March 09, 2010
Is this English ready for prime time?
Q: I saw the following sentence in the New York Times: "But it works because the critical mass of viewers gathers before TVs in prime time." Is it proper English? I'm thinking it should be "at prime time."
A: We usually use "at" when referring to a specific time ("at 3 o'clock" or "at 7 PM") and "in" or "during" when referring to a more general period of time ("in the afternoon" or "during the evening").
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) defines "prime time" this way: "The evening hours, generally between 7 and 11 P.M., when the largest television audience is available."
Since "prime time" refers to a period of time, not a specific hour, I'd use "in" or "during" with it. So yes, the author of that Times article was indeed using proper English.
By the way, you may find it interesting that the noun phrase "prime time" is very old, hundreds of years older than television, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
But when it entered English in the 1400s, it referred to the time of prime, the early- morning canonical hour of prayer. In the 1500s, the term also came to mean springtime and the early period of youth, life, and so on, according to the OED..
The first published reference in the OED to "prime time" used in the broadcasting sense is from a 1947 issue of the Wall Street Journal: "Columbia Broadcasting System, for instance, has an unsold hour of prime time on Tuesday nights, beginning at 9:30."
By the late 1970s, the phrase was being used in a negative expression ("not ready for prime time") to mean not yet ready for the task or not quite capable of success.
The latest citation in the OED for this usage, from a 2002 article in Science, refers to cell lines that "are not ready for prime time."
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March 08, 2010
In unison and out of it
Q: My wife and I were watching a broadcast of the pairs figure skating in Vancouver when I caught what I consider two misuses of the word “unison”: "They were completely unison" and "They were out of unison." Do you agree?
A: In music, the noun “unison” refers to two or more notes of the same pitch (or, loosely, one or more octaves apart). The word, which entered English in the 16th century, ultimately comes from the Latin unus (one) and sonus (sound), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
However, the word ”unison” has been used figuratively since the 17th century to refer to perfect agreement or concord or harmony, especially in the phrase “in unison.”
So is “unison” being used correctly in the two sentences you mention?
In the first one (“They were completely unison”) the word is an adjective. Although “unison” has been used adjectivally at times, the OED says this usage is now considered obsolete. The correct sentence: “They were in unison” or (with a bit of redundancy for emphasis) “They were in perfect unison.”
We see nothing wrong with the second sentence (“They were out of unison”). We can’t find any published references to “out of unison” in the OED , but it strikes us as an acceptable way of describing the opposite of “in unison.”
For what it’s worth, we got 296,000 hits when we googled “out of unison.”
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March 07, 2010
Confused, until now
Q: I'm an American who teaches at a university in Germany. Some of my students have asked me about the phrase "until now," which is commonly used in German to signify what in English would be the present perfect progressive. They want to know if it's acceptable in a sentence like this: "I have not been able to reach the client until now." Adding "until now" seems terribly redundant to me, but I want to check with an expert before telling them it's wrong.
A: "Until now" is quite common and perfectly acceptable in English. It's not only acceptable in the sentence you mention, but deleting it could change the meaning.
The original sentence ("I have not been able to reach the client until now") implies that the speaker has only now succeeded in reaching the client.
But the stripped-down version you prefer ("I have not been able to reach the client") implies that the speaker has failed to reach the client.
The form used in the sentence you cited is the present perfect, not the present perfect progressive: "I have [not] been." It implies action begun in the past and continuing into the present. (An example of the present perfect progressive, using the verb "forget," would be "I have [not] been forgetting.")
As for "until now," yes it’s correct English. There are dozens of examples in the Oxford English Dictionary. The earliest one (using "til" instead of "until") is from the Wycliffe Bible of 1382, the first English version of the Bible.
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March 06, 2010
Deadpan, part 2
Q: I'm a theater person who, incidentally, has gotten “panned” quite a few times, but I never gave the term much thought till I saw your recent posting about “deadpan.” Could there be a connection?
A: No, I don’t think there's a connection between a "deadpan" expression and the verb "pan" in the sense of to criticize severely.
In fact, I haven't been able to find a solid explanation of why the verb "pan" took on its critical meaning, though I did come across one theory and I have another of my own.
The first published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary for "pan" as a verb is from the late 15th century, when it meant to fit or put up horizontal beams to support joists in a timber-framed house.
Back then, such a beam was referred to as a "pan" (from panna, post-classical Latin for squared timber).
Although this meaning is now considered obsolete, the idea of fitting beams in place led in the 16th century to several positive figurative senses of the verb "pan": to fit, agree, suit, or show an aptitude for something.
In the 19th century, the use of pans (that is, containers) to separate gold from gravel gave us the positive verbal phrase "pan out," meaning to get good results or turn out well.
The first citation in the OED for the verb "pan" used in its negative sense is from Kenneth McGaffey's 1908 novel The Sorrows of a Showgirl: "There is nothing I hate worse than to hear one lady pan another behind her back."
The OED also has a few references to the verb "pan" used in the sense of to hit, punch, or knock sense into someone. The first citation is from a 1942 book of theatrical slang.
So how did we get the severely critical sense of the word that you ask about?
Evan Morris, on his Word Detective website, speculates that the critical sense may "may well be connected to the use of 'pan' meaning 'to hit or strike' (presumably originally literally with a pan), which has been found in print as of the 1940s but probably was in spoken use long before then."
Well, perhaps, but I'm skeptical. Could a usage that first appeared in print in 1942 really beget one that made its debut in 1908?
I’m just speculating here too, but maybe this critical sense has something to do with the frequent use of “pan out” in negative statements. I got 16 million hits on Google for “didn’t pan out” and only 283,000 for “panned out.”
Sorry I can't give you a more definitive answer.
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March 05, 2010
Dos and don'ts
Q: I have a question about this sentence: "Projects always beget projects, don't they?" When someone says, "don't they?" to solicit agreement, is it short for saying, "do they not?" That certainly sounds better than "do not they?" But maybe “do not they?” was OK at one time.
A: "Don't" is a contraction of "do not," as you know. Contractions can also be formed with pronouns, like "they," as in "they're," a contraction of "they are."
With "they are not," we have two possible contractions: "they're not" and "they aren't."
But with "do they not?" and "they do not," the only possible contraction is between "do" and "not," which yields "don't they?" and "they don't." There's no legitimate contraction of "they" and "do."
The interrogative "do they not?" is standard English. It may sound rather antiquated now, but it was once quite common and is still heard today in more formal English.
At one time, however, English speakers also used "do not they?" Here are some examples from the Oxford English Dictionary:
"Why do not they immediately clear themselves from it?" (1769);
"... do not they Pillage him of his Divinity?" (1643);
"Do not they ever want to go back to Russia?" (1876).
Whether you have "do they not?" or "do not they?" in mind, the only possible contraction, as I said, is "don't they?"
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March 04, 2010
Why is an "h" called an "aitch"?
Q: Why is there a difference in the way consonants are named in English? The consonants “b,” “c,“ “d,” and others start with the sound of the letter and then add a vowel, while “l,” “m,” “n,” etc. begin with a vowel and then add the sound of the letter. And, of course, there’s the irregular “h.”
A: Good question. The answer is that nobody planned all this. The words we use today are pronunciations of the letters' names handed down over many centuries.
The name of the letter "b," for example, is explained this way in the Oxford English Dictionary:
"The second letter of the Roman alphabet, ancient and modern, corresponding, in position and power, to the Greek Beta, and Phoenician and Hebrew Beth, whence also its form is derived."
So the ancients pronounced the name of the letter beginning with the consonant sound, and that’s probably why we say it today as "bee" instead of "eb."
The name of the letter "m," on the other hand, historically corresponds to the letter called mu in Greek and mem in Semitic languages.
So why do we pronounce it “em” in English? Because it was pronounced "em" in post-classical Latin from at least the fourth century, and English has adopted that pronunciation. The earlier Latin pronunciation is uncertain.
And the name "aitch" for "h," the OED says, goes back through the Middle English ache to the Old French and Spanish ache, then probably to the late Latin accha, ahha, or aha. The earlier Latin name was ha and the Greek name was heta.
I won't go through the whole alphabet, but you get the picture.
Why did the classical names for "m" and "h" change during the late Latin period? I don't know. It's Greek to me!
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March 03, 2010
Way down yonder in etymology
Q: I’ve always used the expression “away too much,” as in "I ate away too much potato salad." Whenever I heard people say "way too much," I assumed they were contracting it incorrectly. Today, someone told me I was wrong. This is upsetting, given that I’m a writer. What's your take on it?
A: Sorry, but you are wrong. The common expression is "way too much."
Here the word "way" plays the role of adverb, a usage that once irritated early 20th-century commentators. But the adverbial use of "way" is several hundred years old, and nobody has objected lately.
Using the adverb "away" instead is way too fastidious. In fact, I'd call it an example of hypercorrectness (something I've written a blog entry about).
But a little confusion is natural when dealing with “way” and “away.” These two words are so intimately connected etymologically that way back in history it was hard to tell them apart.
In simple terms, the adverb "away" started out as a long form of the noun "way." And when "way" was used later as an adverb, it was a short form of "away." By the way, we're talking here about very old words.
"Way," a noun recorded as early as the 700s, was weg in Old English, and it meant a road, path, or course of travel. It has roots in a prehistoric Germanic word, wegaz, which is descended from an ancient Indo-European root, wegh.
"Away" was originally a phrase, "on way," which was written in Old English as on weg or a-weg. In later times, during the 900s, it became a single word. The original sense of the term, according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, was "on one's way" or "to another place."
When people began using "way" as an adverb in the early 1200s, it was an aphetic form of "away." This is a fancy way of saying that "way" resulted from the loss of a short, unaccented vowel. (Other aphetic forms include "lone," from "alone," and "cute," from "acute.")
The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest recorded citation for this short form of "away" is from a Middle English poem (circa 1205) that has the phrase wei weorpen, meaning "cast away."
Other citations of "way" as an adverb include "do way" (for "do away," circa 1300 and onward); "The Kyng is way at Eltham" (1460); "carye hym waye" (for "carry him away," 1533); and "Gae wa'," (for "go away," 1818).
In the 19th century, "'way" was also used for "away" in the sense of a great distance: "way towards Tupper's Lake" (1849); "He sat 'way under the mantle" (1888); "way below cost" (1890); "mere specks, 'way down the road" (1927), and so on. (Note that some writers used an apostrophe to show the "a" had been dropped from "away.")
In addition, since the 19th century both "away" and "way" have been used as adverbs to add emphasis. These usages are heard chiefly in the US, the OED notes, though it includes some British citations.
Here are some "away" citations: "away up in Canada" (1818); "away down east" (1825); "away back in 1840" (1882); "away up in price" (1903); "away behind" (1906); "I'm away wrong" (1910); and "away down in the list" (1858).
And here are some "way" citations: "way over yonder" (1850); "way down south" (1851); "way down East" (1854); "'way down amongst the roots" (1866); and "sick of it way through" (1908).
Finally, we come to the usage you're talking about, and here's where "way" and "away" part company. This is the adverbial use of "way" to mean "much" or "far."
The OED labels this as an American usage, and it's a relatively recent phenomenon. Citations include "way too much for ordinary folks" (1941), "arrive way sooner" (1957), and "drank way too much" (1977).
Both Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) also recognize this meaning for "way," as in "way too expensive."
Merriam-Webster's mentions it without reservation, while the more conservative American Heritage labels it informal.
However, the OED has no entries for "away" used in this manner (meaning "much" or "far"), and neither do standard American dictionaries.
In case you're wondering, there's another adverbial use of "way," meaning "extremely" or "very." The OED labels this usage slang, as in "way fun" (1987) or "way cool" (1988).
American Heritage also calls this slang, while Merriam-Webster's lists it without comment.
Is Merriam-Webster's way too precipitous? Perhaps, but not away too precipitous.
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March 02, 2010
Buster Keaton's deadpan look
Q: What is the etymology of "deadpan"? My theory is that it has something to do with musketry, but I haven't been able to confirm this. Do you know?
A: Your theory about musketry is interesting, but it misses the mark.
“Deadpan” (also spelled “dead pan” and “dead-pan”) actually began life as a theatrical term, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang.
The term, which refers to a blank, impassive expression¸ can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, or an adverb.
The first published reference in Random House for the noun is from a 1927 issue of Vanity Fair: “A ‘poker-face’ or ‘dead-pan’ is a lifeless facial expression.”
The first citation for the adverb or adjective is from a 1928 issue of the New York Times: “Dead-Pan " Playing a rôle with expressionless face as, for instance, the work of Buster Keaton.”
The verb first shows up in a 1942 wartime issue of Life magazine: “A Jap press officer dead-pans the news that Singapore is fallen.”
The Oxford English Dictionary has this example from Nathanael West’s 1933 novel Miss Lonelyhearts:
“He practiced a trick used much by moving-picture comedians " the dead pan. No matter how fantastic or excited his speech, he never changed his expression.” (“Dead pan” here is a noun phrase.)
By the way, the second part of the term probably comes from the slang use of “pan” to mean face. The OED’s first citation for this usage is from a 1920 issue of the New York Tribune: “Some drops from it fell on her pan.”
Interestingly, the OED has references going all the way back to Anglo-Saxon days for “pan” used in reference to the head or skull, especially the flat, pan-like, upper part of the skull. Even today, the cranium is sometimes called the "brainpan."
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March 01, 2010
Is selflessness the objective?
Q: The proliferation of reflexive pronouns demands that we address “me” versus “myself” again! You've discussed this on the blog, but I'm still confused. You say there are only two reasons to use a "self" word: (1) For emphasis. ("I made it myself") or (2) To refer back to the subject. ("He beats up on himself.") What about if the subject is a group of which the pronoun is a member? For example: "Serious gardeners like me/myself use organic fertilizer." Myself is confused.
A: The sentence you mention should read: "Serious gardeners like me use organic fertilizer."
The subject of the sentence is "gardeners." And the pronoun "me" is the object of the preposition "like." Any pronoun in that position is in the objective (or accusative) case: "me," "us," and so on.
The fact that the husband is by implication one of the "gardeners" makes no difference grammatically. As I said before, "me" is the object of a preposition; it’s not referring back to the subject.
As a general rule, "myself" and the other “self” words ("herself," "themselves," etc.) should not be used to replace ordinary pronouns like "I” or “me," "she” or “her," "they” or “them," "he” or “him," and so on.
Here's a good rule to follow: If you could legitimately use "I" or "me" instead of "myself," then do so.
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February 28, 2010
A decadent argument
Q: I was about to call you at WNYC about the misuse of the term “decade,“ when I was serendipitously beaten to the punch by a gentleman who seemed to read my mind! I think you were quite dismissive, though, after he pointed out that it was wrong to refer to the present year as the start of a new decade. I’ve always believed a decade begins with a year ending in one, as in “this is year one.” Am I suffering from a case of digititis?
A: I'm sorry if I sounded dismissive, but this is an argument that I've been unwillingly drawn into time after time and it is, at bottom, a rather silly one.
A child is not born on his first birthday. He lives his first year from age 0 (birth) until his first birthday. He officially becomes 1 year old just as he is entering his second year.
Years later, we say he is in his 30th year when in fact he's 29. When he celebrated his 29th birthday (meaning 29 years had elapsed since his birth), he entered his 30th year.
Similarly, this is why we describe the 1400s as "the 15th century." Same principle: the clock starts at zero.
So the first year of each decade is completed on Dec. 31 of the zero year. In other words, the first year begins with 0 and ends with 1. The second year begins with 1 and ends with 2, and so on.
The tenth year of the decade begins with 9 and ends with 10 (at which point we're back to a year ending in zero). On to the second decade, which begins with 10; the third begins with 20, etc.
The first year of the first millennium " for our purposes, we can call it "year 0" " ran from 1 BC to AD 1, because technically there is no recognized "year 0" in Western calendars (though there is in astronomical calendars).
In this case, the clock started at 1 BC, which becomes our "zero."
Counting years is not like counting fingers. When counting years or decades, we call the first one "zero" and the 10th one "nine."
Would you say the 1950s began with 1951 and continued through the end of 1960? Of course not. Common sense tells us that the ten years we call the 1950s began in 1950 and continued through the end of 1959.
Having said that, I must add that arguing endlessly about what we call a decade is rather silly. A "decade," by definition, is ANY 10 years.
In fact, the word "decade" (from the Latin decas and ultimately the Greek dekas, "ten") meant 10 of anything when it entered English in the 1400s, just as a dozen now means 12 of anything.
Enough said!
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February 27, 2010
Lawyerly talk
Q: Lawyers " and they aren't the only ones " prefer words with more syllables than necessary, perhaps because they think it makes them sound more professional. I don't know when it started, but they now refer to co-conspirators, though probably not to their co-colleagues, co-partners, and co-companions.
A: I've noticed this hyper-syllabic talk myself, though I’m not particularly bothered by the term “co-conspirator.”
Lawyers and other professionals do indeed like Latin words and affixes (prefixes, suffixes, and other attachments). In fact, I touched on the subject in a blog entry a while back.
However, people have been referring to co-conspirators for a lot longer than you seem to believe " for about a century and a half!
The first published reference to the usage in the Oxford English Dictionary is from an 1863 book about Spanish America: “He has sought to become … in the palace of the French emperor a co-conspirator with him.”
As for other "co" words, the OED has dozens of citations since the early 1600s with the prefix attached to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. In general, I wouldn’t describe these prefixes as unnecessary.
For example, in The Antipodes, a 1638 comedy by Richard Brome, one of the characters in a play within the play is asked “to speake to your co-actors in the Scene.”
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February 26, 2010
Words to the wise
Q: How wise of WNYC to have you on the air! Which introduces my subject " the epidemic use of “wise” as a suffix. Example: “He’s not handling this well mediawise.” I’m reminded of the old Punch cartoon in which one owl is speaking to another about their baby: “How’s he shaping up wisewise?”
A: The word "wise" once had many more functions than it does now. For instance, it was a verb meaning to direct or guide or show the way (there may be an echo of this obscure usage in today's expression "wise up").
But more to the point, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was also a noun, meaning "manner, mode, fashion, style," and specifically "habitual manner of action, habit, custom."
It's this noun use that survives in terms like "crosswise" and "likewise." Although “wise” here is a noun at heart, the OED says, it "has the appearance of a suffix" and "has actually performed the function of a suffix."
Since the days of Old English, according to the OED, "wise" has been used in adverbial expressions meaning "in such-and-such a manner, way, or respect."
"Several of these expressions, with others formed on their pattern in later periods, have survived as simple words, e.g. anywise, crosswise, leastwise, likewise, nowise, otherwise, slantwise," the dictionary says.
The OED has dozens of citations over the years for this usage, including "same wyse" (1300s), "mony vis" ("money wise," 1375), "garden wyse" (1577), "Hind-foot-wise" (1725), "festoon-wise" (1743), "crutch-wise" (1851, from Melville's Moby-Dick), "tailor-wise" (1885, from a description of priests sitting in a Buddha-like position); "serpent-wise" (1940), and so on.
Such compounds used in the same way but meaning "as regards" or "in respect of" are more recent, and this is where relatively new words like "mediawise" come in.
These terms are labeled "colloq. (orig. U.S.)" in the OED, and the first citation given is from 1942: "there are two types of hydrogen atoms positionwise."
Other examples include "plotwise" (1948), "successwise" and "moneywise" (both 1958), "prize-wise" (1961), "job-wise" (1976), and "acting-wise" (1981).
Are these newer uses considered "colloquial" (that is, more fit for speech than for writing) by American lexicographers?
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) says such words are associated with informal prose and should be avoided in formal writing. But Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) finds them unremarkable and doesn't restrict them in any way.
By the way, the OED notes that "the synonymy of
-wise and -ways in such advs. as likeways, likewise, noways, nowise, led to their interchange and consequently the illogical use of -wise for -ways."
Elsewhere, the editors write that most of the adverbs ending in "ways" are synonymous with actual or possible parallel words ending in "wise," and that "the similarity of sound of the two suffixes has given rise to the notion that they are mere alternative forms of one and the same ending."
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February 25, 2010
Repeat performance
Q: I was taught that “iterate” means repeat and “reiterate” means repeat again. But whenever I try to use the word "iterate" that way, everyone gives me a blank stare.
A: Some people insist that to "iterate" means to repeat, so to "reiterate" must mean to repeat more than once. But this is a case where it's possible to be too literal.
"Iterate" and "reiterate" mean the same thing, according to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.): to say or do again or repeatedly.
Obviously, as M-W's Dictionary of English Usage points out, "reiterate" has "a kind of built-in redundancy."
But the fact is that "iterate" is rarely used; the common word is "reiterate," as I noted in a blog item I wrote about this a few years ago.
I'll expand a little now on that entry. As it happens, "reiterate" is the older verb, in English at least, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
The word is thought to have entered English around the year 1425, both as a verb (meaning to repeat an action or do it repeatedly) and as an adjective (meaning repeated).
In the mid-1500s, "reiterate" was first used in the modern sense of to repeat something said or asked. The first citation in the OED is from a 1560 English translation of a Latin religious commentary: "The nobles reiterat their sute."
We got the word from the post-classical Latin reiterare, which the OED dates back to the sixth century.
Reiterare combined the prefix re and the classical Latin iterare (to do again, repeat, rehearse), which in turn came from the Latin iterum (again).
So if the word is redundant, we can blame post-classical Latin! This Latin redundancy, if you want to call it that, also survives in the French réitérer, the Spanish reiterar, and the Italian reiterare.
As for "iterate," the OED says it was originally used in English as a participial adjective meaning "repeated."
In this sense, according to OED citations, the word was first recorded in George Ripley's The Compound of Alchymy (1471): "Hyt Multyplyeth by Iterat Fermentacion." ("It multiplies by iterate fermentation.")
The verb "iterate" entered English in 1533, when it was used to mean both (1) to do something over again, as in to repeat an experiment, and (2) to say something again or repeatedly. It came from the classical Latin iterare.
So yes, we do have one more word than we need in this case. But I see nothing wrong with using "reiterate" as in post-classical Latin and other languages " for both "repeat" and "repeat again."
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February 24, 2010
A homage or an affectation?
Q: I enjoyed your recent discussion on WNYC about the English “homage” vs. the French hommage. I detect a subtle difference between the two, which may account for differences in pronouncing the English word. I think “homage” is more direct, hommage more implied. If a film director gives a talk about Hitchcock’s contributions to cinema, the talk is an homage to Hitchcock; if he includes himself in the background of a shot in a film, the shot is an hommage to Hitchcock.
A: I understand your point but I'm not sure you're right. Aside from funeral eulogies and such, the English "homage" is indeed used in the artistic sense to mean what you suggest the French hommage means: the use of stylistic elements to recall the work of an earlier master.
People commonly use "homage" in this way. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) defines the word in this sense as "something that shows respect or attests to the worth or influence of another."
You imply that the French hommage gets this notion across more subtly and delicately than "homage." But I wonder whether this isn't just a Francophile bias.
As far as I can tell, it's only in recent years that English speakers and writers began using hommage in place of "homage."
I have a hunch that this began with film criticism, since that's where I first noticed it. But I can't see that there is any real difference, and I suspect that the French usage is an affectation. (Perhaps it was influenced by the practice of calling directors auteurs.)
The point I was trying to make on the air is roughly this. “Homage” has been part of the English language for around 800 years and should be given one of the two standard English pronunciations: HOM-idj or OM-idj.
It can be "a homage" or "an homage," depending on whether the “h” is sounded. Either way, it’s stressed on the first syllable. There’s no reason to use the French pronunciation (oh-MAHZH), which is stressed on the second syllable.
On the other hand, if one really does intend to use the French word hommage, for whatever reason, then it should be given the French spelling and italicized: an hommage or un hommage or l'hommage.
I've written about "homage" before on the blog, in case you're interested.
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February 23, 2010
The urinary tract
Q: An American friend in Rome says the expression “piss poor” comes from the use of urine in tanneries. He says people used to collect their urine and sell it to be used to tan animal skins. Is this etymology too good to be true?
A: As you suspect, this supposed phrase origin is apocryphal. The compound adjective "piss-poor" doesn't have anything to do with tanneries, poverty or, for that matter, urine, except indirectly.
The word "piss" here is "an intensifier, usually implying excess or undesirability," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The usage originated in the United States in the mid-20th century.
The first citation in the OED is from a 1946 contribution by A. L. Hench, who reported that an Air Corps sergeant had told him the term "was used by all the soldiers he came in contact with as descriptive of a thing in its lowest condition ... E.g. This is a piss-poor outfit. My job is a piss-poor one."
The OED cites a similar, earlier expression from Ezra Pound's Cantos LII"LXXI (1940): "J. Lawrence, Bingham, Carrol of Carrolton / gone piss-rotten for Hamilton / Cabot, Fisher Ames, Thomas Willing." (I've expanded the citation somewhat in what was probably a futile attempt at clarity.)
Here are some other OED examples of compound adjectives using "piss" as an intensifier: “piss-elegant” (1947), "piss-bad" (1970), "piss-wet" (1974), "piss-chic" (1977), and "piss-easy" (1998).
I recall that one day as I was walking my dog in Manhattan in the 1980s, an admiring bystander remarked that she looked "piss-elegant."
I hadn’t heard this expression before, but the OED defines it as “affectedly refined, pretentious, precious; (also) cheaply showy or flashy in dress or appearance.” That sounds like my little princess.
The dictionary traces the phrase back to an Oct. 9, 1947, entry in Noel Coward’s Diary: “The cast is very good. Gertie is enchanting at moments but inclined to be piss-elegant.”
I’m not sure how Gertrude Lawrence would have felt about being described in the same terms as my spoiled basenji.
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February 22, 2010
Comma usage
Q: I am an academic scientist, and I often need to add an “s” to pluralize an abbreviation. I think one should be able to put an apostrophe before the “s” so as not to add to the confusion inherent in the abbreviation. For example, one refers to runs of adenine and thymine bases in DNA as ATs, but AT's seems clearer. Even more confusing is a mixed case example like RNAi (interference RNA): I would like to pluralize it as RNAi's. Thank you for any input.
A: Many people are violently against the use of apostrophes in plurals " any plurals, even abbreviations, numbers, and individual letters. But here, I think, we have to bow to readability rather than blindly follow rules that are mere stylistic conventions anyway.
This is what I say in the relevant paragraphs from the new third edition of my grammar and usage book Woe Is I:
“Over the years, authorities have disagreed on how we should form the plurals of abbreviations (GI, rpm, RBI), letters (x, y, z), and numbers (9, 10). Should we add s, or ’s? Where one style maven saw UFO’s, another saw UFOs. One was nostalgic for the 1950’s, the other for the 1950s.
“The problem with adding ’s is that we get plurals and possessives confused. Is UFO’s, for example, a plural (I see two UFO’s) or a possessive (That UFO’s lights are violet)?
“Here’s what I recommend, and what most publishers do these days. To form the plurals of abbreviations and numbers, add s alone, but to form the plural of a single letter, add ’s. CPAs, those folks who can add columns of 9s in their heads, have been advising MDs since the 1980s to dot their i’s, cross their t’s, and never accept IOUs. Things could be worse: there could be two IRSs.
“Why use the apostrophe with a single letter? Because without it, the plural is often impossible to read. Like this: The choreographer’s name is full of as, is, and us. (Translation: His name is full of a’s, i’s, and u’s.)”
Although the two examples you cite don't involve single letters, I agree with you that readability should be a consideration. With that in mind, I think the lowercase "i" in RNAi should be followed by an apostrophe and "s" when pluralized. Ditto for other mixed-case abbreviations, even if the lower-case letters aren't at the end.
But I’m of two minds about pluralizing AT and other all-cap scientific abbreviations. In general, I think "s" alone would suffice for the plural (ATs). But one might want to use apostrophes for consistency when citing both all-cap and mixed-case abbreviations in the same paper.
Unlike the rules for making nouns possessive, the ones for making unusual nouns plural are not written in stone and not universally agreed upon. Details of punctuation may differ from publisher to publisher and from country to country (American and British practices differ, for example).
In the case of a scientist like you, who may use scores of abbreviations at a time, there’s a lot to be said for consistency. If you want to use apostrophes to pluralize scientific abbreviations, go for it.
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February 21, 2010
Tooth and nail
Q: What is the origin of the expression "tooth and nail," as in “They fought tooth and nail to get their way”?
A: The adverbial phrase "tooth and nail" (originally "with tooth and nail") literally means "with the use of one's teeth and nails as weapons; by biting and scratching," according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
But, as the OED notes, the expression has almost always been used figuratively to mean "in the way of vigorous attack, defence, or action generally; vigorously, fiercely, with one's utmost efforts, with all one's might."
In fact, the OED's first published reference to the phrase is figurative.
In A Dialogue of Comfort and Tribulation, which Sir Thomas More wrote while awaiting execution in 1535, he created a fictional conversation between Anthony, a wise old man, and Vincent, a young man fearful that invading Turks might kill him if he didn't betray his Christian faith.
Anthony argues that some men love the delights of the world so much that "they would faine kepe them as long as ever they might, even with tooth and naile," but thereby lose the greater gifts of heaven.
We seem to have a thing about teeth and nails, which show up in other figurative expressions.
A few toothy ones are "show one's teeth" (show hostility), "get one's teeth into something" (begin serious work on it), and "lie through one's teeth" (tell a deliberate whopper).
Some phrases featuring nails are "bite one's nails" (be nervous), "drive the nail home" (clinch an argument), and "hit the nail on the head" (get to the heart of the matter).
I hoped I've nailed this answer to your satisfaction.
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February 20, 2010
Width, longth, and highth?
Q: Why is it that “width” and “length” end in an "h" but “height” doesn't? Were the last two words ever spelled "longth" and "highth"?
A: The noun "width" has a ring of antiquity to it, but it's a relatively recent concoction.
The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as a "literary creation of the 17th century" that took the place of an older word, "wideness," which (in various forms) dates back to Anglo-Saxon days.
It notes that the 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson didn't care much for "width" and considered the newbie "a low word."
The OED points out the similarity of "width" to "breadth," a 16th-century creation that replaced the earlier "brede," which had roots in Old English.
And it notes the similarity of "breadth" to another term you asked about, "length," which is an old word that may have influenced the creation of "width."
The first published reference for "length" in the OED is from the Old English Chronicles, a collection of writings from Anglo-Saxon times.
The word has been spelled all sorts of ways over the years (lengthe, lenkith, leynthe, etc.), but I don't see any evidence that it was ever properly written as "longth."
(I got more than 59,000 hits for "longth" on Google, but most references to length seem to have come from non-native speakers of English. A Chinese manufacturer of scaffolding, for example, says, "The longth can be adjustable.")
As for "height," it is also a very old word and it was indeed originally spelled with a "th," or rather with the Old English version of a "th," called a thorn, which looked something like a “p” with both an upper and a lower stem.
The earliest versions of the word (using modern letters) included hiehtho, hehthu, and heahthu.
In Middle English, the form of the language spoken between 1100 and 1500, the thorn was often preceded by another archaic letter, the yogh, an early version of our "g."
The Middle English spellings of the word (again, in modern letters) included heghthe and heighthe.
(In case you're interested, I've written about thorns and yoghs before on the blog.)
I'm simplifying this quite a bit, but eventually, "th" replaced the thorn in southern England and "t" replaced it in the north.
Since 1500, according to the OED, the "t" versions of the word "have increasingly prevailed in the literary language" and the "height" spelling "has been by far the most frequent written form."
I could go into this in greater length (or width), but I think I've hit the high points.
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February 19, 2010
Almond joy
Q: I listen to your WNYC podcasts from the Arabian Gulf. My question is about the pronunciation of “almond.” I had a fifth grade teacher in Ossining, NY, who told us that the “l” is silent, but I often hear people pronounce it. Is it or is it not pronounced?
A: The "l" in “almond” was silent until very recently. That’s the only pronunciation given in my old 1956 printing of the unabridged Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language (2d ed.).
It’s also the only pronunciation given in the Oxford English Dictionary, The Oxford American Desk Dictionary (1998), and the old third edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992).
But usage has changed. More recent standard dictionaries say we can now properly pronounce "almond" either with or without the "l" sound.
I consulted American Heritage (4th ed.), Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), Webster's New World College Dictionary (4th ed.), and the Random House Webster's College Dictionary.
Apparently, many people have started pronouncing the "l" simply because it's there in the spelling; Random House calls this a spelling-influenced pronunciation.
Interestingly, the "l" didn't appear in the first syllable of amandola, the medieval Latin word from which "almond" was derived, or in the earlier Latin amygdala, or in the still earlier Greek amygdale.
So where did the "al" spelling come from?
When the word entered Middle English around 1300 it was spelled almande, like the Old French from which it was borrowed.
The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the "al" spelling in Old French and in Spanish (almendra) may have come about because of the influence of the Arabic article al, which appears in many Spanish spellings.
"The initial al- in Fr. and Sp. prob. arose in the latter, by confusing the initial a- (dropped in It., as if no real part of the word) with Arab. article al-," the OED says.
The "l" was soon dropped from French (amande), but it stayed in English even though it was silent for many centuries. The "l" also doesn't appear in the first syllable of the Italian (mandola), Portuguese (amendoa), or German (mandel).
Some other English words ("should," "walk," etc.) have a silent "l" because those sounds were once pronounced but now are not. In case you're interested, I wrote a blog item last year that touched on this other spelling puzzles.
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February 18, 2010
Schadenfreudian analysis
Q: “Schadenfreude” is almost commonplace these days and, I suppose, Avenue Q has something to do with it. However, it seems to me that a parallel word should also exist, as that underlying feeling is equally common. Is there such a word (German or otherwise)?
A: This question has been tossed around now and then by language junkies: Is there a parallel word for "schadenfreude," one that means sadness at another's good fortune? And if not, can we make one up?
"Schadenfreude" means delight at another's misfortune, and, as you suggest, many people were probably introduced to it by the song of the same name from the musical Avenue Q.
The German word is a compound of the nouns schaden (adversity, injury) and freude (joy, pleasure).
For the inverse (if that's the right term), some have suggested simply rearranging the parts and using "freudenschade" to mean pain caused by another's joy. A good answer. Never mind that there's no such word in German.
If there were, it might have humorous connotations. In German, a freudenhaus (literally, "joy house") is a brothel, and a freudenmädchen ("joy girl") is a prostitute. A compound that means "pleasure pain" might conjure up images of booted mädchens carrying whips.
Some inventive folks have come up with a second pseudo-German word, "glückshmerz" (literally "luck pain"), on the analogy of real German words like weltschmerz ("world pain," or melancholy) and mittelschmerz (mid-cycle or ovulation pain).
Who knows whether any of these pseudo-Teutonic inventions will stick? One thing we can say is that no English words seem just right for either feeling joy at another's pain or pain at another's joy.
The Internet has many entertaining discussions of this. The Language Log, a blog maintained by the linguist Mark Liberman, had postings about it in 2009 and 2007.
Various wags have reported sightings of compounds like these:
"podenfreude," reveling in the superior technology of one's iPod;
"blondenfreude," glee felt when a rich and powerful blonde gets her comeuppance;
"Frankenfreude," joy at Al Franken's early election setbacks (anyone who felt Frankenfreude early on must have felt Frankenschmerz when he finally won);
"Palinfreude," liberal pleasure at Sarah Palin's stumbles;
"googlefreude"/"googleschade"/"schadengoogle," any of which might be the result of a pundit's unfortunate words coming back to haunt him;
"Spitzenfreude" (joy at Eliot Spitzer's misfortunes);
"shadensigmundfreude" (the glee that Freud's critics take in falsifying his claims);
and finally "spoonenfreude" (taking joy in spoonerisms). But as one commentator pointed out, to be true to its spirit this one ought to be "froonenspeude."
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February 17, 2010
You can look it up!
Q: I have a question about the phrase "looking to buy," as in, “He's looking to buy a house.” Isn't he just looking for a house or just plain shopping for one?
A: The verb "look" here means expect, a sense of the word that has been around since the early 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
So the sentence you’re asking about (“He’s looking to buy a house”) actually means “He’s expecting to buy a house.”
The first recorded use of "look" this way is from Sir Thomas More's unfinished work The History of Kyng Richard the Third, which More wrote about 1513: "In these last wordes that ever I looke to speake with you."
It's a popular construction in English, and has been so for nearly five centuries. Today we commonly use "look to" (or "looking to") for expressing anticipation or intent. The meaning is expect to, hope to, intend to, and so on.
As Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says, the expression today "is most commonly found with looking but other forms of the verb are used as well."
Here are some examples.
From Shakespeare's King Henry V (late 1590s): "Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide."
From Henry Brooke's novel The Fool of Quality (1760-72): "I never look to have a mistress that I shall love half as well."
From A. E. Housman's poem cycle A Shropshire Lad (1896): "Two lovers looking to be wed."
From People magazine (1984): "If you're looking to strike up a conversation...."
And finally from Jesse Kornbluth, writing about Philip Roth on the Huffington Post in January 2010: "He's not looking to create either charmers or complainers; he's seeking reality."
Despite its long history, some people criticize the "look + to + infinitive" construction on the grounds that it feels ungrammatical. Some even brand it a "pet peeve."
My advice to them: look it up!
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Hear Pat live today on WNYC
She'll be on the Leonard Lopate Show around 1:20 PM Eastern time to discuss the English language and take questions from callers. If you miss a program, you can listen to it on Pat’s WNYC page.
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February 16, 2010
Garden variety Latin
Q: I am from Italy where I studied Latin in school. I now live in the US and belong to an orchid society. My question is about the pronunciation of botanical names that end in ii, like B. lobbii and P. mannii. I was taught to pronounce the second i like the one in “machine,” but Americans pronounce it like the one in “fine.” Which is right?
A: I'm simplifying things here, but there are lots of different Latins " church Latin, botanical Latin, schoolhouse Latin, etc. " with lots of different pronunciations. The Latin taught in schools, for instance, has been pronounced in different ways in different countries.
Interestingly, the ancient pronunciation wasn't accurately reconstructed until around 1900, according to a paper by Michael A. Covington, a linguist at the University of Georgia.
The scholars who did this relied, among other things, on the writings of Roman grammarians who provided abundant details on how the language sounded.
In ancient times, according to Covington, the vowel i could be pronounced two ways: as in "sit" or as in "machine." (The Latin i could also act as a consonant, but I won't get into that here.)
The letters ii were pronounced as two i's in succession, forming two syllables. In a word that ended with ii " that is, a word with either a possessive or a plural Latin ending " the first i would be pronounced as in "sit" and the second as in "machine."
So how would an ancient Roman have pronounced B. lobbii and P. mannii if he had somehow tumbled through space and time to come across these orchids?
Bulbophyllum lobbii is also known as Lobb's Bulbophyllum (it was discovered by Thomas Lobb in Java in 1846). And Phalaenopsis mannii is also known as Mann's Phalaenopsis (it was discovered by Gustav Mann in Sikkim in 1868).
In pronouncing a possessive (technically, a genitive) word like lobbii or mannii, a Roman would have sounded the first i like the one in "sit" and the second i like the one in "machine."
However, English-speaking plant people (gardeners, horticulturalists, botanists, etc.) generally pronounce the second i in a Latin name like lobbii or mannii as in "fine."
That's also the traditional way that British schoolchildren were taught to pronounce the last i in a Latin word ending in two i's, which I suspect may have had an influence on the botanical pronunciation in the US.
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February 15, 2010
Don’t know from etymology?
Q: I thought the faux-helpless “don’t know X from Y” phrase was supposed to be a comparison, as in “He don’t know his ass from his elbow.” But I now see it used where only one item is mentioned ("don't know from X"). The Reader’s Digest website, for example, jokes that its employees were English majors and “don’t know from negatively charged dust particles.” Any comments?
A: This "don't know X from Y" business is a lot older than you may think.
In fact, the first citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from Cursor Mundi, a Middle English poem written around 1375: "Mony ... knawes nought the gode fra the ille" (or, as we'd put it, "Many don't know the good from the bad").
However, most of the OED's early citations for this usage are positive, not negative, like this one from Shakespeare's 1598 play The Merry Wives of Windsor: "We'll teach him to know Turtles from Jays."
In the 20th century, the negative construction became more common and often took on a vulgar sense, as in expressions like "He don't know his arse from his elbow."
The OED describes this usage as "a coarse expression suggestive of complete ignorance or innocence."
The first citation for this sense, which uses "ears" instead of "arse," is from Medal Without Bar, Richard Blaker's 1930 novel about World War I.
In the book, an enlisted man says none “of us knows 'is ears from 'is elbow when it comes to learning like you orficers have got up your sleeves."
A few years later, two new versions of the expression evolved in the US " this time without the comparison: "know from nothing" and "don't know from nothing."
The OED’s first comparison-less citation is from a 1936 issue of Mademoiselle: "I find I belong to the wrong gender to take part in such confabulations, and know from nothing."
Some language scholars have suggested that these two newer usages were derived from or influenced by similar constructions in Yiddish.
Julius G. Rothenberg cites the double negative version in "Some American Idioms from the Yiddish," a 1943 article in the journal American speech.
The Jewish Language Research Website, a linguistic site devoted to languages spoken by Jews, says one of the Yiddish idiomatic constructions seen in colloquial English is the "pattern I don't know from___ (ikh veys nit fun___)."
The Yiddish language maven Leo Rosten, in his book The Joys of Yinglish, says "the ungrammatical substitution of from for about or of" in an English sentence like "What do I know from investments?" is "Bronxian Yinglish" derived from the Yiddish Vos vays ikh fun.
I would describe the usage as idiomatic rather than ungrammatical, but who am I to argue with Rosten about Yinglish?
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February 14, 2010
A comprising position?
Q: I believe you botched your discussion of “comprise” last month on WNYC. After saying correctly that the whole comprises the parts, you indicated that it’s wrong to say “the union is comprised of 50 states.” As a copy editor, I was taught that the only objection to “comprised of” here is the minor one of wordiness.
A: I love hearing from copy editors! But I think there's some confusion here.
It's true that the whole comprises the parts. Roughly speaking, to "comprise" is to include or contain. I too was a copy editor, for more than 20 years, and as I think I said on the show, that definition was engraved on my brain.
However, "comprised of" is considered bad usage. I was right to describe “the union is comprised of 50 states” as a usage error. In the passive voice, the correct usage is "the union is composed of 50 states."
Check The American Heritage Dictionary of English Usage (4th ed.) or Garner's Modern American Usage (3d ed.) or The New Fowler's Modern English Usage.
The New Fowler’s, for instance, describes “is comprised of” as a “disputed or erroneous” usage. It’s also an illogical one. It would be like saying "is included of."
In addition to using “composed of” in the example above, another correct version (for those who favor a construction with "of") would be "the union consists of 50 states."
I should add, however, that "comprised of" is a very common usage now, and I wouldn't be surprised if dictionaries accept it as standard English one of these days.
R. W. Burchfield, the editor of The New Folwer's, noted back in 1996 that opposition to the use of "comprised of" for "composed of" was getting weaker. In case you’d like to read more, I had a blog item on the subject two years ago.
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February 13, 2010
Whence upon a time
Q: Until I saw this (and many others in Shakespeare), I was a from-is-redundant maven: “From whence thou cam'st, how tended on. But rest / Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest” " All’s Well That Ends Well. What say ye?
A: Well, the word "whence" does mean "from what place," but, as the Oxford English Dictionary points out, it's "often preceded by redundant from."
Indeed, "whence" has been in the language since about 1300, and it's been dogged (or rather preceded) by "from" for almost as long.
For example, the OED has a couple of citations for plain old "whence" from the first English version of the Bible, the Wycliffe Bible of 1382.
But one citation " "to the mounteynes; whennus shal come helpe to me" " was altered in a 1388 printing to read "… fro whannus shal come helpe to me."
The OED notes that "from" is used, "more or less pleonastically, before hence, thence, whence, henceforth, etc." The word “pleonastically” means superfluously or redundantly.
So what's right? I agree with Robert Burchfield, editor of The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, that the "best policy" is not to use "from" with "hence," "thence," and "whence."
I also agree with the editors of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) that nobody was bothered by the redundancy of "from whence" until the 18th century.
But clearly "whence" has an air of antiquity about it. And if you're using a deliberately antique usage, why not use it in the antique way?
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February 12, 2010
Mummy dearest
Q: I would like to know when “mummy,” as in “mother,” came into use in the US. I believe it originated in the UK. It does not seem to be used much anymore in the states and has been replaced by “mom” or "mommy."
A: The earliest published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary to "mummy" as an informal term for “mother” is from The Fortunate Shepherdess, a 1768 "pastoral tale" by the Scottish poet Alexander Ross:
Had I but been sae wysse
As hae laid up auld mummy's gueed advice,
Frae this mischance,
I meith hae kept me free.
The OED says "mummy" in this sense may be a variant of "mammy" or "mum," two informal words for mother that date from the 16th century.
The first OED citation for "mommy," which is described as another possible variant of "mammy," is from an 1848 work by the English poet Horace Smith:
"Bees that a hawk? " What say ye, Tommy?”
“Naw that it baint, I'm certain, Mommy."
The first example of "mommy" in an American publication is from an 1858 issue of the weekly Pennsylvania Dutchman:
All my soul is in delight
When mommy fixes crout just right.
The OED, in its entry for this sense of "mummy," notes that "mommy" is "commoner in U.S. usage." In the dictionary's "mommy" entry, it describes the term as "chiefly N. Amer."
It's hard to say for sure when "mummy" came into use in the United States as a colloquial term for mother.
The earliest reference in the Dictionary of American Regional English is from 1915: "Any kind Mummy likes; that's the most [= usual] kind I gets."
DARE says the usage has been chiefly seen in the US in New England and western Pennsylvania.
Infants use quite similar colloquial words for "mother" in many parts of the world. For example, "mama" (rendered in various spellings) can be heard from the mouths of babes in China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Spain, and many other places.
Three linguists " Ralph A. Papen, Nancy J. Frishberg, and Geoffrey Sampson " discuss this on the Linguist List, an online forum for the exchange of information on linguistics.
Papen notes that the first consonants babies produce in most languages are labials (those involving the lips) like "m," "p," and "b," while the first vowels are posterior ones (produced with the tongue toward the back of the mouth) like "a."
"Generally, babies tend to produce Consonant + vowel syllables," Papen says on the website's Ask a Linguist feature. "If you combine these sounds, what you get is ma-ma, pa-pa, ba-ba, etc. Bingo!"
Frishberg adds that "human babies develop at roughly the same timetable everywhere, and the sounds in the baby words (and sometimes also the adult term) for mother correspond to the sounds that are earliest controllable by baby articulators."
Sampson says it's plausible that babies make these early sounds "because of their inherent simplicity of production, and that proud parents have fastened on these as the babies' attempts to address them."
"So similar words show up as the informal terms for 'mummy' and 'daddy' all over the world " sometimes switched round, and not always identical, but with the striking similarities," he adds.
I suspect that many of the variations ("mommy" vs. "mummy," for example) have developed as adults in different parts of the world reinforced or edited those early baby sounds to fit their idea of what a mom should be called.
I'm sorry I can't be more definite, but I hope this helps.
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February 11, 2010
Seating arrangements
Q: At my Chicago grandparents’ home we sat on the “couch”; at my Alton (south-central Illinois) grandparents’ home we sat on the “divan,” but I also heard the word “davenport.” I’ve lived in New Jersey since 1969, and I now use “sofa” or “couch” interchangeably. Can you shed some light on these words?
A: Let’s begin with “davenport.” In mid-19th-century England, it was a small writing table or desk, and in late-19th-century America it was a large, upholstered sofa or couch.
Why a "davenport"? Both pieces of furniture are thought to have been named for their manufacturer, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
"Divan," a much older word, was borrowed into English from the Turkish divan, which came from the Persian devan.
When it entered English in the 16th century, "divan" meant a council of state presided over by the sultan or grand vizier.
Later it came to mean the hall where such a "divan" was held, and still later, in the 18th century, the backless sofa or couch on which Turks received visitors.
The OED's first citation for this sense of the word is from a 1702 translation of Cornelis de Bruyn's travel book A Voyage to the Levant: "Their greatest Magnificence consists in their Divans or Sofas."
The heap of words we have for that long piece of furniture is a great illustration of the richness of English.
We can call it a "couch," a "sofa," a "davenport," a "settee," a "divan," a "lounge," or a "chesterfield" (a favorite term among Canadians and some Californians).
The word you use may depend not only on the region you're from, but also on how old you are.
It appears that "davenport," once a common term in the upper Midwest, has largely been consigned to the antique shop. Today's living room is more likely to have a "couch" or a "sofa."
In the early 1950s, a survey asked more than 200 people in the upper Midwest what they called "the long piece of furniture to sit or stretch out on." (They were allowed to choose more than one word.)
The results, published in 1973-76 in the Linguistic Atlas of the Upper Midwest, showed that 75 percent of the respondents said "davenport." The also-rans were "sofa" (41%), "couch" (40%), "lounge" (35%), and "settee" (25%).
A generation later, however, things had changed. The author of the atlas, Harold B. Allen, wrote in 1989 that "today, not quite four decades later, sofa is the fashionable designation and davenport is retained only by the oldest group."
But wait, there's more. Writing in the Journal of English Linguistics in 1995, J. K. Chambers reported the results of another survey, this one taken in the early '90s among English speakers in the US and Canada in the vicinity of Lake Ontario.
Of the Americans who were asked what they call that you-know-what, 81.2 percent said "couch," another 12.5 percent said "sofa," and 2.5 percent said "davenport." ("Divan" wasn't mentioned, though one respondent did say "love seat.")
And we're not through yet. The linguist Charles Boberg wrote in 2004: "In a survey conducted at McGill University from 1999 to 2004, 66% of 321 American respondents used couch, with 14% using sofa and none using chesterfield."
So there you have it, if you can sort all this out. "Couch" and "sofa" are on top, though many older people in the upper Midwest still like "davenport."
And incidentally, the favorites, "couch" and "sofa," also happen to be older than the others.
We've already talked about "davenport" and "divan." Here, very briefly, are the sources of the other terms, along with the dates they first appeared in English, courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary.
1340: "couch," from the French coucher (to put to bed); it was originally for lying down.
1625: "sofa," ultimately from the Arabic soffah; it originally meant a raised area, covered with carpet and cushions, used for seating.
1716: "settee," perhaps a variation of "settle," a ninth-century word for something to sit upon.
1830: "lounge," from the verb (which is of uncertain origin); originally it was a kind of sofa for lying at full length.
1900: "chesterfield," an overstuffed couch or sofa named for a 19th-century Earl of Chesterfield; the term is also used for a kind of overcoat.
I'll stop here. The living room is getting a bit crowded.
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February 10, 2010
Tales out of school
Q: I just saw the expression “to tell tales out of work” on a website, which inspired me to look up the original. To my surprise, I had been using “to tell tales out of school” incorrectly all my life. I thought it meant to tell a tall tale, but I now see that it means to reveal confidential information. My question is: where does this expression come from and why "out of school"?
A: The expression "to tell tales out of school" is an old one, dating back to at least the 16th century, and probably earlier.
The first published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a 1546 book of proverbs and epigrams collected by the English writer John Heywood: "To tell tales out of schoole, that is hir great lust."
The OED defines it as meaning "to betray damaging secrets," but it doesn't explain the origin of the expression.
However, the Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms explains that "in this context 'out of school' means after class, when the tale-bearer has the opportunity to speak to the teacher alone."
A 1579 citation, from a book of literary criticism by Stephen Gosson, seems to support the schoolhouse origin of the expression:
"I shoulde tel tales out of the Schoole, and bee Ferruled for my faulte, or hyssed at for a blab, yf I layde al the orders open before your eyes."
The Penguin idiom dictionary defines the expression as "to talk maliciously about a person's private affairs behind his back," but I generally hear it used now in the sense of revealing damaging business or professional secrets " that is, to tell tales out of work.
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February 09, 2010
And whilst we’re at it ...
Q: In Origins of the Specious, you say “while” and “whilst” mean the same thing, but the Brits and Aussies on a Facebook grammar group feel otherwise. For instance, an Aussie with a British education says “whilst” should be used to mean “although” and “while” for things happening simultaneously. Your thoughts?
A: I can't find any evidence to back up the suggestion that "while" and "whilst" have different functions in British English.
From my reading of British sources, it appears that both "while" and "whilst" have two functions:
1. to show duration (meaning "during the time that" or "at the same time as");
2. to show contrast (meaning "although" or "whereas").
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, published in the UK, has this to say: "The primary meaning of while and whilst is durational, but they have a secondary sense equivalent to whereas."
The example given for this second meaning is "While/Whilst the first act was excellent, the second seemed rather dull." The authors note that "the meaning expressed here is contrast, not co-duration." (Page 737.)
Elsewhere the book has examples of while used for both functions, duration as well as contrast: "They insisted on talking while I was trying to get on with my work" ... and ... "While I don't agree with what she says, I accept her right to say it." (Page 1078.)
The Oxford English Grammar has no discussion of "whilst," but the original 1926 edition of Henry Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage makes no differentiation between the words.
Fowler’s section on the subject is headed "while (or whilst)," and the examples for duration as well as contrast use "while": "While she spoke, the tears were running down" ... and ... "While this is true of some, it is not true of all."
The latest edition, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (1996), edited by R. W. Burchfield, makes no such differentiation either, except to note that "whilst" is not used in American English.
The updated examples show "while" used both ways: "He enjoyed drawing while he was being read to" and "While domestic happiness is an admirable ideal, it is not easy to come by."
The only “whilst” examples in the New Fowler’s show the word used in the temporal sense: "... whilst on fishing expeditions on the other side of the Irish Sea."
Finally, the Oxford English Dictionary has historical evidence for both words used both ways, with no notations indicating that one usage is better than the other for some purposes.
It may be true that some British and Australian speakers feel that there's a difference between "while" and "whilst" " that "while" is better in the temporal sense and "whilst" in the sense of "although."
But I haven't been able to verify such a preference among British grammarians, lexicographers, or usage experts.
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February 08, 2010
As of this writing ...
Q: Fredricka Whitfield and Heidi Collins of CNN, among others, use the expression "as of yet." To me, it reeks of confusion between "as yet" and "as of now." Comment?
A: The phrase “as of yet” may indeed be a relatively recent conflation of “as yet” and “as of now,” but this “as” business has its roots in Middle English, the language spoken from about 1100 to 1500.
Since the 13th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "as" has been used just before a time element in phrases like "as then," "as now," "as to-day," "as tomorrow," and so on.
But of these phrases, the OED says, "literary English retains only as yet," meaning "up to this time, hitherto."
The expression "as of" plus a time element is more recent " about 600 years more recent.
The first citation in the OED is from a letter Mark Twain wrote in 1900, in which he used the phrase "as of yesterday."
Other citations include phrases like "as of 1955," "as of the end of 1973," "as of last term," and, most frequently, "as of now."
The OED has no mention of "as of yet."
But Garner's Modern American Usage (3d ed.) calls it a "vulgarism," and doesn't like "as yet" either, calling them "both invariably inferior to yet alone, still, thus far, or some other equivalent."
I wouldn't go that far. I see nothing wrong with "as yet," and if "as of yet" is a crime against English, it's certainly a small one. Still, why use "as of yet" if "as yet" will do? It's simple enough to drop the "of."
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