Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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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.

Dead as a doornail When a policy proposed by one party or other is buried by the public opinion polls, we are likely to be told that it is ‘dead as a doornail.’ So, why do we say that anything that is done with is definitely ‘dead as a doornail.’ What’s so special about doornails? Let’s do some digging. For a start, this is a very old expression—it seems to go back to about 1350. As for the ‘doornail’ word—the most likely reason it’s there is for the alliteration. Alliteration? So soon you forget! It was only 50 years when Mr Bartlett explained to you in class 1C that the word ‘alliteration’ means the repetition of initial sounds. And in ‘dead as a doornail’ the repetition of the D sound makes it a stronger, more memorable phrase than just ‘dead as a nail.’ But there is another possible reason for the choice of ‘doornail.’ It comes from an era in which doors to the outside world were stout, strong timber fixtures, held together by very large, strong iron nails. Even if your front door these days doesn’t look exactly like that, you’ve seen pictures of these ancient doors, so you know what I mean. And when nails are hammered into timber until they intrude out the other side, and the intruding bit is hammered over (hammered flat, in what carpenters call ‘clinching’ the nail) they are ‘dead’ in the since that they can never be prised out and re-used. Hence, they are ‘dead doornails’. And this too may have contributed to the expression. And we should raise a glass to this phrase since more 650 years since it was born, it is still going strong!

Codswallop I’ve written about this expression before, and it is one of those that attracts all kinds of theories. Well, I’ve now given it second thought—and done some more research—and here’s the latest I’ve come up with. 'Codswallop' means ' Nonsense, rubbish, drivel'. And the experts at the Oxford English Dictionarythink they have nailed this one down. They write that ‘codswallop’ was “Popularized in this sense (a sense which they may have coined) by writers Alan Simpson (1929–2017) and Ray Galton (1930–2018), who used it as a euphemism for a stronger expression (e.g. cobblers, bollocks—which were banned at the BBC at the time) in the British comedy series Hancock's Half Hour and Citizen James in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They chiefly used ‘codswallop’ in dialogue delivered by actor Sid James.” The word did exist before they popularized it. In an interview Alan Simpson said: “In the thirties, I was about seven or eight and my uncle used to use it as a proper noun, he used to call me codswallop.” It's recorded as a mild putdown from around 1928, but it appears to have been given its current meaning by Simpson and Galton. It’s not often we can name the coiner (or in this case, the coiners) of an expression—but sometimes (as here) I think we can. At various times ‘codswallop’ has had other meanings. It was once the nickname for a gossipy woman, and at other times was the name of a (horrible sounding) drink consisting of milk and beer. But the common meaning today (‘nonsense, drivel’) seems to come from the creative minds of Alan Simpson and Ray Galton.

A pinch and punch for the first of the month There is an expression you might have heard of as a child—’a pinch and punch for the first of the month.’ You might even remember at school a mate giving you a pinch and then a thump on the arm as he said it. Well, Marlene has written to ask where this odd expression came from. There are lots of myths about the origin of this one. One says that George Washington began the tradition.  During his presidency Washington was said to meet with Native American tribes (who, at the time they would have called ‘Indians’) on the first day of each month and provide fruit punch with an added pinch of salt. This ultimately became known as 'pinch punch first of the month.' Another myth dates this back to medieval times when witchcraft was a huge concern among people.  Salt was intended to make witches weak, and so the 'pinch' signified the use of salt to weaken the sorceress, while the 'punch' was delivered to banish the witch forever. Together the pinch and the punch got the witch out of your village. Mind you, that particular myth doesn’t explain why it might happen (and only on) the first of the month. However, both of those tales are a load of old codswallop (and I’ll look at ‘codswallop’ tomorrow). But the phrase is not recorded before 1909 which is why both of those are nonsense. The truth is quite prosaic—it just comes from a childhood playground game or tease. The first day of the month gave a child a licence to pinch and then punch (playfully) another child while reciting this phrase. And the fact that there was rhythm and rhyme in the expression helped it catch on and be remembered. It goes back in this childhood form to the 1800s and was recorded by those diligent researchers of childhood folklore, the English couple Iona and Peter Opie.    

Nip it in the bud Jane wrote to ask me for the origin and meaning of the familiar expression ‘nip it in the bud.’ The meaning is not much of a puzzle (I suspect it’s the origin she’s really after!) To ‘nip something in the bud means to stop it in its early stages’.

It means to stop it happening before it really gets going and really gets bad; in other words, stopping something you don’t want right at the beginning. For example, if a small child behaves badly (let’s say, turns on a screaming fit in the supermarket) you stop that bad behaviour at once before it becomes a habit—‘remember you’re out!’ is what my mother would say in such circumstances (behaviour was always expected to be better when you were ‘out’ than when you were home!) And by stopping before it becomes a habit you ‘nip it in the bud.’ As you might have guessed, the expression comes from horticulture—from gardening. ‘Nip it in the bud’ originates from a gardening practice of pinching off plant buds to prevent growth of unwanted flowers or weeds. This is first recorded in the late 16th century. The earliest version was 'nip it in the bloom' which is recorded from 1595, while the version we are familiar, ‘nip it in the bud’, is common from the 1600s onwards. I am not a gardener (in our house my wife is the gardener, and I am the gardener’s labourer—doing the heavy lifting and shifting), but I am surprised to learn that this once was (and still is, for all I know) a gardening practice. I would have thought that rather ‘nipping’ the gardener would have been ‘snipping’—just cutting off the offender bud (that’s what your secateurs are for). But, hey, when it comes to horticulture, what would I know? At any rate, Jane, that is the origin of this old (and still used) expression— ‘nip it in the bud.’

“86” In America former FBI Director James Comey is being prosecuted for threatening the life of US President Donald Trump. What is interesting to us wordies is the way he is said to have made this threat—namely by writing down the numbers ’86 47.’ The ‘47’ is clear enough since Trump is the 47th President of the United States. But in what way is the number ‘86’ a threat? According to the great American dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, the number ‘86’ started out in the hospitality industry to mean ‘to refuse to serve (a customer).’ Why? How on earth did a number ever take on such a meaning? There are no fewer than four different theories. One goes back to Prohibition and a bar called Chumley’s in New York—which had several entrances. The story is that when a police raid was planned a corrupt policeman would tip off the bar and the call would be ‘86’—meaning leave through the 86 Bedford Street door, while the police would come in by the Pamela Court entrance. Well, that’s one theory. Another, reported by legendary Broadway columnist Walter Winchell in 1933, is that there were slang terms using numbers for hospitality staff—the code 13 meant that a boss was around, 81 was a glass of water and 86 meant ‘all out of it.’ But even if that’s true it doesn’t explain how those numbers came to have those meanings. The third theory is that it comes from the code of military justice in which Article 86 meant absent without leave. However, I suspect that the most likely source is the simplest one—that ‘86’ is rhyming slang for ‘nix’—which has been used in America since 1903 to mean ‘to cancel or reject.’ (Behind this is the older colloquial noun ‘nix’ meaning nothing or nought.) So if Comey’s numerals ’86 47’ meant ‘nix Trump’ was it an encouragement to assassinate Trump? Looks like rather a long straw to draw but that seems to be the claim.

Cartel Our modern word ‘cartel’ originated in Germany at the start of the 20th century, and means ‘an agreement or association between two or more business houses for regulating output or fixing prices’ (Oxford). Many governments have laws making such ‘cartel’ agreements illegal (in order to keep the free market free!). But with international bodies there is no way of regulating or stopping them, and so cartels flourish internationally. The most famous is probably OPEC—the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. This cartel controls the flow and price of crude oil. OPEC has been in the news recently because one member nation, the UAE (United Arab Emirates) has pulled out of OPEC. By withdrawing, the UAE will now be able to independently decide how much oil it produces and sells. This matters – and not just because the UAE is one of the world’s top ten oil producers. The country also has the capacity to increase its output by about one million barrels per day. What interests me as Word Man is this word ‘cartel.’ Behind it is the German word kartel, and behind that in turn is a French word (with related words in Italian and Spanish)—and behind them all is the medieval Latin word for ‘paper.’ In other words, it was applied in this context because the agreement that bound together all the participants in a cartel was written down on paper. It was the paper that bound them all together. This means the word ‘cartel’ shares a common source with ‘cartridge’—originally a ‘case in which the exact charge of powder for firearms is made up’, and that case was (at least to begin with, back in 1579) made from paper or parchment. ‘Cartel’ is also related to the word ‘cartoon’ which came into English (in 1684) from the Italian word for thick, rigid paper. Even our word ‘card’ comes this same source, as does the box we call a ‘carton.’ That’s what fascinates us wordies—the common Latin source for such a wide range of words: cartel, cartridge, card and carton. They started out being made from paper!

Apiculture Until I came across the word ‘apiculture’ in a news story I had no idea the word even existed. From its structure I could guess what it meant, but I had never seen it before. If its also new to you, like me you can probably guess its meaning from the more familiar ‘apiarist’—a word we already know means ‘bee keeping.’ A beekeeper is an ‘apiarist.’ So it makes sense that the study of the agricultural knowledge needed for bee keeping is called ‘apiculture.’ All this family of words comes from the Latin word for bee apis. This latest one (or the latest one that I have discovered) is, as I suspected, a rare word. The Oxford lists ‘apiculture’ as existing from around 1864 and under its entry in the full dictionary (the big one—20 volumes) has only two citations: one from 1864 and one from 1882. That suggests to me that this word is so rare it hasn’t appeared in print since 1882! The more common word ‘apiary’ (‘a place where bees are kept, a bee-house’ Oxford) has been with us since 1654, while the name for a beekeeper, ‘apiarist’, has been around since 1816. At any rate, we have made one small addition to our ever-growing vocabularies and that’s always a good thing. And I mention all this as an excuse to tell you the news story that drew the word to my attention. A Massachusetts beekeeper Rebecca Woods went to the home of an elderly friend who was being evicted and used her apiculture experience to protest. Woods pulled up in a truck and began unloading stacks of wooden beehives. During a tussle, hundreds of bees were freed, and sheriff’s deputies were stung multiple times. Rebecca Woods will spend six months in jail after she was convicted of using bees as a weapon. I must admit that this is a possibility that had never occurred to me—using bees as a weapon!

Dinosaur words There are some archaic words in modern English that should have died out with the dinosaurs, but, for some strange reason, are still with us today. Here are some of them:

Bated—this is the aphetic or shortened form of the verb ‘to abate’, and it survives today only in the expression ‘with bated breath’ (meaning in this phrase ‘diminished’). So shallow breathing is ‘bated breath.’

Fro—is an obsolete form of the preposition ‘from’ (Old English) and exists today only in the phrase ‘to and fro.’

Bide—comes from an Old English word meaning ‘to wait, to stay in one place’ and today turns up from time to time in the cliché ‘bide your time.’

Ado—there was a time (1400s) when this was a dialectical way of saying ‘to do’ which lives on in the phrase ‘much ado about nothing’ (which in turn probably only survives because it’s the title of one of Shakespeare’s plays). Mind you, it can still be used in the office when someone makes a fuss over some small thing: ‘That,’ you say, ‘is much ado about nothing.’

Lam—we think of criminals in gangster movies who ‘take it on the lam’ meaning they flee. This came into English from Old Norse and the verb ‘to lam’ meant to beat someone. So a criminal who ‘beats it’ is ‘on the lam.’

Spick and span—once upon a time a ‘spick’ was a nail and a ‘span’ was a chip of wood. Originally to be ‘spick and span’ was to be newly made—from fresh timber newly nailed together. The meaning has changed over time to mean ‘neat and tidy’ (which, I suppose, newly made things usually are).

Caboodle—this only exists these days in the expression ‘the whole kit and caboodle’ (meaning ‘everything’). ‘Caboodle’ (originally ‘boodle’) seems to come from an Old Dutch word meaning ‘property.’

Turpitude—came into English from French in the late 1400s meaning ‘shameful character.’ Today it survives in only a single expression ‘moral turpitude’—which is an accurate echo from the distant past.

Inclement—some 600 years ago English had the word ‘clement’ from a Latin source word meaning ‘mild and gentle.’ It could be applied to people, but its opposite ‘inclement’ exists only as a description of weather conditions that refuse to be ‘mild and gentle’!

There are you—bits of history buried in our words! Trot these out at your next dinner party to amazing and impress your family and friends.