Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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Prayer Yesterday I talked wrote about the word ‘Bondi’ and I thought I’d follow up by looking at the more recent illegal anti-Israel demonstration in Sydney, in the square next to the Town Hall. The demonstrators were complaining about the visit to Australia by the president of Israel Isaac Hertzog—to comfort and mourn with Australian Jews in the wake of the radical Islamic slaughter of Jews on December 14 last year. It was an official visit at the invitation of our prime minister. The demonstration was illegal under a law passed by the NSW state government, and had been declared illegal by a judge. But they demonstrated anyway! They were there to confront the police, and they got the confrontation they wanted! In the middle of the melee as the police tried to stop them marching one group of Muslim men all got down on their knees and began to pray. Now Islamic leaders are upset that police pulled these men back on to their feet and moved them on. Where is the right and wrong about this? Well, Jesus criticises people who pray in public as a spectacle, as a stunt. He calls such people ‘hypocrites.’ This is what Jesus says (in his famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’): ‘when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others’ (Mattew 6:5). The word ‘prayer’ has been part of the English language since around 1300. It came into English from Anglo Norman (and there was a similar word in Old French). That source word meant ‘entreaty, petition, or request.’ In other words, the verb ‘to pray’ means ‘to ask.’ Behind those source words is the Latin word precariat from which we get our word ‘precarious.’ The idea is that life is ‘precarious’ (uncertain, dangerous). This reminds us that genuine prayer is not so much a religious activity as a universal human instinct and is not meant to be a public spectacle. Feelings of helplessness or anxiety seem to naturally express themselves in prayer. There is deep within the human heart an instinct not to stand alone—but to find comfort, help, support and a sense of belonging in prayer. We now know the universe around us to be a vast, measureless place. And we have a deep longing not to be the orphans of the universe. The result is that people still pray—genuinely, sincerely pray. Which means that turning prayer into a public spectacle to defy the police is a performance—not real prayer, but hypocrisy. However, I may be biased. My next book is called Pray Like This—due to be published in March (it was due out last year, but publication was delayed).  The book explains how to pray (really pray, not turn on a public performance) when we feel the need to pray (more details when the publication date is closer). 

Bondi I don’t often write about placenames in these columns, but I have been thinking about writing about the placename ‘Bondi’ for some time now. Of course, ‘Bondi’ is one of the iconic beaches of the world. For tourists ‘Bondi beach’ is one of those places they must visit when they come to Australia. But now ‘Bondi’ is etched in the minds of Australians as the name the conjures up the horrible image of the Islamic terrorist mass murder of 15 Jewish Australians (and the injury of 42 more). Bondi shows us what ‘globalise the intifada’ means—it means taking the slaughter of Jews to a jewel of the Australian coastline. The issue of this placename has been raised by Craig Kelly in a recent issue of his online newsletter Confidential Daily in a piece entitled ‘The Origins of the Bondi Name.’ He writes that he is putting together a series of books on Australian history, and the first one, he says, will be about Bondi beach, which, he continues, ‘is intimately connected to Australia's history.’ After saying there are various theories about the origin of the name ‘Bondi’ Craig Kelly says one ‘widely accepted theory suggests that Bondi is a local aboriginal word for a “place where a fight with nullas occurred” – with a “nulla” being one of the names to describe a wooden club used by aboriginals as weapons for hunting and warfare.’ He wants to make the point that tribal life in this land before the arrival of the British convict colony was ‘brutal, harsh, and violent, especially for women.’ Well, it might have been—but the name ‘Bondi’ is not supporting evidence for that theory. According to A. W. Reed’s famous book Aboriginal Placenames (1967) ‘Bondi’ (from the Gadigal word boondi) means ‘the sound of tumbling waters’ or ‘seas rolling in on a beach.’ And the publication date (1967) is important—because it was way, way before the whole Woke / Politically Correct movement was born. In addition, Brian Kennedy’s reliable and authoritative book Australian Placenames (2006) says that ‘Bondi’ means ‘the sound of waves breaking on the beach.’ And Brian Kennedy adds that the name was first recorded by pioneer surveyor James Meehan (1774-1826). So that is the real origin and meaning of the placename ‘Bondi’ and it is unhelpful to make an unsupported claim to the contrary. 

Duds, togs and strides In Australia we have some slightly unusual names for clothing. Where do expressions such as ‘duds’, ‘togs’ and ‘strides’ come from? We’ll take those three in order. ‘Duds’ meaning clothes in general appears to be a surprisingly old word. The Oxford says that as long ago as 1355 ‘duds’ appeared in the English language meaning ‘a cloak or mantle, perhaps esp. one made of coarse cloth (obsolete). In later use: (in plural) clothes.’ So, that’s the history. But why? Why did anyone, at any time, chose to call clothes ‘duds’? The Oxfordbegins by (unhelpfully) saying ‘origin unknown’—but then they have a guess. In Middle English the word was ‘duddis’ and this might be related to words such as ‘dowdy’ (shabby, dull) and ‘duff’ (not worth very much) because ‘duddis’ appears to have (originally) been used to describe the clothing of paupers. And that’s about all the experts can tell us. (But clearly ‘duds’ has come up in the world from shabby clothes to meaning just any clothes.) As for ‘togs’—it is now largely an Australian word, and is mostly used (at least in parts of Australia) to mean ‘swimmers.’ That’s because the full expression is ‘swimming togs’ or ‘bathing togs.’ However, before that special application ‘togs’ just meant clothes in general. As for the source of ‘togs’—it seems to go all the way back to the main garment that clothed the citizens of the ancient Roman empire—the toga. ‘Toga’ was the Latin name for an outer cloak or mantle, and it came into English (perhaps around the 1600s) meaning a cloak or loose coat. Then over time the meaning broadened to cover all clothes in general (‘Getting dressed up in your good togs tonight for the party?’) Then there’s ‘strides’ meaning a pair of trousers. Today this is mainly Australian, but it started as tailoring slang in Britain, when tailors would talk about the length of ‘stride’ (legs stretched out to the widest possible step) in a pair of breeches or trousers. Then the trousers themselves came to be called ‘strides. And by the way, these three words only exist in the plural form (just like ‘pants’)—it would be nonsense to try to talk about a ‘dud’, a ‘tog’ or a ‘stride’ (unless you used that word to refer to walking and not clothing!)

Euphemism / Dysphemism Most people are aware of the word ‘euphemism’. It came into English (around 1656) to mean substituting a ‘nice’ word for a ‘bad’ word. So, instead of saying ‘toilet’ people would say ‘bathroom.’; instead of saying ‘dead’ they’d say ‘passed away’ and so on. I remember when I was the host of the ABC national current affairs show ‘AM’ (quite a few years ago now!) on that program we coined the expression ‘tired and emotional’ to replace the nastier expression ‘drunk.’ We’d rung Bob Hawke in Geneva, where he was attending and international union convention, for his comments on some local political event. It was very late at night and he had clearly been socialising with other delegates, was slurring his words leaving sentences unfinished, and becoming quite excited about certain issues. We asked our executive producer (who, I think, was Brian Furlonger at the time) if we could run this pre-recorded interview—given the way Hawke sounded. And he coined the expression which he put into the introduction: “we spoke a short while ago to a tired and emotional Bob Hawke in Geneva.” Very inventive! So that’s the story behind ‘euphemism.’ But did you know there was the opposite—namely ‘dysphemism.’ This means replacing a ‘nice word’ with a ‘bad word.’ So calling a freedom fighter against a dictator a ‘terrorist’ is an example of ‘dysphemism’—replacing the nicer term ‘freedom fighter’ with the judgemental term ‘terrorist.’ Similarly calling demonstrators on the streets of American cities ‘insurrectionists’ is also a case of ‘dysphemism.’ And now there’s a third term ‘orthophemism.’ This has been coined by Keith Allan and Kate Burridge (both Australian academics)  in their 2006 book Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. They intend ‘orthophemism’ to mean a ‘neutral term’—neither especially nice nor especially bad. So, in the case of the ‘glass half full’ (euphemism) or the ‘glass half empty’ (dysphemism) you could employ the orthophemism ‘glass containing fifty-percent of its capacity.’ However, (1) this one is not yet found in any of the major dictionaries, and (2) like all new coinages is likely to do nothing except puzzle readers. 

Dr Livingstone, I presume This expression is sometimes used when two people meet (often after a long absence) as a kind of comic greeting (although perhaps not as often as it once was). But this is a detailed history behind this expression, that I suspect has been long forgotten these days. The ‘Dr Livingstone’ referred was Scottish Christian missionary and explorer Dr David Livingstone who journeyed through much of central African in the later years of the 1800s. His exploits were quite famous at the time, and during one long journey through central Africa he was not heard from for a long time, so there arose the question of whether he was still alive or not. So the New York Herald newspaper commissioned British journalist and explorer Sir Stanley Morton to mount an expedition to track him down. Morton finally encountered Livingstone, surrounded by a large number of his native friends, on 10 November 1871. In his book How I Found Livingstone (1872) Morton said: ‘I would have run to him, only I was a coward in the presence of such a mob—would have embraced him, only, he being and Englishman, I did not know how he would receive me; so I did what cowardice and false pride suggested was the best thing—walked deliberately to him, took off my hat, and said, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” “Yes,” he said with a kind smile, lifting his cap slightly.’ So, there you are, a bit of history behind what was once a very famous phrase in the English language.

Doh! A reader (Warren) has asked if Homer Simpson’s famous utterance ‘doh!’ is a real word. ‘And’ he asks, ‘can it be used in Scrabble?’ I sense a family dispute in the background behind this question, so, in the interests of domestic harmony we should try to settle it. The short answer is—yes, ‘doh!’ is a real word, and is found in the most authoritative book on the English language: the Oxford English Dictionary. The experts at the Oxford say it didn’t start with Homer Simpson, and they have tracked its usage back to at least 1945 (when it was part of the dialogue on a BBC comedy radio program It’s That Man Again). The bit I find interesting is that when this short word first appeared in The Simpsons it was not in the script! All the script said was ‘annoyed grunt’ and it was Dan Castellaneta, the actor providing voice of Homer Simpson, who decided to make this grunt into ‘Doh!’ So, did he just invent it out of his head, or did it come from somewhere? Obviously (given that it precedes The Simpsons by about 40 years) it came from somewhere else. Here is Dan Castellaneta’s own explanation: ‘The Doh came from character actor James Finlayson’s “Do-o-o-o” in Laurel & Hardy pictures. You can tell it was intended as a euphemism for “Damn”. I just speeded it up.’ (He said that in an interview with Daily Variety in April 1998.) James Finlayson was a Scottish actor who appeared in many of the Laurel and Hardy short comedies in the 1930s. And if you want even more background, I can tell you that the Oxford says it is ‘an imitative or expressive formation’ and that it is used for ‘expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned.’ I’ve heard it in conversation where someone does something stupid and in response someone else in the group taps the side of their head (indicating that brains were not employed) while saying ‘doh!’ As for the other bit of Warren’s question: yes, the organisers of international Scrabble competitions have accepted this word, and it is now in the Official Scrabble Dictionary. They have also accepted the alternative spelling— ‘duh.’ Which raises an interesting point—I suspect the slightly different spellings (and pronunciations) have slightly different meanings: (1) ‘doh!’ means ‘I’ve done something stupid’, while (2) ‘duh’ means someone else has done something stupid. Do you agree?

Smarter insults I was having a conversation with a colleague about the degeneration of our language, in particular about the number of gross, ugly swear words used in movies and TV shows these days (as well as in ordinary language). My point was that the English language is rich and has a vast vocabulary of nicely insulting words, and that fact means that we never need to become crude, rude and vulgar by descending into the obscene vocabulary. And to make my point, here is a list of much smarter words to insult someone—and not one of them is a swear word:

Insipid—weak, feeble (from a Latin word literally meaning ‘dull and tasteless’)

Twee—trying so hard to be cute as to be embarrassing (a play on ‘sweet’)

Fatuous—Foolish, silly, stupid (from a Latin word with the same meaning)

Sanctimonious—self-righteous (Such as those ‘virtue signalling’ people who support whatever the latest fashion is in self-important causes happens to be. E.g. they are ‘saving the planet’ by riding a bike instead of driving a car—and that means they own the road and can hold up motorised traffic as much as they wish.)

Unctuous—literally ‘oily’—as slimy as a used car salesman

Craven—cowardly, never inclined to stand up for any principles or values (remind you of some politicians?)

Pusillanimous—another cowardly word, meaning ‘afraid of danger’ (from a Latin source word meaning ‘of very small soul’) [Pronunciation: pyoo-suh-LAN-uh-muhss]

Obstreperous—stubborn and resisting any attempt to get them to cooperate

Obtuse—very dull, dumb and unaware (from a Latin word for a pointed instrument that has become blunt)

By using words such as these you can make your point plainly (even bluntly) and if the person you are insulting doesn’t know the word, they’ll have to grab their phone and check in a dictionary before they’ll even understand that they’ve been insulted!

Fascism Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spent the whole of his political life a member of the Socialist Left faction of the ALP. As a result we get the government we can all see—a big spending, highly centralised, regulating government that sees ordinary people as the problem and government as the solution. But the thing you might have noticed about the friendly folk of the Socialist Left is that those who disagree with them (who are more conservative) are often labelled ‘fascist.’ The problem I see with this is that most people who throw around the word ‘fascist’ as a term of abuse, have no idea what it actually means. Here is how the great American dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, explains the fascist/ fascism word group: ‘In simplest terms, fascism refers to a specific way of organizing a society: under fascism, a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people in that society, and allows no dissent or disagreement.’ The word originally referred to members of the Italian political organization founded by Benito Mussolini in 1919 and dedicated to violently nationalistic and totalitarian principles. So, clearly, it’s an Italian word—but from a Latin source word, meaning ‘bundle.’ In ancient Rome magistrates carried a bundle of sticks, in the middle of which was an axe, as a symbol of their power and authority. In modern Italian, the word was used to a mean a ‘bundle’ or ‘group’ or ‘band’ of people. Mussolini took up this word to name his name his ‘fighting bands’ calling them ‘fascists.’ From 1919, they tried to seize power in Italy. The contradiction here is that the political conservatives who are smeared with the label ‘fascist’ are the exact opposite of such controlling authoritarians. By and large political conservatives are in favour of smaller government, less regulation, and less interference in private lives and greater personal freedoms. Those who want to do those things (interfere in personal lives and freedoms) tend to be the very ones who call others ‘fascists.’ Do the words ‘pot,’ ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ seem to fit in here?

Ghost words Dictionaries are massive projects that require constant checking, and re-checking. And given that something could easily go wrong in that process, inevitably, sometimes something does. One error that can creep into dictionaries are things called ‘ghost words.’ These are non-words that don’t exist in the language, but somehow have mistakenly made their way into the pages of quite serious, and authoritative dictionaries. The classic example is the word (or, rather, non-word) ‘Dord.’ I’ve come across two possible explanations for this. One says that at the head of alphabetical entries it was common for dictionaries to show the upper- and lower-case versions of the lead letter for that section. Hence, for the D words the heading would show ‘D or d.’ And, so the story goes, one over diligent assistant transcribed this as the word ‘Dord.’ What meaning was attached to this non-existent word is unclear, although according one account it was (at one stage) defined as ‘a tropical fruit.’ However, there is another story. This one says that in `1934 the chemistry editor at the Merriam-Webster was writing up the scientific abbreviation for ‘density’ which he wrote as either an upper- or lower-case D. So, once again we got ‘D or d’ which was transcribed as ‘Dord’ meaning ‘scientific word for density.’ But there are other examples of ghost words. Even the great Dr Johnson, in 1755, accidentally gave us one: ‘adventine.’ What he should have put was ‘adventive’ (meaning something that comes in from outside). But because of his mistake a new ghost word was born. But by 1807 his ‘ghost word’ had been taken by medical science, given a meaning, and a ghost word became a real word. And what are the most irritating ghost words? Those words that are spelled with a G but are mispronounced as if they ended with a K— ‘somethink’ and ‘anythink’ and similar words. There are no such words. They are ghost words. The people who say them that way would never spell them in writing that way. So, why do that do it? I have no idea! One of the great puzzles of the ages.

Last words Here’s a good question: what is the last word in the dictionary? That probably sends you off to check the desk dictionary beside you, but the answer depends on which dictionary you are looking at, at the time. So, let’s look at a few, and see what we find. In the Oxford English Dictionary the last ‘word’ is, in fact, a number—it’s the British emergency telephone number 999 (it was set up in 1937, and the last entry in the OED is from that date). It’s the equivalent of Australia’s 000 or America’s 911. But if we leave out the number, the last word in the Oxford is ‘zyzzyva’ which is a genus of tropical weevil (the word is recorded from 1922). The Oxford adds the helpful note that this is ‘Reputed to have been invented to be the last entry in alphabetical dictionaries, although evidence to support this appears to be lacking.’ In other words, the zoologists who were naming this particular evil weevil deliberately invented a name so full of Zs and Ys that it would force its way to the very last place in the dictionary. But other dictionaries give other answers. The big American dictionary the Merriam-Webster lists ‘zyzzogeton’ last of all (which it says is ‘a genus of large South American leafhoppers’). Doctor Johnson’s majestic, landmark, dictionary of 1755 listed ‘zootomy’ (‘the dissection of the bodies of beasts’) as its final entry. The Macquarie Dictionary (Federal Edition, 2001) ends with ‘zzz’ meaning ‘a conventional representation of sleep or the sound of snoring, used especially by cartoonists.’ And the Australian National Dictionary (second edition, 2016) runs with ‘zygomaturus’ as its final item (this, it appears, is the ‘bony arch on each side of the skull in vertebrates’). So, they don’t exactly agree on where the end should be. But, clearly, some verbal entity somewhere has to have the last word!

Grokipedia We’re all familiar with Wikipedia, and back on January 30th I explained the origin of that name. (And, let’s be honest, we all consult Wikipedia more often than we’d like to admit to!) Well, there is a competitor that I hadn’t heard of before, until British journalist Richard Godwin drew it to my attention. It is called ‘Grokipedia’—and is an AI powered online encyclopaedia created by and for Elon Musk. It started out as an AI powered chatbot on the net called ‘Grok’ (which has had a bit of bad press lately by allowing users to set up artificially created naked pictures of whoever they fancy—including celebrities or even, alarmingly, children). I checked out ‘Grokipedia’ (well, superficially, since I only consulted two entries) and found I didn’t like the look of it. Where Wikipedia offers black text on a white background ‘Grokipedia’ (very irritatingly) uses white text on a black background. Why on earth would they do anything as ugly and hard to read as that? Richard Godwin writes: ‘some internet-users have complained’ that Grokipedia is ‘full of inaccuracies and shows (they claim) clear evidence of algorithmic tampering.’ He goes on to report complaints that it reads horribly and often just really dumb. Now, I don’t endorse any of those complaints—because I don’t know whether they are true or not. What puzzles me is—why? Because Wikipedia is there why bother trying to set up a competitor? Wikipedia is not in the hands of a tech billionaire, but is created by tens of thousands of volunteers who write and edit the pages (and, from time to time, there are appeals for modest donations from users to keep it alive). Having said all that, I must admit that the entry on me in Grokipedia is mostly correct. But, sorry Elon, I can’t see the need for it. Mr Musk should stick to Space X and get us to Mars!

Gratitudinising In his column in the delightful magazine The Oldie British journalist and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth writes about ‘gratitudinising.’ He writes that this is a ‘real word, or has become one because so many people are using it.’ He claims to have heard it often in recent months. Really? I doubt that the appellation ‘real word’ should be applied to ‘gratitudinising.’ The real words in are in the dictionary. In particular, in that great and final authority on the English language—the Oxford English Dictionary. And I have searched diligently throughout the complete unabridged, most up-to-date online version and ‘gratitudinising’ is just not there. Nor is there any verb ‘to gratitudinise.’ The same applies to all of the rest of the great dictionaries of English-speaking world: America’s Merriam-Webster Third International Unabridged, the great Collins dictionaries, the Cambridge English Dictionary and so on. The word ‘gratitudinising’ is just not there—but perhaps it should be? Here’s what Gyles Brandreth writes: ‘We gratitudinisers are more than merely grateful: we are people who are consciously counting our blessings—and doing it on a daily basis and for a purpose.’ He goes on to say that having what used to be called an ‘attitude of gratitude’ has beneficial health effects—reduces stress levels, improves your brain’s capacity to manage stress, while boosting concentration and reducing feelings of loneliness. There used to be a song in Sunday School many, many years ago: ‘Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.’ Because we are so aware of what makes us feel unhappy or annoyed or depressed, we can easily forget the other side of the coin. You woke up this morning still drawing breath. You are in Australia—the best address on earth. And, as Jesus famously said, God ‘gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust too.’ Even on the days when you’re not firing on all cylinders, and you don’t do what you really should, you are still surrounded by sunlight and fresh air. So perhaps it’s time to take up Gyles Brandreth’s odd word ‘gratitudinising’ and make it a part of our daily lives as regular as our morning coffee?

Genocide I have finally snapped! I have become so annoyed by lying halfwits misusing the word ‘genocide’ that I am going to spell out the true meaning of the word and why they are making complete fools of themselves every time they apply ‘genocide’ to the deaths of civilians in Gaza. I will try to explain this in short, simple words so that even the idiots who mouth off this word will finally understand that they are being stupid, and their use of ‘genocide’ is illiterate, ignorant, and an attempt to gerrymander the English language. The word ‘genocide’ was coined by Polish-born U.S. lawyer and linguist Raphael Lemkin in 1944 to label the attempt by the Nazis to completely wipe out the Jewish people in Europe. The Nazis called their mass slaughter of Jews ‘the Final Solution’—we now call it the holocaust. Six million Jewish men, women and children were slaughtered in those genocidal death camps. The ‘geno-’ part of the word ‘genocide’ comes from genus a Latin word meaning, in this context, ‘race.’ It labels the race of people into which one is born. The suffix ‘-cide’ comes from the Latin word suffix ‑cīdium meaning killing, slaying, murder. The deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in a warzone in Gaza during the fiercest of the fighting is completely and totally unlike the cold-blooded decision by the Nazis to attempt to slaughter an entire race of people—a commitment they pursued during the prolonged years of the Second World War. For a start, the Palestinians are not a race. They are group within the much larger Arabic race. Secondly, there are often (in fact, usually) severe civilian casualties in a warzone—think of the carpet-bombing of German cities by the RAF in WWII or the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. In both of those tens of thousands of civilians died. But they were not ‘genocide’—there was no attempt to slaughter an entire race of people, as happened with the Nazi pursuit of the Jews. In fact, many of the people who deliberately lie and call Gaza a ‘genocide’ would themselves happily see all Jews on the planet killed. It is largely people who have a genocidal mindset against the Jews who abuse our English language by deliberately and maliciously misapplying ‘genocide’ to the current situation in the Middle East. When they utter the word ‘genocide’ they brand themselves either an idiot or a liar. (Or, quite possibly, both.)

Grandparent Economy Emeritus Professor Gary Martin (formerly CEO of the Australian Institute of Management) appears to be the source of a new economic expression. As far as I can discover he is the person who coined the linguistic label ‘the Grandparent Economy.’ What does he mean by that? The phrase means that Grandparents are now making a significant economic contribution—especially in what is called the ‘care sector’ of the Australian economy. He quotes a national survey of 2,000 parents conducted last year which revealed that more than half of those parents surveyed rely on some form of grandparent care. The survey was conducted by Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research. What was uncovered was the amount of support to families now provided by grandparents—babysitting, then childcare (as the grandchildren get older), being part-time chauffers, after school supervisors and emergency carers. The term ‘the grandparent economy’, says Gary Martin, refers to the informal, unpaid care and support provided by grandparents that allows modern family life—and the broader economy—to keep functioning. I suppose the notion is that if grandparents look after the kids, that means there is money that parents don’t need to spend—or, possibly, simply do not have available to spend—and this keeps the wheels of the economy turning. (Which is a big shift for this current generation of grandparents—the grandparents of earlier generations did not do nearly so much!) So far, the expression ‘grandparent economy’ is not listed in any of the major dictionaries—not even in the online Urban Dictionary that is often ahead of the curve on new expressions. So, will it one day make it into the dictionaries? Has Gary Martin made a permanent contribution to the English language? We will have to wait and see. As I have explained so often it is usage that determines which new words make it into the dictionaries. So, if others see value in Gary Martin’s coinage, and take it up and start using it, then (and only then) will it make it into the big lists of the big dictionaries. Meanwhile, those of us who are grandparents will go on looking after our little grandchildren because they are just delightful little kids. And we’ll do that even though we find it exhausting! (When our own children were that age we were a lot younger!)

Vout-O-Reenee Today a particular example of nonsense words. In fact, a whole nonsense language invented by American musician and songwriter Bulee ‘Slim’ Gaillard—who (I am told) was one of the biggest names in the 1930s jazz scene. He called his signature jive language ‘Vout-O-Reenee’ or just ‘Vout. It has been described as an ‘exuberant, nonsensical and infectious.’ In 1946 he published Slim Gaillard’s Vout-O-Reenee Dictionary. The entry for ‘vout’ says ‘used as a word substitute or word ending’—which doesn’t really explain much. He used his distinctive language in some of the songs he wrote, such as “Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy” (a hit in 1938) and “Cement Mixer (Put-ti-put-ti) (a hit in 1946). You haven’t heard of them? Dear me, look at all that culture you’ve missed out on! Anyway, here are few entries from his dictionary:

Blink-o-roony—sleep

Burn-o-vouty—kitchen

Globe-o-vooty—the world

Ticket-tee—a watch

Reet—right

Tool-o-rooty—a fork

Mug-o-vout—your face

What’s the vout? —what’s the news?

And so on. You get the general idea. You just take any word and add ‘o-roony’ too it and you’re talking his language. Which is very cool-o-roony! As for Slim Gaillard himself, there was more to him than his nonsense language. He played piano, guitar, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone. Wikipedia says that in addition to English, he spoke five languages (Spanish, German, Greek, Arabic and Armenian) with varying degrees of fluency. In the 1960s and 1970s, he acted in films—sometimes as himself—and also appeared in bit parts in television series. And he was famous for his comic ‘scat singing’ using his own constructed language. Gaillard died of cancer in London on February 26, 1991. His unique and varied career spanned nearly six decades.

More wind words Picking up on our words for winds theme from yesterday: some winds don’t just have a meteorological label, but their own proper name. Here are some examples:

Brickfielder—a Sydney wind that was hot, dry and dusty. It was southerly wind that blew over the city from the direction of ‘Brickfield Hill.’ Never heard of it? Well that name seems to have died these days, but in the early days of the colony there was a quarry there, where clay was minded and turned into bricks in a huge overm at the southern end of George Street, more or less where Sydney’s World Trade Centre now stands. When I was a boy the Anthony Horderns department store was there, and they still used ‘Brickfield Hill’ as their street address. And since that’s the direction the wind blew from, it got that name.

Southerly buster—an abrupt southerly wind change in New South Wales and Victoria. Typically occurring on hot days bringing a cool change at the end of a blistering few days. 

Fremantle doctor—a cool breeze on a hot day blowing into Perth from the direction of Fremantle. For those of us in the eastern states we used to hear about this on broadcasts of test cricket, when the commentators would welcome the relief brought by the ‘Fremantle doctor’ (called ‘doctor’ because ‘it did you good’). 

November witch—is an Arctic air mass that sweeps across the Great Lakes in North America during November (the ‘month of storms’). Clearly not a popular wind, known for screeching furiously.

Haboob—a strong desert wind that creates large sandstorms across the Sahara.

Simoon—is another Saharan wind: a brief wind often only lasting twenty minutes or so, but which is scorching hot and filled with dust.

Sirocco—this starts in the Sahara but doesn’t stop there. Instead it blows across the Mediterranean (picking up moisture and become more humid as it does so) until it reaches Southern Europe where its combination of heat and humidity is generally unwelcome.

The Hawk—Chicago is known as the windy city, and this is one of its winds. Chicagoans call the cold wind that blows off Lake Michigan ‘The Hawk’ or ‘Hawkins.’ No one knows why.

And I think we have now named quite enough winds for the time being. Although (I should add) if you know of a colourful wind with its own name that I have missed, please get in touch and let me know.

Wind words Is it just me, or has the weather seemed highly volatile over the past couple of months? We’ve had a summer filled with scorching hot days, sudden cold turns, buckets of rain and the sort of wild winds that the Ancient Mariner used to complain about. And it’s the wind I want to focus on for a moment. So, let’s take a look at the words for winds:

Breeze—a gentle or light wind, from a Spanish word briza which originally meant a cool wind from the north, but since such winds were usually gentle and light the word changed in that direction when it bobbed up in English (from 1589)

Gale—the weather bureau seems to delight in threatening us with ‘gale force winds’ (the definition says, ‘a wind of considerable strength’). It turns up around 1547, but (says the Oxford) it is ‘of obscure origin’—although it may come from a Scandinavian word that meant ‘mad, furious’ (which sort of makes sense).

Cyclone—from the Greek word for a circle, because they spin (very fast!) in a circular motion. This was coined by English sea captain Henry Piddington in 1848.

Gust—we are often told with glee by the forecasters that there will be ‘gusts’ of up to (pick a number—something dangerous). ‘Gust’ is recorded from 1594 to mean ‘a sudden violent rush or blast of wind’ and seems to come from an Old Norse source word meaning ‘to gush or pour.’

Typhoon—is not a word our weather forecasters use, but it means a violent storm or tempest and seems to come from an Urdu word (Persian and Arabic) with much the same meaning.

Hurricane—should, strictly speaking, only be applied to violent windstorms in the West Indies, but mentally lazy people apply to any such storm north of the equator (south of the equator it’s a cyclone—same thing really). The word seems to come from an Old Spanish source word (and turned up in English from 1555).

Mistral—is another wind word we don’t use here, and a good thing too since it sounds most unpleasant: ‘A strong, cold, north-westerly wind blowing through the Rhône valley and southern France into the Mediterranean, mainly in winter.’

On top of which some winds around the world have their own names. We’ll look at those tomorrow.

Corporate jargon One of the richest sources of new words these days is in the corridors of power of the big corporations. There are times when they seem to speak in nothing but jargon. Of course, often the point of jargon is two-fold: (1) it works as a kind of shorthand to label people/things quickly, and (2) using it shows who’s inside the circle of knowledge and who’s not. Here a sample of this sort of corporate gobbledygook:

Acqui-hiring—buying an entire business to get the services of one genius who works there.

AI-washing—exaggerating the important of AI in a company’s operations to make it look more valuable.

App sprawl—the proliferation of apps for everything which, instead of helping, makes everything more complex and inefficient. 

Brainbuffering—brain freeze caused by too much information (coined by Patrick Hosking).

Cockroach—a large, corporate borrower that fails to repay its (often very large) loans.

CPA—Continuous Partial Attention—dividing your attention between the people around you and two or more screens that you are monitoring at the same time.

Disassembly—the word applied to a Space X rocket that explodes on launch.

Drip pricing—adding extra fees halfway through or at the end of an online transaction.

Headroom—the extra level of capitalisation that stops investors from panicking. 

Henry— (an acronym) High Earner, Not Rich Yet

Lily-padding—young employees who jump from job to job (from the behaviour of frogs).

Panican—a word coined by Donald Trump for people who panic.

Paraduct— (a play on ‘paradox’) a product contained in a package that requires the product to get the package open (E.g. a pair of scissors in a package that requires a pair of scissors to open it).

Passengers—those staff members who avoid work by using AI to perform their tasks (coined by the Harvard Business Review)

Sputnik moment—when a massive, unexpected shock rocks the market (based on the shock to the world when Russia launched Sputnik—the first satellite—in 1957).

It can’t be easy being a top corporate executive these days!! What all of these jargon expressions do it replace real thinking. Which explains why a lot of our big companies behave the way they do!

“wiki-” words There are a bunch of sites on the internet that include the affix ‘wiki-’ in their name—Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, Wikihow, Mediawiki and I’m sure there are many others. But before I tell you more I should explain what ‘wiki’ means. The Oxford says wiki means: ‘A type of web page designed so that its content can be edited by anyone who accesses it, using a simplified markup language.’ And the other dictionaries say pretty much the same thing in other words: ‘a website that allows visitors to make changes, contributions, or corrections’ (Merriam-Webster); ‘a website that allows anyone visiting it to change or add to the material in it’ (Collins) and so on. And the word is recorded from 1995. That’s what it means, but where does it come from? Well, it comes from the name that the internet had from the beginning—World Wide Web. This turns up in web addresses in the form of the ‘www’ bit at the beginning of an address. And from very early in its life the World Wide Web (the ‘www’) had various nicknames. The one I remember is the ‘wibbly wobbly web.’ This didn’t catch on (probably because it contains more syllables, and takes longer to say, than the original). This word ‘wiki’ was another that arose out of the ‘www’ (world wide web) phrase. Another early nickname was ‘WikiWikiWeb’—and in addition, this was the name given to the very first website that allow visitors to make additions or alterations. So, why was ‘WikiWikiWeb’ chosen? For two reasons: (1) it captured the ‘www’ initials, and (2) it was based on a Hawaiian expression ‘wikiwiki’ which meant ‘very quick.’ Apparently in Hawaiian ‘wiki’ means ‘quick’ while ‘wikiwiki’ means ‘very quick.’ That’s the real source. Much later people claimed that it was an acronym from ‘What I Know Is’. But like most such invented acronyms this is just an urban myth (a bit of folk etymology) invented long after the real coinage of the name. So, that’s the answer—a blend of www and the Hawaiian word for ‘quick.’ (Another nagging little puzzle solved.)

Preventive Vs Preventative It’s possible to get into serious linguistic arguments about this pair of words. I used to work with a radio producer who insisted that the longer version (‘preventative’) was ‘Simply wrong!’ So, was she right? Is one version wrong and the other right? And what about meaning? Another colleague I worked with years ago once claimed they had subtle differences in meaning. He claimed the shorter version (‘preventive’) could only be used in medical contexts, while the longer version should be used in every other context. Again, was he right? Well (spoiler alert)—no, both those objections are wrong. The simple truth is that ‘preventive’ and ‘preventative’ are exact synonyms—with precisely the same meaning. Both are adjectives used to describe things that are meant to prevent an occurrence. And either can be used in any context. What about the objection that one is wrong and they other right? Again—that is not the case. Both are correct English words, listed in all the major dictionaries, and both are centuries old. Both are over 400 years old, and ‘preventive’ is only slightly older than ‘preventative.’ ‘Preventive’ is recorded from around 1626 and the longer version ‘preventative’ from about 30 years later, from around 1655. So, there’s not a lot in it. How come we have two versions? That’s a good question, and the experts seem unsure, so I’ll give you my guess. ‘Preventive’ was coined first (as an adjective formed from the verb ‘to prevent’) with the obvious meaning. But (and here I am guessing) there were enough speakers of the English language who found it an awkward word to say and so added the extra syllable to make it more euphonious. (The longer version has a rhythm to it that the shorter version lacks.) Is that what happened? Well, it might be. There is a similar story with another word that comes in two versions: ‘orientate’ and ‘orientated.’ Both words mean ‘aligned in a certain direction’ (originally it meant ‘towards the east’ but now it means any set direction.’) ‘To orient’ is earlier, and the later version ‘to orientate’ probably arose (in this case) as a back formation from ‘orientation’—but both are correct and both have exactly the same meaning. The Americans regard the longer version ‘orientate’ as wrong—but, they are wrong. Both are equally acceptable. And today in British (and Australian) English the longer version is more common. Well now, have I settled any linguistic disputes for you? Probably not. These arguments will go on forever!