Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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When the going gets tough Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan held a news conference to respond to her low approval ratings and rumours that she is about to be dumped. In the course of that news conference she trotted out a familiar old cliché as her main line of defence: ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ She repeated this line at least four time in the space of about five minutes. Except that’s not exactly what she said. Instead, she mangled the phrase by saying, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.’ Putting that extra ‘S’ at the end of the second ‘get’ is nonsense. It is not the original form of the phrase. It confuses the singular and plural forms of the verb ‘to get.’  ‘Gets’ is the third person singular form of the verb ‘to get’ in present simple tense. In the cliché in question: ‘the going’ (meaning ‘the circumstances’) is singular’ in the first half of the phrase, while ‘the tough’ is intended to imply more than one person (hence, plural) in the second half. So, it should ‘gets’ in the first half and ‘get’ in the second half. That’s the grammatical rule. Obviously, Jacinta Allan had been told to say those words by her PR person, and so she repeated them (or mangled them) endlessly, without understanding the correct form of the phrase (or, probably) why she was being told to say those words. This probably all came out of focus group and followed the usual nonsense of not really addressing an issue, just parroting a ‘talk point’ over and over again. As for the phrase, it seems to come out of American football. It was one of those phrases that football coaches would urge on their players to keep them going hard in a tough game. The first appearance of this phrase in print seems to be from the Texas newspaper The Corpus Christi Caller Times, September 1953, in a report on a speech made by John Thomas, the coach of the Green Hornets football team. But as for the rest of us, those of us around the world who don’t follow American football, the phrase became well-known (and popular) from its use in the 1985 Michael Douglas movie Jewel of the Nile. That’s when most of us heard it for the first time—but clearly not Jacinta Allan, who was saying words she didn’t understand just because she’d been told to say them. Ah, politicians and the English language—complete strangers to each other!

Yous Why do people try to turn the second person pronoun ‘you’ into a plural by saying ‘yous’? The short answer is—because they don’t know any better. But there is a longer, historical, and (I think) quite interesting answer. Until the 1600s the second person pronoun had two forms— ‘thou’ in the singular and ‘ye’ for the plural. So back in those days if you were talking to some person you could say ‘Come on this is something thou can do.’ But if it’s a group of people the expression would become ‘…this is something ye can do.’ That was, as I said, up until the 1600s. But in the course of that century—for reasons that are not entirely clear—all of the different, older, versions of the second person pronoun (‘thou’, ‘thee’, ‘thy’, ‘thine’ and the rest) just went away. People stopped using them. And what people use is what the English language is. All that was left was ‘ye.’ And then it appears that over the 1700s the vowel sound changed and ‘ye’ became ‘you.’ That means that today our familiar word ‘you’ is grammatically plural. But it has clearly ended up being used for both the plural and the singular. That created a problem for people who didn’t understand that. Not having sat through the history lesson I’ve just given you they thought that ‘you’ was singular and it was someone’s job to create a plural form—so that did the usual thing when creating a plural, they added an ‘S’ and they got the word ‘yous.’ The Oxford says that form is used in Scotland, parts of the United States and Australia. It seems to have been coined about 1835—or, at least, that’s the first time anyone has found it appearing in print. And it remains relatively rare— ‘yous’ occurs about 0.05 times per million words in modern written English. It is what we politely call ‘non-standard’ so if you don’t want to sound like a dope, don’t use it.

Is ‘drongo’ dying? The ABC News website recently published an article under the heading of ‘Death of “drongo”: Are Aussie insults and swearwords dying out?’ This, I thought, looked like the sort of thing that interests us, so I read the article. It said nothing about the prevalence of good old Aussie insults such as ‘drongo’ and ‘galah.’ Nothing. The whole thing was about how young people tend to swear using different words than their elders used. And it was about swearing—profanity and four-letter-words—not about colourful Aussie insults. And a great deal of it had to do with a research program that is happening in Sheffield in the UK about how young Britons swear these days. So, the headline had nothing to do with the article. But the question the headline asked is worth asking. However, unlike the article under that headline, I’d like to get some real answers. So, let’s take an informal survey about the insults younger Aussies are using these days. This will be statistically highly unreliable—but it would be fun to see what the results are. Below is a very short list of classic Aussie insults (put together a bit randomly). Here are the questions: Have you heard these words used recently? Do you hear younger friends and relatives using these words? Do you still use them yourself? So, with those questions in mind, run your eye over this little list: Drongo, Galah, Boofhead, Dill, Bogan, Dag, Duffer, Mug, Nong, Ratbag. I’ve deliberately kept the list short—just ten nice little insulting words that Aussies have been using for several generations now. Are they still in use? Run your eye over the list, then go to the contact page at Ozwords.com.au—and write me a (very) short report on your observations. I’ll compile the results and report back to you in the next week or so.

All the waves I don’t know about you, but there are times when I just like to browse in a dictionary. And doing so recently made me aware of all the different ‘waves.’ The first thing this word ‘wave’ suggests to us is the movement of the sea—the rolling waves on our beaches. That meaning of ‘wave’ has existed in English since 1526. The noun ‘wave’ seems to come from the earlier verb ‘to wave’ which is (possibly) recorded as early as 1380, and comes from the Old English word wafian which, in turn, corresponds to the Middle High German word waben (there’s the Germanic roots of the English language again). At first it meant anything that shook in the breeze, and only in 1530 was applied to the movement of the sea. It applied to a movement of the hands only from 1616. Then there is the other wave, the one spelled with an ‘I’—‘waive.’ I saw a story on an American news site saying: ‘The University of Chicago has announced that it will waive tuition for students from families earning less than $250,000 per year.’ Clearly that’s a different kind of ‘waiving’ altogether. In fact, despite the similarities this is a totally different word which came into English from a different source. There is an Old French word behind this ‘waive’ which means it turned up in our language via Anglo-Norman after the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror (and his French speaking knights) took over the place in 1066. And behind the French source there seems to be a word from what is called Law Latin. So this shows us the dual source of English—the only language on the planet that has grown out of a combination of Germanic sourced words and Latin sourced words (one of the reasons why English can be so hard to learn as a second language). The earliest meaning of ‘waive’ was ‘relinquishing’ (as early as 1297) depriving a person of the protection of the law (as a punishment). This grew into the familiar use of this ‘waive’ to mean to refrain from insisting on something. And because historically this had the sense of ‘relinquishing’ or ‘abandoning’ it is related to the very different (these days) word ‘waif’ (meaning an abandoned or neglected child). All these connections in our language are what make it constantly fascinating!

Jim Crow For many years I have been puzzled by the American expression ‘Jim Crow’. It obviously meant something bad, and something racist—but exactly what, was not clear to someone not born in America. So, I have done some digging. First, the name. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, the white entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Rice (1808-1860) performed a popular song-and-dance act supposedly modelled after an enslaved man. He named the character Jim Crow. Rice darkened his face, acted like a buffoon, and spoke with an exaggerated and distorted imitation of African American Vernacular English. And this insulting name for a black person was given to a number of laws (passed in the late 1800s and early 1900s) designed to enforce segregation in southern states in the US. In practice, Jim Crow laws mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the South, beginning in the 1870s. So, laws that made black Americans sit in the back of public buses (reserving the front seats for white), and laws that made black and white American children go to different schools were ‘Jim Crow’ laws. All pretty horrible stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. I am old enough to remember the battle against such segregation led by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s. His movement was called the ‘Civil Rights Movement’—and resulted (eventually) in changes enforced by the federal government. (Mind you, even the enforced changes to fought against by the white segregationists.) At any rate, as unpleasant a bit of American history as this is—I now understand what the expression ‘Jim Crow’ means and where it came from. 

Kryptonite The word ‘kryptonite’ is no longer copyright. The word was, of course, invented by the comic book ‘Superman’—the Oxford tells me it first appeared in 1943. As you will recall (from your childhood comic book reading) Superman came from the planet Kryton—and when that home planet exploded fragments of it that reached Earth were disastrous for him. As the Oxford notes: ‘Kryptonite is most commonly depicted as a green mineral that came to earth from Krypton… Other types have appeared in various comic books, films, etc., each having different properties.’ As for the word itself, the definition the Oxford offers is this—kryptonite is ‘a substance that renders Superman weak and powerless. Hence in figurative or allusive use: something that can weaken or damage a particular person or thing; an Achilles heel.’ Hence the use of ‘kryptonite’ in the wider language. This makes it possible to say, ‘death taxes in Jim Chalmers’ budget is kryptonite to the Albanese government.’ And that takes it out of the realm of copyright owned by DC comics. This was tested recently when a Sydney nutrition entrepreneur, Paul Collins, registered the trademark ‘Kryptonite Diet’ (presumably some that destroys your fat). He was immediately sued by DC Comics for breach of their (so-called) copyright in the word. They lost. The Trade Mark Office ruled that ‘kryptonite’ has become a widely used term that has been accepted into the general lexicon of the English language. Well, it is certainly included in most of the world’s major dictionaries (including the biggest of them all, the Oxford English Dictionary). So, another win for common sense. (And you should feel free to use the word ‘kryptonite’ any time you wish!)

Jargon Every area of life has its own ‘jargon.’ This word came into English in the late 1300s from a French source word that meant ‘meaningless chatter or noise.’ It was applied, in those ancient times, to the twittering of flocks of birds. But since the mid-1600s ‘jargon’, says the Oxford, has been ‘applied contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession.’ And the sort of ‘jargon that is bane of our lives these days is corporate ‘jargon’—which spreads from the management suite to politics and the media and annoys us all. A list compiled by the great British wordsmith Suzie Dent includes the following examples:

Sunsetting—fixing an end date for something

Grandfathering—keeping things in place for now, but changing it all in the future.

Taking a haircut—accepting a loss without being wiped out.

Fiscal headroom—we think have enough money.

Key takeaway—no, not food, but the message you are supposed to remember.

Polycrisis—lots of things going wrong at once.

EOD—the time when this needs to be finished: End Of the Day.

Whiteboarding—putting something up for discussion by the group.

Deficit—that (relatively) small amount of money we’ve overspent this year.

Debt—the massive amount of money we owe because of years of borrowing.

And so on. Suzie Dent says the whole point is that ‘jargon’ makes an utterance clear to those in the inner circle, but unclear to everyone else. Which is the whole point. The people in positions of leadership (in the political and corporate worlds) often don’t want us (the mob, the great unwashed) to understand. We should just take their (jargon filled) word for that everything is going okay. Yeah, right!

Malua Bay A placename word study today. ‘Malua Bay’ is on the south coast of New South Wales (13 kilometres south of Batemans Bay) with a population of a little over 2,000. It used to be called ‘Mosquito Bay’ but (strangely enough!) this name failed to attract holiday makers. So, in the 1960s a competition was held to find a new name. The winner was Frank McGrath (he collected five pounds prize money) and his suggestion was ‘Malua Bay’. Where did his idea come from? Well, he liked a bet and followed the races, and he chose the name from the winner of the 1884 Melbourne Cup. There is statue of this handsome horse ‘Malua’ outside the Visitor Information Centre in Deloraine in northern Tasmania (where the horse was bred). So, the search goes back one step with the question—where did the horse get its name? The answer seems to be, almost certainly, from Fiji—where it means ‘to linger’ or ‘not hurry over anything.’ They talk there (I am told) about ‘Fiji time’—a leisurely way of ignoring the clock. ‘Fiji time’ is also known as ‘malua fever’—a bit like the Spanish notion of mañana (pronounced man-YAH-nuh) meaning ‘tomorrow’ (or I’ll get around to it eventually). This Fijian word was used as the name for a number of different ships (or yachts) in the South Pacific in the late 1800s, which probably inspired the owners of the horse to give it this word as a name. So, that’s how “Malua Bay’ was named—from the Fijian word for ‘to linger’, to a number of sailing ships in the South Pacific, to a Tasmania racehorse, and from there (eventually!) to re-name old ‘Mosquito Bay’ on the south coast of New South Wales. A long journey for one small word. 

Pizza words How is your pizza vocabulary? Perhaps you never get beyond ordering a ‘large supreme’—but the Neapolitan Pizza Association has very precise language (and rules!) for pizzas:

Cornicione—this is the Italian word for the cornice (or ornamental moulder) on the edge of a building. In pizza making it refers to the edge (or crust). The rule is this must be about half an inch to an inch tall. 

Margherita—a thin dough topped with tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and basil.  Invented in 1889 (in Naples) and named after Queen Margherita of Savoy. 

Mozzarella—fresh, unaged Italian cheese (mild and soft) traditionally made with milk from water buffalos.

Pizza al taglio—means ‘by the cut.’ This is pizza served by the slice in Rome, with a thicker crust and bottom than a Neapolitan pizza.

New York pizza—thin-crust pieces that are served by the slice so they can be folded and eaten while walking down New York streets (or in Central Park).

Sicilian pizza—has a thick, spongy focaccia-like base. topped with tomato sauce, veggies, anchovies, or whatever. 

Detroit pizza—a rectangular pizza that is cut into squares. 

Chicago deep dish pizza—the edges, the crust, rises up to nearly two inches, and the pizza is packed to overflowing with toppings and sauce.

Pizza alla pala—Italian for ‘on the paddle,’ and this oval (or egg) shaped pizza is served on a paddle, and topped with ingredients after it comes out of the oven.

St. Louis pizza—has toppings spread right to the edge so there’s no crust to hang on to.

And there I was thinking that saying ‘with extra olives and anchovies please’ was enough. It’s whole special language. And if you are planning to travel to Italy, clearly some of these terms are worth learning.

Terminological inexactitude It was John Stanley who drew this expression to my attention (when I was on his show on 2GB) as a humorously long-winded way of saying ‘a lie.’ But in its original context that’s not exactly what it meant. In 1906 there was a debate in the British parliament about the status of Chinese workers in South Africa. They had been referred to as being ‘in slavery.’ Winston Churchill, as Under Secretary at the Colonial Office replied, pointing out that these workers had entered into employment voluntarily and for a limited period, that they received wages, that they could not be bought and sold, and that they could buy their way out of their employment contract by paying seventeen-pounds-ten-shillings. He concluded that calling this slavery was a ‘terminological in exactitude.’ He seems to have meant something closer to ‘a mistake’ or ‘a vague expression’ or ‘imprecise language’ rather than ‘a lie.’ He was almost immediately misunderstood. Joseph Chamberlaine stood up in the House and said the Churchill had used eleven syllables, when one syllable—a good old, Anglo-Saxon word (he said)—would have served: the word ‘lie.’ But Churchill almost certainly was not saying anything as blunt or as simple as ‘lie.’ But the expression has been misunderstood in this way ever since.

Talk A report published in Perspectives on Psychological Science in April says that people are each speaking about 120,000 fewer words every year. That’s a cumulative loss of 1.8 million spoken words over five years. If this report is correct—we are talking less. Conversation is dying. The verb ‘to talk’ means ‘to converse or communicate with another person… by means of speech, typically of a spontaneous and informal kind’ (Oxford); ‘to express in speech’ (Merriam-Webster). The word ‘talk’ appears in English around 1225, and comes from a Germanic source verb ‘to tale.’ At that time ‘tale’ did not mean (as it does today) a fictional story, instead it was closer to the (related) word ‘tally.’ It meant ‘to reckon, to number, to enumerate’—something that was done out loud and shared with others. Over time it took on the ‘-lk’ ending in parallel with words such as ‘walk.’ So, why is our talk together dying? Surely it’s largely because of technology. We’ve all seen couples (or whole families) sitting together in a public place (a restaurant, an airport) where all of them are glued to the small screens on their phones, and not talking to each other. Texting has largely replaced emails. Self-checkout at the supermarket means we no longer exchange small talk with the checkout person. I am told that in workplaces colleagues who sit within earshot of each other now exchange emails rather than just turn around and talk to each other. For those of us who love words and language, this nothing less than a tragedy. Without talk relationships wither and die. And relationship is the currency of the universe. Without relationships humanity dies. So, fight the trend! Take every opportunity to talk—talk to anyone, anywhere, any time! I talk to strangers in lifts and at bus stops. We need to be the brigade that fights the loss of language—the loss of conversation. Small talk is better than no talk. You know what needs to be done—so go and do it!

Longest word Once again I have been asked ‘What is the longest word in the English language?’ The Readers Digest once claimed that the longest word in our language is 189,819 letters long. It is the technical name for a chemical compound which begins with the syllables “Methionylal…” and ends (a long time later) with the final syllables “…prolylleucine.” The problem with this staggering giant of a word is that it is not really English. It’s a technical name used by any chemist (foolish enough to try to employ it) regardless of what language they were speaking, or writing, at the time. . Chemical nomenclature is controlled by the IUPAC (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) and whatever those chemical names are, they are most certainly not English. So, what’s left? Well, there is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis” coming in at 45 letters. This is found in the latest Oxford English Dictionary, but only with the fairly snooty explanation that it is “a factitious word alleged to mean ‘a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silica dust’ but occurring chiefly as an instance of a very long word.” (Until I came across this I had no idea the OED has such a nice line in sarcasm.) But when pressed on radio I’ve settled on the 45 letter long lung disease. Which means I had to be able to pronounce it, a task that becomes less daunting if you break it up visually into its component syllables thus: pneumono-ultra-microscopic-silico-volcano-coniosis. Try it. I think you’ll be able to say this dauntingly long word and impress all your friends. 

Arrogant prick This is not the sort of language I would normally use! But I have to look at this today, because on Wednesday in the federal parliament Angus Taylor called Anthony Albanese ‘an arrogant prick.’ The first thing to note is that ‘prick’ has been used to mean the penis since 1555. The word is much older than that—coming into Old English from a Germanic source and originally meaning an indentation or hole, and the word was then extended to the sharp implement that could cause an indentation. And then it came to be used metaphorically—and from that to be used as a term of abuse. That abusive use of ‘prick’ is recorded from 1598. So this is a profanity that Shakespeare knew! This sense is defined in the Oxford as: ‘a stupid, contemptible, or annoying person.’ But although the Oxford records this from the end of the 16th century it adds a usage note saying that is ‘rare until the 20th century.’ It typically occurs about 0.8 times per million words in modern written English. For a term of abuse that makes it reasonably common these days. Have profanities and vulgarities become more common in our language in recent years? The answer is yes—so, why is this so? There is more than one reason. For a start—profanity is aggressive, so if there is more profanity our society has become more aggressive. These days university professors seem to want to sound like brickies’ labourers. We know about the rising tide of aggression on campuses from the anti-Semitic abuse Jewish students and staff have been subjected to. But there’s more. Profanity is evidence of linguistic impoverishment. The foulest vulgarities in fact are meaningless. The f--- word is spat out aggressively with no inherent meaning. So when empty, angry vulgarities are being thrown around people have forgotten how to use the language creatively. Their vocabularies have shrunk. And, of course, the fading away of the Christian foundations of western civilisation has played a part. All very sad.

Gubernatorial A radio talkback caller asked me recently about this word ‘gubernatorial.’ It is a word that relates to a ‘governor’ (that’s what the word means) or to governorship or an election to the position of governor. As the Oxford observes this is ‘originally and chiefly American’—and it’s certainly not a word we would be likely to use in Australia. It comes from the classical Latin word gubernātor which meant a ruler or governor. The Americans seem to have a liking for highly Latinate words for some reason (perhaps it makes them sound more important?) The result is that any electoral race for the governorship of any American state is bound to be referred to (in the American media) as a ‘gubernatorial race.’ As it happens, there will be a number of these ‘gubernatorial races’ happening during the Mid-Term elections in the US in November of this year. And one of these ‘gubernatorial elections’ is a bit unusual this year. Oregon has an unconventional candidate this year: an anthropomorphic pencil. The unlikely contender, who simply goes by the name “Pencil,” campaigns in a bright yellow pencil costume. He is running as a write-in candidate to draw attention to the state’s education crisis; Pencil has made Oregon’s low fourth-grade literacy rate a central focus of his campaign. There used to be a similarly colourful candidate who ran in Australian senate elections. He ran under the name of ‘Ivor F’ (just a final initial, no surname) and he ran on a platform of spelling reform. Britain also had a perennial parliamentary candidate called Screaming Lord Sutch (born David Sutch, 1940-1999). He was the founder of the Monster Raving Loony Party (not to be confused with the Labor Party—despite any perceived similarities!)

Black stump A reader has asked me to explain the origin of the expression ‘beyond the black stump.’ (In fact, two readers, John and Julie, both asked me this independently.) The expression is an Australian coinage—well, it has to be, hasn’t it? No other place on earth would come up with a colourful expression like this! The meaning is familiar to all Aussies—‘beyond the black stump’ means the remote outback, the limits of civilization. It’s recorded with that meaning from 1895. In fact, it’s often used with the sense of ‘this side of the black stump’—as in ‘That’s the crummiest looking old car this side of the black stump’ (meaning ‘the crummiest looking old car’ in all of civilisation). But the two words ‘black stump’ had a meaning of their own before this (full version) of the expression was born. From as long ago as 1831 the words ‘black stump’ were being used to mean a fire blackened tree stump used as a marker by early surveyors. In the vast, often featureless, semi-arid outback of Australia, early surveyors and map makers would (in effect) make their own landmarks. They would either find an appropriately located tree stump and burn it to make it especially visible, or else they would cut down a tree, leaving a stump standing. The tree could then be used to make a roaring campfire for the whole expedition, and the stump could be burned to make a fire blackened landmark. Of course, they used the instruments available to them in those days (theodolite and so on) but still needed landmarks. If there wasn’t a convenient landmark—they made their own. The great Aussie ability to improvise!

Such is life! This little phrase of three one-syllable words has gone down in legend as the last words of Ned Kelly. The bushranger was ‘hanged from the neck until dead’ on November 11, 1880. But historian Dr Stuart Dawson of Monash University says this belief that Ned ended his life saying, ‘Such is life!’ is (in his words) ‘pure fiction.’ The problem is that there are many reports of his death in various newspapers of the time—and they are not all in agreement. Some claim he said ‘’Ah, well, I suppose it has come to this—such is life.’ While others leave off the last words and so he only dies admitting it has come to this. Nevertheless the expression entered Australian legend as Ned Kelly’s final words that were fatalistic and courageous… well, perhaps. But whether truth or legend, the words are part of the myth. In 1903 Joseph Furphy (under the pen name of ‘Tom Collins’) published a novel called Such is Life—a very Australian novel that famously starts with the words, ‘Unemployed at last!’ And the novel’s title is said to come from the bushranger’s reputed last words. But while this strikes many Aussies as a typically Australian pragmatic expression it turns out that it’s not Australian at all! Charles Dickens used the expression in 1864 in his novel Our Mutual Friend—in a similar mournful and fatalistic way. And the Oxford English Dictionary lists lots of related expressions—using the formular ‘such is…’—from as long ago as 1297. So, sorry, Aussies can claim a lot of verbal inventions—but not this one.

Stone the crows I made up my mind to do some serious digging and write the final and definitive report on this puzzling Australian expression. I’ve often been asked about it and I’ve never been able to say with any certainty where it comes from or how it was coined. Well, I’ve consulted the Australian National Dictionary, Gerry Wilkes’ magnificent dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, the Sidney J. Baker’s masterpiece The Australian Language—and about a dozen other books on my shelves. And it seems there is no clear and final answer as to where this comes from or how it was coined. The Australian National Dictionary says ‘stone the crows’ is ‘an exclamation of surprise, disgust, exasperation etc.’ The earliest appearance in print seems to be in 1915—in the Adelaide Register in March of that year (‘The Australian has also contributed his quota of “frills” to the mother tongue… “Stone the crows” he croaked.’) Clearly by then the expression was part of the spoken language and had been for some time. When pressed on a radio shows as to how this phrase might have come about, my guess was that managing to hit a crow sitting on a fence with a flung stone would be impossible (the bird would take off long before your missile reached him) so to hit his black feathers—to actually ‘stone the crow’—would be a cause for great surprise. That was my guess. And for all I know it may well be the thinking behind this coinage. But that wouldn’t explain all the variations with the same meaning: ‘starve the crows’, ‘stiffen the lizards’ and all the rest. So I suspect we just have to settle for the notion that somehow this collection of words (‘stone the crows’) appealed to early Australian settlers in the bush as a handy way of expressing their feelings. And that is as definitive as it’s possible to get.

Plinth You know what a ‘plinth’ is—the pedestal on which a statue stands. It has been an architectural word in English since at least 1563. Although, strictly speaking, in architecture a ‘plinth’ is the square slab at the base of a column, rather than the column, the pedestal, itself. The word came into English from a Latin source word plinthus with exactly the same meaning. This is not so much a word adapted as straight out adopted ‘as is’ by English. And further back, behind the Latin, is a Greek word plinthos meaning brick or stone squared for the building of a column. What is linguistically interesting is how stable this word has been—it has barely changed over more than 2,000 years. This odd combination of consonants (they don’t roll off the tongue, do they?) has been in the news. A new statue that mysteriously appeared in London was confirmed to be by the anonymous street artist Banksy. The work depicts a man poised to step off the edge of a plinth as the flag he’s holding blows across his face, blinding him. The proud stance of the figure just before he marches off the pedestal’s base, and the statue’s title, Blind Patriotism, led many to see it as a criticism of British nationalism. Banksy chooses to be anonymous, but newspaper reports from Reuters claim that he is Robin Gunningham (also known as ‘David Jones’) from Bristol in the UK. An exhibition of his work has landed in Australia this week, but it is not officially endorsed by Banksy.

Enid Blyton You and I have often discussed the importance of getting young children to fall in love with books. Writing in The Spectator Australia Peter Swan has celebrated the role that Enid Blyton has played in this—and the stupidity of librarians and other cultural gatekeepers who have banned (and still ban!) her books. As Peter points out, such bans don’t work because kids still love her books. Our now adult son was ‘turned on’ to reading by her Secret Seven books when he was a small boy. And I have just finished reading through all 15 of those Secret Seven books with my grandson, who is now seven-years-old. He loved every moment of them—the mysteries, the adventures and the scrummy feasts in their clubhouse. These books (like all the Enid Blyton books—and she wrote more than 600!) delight children by welcoming them into a warm, imaginative world where things always turn out right in the end. Peter Swan writes: ‘Blyton gave children what modern critics despise and children crave—hope.’ Children, he writes, ‘do not want to be hectored by little sermonettes disguised as fiction. They want a story.’ And gripping stories is what Blyton delivered—and still delivers to 21st century children. From the Famous Five to The Magic Faraway Tree to The Wishing Chair hers is a world that children love to enter and dwell in for a while in their imaginations. Peter Swan points out how stupid (and ineffective) the bans on Blyton have been over the years, and concludes: ‘Children are not a branch office of the progressive state… Enid Blyton understood that. Her enemies still do not. That is why she won. That is why she keeps winning.’ By the way, my seven-year-old grandson and I have moved on to reading her Five Find Outers books—where the plots are more complex and the clues more challenging, and his little brain is following every twist and turn. It’s very good for him! But… but… but… new research from HarperCollins UK has found the number of parents reading aloud to children is at an all-time low. That is a tragedy!

Shemozzle Writing in The Australian economist Judith Sloan labelled the Albanese-Chalmers budget a ‘shemozzle.’ A lovely word—and a good reason to go hunting for its origin. At first glance I would have guessed that ‘shemozzle’ is Yiddish. It certainly looks Yiddish. However, when I check with Leo Rosten’s authoritative book The Joy of Yiddish—he says not. But he still includes the word in his book, and this is his explanation: ‘This word is not Yiddish… but slang used by our cousins in England.’ He says he includes it in his (otherwise) entirely Yiddish book because it is often spelled and pronounced like the Yiddish ‘shlimazl’, which pronounced—he says— ‘shli-mozz-zl’ (and means ‘a born loser.)’ Despite that pronunciation Rosten insists the two words do not bear ‘the slightest resemblance.’ If this is so, where did it come from? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary makes me scratch my head at this point because it says that ‘shemozzle’ is an Anglicised borrowing from the Yiddish word ‘shlimazl.’ Yes, despite Leo Rosten’s confidence there is no resemblance between them, the Oxford says one led to the other. Well, who am I to argue with the Oxford? (Or Leo Rosten, come to that?) The Oxford says ‘shemozzle’ means ‘an unfortunate or troublesome situation.’ And Judith Sloan is right that this is what the government is in over its damaging mess of a budget. Leo Rosten says ‘shemozzle’ means ‘an uproar, a fight, a confusion’—and it’s certainly that too! So, ‘shemozzle’ may not be truly Yiddish after all, but it is the word that should be tattooed on Anthony Albanese’s forehead!

Grandfathering Yesterday, when discussing jargon words, I included the word ‘grandfathering’ meaning ‘to exempt from new legislation or regulations, usually because of some prior condition of previously existing privilege’ (Oxford). In other words, a new policy, or new conditions for a policy, will not apply to the existing set up immediately, but will after a set period. This has been in the news because of provisions in Jim Chalmers’ latest budget which included the ‘grandfathering’ of some capital gains tax provisions (and other measures). This use of the ‘grandfather’ metaphor means ‘these things will be with us for a while, but not for long.’ The word was first used in this sense in 1953, in Kentucky in the US. This verb ‘to grandfather’ was chosen for the actuarial (statistical) reason that on the whole women live longer than men—grandfather dies before grandmother. He will be here for a while, but not for long—the same as the provisions that are ‘grandfathered.’ Which is why Greens Senator Nick Mkimm looks like a complete halfwit for refusing to say this word—and saying ‘grandpersoning’ instead. Presumably he thinks ‘grandfathering’ is sexist. Of course it’s not. It is just based on an actuarial (statistical) fact. And there is no such word as ‘grandpersoning.’ Which does make Senator McKimm look pretty silly—both for using a non-existent word and for failing completely to understand the meaning and origin of the real word in question. There will now be a short moment while Nick McKimm wipes the egg off his face!

Touch wood You’ve heard this expression, and so have I—when someone wishes that something will be so, they add the words ‘touch wood.’ (While reaching out to touch a nearby wooden object. Or, in the case of the witty ones, touching their own head—implying that it is made of wood.) Why on earth would anything think that wood is lucky? Or that wood grants out wishes? Well, as you might expect the experts suggest this probably embodies an ancient superstition (as silly and pointless and all superstitions—black cats, the fear of the number “13” and all the rest.) The most common ‘wood’ superstition seems to have related to very old, pre-Christian, rituals involving the spirits of sacred trees such as the oak, ash, holly or hawthorn. In Greek mythology this tree spirits were called ‘Dyads.’ So if you ‘touch wood’ you are summoning an ancient tree spirit to your aid. Closely connected is the expression ‘knock on wood’ in which instead of touching you knock the wooden object to give you success in your endeavour. In olden times the Irish, I am told, believed that knocking wood was a way of thanking the ‘little folk’ for their help. But others suggest that knocking on wood prevents the Devil from hearing what you are saying (and gleefully leaping in to stop it). Mind some writers say that the wood symbolises the timber of the cross on which Christ was crucified, but this may be a Christianisation of an older ritual—or an attempt by a primitive tribe to save some of their old rituals when the tribe converted to Christianity. But it’s still a superstition! A silly superstition! As such (to use an Aussie expression) it doesn’t pass the pub test.

Hantavirus Six people stuck in a Perth quarantine centre after a deadly ‘hantavirus’ outbreak on their cruise ship have discovered they’re not infected. The four Australian citizens, one permanent resident and a New Zealand national quarantining for three weeks in Western Australia’s Bullsbrook Centre received their blood test results yesterday. The federal Health Department confirmed they are well and will only be retested if they develop symptoms. Which leaves us with the question: what is the exact meaning and origin of this word ‘hantavirus’? Well, this may not help, but here’s the Oxford’s official definition: ‘Hantavirus is a genus of spherical, enveloped, single-stranded RNA viruses (family Bunyaviridae) which can be transmitted to humans via the urine, faeces, and saliva of their natural rodent hosts, and typically cause either a haemorrhagic fever with nephritis or acute respiratory disease.’ (I hope you were paying attention; I may ask questions later.) What the word ‘rodent’ tells us is that it is cuddly little creatures such as rats carry this virus (if it kills us, why doesn’t it kill the rats?) The clever folk at the Merriam-Webster tell me that the word combines ‘hanta’ (from Hantaan, a river in South Korea near where rodents carrying the virus were collected in the mid-1970s) and ‘virus.’ According to the Oxford it was recorded as a new virus from 1984. And simplifying the list of symptoms above—this ‘hantavirus’ can give you a high fever, a rash, difficulty breathing, kidney damage—and maybe a lot of other nasty stuff. So, stay away from those rats!

Intifada Is the chant ‘globalize the intifada’ a call for violence against Jews? There are people who claim they have a right to chant ‘globalize the intifada’ and to stop them is an infringement of free speech. Now, the truth is that free speech is never 100% free. For instance, there are laws against defamation—as there should be. If you slander and defame someone it is no defence to claim you are just exercising your right to free speech. So there are limitations. And one of those limitations is that free speech does not include calling for violence. So, does ‘globalize the intifada’ call for violence? The notoriously angry Grace Tame spoke at a rally in Sydney where she spat out the words: ‘From Gadigal to Gaza, globalize the intifada.’ When there were protests at how outrageous her call was, she claimed the word ‘intifada’ simply means ‘shaking off.’ Is she right? Well, ‘intifada’ came into English from Arabic in 1985. That was the first year it appeared in print in English (in the Los Angeles Times in September of that year). The word ‘intifada’ has been constructed out of an Arabic source word ‘nafada.’ That source word means ‘shaking off.’ But that’s definitely not what the full word ‘intifada’ means. The Oxford English Dictionary says ‘intifada’ means ‘rebellion or uprising.’ Historically (starting from the 1980s) the first and second ‘intifadas’ targeted Israel with Molotov cocktails and suicide bombings. The Second ‘Intifada’ in particular targeted Israeli civilians with violence. Just like the shooting murders of 15 at Bondi. The shooters are alleged to have targeted Jews who were not only civilians, they were not even in Israel. That is what ‘globalise the intifada’ really means. And Grace Tame and her friends cannot squirm out from under that linguistic truth.

Gasoline? Or Petrol I aways take a sort of grim pleasure in pointing out when the American language gets something wrong that we get right. In this case, Americans fill their cars with ‘gas’—short for ‘gasoline’—while we fill ours with ‘petrol’—short for ‘petroleum.’ The word ‘gasoline’ is recorded from 1860. Here’s the Oxford’s explanation of how the word got started—it was ‘originally a light fuel oil made by the fractional distillation of petroleum, used for heating and lighting’ Only later was the word applied to motor fuel (the same sort of petroleum distillate that we, correctly, call ‘petrol’). How the word ‘gasoline’ was formed is a bit unclear. It seems this early ‘gasoline’ product was also sold under the name of ‘gas oil’ so that may have been the start. There is also the possibility that it was a variation on a commercial product invented by John Cassell of London which was sold under the name of ‘cazeline’ (you can see the similarity to ‘gasoline’). Whatever word path led to the word, it was purely accidental, and says nothing about the real chemical constitution of motor fuel. On the other hand. ‘petroleum’ is about a thousand years older than ‘gasoline.’ ‘Petroleum’ was a word in Old English, and was formed from two classical Latin words—petra meaning ‘rock’ and oleum meaning ‘oil.’ So, it names oil type fluids that are present in some rock formations. The word we use for motor fuel, ‘petrol’ accurately represents the chemical composition of the fluid in question, and also reflects its history. So— ‘petrol’ is the correct name and ‘gas’ is just wrong! We win again.