send me his or her list, and if it has a total of two thousand or more (and I agree with the principle of the exclusions) I will send a cheque for $50 to some appropriate charity.
Some readers may ask why I am doing this.
Having obtained such a list I would present a copy of it to certain moderately well educated people of my acquaintance (no names, they know who they are) in order to shame them by pointing out that they demean themselves by the way in which they always use the same adjective when they want to tell you that they like something. With thousands to choose from, they cannot be bothered to find something fresh and really apt, so from laziness and habit out comes the same tired old word, time after time, whether they are describing the weather, a play, an ascent of Everest, a steak, a pole vault, a book, a hat, a pile ointment, a lover, or whatever....he (she, it) is (was) FANTASTIC!
Or, often, absolutely fantastic!
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Roll up your sleeve for me, sweetie
Over the past few weeks, my circumstances have been such that I have had to become acquainted with a number of NHS nurses. This has not been an unpleasant experience, for most of them are kind, friendly and competent, but there is one thing that many of them have been doing to me (apart from the nasty things they sometimes have to do) which irritated me.
Why have they never realised, or been told, that not everyone likes being addressed as 'my darling', 'my poppet' or 'my sweetheart'? Of course they mean well, but you don't have to be excessively standoffish or snooty to find this patronising and offensive. On a couple of occasions I suggested diffidently that I would prefer them to use my (first) name but I don't think they really understood why.
A nurse suggested to me that they use these mock-affectionate terms because they cannot remember every patient's name and don't like to keep asking, but this seems a feeble excuse; in that case, what's wrong with m'dear, which somehow doesn't sound patronising and has a cuddly, West Country ring to it?
I wouldn't mind a male nurse calling me mate; this strikes me as a friendly way of addressing an equal.
Why have they never realised, or been told, that not everyone likes being addressed as 'my darling', 'my poppet' or 'my sweetheart'? Of course they mean well, but you don't have to be excessively standoffish or snooty to find this patronising and offensive. On a couple of occasions I suggested diffidently that I would prefer them to use my (first) name but I don't think they really understood why.
A nurse suggested to me that they use these mock-affectionate terms because they cannot remember every patient's name and don't like to keep asking, but this seems a feeble excuse; in that case, what's wrong with m'dear, which somehow doesn't sound patronising and has a cuddly, West Country ring to it?
I wouldn't mind a male nurse calling me mate; this strikes me as a friendly way of addressing an equal.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Politics and the English Language
George Orwell wrote a famous essay with this title sixty-three years ago. Our political concerns are different from those of 1946 and the piece contains some contemporary references which now strike us as quaint, but, as with nearly everything he wrote, most of his comments on language are as salutary today as they were then, and the clarity and precision of his prose has not dated.
You really need to read the piece, but here are some extracts:
This is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
...and here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
This is a parody, but not a very gross one. ...Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase ("time and chance") that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:
What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent—and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Nearly all that Orwell wrote here is sound advice for writers who wish to make their meaning clear. Of course, much is written with other objectives in mind: to obfuscate, to gloss, to impress, to amuse, to conceal.... But those who set out to do these things need no advice: such skills, sadly, are easily acquired by almost anyone.
You really need to read the piece, but here are some extracts:
This is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
...and here it is in modern English:
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.
This is a parody, but not a very gross one. ...Now analyze these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains forty-nine words but only sixty syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains thirty-eight words of ninety syllables: eighteen of those words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek. The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase ("time and chance") that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its ninety syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.
A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus:
What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you—even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent—and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.
Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
Never use a long word where a short one will do.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Nearly all that Orwell wrote here is sound advice for writers who wish to make their meaning clear. Of course, much is written with other objectives in mind: to obfuscate, to gloss, to impress, to amuse, to conceal.... But those who set out to do these things need no advice: such skills, sadly, are easily acquired by almost anyone.
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