Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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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.

Brain rot When we see an expression such as this (grammatically a compound noun) we tend to nod our heads and mutter, ‘Ah, yes, this explains what’s happening to the world around me!’ In 2023 one American newspaper (the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Patriot-News) expressed the fear that teens constantly scrolling on social media may contract ‘brain rot.’ The lexicographers at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary say, ‘the term gained mainstream attention in 2023 and 2024 in connection to several trends involving repetitive, nonsensical use of internet content… this content—(is) often absurdist, ironic, and intentionally poor in quality…’ And ‘brain rot’ is ‘an unhealthy state of being addicted to and addled by it.’ But although it is trendy, it’s not new. The Oxford English Dictionary records ‘brain rot’ from 1854. In that year it was used by the American essayist Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden where he complains that while governments were attempting to find a cure for potato-rot no one was looking for a cure for the much more widespread and fatal ‘brain rot.’ The Oxford defines this as: ‘a perceived loss of intelligence or critical thinking skills, especially (in later use) as attributed to the overconsumption of unchallenging or inane content or material. Now also: content or material that is perceived to have this effect.’  When I travel on the Sydney Metro I sit in my train carriage and look around me—everyone else is glued to the little screens on their mobile phones, while I am reading a book. I hope I’m not sounding elitist when I add that you can’t catch ‘brain rot’ from books—but you can catch it from watching endless cute kitten videos on Tik Tok. ‘Brain rot’ is not yet officially classified as a recognisable medical condition. But there are some psychologists and psychiatrists who use the term ‘brain rot’ as a casual (colloquial) way of labelling ‘Problematic Interactive Media Use.’ This, it seems, produces symptoms of cognitive impairment resulting from overconsumption of social media. You have been warned—now you should warn your kids!

Equity Today, a warning about a dangerous word. And the danger comes because it looks like a perfectly safe word—indeed a nice word. This confusion is created by the fact that it is easily confused with the word ‘equality.’ However, in modern political discourse ‘equity’ and ‘equality’ have very different meanings. This is strange, because both ‘equity’ and ‘equality’ come the same French (and Latin) source words. However, a change occurred when Marxist political theorists chose the word ‘equity’ to label their formulas for changing a society. The result is a serious split in meaning between the two words. And ‘equity’ has now become a dangerous word that we need to look out for, and beware of. So, how have the meanings of the two words now deviated from each other? Well, ‘equality’ now means ‘fairness.’ America philosopher John Rawls in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice defines ‘justice’ as ‘fairness’. That’s the notion captured by the idea of ‘equality before the law.’ Hence, ‘equal’ means ‘fair.’ ‘Equity’, on the other hand, now means ‘level’ or ‘uniform.’ This is the reverse of what these words meant back in the 1400s—but this is just another example of how the English language changes over time. Back then ‘equality’ meant ‘level’ or ‘uniform’ while ‘equity’ meant ‘fairness’—and now those meanings have been reversed. When today’s politicians say they want ‘equity’ what they mean is they want uniformity—everyone absolutely level. So, when Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer cancel health fund rebates for those over 65 they do by claiming that this will produce ‘intergenerational equity’—it will make every one of every generation level and uniform (in their health fund fees). They want ‘boomers’ to pay the same health fund fees as healthy 25-year-olds. That’s ‘equity’—uniformity. But ‘equity’ in this sense destroys ‘equality.’ Because the health needs of the over 65s are not the same as (not equal to) the health needs of the average 25-year-old. This is how ‘equality’ now differs from ‘equity.’ ‘Equality’ today means ‘equality of opportunity.’ To give over 65s equal opportunity to be healthy compared to 25-year-olds their aging bodies need health fund rebates. The outcome (25s and 65s paying the same) will be uniform and level—but it will not be fair. So, that’s the warning. Whenever you see the word ‘equity’ (trying to reduce everyone to same the level of uniformity) be warned that ‘equality’ (fairness) is under attack. You have been warned!

Head over heels If a situation has been turned completely upside down we might say that has gone ‘head over heels.’ If your emotions are turned upside down because you have fallen in love, you might say that you are ‘head over heels’ in love. But this makes no sense. ‘Head over heels’ is how we normally are! If you are walking down the street your head will be over your heels—nothing upside down about that at all. The phrase, taken literally, describes the perfectly unremarkable state of standing upright; hardly the sort of image we reach for when describing the earth-tilting sensation of, say, falling in love. The original version of the expression, it turns out, had the phrase in the right order. For several centuries before ‘head over heels’ came along, English speakers said, ‘heels over head’. This physically logical version of the expression has been in use for many hundreds of years; the dictionaries have a number of citations from the 17th century for ‘heels over head’. In all these cases it simply means somersault. It is unclear why the words got swapped around. What is clear is that when writers eventually did begin putting the head before the heels, they still meant it in the physical sense. Around the end of the 17th century writers (especially translators) began using ‘head over heels’, still as a bodily description. The romantic sense enters later, and somewhat mysteriously. The first known use of ‘head over heels’ to mean being consumed by love appears in a 1711 translation of the ancient Greek writer Lucian, where a lovesick figure is described as ‘reeling and tumbling Head over Heels’ in a state of deep, distracted thought. For much of the 18th century the ‘tumbling’ sense and the ‘fallen in love’ sense appear to have co-existed. The older form, heels ‘over head’, has never entirely disappeared. It still surfaces occasionally, usually in contexts that want to emphasize the literal, physical tumbling, or simply the general chaos of being turned upside down. But ‘head over heels’, illogical as it is, has claimed the romantic territory as its own. Perhaps the inversion is the point. Love, after all, is not known for putting things in their proper order. (And my thanks to the lexicographers at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for their research on this one.)

Gerrymander I have often been asked for the origin of this oddly formed political word. The word names the practice of making electoral seats (or districts as the American call them) in such a way as to minimise the vote for one party and maximise the vote for another. Political statisticians measure and keep track of how each polling booth votes over the years. You can minimise the success of an opposing party if you group together all the booths that vote for that party into one seat, or district. In that seat your opposing party might win 90% of the vote—but win only one seat in the parliament from all those votes. At the same time you draw the boundaries so that in as many seats as possible you have a small maximum of booths that favour your party. That means you can win each of those seats with just 51% of the vote. So even if your opponent wins the overall popular by a large margin you can still win more seats and control the parliament. Have I explained that clearly? I hope so. But—why is this called a ‘gerrymander’? The name comes from American politician Elbridge Gerry. He was a respected politician in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He signed the Declaration of Independence, served as governor of Massachusetts (1810-1811), and was elected vice president of the United States under James Madison. While governor, he tried to change the shape of voting districts to help members of his political party get elected. His system resulted in some very oddly shaped districts, including one (Gerry’s home district) that looked a little like a newt. Upon seeing a map of the bizarrely shaped regional divisions, a member of the opposing party drew feet, wings, and a head on the map of Gerry’s district and said, “That will do for a salamander!” Another member called out “Gerrymander!” Thus ‘gerrymander’ became both a noun and verb applied for such political schemes.

Chernobyl This year makes the 40thanniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On April 2, 1986, reactor number four at Chernobyl in Ukraine (in those days part of the old Soviet Union) exploded—mainly because of poor design and poor maintenance. The word ‘Chernobyl’ has been used ever since as a horror word by opponents of nuclear power, who have claimed massive deaths all across Europe from a ‘radioactive cloud’ they say spread from the site of the disaster. However, in 1993 British author Piers Paul Read travelled to Russia and Ukraine and wrote a book about his findings, called Ablaze: The Story of Chernobyl. It turns out that the radical Greenies have got it all wrong. And later studies have supported the facts that he reported. A recent study published in the journal Current Biology has established that, in the absence of human beings, wildlife has flourished, and that there is no evidence that the lingering radiation ‘has had a negative influence on mammal abundance’. And a UN conference convened in Vienna in 2005 to report on the effect of Chernobyl, said that the fatalities from radiation (the immediate death of 28 emergency workers, the later death of nineteen others, and nine children from thyroid cancer) were statistically insignificant; far more damaging was drinking, smoking, a poor diet and a lack of basic healthcare. So ‘Chernobyl’ should not be used as a ‘scare word’ by the hysterical Greenie anti-nuke lobby—and it is dishonest to do so: fewer than sixty people died as a direct result of the accident, and while there has undoubtedly been an increase in thyroid cancer in Belorussia, it is easily operable and few have died. That makes it absurd for nuclear science to be banned in Australia by an act of the federal parliament—and the sooner that ban is overturned the better. In the meantime, don’t be frightened by the dishonest use of the word ‘Chernobyl.’

Letter 26 Yesterday I wrote about the alphabet, and that made me think about the 26th and last letter in our alphabet—the letter Z. How do you pronounce that letter? Like me you will almost certainly say ‘zed’. But how about your grandchildren (or any small children you know)? Are they now saying it in the American way as ‘zee’? So which pronunciation is correct? Or is there no answer to that? Do we have to just shrug our shoulders and say, ‘Oh well, whatever they want to say’? No! We don’t. This is one where there is a right and wrong—and the Americans are definitely wrong! The Oxford English Dictionary gives one, and only one, correct pronunciation of the letter Z in the English alphabet—namely ‘zed’. It does, of course, recognise that the Americans don’t understand this, and insist on saying ‘zee.’ Looking at the history of the letter the Oxford says, ‘the name given to the letter in England (presumably since the Norman Conquest) has always been ‘zed’ or one of its variants (such as “zad” or “izzard”).’ And when we conduct a survey of other languages that use this letter Z what find is that all of them use a name for the letter that starts with its Z sound and ends with a consonant. In other words, the universal (apart from America) approach to the language is to give Z a name that has a clear stop at the end, not a prolonged vowel sound. The letter is based on the ancient Greek letter ‘zeta’—again there is a sound which is complete (so to speak) and not just a buzz followed by a long vowel. So, who can we blame for this American eccentricity? One man—Noah Webster. When he produced the first major American dictionary (a dictionary that went on to become massively influential) he set out to create an American English that was more phonetic. He promoted the pronunciation ‘zee’ based on other letters, such as B (bee), C (see) and D (dee). So when it comes to the 26th and last letter of the alphabet Noah Webster got it wrong, and Americans have been getting wrong ever since. (And it’s your job to correct your grandkids and get them back on the right track with Z!)

Abecedarian Someone who knows, or is learning, the English language in the alphabetical order can be called an ‘abecedarian.’ The word is recorded in English from 1603. It is put together (as you can see) from the first four letters of the alphabet—A, B, C, and D. This was first done in the post-classical Latin word abecedarius. This seems to have come into English as early as the 1400s with the meaning of ‘a written alphabet’ (or, based on that, to also mean the basics, the rudiments, of a topic). While it might be possible to impress our friends by calling the dictionary our ‘abecedarian’ book (and that would not necessarily be wrong) the original use of the word was to label a small child at the beginning stages of learning to read and write. So there was a time when the littlies could be said to be ‘abecedarians’ rather than kindergarten (or pre-school) kids. And there are still, to this day, books that deserve that title. Think of all those ‘ABC’ books published for small children. They are often called something like ‘My First ABC’ and to run from ‘A is for Apple’ to ‘Z is for Zebra’—with big, bright pictures on each page. Publishers Weekly reviewed just such a book back in 2007 with the words: ‘There's much busy, bright fun in these pages, and budding abecedarians should find plenty to charm them.’ And when those little ankle biters have been watching Sesame Street and learned to sing that irritating alphabet song (‘Now I know my ABC, Next time will you sing with me?’) they are ‘abecedarians.’ However, it would be possible to apply the word more widely. Possibly we could say anyone who either compiles, or consults, information published (either online or in print) in alphabetical order is a type of ‘abecedarian.’ And given that you and I resort to dictionaries so often, perhaps that makes us one type of ‘abecedarian’?

Topiary Have you noticed that hedges are very fashionable at the moment? They are often planted in geometrically neat rows, from densely leafed bushes such as bruxus (a species of boxwood). My wife has planted whole of rows of these neat little hedges using (so she tells me) Japanese bruxus. But for hedges to work they need to be very neatly and precisely trimmed and shaped. Which brings us to the word ‘topiary’. This is the art of clipping and trimming shrubs into ornamental or, sometimes, fantastic shapes. American artist Jeff Koons famously shaped flowering bushes into a giant puppy. He did this in 1992. It is now installed outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (in Spain). I mention ‘topiary’ because a great American ‘topiary artist’ has recently died. His name is Pearly Fryar. (He was born in 1939, making him 87-years-old when he died). He has left his famous garden behind him for people to enjoy. The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden is a three-acre garden located in Bishopville, South Carolina. Fryar's garden contains over 400 individual plants. Fryar's work is said to be a departure from traditional topiary work and his ‘topiary’ art is considered abstract, inventive, and free-form. If you’d like to have a look, the garden has its own website. Here’s the link:  Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden. In fact, if you type in the word ‘topiary’ into Google you can see some amazing pictures of what some people have achieved in shaping hedges. (In the meantime, we are just trying to get our hedges perfectly straight and the tops exactly level—in a plane, geometric fashion. That’s hard enough!) ‘Topiary’ is recorded in English from 1592. It came from the Latin word topiārius which literally means (I think!) ‘topical.’ If I’ve got that right, it is difficult to see how some clever clogs sat down in 1592 and decided that the Latin word for ‘topical’ would be the right name for clipping and shaping hedges. But there you are—just another of those bits of English that are hard to fully explain!

Assimilation Vs Integration Recently Albanese’s Minister for Immigration Tony Burke announced that he was opposed to any policy of ‘assimilation.’ He seemed to be saying that he wanted new Australian immigrants to hang on to their old culture instead of becoming culturally Australia. He said he thought ‘integration’ might be a better word. So, is there any real difference between those two words? And does it matter? ‘Assimilation’ first appears in English in 1605 and comes from French and Latin source words. Behind it is the verb ‘to assimilate’ which means ‘to become like, or similar to.’ Apparently Tony Burke is terrified by the idea that migrants coming to Australia might become like us, or similar to us. So, what about the alternative word? ‘Integration’ is a little later (1620) and comes from the verb ‘to integrate’ which means ‘to become part of the whole.’ It looks to my eyes that there is little or no real difference between the two words. Both remind me of poet Les Murray’s image of ‘the common pot’—to which everyone contributes, and which feeds everyone. In Les’ image every migrant that comes changes the Australian culture a bit (we had no pizzas until the Italians arrived!) and the resulting Australian culture is shared by everyone who is an Australian. Tony Burke seems opposed to the idea that we all share this nation and this culture. Anthony Albanese certainly doesn’t want us all to share—that’s why he keeps claiming that ‘diversity’ is what matters. He doesn’t want us to have a ‘common pot’ that we all share—he seems to want each group to have their own little pot which they don’t share with anyone else. By the way, Les Murray’s great image of the ‘common pot’ is found in his book The Boys Who Stole the Funeral (which I think is his masterpiece).

Scrambled words Two days ago, I wrote about a long, unclear statement written by a professor and filled with technical words that obfuscated rather than clarified. Just to remind you, here is her sentence: “…simple syntax or asyndeton in contemporary discourse characterised by the absence of the co-ordinating paratactic of subordinating hypotactic conjunctions. The clauses of a text rendered in asyndetic syntax like discrete nominal items are projected one after another in an accumulation of densities.” How well does that communicate to you? Exactly! I went on to invite readers to unscramble those dense ideas and put them in clearer language. And some of you rose to the challenge. David translated the professor in these words: 'This way of writing uses very short, simple parts and often leaves out words like “and” or “because.” It just puts idea one after another, like a list, to build meaning.' Which I think is sort of where the professor wants to take us with here obscure message. So, well done David! Suzie tackled the word salad of the professor, and unscrambled it like this: 'Nothing makes the linguistics of the English language more difficult to untangle, than the use of words, uncommon to most in the normal vernacular, therefore rendering the reader unable to ascertain the true meaning being expressed by word, written language, thought or deed – in a world full of the myriad of differing languages.' And I think Suzie gets a gold star stamped on her wrist for that one! Finally, Stephen points out that this professor would never say “Don't use a big word when a small one will do”. Instead, this professor would say: “Never use a large, long word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity” Very clever Stephen! Mind you, Stephen has invented his own negative form of ‘loquacious’ (talkative) by coining ‘unloquacious’—a word as yet unknown to the world’s dictionaries.

Making the cut Mark asks about the expression ‘making the cut.’ He says he’s come across it in golf, where you need to do well enough in the first two rounds of a competition to ‘make the cut’ and be included the last two rounds. Mark’s own guess is that this started in Hollywood—in the editing room where films were ‘cut’, and some scenes ‘made the cut’ while others ended up on the cutting room floor. By the way, the word ‘cut’ is used in that context because back in the pre-digital days 35mm film was literally ‘cut’ and then the ends of the cuts glued together to assemble the finished film. In the very early days the celluloid was cut with scissors, and later with a small, specially designed guillotine that did the job more precisely. But although that looks like an attractive source, it is not where ‘making the cut’ comes from.’ The phrase first appeared in print in America in 1943 in an article by E. B. White for Harper’s Magazine. And there it doesn’t refer to either golf or movie making, but to profit sharing. White says that when company profits were being shared the more lowly people missed out—they didn’t ‘make the cut.’ So it appears from the very beginning all it meant was the notion of a list which has been ‘cut off’ at some point—so that those above the cutting point are included while those below are ‘cut out.’ I suppose it could be a literally cut with a pair of scissors on a sheet of paper; but drawing a line through the list would have the same effect of including those above the line while relegating those below to the dustbin of not having ‘made the cut.’ As for the word ‘cut’ itself—this came into English from the Germanic family of languages during the 1200s and always meant ‘separating or removing.’ And as for Mark—I hope in your next golf competition you ‘make the cut’!

Eh? As you know Ozwords is a great defender of clarity—and is the opponent of language that produces a fog of words instead of any clear meaning: the kind of language that is designed to impress rather than communicate. Here is a quote from a Cambridge professor, Catherine Pickstock, which is just the sort of language that should be avoided. See if you can make head or tail of this: “…simple syntax or asyndeton in contemporary discourse characterised by the absence of the co-ordinating paratactic of subordinating hypotactic conjunctions. The clauses of a text rendered in asyndetic syntax like discrete nominal items are projected one after another in an accumulation of densities.” How did you go? Did that make much sense you? Let’s take a look at a few of those rare words. ‘Asyndeton’ means words which omit the conjunction (the ‘and’) you would normally expect between them. Julius Caesar’s famous words: ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’ is a list that leaves out the ‘and’ between the phrases—that is an example of ‘asyndeton.’ ‘Paratactic’ also means putting statements one after another without indicating how they relate to each other. ‘Hypotactic’ means showing which words are the important words and which are the lesser (or subordinate) words. So the sentence: ‘The Duke spent the weekend shooting at his country house’ is ambiguous because it can look as if his country house is now full of bullet holes, when (in fact) he was shooting grouse while staying at his country house. So, ‘at his country house’ should be a qualifying, or subordinate, expression to the verb ‘shooting’—and by not making that clear the sentence becomes foggy. How am I doing? Am I starting to unpack what the professor was trying to get at? I think all she meant was that she was critical of the sort of ‘word salad’ that is muddled by not making clear which bits matter, and which bits qualify other bits—and showing how they connect. Would you like to have a go at re-writing the professor’s sentences into clear English? If you’d like to make an attempt—send in your version and I will publish it here!

Fritz Garry writes: 'Just heard an American reporter say, “on the Fritz.” My reloes in South Australia called processed meat Fritz and we say a machine is “on the Fritz.” Where did it come from?' Well, the answer to that, Garry, is not short—because ‘fritz’ has multiple meanings. Let’s begin with the source. The earliest slang meaning for ‘fritz’ was a German soldier (recorded from 1883 and used in both World Wars)—because Fritz was once a common German name. Then there’s that odd meat. What’s the story behind that? Here in Australia the meat called ‘fritz’ was so called because its original name was German sausage. (In fact, it was a type of processed meat that had been introduced into Australia by German settlers, coming to the Barossa Valley in South Australia.) Over time it was given lots of other names around Australia, some of them inexplicable—such as: devon, polony, Strasburg, wheel meat, luncheon sausage and a dozen others. I list them all in my book about Australian regionalisms called Word Map. This process of renaming ‘fritz’ something else began with the outbreak of the First World War—because German sausage sounded unpatriotic, so its name was changed to ‘imperial sausage’ and then to ‘Windsor sausage’ and then all the rest! As for ‘fritz’ meaning broken—this appears to be American in origin recorded from 1908 when ‘to fritz out’ meant to go bung. So how was the word given this completely unrelated meaning? No one knows for sure. Even the great slang lexicographer Jonathan Green can’t explain why. My suggestion is that this first appeared at the beginning of the electrical age—with the earliest electric light bulbs for instance—and ‘fritz’ resembled the fizzing noise that anything electrical makes when it dies and goes out. Just a guess—but hey, sometimes even guesses are right!

Anzac Day April 25th every year Australia stops to celebrate Anzac Day. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The diggers landed at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders. They were evacuated at the end of that year after eight months of stalemate, fierce fighting, and appalling loses. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed. The legend of Anzac was born on the beaches of Gallipoli. April 25th was officially named Anzac Day in 1916 as an occasion of national commemoration. But did you realise that the word Anzac is copyright? Originally, of course, it simply meant the “Australian and New Zealand Army Corps”. But so deeply has this word entered into the consciousness of our nation that there are laws, passed way back in 1920, that control and protect its use. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs administers the protection of the word Anzac, and the minister’s approval is needed for the use of the word in connection with any “trade, business, calling or profession, any entertainment, lottery or art union, any building, private residence, boat or vehicle, or any charitable or other institution”. Even Anzac biscuits are protected by law. Well, not so much the biscuits as the name of the biscuits. And, by the way, Anzac is no longer an acronym – it is now officially a word: that means the “A” is upper case and the rest of the letters should be lower case. As for the biscuits—they are made out of oatmeal, golden syrup and coconut; and are one of Australia’s national foods. During World War I the wives, girlfriends and mums of the Australian soldiers used to make these biscuits to ship over to their blokes. They were originally called Soldiers’ Biscuits, but after the landing on Gallipoli, they were given their present name. In the recipe for Anzac biscuits from the Australian War Memorial there are no eggs. Why? Because apparently in the war, most poultry farmers had joined up, so eggs were scarce. Golden syrup took the place of eggs as the binding agent in Anzac biscuits. 

Ideology One word that crops up a lot in political discussion these days is ‘ideology’—so, what does it mean? Where did it come from? And does it matter? The word ‘ideology’ is first recorded in English in 1796—but back then all it meant was the study of ideas. It was first used in the way we use it today in 1896 in an article on socialism in the International Journal of Ethics. From that date until now ‘ideology’ has mean ‘a system.’ Or to spell it out in more detail: ‘A systematic scheme for how society should be run.’ Usually any ideology is based on a very few simple, central, ideas. Of course those ideas are then elaborated and spelled out (and sometimes applied!) in enormous (and complicated) detail—but it remains the case that at the heart of any ideology are just a few core principles. So at the heart of the ideology called ‘communism’ is the notion that employers exploited employees, and that the solution is abolish the private ownership of the means of production. In practice (in the Soviet Union, for example) that has not worked out so well. The ideology of ‘socialism’ is that government is responsible for every area of society and life. That’s a simple basic concept, but the result is that under socialist ideology governments need to be very big and very well-funded, so they can control and exercise responsibility over education, health, justice, welfare, culture, religion, family life, the environment and commerce. The simple core principle at the heart of an ideology is the spring that drives vast and complicated actions. The dominant ‘climate ideology’ of our day features just two key principles: (1) climate change is catastrophic and will result in widespread extinction; and (2) human beings by concerted action can control the global climate. Both of those principles are extremely dubious. But that is just an example of how a seemingly simple ideology can have far reaching consequences. The basic principle is this—ideology is the enemy of democracy.

Weird slang Every so often I like to bring you up-to-date with some of the nutty (or offensive) slang being battered around online. Here’s a list of a few more:

Ohio—is used (mostly on the Internet) to describe something that is weird, awkward, cringeworthy, or otherwise undesirable or bad in some way. It can also be used to mean ‘boring’ or ‘foolish.’ I think this might be the American equivalent of our word ‘bogan.’ This use of ‘Ohio’ as a put-down emerged in the late twenty-teens from statements along the lines of ‘only in Ohio.’ The idea is simple: you take a video of something clearly wrong and describe it as 'normal in Ohio.' You feed a baby in Ohio by throwing it out the window. Monkeys at the Ohio Zoo have AK-47s and so on. 

IJBOL—another of those initialisms that texting and emails seem to love. In this case it means ‘I Just Burst Out Laughing.’ It’s been around since at least the late 2000s. And I am told by people who take an interest in such things, that it is undergoing a period of popularity at the moment.

Pressed—stressed out, upset, offended, annoyed, bothered, etc. This slang sense of pressed originated in African American English and has since become widespread.

Uncanny valley—refers to a certain level or stage of lifelikeness (as of a doll, computer-animated character, robot, etc.) that is past the point of being impressive or endearing and is instead disconcerting, creepy. ‘Uncanny valley’ is credited to Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori, whose 1970 article on the phenomenon contained a phrase that has been translated as ‘uncanny valley.’

Womp womp—this can appear as Womp womp (or womp womp womp or womp womp womp womp … you get the idea) and is used as an interjection to mock someone else’s misfortune or distress. English has the word ‘schadenfreude’ (adopted from German in 1895) which means taking a malicious enjoyment in the misfortunes of others. But since young Americans are largely illiterate they have never heard of this word (and probably couldn’t pronounce it) so they use their own intelligent expression for the same notion with this form of words ‘womp, womp.’ This mimics the sound of notes from what has been dubbed a ‘sad trombone,’ descending pitches long used in comedy, game shows, etc., to signal sadness or disappointment (because young Americans, of course, live on their screens.)

And that’s quite enough Weirdness for one day. More normal words tomorrow.