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English English language Etymology Expression Language Usage Word origin Writing

Thank you, Mr. Collins

Q: In reading Pomfret Towers, inspired by Pat’s Christmas essay on Angela Thirkell, I encountered this passage: “She wrote a handsome Collins to Lady Pomfret in which she expressed the hope that everyone was well.” Huh? The only “Collins” I know of is the one that’s imbibed.

A: The “Collins” in that sentence is a thank-you note, an older British usage inspired by Jane Austen’s obsequious clergyman William Collins. It was a familiar term when Thirkell wrote the novel Pomfret Towers (1938), but it fell out of use in the latter half of the 20th century.

Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition: “A letter of thanks for entertainment or hospitality, sent by a departed guest; a ‘bread-and-butter’ letter.” In an etymology note, the OED says the usage comes from “the name of a character, William Collins, in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.”

In the 1813 novel, Mr. Collins, an insufferable snob who panders to his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, expects to inherit the estate of his cousins the Bennets. While visiting them, he condescendingly proposes marriage to Elizabeth (as a favor to the family!) and is refused, only to propose successfully to Charlotte Lucas two days later. As he’s leaving, he pompously conveys his gratitude to his hosts and says he’ll soon be sending formal thanks in a letter.

In Chapter 23 Austen writes, “The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelvemonth’s abode in the family might have prompted.”

Austen herself didn’t call such a letter a “Collins.” The term wasn’t recorded, as far as we know, until the early 1900s.

The OED’s earliest example is from the Aug. 27, 1904, issue of Chambers’s Journal. We’ll expand the quotation here to provide some background. In a column entitled “Talks With Girls: Letter-Writing and Some Letter-Writers,” Katherine Burrill gives the following advice, using characters from Pride and Prejudice as models:

“When writing to the ‘best Dear’ do not let your pens run away with you; do not, like Mr Bingley, allow your ideas to ‘flow so rapidly’ that you have ‘not time to express them;’ the lamentable result being that the ‘letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.’ On the other hand, avoid Mr D’Arcy’s words of four syllables; no wonder his letters were long! The Rev. William Collins’ letters have become proverbial. When we do not call a letter of thanks for a visit ‘a board and lodging,’ we call it a ‘Collins.’ His letters are monuments of politeness and civility. Give poor dull Collins his due; if obsequious, he was nevertheless civil.”

The OED’s next example is from Lucy H. M. Soulsby’s Brondesbury Papers (1905): “Write your ‘Collins’ after every visit (if only for a night) next morning at latest.” (Miss Soulsby was headmistress at Brondesbury Manor House, a school for girls. We can assume that she considered “Collins” the proper term for well-brought-up young ladies to use.)

We found a couple of examples that illustrate the use of “Collins” as well as other terms for a thank-you note:

“A ‘bread-and-butter’ letter—the English call it a Collins, after the respectable gentleman so named in one of Jane Austen’s novels. There was no reason for her hesitation in opening it. A bread-and-butter—some say board-and-lodging—letter.” From In Cure of Her Soul, a 1906 novel by Frederic Jesup Stimson, an American writer and legal scholar.

And in Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1922 novel The Enchanted April, Mr. Wilkins thanks his hostess in person, then reminds Mrs. Fisher, another guest, “that she and his wife must now jointly write Lady Caroline the customary letter of thanks for hospitality. ‘A Collins,’ said Mr. Wilkins, who knew what was necessary in literature. ‘I prefer the name Collins for such a letter to either that of Board and Lodging or Bread and Butter. Let us call it a Collins.’ ”

As we said above, the usage wasn’t very long-lived. The OED’s most recent citation is from 1940. The latest we’ve seen is from 1984, when the word was part of a clue in an Australian crossword puzzle.

As for those other terms, they both date from the late 19th century. Though the “board-and-lodging” version has fallen by the wayside, “bread-and-butter” is still used today.

Thee OED has no entry for the first version, but it defines a “bread-and-butter letter” as an “originally U.S.” phrase meaning “a letter sent to thank a person for his or her hospitality.”

The dictionary’s earliest example is from the December 1891 issue of The Chautauquan: “There is seldom more for a visitor to do than to arrange the flowers for the hostess, to send her a ‘bread and butter’ letter when one has left her house, and a present on Christmas.”

We’ve also found examples in newspapers of the 1890s for “bread-and-butter note.” In the following decade, the message was sometimes called simply “a bread and butter.”

As for the “board-and-lodging” version, we’ve found uses from around the same time. Here’s an example, in a dialog between cousins:

“ ‘I suppose you saw Mr. Hodder safely off these hills?’ ‘Yes; has he not written what my mother profanely calls his board-and-lodging letter yet?’ ” From A Family Likeness (1892), a novel by Bithia Mary Croker.

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When doom is impending

Q: I read your write-up on the negative sense of “precipitous” with interest, since I’ve been wondering if “impending” has a similar negative meaning. My feeling is that “impending,” unlike “precipitous,” is not necessarily negative.

A: “Impending” isn’t quite as negative as “precipitous,” but it’s often used negatively, as in “impending doom.” Two of the ten standard dictionaries we regularly consult say “impending” is usually negative, and the other eight usually illustrate the use of the adjective with negative examples.

Both Longman and Macmillan say “impending” describes “an event or situation, especially an unpleasant one,” that will happen soon. A third dictionary, Lexico, says it describes a forthcoming “event regarded as threatening or significant.”

Merriam-Webster, whose entry is typical of others, defines it neutrally as “occurring or likely to occur soon,” but of these five examples, three are negative: “impending trials” … “impending motherhood” … “impending earthquakes and volcanic eruptions” …  “impending disaster” … “impending sales.”

The negative sense of “impending,” like that of “precipitous,” comes from its etymological roots. The adjective is derived from the verb “impend,” which English borrowed from impendere, classical Latin for (among other things) to hang over or threaten.

Although the English verb is sometimes used literally to mean “hang over,” it was first used figuratively to mean “hang threateningly or hover (over) as about to fall,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary’s earliest example, which we’ll expand here, uses the present participle form of the verb:

“You are found foul and guilty by a jury / Made of your fathers’ curses, which have brought / Vengeance impending on you.” From The Old Law, or A New Way to Please, a play by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, with a possible contribution by Philip Massinger. It was first published in 1656, but is believed to have been written several decades earlier.

Later in the 17th century, the verb took on a wider sense that the OED defines as “to be about to happen; to be imminent or near at hand.” However, the happenings in most of the dictionary’s examples are negative, including the first, which uses the present participle:

“Giving them notice of any accident or distemper impending” (from A New Voyage Into the Northern Countries, a 1674 translation of a French travel book by Pierre Martin de La Martinière).

And here’s an expanded OED citation from The Rape of the Lock (1714), a mock-heroic poem by Alexander Pope: “I saw, alas! some dread Event impend, / Ere to the main this morning sun descend.”

The dictionary’s only positive example for the verb, which we’ve also expanded, is from The Pleasures of Imagination (1744), a three-book poem by the English writer and physician Mark Akenside: “Now the same glad task / Impends; now urging our ambitious toil.”

The adjective “impending” (technically, a participial adjective) showed up in the late 17th century. The earliest OED example, expanded here, is from a report by the Lord Privy Seal to King Charles II on the state of his government and kingdom:

“as the only Remedy for growing Evils, and to prevent Impending Mischiefs, another Parliament was called and sat for the same Year.” From The Account of Arthur, Earl of Anglesey, Lord Privy Seal, to Your Most Excellent Majesty, of the True State of Your Majesty’s Government and Kingdoms. The report, written in 1682, was published in 1694.

The adjective has usually appeared in negative phrases since then, especially up until the 20th century. We found this positive example in The Pastor’s Wife, a 1914 novel by Elizabeth von Arnim: “Robert went away after an early breakfast to his fields to see the improvement forty-eight hours’ soaking must have made, and obviously did not mind her impending departure in the least.”

Bryan A. Garner, writing in Garner’s Modern English Usage (4th ed.), notes that “it is not uncommon for writers to use impending for pending, perhaps because they think the extra syllable adds gravitas. Whatever the reason, the slipshod extension threatens to deprive us of a useful word, as impending loses its connotations of danger or evil.”

Although it’s legitimate to use “impending” in positive or neutral phrases (as in “impending marriage” or “impending holiday” or “impending bonus”), searches of newspaper and book databases indicate that the negative sense of “impending” is still the dominant one.

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‘Ketchup’ or ‘catsup’?

Q: I recently saw Mr. Burns’s “ketchup”/“catsup” dilemma on The Simpsons. Which is the preferred spelling?

A: Both spellings, “ketchup” and “catsup,” have been around for hundreds of years, but “ketchup” is king. It’s been vastly more popular than “catsup” since the mid-20th century.

Neither spelling can be considered more “correct,” however, since both originated as attempts to transliterate a Chinese word into the English alphabet.

The “k” spelling was first on the scene, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It was first recorded in the 1680s and was originally written as “ketchup,” just as it is today. Various “c” versions began appearing in the late 1690s, and the spelling “catsup” came along in the mid-1700s.

For many years, the “k” and “c” spellings were about equally common, with first one then the other more popular. But in contemporary usage, “ketchup” has clearly outdistanced “catsup.”

As the OED explains: “Perhaps as a result of influence from major commercial brands of sauce, ketchup seems to have become the dominant term from around the middle of the 20th cent., although catsup is still well attested in North America.”

That’s confirmed by a comparison of the terms on Google’s Ngram viewer. As of 2019, “ketchup” was more than 10 times as popular as “catsup.”

All 10 standard dictionaries we usually consult, both British and American, give “ketchup” as the principal spelling and “catsup” as a variant. Usage labels in many of the dictionaries indicate that the lesser-used “catsup” is now found only in North America.

As for the pronunciation, “ketchup” is KECH-up or KACH-up, while “catsup” is KAT-sup, KACH-up, or KECH-up.

What’s interesting about the history of “ketchup” (we’ll use that spelling) is that it wasn’t always tomato-y, and many of its older incarnations wouldn’t be too appetizing on fries. Here’s some etymology.

The noun “ketchup” comes from Hokkien, a family of dialects of Min Chinese, which is spoken in southeastern China. The Chinese ancestors of “ketchup” are rendered in the OED as kê-chiap (in the Zhangzhou dialect), kôe-tsap (Quanzhou dialect), and kôe-chiap (Amoy dialect). These compounds, the dictionary says, are derived from kôe (kind of fish) and chiap (juice, sauce), and the original Chinese term meant “brine of pickled fish or shellfish.”

John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins suggests that although the source is Chinese, “ketchup” may have come into English through Malay, a language with many Hokkien loan words. (In fact, many Malaysians speak Hokkien.) The OED also says it may have come into English “perhaps partly via Malay kecap, kicap” (soy sauce).

As Oxford explains, in the 17th century this sauce was “encountered by British travellers, traders, and colonists in southeast Asia and introduced to Britain by them.” In English, the dictionary says, “ketchup” originally meant “a type of piquant sauce produced in southeast Asia, probably made from fermented soybeans or fish.”

Once the recipe arrived in England it naturally began to change, and so did the meaning of “ketchup.” In the 18th century it came to mean a variation of the original Asian sauce.

The dictionary says it was “typically made from the juice or pulp of a fruit, vegetable, or other foodstuff, combined with vinegar or wine and spices, and used as an ingredient or condiment (frequently with modifying word indicating the main ingredient).”

For instance, Oxford has mentions of “walnut ketchup” (first recorded in 1769), “oyster ketchup” (1787), “mushroom ketchup” (1788), “tomato ketchup” (1801), and even the American concoctions “plum catsup” and “cucumber catsup” (both 1861).

Today, as we all know, “ketchup” generally means “tomato ketchup.” As the OED says, from the late 19th century onward “tomato ketchup became the most popular form,” and now “ketchup” is usually “a thick red sauce made chiefly from tomatoes, vinegar, and sugar, and used as a condiment or relish.”

[Update, Jan. 23, 2021: An American reader who just returned from a year in the UK writes to say that the British don’t automatically associate ketchup with tomatoes. “Every time I asked in a store for ketchup I was asked by the clerk whether I wanted tomato ketchup or another type.”]

Here are the OED’s earliest sightings of the word as spelled with a “k” (the first one also has the earliest use we’ve found for “soy” meaning soy sauce):

“Your Soys, your Ketchups and Caveares, your Cantharides, and your Whites of Eggs, are not to be compared to our rude Indian.” From The Natural History of Coffee, Thee, Chocolate, Tobacco (1682), by John Chamberlayne. “Cantharides” refers to a dried beetle, also known as Spanish Fly, that was used in various remedies and as an aphrodisiac.

“Take some Mutton or Beef gravy, and shred into it a Shalot or two, and a little Pepper, half a spoonful of Ketchup, or if you have no Ketchup, then put in one Anchovy.” From The Young Cooks Monitor (1683), by an author identified only as “M.H.” That use of an anchovy as a substitute tells us what ketchup tasted like in the 17th century! M.H. mentions “ketchup” five times in recipes for stewing pigeons and roasting hare, chicken, and lamb.

Though most of the OED’s “k” versions of the word are spelled “ketchup,” the dictionary also has infrequent citations for other spellings, including “Katchop” (1728), “Kitchup” (1731), and “katchup” (1914).

Here are Oxford’s earliest uses of the word spelled with a “c”:

“By Artificial Sauces we imitate the natural foetid and sub-acid Slime of the Stomach, as in Catchup mango Plumbs, Mushrooms, and some Indian Liquors or Sauces of Garlic.” From The Preternatural State of Animal Humours Described by Their Sensible Qualities (1696), by John Floyer.

“Catchup, a high East-India Sauce.” A definition from A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (1699), by “B. E.”

“And, for our home-bred British Chear, Botargo, Catsup, and Caveer.” From the comic poem “A Panegyrick on the Dean,” written by Jonathan Swift in 1730 and published in 1735. Here “chear” (for cheer) means food and drink, “botargo” is the dried roe of tuna or mullet, and “caveer” is caviar.

In closing, we’ll share an early 18th-century recipe we came across in writing this post. It comes from A Generous Discovery of Many Curious and Useful Medicines and Preparations (1725), by “Mrs. Hey.”

To make a KETCHUP for Sauce.

Take one Hundred Walnuts just before they begin to be fit for pickling, bruise them well, and put them into a Pot, with a Quart of the best White Wine Vinegar, and a good handful of Salt, let them stand about twenty four Hours, and then press out the Liquor, and Bottle it for use.

LET it stand 3 or 4 Months before it be used, and when you use it shake the Bottle, and one Spoonful or two will not only thicken, but add a most grateful Flavour to the Sauce; and is not at all inferior to the Foreign Ketchup of seven Shillings a Pint, made of we know not what.

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Prior analytics

Q: Has the use of “prior” as an adverb gained acceptance? I am seeing it more and more, as in this example from a book on chess: “Why did I play in the Los Angeles Open a month later? I’d said I would, a year prior.”

A: That use of “prior” by itself as an adverb is not recognized in the 10 standard dictionaries we regularly consult.

The dictionaries consider “prior” an adverbial usage only as part of the preposition “prior to,” as in “He made the will prior to his marriage.” In that sentence, “prior to” introduces a prepositional phrase (“prior to his marriage”) that modifies the verb “made.”

As we wrote on our blog in 2007, “prior to” is a preposition that can function as either an adjective or an adverb. We used these examples: “Construction prior to [adjective] 1900 is reviewed prior to [adverb] demolition.” In either case, “previous to” or “before” could be substituted for “prior to.”

So the adverbial use you mention, “I’d said I would, a year prior,” would be more acceptable in this form: “I’d said I would, a year prior to that.”

We’ll have more about “prior to” a bit later. As for “prior,” it’s sometimes used as a noun—meaning a religious official or as short for “prior conviction” or “prior arrest.” But in the sense you’re asking about, it’s defined in standard dictionaries as an adjective (not an adverb).

A usage note in American Heritage has this to say about the use of “prior” as an adjective:

“Though prior usually modifies a noun that comes after it, as in prior approval, it sometimes modifies a noun for a unit of time which precedes it, as in five years prior. These constructions are marginally acceptable when the combination serves as the object of a preposition, as in A gallon of gasoline was $4.29, up 10 cents from the week prior. In our 2014 survey, 51 percent of the Panelists accepted the sentence, with many commenting that they would prefer from the prior week or from the week before.”

The usage note goes on to add this about “prior” as an adverb: “The construction is even less acceptable when it acts as an adverbial modifier: only 29 percent of the Panel approved My cellphone was stolen. I had just bought it two days prior.

Getting back to “prior to,” American Heritage and Merriam-Webster define the phrase as a preposition synonymous with “before.” M-W says this in a note:  “Sometimes termed pompous or affected, prior to is a synonym of before that most often appears in rather formal contexts, such as the annual reports of corporations.” (Longman’s labels the “prior to” usage “formal.”)

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language includes “prior” in a class of words that are prepositions when their complements are preceded by “to,” as in “prior to this.” Other such prepositions, according to the Cambridge Grammar, include “according,” “subsequent,” “pursuant,” “preparatory,” “next,” “previous,” “owing,” “contrary,” and several more. “For the most part,” the book says, “the to phrase complement is obligatory when these items are prepositions.”

As for its etymology, “prior” was adopted in the early 17th century from the classical Latin prior. To the Romans, the OED says, prior meant “in front, previous, former, earlier, elder, superior, more important.”

In English, Oxford says, “prior” was first used as an adjective, meaning “that precedes in time or order; earlier, former, anterior, antecedent.” The dictionary’s earliest citation is from 1607: “Learned Magitian, skild in hidden Artes, / As well in prior as posterior parts” (The Diuils [Devil’s] Charter, a play by Barnabe Barnes).

In examples like that, the adjective “prior” is attributive—that is, it appears before the noun. But it can also be predicative (appearing after the noun) and in those cases it’s chiefly used “with to,” Oxford says.

Here’s the dictionary’s earliest such use: “I & my predicessouris [predecessors] be indouttitlie [undoubtedly] prior to thame in richt & place of dignitie” (The Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 1641).

The adverbial use of “prior to” appeared later in the same century and means “previously to, before, in advance of,” Oxford says. This is the dictionary’s earliest example:

“It was clear, that there was a former Trade, and correspondence betwixt them, prior to the Sons Infeftment.” (From Observations, 1675, Sir George Mackenzie’s commentaries on various Scottish parliamentary acts. “Infeftment” is a term in Scots law, similar to “enfeoffment” in English law, having to do with the investing of a feudal estate or fee.)

In our opinion, both “prior” alone and “prior to” have a lofty, formal sound, and for ordinary use there are better terms, both adjectives and adverbs: “previous,” “previously,” “before,” “earlier,” “in advance,” “preceding,” and so on. Usually, nothing is lost in translation.

However, Merriam-Webster compares the adjectives “prior” and “previous” and detects a slight difference: “previous and prior imply existing or occurring earlier, but prior often adds an implication of greater importance,” and it contrasts the uses with these examples: “a child from a previous marriage” versus “a prior obligation.”

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To “the,” or not to “the”

Q: I was reading The Magician’s Nephew, a 1955 Narnia novel by C. S. Lewis, and I saw this sentence: “ ‘That was the secret of secrets,’ said the Queen Jadis.” Why does the writer put a “the” before “Queen Jadis”?

A: The definite article “the” was once common before a high title preceding a personal name, as in “the Queen Jadis,” but the usage isn’t seen much now.

The Oxford English Dictionary has examples from the 12th to the 20th century of “the” used before “higher titles of rank identified by a following personal name.” The dictionary’s examples include “the Emperor Napoleon,” “the Grand Duke Michael,” and “the Empress Josephine.”

Today, the dictionary says, “except in formal use, the is not now usual with higher titles when followed by the personal name, as King George, Prince Edward, Duke Humphrey, Earl Grey, Earl Simon, etc.”

However, the old convention survives with other kinds of titles, like those identified by a following place name or title of office (OED examples include “the Duchess of Windsor,” “the Lord Privy Seal,”  “the Queen of the Netherlands”), and courtesy titles (“the Right Honourable,” “the Honourable,” “the Reverend”).

The dictionary’s earliest citation for the definite article used in front of a high title (with “the” written as þe in early Middle English), is from Layamon’s Brut, a chronicle of Britain written sometime before 1200:

“Þe abbed an horse leop; & æfter Uortiger rad & sone gon of-ærne þe eorl Uortigerne” (“The abbot leaped upon his horse and rode after Vortigern, and soon began to overtake the earl Vortiger”). Vortigern was a fifth-century king of the Britons, according to some medieval accounts.

We’ve found quite a few examples of the usage in Shakespeare, such as this remark by Polonius to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: “You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is” (Hamlet, Act II, scene 2, circa 1600).

In the OED’s latest example, the usage is clearly formal: “Her Majesty’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms under the command of the Lord Denham” (from the Nov. 5, 1981, issue of the Daily Telegraph in London).

If you’d like to read more, we’ve written several posts about the definite article, including one in 2008 about its idiomatic use, one in 2009 about its pronunciation (THEE vs. THUH), and one in 2018 about its use with a foreign article.

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When ‘damn’ became a swear word

Q: What is the origin of the expression “don’t give a damn”? Was it ever expletive free?

A: Let’s begin with “damn.” When the word showed up in Middle English in the 14th century, “damn” was a verb meaning to condemn. It wasn’t until the 16th century that “damn” was used profanely.

English borrowed the term from Old French, but the ultimate source is the classical Latin damnāre or dampnāre, meaning to damage or condemn. (In fact, “condemn” ultimately comes from the same Latin source as “damn.”)

In Middle English, according to Oxford English Dictionary citations, “damn” had three related meanings: (1) to doom to eternal punishment; (2) to pronounce a sentence; (3) to denounce or deplore.

Here’s an OED example for sense #1 from a homily dated at around 1325: “Sain Jon hafd gret pite / That slic a child suld dampned be” (“John the Baptist had great pity / That such a child should be damned”). Collected in English Metrical Homilies (1862), edited by John Small.

We’ve expanded this OED’s citation for sense #2: “For, sir, hit is no maystrie for a lord / To dampne a man with-oute answere of word” (“For, sire, it is no triumph for a lord / To condemn a man without answering a word”). The Legend of Good Women, circa 1385, by Geoffrey Chaucer.

And here’s an example for #3: “For hadde God comaundid maydenhede, / Than had he dampnyd weddyng with the dede” (The Wife of Bath’s Prologue in The Canterbury Tales, circa 1386, by Chaucer).

The OED says the verb “damn” began to be “used profanely” in the late 16th century “in imprecations and exclamations, expressing emphatic objurgation or reprehension of a person or thing, or sometimes merely an outburst of irritation or impatience.”

The dictionary’s earliest example is from an anonymous religious tract attacking critics of the Anglican hierarchy: “Hang a spawne? drowne it; alls one, damne it!” From Pappe With Hatchet (1589), believed written by John Lyly or Thomas Nashe.

In the early 17th century, according to OED citations, “damn” showed up as a noun used “as a profane imprecation”—that is, a curse.

The earliest example is from Monsieur Thomas, a comedy by the English playwright John Fletcher, believed written between 1610 and 1616: “Rack a maids tender eares, with dam’s and divels?”

And here’s an early 18th-century example in the OED: “What! he no hear you swear, curse, speak the great Damn.” From The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), by Daniel Defoe.

But by the mid-18th century—and here’s where your question comes in—the profane sense of “damn” began weakening as it was “used vaguely (in unconventional speech) in phrases not worth a damn, not to care a damn, not to give a damn,” the OED says.

The earliest such phrase, according to the dictionary, is of the “not to care a damn” variety. Here’s the first known use:

“Not that I care three dams what figure I may cut.” From Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World (1762), a novel in the form of letters purportedly written by a Chinese traveler and offering an outsider’s views of Britain.

In searches of old newspaper databases, the earliest example we’ve found for “not give a damn” is from a late 18th-century American newspaper:

“Burk … exclaimed, that he believed it was true, and if so that he would not give a damn for the Federal villains in this country.” From the Gazette of the United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser, July 6, 1798.

As for “not worth a damn,” the earliest use we know of is cited in Green’s Dictionary of Slang: “To play second fiddle to Brougham … would not be worth a dam.” From a letter written by the English politician Thomas Creevey on Oct. 18, 1812.

Interestingly, the noun “curse” was once used in similar constructions. Here are the earliest known appearances—at least in Modern English—of the corresponding “curse” expressions, all cited in the OED:

“I do not conceive that any thing can happen … which you would give a curse to know” (in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, Jan. 20, 1763).

“For, as to wives, a Grand Signor Need never care one curse about them!” (Thomas Moore’s Intercepted Letters, 1813).

“The Chapter on Naval Inventions is not worth a curse” (Blackwood’s Magazine, 1826).

Oxford says the use of “curse” in such expressions “possibly comes down from the Middle English not worth a kerse, kers, cres” (those are medieval spellings of “curse”). The Middle English usage dates from the late 1300s, according to Oxford citations.

But if there is a link between “not worth a curse” and the medieval “not worth a kerse,” it’s not traceable. As the dictionary adds, “historical connection between the two is not evidenced, there being an interval of more than 300 years between the examples of the Middle English and the modern phrase.”

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Getting our ducks in a row

Q: What’s the history behind the expression “to get one’s ducks in a row”? And did anyone ever get ducks to line up?

A: We’ll answer your second question first. Yes, a mother duck does somehow manage to get her ducklings to line up in a row and follow her. Did this inspire the usage? Well, it’s one of several theories, but we haven’t found much evidence to support any of them.

As far as we can tell, the expression “to get [put, have, etc.] one’s ducks in a row,” meaning to be well prepared or organized for something, first appeared in late 19th-century American usage.

The earliest example we’ve seen is from a 19th-century African-American newspaper in Detroit: “In the meantime the Democrats are getting their ducks in a row, and their ticket is promised to be very strong” (the Plaindealer, Nov. 15, 1889).

The next example is a newspaper headline in South Carolina: “His Ducks in a Row” (Watchman and Southron, Sumter, July 22, 1891). The article describes “the extensive and handsome improvements” made by a businessman to increase “his space as well as his usefulness and activity” for “the accommodation of those who desire to be well served.”

A few months later, this headline appeared on an advertisement for a clothing sale: “Getting Our Ducks in a Row” (The Evening Visitor, Raleigh, NC, Nov. 20, 1891). After a list of items in the sale (“Ladies all wool vests, white, 50c,” “Men’s heavy undershirts, 17c,” etc.), the ad says these are “only a few stray shots and will be followed by the heavy sharp shooting and cannonading in quick succession.”

The use of firearm metaphors here raises the possibility that the usage may have originated as a figurative reference to the “duck shoot” attraction at fairgrounds, carnivals, and amusement parks, where visitors fire at a row of mechanical ducks. However, that’s pretty speculative. We haven’t seen any other etymological evidence to support the “duck shoot” theory.

We’ve also seen little or no evidence for two other theories about the source of the expression: (1) a row of real ducklings following their mom, or (2) duckpin bowling, a sport with pins that are smaller and squatter than those in the more common ten-pin bowling.

In fact, duckpin bowling first appeared in the early 1890s, after the expression showed up in Detroit. And we’ve seen no evidence that references in 19th-century books and newspapers to a row of real ducks inspired the figurative usage.

However the expression originated, it reminds us of Make Way for Ducklings (1941), Robert McCloskey’s book for children, which helped popularize the image of a mother duck leading a row of ducklings.

We’ll end, however, with an example from an earlier children’s book, Goodrich’s Fifth School Reader (1857), by Samuel Griswold Goodrich. Here a mom is teaching her ducklings how to walk in a straight line to a pond:

“Yes,” said the ducklings, waddling on. “That’s better,” said their mother;

“But well-bred ducks walk in a row, straight, one behind the other.”

“Yes,” said the little ducks again, all waddling in a row.

“Now to the pond,” said old Dame Duck—splash, splash, and in they go.

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Categories
comic fiction English English language fiction humor

A mystery and a love story about words

Read Pat’s review today in the New York Times Book Review of The Liar’s Dictionary, Eley Williams’s comic novel about love and lexicography.

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Categories
English language Etymology Expression Language Phrase origin Usage Writing

Time and again

Q: I have long been familiar with the expression “time and time again,” but in the last week I have heard it truncated to “time and again.” What’s going on here? Is the latter simply a shortened form with the same meaning, or is it meant to convey something different?

A: You’ll be surprised to hear this, but “time and again” isn’t a truncated version of “time and time again.” The longer expression is an inflated version of the shorter one.

The expression appears to have originated in early 19th-century America. The earliest examples we’ve found in historical databases are from newspapers published in Virginia and Massachusetts.

The oldest mention we’ve seen is from a criticism of England’s Prince Regent (and later King George IV), credited to the Boston Patriot, and reprinted in the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, April 28, 1812:

“This right illustrious personage is adding with careless prodigality to the vast circle of misery and ruin, by incurring obligations which he has no means of discharging, by rioting on the wealth of industry and labor, and calling time and again on the honest farmer and the plodding mechanic to pay for his thoughtless riots and unbounded profusion.”

And this sighting appeared a few years later: “The government has time and again been called upon, to adopt measures to render our commerce secure, and to prevent the violation of our neutrality.” From the Alexandria (Va.) Gazette & Daily Advertiser, Sept. 7, 1818.

The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary, which we’ve expanded, also has the shorter “time and again” version:

“Application was made, time and again, relative to the College, and no change could be obtained, when it was necessary” (from a Nov. 24, 1820, speech at an 1820-21 constitutional convention in Massachusetts).

The next citation in the OED, an etymological dictionary based on historical evidence, appeared a decade later (note the plural): “It has been recommended, times and again, not to give horses grain unbroken on this account” (New England Farmer, Feb. 23, 1831).

The first Oxford example for the longer version showed up in print four years later, and we haven’t found any earlier ones: “We know that this has been reported of it time and time again” (Baltimore Southern Pioneer and Richmond Gospel Visiter, March 28, 1835).

The shorter version is not only earlier, but it’s apparently more popular. “Time and again” has been the more common form since the usage first appeared in the early 19th century, according to a search in Google’s Ngram viewer, which compares phrases in digitized books.

The OED’s most recent citation is for the original version: “Time and again she had to make difficult decisions about disputed words and phrasing.” From “Towards a Scholarly Edition of Samuel Beckett’s Watt,” an essay by Chris Ackerley in Textual Scholarship and the Material Book (2009), edited by Wim van Mierlo.

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