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Posh There are many myths when it comes to the origin stories of expressions. One of them which persists and refuses to die is a peculiar story about the supposed origins of the word ‘posh’ (meaning ‘upper class, superior, or genteel’). It has been part of English since 1914 (although it was probably part of the spoken language well before it first appeared in print in that year). Here’s the legend, the myth, that people go on repeating, even though it has been shown to be false. I came across it recently in a book by C. J. Moore about the origins of familiar words and expressions, and in that context it was sad to see this long-exploded myth still be trotted out. Here’s what he wrote: “The origin of the term ‘posh’ referred to the siting of ship’s cabins on the long sea journey out to India in the days of the Raj. Port-Out; Starboard-Home was the preferred location as those sides of the ship suffered less from the heat of direct sunlight on the corresponding journey. Clearly, passengers with more social importance and higher incomes booked the preferred cabins.” Rubbish! Complete and utter nonsense! There is no evidence to support this claim. If it were true at least one ticket stamped with the word ‘posh’ would have turned up (perhaps in grandma’s attic). But no such ticket, and no printed evidence of any sort, has ever been found to support this totally bogus story. Furthermore, a maritime navigator once told me on my radio show that travelling ‘port-out and starboard home’ would not work as a way of avoiding the heat of the sun. So, it is nonsense at every level. Officially ‘posh’ is classified as ‘origin unknown’ but we do know a much more likely story. ‘Posh’ was a Romany (or Gypsy) word meaning ‘half.’ And in their dealings with the underworld in London gypsies often used the word because of the common coin called a ‘half crown.’ The criminals, the non-gypsies, heard this and though that ‘posh’ must mean ‘money.’ And so they started using it for money, and for people who had money. Our nickname for money ‘dosh’ is a variation on the same word (this one is recorded from 1953). I have exposed that false myth time and time again, but for some reason it just refuses to die. At least you now know the truth—and you can (as a superior person yourself) correct anyone who tries to peddle that old myth in your hearing.
Mynonym The word ‘palindrome’ has been around since 1636, meaning ‘a word or a sequence of words that reads, letter for letter, the same backwards as forwards’ (Oxford English Dictionary). The Adelaide suburb of Glenelg is a classic ‘palindrome’—as is the phrase ‘Madam I’m Adam.’ It comes from an ancient Greek word palindromos meaning ‘running back again.’ There is, of course, the small problem that the word ‘palindrome’ is not itself a palindrome. But Keith Potger has now written to me with his solution to that problem. And, yes, it's that Keith Potger—one of the founding members of The Seekers, along with Judith Durham, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy. Keith is still touring (at the age of 83) with his one-man show ‘Celebrating the Seekers.’ He wrote to me because he has coined a new word—a word which has exactly the same meaning as ‘palindrome’ (the same backwards and forwards) but which is itself a palindrome. Keith’s word is— ‘mynonym.’ (My guess is that this should be pronounced MINN-OH-NIMM.) Keith tells me he coined the word by starting with the word ‘synonym’ (because his new word is a synonym for ‘palindrome’—that is, a word with exactly the same meaning). Then he changed just one letter: he turned the initial S into an M. The result is a synonym for ‘palindrome’ with the added benefit of actually being itself a palindrome. But will Keith’s new word catch on? Possibly. But for any word to catch on and end up in the dictionaries it has to start being used—especially in print. Keith writes that he has been trying to get ‘mynonym’ accepted as a real word. He tells me that it has appeared in print in Column 8 in The Sydney Morning Herald, and famous cruciverbalist David Astle has also given it some traction. And now Keith would like me to draw your attention to his creative new word. Which is exactly what I’m doing here. I’ll also mention it in coming weeks to John Stanely in “The Word Clinic’ feature that I do for him on 2GB, 4BC and the Nine Radio Network. So, do I think it might catch on? Possibly. These things are impossible to predict. There are two problems (1) there is already a word for backwards-and-forwards expressions, ‘palindrome’, so another may not be needed; and (2) ‘palindrome’ is not a common word, and used only very occasionally. But despite those hurdles Keith Potger’s new word may yet make it, and one day appear in our dictionaries!
Conspiracy theory The expression ‘conspiracy theory’ means ‘a belief that an event or situation is the result of a secret plan made by powerful people’ (Cambridge English Dictionary). It’s sometimes hyphenated as ‘conspiracy-theory.’ The expression is recorded in 1909 (in the American Historical Review). However, there is some evidence that it was used as long ago as 1863 in a letter published in The New York Times from American author Charles Astor Bristed. But it seems to me that it was the great philosopher Sir Karl Popper (in his classic book The Open Society and its Enemies) who put it into wider circulation with the meaning we employ today. In that book he wrote: ‘I call it the ‘conspiracy theory of society’. It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon.’ Popper went on to say that he believed any such widespread conspiracies were, in practice, impossible. His reasoning was that the more people who know about a secret plan the less likelihood that it would remain secret. Sooner or later the information would spill out (either accidentally or because of the disloyalty of someone in the group). Wikipedia claims that ‘Psychologists usually attribute belief in conspiracy theories to a number of psychopathological conditions.’ What they mean is that some people find their life is frustrating and unhappy, and having a secret conspiracy to blame means it’s not their fault—and this helps them cope. Social media has made conspiracy theories more widespread and more popular. However, nowadays the term ‘conspiracy theory’ is used to discredit perfectly reasonable theories. A recent example is the origin of Covid. The claim that this started as a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was dismissed of hand as a mere ‘conspiracy theory’—but the evidence is now in, and all the authorities agree that it was indeed a lab leak. This makes it important to have a healthy scepticism—both about claims that sound like ‘conspiracy theories’ and the use of the expression ‘conspiracy theory’ to glibly reject such claims. We need to think for ourselves, and wait until all the evidence is in. My own theory is that ‘conspiracy theory’ is one of the most unhelpful phrases ever coined!
Oikophobia Yes, it’s weird word time once again—although this time perhaps it’s not the word that is weird, but rather the strange thing it names. Great British philosopher Roger Scruton used ‘oikophobia’ to mean ‘hatred of one’s own people.’ The source of the word is the ancient Greek word oikos meaning ‘house, or household’ plus phobos meaning ‘fear.’ That word oikos has a long history in English, because it is behind our word ‘economy’ (from the notion of ‘household management’—which is what sound economic theory is about). But this ‘oikophobia’ is a move in a different direction. In psychiatry ‘oikophobia’ has been used to mean a fear of the physical space of the household interior. But more broadly, in the wider society, ‘oikophobia’ means ‘a tendency to criticize or reject one's own culture and praise other cultures.’ In other words, it means hating your own people and your own national home. Surely, I hear you say, no one does that? Well, think about it. All the opposition to Australia Day (and, sometimes, to Anzac Day) expresses a hatred of Australia and Australians. These critics write off the whole of Australia as being ‘evil colonialism.’ There is something similar behind so-called ‘welcome to country’ ceremonies—which consist of descendants of Aboriginal people saying that they own the country, and we don’t belong here. That is ‘oikophobia’! Roger Scruton (1944-2020) was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic. He wrote an academic paper entitled Oikophobia in which he criticised the sort of education that taught children to hate their national home—the nation and the people among whom they were born, and in which they grew up. To instil ‘oikophobia’ in small children is to destroy their pleasure and pride in their own country. It can even drive a wedge between children and their parents. And the people who seem to suffer most from the soul-destroying fear called ‘oikophobia’ are those of the hard left. It seems that the Greens political party, and the left wing of the Labor party, don’t like Australia, and they don’t want anyone else to like to Australia. They suffer from this crippling fear, and they want to infect as many other people with it as possible. So, love your home, love your country, and beware of the dangers of ‘oikophobia.’
No worries Chanel Seven News has asked me to explain the story behind the Aussie expression ‘no worries.’ Doing a bit of research, what I find interesting is that it appears not to be all that old. The earliest appearance of ‘no worry’ in print is from 1965 in the old satirical magazine Oz—put out by Richard Walsh, Richard Neville and Martin Sharp.
The earliest citation in the Australian Nation Dictionary is from 1967—from Jack Hibbert’s play White with Wire Wheels. The meaning of ‘no worries’ can be given in one word: easy. If I tell you that I can do job ‘no worries’ I’m telling it’s not a problem, in fact—it’s easy. If you thank me for helping you with something and I reply ‘no worries’ what I’m saying is that it was easy, no stretch, no difficulty, not a problem. Frank Povah in his Aussie Slang dictionary says ‘no worries’ might be a variation on the earlier expression ‘no sweat’ which had exactly the same meaning—easy! And the point of that is that ‘no sweat’ is much earlier than ‘no worries’— ‘no sweat’ is recorded from 1951. ‘No sweat’ seems to have begun as military jargon in the Korean War. It may even have been coined by Americans, and brought home by Aussies who served in Korea beside the Septic Tanks (the Yanks). ‘No sweat’ first appear in a book about the Korean War by American journalist and writer E. J. Kahn called The Peculiar War. Over time Aussies adapted that expression the more easy-going Aussie culture, and ‘no sweat’ turned into ‘no worries.’ My own guess is that ‘no worries’ was part of the spoken language for a long time before it ever appeared in print. Richard Beckett, writing under pen name of Crooked Mick from the Speewah, offers a very cynical definition in his New Dinkum Aussie Dictionary. He writes that ‘no worries’ is ‘a terrifying phrase meaning usually that the house is going to fall down, as in “No worries missus, she’s sweet.” Having said this the builder departs and the house does indeed fall down.’ In other words, be cautious about trusting anyone who grins and says, ‘no worries’!
Genocide A reader has asked me to look at the history and meaning of the word ‘genocide’—given that it is a word that is tossed around glibly these days. Israel is accused of ‘genocide’ in defending itself against Hamas; and Australia is accused of ‘genocide’ in its treatment of Aboriginal people—both historically and (according to some activists) even today. Is this just dishonest exploitation of a powerful word? Or does it mean something? First the history. The word ‘genocide’ was coined in 1944 by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In the book, Lemkin argued that Hitler's main goal was not the conquest of Europe, but its restructuring—so that Germany could still dominate even if it lost the war. In explaining what he saw as German’s plans for dominance he coined this word ‘genocide’—from the Latin word genus (literally meaning type or kind of living thing, and used by Lemkin to mean ‘race’) with the suffix ‘-cide’ which comes from the classical Latin word for killing. So ‘genocide’ literally means ‘killing a race of people.’ It is certainly true that Nazi Germany had drawn up a plan called the ‘Final Solution’ (in German die Endlösung). The “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was the official Nazi code name for the murder of all Jews. Genocide was affirmed as a crime under international law in 1946, under Resolution 96 of the United Nations. We know, from historical documents, that ‘genocide’ was never the intention of British settlement in Australia. The instructions given to the first governor, Arthur Phillip, were to establish good relations with the local natives. From day one all the residents of the new colony (both Aboriginal and settlers) were classified as ‘British subjects’ and given equal rights under British law. As for Israel—in its conflict with Gaza its military action has clearly been defensive. The two goals have been [a] the return of the hostage taken on October 7, 2023 (when over 1,200 Israels died in a brutal invasion by Hamas); and [b] the disarming of Hamas to prevent further invasions and further slaughter of Israelis. I am driven to the conclusion that activists are seriously misusing the ‘genocide’ today—in a shameful way. Their abuse of the word means that when real genocide happens somewhere in the world, the word will have been weakened and lost its power.
Why is Q always followed by U? There is no short and simple answer to this question. However, there is a long and complex historical answer. What I will try to do is to boil that longer, more difficult answer down into something clear, easy and quick to read. Let’s see how I go. There is a sound that is common to a number of languages (including English) that is best called ‘kw’ sound—the back-of-the-mouth sharp K sound blending into the front-of-the-mouth W sound. The question is: how will this be written down? There have been various answers to this over the years. For example, the word that we write as ‘queen’ was written in the days of Old English as ‘cwēn.’ Even with that spelling it was pronounced in a way that was fairly close to the way we say it today. So the ‘c’ in that spelling made a K sound (and the w made a W sound). So that, at least, is an understandable way of writing the ‘kw’ sound. Why did it change? Where did the Q and the U come from? The answer is that we use the Latin alphabet. Now the Romans took their alphabet from the Etruscans—an ancient civilisation that lived in (roughly) the middle of Italy in ancient times. From them appears to have come the letter Q that we have today. In turn the Etruscans may have been influenced (through various channels, over a longish period of history) by the even more ancient Phoenician alphabet which had a letter that looked a bit like our Q and made one of the K sounds that the human mouth can make. But Q was not in the Old English alphabet (as a Germanic language they didn’t use all of the Latin alphabet). However, French did have Q, and French represented the ‘kw’ sound by the letters ‘qv’ (because Latin didn’t have the letter U). After the Norman Conquest when French swamped England, that French spelling took hold—but it was still be used to make the ‘kw’ sound. When (over a period of perhaps 300 years) the letter U came to be accepted in English, it also came to play its role in ‘qv’—which, hence, turned into ‘qu.’ Mind you English is a mishmash, and trying to make a long complex story clear and simple is, itself, no easy task. As for the Q alone used for Arabic words—that is an attempt to capture the very guttural K sound used in spoken Arabic. Does any of this make sense at all? Or have I just persuaded you to stop asking this question.
Psychrolute My colleague Chris Kenny last winter joined the legendary Bondi Icebergs Swimming Club. He wrote enthusiastically about his experience in his column The Weekend Australia some time ago. But—somehow or other—he failed to persuade me that plunging into cold water in the middle of winter is a good idea. However, his discovery has led to another—I have now found a fascinating Weird Word that names such winter swimming obsessive as my friend Chris. It seems that Chris (and his fellow icebergs) are ‘psychrolutes.’ Perhaps (like me) the first thing you want to know about a new Weird Word is how to pronounce it—well, say it like this: SY-kroh-loot. (The ‘P’ is silent, as in ‘psychiatric.’) The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘psychrolute’ as: ‘A person who bathes outside regularly throughout the winter.’ The word appears to have been coined in 1872 in Oxford. Both parts of the word come from ancient Greek sources. The prefix ‘psychro-’ is from a Greek word meaning ‘of or relating to cold’; while the suffix ‘-lute’ comes from the same Greek source that gives us our word ‘lave’ (a verb meaning ‘to wash, or plunge into water’). Apparently there is a noun form of the word, ‘psychrolutist’ that is found (but very rarely) from as early as 1706. Mind this form of the word is recorded (once and only once) in 2001 as meaning ‘a person who recommends cold baths.’ (Sounds like one of those sadist doctors who tell patients to stop drinking wine and eating red meat.) The Bondi Icebergs Club, by the way, was formed as long ago as 1929. And they are not the only freezing swimmers. There are also the Cronulla Polar Bears and at least nine others. Do I have any sympathy for them? Well, I will spare them a thought as snuggle down under the blankets on a cold winter’s morning. Anu Garg (the A Word a Day man) says: ‘In the 1800s, British college campuses had psychrolutic societies that promoted taking a bath outdoors in the winter. This apparently helped keep impure thoughts away. A once-a-year polar bear plunge was insufficient to maintain membership. It had to be every single freezing day during the winter months.’ So, no, I’m still not persuaded.
Ha-ha We are very familiar with the expression ‘ha-ha’—it is the standard way we would write the sound of laugher—either genuine happy laughter, or cruel mocking laughter. This has been part of English since the days of Old English (so over a thousand years) and it is echoic (onomatopoeic) in origin. But did you know that ‘ha-ha’ can also be a type of wall? Well, apparently this is the case—as I have just discovered in C. J. Moore’s little book The Queen’s English (which, if it was published today, would be called The King’s English). Moore writes that the English ‘got the notion they would like to sit in their homes and see the distant hills unfurl before them. But traditional walls got in the way, and cut off the view. Hence, someone got the bright idea of bordering the home-garden with a sunken wall, keeping out the livestock and deer, while allowing an open and uninterrupted view. An invisible wall. No wonder people exclaimed “ha-ha” when they first saw it.’ Except, of course, they couldn’t see it—that was the whole point of the wall. Anyway, that is the story that C. J. Moore tells. However, the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t entirely agree. They say that from around 1712 this name, for this type of wall, emerged from ‘Ha!’ used as an exclamation of surprise. And the Oxford adds, it could mean ‘an obstacle interrupting one's way sharply and disagreeably, a ditch behind an opening in a wall at the bottom of an alley or walk.’ And if it was disagreeable the exclamation is more likely to be ‘Ah!’ from annoyance rather than delighted surprise. However, in their full definition, the Oxford boffins get much closer to C.J. Moore when they say that a ‘ha-ha’ is: ‘A boundary to a garden, pleasure-ground, or park, of such a kind as not to interrupt the view from within, and not to be seen till closely approached; consisting of a trench, the inner side of which is perpendicular and faced with stone, the outer sloping and turfed; a sunk fence.’ Which is all a bit more complicated than Moore’s idea of a low fence—since a ‘ha-ha’ could often (it seems) be a ditch, lined with stone on one side and turf on the other. But whatever it is exactly, surely this is an expression that has completely died out in English? Or have you (in your wanderings) come across a ‘ha-ha fence’ or a ‘ha-ha wall’? The latest citation the Oxford has is from 1880—so perhaps it really has now faded into the distant past. Making it all a bit of a joke.
Vibe shift We are still right at the beginning of 2025, but Brendan O’Neill (a fine journalist) has already named his ‘most irritating phrase of the year.’ And he’s right that everyone is saying this—the Trump administration in America is a ‘vibe shift.’ The implication is that the election of Trump, and the speed with which he has set about turning things around, is possible only because there has been a major shift in the culture of the western world—away from the Woke and back towards common sense. That is what’s being called a ‘vibe shift.’ Since the start of the 1970s ‘vibe’ (as an abbreviation of ‘vibrations’) has been used to mean a feeling or attitude. In the famous courtroom scene in the movie The Castle Dennis Denuto (played by Tiriel Mora) is asked by the judge to give legal reasons to support his plea and replies: ‘It's the vibe of the thing, your Honour.’ Sometimes the word is used in the plural (as in ‘he was giving off bad vibes’). The Beach Boys used the word in full in their song ‘Good Vibrations.’ Brendan O’Neill quotes London’s Financial Times referring to ‘the Trump vibe shift.’ The New Statesman called Trump’s policy program ‘the Great American Vibe Shift.’ O’Neill complains that this makes Trump’s return to power sound like one type of fashionable pop music giving way to its successor. But, he argues, what has happened in ‘Not just a switcheroo in vibes.’ And I can see his point. ‘Vibe shift’ is, linguistically, a trivialising of a much larger social, political, and cultural development. This is something to be careful of in our language—don’t use diminutive, trivialising language in order to dismiss the significance, or the size of the something. If Brendan O’Neill is right about this—if the powerful electoral triumphant of Donald Trump is more than a momentary wobble in the culture—then something important is happening. Every so often there can be a major turning point in a culture—and instead of a trivial expression such as ‘vibe shift’—we should be looking to see if that is what is happening here. Perhaps populations in America, in Argentina (where they have elected a ‘Trump-like’ leader), in Italy, in Germany and elsewhere have just stopped believing what the elite has been telling them for decades? That’s possible. One example would be the claims of looming climate catastrophe. For 30 (or more) years we have been told that the world will end in a climate disaster in, say, 12 years or so. And those deadlines keep passing and nothing happens. Populations do eventually wake up to these things. So, is what is happening now—rather than a simple ‘vibe shift’?
Cloth covered In this modern age dominated by the ubiquitous paperback book we vary rarely encounter books published with hard covers of cloth-covered boards. They do still exist. The detective novel I reviewed here recently, Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent, I have as a hard cover. Underneath its attractive, wrap-around paper dust jacket it is found in cloth-covered board. The cloth is black, and it has handsome gold lettering stamped on the spine. But it is also a rarity—since most books only ever appear in cheaper paperbacks. But, as a word-wizard I delighted to report that I now know the proper name for that cloth binding that is used for hard back books. It is called ‘Winterbottom Book Cloth.’ It had never occurred to me that a special sort of cloth was required for book binding, but this, it turns out, is the case. And the cloth used was invented in 1853 by a cotton merchant in Manchester named Archibald Winterbottom. His book cloth was made out of stiffly starched cotton—and the whole point at the time was the binding books with cloth covered boards was miles cheaper than the leather or vellum hardcovers that had been used up to that point. Such books were unaffordable, except by the very rich. This new cloth bound books were affordable, and very soon popular authors such as Charles Dickens, William Thackeray and Wilkie Collins had become best selling authors in the new cloth bound books. As for Archibald Winterbottom, he first worked for someone else’s cotton firm, and then in 1874 bought his own mill in Salford, and became the largest producer of book cloth in the world—which I now know is properly called ‘Winterbottom Book Cloth.’ He also introduced the gold-stamping and (sometimes) elaborate designs for cloth covers that became to characteristics of the Victorian book trade (and can still be found as handsome volumes through second hand booksellers). Winterbottom Book Cloth continued to dominate the book publishing industry until the middle of the 20thcentury—when the cheaper paperbacks started to take over. The meantime, the Winterbottom family had become multimillionaires. So, if you ever find one of those handsome old books, as you lovingly finger it you can mutter to yourself ‘Winterbottom Book Cloth’ because you now know the correct name.
Spitting image This is quite a common expression, isn’t it? When people look very much alike (particularly a parent and child) someone is almost bound to say that he/she is the ‘spitting image’ of Mum or Dad. And I have often been asked for the origin. I have explained this on radio and television over the years, and always given much the same answer. But the question goes on being asked—so I thought I should do even more digging, and try to give you a final a definitive answer (not that this will stop anyone asking the question again—it will keep coming up!) So, here we go: ‘spitting image’ is probably a corruption of the earlier expression spit and image. In the form of ‘spitting image’ it only goes back as far as 1901 while the fuller expression of ‘spit and image’ is recorded from at least 1859. This contains the even older spit which existed by itself in phrases such as the last two above, and comes from the days when Anglo Saxons spoke Old English—which means that it at least a thousand years old. And ‘spit’ has always meant what we still mean by it today: ejecting saliva from the mouth. So, why is that word tied to the word ‘image’? It’s in answering that question that things get really interesting. Larry Horn, Professor of Linguistics at Yale, argues convincingly that the original form was actually spitten image, using the old dialectal past participle form of spit. This now lost form ‘spitten’ is a northern dialectical form found in northern Old English. Professor Horn suggests that the phrase was reinterpreted when that form went out of use. ‘Spitten’ was simply forgotten, so people substituted an expression that was familiar and that resembled it. In that sense, it’s a bit like ‘one foul swoop’ that people now say because they have forgotten the old Englis word ‘fell’ (meaning ‘wild’) so that substitute something that sounds about right to them (when the should be saying ‘one fell swoop’). Well, that happened to ‘spitten’—so when that word was forgotten substitutes crept into the language that sounded more or least right: first as spit ’n’ image and then as spit and image and finally as the one we know spitting image. But why spit? One view is that it’s the same as our usual meaning of liquid ejected from the mouth, perhaps suggesting that one person is as like the other as though he’d been spat out by him. Not a pleasant thought, I grant you (most unhygienic!), but clearly the thought being the original ‘spitten image’ and still underlying the expression we use today.
Dudebro Richard Godwin (writing in The Oldie magazine) has drawn my attention to this strange new word ‘dudebro.’ Godwin says ‘The dudebro is no mere dude and no mere bro.’ Although in some way the person this word names is at the same time both a ‘dude’ (a fancy guy overly concerned with his appearance) and a ‘bro’ (this being a cool abbreviation of ‘brother’). The Urban Dictionary explains this strange (and still very new) term in this way—a ‘dudebro’ they say means: ‘White suburban males, usually 16-25 years of age, hailing from anywhere, USA. Characterized by their love of college football, pickup trucks/SUVs, beer, cut off khaki cargo shorts, light pink polo brand shirts (with collar "popped"), Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister gear, and trucker hats. Dudebros are incredibly insecure in their manhood, which makes them: insanely jealous of their girlfriends, overly macho, and laughably homophobic. currently, there is no cure for being a dude bro.’ All of which sounds both a bit alarming and a bit laughable. Richard Godwin goes on to say that Trump has surrounded himself with men who subscribe to at least a part of the dudebro agenda. Godwin adds: ‘There’s Vice President J. D. Vance, a staunch believer that feminism has gone too far and that women should stay at home.’ And at that point Godwin completely lost me. Because that’s not what Vance thinks. Yes, Vance and I (and millions of others) think feminism has gone too far—that there’s no such thing as ‘toxic masculinity’ and the absurd feminist aggression to normal men has made a world in which our young boys are going to find it hard to feel at home. But Vance has never said that women should stay at home. The fact is the J. D. Vance is clearly very intelligent, highly literate and very thoughtful. He’s going to be one of the best Vice Presidents in US history (and possibly the next president as well). As for trying to smear him with this ‘dudebro’ label, well, I don’t think the real ‘dudebros’ could ever relate to a best-selling author such as Vance (in fact, I doubt they ever read books!)
Kakistocracy A reader (Noel) has asked about the word ‘kakistocracy.’ It’s a great question, and a great word. Any word that has the suffix ‘-ocracy’ means some form of rule or government. That suffix comes from the Greek word kratia means ‘rule.’ This one, ‘kakistocracy’ is recorded from 1644. It’s a variation on the earlier word ‘aristocracy’—which first appears in English in 1531 and originally meant ‘The government of a state by its best citizens’ (Oxford English Dictionary). That’s not how we think of ‘aristocracy’ these days. Today we think of aristocrats as being ‘the people in the highest social class, who traditionally have a lot of land, money, and power’ (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). But that’s not how the word began. The ancient Greek word aristos simply meant ‘the best.’ That’s why John Calvin (in his Institutes of the Christian Religion) could say that ‘aristocracy is the government of the best and choicest men.’ Because that’s what the word meant in those days. That’s why, a hundred years later, this word ‘kakistocracy’ was born as the exact opposite. The earliest reference is from a sermon preached in Oxford in 1644 which refers to ‘a mad kind of kakistocracy.’ The word does not appear often. The complete Oxford has only four historical citations under its full entry. But perhaps it’s time to revive it? I’m sure you could point to this or that government as example of a ‘kakistocracy’—a government by the worst—in our world today. The example that occurs to me is the now departed, and unlamented, Biden administration in the United States. It is now clear that Joe Biden was suffering from serious cognitive failure during his entire term as American President. It is shameful that the Democratic Party ever proposed him as their presidential candidate in the first place. Then once they had got him into the White House they hid his mental failures until they were finally exposed in that famous television debate with Donald Trump. Then when they had finally forced Joe Biden out of the presidential election they replaced him with the incoherent Kamala Harris—who was only there as Vice President because she was a black woman. That, surely, has to be ‘government by the worst’? Surely that sort of government deserves this label, this old word— ‘kakistocracy’? I am old enough to remember the Whitlam government in Australia, and its slow descent into chaos and the unravelling of the Australian economy. That is, perhaps, another example of ‘kakistocracy’? Not that they were ‘bad people’—just that they governed badly. Even well intentioned, likeable people can govern at the worst level and give us a ‘kakistocracy.’ It can happen!
Prebuttal This is (sort of) a weird word—but one with an obvious meaning. ‘Prebuttal’ means answering an argument before someone else gets a chance to state what their argument is. It’s trying to ‘head them off at the pass’ (as they used to say in the old cowboy movies). Here’s the official definition from the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘A statement made in anticipation of a criticism or question; a pre-emptive rebuttal.’ The Oxford finds the first appearance of the word in print in 1996. And, as that definition makes clear, it was constructed as a clever (or, possibly, just smart alec) twist on the earlier word: ‘rebuttal.’—so to understand this word we need to take a look at that word. The core word ‘rebut’ goes all the way back to an Anglo-Normans source word that is definitely recorded from as long ago as 1330 (and, perhaps, suggests the Oxford, might be even a little older). It seems to have originally been a military, or possibly legal, term meaning ‘to push back’ or ‘to drive back’—incorporating the earlier verb ‘to butt’ meaning ‘to push or shove against something.’ To which is added the prefix ‘re-’ meaning ‘again.’ That’s a bit long winded (sorry about that)—but that gives us the original old word ‘rebuttal’ which (in 1996) was, in turn, given this small twist to turn it into ‘prebuttal’ (not a word that has ever caught on in a big way, I have to say). Now, the Oxford has a citation for the first appearance of ‘prebuttal’ which suggests it was coined by Al Gore when he was Bill Clinton’s Vice President. Of course, Al Gore is famous (or notorious) for having claimed to have ‘created’ the Internet. In a 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN Gore said: ‘During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important…’ (So he didn’t claim to have invented the Internet, but to have been responsible for helping to bring it into being by fostering its development.) And Al Gore was certainly one of creators of irrational, hysterical climate panic. So, in addition, we can now credit him with having coined this word ‘prebuttal.’ Mind you, I think it is a clumsy, rather than clever, word and I’m not sure how much credit attaches to creating it. I’ll go further—I don’t think this is a word I’d ever use. But there you—perhaps I’ve over-fussy about the English language.
Guilty by Definition (part two) Yesterday I mentioned a mystery novel called Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent, who is (more or less) England’s version of Kel Richards. In other words, she is a popular language journalist. In Guilty by Definition she has set the mystery in a fictional dictionary office in Oxford. She calls this dictionary the Clarendon English Dictionary (the CED) presumably to avoid being sued by the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED). Yesterday I focussed on the rare, obscure or obsolete words she uses as chapter headwords. But what about the book? Is it something that a wordie such as you would enjoy? Yes. I have no hesitation in recommending it. It is full of language and word puzzles, and for us word wizards it is great fun at that level. But it is also a first-class detective novel. You know that whether a detective novel works, or not, all depends on the conclusion—the way it is all wrapped up in the end, and how the puzzles and mysteries are solved. If that is satisfactory, the whole book is satisfactory. And the end of Guilty of Definition works brilliantly at that level. There are enough twists and surprises, and the loose ends are all tied up neatly enough, to make a detective novel reader (such as me) delighted. So, well done Susie Dent! On the way through we are taken inside the working office of a major dictionary, and the tasks of the lexicographers—especially the job of ‘antedating’: tracking down the earliest appearance of a word in print. For someone writing her first novel, Susie Dent does a first-class job giving us real, living, breathing people to feel sympathetic with, and to care about. It starts not as a murder mystery, but as missing person mystery. This ten-year-old case is reopened by a series of anonymous letters, filled with coded clues as to what happened. In the course of solving this mystery the small team of lexicographers find a rare and (breath-takingly) valuable 16th century manuscript. The other thing I love about this book is… Oxford! The city of Oxford is almost a character in this story (just as is the case in the “Morse” novels by Colin Dexter and the Lewis and Endeavour TV series inspired by them). Now, a word of warning—Guilty by Definition is only in hardcover at the moment, so put in an application for your local library to get it for you, or wait for the paperback. But don’t miss it.
Guilty by Definition I am currently reading a mystery novel called Guilty by Definition. The author is Susie Dent, who is (more or less) England’s version of Kel Richards. In other words, she is a popular language journalist. She is the resident ‘wordie’ on TV shows such as Countdown and 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, as well as appearing on radio often and writing a number of non-fiction books about language. In Guilty by Definition (her first novel) she has set in the mystery in a fictional dictionary office in Oxford. She calls this dictionary the Clarendon English Dictionary (the CED) presumably to avoid being sued by the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED). And, quite appropriately, at the head of each chapter she puts a rare, obsolete or obscure word. Below is a collection of those colourful chapter-heading words—see what you think of them:
Induratise—to harden the heart. Apparently recorded only once (in 1598), although the adjective from which it comes, ‘indurate’ (made hard) is slightly more common.
Zugswang—'A position in which a player is obliged to move but cannot do so without disadvantage; the disagreeable obligation to make such a move’ (Oxford). It comes from two German words ‘zug’ meaning ‘move’ and ‘zwang’ meaning ‘compulsion or obligation.’ It first appeared in print in a chess magazine (that makes sense!) in 1905.
Prend—which the Oxford labels as both ‘obsolete’ and ‘rare.’ It means (the Oxford adds cautiously ‘perhaps’): ‘a repaired crack.’ I once had a favourite coffee mug I kept dropping, which ended up consisting mainly of ‘prends.’
Obmutescence—a wilful speechlessness. This is often how toddlers respond when reprimanded for something: ‘Did you hit your brother?’—silence— ‘Come on, tell me, did you?’—more silence… and so on.
Eidolon—a spirit, phantom, or apparition. This looks like one that should be passed on to Stephen King.
Zemblanity—the inexorability of unwanted discoveries. Which I have my doubts about, because I can’t find it in the full Oxford (the most up-to-date online version). Nor is it in the big Merriam-Webster Third International Unabridged. However, it does exist in the hyper-hip online Urban Dictionary, where it’s defined as: ‘the inevitable discovery of what we would rather not know.’ The Urban Dictionary supports this with a quote from British novelist William Boyd (which suggests, to me, that William Boyd invented this one).
Mind you, not all Susie Dent’s headwords are that obscure—she does include ‘throng’ and ‘shrine.’ It’s all good fun, and so is her mystery novel!
Chalk and cheese in Coventry The English Civil War was fought between two armies—the ‘Royalists’ representing the king, and the ‘Parliamentarians’ representing the parliament and the will of the people. There were a series of skirmishes and battles between 1642 to 1651—which the Parliamentarians won. And in the process we have been at least two expressions: ‘send to Coventry’ and ‘chalk and cheese.’ The first of these is (I suspect) not very well known these days, although it was familiar when I was a boy. If someone was ‘sent to Coventry’ they were ostracised, ignored and shunned. They had committed some social offence that put them beyond the pale. But why should this behaviour be foisted onto the harmless Midlands city of Coventry? My only memory of Coventry is visiting it on a bus tour and seeing the new, highly modernistic, cathedral standing beside the ruins of the old cathedral (destroyed by Nazi bombing in Word War II). The ruins are preserved as a testament to the stupidity of war. But the expression comes not from WWII but from the English Civil War. In those years Coventry was a stronghold of the Parliamentary forces. And it is said that when the king’s soldiers were captured in battles in the Midlands they were sent, as prisoners of war, to be detained in Coventry. This was meant to be a threat to the Royalist soldiers to make them fight all the harder. That’s because the people of Coventry were not very welcoming and tended to ignore the disgraced enemy soldiers, who were not even served in taverns and inns, and were largely reduced to begging in the streets. Hence, our expression, ‘sent to Coventry.’ And it seems that ‘as different as chalk and cheese’ also has a Civil War connection. It is said that people who lived in the Midlands on the downs (with chalk undersoil) were different from those that lived in the valleys—dairy farm areas producing cheese. And in the 1700s there was said to be a clear distinction between the valley ‘cheese people’ (who were largely Parliamentarians) and downs ‘chalk people’ (mostly Royalists). Apparently the phrase ‘chalk and cheese’ is still widely used to refer to rural Dorset. But (there’s always a ‘but’ isn’t there?) the expression seems to go back to a period well before the Civil War. Michael Quinion (on his Worldwide Words website) says that by the 1500s the phrase had already become a fixed expression. Around 1555 Hugh Latimer (one of the Oxford martyrs) wrote: ‘As though I could not discern chalk from cheese.’ However, the Civil War may well have played a role in making the phrase widely known, and causing it to survive for so long.
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