Kel's previous Ozwords of the day...

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Aksed You must have heard this famous (or notorious!) mispronunciation at some time: someone thinks they are saying ‘asked’ but the sound that comes out their mouth is ‘aksed.’  But don’t be surprised if someone you complain to tells you this was once the correct spelling (and pronunciation!) of the word. That master linguist Michael Quinion (he of ‘World Wide Words’ fame) has done the research, and explains in these terms: The process by which a sound changes place with another in a word is called ‘metathesis.’ ‘Wasp’ has gone through the same change, as it was spelled both ‘waesp’ and ‘waeps’ in Old English (the Latin equivalent is indeed vespa, but it seems that the prehistoric form may have been nearer ‘waps’). Another example is ‘pattern’, which was created from ‘patron’ in the sixteenth century. Yet another was common in the British Army in the nineteenth century, when ‘cavalry’ was often said as though it was spelled ‘Calvary’ (which is a real word—the name of the hill where Jesus Christ was crucified). You hear it in the spoken language — one example is ‘relevant’, which is often said with the middle consonants inverted, as ‘revelant’. Children do it a lot while they’re learning new words. ‘Aks’ is a common (and notorious) modern example. Though in standard English it’s considered a mistake, it’s common in various dialects, for example in Black American English. The two forms go back to Old English, in which ‘axian’ and ‘’ (with a hard C) existed side by side. In this case, the -sk- sound is the older, and it seems to have won the battle for survival. But the existence of the two forms, its widespread use in dialect — plus all the other cases of metathesis — suggests that someone today who says aks is actually going through a mental process that isn’t at all abnormal, and which is probably allied to Spoonerism. That’s Michael explanation—which is very clear and very helpful. But this is what bothers me—people who say ‘aksed’ would never write it like that. They would always write ‘asked.’ And that makes what they’re saying a simple, straightforward mispronunciation—and an ugly one at that!

Hypergamy Yes, it is weird word time once again. And this weird word has (I think) a slightly weird meaning. The first sentence of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice is justly famous: ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’ (Isn’t that extraordinarily good writing!) What that sentence alludes to is the notion of a young woman who wants to ‘marry up’—that is, to marry a man of higher social status and higher fortune than herself. That’s ‘marrying up.’ (And ‘marrying up’ is a theme that occurs in quite a few of Jane Austen’s novels.) Well, ‘hypergamy’ (pronounced high-PUR-guh-mee) is a highly literate word meaning exactly this—marrying up!. It appears to have been coined as a technical (academic) word in the area of cultural anthropology. The earliest citation the Oxford English Dictionary has found is from the year 1883, when an anthropologist named Ibbetson wrote a report on the 1881 census of the Punjab (in India). The report says that the Punjab is dominated by two cultural laws, which are labelled ‘isogamy’ and ‘hypergamy.’ ‘Isogamy’ (pronounced igh-SOG-uh-mee) means the marriage of two equals, while our word ‘hypergamy’ means (as we have already noticed) ‘marrying up.’ In ‘hypergamy’ the suffix (‘-gamy) comes from post-classic Latin (via French) and is used to form nouns about marriage. The most common use of this suffix is in our word ‘bigamy’ (literally ‘double marriage’). The prefix (‘hyper-’) also comes from post-classical Latin and means ‘over, above, beyond.’ When this academic word ‘hypergamy’ was first coined, it was used to label the cultural custom forbidding a woman to marry into a group of lower standing than her own. But it seems to have fairly quickly come to label the very opposite as well—a woman who married into a group with a higher standard than her own. Another census of India (published in 1903) talked about ‘Hypergamy, or “marrying up” is the custom which compels a woman to marry into a group of equal or superior rank…’ But, as we’ve seen, long before the Brits discovered this culture in India, it was being practice back in, the home counites of England, where it was noticed and recorded by the brilliant wit of Jane Austen. 

Endangerment Is ‘endangerment’ a real word? It looks like one of those awkward invented words that just stick together bits of the English language like bits of Lego (whether they fit together well or not). It is certainly a word that was used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They used to have something called an ‘endangerment finding.’ These ‘endangerment findings’ were issued for any bit of the environment (a rare species of bird, a river system or whatever) that was scientifically classified as being in danger. In 2009 the EPA issued an ‘endangerment finding,’ which concluded that planet-harming greenhouse gases posed a threat to public health. But now the Trump administration has announced it will revoke the scientific determination that underpins this particular ‘endangerment finding.’ This means the EPA will no longer regulate so-called ‘greenhouse gas emissions.’ (Whether this matters or not will depend on whether you think current climate change is somehow more catastrophic than the normal climate change that has been happening over many, many thousands of years. On that, opinions may vary.) But back to this word ‘endangerment’—does it really belong in our language? Well, odd though it sounds (at least to me—you may think it’s fine!) it is a real English word and has been for a long time. The Oxford English Dictionary records ‘endangerment’ from 1645. t looks as if it might have been coined by the great John Milton and (just like Shakespeare) Milton was a bit inclined to coin new words. In 1645 Milton used ‘endangerment’ in a book he called Tetrachordon. (And that book title appears to be a word he put together from bits of Greek to mean ‘four stringed.’) The book is a defence of divorce. Milton married in the spring of 1642, and shortly afterwards, his wife, Mary Powell, left him and returned to live with her mother. 

The laws of England did not allow for Milton to apply for a divorce, and in response he argue for divorce laws to be changed. It appears that in this word-inventing whirlwind Milton also came up with ‘endangerment’; he wrote about ‘the endangerment of our souls.’ (By the way, Milton’s wife came back to him, and they were reconciled.)

Derecho Weather words are in a special category all their own. And they keep changing and developing over time. Recently we have heard of such newish expressions at ‘bomb cyclone’ and ‘rain bomb’ and so on—dramatic (not to say, melodramatic) weather words coined in America. I can remember a time when we talked about a ‘tidal wave’—by which we meant: ‘an exceptionally large ocean wave caused by an event that disturbs a large expanse of water such as an earthquake’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Then we were told, no, that’s wrong—these things are not ‘tidal waves’ at all, and we were told we had use the Japanese word ‘tsunami’ (which, by the way, literally means ‘harbor wave’; ‘tsu’ = ‘harbour’ and ‘nami’ = ‘wave.’) And as weather words are changed and new weather words are added, I have come across this one: ‘derecho’ (pronounced ‘duh-RAY-choh’).  This word seems to have been coined by American meteorologist G. D. Hinrichs in the American Meteorological Journal in 1888. His intention was for ‘derecho’ to mean ‘A line of violent and sustained windstorms formed in association with a rapidly moving band of thunderstorms travelling across a very broad front.’ He explained that he coined this word on the model of the earlier word ‘tornado.’ 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!) Well, Mr Hinrichs picked up on this and created ‘derecho’—from the Spanish word for ‘direct’—as a variation. As he explained: ‘Since the “Twister of the Prairies” has been named the tornado, I propose to call the peculiar “Straight Blow of the Prairies” the derecho; (Spanish, in analogy with the word tornado).’ So if the wind is direct rather than turning and twisting it is a ‘derecho’ nor a ‘tornado.’ Mind you, it has to be a very powerful wind to earn this name. As the Oxford explains it must be marked by ‘gusts of at least 93 km per hour along much of its length, with isolated gusts above 121 km per hour, and wind damage sustained along a more or less continuous track over 650 km long and 100 km wide. And ‘derecho’ is another rare word you may be able to use in Scrabble one day!

Gerrymander There is a strange battle going on between the Republicans and the Democrats in the state of Texas at the moment. The Republican governor, Greg Abbot, is re-drawing electoral boundaries. In America they call this ‘re-districting’ because Congressional seats there are not called ‘electorates’ (the word we use) but ‘districts.’ In Australia this process of drawing electoral boundaries is done by the Australian Electoral Commission—not by politicians. But in the US it is the state governments that do this -re-drawing. The Democrats accuse Governor Abbott of using this process to create new Congressional ‘districts’ in a way that will favour the Republican Party and disadvantage the Democrats. Democrat members of the Texas state house have fled the state to avoid voting on the bill to do this—because by not being present the Texas, state house no longer has a ‘quorum’ (the fixed minimum number of members who must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings legally valid). What the Democrats accuse Governor Abbot of is called a ‘gerrymander.’ A ‘gerrymander’ means arranging election districts so that the political party making the arrangement will be enabled to elect a greater number of representatives than they could on a fair system. It is possible, for example, to draw electoral boundaries in such a way that all the polling places that vote, say, Democrat, are included in one district—leaving the surrounding districts with so few Democrat voters that they will all fall to the Republicans.

But to do that you have create some oddly shaped electoral districts. Something along those lines was done in Massachusetts in 1812 by then Governor Eldrige Gerry. The editor of a Massachusetts newspaper (the Columbian Centinel) looked at a map of the new districts and said of the shape of one district ‘it looked like a salamander’ (a type of amphibious lizard). 

In fact, he took out his pen added a head, wings, and claws. But, he said, since it was created by Governor Elridge Gerry it can’t be a salamander—it must be a ‘gerrymander.’ His joke was repeated and caught on. And the word he had coined, ‘gerrymander’, entered the language for dishonest rigging of electoral boundaries.

Tarantula I don’t like spiders. And living (as I do) in the land of the Sydney Funnel Web and the nasty little redback my dislike is entirely reasonable. They give me the shivers, so any spider that comes within range (even a harmless huntsman) gets whacked! But I am compelled to write about a spider, because the New York Times has issued a warning that hordes of tarantulas are coming (in parts of America, not here!) The Oxford English Dictionary defines a ‘tarantula’ as: ‘A large wolf-spider native to southern Europe, Lycosa tarantula, whose bite typically causes mild effects in humans…’ which makes them sound pretty benign, but then it goes on to say, ‘…but was previously associated with the psychological illness “tarantism” (either as an effect or a cure).’ Now, that’s just weird, isn’t it? A spider that causes a psychological illness? The Oxford further explains that ‘tarantism’ means (or used to mean, years ago): ‘A hysterical malady, characterized by an extreme impulse to dance, which prevailed as an epidemic in Apulia and adjacent parts of Italy from the 15th to the 17th century, popularly attributed to the bite or ‘sting’ of the tarantula.’ Then, is seems, they discovered that the spider had nothing to do with this peculiar disease. But does that mean that the tarantula is safe? That it’s bite causes no harm? Does it have none of the lethal venom that our Funnel Web carries? Well, according to that New York Times report it’s almost cuddly! In forecasting ‘hordes’ of these things filling the American summer the NYT says: ‘While the idea of thousands of hairy, baseball-sized spiders picking their way through parks and campgrounds might give many people the heebie-jeebies, in general these misunderstood, wandering arachnids are simply young males in search of love.’ This invasion, they add, is about to hit Arizona, California, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and Washington. After insisting that these tarantulas are not dangerous the NYT adds: ‘There is one thing to be aware of – these spiders can jump as much as a foot or two, and they can get into trees.’ I am reminded that in 1955 a classic horror movie was released called Tarantula. It featured a tarantula the size of a house. And that’s where tarantulas (and all spiders) belong—in horror movies.

Dementia Did Joe Biden have ‘dementia’ during his presidency? This is the question that continues to haunt national politics in America. What makes it powerful is the fact that the Democrat Party and many major news outlets appear to have known about the ‘dementia’ and hidden the truth from the voting public. That truth is now being revealed in a number of books. The best-seller among these ‘now-we-can-tell-the-truth’ books is Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, It’s Cover-up, and his Disastrous Choice to Run Again Cover-up, and his Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Tapper, who is now putting the truth out there, was one of Biden’s most notorious defenders—attacking Lara Trump over Biden’s incoherent speech, claiming that Biden just had a ‘stutter.’ Other books chasing down the same demons include Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History by Chris Whipple, and Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. The point about all these books is that now that Biden is out of the White House they can safely admit the signs of his ‘dementia’ that everyone around him could see, and kept quiet about. So, what is the story behind the word ‘dementia’? Well, it comes from an identical word in classical Latin which (back in the days of the Roman Empire) just meant: ‘madness, insanity, craziness, folly.’ It turns up in English as a medical term from the late 1500s onwards—and the original meaning of ‘dementia’ in English was the same as the Latin word: ‘insanity.’ But over the centuries, as the science of mental illness developed, this has been changed and refined; it came to be seen as primarily a degenerative disease of the brain associated with aging. Mind you, even for people over 90 there is only a 50% chance of getting ‘dementia’—so there are people approaching their centenary with brains as sharp as ever. Which was not the case with poor old Joe Biden—whose physical decline, memory lapses, and stumbling, incoherent speech were apparent to any open-minded observer. Making the real scandal, the cover-up!

Scrabble advantage If you are a Scrabble ® player this may interest you. We all know that in a Scrabble game there are certain letters that are hard to use (what do you do with an ‘X’?) And often those are the letters with a high number score that it would pay to put on the board—if only you could find a word to put them in! Well, the helpful folk at the great American dictionary—the Merriam-Webster—have put together a short of list of words that will (a) great rid of those odd letters, and (b) score some handy points. Here they, see what you think of them: 

Za—an American colloquialism used as an abbreviation of ‘pizza’ (and, yes, it is in the official Scrabble dictionary, even if it’s not in the little dictionary you use to settle disputes during games).

Qi—a Chinese word that has crept into English as the name for the so-called ‘vital force’ that flows through everything. This one is in the Oxfordand appears in English fairly regularly from about 1850 onwards. It’s pronounced CHEE.

Phoney—notice this is spelled with an ‘e’ before the ‘y’—the usual spelling in Britain and Australia (this is the spelling it has in the Oxford) which means that if you opponent puts down ‘phone’ you can get rid of your unwanted ‘y’ by adding to the end, and scoring useful points.

Retinas—the layer at the back of the eyeball. And this is a reminder to add that final ‘s’ (if you have one) to make it just that bit more valuable.

Xu—the monetary unit of Vietnam (the equivalent to one hundredth of a dong—just as one hundred cents make a dollar, so one hundred Xus make a dong). The word is pronounced SOO—because this started as a corruption of the French currency word ‘sou’ (the French were the original colonial masters of Vietnam). And, yes, this too in the Oxford. (You really need the Oxford online open when you play Scrabble—rather than depending on your dog-eared copy of a little desk dictionary).

Well, will those words help your next Scrabble game? Or will they just start fresh arguments? (Mind you, the arguments are some of the best fun in Scrabble!) 

Body neutrality We do become tired (don’t we?) of trendy new expressions that we are told are terribly important and that we all must learn and use. The latest of these is ‘body neutrality.’ I must admit that when I encountered this I wondered, what on earth can that mean? But apparently to understand this expression (and why it is so earth-shatteringly important) I need to understand the history. This begins with ‘body negativity’—a condition that can have an impact on young girls. They decide they don’t have ‘the right type of body’ and so they come to hate themselves (or, at least, to hate their bodies). I can understand why this could have a devasting effect on young minds, so, yes, this can be important. The terrible psychiatric condition of anorexia seems to come from young girls thinking they are fat and, hence, starving themselves to the point of death. To counter this the notion of ‘body positivity’ was promoted—encouraging kids who thought they had ‘the wrong sort of body’ to reverse their opinions and start to feel happy about whatever body they had. They were told to be happy (to be positive) about being fat or freckled or whatever. Unsurprisingly this appears not to have worked terribly well. So, now this new expression has been born: ‘body neutrality.’ The term, which first surfaced around 2015, offers a middle ground where it challenged the kids to shift their perspective and learn to accept their bodies for what they are and for what they can do. One website puts it like this: ‘Body neutrality is simply the act of taking a neutral stance toward your body – both emotionally and physically. That means not supporting the hatred towards your body’s “limitations” or investing time and energy to love it either. You can simply be at peace with your body.’ Do you think this movement is likely to work? I am doubtful. Given that there are generations around us who haunt the gym to built themselves a ‘better body’ I can’t see much role for neutrality, can you? And to be honest, I quite often hop on the bathroom scales and if I have put on a bit of weight I spend the next week taking it off again. Perhaps I’m a sceptic, but I can’t much room for ‘body neutrality’ in our obsessed world. But, hey, good luck to them!

Woke (yet again!) In response to endless calls to define what ‘woke’ means I finally distilled a clear, simple, three-word definition. ‘Woke’ means ‘politically correct bullying.’ In other words, a person is ‘Woke’ if they are (a) politically correct, and (b) think everyone should agree with them and will bully anyone who doesn’t. We have had some debates in this space about that definition, but I stand by it. Now, along comes the great British writer A. N. Wilson with a bit of soft-focus nonsense on the subject. Wilson is a writer of novels, biographies and popular histories, and in his column in The Oldie magazine he said this: ‘I understand those inveigh against “woke”, but is it not just a word for justifiablechanged attitudes?’ Since he puts it as a question, I can give an answer: no, it’s not just that. The tsunami of cancel culture and ‘de-platforming’ driven by the ‘Woke’ bullies shows that it's not. If it were just a matter of some people changing their attitudes, and not trying to impose their new attitudes on everyone else it might be different. And what are the changed attitudes he refers to? And what flows from them? Later in the same column he writes ‘…it doesn’t matter tuppence whether you are gay or straight or trans.’ Really? Has he not been paying attention to the belligerent bullying that drives the trans lobby? Bear in mind what the word ‘trans’ really means. It means a biological man who claims he is a woman—and on that basis demands access to women’s spaces. Wilson has three daughters. Would he have no objection to a biological male sharing the showers, the changing rooms, the toilets with his daughters? He clearly hasn’t thought this through. ‘Woke’ is not just a matter of ‘changing attitudes’ (whether justified in some eyes or not)—it is a pushing political and social movement that wants ‘Woke’ voices to dominate in the public square, and all other voices to be silenced. Any author who believes in the flow of ideas and the freedom of speech must be horrified by that. So despite A. N. Wilson's contribution I remain convinced that my definition of ‘Woke’ is precise, clear and accurate—‘politically correct bullying.’

Holmesian From time-to-time words are coined based on a person’s name. That person might be an author—giving us the word ‘Dickensian’—or they might be a politician—giving us the much newer word ‘Trumpian.’  But what is rather rare, is to have such a word based not on a real person, but on a fictional character. It has, however, happened in the case of the word ‘Holmesian.’ This is recorded from 1929 with the following meaning: ‘Of, pertaining to, or in the manner of Sherlock Holmes’ (Oxford English Dictionary). So, what qualifies this fictional character (unlike most others) to become a word in the dictionary? The answer seems to be that Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle succeeded in creating such a distinctive character in Holmes that there was no other way to label his memorable characteristics except by using his name. Have you ever read any of Conan-Doyle’s original stories? He wrote 56 short stories and four short novels about the great detective. I started reading them when I was about 10-years old, and I still go back and re-read them from time to time up to this day. If you’ve never done so, go down to your local library, borrow a Conan Doyle book and give them a try. But even if we have never read the original stories, we have all seen Holmes on TV or in the movies. A survey conducted a few years ago showed that Sherlock Holmes is the most portrayed fictional character ever in the history of movies and TV. Hence, he has given us this word. And as well as the word ‘Holmesian’ he has given us the word ‘Sherlockian’—recorded from 1959 (with the same meaning as ‘Holmesian’) and the word ‘Sherlockiana’ which the Oxford says means: ‘Things connected with Sherlock Holmes, writings about Sherlock Holmes.’ One fictional character with no fewer than three words coined about him and recorded in the dictionary. Quite an achievement! New stories continue to be written about Holmes by other authors since the passing of Conan Doyle back in 1930. And I am one of them. My newest book is called Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries. It contains 50 short stories I have written about the great detective. (It is available from Amazon—to have a look at it, just go to Amazon and type Sherlock Holmes: 5-Minute Mysteries in the search panel). I originally wrote the stories for one of my radio shows (I would read one story each Friday night on the show—and challenge the listeners to solve the puzzle before I gave them the solution). I think it is a fun book, so I hope you will check it out. 

Doughnut I have been asked why doughnuts are called ‘doughnuts’—the ‘dough’ part is clear enough (they are cooked dough) but why ‘nut’? They are not shaped like, or flavoured like, nuts, so why are they called ‘nuts.’ The story seems to be that originally ‘doughnuts’ where not the shape we are familiar with these days—the circle shape with the hole in the middle—they were simply small, round lumps of dough fried in oil or fat.. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘doughnuts’ were brought to America (the global home of the doughnut these days) by the Dutch sometime in the 17thor 18th century (back when New York was still called New Amsterdam). But there was a problem—the dough right in the middle of the ball was often not cooked when the rest of the little ball was cooked. The solution the Dutch came up with was to stuff the middle of the small ball of dough with stuff that didn’t need cooking—things such as fruit or nuts. And the name was attached to this fried delight back in those days, when the small balls of fried dough looked like some kind of nut (and might even have nuts in the middle). Of course, the Dutch name for these things was not ‘doughnut’ it was a Dutch word—they were called olie koeken or olykoeks, which means “oil cakes.” The name we know, doughnut, is first recorded in 1809 in Washington Irving’s book History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty where he writes about “balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks.” So we can see how the name ‘doughnut’ came about—but where did the famous hole in the middle come from? This is disputed. About 1850 an American sailor named Hanson Gregory is said to have innovated the iconic doughnut shape by piercing or cutting a hole through the centre of the treat. In one tale, he pierced a doughnut on a spoke of his ship’s wheel during a storm. The truth is probably far simpler. When the dough is shaped into a circle with a hole in the middle you have solved the problem of the dough in the middle remaining raw when the rest is cooked. In the familiar shape it cooks evenly through. 

Heel The sudden death of professional wrestler and Hollywood star Hullk Hogan at the age of 71, points us towards looking at the word ‘heel.’ Does that strike you as odd? It struck me the same way when I first came across it. But then I was told that Hulk Hogan played the role of being a ‘heel’ in his appearances in the professional wrestling ring. This means ‘a wrestler who performs the role of the unsympathetic antagonist or adversary in a staged wrestling match’ (Merriam Webster Dictionary). In other words, the ‘heel’ is the one the crowd loves to boo! The Merriam Webster supports its definition with a quote from John Leland, writing in Newsweek in 1998. There he wrote: ‘In the traditional morality plays of professional wrestling, grapplers divided into good guys, or “baby faces,” and black-hatted “heels.”’ So, how did ‘heel’ come to be applied in this way? It appears to be a development of an earlier use of ‘heel’ in American criminal slang, where they used ‘heel’ to mean ‘a dishonourable, untrustworthy, or otherwise despicable person’ (Oxford English Dictionary). That usage is recorded from 1914, while the professional wrestling variation only comes from much later—from about 1958. But even that US criminal slang needs a bit of explaining. Why was a small body part chosen to label a person who was held in some contempt? Again it's the Oxford that comes to our rescue here, suggesting that this is an extended us of the literal name for the body part at the back of your foot. That original meaning (‘the rear part of the foot, below and behind the ankle’) is very old, and goes back to the birth of the English language itself. So how did this verbal development happen? The Oxford says: ‘the semantic development is unclear; perhaps it’s an allusion to the furtive behaviour of a sneak thief, who is rarely seen face to face.’ Mind you, in the wrestling ring, the ‘heel’ might be the one the fans would like to see ‘trampled underfoot’! And I should add that outside the wrestling ring, Hulk Hogan was a popular, well-liked figure.

Clafoutis Yes, it’s Weird Word time once again—and this one is especially for Wordies who have sweet tooth and love their rich desserts. ‘Clafoutis’ (pronounced klaff-OO-tee) is a French word that means ‘A type of dessert consisting of fruit, typically cherries, baked in a sweet, custard-like batter.’ Our favourite restaurant (one that my wife and I visit often) is a French restaurant—but I can’t remember ever seeing ‘clafoutis’ being offered to us on the menu. Which is a pity—since having discovered the word I would now like to taste it! The word ‘clafoutis’ does not appear in English before 1926—and even in French does not seem to go back any earlier than the 1860s. Tracing the word back through it’s French history, the lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary suggest that ‘clafoutis’ might be a blend of a French regional word meaning ‘to cover a surface’ and an older word meaning ‘to stuff’ or ‘fill up.’ And when they trace it even further back—to Old French and classical Latin—they suggest that the source word meant ‘to attach with nails’ or ‘to fix with a nail.’ Which makes this dessert sound rather heavy and binding, doesn’t it? The great American dictionary, the Merriam Webster, says that ‘clafoutis’ means ‘a dessert consisting of a layer of fruit (such as cherries or apples) topped with batter and baked.’ It leaves out any reference to custard, but it still sound extremely sweet! Then they add: ‘Fun to say, fun to eat, and sometimes that’s more than enough to be worth knowing.’ And they have a quote from a New York Times restaurant review from 2015: ‘The cherry clafoutis is to share, a spontaneous act of generosity from the kitchen, hearty and delicate at the same time. It wears a jaunty hat of Chantilly cream.’ Which makes it sound very nice indeed!

Sabbath Following the death of Ozzy Osbourne, lead singer with the heavy metal rock band Black Sabbath—there has been a massive increase in people looking up the origin and meaning of the word ‘sabbath’ on the Merriam-Webster Dictionary website. Black Sabbath, formed in 1968, is widely regarded as one of the most influential heavy metal bands, known for their dark themes and powerful sound. As for the word ‘sabbath’—that goes back a long way. It first appears in the English language back in the days of Old English—well over a thousand years ago—in the famous Lindisfarne Gospels. That document is what is called an ‘illuminated’ gospel manuscript (that means, it has hand-drawn and highly decorated sections on many pages). It probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland. And in one of its headings to Matthew’s Gospel is this word ‘sabbath’ appears (not spelled in that way, but in the Old English way). However, long before it was an English word it existed as an ancient Hebrew word meaning ‘rest.’ From Hebrew it passed into Hellenistic Greek, then classic Latin, then Old French and Anglo-Norman until it finally appeared in English. There are some words that simply survive the centuries, aren’t there? The original Hebrew word refers to the 4thcommandment (in the Ten Commandments) to ‘remember the sabbath day by keeping it holy’—Exodus 20:8-11 (‘holy’ that context means ‘separate’ or ‘different’). To this day the ‘sabbath’ is the Jewish holy day. The sabbath is observed from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday. The same day is also celebrated each week by some Christian churches—most notably the Seventh Day Adventists. But most Christian churches do not celebrate the ‘sabbath’ on Saturdays, but on Sundays. The shift was made because the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead occurred on a Sunday. So, while the Merriam-Webster Dictionary still defines ‘sabbath’ as (accurately) the ‘seventh day of the week’ most Christians these days mark the first day of the week as their weekly ‘sabbath.’

Hoax Have you noticed how often President Donald Trump uses the word ‘hoax’? It seems to be one of favourite words. And there have been some elaborate ‘hoaxes’ perpetrated in the American mainstream media in an attempt to defeat Trump. The most notorious of these was the ‘Russian Collusion Hoax’ which was started by the Hilary Clinton team during Trump’s first election victory, and then pursued by the intelligence community (CIA and FBI) while Trump was in office. A full (and official) investigation has shown this to be a complete fabrication—a ‘hoax.’ Then when the revelations about Hunter Biden’s laptop came out in the New York Post the rest of the mainstream media tried to dismiss all that damaging information as a ‘hoax.’ They were wrong. It turned out that their dismissal of the story was itself a ‘hoax’! Now Donald Trump is using the word again. This time to dismiss the so-called ‘Epstein files’ (about the notorious paedophile Jeffry Epstein) as nothing more than the ‘Epstein hoax.’ Trump has even attacked some of his own supporters for believing that the truth about Epstein is being hidden. So, where did we get this word ‘hoax? It's first recorded in English in the late 1700s, with the meaning that you know: ‘To deceive or take in by inducing to believe an amusing or mischievous fabrication or fiction’ (Oxford English Dictionary). As for where the word comes from—well, there seems to be some uncertainty. But the suggestion the Oxford makes is an intriguing one. They are proposing that ‘hoax’ is a clipped, or contracted, form of the word ‘hocus.’ From the 1600s onwards to ‘hocus’ someone was ‘to play a trick on someone.’ And ‘hocus’ in turn is a shortened form of the longer expression ‘hocus pocus.’ This, in turn, was a sort of pretend mystical expression used by a conjuror or magician as he waved his arms around (‘see nothing up my sleeve’) and performed his magic tricks. So that pushes it back a step further—and leads us to ask: where did ‘hocus pocus’ come from? Here the experts seem to agree, that ‘hocus pocus’ never meant anything—it was just a piece of pretend Latin (sham Latin) spoken by the conjuror knowing that his audience of gullible villagers knew no Latin and would be impressed by the sound of the words (and his apparent mystical knowledge). So, that’s the story—from a bit of invented cod Latin (‘hocus pocus’) to the verb ‘to hocus’ (to trick someone) to this fad word ‘hoax’ (to promote a false, fictional narrative).

Ratio There is a bizarre new meaning being attached to the old word ‘ratio’ in American slang. (At least, I think it’s bizarre.) We all learned ‘ratio’ (pronounced RAY-shee-oh) back when we were schoolkids. It means ‘a relationship between two amounts, represented by a pair of numbers showing how much bigger one amount is than the other’ (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). As in ‘there’s a ratio of two-to-one here.’ It came into English in the 1500s from a classical Latin word meaning ‘calculation’ or ‘proportion.’ Now, here’s the new American usage, which I find so bizarre—see if you are as surprised as I am by this. The Merriam Webster Dictionary people have recorded (in the ‘Slang and Trending’ part of their big dictionary) this word ‘ratio’ being used to mean ‘to give considerably more negative than positive responses on a social media post.’ And here’s the explanation those clever lexicographers provide to back up their observation of this new usage: ‘A social media post—as on X, Facebook, or other platforms (such as Truth Social)—is said to have been “ratioed” when it has received more comments and reposts than likes, implying that it was tremendously unpopular. In other words, to “ratio” a post is to (collectively) give it more comments or reposts than likes or favourites.’ Do you agree with me that this is a bizarre use of an old mathematical term? It seems that ‘ratio’ can also mean ‘to receive more downvotes than upvotes’ on websites where such on-screen icons are an option. That a familiar (and fairly straight forward) bit of English (and one that is more than 500 years old) should be twisted around in this way is odd—but then, it’s happening in an odd place: in the weird world of social media. As we all know, social media is an abuse loaded, cheap, downmarket, dog-eat-dog world. So, not only are people very rude to each other in the word of social media, but they also have no respect for the English language. To be ‘ratioed’ on social media is usually considered humiliating, unless the account being ‘ratioed’ views the opprobrium of their intellectual opponents as a badge of honour. And one final word from the Merriam Webster people: ‘”ratio” tends to carry a whiff of schadenfreude.’ Schadenfreude (pronounced SHAH-duhn-froyd) means taking pleasure in the discomfort of others. And all of this is why you and I stay well away from social media!

Buffalo Bill Colonel William F. Cody (1846-1917) was known around the world as ‘Buffalo Bill’—and under that name toured the world for many years with his famous ‘Wild West Show’. This was an arena spectacular in which cowboys and rough riders thundered around displaying their horsemanship and re-enacting famous scenes from the wild west, such as Custer’s Last Stand. Buffalo Bill’s show included stars such as Annie Oakley, the sharpshooter, and Sitting Bill, the great native American chieftain. But should he have been called ‘Buffalo Bill’ at all? He won his nickname as a young man when the great railroads were being built across the American west. Cody had a contract to supply them with fresh meat. He did this by chasing herds of animals that he (and everyone else) called ‘buffalo.’ He was very successful because he chased the animals, so they were running in a circle, then he stood up his stirrups and shot them as they ran (he was a superb marksman). The result was that the animals dropped over a limited area and the meat wagons could easily reach them and butcher them. But the nickname was always wrong. Because the animals that William F. Cody shot were not buffalos at all—but bison.  Grammarphobia.com explains the difference in these words: ‘People in the U.S. commonly call the large, hairy, ox-like animal a buffalo, but that animal is actually a kind of bison. While we don’t know exactly where this common mix-up comes from, a popular theory is that early European settlers confused the American bison they found with the African and Asian buffalo they were familiar with. Whatever the reason, many Americans still mistakenly refer to bison as buffalo today.’ So, what the railroad workers were eating (and what William Cody was shooting) were not buffalo but bison. Mind you, the same mistake is also found elsewhere. There’s an American folk song called ‘Home on the Range’ that starts with the words: ‘Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam…’ And it wouldn’t be quite the same (would it?) singing ‘…where the bison roam…’? And somehow Bison Bill wouldn’t have had quite the same ring as ‘Buffalo Bill’!