Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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April Fool’s Day Why is April first called ‘April Fool’s Day’? Where did that expression come from? There is no absolute certainty, but there are three possibilities. (1) It may come from the time in 1582 when Europe switched from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calenda. (The old Julian Calendar goes back to Julius Caesar, but it slightly miscalculated the length of the years, so it had fallen out of synch with the seasons—the change, brought in by Pope Gregory XIII was to bring the calendar back into line with the pattern of the seasons). The change included shifting the start of the year from April first to January first. But in the age before mass media, it took a while for the news to get around. People who were slow to get the news became the but of jokes and hoaxes when they tried to celebrate New Year on April first. (2) The second possibility is that it may go back to Hillaria (that’s a Latin word meaning ‘joyful’)—which was celebrated in ancient Rome at the end of March. It involved people dressing up in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates and was said to be inspired by the Egyptian legends of Isis, Osiris and Seth. (3) The third possibility is that it was tied to the vernal equinox, which, in the northern hemisphere, marks the start of Spring—seen as a time of joy and new things. Whatever its origin, playing pranks is the way April Fool’s Day has been marked. For instance, on one recent April Fool’s Day an American hamburger chain announced they were introducing ‘left-handed hamburgers.’ (That’s a lovely idea!) And in 1957 the BBC famously ran a mock news report of the ‘spaghetti harvest’ in Italy, complete with pictures of peasants cutting strands of spaghetti from bushes. And if you are tempted to prank someone remember the rule—April first pranks are only allowed until 12 noon. After that, the prankster is the fool!

Tornado March, April, May, and June is known as ‘tornado season’ in the United States. These are the months when tornadoes are often spawned during thunderstorms in the central and eastern U.S. when cold Canadian air mixes with warm, humid Gulf air. There is a loose geographical area called ‘tornado alley’ which covers the central United States and, these days, parts of Canada as well, where tornadoes are most frequent. The expression ‘tornado alley’ was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study sever weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.  So, what, exactly, is a ‘tornado’? Well, as far as I can understand a ‘tornado’ is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or the base of a cumulus cloud. But that’s not what the word ‘tornado’ originally meant when it first appeared in English in 1589. Back in those days, the word was used by sailors and navigators to mean ‘violent thunderstorms of the tropical Atlantic, with torrential rain, and often with sudden and violent gusts of wind.’ However, by 1625 the word ‘tornado’ had taken on the meaning which we know today: ‘a rotatory storm in which the wind revolves violently under a moving arch of clouds’ (Oxford). Such storms can travel on a narrow path over the land for many miles. In The Wizard of Oz you’ll remember it was a tornado that transported Dorothy and her little dog to the mysterious land of the yellow brick road (‘Toto, I have a feeling we’re no longer in Kansas’). Our word ‘tornado’ seems to be an alteration (or corruption) of the Spanish word tronada. That original Spanish word actually meant ‘thunderstorm’ and comes from the Spanish verb tronar meaning ‘to thunder.’ However, the English speakers who first encountered it, mistakenly thought it came from another Spanish word tornar which means ‘to turn.’ Which is why they gave us this slightly butchered version ‘tornado’ for violently turning (spinning) windstorms. From such mistakes are English words sometimes built!  And the Americans don’t have this on their own—every year Australia reports a number of tornadoes. In Australia they can take the form of waterspouts or funnel clouds. And we now know they are named after a mistaken (and muddled) Spanish word.

Spanghew Yes, it’s Weird Word time once again. And this one is so weird I simply couldn’t resist it. According to the giant American dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Third International Unabridged, this word ‘spanghew’ means: ‘to throw (a frog) into the air from the end of a stick.’ Now, you first reaction is probably like mine: to be puzzled as to why anyone ever thought we might need a word about throwing frogs in the air from the end of stick—why? You might be more knowledgeable than I am about frog tossing. You may very well know of a town in north Queensland (or possibly a village in Wales or a remote spot in New Zealand) where frog tossing is a popular local sport—and gets a lot of coverage in local media, culminating in the crowning of the annual ‘Frog Tossing Champion.’ But I have never heard of such places (and, somehow, I doubt they exist—since I just made them up). Still, this word ‘spanghew’ exists, and someone, somewhere, coined it—clearly desperate to have a word to name frog tossing (from the end of a stick). In the Oxford English Dictionary ‘spanghew’ is recorded from 1781 (ah, I hear you gasp, this must be an ancient custom then). But it clearly remains a rare word (and, surely, a rare practice) since the full Oxford only has five citations under ‘spanghew’—the most recent from 1862. The Oxford explains that ‘spanghew’ comes from the earlier verb ‘to spang’ meaning ‘to cast, throw, or jerk’—recorded from 1513, and being (says the Oxford) ‘of obscure origin.’ To this is added the suffix ‘hew’ about which the Oxford says is ‘an element of unknown origin.’ (That sound you can hear is Oxford scholars throwing up their hands and admitting defeat.) Meanwhile, back at the Merriam-Webster the lexicographers add a note saying they wish to alert their readers ‘to the fact that while we may define words on the subject of frog-tossing, we are very much opposed to the practice of such. Please do not be mean to frogs.’ But not all writers have been that picky. ‘Spanghew’ was used by R. S. Surtees, an English editor, novelist and sporting writer in his novel Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour (1852). And I now think we know everything about ‘spanghew’ there is know. 

The jig is up It’s easy to picture the situation: a politician who has been an outspoken supporter of Communist China (insisting their government is entirely benign and all that military hardware is just for show)—you know the sort of person I mean. Strange as it may seem, there are such people about. Well, picture such a person, and then imagine that he (it’s sure to be a ‘he’) is discovered to have been on the Chinese payroll—put on the ‘board’ of some operation here in Australia which is owned by the Chinese Communist Party, hence receiving large amounts in the form of ‘board fees’ or what-have-you. So, when this connection is discovered, what do we say? How about saying: ‘The jig is up!’ (I used this expression to my wife, and she insisted she had never heard it before—but I suspect many have.) When the game is up, when someone has been found out, it is not all that surprising if someone exclaims: ‘He thought he’d get away with it, but the jig is up.’ That’s how we use the expression, isn’t it? But where does that come from? And what is a jig? (Is it a gadget I can buy from Temu?) We’ve been saying ‘the jig is up’ since 1800. (Although there’s a variation—‘the jig is over’—even early, from 1777.) A ‘jig’ here is a game, in the sense of being a trick or a cheat. But before it was this sort of game, a ‘jig’ was a dance. I suppose the shift came from the notion that the trickster, or cheater, was ‘dancing’ around his victim. The dancing sort of ‘jig’ takes us back to around 1560. We’d like to imagine it starting as an Irish word, but no—it’s French. The French source word meant ‘to leap and frolic about’—and it, in turn, seems to come from an Old French name for a kind of stringed instrument (a rustic fiddle). Clearly this played the music for the folk to ‘jig’ to—and, yes, it was adopted by the Irish (but only in from the 1680s). So the sort of ‘jig’ that can be up, started as one type of fiddle and ended as an entirely different sort of ‘fiddle’!

Not to be sneezed at Different people get hay fever at different times of the year. Somehow we seem to expect hay fever to burst upon us in Spring when flowers start to bloom, and pollen fills the air. Very logical. But, for some reason, it doesn’t work like that—hay fever can strike at any time of the year, and can strike different people at different times. (My wife and I almost never get hay fever in the same season!) These thoughts are provoked by the listener who asked me to look for the origin of the expression ‘not to be sneezed at’(sneezing being something we do a lot of once hay fever strikes). ‘Not to be sneezed at’ is used about an offer that is very good, and which you should consider carefully. ‘That’s not a bad offer, mate—it’s not to be sneezed at!’ It first appeared in English, as a slang expression, in 1806. But when it first appeared it was worded (and intended) in reverse—something that was not worthwhile, was ‘something to sneeze at’. Thus expressing contempt, and the worthlessness of the offer being sneezed at. But shortly after that, Sir Walter Scott, in one of his letters, turns it around to the form we are familiar with today—saying something is worthwhile by calling it ‘not to be sneezed at.’ But it may have its roots a little earlier than 1806, back in the 1700s, with the craze for snuff boxes, which as you might expect resulted in an awful lot of sneezing. A pinch of snuff sniffed into the nostrils could produce a sneeze on call and developed into something people did in the middle of a conversation as a sign of disrespect to the speaker or to what was being said. Sneezing could also be used as something of a status symbol, showing you were perhaps above the person before you and anything they had to say. So, if someone said something that you disapproved of or found beneath you or boring, you could show your pretentious disregard by getting out your snuff box and sneezing.

Dope Chatting to John Stanley (on 2GB, 4BC, 2CC and the Nine Radio Network) John asked me to look into the word ‘dope.’ His question was triggered by the new (and, apparently, awful) Disney re-make of Snow White. In the original 1937 version (with the longer title of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) one of the dwarfs is called ‘Dopey.’ A great name, said John, so where does this word ‘dope’ come, and what does it mean? The first thing that struck me was the wide range of meanings attached to this word. ‘Dope’ can mean: (1) a silly or stupid person; (2) marijuana, or, more generally, any type of illegal drug; (3) Any thick liquid or semi-fluid used as an article of food; (4) A varnish applied to the cloth surface of aeroplane parts; (5) A substance added to petrol or other fuel to increase its efficiency; (6) an absorbent material used to hold a lubricant; (7) the absorbent element in a high explosive; (8) opium, especially the thick treacle-like preparation used in opium-smoking; (9) a medical preparation administered to a race-horse for the purpose of affecting its performance; (10) information—especially on a particular subject or of a kind not widely available or easily obtained; (11) a lubricant for the bottoms of skis; (12) a light varnish added to lithographic ink; (13) absorbent material used in packing to reduce the effects of friction; and, finally, (14) a cola beverage—a usage found only in parts of the United States, such as the South and the Mid West. Whew! One small, one syllable, word—and all those meanings! So, where did it originally come from? And is there anything that connects up all those different meanings. It seems to have made its first appearance in English in 1851—so it’s really not all that old. And all the experts agree that it comes from a Dutch source word doop—which means ‘sauce’, or ‘dipping sauce’. In fact, there is a clear connection between this source word and the verb ‘dip’—they have very similar constructions. But how could all of these different meanings spin off from that original Dutch word. I think what connects them all in the notion of something being ‘thick.’ The sort of sauce, or dipping sauce, named by the original word was a thick liquid. Think of a familiar dip, such as houmous or sweet chilli sauce, and you’ll get the idea of a thick liquid. And all the rest of the meanings use this notion of ‘thick’ in one way or another. A stupid person is said to be ‘thick.’ The first use of the word for a drug was for the thick preparation used in opium smoking—from which all the other drug related uses spun off. The rest (glues, lubricants, additives and whatever) are all connected by the fact that they are (in one way or another) thick liquids. So, there you are—one small word with one long history and an even longer list of meanings.

Juggernaut ‘The Democrats are finding it impossible to stop the juggernaut of the Republican MAGA movement’—so said one American commentator. Which raises the question—what does the word ‘juggernaut’ mean? The great American dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, defines as ‘juggernaut’ as: ‘a massive inexorable force or object that advances irresistibly and crushes whatever is in its path.’ Which fits in nice with the way it was used by that commentator. But it has a wider ranger of meanings. In British (as opposed to American) English a ‘juggernaut’ is a massive semi-trailer (what we in Australia might call a ’B-double’ or a ‘road train’). The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English has this definition: ‘a very large vehicle that carries goods over long distances.’ The Longman goes on to say that a very large corporation, with unstoppable power, can also be called a ‘juggernaut.’ So, where do all these (clearly related) meanings come from? They are based on the Anglicized version of the Indian word Jagannath. And this, in turn, is a title of Krishna—in other words, an important deity in Hinduism. But how did we get from the name an Indian Hindu deity to a huge truck, or an unstoppable force? The reason is because of a festival that used to be held in the Indian city of at Puri in Odisha. In the festival a giant statue or idol of this god was dragged through the streets on an enormous cart, which, once set into motion, was difficult to stop, steer or control by humans, on account of its massive weight. The chariot was typically pulled by 200 people. And there was a time when devotees of this god would throw themselves under the wheels of the giant, heavy cart to be crushed. The first European account of the Juggernaut festival, and its attendant deaths, was given by Friar Odoric, in the year 1321. Once India had come under British rule authorities tried to stop this practice, despite which, as recently as 1864 the New York Times reported witnessing celebrants deliberately placing themselves under the wheels of the device against the will of the authorities. That’s how the word moved from an Indian Hindu superstition to a modern word for an unstoppable force. In the light of which, it is, perhaps, inevitable that ‘Juggernaut’ is also the name of one of Stan Lee’s comic book characters in his X-Men series for Marvel comics.

Advance Australia Fair Peter Dodds McCormick was born in Glasgow in 1835. Twenty years later he arrived, as a young immigrant, in Australia. And a little over twenty years after his arrival he composed the song that was to become our national anthem “Advance Australia Fair”. The first public performance is thought to have been given in Sydney on November 30th (St Andrew’s Day), 1878 at the St Andrew’s Day Concert of the Highland Society. The song was later published by W. J. Paling and Company with the subtitle: “Respectfully dedicated to the sons and daughters of Australia”. In 1974 “Advance Australia Fair” was chosen to be the Aussie national anthem (replacing “God Save the Queen”). The first line originally read: “Australia’s sons let us rejoice.” But this was deemed to be misogynistic because it left out the Founder Mothers and only acknowledged the Founding Fathers. So the line was change to ‘Australians all let us rejoice.’ This is the politically correct, and now official, version. But that wasn’t the end of the fiddling with the words. Aboriginal activists started complaining about the line: ‘We are young and free.’ But, but, but… they spluttered angrily, we are not young—this continent has been inhabited for 60,000 years so it’s all wrong! Of course, they were wrong. Australia, as a nation, has only existed since January 1, 1901. And in terms of the nations of the world that means we are still a young nation. But, as you would expect, no politicians were prepared to stand up and say that, so they gave in to the nagging and changed the line. It now reads: ‘For we are one and free.’ Which is not too bad. Except for that fact that there are people who now want to divide Australia—particularly along racial lines, so that we won’t be ‘one’ anymore! (Let’s hope they don’t succeed.) Peter Dodds McCormick was paid one hundred pounds for his composition by the Australian government in 1907. He died in Sydney in 1916. His claim to fame, perhaps, is that he has given us the only national anthem in the world containing the word “girt.” (The Aunty Jack team of Grahame Bond and Rory O'Donoghue once composed a “national anthem” for Wollongong which included the immortal line: “Girt by sea – on one side”.)

Aboriginal What ever happened to the word ‘Aboriginal’? Up until the 1967 referendum (which handed responsibility for Aboriginal affairs from the states to the Commonwealth) every state in Australia had its own ‘Department of Aboriginal Affairs.’ From 1967 onwards there has been a federal ‘Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.’ But not anymore. For some years now the title has been ‘the Minister for Indigenous Affairs.’ Why the switch? What’s wrong with ‘Aboriginal’? The word ‘Aboriginal’ means ‘the descendants of the original inhabitants of Australia.’ The word is first recorded with this meaning from 1829. Aboriginal comes from the same Latin source word from which we get “original”. Hence, the Oxford English Dictionary defines Aboriginal as the “First or earliest so far as history or science gives record.” But not any longer. Nowadays ‘Aboriginal’ has largely disappeared. It only turns up in the group title of ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.’ And that might be the reason for the change—to use a word that encompasses both groups. Mind you, I believe that ‘Aboriginal’ (if you think about the meaning and origin of the word) does encompass both groups—so the change was never necessary. And it is a change that weakens the title given to such people. ‘Aboriginal’ means descendants of the earliest inhabitants while ‘Indigenous’ just means born here. That means that I am indigenous—since I was born here (and so were my parents)—even though I am descended from celts from Cornwall. The dictionaries try to take this into account by saying ‘indigenous’ with a lower case ‘i’ means anyone born here, while ‘Indigenous’ with an upper case ‘I’ means descendants of the earliest inhabitants. But this is a ridiculous distinction, since it only works in writing (around 10% of language) and doesn’t work in spoken English (around 90% of language). And now ‘Indigenous’ has been dropped by the politically correct in favour of either ‘First Nations’ or “First People’—which looks to me like a sinister conspiracy to claim that some Australians are better (‘first’) than others (not entitled to the label ‘first’). This is an attempt to say that the significance of a person comes from their family tree—not from their character or abilities. This, of course, is a return to the ancient European idea of aristocracy—inherited privilege based on a person’s family tree. The aristocrats of England (and all of Europe) are aristocrats because of (and only because of) their family tree. And that’s what these ‘First Nations/First Peoples’ labels are—an attempt to create a privileged aristocracy. There was nothing wrong with the classical name of ‘Aboriginal’ and it should be revived.

Collision I heard it again recently—a news report about a ‘collision’ between a car and a tree. I was reminded at once of an old journalist I once worked with he insisted that ‘collision’ could only be used if both objects were in motion. If only one of them was moving, he would insist, it was not a collision. And he’s not the only one. As recently as 2015 the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage insisted that “only two objects in motion can collide.” In fact, this is one of the most persistent myths in journalism—that ‘collision’ can’t be used when a car, travelling at high speed, hits a tree (which was just standing still, minding its own business). In fact, the most confident (or smart alec) journalists will insist there’s another word that should be used instead— ‘allision.’ And they are perfectly correct that the word ‘allision’ exists, and has been used (since 1615) to mean ‘the action of striking something against something else.’ Mind you, if we wrote a story about the ‘allision’ between a car and a tree we would confuse most of our readers and listeners—and fail to convey that there had been an accident at all. To be honest, ‘allision’ is no longer a common word, and is used these days almost exclusively in maritime law. So when a cargo vessel in the North Sea ran into an oil tanker that was anchored and motionless—it would be accurate to say he vessels were in an ‘allision’ rather than a ’collision.’ Some sources, particularly those of a maritime nature, insist that contact between a moving body and a stationary one should only be described with this word ‘allision.’ But this whole war against the honest little word ‘collision’ looks a bit suss to me. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary insists that ‘collision’ means simple: ‘The action or an act of colliding with or crashing into something or someone’—and that certainly covers the car hitting the tree. In Oxford adds that in later use ‘collision’ is used to mean ‘an accident involving a moving vehicle colliding with or crashing into another (moving or stationary) vehicle, object, etc.’ Notice that it says ‘moving or stationary.’ And the great American dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, agrees, saying ‘collision and collide are commonly used to refer to such matters as a ship striking a stationary object, and there is nothing incorrect about such use.’ So I think it’s time those old journos stop nagging the kids about this one. Those over confident old blokes were wrong all the time!

Y’all The Dictionary.com website recently ran a poll of its readers to find out which is the most popular ‘regional expression’ in the United States. And this is the winner— ‘y’all.’ Here’s what they have to say: ‘The people have spoken and y’all won Best Regional Word! With its signature Southern charm, y’all didn’t just win—it dominated the bracket, rounding up votes like a true crowd favourite. From its first matchup to the final showdown, this word proved that sometimes, the simplest phrases have the strongest hold on our hearts.

So go ahead, celebrate like a true champion—because y’all just made history!’ There’s a bit less flag waving and a bit more history in the way the Oxford treats the word. They find ‘y’all’ appearing in print from 1856. It is, obviously, a contraction of the phrase ‘you all.’ There are scholars who have spent a great deal of time trying to track down the history, and the progression of ‘y’all’ in the speech of either black slaves on the plantations of the Southern states of America or (perhaps) from immigrants to the South from Scotland or Ireland. The great debate among the experts is whether it is ever correct to use ‘y’all’ as a singular, or whether it can only be used as a plural to apply to a group of people. The Oxford has a learned note saying: ‘Though unambiguous use of y'all in the singular does sometimes occur, Americans who use this pronoun sometimes consider use in the singular to be nonstandard. Singular use may also be incorrectly ascribed by other English speakers when y'all is used with implicit reference to a group (e.g. a family, the employees of a business, etc.) only one member of whom is present.’ What I think they mean is—when next you are travelling in the Deep South only use ‘y’all’ if you are addressing a group of people. It is meant to be plural, not singular. But then the Oxford adds a cautionary note: ‘In fact, use with singular reference, when it occurs, seems particularly to be associated with contexts of politeness and friendliness.’ In other words, ‘y’all’ is the grammatical equivalent of ‘yous’—the ‘non-standard’ (see how polite I am) plural of the second person pronoun ‘you.’ This one (‘yous’) is (I am told) common in Scotland, in Irish English, in American and in Australian). And the answer to all of the above (both ‘y’all’ and ‘yous’) is that ‘you’ is BOTH singular and plural—and if you don’t use ‘you’ for both, you will sound like the dumb kid at the back of the class who never paid any attention!

Flash Jim Are you interested in the history of the Australian language? You’ll find a colourful guide to the early years of Aussie English (and the story of the very first dictionary written in Australia) in my book Flash Jim in which I tell the story of convict James Hardy Vaux(1782-1841). Vaux grew up in a Shropshire village in a respectable, middle-class family. He was given a good grammar school education. But by the time he was fifteen and was already sliding towards a life of crime. Sent to London to work in a lawyer’s office run by a friend of his grandfather, Vaux quickly cultivated a number of shady friends, and spent more time with them than at his desk. With the result that he was quickly unemployed and living by his wits. With a sharp mind, a glib tongue and a non-existent conscience he quickly became a fraudster, a conman and a pick pocket. Vaux was transported as a convict to the colony of New South Wales not once, but three times (he clearly wasn’t paying attention to what was going wrong in his life). The first time he was convicted as part of a gang of pickpockets, the second time for a racket he ran with his wife stealing jewellery from pawn shops, and the third time for counterfeiting currency.  In 1811 Vaux was convicted of re-offending in the convict colony of Sydney Town. This time the charge was that he had been part of a plot to steal from the Judge Advocate of the colony (he was always a risk taker). As a result, Vaux was sent to Newcastle (then known as the “hell of New South Wales”) to do hard labour. Never one for tough, physical work as he pushed trolleys in and out the coal mine Vaux hatched a plan to get himself a soft job in the quartermaster’s stores: he would write a dictionary of the language used by convicts and present it to the commandant of Newcastle. This little dictionary of the ‘flash language’ would help when the commandant sat as a magistrate and had to understand what on earth the convicts were saying—either as witnesses or as the accused. Vaux completed his little dictionary (and got his soft job). And seven years later his dictionary was published in London as an addendum to his memoirs. His story is a colourful and entertaining—and I tell it all (with all the grim and spell-binding details) in Flash Jim. And at the back of my book, I re-print Vaux’s original dictionary of convict slang—so you can go through it yourself and be amazed by how much is still part of our language today. So, hurry off to your local library to borrow a copy of Flash Jim. Or, better still, buy your own copy! (If you scroll down the home page you can find out how to buy a copy listed under the heading ‘Books.’)

Learnings I have written before about how irritating it is when people (including well-educated people who should know better) use this nonsense word ‘learnings.’ Some sort of disaster or catastrophe occurs and before you know it some politician or senior public servants is saying: ‘There are learnings that we’ll take from this.’ The word they are struggling for there is ‘lessons.’ That’s the correct word to use in that sentence. It is the pluralized form of the word that is the problem. During the renaissance scholars talked about the ‘New Learning.’ Or you can call a science ‘a branch of learning.’ You can talk about ‘learning theory’ and lots of other combinations—but notice, no plurals. And there is that fine old English word ‘lesson’ meaning ‘that which is learned’—which takes a plural, and has always taken a plural during the whole of its long life (of more than a thousand years). We have ‘lessons’—we don’t need a corruption such as ‘learnings.’ This is (at the very least) a stylistic issue. The term ‘learnings’ was not in common use in the 19th and 20th centuries, though the plural form can be found occasionally in Middle English (14th century), and in Early Modern English. Today it is a matter of style. And here is my style guide: drop ‘leanings’ and use ‘lessons’ (if you don’t want your prose to jar on the ears of intelligent people). But now I’ve worked out why people are making this egregious error—it is one of those 21st century self-obsessed errors. You see, ‘lessons’ are things that other people (or even circumstances) deliver to us. ‘Lessons’ come to us from outside of ourselves, and so are nothing to boast about, or wallow emotionally in. On the other hand ‘learning’ is something we do. If we have ‘learned’ something it is to our praise—we have put in the effort to assimilate the knowledge. That’s why people want to say ‘learnings’ rather than ‘lessons.’ We live in a narcissistic age in which people focus inwards on themselves—in which they want all the credit. So when they use the word ‘learnings’ they are boasting of the knowledge they have accumulated (because they are so very clever!) But if they admitted to receiving ‘lessons’ they would get no credit—since ‘lessons’ come from outside ourselves. Which takes the shift from ‘lessons’ to ‘learnings’ beyond a mere style issue, and turns it into another symptom of the collapse of decent civilisation in our modern world.

Part and parcel A reader, Evan, asked me for the origin of the expression part and parcel. Well, this is an odd sort of tautology, not uncommon in English—a double expression where both words mean much the same thing. “Parcel” means the sort of thing the post office delivers (called a “package” in the US)—and it just means a quantity of something. So you could have a “parcel” of land, for example. “Part” serves a very similar purpose, it helps us to talk about a quantity of something—e.g. the quantity of something that we have is not the whole of the toilet roll, it’s just what’s left, a “part” of the toilet roll. The Oxford defines part and parcel as meaning: “An integral part of a larger whole”—and with this meaning it’s been around since 1463. So there’s nothing new about this. Michael Quinion, on his Worldwide Words website explains the expression like this: “part and parcel is a tautology, since both words in effect mean the same thing. English loves this kind of doublet: nooks and crannies, hale and hearty, safe and sound, rack and ruin, dribs and drabs. Many derive from the ancient legal practice of including words of closely similar meaning to make sure that the sense covers all eventualities: aid and abet, fit and proper, all and sundry. Part and parcel is a member of this second group — it appeared in legal records during the sixteenth century. We use it to emphasise that the thing being spoken about is an essential and integral feature or element of a whole.” To which I would add that the reason it has survived for so long is because the English language seems to like these groups of words that have either alliteration (starting with the same letter) or rhyme. The sounds and the rhythms must just appeal to the ears of English speakers, because so many phrases built on that sort of construction have survived as part of our language for so long. So, there you are Tod, and old expression, and a good one.

Like The Economist ran an article about the over use of the irritating word “like”, except that—strangely—the magazine didn’t seem all that irritated. The article made the point that “like” is used by the younger generation as what is called a “discourse particle.” That means it just a small bit of language used to hold a sentence together. Which is fair enough. But it is the way it’s used that can become annoying. The so-called “Valley Girls” from the San Fernando Valley in California are supposed to have started the craze by saying such things as “It’s like five miles away…” or “He’s like a consultant…” These are vague and pointless uses of the discourse particle. Sometimes “like” is used to introduce a quote. That gives us such deathless prose as “She was like ‘You can’t do that, and I’m like “Yes, I can.’” This is not normal English construction. (That use of “like” was popularised in Australia by the character of Kylie Mole played by Mary-Anne Fahey on the Comedy Company show.) This use of “like” is sometimes thought to go back to the Beatnik era of the late 1950s and early 60s—the days when Maynard G. Krebbs, played by Bob Denver on The Doby Gillies Show, was saying things along the line of “Like, wow, man.” We all of us use some discourse particles from time to time such as “so”, “but”, “then” and others. The problem with like is that it appears to be like the only discourse particle this younger generation knows and so it is like used over and over and over again. I suspect they’ll grow out of it as they grow older.

Hemidemisemiquaver Yes, Weird Word time again. If you find it hard to pronounce, just break it up into syllables and you’ll find it become easy. Say, ‘hemi-demi-semi-quaver.’ It’s a musical expression, and in what follows I will try to explain it—but I welcome any comments or improvements by those who are musically more literate than I am. Many years ago, when I worked at ABC Classic FM, one of the presenters started a weekly show called by this name— ‘Hemidemisemiquaver’ because, he said, the program would consist of ‘short musical notes.’ In other words, it was a joke title, because a ‘hemidemisemiquaver’ is the shortest not in musical notation (I think—I am happy to be corrected if I’ve got that wrong). A ‘quaver’ is ‘a note having a duration equal to half that of a crotchet and an eighth that of a semibreve.’ I am told that a ‘semibreve’ is the longest note in ordinary use in music. A ‘crochet’ is a note that is half the value of a ‘minim.’ And a ‘minim’ is half a semibreve. If you head is spinning, so is mine—but I suspect we’re getting the hang of this: each note is half the length of the one before in the list, until we get all the way down the very small note that is one-sixty-fourth of a full note, and that is our ‘hemidemisemiquaver.’ What I found interesting, is that this naming system for the length of musical notes is English, and the Americans don’t use it. (I had always thought that music was an international language, and was spoken of in the same way all over the place. Silly me.) For example, in the United States a quaver usually called an eighth note. And our ‘hemidemisemiquaver’ is called sixty-fourth notes. The Merriam-Webster says that these notes are ‘the fastest musical notes that are commonly played, and performing them well can stretch human technique to its limit. The term is mainly used in Britain, where eighth notes are called quavers, sixteenth notes are called semiquavers, and thirty-second notes are called demisemiquavers. In the United States, hemidemisemiquaver is likely to be used humorously, occurring especially as a clever substitute for moment or bit, as in “the concert ended not a hemidemisemiquaver too soon.’ But I doubt this is one you’ll be able to work into your conversation any time soon. 

Lent We are currently in a period in the Christian year called ‘Lent.’ This is a period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter observed by the Roman Catholic, Eastern, and some Protestant churches as a period of penitence and fasting. Perhaps we could say the whole thing begins with ‘Shrove Tuesday’—the day before ‘Ash Wednesday.’ ‘Shrove Tuesday’ comes from the Old English verb ‘to shrive’ which meant to impose a penance on someone. Behind this is a common old Germanic word for ‘allot’ or ‘assign’ or ‘impose.’ Although the day is sometimes still used for self-examination and introspection, Shrove Tuesday eventually acquired the character of a carnival or festival in many places and is often celebrated with parades. It’s also known in English speaking countries as ‘pancake Tuesday’—the last day on which rich, sweet, fatty foods can be eaten for the self-denial of ‘Lent’—which actually begins on ‘Ash Wednesday.’ Many Christians attend special Ash Wednesday church services at which churchgoers receive ash on their foreheads or the top of their heads, as the wearing of ashes has been a sign of repentance since Biblical times. The 40 days that follow, the period of ‘Lent’, is a time of fasting—of giving up something pleasurable as a mark of contrition and penitence in preparation for the celebration of the most important time in the Christian calendar each year—Easter. So, where does this word ‘Lent’ come from? Again we’re looking at an Old English word, which has related words in other old Germanic languages. ‘Lent’ is the shortened form of the full of Old English word ‘Lenten’ which meant ‘the season of Spring.’ It’s easy for us in the southern hemisphere to forget that Easter for the northern hemisphere is not (as it is for us) the start of Autumn, but of Spring. The Germanic base word that it comes from means ‘long’—on account of the lengthening days of Spring. In fact, you can see the verbal link between ‘Lent’ and ‘lengthen’. So, it is a bit ironic perhaps (or is that a misuse of ‘ironic’) that we celebrate ‘lengthening’ just when the days are getting shorter and the dark winter nights are closing in on us?