Month: July 2022

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English English language Etymology Expression Grammar Language Usage Word origin Writing

Casting a little light

Q: Living a life in theatre, I cast actors, though I don’t throw them out the window. “Cast” is one of those verbs with the same form in the past and present. Interesting word, and with so many meanings. I could look it up in my Compact OED, but I can’t read the tiny print—even with the magnifier.

A: Yes, “cast” is an interesting verb, but it’s not always the same in the present tense, past tense, and past participle. The third-person present is “casts.” Some similar verbs are “bet,” “cost,” “cut,” “hit,” “hurt,” “let,” “put,” and “shut.”

You’re right that “cast” has a lot of senses, as both a verb and a noun. All of them are derived from the Old Norse verb kasta (to cast or throw), which first appeared in Middle English and took the place of an Old English verb with the same meaning, weorpan, the ancestor of “warp.”

But as the Oxford English Dictionary points out, “cast,” a Scandinavian migrant that replaced an Old English word, “has now in turn been largely superseded in ordinary language and in the simple literal sense by throw,” which began life as the Old English þrawan (thrawan), and originally meant to twist or turn.

Today, the OED says, “cast” has an old-fashioned air when used in its original English sense: “ ‘Cast it into the pond’ has an archaic effect in comparison with ‘throw it into the pond.’ ” But the word “is in ordinary use in various figurative and specific senses, and in many adverbial combinations, as cast about.”

When “cast” first appeared in the Middle English of the early 13th century, Oxford says, it was a verb meaning “to project (anything) with a force of the nature of a jerk, from the hand, the arms, a vessel, or the like.”

The dictionary’s first citation is from Hali Meidenhad (Holy Virginity,) an alliterative homily written around 1230: “Ha cast hire fader sone se ha iboren wes fram þe hehste heuene in to helle grunde” (“As soon as she [Pride] was born, she cast her father from the highest heaven into the deep of hell”).

The OED’s earliest example for the noun “cast” used in the sense of a throw is from the Wycliffe Bible of 1382: “If a stoon he throwe, and with the cast sleeth [slayeth], lijk maner he shal be punishid” (Numbers 35:17-18).

Interestingly, the noun “cast” showed up earlier in a figurative example that likened the Last Judgment to a game of chance where everything is risked on a throw of dice:

“On domesdai be-for iustise, þar all es casten on a cast” (“On doomsday before justice, there all is risked on a single cast”). From Cursor Mundi, an anonymous Middle English poem believed written sometime before 1325.

As we’ve said, the word “cast” has a great many senses, so many that the OED arranges the verb in 13 categories, though some of the usages are labelled archaic, obsolete, rare or dialect:

“I. To throw. II. To throw down, overthrow, defeat, convict, condemn. III. To throw off so as to get quit of, to shed, vomit, discard. IV. To throw up (earth) with a spade, dig (peats, a ditch, etc.). V. To put or place with haste or force, throw into prison, into a state of rage, sleep, etc. VI. To reckon, calculate, forecast. VII. To revolve in the mind, devise, contrive, purpose. VIII. To dispose, arrange, allot the parts in a play. IX. To cast metal, etc. X. To turn, twist, warp, veer, incline. XI. To plaster, daub. XII. Hunting and Hawking senses, those of doubtful position, and phrases. XIII. Adverbial combinations.”

Here are some of the more common uses of the verb that have evolved from its original sense of throwing, along with dates of the earliest OED citations: “cast out” (circa 1200), “cast into prison” (before 1225), “cast a fishing line” (c. 1250), “cast away” (c. 1325), “cast an eye, glance, look, etc.” (c. 1385), “cast off” (c. 1400), “cast aside” (1475), “cast molten metal” (1512), “cast about” (1575), “cast with plaster or the like” (1577), “cast a shadow” (1630), “cast the parts of a play” (1711), “cast some light” (1752), “cast adrift” (1805), “cast a stitch”  (in knitting, 1840), and “cast a horoscope” (1855).

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English English language Etymology Expression Language Phrase origin Religion Usage Word origin Writing

Weak in the knees

Q: Can you write about the expression “weak in the knees”? I know it has to do metaphorically with fear or apprehension, but as someone who suffers from literal weak knees I’d like to know more about it.

A: The image of weak or unsteady knees as a metaphor for vacillation—being indecisive or afraid, lacking faith, not standing firm—came into English from biblical writings. It can be found in ancient Hebrew and Greek versions of the Bible and in later Latin translations.

The imagery was preserved in early English translations of the Bible, where the knees of people lacking spiritual stamina were first described as “trembling” and “feeble” (1300s) and later as “weak” (1500s).

And in wider, secular use, irresolute or faint-hearted people went from having “weak knees” to being “weak in [or at] the knees” (1700s) or “weak-kneed” (1800s).

Here’s a closer look at the history.

As we mentioned, the metaphoric equivalent of “weak knees” was known in biblical Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The noun “knee” in Hebrew is ברך (berek), in Greek γόνατο (gonato), and in Latin genu. The adjectives used in the metaphor can be translated as feeble, weak, trembling, unable to move, and so on.

In Hebrew, various Old Testament figures who are struck with terror or who are unsteady in their faith are said to have weak or feeble knees, as in ברכים כרעות (birkayim karaot,  Job 4:4) and ברכים כשלות (birkayim kashalot, Isaiah 35:3).

This imagery was passed along in Greek translations of the Old Testament and of the New Testament as well.

For example, in Hebrews 12:12 in the New Testament, where the people are admonished to bear up and keep their faith, the Greek phrase used in describing their vacillation is παρaλυτα γόνατα (paralya gonata), literally “paralyzed knees.” Biblical scholars say the Greek verb παραλύειν (paralyein, paralyze) is used idiomatically here, so that to “lift up one’s paralyzed knees” means to gain courage, be unafraid, stand firm.

Biblical translations in Latin used similar imagery to express fear or faithlessness; genua trementia confortasti (strengthen trembling knees) in Job 4:4; genua debilia roborate (strengthen feeble knees) in Isaiah 35:3; soluta genua erigite (lift up weak knees) in Hebrews 12:12; omnia genua ibunt aquae (all knees will be weak as water) in Ezekiel 7:17.

By the way, the image of weak or trembling knees as a metaphor for fear was known earlier in Greek mythology and in Latin lyric poetry. It can be found, for example, in the Greek legend of Tiresias, whose knees shake in terror before the king, and in the Odes of Horace, where Chloe’s knees tremble in fear.

But we won’t dwell on the earlier literary sources, since the metaphor found its way into English via the Bible.

The earliest English version, the Wycliffe Bible, was made in Middle English in 1382 from late fourth-century Latin versions. And in rendering that metaphor, it has “knees tremblynge” (Job 4:4), “feble knees” (Isaiah 35:3), and “knees shall tremble” (Ezekiel 7:17).

As far as we know, the earliest example of the exact phrase “weak knees” used figuratively is in a translation of the New Testament by William Tyndale, published in 1534. Here’s Tyndale’s rendering of Hebrews 12:12, made from Greek and Hebrew texts: “Stretch forthe therfore agayne the hondes [hands] which were let doune & the weake knees.”

Tyndales’s work was completed and greatly enlarged by Miles Coverdale, whose 1535 translation from Greek and Hebrew was the first English version with both Old and New Testaments. Here’s how Coverdale rendered that passage: “Life [lift] vp therfore the handes which were let downe, and the weake knees.”

This image became a familiar theme of sermons and commentaries from the later 16th century onwards. For instance, John Calvin evoked it in a sermon delivered in January 1556: “It is the ministers charge to strengthen the weake knees.”

The figurative use of “weak knees” as a religious device became more or less official when the Anglican priest and scholar Thomas Wilson included it his popular book A Christian Dictionarie (1612), his attempt to define English words as used in the Old and New Testaments. Wilson defined “weak knees” as meaning “feeble, remisse, and slothfull mindes” (citing Hebrews 12:12).

Wilson’s dictionary went through many editions. A 1661 printing, edited after his death, added the literal condition of “weak knees” and also expanded the figurative meanings to include “dejected in courage, and faint-hearted,” “fearful and dejected in minde,” and “sluggish in the way of godliness” (citing Job 4:4, Isaiah 35:3, and Hebrews 12:12).

By the mid-1600s, “weak knees” was in secular use as well, meaning not only fearful and irresolute but disloyal. The earliest example we’ve found is in John Ford’s play The Chronicle Historie of Perkin Warbeck (1634), about a foiled plot to overthrow King Henry VII.

Here Sir Robert Clifford, a leader of the plot, has decided to plead for his life in return for betraying his co-conspirators:  “Let my weake knees rot on the earth, / If I appeare as leap’rous in my treacheries, / Before your royall eyes; as to mine owne / I seeme a Monster, by my breach of truth.”

The longer phrase “weak in the knees” didn’t appear in writing until the late 18th century, as far as we can tell. The earliest example we’ve found is in a work of astrology, where it’s listed among character faults attributed to people born under the sign of Capricorn:

“weak in the knees, not active or ingenious, subject to debauchery and scandalous actions; of low esteem, &c. amongst his associates.” (From Astronomy and Elementary Philosophy, Ebenezer Sibly’s 1789 translation of a Latin work written in 1650 by the Italian scholar Placidus de Titis.)

The variant phrase “weak at the knees” followed a half-century later. The oldest use we’ve found is from an anonymous collection of Irish verse: “What an ease to the minds of the mighty J.P.s, / Who felt chill at their hearts and grew weak at the knees” (The Lays of Erin, 1844).

The Oxford English Dictionary has no entries for “weak knees” or “weak in [or at] the knees.” But it does have an entry for the adjective “weak-kneed,” which it defines as “having weak knees,” and says is a “chiefly figurative” expression meaning “wanting in resolution or determination.”

We found this example in a Missouri newspaper: “So come out, you weak-kneed false-tongued slanderer of the Whig press of Missouri.” (From the Hannibal Journal, May 12, 1853, quoting a dispatch in the St. Louis News.)

The OED’s earliest example appeared a decade later: “But we must forego these comforts and conveniences, because our legislators are too weak-kneed to enact a tax law.” (From the Rio Abajo Press, Albuquerque, Feb. 24, 1863.)

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English English language Etymology Grammar Language Linguistics Usage Word origin Writing

A sticky question

Q: The verb “stick” seems to have uses that don’t allow conjugation. You can say, “We got stuck in the elevator,” but not “The elevator sticks us.” Are there other verbs with one sense applicable only in the past tense?

A: In a clause like “We were stuck in the elevator” or “We got stuck in the elevator,” the word “stuck” is either a past participle or a participial adjective, depending on the meaning. In either case, “stuck” is a nonfinite verb form, one that isn’t inflected for tense.

When a state or condition is meant, “stuck” is usually a participial adjective in an intransitive clause. When an action is meant, “stuck” is usually a past participle in a passive transitive clause.

The “be” version is used for a condition or an action, while the “get” version tends to be used for an action.

You can expand the two elevator clauses above to make clear that the first refers to a condition (“We were stuck in the elevator all night”) and that the second refers to an action (“We got stuck in the elevator when the power failed”).

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language refers to the past participle in such uses as a “verbal passive” and the participial adjective as an “adjectival passive.”  Cambridge calls the two conditions “stative” and “dynamic.” It discusses “be” and “get” passives in more detail on pages 1429-1443.

The grammar’s authors, Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, cite several examples of adjectives derived from past participles but with special meanings:

“She’s bound to win” … “We’re engaged (to be married)” … “Aren’t you meant to be working on your assignment?” … “His days are numbered” … “Are you related?” …  “I’m supposed to pay for it” … “He isn’t used to hard work.”

For readers who’ve forgotten the terminology, a verb is transitive when it needs a direct object to make sense (“Beverly raises calla lilies”) and intransitive when it makes sense without one (“The yellow ones died”).

A  verb is active when the subject performs the action (“Gertrude grows lupins”) and passive when the action is performed on the subject (“The lupins are grown by Gertrude”).

When an active transitive clause becomes passive, as in that latter example, the former direct object (“lupins”) becomes the subject, and the former subject (“Gertrude”) becomes the object of a prepositional phrase, though the prepositional phrase is not always expressed.

As for the etymology here, when “stick” was originally used to mean fix in place it was an intransitive verb spelled sticiað in Old English. The Oxford English Dictionary says transitive uses “are typically recorded later than their intransitive equivalents and chiefly occur in the passive, as to be stuck, to get stuck, etc.”

The earliest intransitive example in the OED is from the Old English Boethius, a translation made in the late ninth or early tenth century of De Consolatione Philosophiae (“The Consolation of Philosophy”), a sixth-century Latin treatise by the Roman philosopher Boethius:

“Gesihst þu nu on hu miclum & on hu diopum & on hu þiostrum horoseaða þara unðeawa ða yfelwillendan sticiað” (“Do you see now in how great and in how deep and in how dark an abyss of sins men of evil vices stick”).

The dictionary’s first citation for “stick” used as a transitive passive is from a letter written on Oct. 4, 1635, by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the English statesman Thomas Wentworth:

“When he saw the man and his horse stuck fast in the quagmire.” (Here “stuck” is a participial adjective.)

The OED’s earliest “be stuck” example is figurative: “It is Natural to men in the wrong to persist, and believe they take Wing when they are deepest stuck in the Mire” (from The Portugues Asia, John Stevens’s 1695 translation of a work by the Portuguese historian Manuel de Faria e Sousa).

And the dictionary’s first “get stuck” citation is from the transcript of an 1899 case before the New York State Court of Appeals: “If the logs get stuck we keep men there with pevies and work them through.” A “peavey” (the usual spelling) is a hooked lumberjack tool.

Finally, we should mention that the verb “stick” took on a bloody sense in Middle English when it came to mean “to impale (a thing) on (also upon) something pointed.” The OED’s first citation is from an anonymous medieval romance:

“And Þe bor is heued of smot, / And on a tronsoun of is spere / Þat heued a stikede for to bere” (“And he beheaded the boar and stuck the head on the end of his spear so he could carry it”). From The Romance of Sir Beues of Hamtoun (circa 1300).

Two centuries later, the verb came to mean “to pin (a person) to a wall, the ground, etc., by running a weapon through his or her body.” The first OED citation is from the Coverdale Bible of 1535:

“And Saul had a iauelynge [javelin] in his hande, and cast it, and thoughte: I wyll stycke Dauid fast to the wall” (1 Samuel 18:11).

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English English language Expression Language Pronunciation Punctuation Usage

Speaking of grandparents …

Q: If I say “grandparents” or “grandparents’ ” or “grandparent’s,” it sounds the same but can mean different things. How do I pronounce them so people will know which I mean. Is it wrong to add an extra syllable like “iz”?

A: These words are all pronounced exactly the same: “grandparents” (plural), “grandparent’s” (singular possessive), and “grandparents’ ” (plural possessive). The listener has to judge from the context which form you’re using.

This is true not just of “grandparent” but of any regular noun whose singular form does not end in a sibilant—a hissing, shushing, or buzzing sound, like s, sh, ch, x, or z. (A regular noun forms its plural in the usual way, by adding “s” or “es.”)

In pronouncing the plural and possessive forms, only an “s” sound is added to the singular, not an extra syllable. These are the four forms, how they’re spelled, and how they’re pronounced:

  • “grandparent”—singular: “She’s my only surviving grandparent.”
  • “grandparents”—plural, no added syllable: “I once had four grandparents.”
  • “grandparent’s”—singular possessive, no added syllable: “My one surviving grandparent’s health is good.”
  • “grandparents’ ”—plural possessive, no added syllable: “I have all four grandparents’ family trees.”

The same rule holds even if the noun is a proper name, like “Bob.”

  • “Bob”—singular: “Bob is my oldest friend.”
  • “Bobs”—plural, no added syllable: “I know two other Bobs.”
  • “Bob’s”—singular possessive, no added syllable: “My friend Bob’s middle name is James.”
  • “Bobs’ ”—plural possessive, no added syllable: “All three Bobs’ middle names are different.”

The only nouns that add an extra syllable in their plural and possessive forms are those that end in a sibilant. We’ll illustrate with the proper noun “Jones” and the common noun “church.”

  • singulars: “Nathan Jones is the pastor of our church.”
  • plurals, add a syllable: “The many Joneses in our town attend several different churches.”
  • singular possessives, add a syllable: “Pastor Jones’s car has its own spot in his church’s parking lot.”
  • plural possessives, add a syllable: “All the other Joneses’ cars are lucky to find spots in their churches’ parking lots.”

The syllable that’s added when those plurals and possessives are spoken sounds like ez. The apostrophe at the end of the plural possessives isn’t sounded.

We’ve published several blog posts about forming the plurals and possessives of nouns, including one in 2011 about names like “Chris.”

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