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Q: My father and I got to talking the other day about whether there’s such a word as “crumby” to describe the state of something covered in crumbs. Of course “crummy” and “crumbly” don’t work. Is “crumby” an existing word?

A: Until recently, there was an adjective spelled “crumby” and meaning full of crumbs.  It’s in our 1956 copy of the unabridged Webster’s New International Dictionary (2nd ed.).

But the word has since disappeared from mainstream dictionaries, which now list it as a mere variant spelling of the identical-sounding slang word “crummy.”

How did this happen? Let’s start with the noun “crumb.”

The word for a small particle of bread (or the like) was first recorded about 975, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The original Old English word was written as cruma and had no “b.” Like the modern German counterpart, krume, it was derived  from old Germanic sources that had no “b” either.

In fact, “crumb” had no “b” for almost a millennium. The prevalent English spelling until the end of the 18th century was “crum,” a spelling that was still recognized into 19th century.

How did the silent “b” creep in?

The OED says it “probably appeared first in the derivative crumble (where it has also invaded the pronunciation).” The new spelling was probably influenced as well by words like “dumb” and “thumb,” the OED suggests. 

The first adjective form of the word, which began appearing in the early 1500s, was spelled “cromely” or “crumly.”

It was used to describe something that was crumb-like or likely to crumble. (This word is now our modern “crumbly,” which today is both spelled and pronounced with a  “b.”)

The next adjective form was “crummy” (1567), originally meaning crumbly or crumb-like.

This was followed in the 1700s by the new spelling “crumby,” which first meant full of or strewn with crumbs (1731), and later meant breadcrumb-like (1767). 

But the old “crummy” spelling survived. It became a slang term in the mid-19th century (occasionally spelled “crumby”) to mean lice-ridden, filthy, or otherwise distasteful.

And this slang word – now meaning cheap, shabby, or generally lousy – became so popular that it practically wiped out any notion of breadcrumbs.

Never underestimate the power of slang.

Although the OED doesn’t label the old “crumby” as obsolete – at least not yet – and although it’s still used by bakers and others on the Internet, current dictionaries have abandoned it in the old breadcrumb sense.

So if there’s any chance of being misunderstood (as in “Your skirt is crumby”), we wouldn’t recommend using “crumby” to mean covered in crumbs. And no, pronouncing the “b,” as in CRUM-bee, isn’t the answer.

Maybe someday the meaning of “crumbly” will widen to mean covered in crumbs. Meanwhile, we’ll simply have to use more words than one to describe that messy condition.

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Q: I have a question about the use of “so” in constructions like “I so appreciate your website” or “I so want to help.” Is this correct usage? It sounds awkward to my ears, and I would substitute the word “really” for “so” here.

A: Used with a verb, “so” can be an intensifier, as it is in the two sentences you mention. This usage is standard English, and the Oxford English Dictionary has citations for it dating back to 1375.

It can precede the verb, as in this line by the poet Edmund Spenser (1579): “What payne doth thee so appall?” Or it can follow, as in this quotation from a story by Charles Gibbon (1884): “I held back because I loved you so.”

The use of the adverb “so” in sentences like these can also be read as elliptical (that is, as a short form) for “so much.”

Using your examples and assuming “so” is being used ellipitically, the complete versions would read: “I so much appreciate your website” … and … “I so much want to help.”

These can be reversed: “I appreciate your website so much” … and … “I want so much to help.”

Here, “so much” is an adverbial phrase (similar to “very much”) that modifies the verbs “appreciate” and “want.”

There’s also a slangy use of “so” in which the word is used as an intensifier to form what the OED calls “non-standard grammatical constructions.” Example: “You’re so Brooks Brothers.”

Here, “so” is used  in unexpected ways to modify a noun or noun phrase, a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Its meaning is “extremely” or “decidedly.”

The earliest citation in Oxford is dated 1923, from Ronald Firbank’s novel The Flower Beneath the Foot: “What can you see in her…? She’s so housemaid.”

But this appears to be an isolated example, the OED says, and unrelated to the avalanche of late 20th-century usages. Here’s a sampling of those:

“You’re so the opposite!” – 1979, from the movie Annie Hall, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman.

“Grow up, Heather. Bulimia’s so ’86.” – 1988, from the movie Heathers, written by Daniel Waters.

“We so don’t have time.” – 1996, from a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, written by Joss Whedon.

“The kid gloves are so off.” – 2001, in the magazine Heat.

“I am so getting the milkshake.” – 2004, in the New York Times.

“You’ve seen the carousel and it’s so not cool to be seen here if you’re over nine years old.” – 2005, from Jan M. Czech’s novel Grace Happens.

In case you’re interested, we wrote a blog entry a while back about “so that.” And another about the increasingly common practice of indiscriminately starting sentences with “so.”

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Q: I teach accounting, a field in which people overuse – in my opinion, misuse – the word “determine.” I believe it should mean “cause,” but many use it to mean “measure.” I recently read a report that says, “PricewaterhouseCoopers determined the fair value of the portfolio.” I would say, “God and market conditions determined the fair value of the portfolio, which PwC measured.” I wonder if you have anything to say on this subject.

A: Accountants aren’t the only people who use “determine” to mean “cause” as well as “measure.”

We ordinary mortals use the word in both these senses too. Consequently, there’s room for ambiguity. Here’s a brief history of the word’s usage in common speech and writing.

The verb  “determine” has its roots in Latin, from the prefix de (“down to the bottom, completely; hence thoroughly … methodically, formally”) and terminare (“to set bounds to”). These definitions come from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Thus when it  first entered English in the 14th century, to “determine” meant to be terminated – that is, to die or cease to exist.

Here’s an early citation from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1374): “That rather dye I wold, and determyne, / As thinkith me, stokkid in prisoun.” Rough translation: “That I would rather die and determine, I think, in prison stocks.”

(This sense of the verb was used as late as 1883 by William Gladstone in a speech in Parliament: “The privileges … do not determine with the life of M. de Lesseps.”)

Later in the 14th century, “determine” was recorded in other senses, all having to do with bringing some matter to an end.

These meanings include to settle or decide a matter of debate (c. 1380); to ordain beforehand (1382); to come to a judicial decision (c. 1384); to pronounce or declare (1393); to resolve to do something or decide about (1393); to set bounds to or limit (1398).

Other senses of the verb followed: to decide the course of or give direction to (1430); to put an end to or conclude (1483); to limit in scope (a term in logic, 1555); to ascertain (1650); to fix in the causal sense (as in “the buyer determines the Price,” from Hobbes’s Leviathan, 1651); to choose from among several things (1659).

In the sentence, “PricewaterhouseCoopers determined the fair value of the portfolio,” the verb could be read in two ways. To “determine” a price could be either to set it or to find out what it is.

This is an area where misunderstanding is possible, though we’re not sure a reader of the financial report you cited would be confused.

But if there’s any chance of confusion, especially in an audit report or other accounting statement where clarity should be the goal, we’d recommend using a more precise term.

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Q: A teacher once told me not to use a “more” comparative (“more stupid”) when a one-word version (“stupider”) is available. Is this true? I trust your knowledge more than hers since she used to pronounce “height” as if it had a “th” at the end.

A: Your teacher was wrong about comparatives. There’s no rule against using “more stupid” if you wish, instead of “stupider,” as the comparative form of the adjective.

Use  whichever sounds best in context, rhythmically and otherwise: “lovelier” or “more  lovely”; “commoner” or “more  common”; “rarer” or “more rare”; “livelier” or “more lively,” and so on. 

Just because a one-word version of a comparative or superlative exists doesn’t mean you can’t use the two-word version (with “more” or “most”).

We’re a little surprised at your teacher’s insistence. Last year, we answered a question from a man whose teacher insisted just the opposite – that “stupidest” was incorrect, and that the appropriate superlative form of “stupid” was “most stupid.”

If you’d like to read more about comparatives and superlatives, we wrote a blog entry a year and a half ago about the common conventions for forming them.

Interestingly, speakers and writers of English once even used “liker” and “likest” as comparative and superlative terms (equivalent to “more similar” and “most similar”). We’ve written a posting about that too.

Finally, a few words about your teacher’s pronunciation of “height.”

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) does include a pronunciation with a “th” sound at the end, but it describes this as an unacceptable variant that may be heard in educated speech.

Although the variant pronunciation is rarely heard now, it reflects the word’s original pronunciation in Old English, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).

And, yes, we’ve also had a posting that discusses the origins of “height,” which Anglo-Saxons spelled with the Old English version of “th” at the end.

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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. (Pat usually appears on the third Wednesday of the month, but she’ll visit Leonard this month on the second Wednesday.)

Q: It’s happening again. Every spring my wife notices the onset of buds on the trees and tells me they are “blushing green.” I tell her that “blushing” refers to red, not green. She tells me that if I can find a better way to convey the idea of “blushing green,” she will deign to use it. Can you help?

A: We think your wife’s description of tender young buds as “blushing green” is delightful, and it’s not as far-fetched as you might think. The original meaning of “blush,” in the 14th century, had nothing to do with redness.

The word “blush” first showed up as a verb, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and initially meant to “cast a glance” or “give a look.” The OED’s earliest written citation is from 1325.

The noun “blush” was first recorded in writing in about 1340, when it meant “a gleam, a blink.” By this time, the verb was being used to mean “shine forth.”

A slightly later sense of the noun – “a glance, glimpse, blink, look” – was recorded about 1375 in the expression “aftur the furste blusch.” We still use the word this way, in the phrase “at first blush” (the equivalent of “at first glance”).

The current sense of the verb “blush,” meaning “to become red in the face, (usually) from shame or modesty,” came along in the mid-15th century, the OED says.

The first written citation is from about 1450, in the phrase “blushed red.” Later, the “red” became unnecessary and “blushing” by itself meant turning red.

The use of the noun “blush” to mean “the reddening of the face caused by shame, modesty, or other emotion” was first recorded in Shakespeare, the OED says.

The earliest citation is from Henry VI (1593): “And not bewray thy Treason with a Blush.” And here’s another, from Henry V (1599): “Put off your Maiden Blushes.” (In Shakespeare’s day, “bewray” meant to unintentionally reveal a secret.)

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Q: I’m reading Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin and I’ve come across the expression “misery lights.”  Do you know what this means? (I’m sure you do!)

A: Readers of contemporary fiction may be familiar with the term, which has appeared in several novels. Here’s how it’s used in McCann’s 2009 novel:  

“Some cops on the West Side Highway switched on their misery lights, swerved fast off the exit ramps, making the morning all the more magnetic.”

In Richard Price’s novel Lush Life (2008), the phrase “misery lights” appears three times, as when a police car sits with its “misery lights revolving.”

And in Clockers (1992), another work by Price, a police cruiser is described as “hitting its misery lights.”

The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English, edited by Tom Dalzell, defines the noun phrase “misery lights” as “the colored lights on the top of  a police car.”

The dictionary, citing the Clockers quotation, dates the usage from 1992.

Routledge doesn’t speculate about why they’re called “misery lights.” But we imagine that anyone who’s ever been pulled over by the police will have a pretty good idea.

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Q: Is it okay to say, “The Smiths and we go to the park”? I know there are better ways to say the same thing, but I’m wondering if this is grammatically correct.

A: As a compound subject, “The Smiths and we” is indeed grammatically correct. But it’s not syntactically common (syntax deals with word order).

The common word order, as you’re aware, would be “We and the Smiths go to the park.”

Why does that sound more natural? We did a bit of digging without success, but we suspect a scholarly paper or two is lurking out there with the answer.

The subject in a sentence like the one you cite should never be “The Smiths and us” or “Us and the Smiths.”

Those constructions would be used only as objects: “Come to the park with the Smiths and us.” Or, “Come to the park with us and the Smiths.”

As part of a compound subject, a pronoun is always a subject pronoun (I, we, they, he, she).

As part of a compound object, a pronoun is always an object  pronoun (me, us, them, him, her).

Sorry we couldn’t be more helpful about why “We and the Smiths” sounds better than “The Smiths and we” as a compound subject.

However, we’ve had a couple of posts on the blog  – one in 2009 and the other in 2008 – about whether you should put yourself last when you’re part of a compound subject or object.

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Q: I’ve noticed a trend to give girls traditionally male names. As a result, some of these names are no longer thought of as male. Do you know of any traditionally female names that have transitioned the other way? Can you offer any insight?

A: We don’t know how much insight we can offer, but it certainly does seem to be the case that a lot of parents are giving traditional male names to female children.

Although we may be seeing more of this now, it isn’t a new phenomenon.

Pat’s mother, born in 1929, was named Beverly, and one of her aunts was named Sydney. Both had traditionally been boys’ names.

Other traditionally male names that were adopted as feminine during the early to mid-20th century include Shirley, Evelyn, Meredith, Leslie, Ashley, Lindsay, and Kim.

(Remember Leslie Nielsen’s line in the movie Airplane? “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.”)

In the last few decades we’ve either met or read about women – real women, not fictional characters – named Christopher, Sean, Elliot, Drew, Michael, Glenn, Jordan, Morgan, Lionel, Madison, and Howard (Anne Rice’s original name).

We’re not counting feminized versions of male names, like Michaela, Morgana, Raye, and Jamie. Nor are we counting boyish-sounding names that are actually short for feminine ones, like Sam (short for Samantha), Alex (for Alexandra), Fred (for Fredericka), or Stevie (for Stephanie).

It’s pretty obvious why this doesn’t work the other way around, with little boys being given girls’ names. As a culture, we generally discourage “girlishness” in little boys, but  think tomboyishness is cute in little girls. 

And these days, with people going out of their way to find unusual names for babies, it seems inevitable that parents of girls would give them boys’ names in an attempt to be trendy. Well, trends come and go. 

In Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women, the tomboyish character Jo March is really Josephine but hates her name.

And the boy next door is Theodore Laurence, but he doesn’t like Theodore because “the fellows called me Dora.”

So instead, he calls himself “Laurie,” which was a common 19th-century boys’ nickname for Laurence. He would never have chosen that name today.

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Q: I’ve always thought eponymous referred to someone for whom something is named. But I recently noticed that writers from first-rate sources, including the NY Times, use it as well to refer to something named for someone. The Times, for example, has referred to Mayor Bloomberg’s “eponymous financial information company.” So, am I wrong?

A: Your original instinct was right – or at least it originally was.

Traditionally, the adjective “eponymous” has referred to the person something is named for. So, for example, Hamlet is the eponymous hero of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.

The corresponding noun, “eponym,” has traditionally meant someone who gives his or her name to something. So Hamlet (the character, not the play) is an eponym.

But in modern English, these words have dual meanings. An “eponym” can be either the name giver (William Penn, for instance) or the name given (Pennsylvania). Similarly, “eponymous” can modify either one.

As Merriam-Webster online explains, “we can speak of ‘the eponymous Ed Sullivan Show’ as well as ‘the eponymous Ed Sullivan.’ ” British usage has also shifted. Here’s Cambridge Dictionaries online: “An eponymous character in a play, book, etc. has the same name as the title.”

Both “eponym” and “eponymous” were adopted into English in the mid-19th century. The earliest citations in the Oxford English Dictionary come from the same book, George Grote’s A History of Greece (1846).

Here are the passages cited: “The eponymous personage from whom the community derive their name” and “Pelops is the eponym or name-giver of the Peloponnesus.”

The words have their source in the Greek eponymos, from epi (“upon”) and onoma (“name”).

As we mentioned, historically both “eponym” and “eponymous” have referred to the source (Mayor Bloomberg, for example), not to what’s named after it (Bloomberg L.P.). And this was true until relatively recently.

Our 1956 printing of the unabridged second edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language (sometimes called Web II) has the traditional definitions.

But six decades later, “eponym” and ”eponymous” work both ways; they can refer not only to the namer but also to the named.

When we wrote about “eponymous” on our blog a couple of years ago, we took the traditional view and noted that it was becoming overused (it still is!).

When words are overused, they’re often used more loosely. And when that happens, their meanings become wider and lexicographers change the definitions we see in dictionaries.

Given the popularity of “eponymous,” its evolution was probably inevitable.

As a result, we can no longer fault Times reporters who write things like “Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of an eponymous financial information company,” or “Max Protetch, who has run an eponymous gallery in Manhattan for nearly 40 years.”

A generation ago, copy editors would have corrected those passages to make the founders eponymous, not the businesses. But no more.

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Q: I enjoyed Origins of the Specious, but my enjoyment was tempered by the omission of “belfry.” Is it derived from the word “bell” or is that just one more etymology that’s too good to be true?

A: We omitted quite a few language myths from Origins of the Specious. We had to draw the line somewhere, and unfortunately, “belfry” ended up on the cutting-room floor.

But we’re glad you’ve asked us about it. The belief that “belfry” has something to do with bells is one of Pat’s favorite myths. And we now find that it didn’t get into the blog either. So here it is! 

What comes to mind when you hear the word “belfry”? Bats and bells, probably. That’s where bats hang out, and that’s where bells ring.

It’s reasonable to conclude that the origin of “belfry” had something to do with bells. But you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

Linguists believe the word ultimately comes from the prehistoric Germanic bergfrid, meaning a place of shelter. But the word entered English in the 12th century via the Old French berfrei, a siege tower. No bells here.

For the first few hundred years, the word was spelled all sorts of ways in English (“berefrei,” “berfrey”, “barfray,” etc.), and it meant a siege tower, a movable structure used to protect attackers besieging a fortification.

The word wasn’t used for a bell tower until 1440, about the same time the first “r” in the spellings became an “l” (“belfray,” “belfroy,” “belfrie,” and finally “belfry”).

The lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary say the “bel” spelling was undoubtedly popularized by the use of the term for a bell tower.

But let’s not leave the bats hanging. For all we know, bats have taken up residence in belfries for hundreds of years. The expression “bats in the belfry,” though, comes from another meaning of “belfry.”

In the early 1900s, “belfry” was a slang expression for someone’s head. To have “bats in the belfry” was to be nuts – in other words, batty.

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Q: I grew up believing that a “few” was three and a “couple” was two. But I just looked them up and found no mention of three in the definitions of “few,” and “more than two” as a meaning of “couple.” Can you give these words a firm meaning? I don’t like it that a word can mean different things to different people.

A: When someone asks you to lend him “a few dollars,” he could mean almost any amount. And when he says he’ll repay you in “a couple of days,” don’t mark a date on your calendar. 

Your question can’t be answered definitively, because “few” is ambiguous as far as its specific number, and “couple” can also be inexact.

Let’s begin with “few.” It was first seen in written English back as the 800s, according to citations in the Oxford English Dictionary. From the beginning, it has meant “not many” or “amounting to a small number.”

When “few” appears without a preceding word like “a” or “some,” the OED says, it implies the opposite of “many.”

But in phrases like “a few” or “some few,” according to the dictionary, it implies the opposite of “none at all.”

As examples of the two usages, the OED cites these constructions: “few, or perhaps none,” and “a few, or perhaps many.”

There are several idiomatic variations on this theme. “A good few” means “a fair number,” and “quite a few” and “not a few” both mean “a considerable number.”

But to make a long story short, “few” has never been restricted to meaning three.

Now on to “couple,” which is not nearly as flexible as “few.” The OED indicates that “couple” was first recorded as a verb around 1225, when it meant “to conjoin in thought or speech.”

The noun “couple” originally meant “a pair” or “a union of two.” It was derived from the Latin copula, meaning a tie or a connection, and was first recorded in writing about 1300 in reference to a man and woman united in marriage.

But lest this seem too romantic, we should mention that at the same time, the verb “couple” meant to “yoke,” as in to connect a horse to a cart.

And the noun was used shortly thereafter to mean two animals of the opposite sex (c. 1325) and a brace holding two hounds together (c. 1340).

By the late 14th century, “couple” (generally followed by “of”) was being used to mean two of anything. The OED has no entries that would define “couple” as meaning other than two. But many standard dictionaries and usage guides do.

Garner’s Modern American Usage (3rd ed.) says that while “couple” has traditionally meant a pair, “in some uses, the precise number is vague. Essentially, it’s equivalent to a few or several. In informal contexts this usage is quite common and unexceptionable.”

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) defines this sense of the word as “an indefinite small number” or “few.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) describes  the definition “a few; several” as “informal,” but goes on to say this:

“Modern critics have sometimes maintained that a couple of is too inexact to be appropriate in formal writing. But the inexactitude of a couple of may serve a useful purpose, suggesting that the writer is indifferent to the precise number of items involved. Thus the sentence She lives only a couple of miles away implies not only that the distance is short but that its exact measure is unimportant. This usage should be considered unobjectionable on all levels of style.”

We mentioned above that “couple” is generally followed by “of.” If you’d like to read more about this, we had a blog item a while back about whether the “of” is really necessary.

The posting cites this comment from American Heritage: “The of in the phrase a couple of is often dropped in speech, but this omission is usually considered a mistake, especially in formal contexts.”

Although three-fourths of the American Heritage Usage Panel found “a couple books” unacceptable, a fifth of the panel said it was OK in informal speech and writing.

In case you’re interested, we once wrote about another inexact term, “several.” Like “few” and “couple,” you can’t pin “several” down. In other words, it all depends.

We’re sorry if the inexactness of this answer disappoints you. But thanks for raising an interesting subject.

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Q: Pat says in Woe Is I that “via” means “by way of,” not “by means of,” but I often see it used in the latter sense. Is this an example of the language changing?

A: We had a blog item about “via” a few years ago, but English does indeed change and it’s probably time for an update.

In fact, Pat will be revising the entry on “via” in the third edition of Woe Is I when the paperback comes out this summer.

The traditional meaning of the preposition “via” is “by way of,” but dictionaries now accept “by means of” in the sense of “through the medium of” or “by the agency of.”

That’s why we can correctly say something was sent “via fax” or “via FedEx” – that is, through the medium of fax transmission or by the agency of Federal Express.

At the root of these meanings is the Latin word via, which means “road.” (In English, the first syllable can rhyme with either “why” or “we.”)

When “via” entered English in the late 18th century, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, it meant “by way of; by a route passing through.”

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, “via” was used in this limited travel sense. Merriam-Webster’s gives the following example: “We traveled from Boston to Philadelphia via New York City.”

In the 1920s and ’30s, according to the usage guide, the preposition “began to take on extended meanings” and refer to “the means of travel rather than the route taken.”

For example, “We traveled from St. Louis to Chicago via rail” or “The trip would have taken half the time via air.”

Around the same time, “via” began being used to mean “through the medium of” or “by the agency of” in contexts that had nothing to do with travel.

Examples: “She spoke to her mother via telephone” and “The message was sent via telegraph.”

These new usages caught on quickly, according to Merriam-Webster’s, despite criticism from language authorities who were aware of the word’s Latin roots.

“If you use via in any but the original sense,” M-W says, “you still run the risk of ruffling a few feathers, but you will be in good company.”

The usage guide goes on to cite published examples of the looser usage from the works of  E. B. White, John Updike, and Norman Mailer.

We’re comfortable using “via” in all the senses mentioned above. For now, though, we wouldn’t extend its use beyond those. But English is a living language, and other senses of the word may one day become acceptable.

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Q: I rather prefer “hyphened” to “hyphenated.” Any thoughts?

A: Either one is fine, so use whichever you prefer. The more common adjective is “hyphenated,” but “hyphened” is also used.

Similarly, the usual verb is  “hyphenate,” although “hyphen” is also used as a verb.

The noun “hyphen” was first recorded in English around 1620. It was adopted from the late Latin hyphen, which in turn comes from the Greek hyphen. (The Greek letters are sometimes seen in English as huphen.)

In Greek, the word (formed of hypo plus hen) means “under one.”

Greek grammarians used their hyphen, a bowl-shaped mark resembling a tie in music notation, underneath a compound to show that it wasn’t two separate words.

The verbs came into English in the 19th century: first “hyphen” (1814), then “hyphenize” (1869), and finally “hyphenate” (1892).

The adjective forms are the seldom-seen “hyphenic” (1851), along with the more common  “hyphenated” (1852) and “hyphened,” which are participial adjectives formed from two of the verbs. 

The OED doesn’t have any citations for “hyphened” as an adjective, but Henry and Francis Fowler used it that way in their book The King’s English (1906).

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Q: In a screenplay I’m working on, an older, Southern man tells another he looks peaked. Apart from having to think hard about whether the second syllable should be pronounced – script readers need help – I wonder about the origin of the word. Is it a regional term or just something an older person might say?

A: When the adjective “peaked” means sickly, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), it’s pronounced as two syllables, accented on the first: PEE-kid.

However, American Heritage says the adjective can be pronounced as either one syllable (PEEKT) or two (PEE-kid) when it means ending in a peak or pointed.

Oddly, the Oxford English Dictionary says the word in its sickly sense, which it dates from 1809, is pronounced as one syllable in both the US and the UK.

But it’s clear from spellings in some of the citations in the OED that the writers intended a two-syllable pronunciation. Here are a few examples:

1836, from Thomas C. Haliburton’s novel The Clockmaker: “I am dreadful sorry, says I, to see you … lookin so peecked.”

1860, from Oliver Wendell Holmes’s The Professor at the Breakfast-table: “He looks peakeder than ever.”

1914, from R. B. Cunninghame-Graham’s Scottish Stories: “It seemed as if my aunt might have gone on for ever, getting a little dryer and her face more peakit, as the years went by.”

A much earlier adjective with the same meaning, “peaking,” was first recorded in the early 1600s. And two more came at around the same time as “peaked”:  “peaky,” from 1821, and “peakish,” from 1836. 

The OED says “peaked” (which isn’t labeled as a regionalism, by the way) is apparently derived from an old verb “peak,” meaning “to flag or fail in health and spirits; to languish, waste away; to become sickly or emaciated.” 

This old verb, which dates from around 1580, seems to be unrelated to our more familiar verb “peak,” meaning to reach a peak of performance or to be formed into a peak.

The “sickly” verb, whose origin is unknown, is rarely heard today, except in this Shakespearean phrase intoned by one of the witches in Macbeth: “Wearie Sev’nights, nine times nine, / Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.”

Shakespeare’s phrase has been much quoted and paraphrased over the years, as in this 1995 excerpt from Opera News: “The drama component … quickly dwindled, peaked and pined.”

It appears in a poem by Coleridge (“Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!”), and it even shows up in a verse of the song “Clementine”:

“Then the miner, forty-niner, / Soon began to peak and pine. / Thought he oughter join his daughter, / Now he’s with his Clementine.”

If you’d like to read more about words with pronounced “ed” endings, we had a recent blog entry about the subject. The adjective “peaked” is one of the words we discussed.

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Q: In Origins of the Specious, you describe the French attitude toward Americans by using the word “condescension” in its modern English sense, a superior attitude toward inferiors. As I’m sure you know, the word did not always refer to patronizing behavior.

A: You’re right – “condescension” is a wonderful example of the changes in our changeable language. 

As every Jane Austen fan knows, the meaning of “condescension” has evolved quite a bit over the years.

In Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mr. Collins describes Lady Catherine de Bourgh this way: “I need not say you will be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension.”

These days, we don’t like condescending people, but condescension was a virtue in Mr. Collins’s eyes. He meant that Lady Catherine was capable of laying aside the privileges of rank and being nice to her social inferiors. 

This sense of the verb “condescend,” as well as the noun “condescension,” was first used in the early 1600s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

And in Mr. Collins’s day, people generally weren’t offended when respected superiors condescended to them.  

But the verb did not originally have this feudal, “noblesse oblige” flavor. At first, to “condescend”  (literally, to step down with) was to make concessions in one way or another. Today, we might say something like to “meet halfway.”

The word comes from the Latin con (“with”) and descendere (“go down”).

In medieval Latin, the word meant “to be complaisant or compliant, to accede to any one’s opinion,” the OED says.

The word was adopted into English from the French condescendre, meaning “to come down from one’s rights or claims, to yield consent, acquiesce.”  

The verb was first recorded in English in 1340, when to “condescend” was to yield, to give way deferentially, or to be accommodating.

From the 14th until well into the 18th centuries, the word was used in the sense of to consent, comply, or agree. These original meanings are now labeled obscure by the OED.

Mr. Collins’s uses of the verb “condescend” and the noun “condescension” are still alive and well. But they have negative connotations in our more democratic times.

By its very nature, condescension now implies that the recipient is inferior and is being patronized.

This negative sense was beginning to make itself felt even around Austen’s time, according to citations in the OED.

Samuel Johnson wrote in an essay in The Rambler (1752): “My old friend receiving me with all the insolence of condescension.”

And Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in English Traits (1856): “With the most provoking air of condescension.” 

Jane Austen may have felt this as well. Her character Mr. Collins is a slavish boot-polisher. And Lady Catherine is not a nice woman. She’s pompous and rude, far from courteous or gracious in her “condescension.”

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Q: Please explain the origin of the term “chyron” for the area at the bottom of a TV screen that gives information to viewers.

A: The “chyrons” at the bottom of our TV screens are named for the company that’s responsible for them.

The Chyron Corporation, founded in 1966, specializes in television graphics, and it’s had several names over the years. When it was called Systems Resources Corporation, in the 1970s, some of its early products were named “Chiron I,” “Chiron II,” and so on.

Why “chiron”? The company’s website doesn’t explain the origin of the word. But in Greek mythology, Chiron, the teacher of Achilles and other heroes, was a wise centaur (a being with the body of a horse and the upper torso of a human).

The Greek name has also been spelled Cheiron, Kheiron, and occasionally Chyron in English.

But back to business. When the company tried to adopt Chiron as its corporate name, that name had already been taken. So the company turned the “i” into a “y,” and called itself Chyron.

Chyron’s products let broadcasters add special effects, animation, and graphics to TV screens, superimposed over the video.

These displays include logos, sports scores, promotional stuff, or text with news and weather updates. This is either helpful information or incredibly annoying clutter, depending on your point of view.   

The displays are often called chyrons in the US whether they’re connected with the Chyron Corporation or not. In the UK they’re called “astons,” after a British company, Aston Broadcast Systems.

Other names for these displays include “bugs,” “captions,” and “lower thirds” (they usually appear in the lower third of the screen). Running strips of text are often called “crawls” or “crawlers.” 

Whatever the displays are called, they drive some viewers up the wall. A while back, for instance, fans of ABC’s popular series “Lost” went ballistic over an intrusive chyron that appeared throughout a segment of the show.

During the episode, the lower right-hand corner of the screen was filled with a big letter “V” and a countdown clock to promote the return of the series “V” in the following time slot. What’s more, the chyron ruined a crucial plot point by blocking a message that one character was writing.

In case you’re  wondering, yes – ABC is a client of the Chyron Corporation.

Fans raised so much flak that David Letterman and Steven Colbert spoofed ABC and the chyron on their shows. Here’s a video, courtesy of New York Magazine.

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Q: Is there a term for a word like “pickle” that can be either a verb or a noun (we pickle a cucumber to make a pickle)? I’ve searched to no avail. I’m in a pickle!

A: For many verbs, there are corresponding, identical nouns. In fact, “many” may be an understatement here. We might as well say “countless.”

Examples: blanket, brush, coil, crowd, drape, dress, drip, dust, fish, flood, hammer, heap, hoist, house, load, list, lift, nail, plant, plaster, pocket, roll, run, saw, screw, shovel, shop, spray, spread, sprinkle, staff, tile, twist, weld, wrap, wrinkle … the list goes on and on.

And of course there’s “pickle,” along with many other food-related verbs: bread, butter, flavor, flour, garnish, grease, lard, oil, pepper, peel, pit, salt, season, sugar.

Sometimes the verb came first (as with “run”) and sometimes the noun (as with “pocket”). 

You might be interested in a blog entry we wrote a few months ago about words (like “peel” and “pit”) that are nouns for the thing removed as well as verbs for the removal of same.

The process by which new words are formed from identical ones is often called “syntactic conversion.”  And it works with adjectives, too.  

For many verbs, there are corresponding, identical adjectives. Such verbs include blunt, clear, clean, cool, dry, empty, firm, muddy, narrow, open, warm, waste, and many others. 

And for many nouns, there are corresponding, identical adjectives. Such nouns include comic, dear, drunk, female, human, local, male, private, regular, special, sweet, and others.

Words like these are sometimes called “zero-related” pairs.

A noun (like “run”) that’s derived from a verb is a “deverbal noun” or a “zero-related nominal.” A verb (like “pocket”) that’s derived from a noun is a “denominal verb” or a “zero-related verb.”

A verb (like “dirty”) that’s derived from an adjective is a “deadjectival verb.” And a noun (like “comic”) that’s derived from an adjective is a “deadjectival noun.”

By the way, the use of “pickle” to mean a disagreeable situation (as in “I’m in a pickle”) dates from the 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The usage may be related to an old Dutch or German term for something that’s sharp or pungent.

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Q: I’m aware of the current usage rules for “which” and “that,” but reading older literature suggests that this was not always the case. In fact, there doesn’t even seem to be a consensus now. Can you enlighten me?

A: We’ve written previous posts, most recently in 2008, about the modern American use of “that” and “which.” Our views largely reflect those in popular usage guides like The Chicago Manual of Style, Garner’s Modern American Usage, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, and Pat’s Woe Is I.

You should be aware, however, that other language authorities have legitimate differences of opinion here. And we believe there are times when writers are justified in putting euphony ahead of  convention, as long as there’s no possibility of a misunderstanding.

We’ll get to the opposing arguments later, but first let’s discuss the established convention for the use of “that” and “which” in educated American speech and writing.

As we explain in our blog post, when you have a clause (a group of words with a subject and a verb) and you could start the clause with either “that” or “which,” here’s how to choose between the two:

If the information is essential and defines what came before it, use “that.” If the information is not essential and merely adds to what came before, use “which” and set the clause off with commas.

Information that’s defining is called “restrictive” and is introduced with “that.” Information that’s nondefining (it’s like a parenthetical aside) is “nonrestrictive” and is introduced with “which.”

We’ll use two examples from Woe Is I (note the underlined clauses):

Restrictive: “The dog that won best in show was Buster’s bulldog.”

Nonrestrictive: “Buster’s bulldog, which had one white ear, won best in show.”

Again, reasonable people have legitimate differences of opinion here. Scholarly works on grammar do not recognize any “rule” that would limit “which” to nonrestrictive clauses. Neither do standard dictionaries or Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.

But we believe, as we said up above, that most educated Americans are with us in using “that” for restrictive clauses and “which” for nonrestrictive ones.

So much for the modern American use of “that” and “which.” The history of their usage as relative pronouns is a much longer story.

In the beginning, “that” was our only relative pronoun. It was used to introduce both kinds of clauses – restrictive (defining) as well as nonrestrictive (nondefining). Both uses were recorded in writing as far back as the 800s.

“Which” was around, but it was used for other purposes – largely in questions, as an adjective, or in the sense of “what” or “who.” It wasn’t used as a relative pronoun, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, until the 14th century. And “which,” like “that,”  was used to introduce both kinds of clauses.

Merriam-Webster’s explains that “by the early 17th century, which and that were being used pretty much interchangeably.”

But in the later 17th century, literary writers simply stopped using “that” as a relative pronoun and used “which” exclusively. Perhaps “that” was considered less scholarly or erudite.

At any rate, when “that” reappeared in the early 18th century it was used mainly in restrictive (defining) clauses, though “which” wasn’t limited to one or the other.

By the early 20th century, however, usage commentators had begun to look askance at the all-purpose “which.”

Their thinking, according to Merriam-Webster’s, was, “If that was being confined to introducing restrictive clauses, might it not be useful (as well as symmetrical) to confine which to nonrestrictive clauses?”

One of the most influential cheerleaders for this idea was Henry Fowler, the author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926). He flatly stated, “which is appropriate to non-defining and that to defining clauses.”

Fowler argued for a “restoration of that to the place from which, in print, it tends to be ousted. … If writers would agree to regard that as the defining relative pronoun, & which as the non-defining, there would be much gain both in lucidity & in ease.”

Fowler also indicated that British writers were more likely to need this advice than Americans. And he said it was a “false inference” to regard “that” as a colloquial usage and “which” as a literary one.

The mistaken belief that “which” is more literary than “that” is also mentioned by Otto Jespersen in his Essentials of English Grammar.

Jespersen says that ever since “which, whom, and who came into use as relative pronouns,” they’ve been “gaining ground at the expense of that, chiefly in the last few centuries and in the more pretentious kinds of literature.”

“One of the reasons for this preference,” he says, “was probably that these pronouns reminded classical scholars of the corresponding Latin pronouns.”

Despite Fowler’s advice in his influential usage guide, it’s not clear whether much has changed in the last century.

In American usage, writers tend to use “that” in restrictive (or defining) clauses and “which” in nonrestrictive (or nondefining) clauses. But British writers often use “which” freely for both kinds of clauses, as they did when Fowler wrote his usage guide.

As the Oxford English Dictionary says, “which” is used to introduce both (1) “a clause defining or restricting the antecedent and thus completing the sense,” and (2) “an additional statement about the antecedent, the sense of the principal clause being complete without the relative clause.”

If writers use “which” both ways, how can we tell what they mean? The OED says that in modern printing, the use of “which” in restrictive clauses is usually distinguished by the lack of a preceding comma, as it is in speech by the absence of a pause.

Fowler agreed that when writers use “which” for both kinds of clauses, “it is important to have another means of distinguishing. A comma preceding which shows that the which-clause is non-defining, & the absence of such a comma shows that it is defining.” But he added: “That right interpretation should depend on a mere comma is a pity.”

So as things stand, writers who persist in using “which” in all cases at least have a way to make their meaning clearer. We’ll invent a couple of examples, both of which seem clear enough:

Restrictive: “Sue threw away the clothes which were outdated.” (She dumped only the outdated clothes.)

Nonrestrictive: “Sue threw away the clothes, which were outdated.” (She dumped all the clothes.)

We also mentioned euphony above. If a sentence already contains a nearby “that,” adding one to introduce a restrictive clause can be clunky. A writer who cares how a sentence sounds would be justified in substituting “which,” as in “It’s clear that the shirt which is stained should be bleached.”

There are other kinds of euphony too. One of our readers sent us an example from G. K. Chesterton:

“We call wine ‘white wine’ which is as yellow as a Blue-coat boy’s legs. We call grapes ‘white grapes’ which are manifestly pale green.” In such a passage, “that” simply wouldn’t work. (Of course, a writer today would use a simpler and more natural style.)

On the whole, we believe that the conventional distinction between “that” and “which” can be an aid to clarity. If a “which” is ambiguous, why not use “that”? The presence or absence of a comma isn’t always enough.

But perhaps the best argument of all is “that” seems more natural and idiomatic in restrictive clauses, especially in speech.

[Note: This post was updated on Dec. 27, 2022.]

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Q: I recently saw the word “tergiversate” in print, and it brought to mind an expression my father would use when he didn’t want us to dally: “don’t tergy-vergy.” Have you any thoughts about these terms or experiences with them?

A: As a matter of fact, we do have some experience of “tergiversate” – but not in English.

Years ago, when Pat was studying Italian, one of her favorite verbs was tergiversare, meaning to hesitate or evade or beat about the bush. This verb has stuck in her mind, while most of the other Italian has leaked away!

The English verb “tergiversate” has a stronger meaning: to change sides, desert one’s party, apostatize, equivocate, or evade.

It first appeared in print, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in Edmund Gayton’s Pleasant Notes Upon Don Quixot (1654): “That tergiversating and back-sliding Lady.”

It was adopted into English from the Latin tergiversari (“to turn one’s back, shuffle, practise evasion”). The Latin roots are tergum (“back”) and vertere (“to turn”).

A noun, “tergiversation” (meaning forsaking, deserting, or turning one’s back), was first recorded in the 16th century. The OED describes it as an adaptation of the Latin noun tergiversionem.

We haven’t managed to find any information on the use of “tergy-vergy” as a loose slang version of “tergiversate.” Perhaps your father coined it.

We did, however, find a few vague references to a street language called “tergy wergy,” but it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with apostasy or evasion.

And the online Urban Dictionary, whose users define slang terms, says a “tergy” is a blisterlike burn from a trampoline or object with a similar surface.

The dictionary, which is by no means authoritative, gives this example: “I scraped my toe on the trampoline and got a tergy.”

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Q: How did the word “cougar” evolve to mean an older woman who likes younger men? Yes, cougars are nocturnal cats … with claws, but what man came up with this term? The tables should be turned and we women should come up with a name for a younger man who likes older women. How about something nocturnal as well, like roach?

A: The term “cougar,” meaning an older woman who pursues younger men, may have been a male invention, but we have three women to thank for making it a household word.

Of course, as a term for a large feline quadruped, “cougar” has been around since the 18th century. It’s derived from a word in a native South American language, Tupi, and the term is synonymous with “puma” and “mountain lion.”

But as a word for a predator of the human variety, “cougar” is a much later coinage and its origins are murky.

One popular story is that it first showed up in the locker room of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team in the late 1980s. These NHL players supposedly used the term to describe groupies of a mature vintage.

Although there’s no solid evidence to support this story, linguists have tracked the use of “cougar” to western Canada in the early 1990s, when the term meant pretty much what it does now.

However it originated, the usage was popularized in 2001, when two Canadian multimedia artists, Elizabeth Vander Zaag and  Elspeth Sage, launched a tongue-in-cheek website named Cougardate.com.

The two women say they got the idea for the name when a nephew of Sage referred to them as a couple of “cougars.” It was a term he had picked up from his high school hockey team, according to the women.

The website caught on, offering not only dating services but humorous advice on such things as coping with “menopaws.”

Later in 2001, Valerie Gibson, a former dating columnist for the Toronto Sun, produced a book called Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men.

By “older,” Gibson says, she means late 30s plus. The advice in her book includes such niceties as how to “survive (or avoid) meeting his close-to-same-age mother.”

So that’s how the cat got out of the bag.

In the years since the original website and book, there have been many more books with “cougar” in their titles, as well as a reality show (“The Cougar”), a sitcom (“Cougar Town”), a movie (“Cougar Club”), cougar conventions, a cougar cruise (on the Carnival Cruise Line, no less), and dozens of online dating services dedicated to matching “cougs” with virile, adventurous “cubs.” 

Yup, “cubs.” And there’s your term for younger men in pursuit of older women!

(A brief version of this item appeared in Parade magazine, which interviewed Pat about cougars.)

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Q: Can you shed some light on why the phrase “from soup to nuts” represents the concept “from A to Z”? After all “soup” doesn’t begin with “A,” nor “nuts” with “Z.”

A: The Oxford English Dictionary describes the expression as “US colloq.” and defines it as “from beginning to end, completely; everything.”

All the published references in the OED are from the 20th century. The earliest is this one from Won in the Ninth, a 1910 book of sports stories by the pitching great Christy Mathewson: “He knew the game from ‘soup to nuts.’ ”

However, the word sleuth Barry Popik has discovered several much earlier appearances of the expression, including one that offers a clue to its origin.

Here’s how The Working Man’s Friend, and Family Instructor (1852) describes the pace of an American dinner:

“The rapidity with which dinner and dessert are eaten by our go-a-head friends is illustrated by the boast of a veteran in the art of speedy mastication, who ‘could get from soup to nuts in ten minutes.’ ”

Why, you ask, “soup” and “nuts,” rather than, say, “apples” and “zucchini”? Because an old-fashioned dinner often began with soup and ended with nuts.

As avid readers of 19th-century novels, we’ve come across many a scene in which a meal ends as a bowl of walnuts and a nutcracker are passed around with the port.

And as Popik reports on his Big Apple website, the idea of using the first and last courses of a dinner to mean the whole shebang didn’t begin with Americans.

The Roman poet Horace used the phrase ab ovo usque ad mala (“from the egg to the apple”) to mean from start to finish. Or as we’d put it, from soup to nuts.

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Q: Why is the term “seed” used when a player is put into particular bracket in a sporting contest? Is it because the organizers try to “plant” the best players around so they don’t meet until the playoffs?

A: The Oxford English Dictionary’s entry for the sporting sense of the verb “seed” suggests that the usage evolved in the late 19th century as a tennis term.

The OED defines it as “to assign (to several of the better competitors) a position in an ordered list, so that those most highly ranked do not meet until the later stages of an elimination competition; to arrange (a draw or event) to this end.”

The verb first appeared in print in 1898, the OED says, in this passage from the magazine American Lawn Tennis:

“Several years ago, it was decided to ‘seed’ the best players through the championship draw, and this was done for two or three years.”

So the verb may have been around for several years before it was recorded in print. It obviously had staying power.

Here’s another citation, from Spalding’s Lawn Tennis Annual (1900): “It is generally advisable to ‘seed’ the draw in handicap tournaments so that the players in each class shall be separated as far as possible one from another.”

The past participle and adjective “seeded” was used for events (“Longwood is never seeded,” from 1911), as well as people (“three of the women who had been ‘seeded’ for the draw,” 1929).

The noun “seed,” meaning a seeded player, was slower to catch on. According to the OED, it was first used in print in 1933 in The Aldin Book of Outdoor Games, in a reference to “the Thibetan ‘seed.’ ”

But why “seed”? The OED doesn’t explain the connection, but we can speculate. The best players are deliberately spread around – “planted,” as you suggest – so they aren’t too close together in the early rounds.

The fact that seeding is an appropriate image explains why the term has found a place in the language of sports.

Now, of course, the term “seeded” is often used in a more general way to refer to a high-ranked team or player: “Kelly Robinson’s cover was that of a top-seeded tennis pro.”

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Q: I wonder if you would comment on the expression “in and of itself.” The “and of” part seems not just redundant, but rather pretentious and legalistic.

A: The Oxford English Dictionary discusses “of itself” and “in itself,” but it has no comment on “in and of itself,” which appears to be an emphatic combination of the two. We don’t consider this a redundancy, and we’ll explain why later.

The “of” plus reflexive pronoun construction is very old; it was recorded in Old English in the West Saxon Gospels of the late 900s.

This “of oneself” construction, according to the OED, has meant “by one’s own impetus or motion; without the instigation or aid of another; essentially.”

The dictionary’s citations include Old English usages like of me sylfum (“of myself”), off hemm sellfenn (“of himself”), and so on. But the usual phrases now are “of themselves” and “of itself,” the OED says.

Examples include this passage in Nicolas Udall’s translation of the Apophthegmes of Erasmus (1542): “Whatsoever thyng wer not of it self eivill.”

And here’s a later one, from Oliver Goldsmith’s A Survey of Experimental Philosophy (1774): “Matter is of itself entirely passive.”

The phrase “in itself” has a similar history.

The OED says that “in” has been used with reflexive pronouns like “himself” and “itself” to mean “in his or its own person, essence, or nature; apart from any connexion with or relation to others; absolutely.”

Citations include these: “Suppose Artificial beautifying of the face be not in it self absolutely unlawful” (1656); “The story may be true in itself” (1870); and “It will be a sport in itself, sufficient of itself to thrill and allure” (1919).

The combination of the two phrases in one – “in and of itself” – is extremely common. A Google search came up with 32.9 million hits.

Although the combination phrase has no separate entry in the OED, a search of citations in the dictionary turns up some examples, including these:

“All of this over-tracking would … be in and of itself a work of art, obtrusively filtering through the music” (1966, from a letter of Glenn Gould).

“It is interesting that 58 percent of American men think that burning a draft card is violence, in and of itself” (1972, Science magazine).

“Being a thing in and of itself, her kiss … was not necessarily a mere prelude to other activity” (2000, from Tom Robbins’s novel Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates).

Is the phrase redundant? We don’t think so. As we’ve said before on the blog,  “There’s a fine line between an emphatic use and a redundancy.” We’ve frequently addressed this subject, including a posting a year and a half ago.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, we’ve even used “in and of itself” ourselves (“The ‘ism’ suffix is pretty much neutral in and of itself”).

But the phrase does tend to be a bit lofty sounding, so we use it sparingly and we think others should, too.

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Q: I’m curious about  the Philippines. Why is the name of the country spelled with a “ph,” while the name for someone who lives there is spelled with an “f”?

A: The word “Filipino” is spelled with an “f” because it’s derived from the Spanish name for the Philippine Islands: las Islas Filipinas.

Originally, after Magellan’s expedition in 1521, the Spanish called the islands San Lázaro, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

But in 1543 the Spanish renamed them las Islas Filipinas, after King Philip II. (“Philip” is Felipe in Spanish.)  

In English, however, the name was translated from the Spanish as “the Philippine islands” or “the Philippines.”

The earliest published reference in the OED is from Samuel Purchas’s Pilgrimage (1613): “Those Islands, which more properly beare the Philippine title.”

And here’s another early citation, from Nathaniel Crouch’s The English Empire in America (1685): “A great Ship called the St. Anna expected from the Philippine Islands.”

The country is now known as the Republic of the Philippines, but the Spanish spelling was retained for “Filipino.”

The word is an adjective as well as a noun. The noun is used for an inhabitant of the Philippines (the feminine is “Filipina”) and for the country’s official language, which is based on Tagalog. 

The OED’s first citation for “Filipino” in English is from an 1898 issue of a London newspaper, the Daily News, which spelled it with a double “p”:

“Though there may be no guarantee of American citizenship for the Filippinos, the islands will become a part of the Union.”

The newspaper was referring to the US takeover of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. Japan occupied the islands for much of Word War II, but they have been independent since 1946.

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Q: I’m from New London, CT, where we pronounce the “h” in our nearby river, the Thames, and rhyme it with “games.” We think the “h”-less British pronunciation, which rhymes with “gems,” is a corruption arising from the German accents of Hanoverian kings. Any truth in this?

A: No, there’s no truth to that claim. The “h” wasn’t even part of the original name of the river in southern England.

When the name was first written in Old English, in the late 800s, it was spelled Temes or Temese, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In fact, the name was around for many centuries before King Alfred used it in his c. 893 translation of the early Christian historian Paulus Orosius, and it probably has extremely old Celtic origins.

In Roman-occupied Britain, the name of the river was Tamesis or Tamesa, according to the writings of Roman historians.

In fact, in ancient Britain there were at least six rivers that were called Tamesa, according to a 1931 article by R. L. Dunabin in The Classical Review.

The spelling “Thames” didn’t appear until the mid-17th century, though the OED does have a couple of citations for earlier “h” versions of the word.

The “h,” which was never pronounced in Britain, was added erroneously, in the mistaken belief that the name was of Greek origin, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).

“Such errors were common, and many words that had nothing to do with Greek were respelled to make them look Greek,” American Heritage says in a Word History note.

As an example, the dictionary cites the name “Anthony,” which was derived from the Roman Antonius. The “h” was added later in the erroneous belief that the name was originally Greek and spelled with a theta.

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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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Q: A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the firing of a whistle-blower in 2008 reported that Lehman Brothers had said “it let go Mr. Lee … as part of a broader downsizing.” I prefer “let Mr. Lee go.” Care to comment?

A: The verbal phrase “let go” is very old, dating back to around the year 1300. It was first used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to mean “to allow to escape; to set at liberty; to lose one’s hold of; to relax (one’s hold); to drop (an anchor).”

In early usages, the two words were sometimes separated by an object, as in “leit paule … ga” (“let Paul … go,” c. 1375),  “lat the reynes gon” (“let the reins go,” c. 1384), and “we lete hym ga” (“we let him go,” 1440).

But just as often the two words were kept together, as in “Let go your capestan” (1530), “let goe everye Feasaunt and Partridge” (1581), and “let go the anchor” (1727).

And this trend has continued into modern times: “let go” is sometimes kept intact and sometimes divided. 

The phrase was first used in the sense of releasing or dismissing someone from a job in 1871, the OED says. And in the OED citations, as you can see, the words are sometimes separated and sometimes not. 

1871: “If he decides to let you go….”

1924: “yard workers are let go.”

1985: “We cut costs and let go of employees.”

1991: “Clive tells me he’s had to let you go.”

2005: ”Howard had let go of Monique, the cleaner, describing her as an expense they could no longer afford.”

Notice, however, that when the object follows the verbal phrase, the preposition “of” is normally used (“let go of employees” … “let go of Monique”).

Perhaps the construction seems simply too abrupt and unnatural without the preposition (“let go employees” … “let go Monique”).

There’s very little on this particular verb phrase in the grammatical sources we’ve consulted. But our feeling is that the usage isn’t idiomatic in the Wall Street Journal’s article about the dismissal of Matthew Lee, a senior vice president.

As far as we can tell, the typical idiomatic constructions are “Let Mr. Lee go” or “let go of Mr. Lee” or “Mr. Lee was let go,” not as the Journal writer said, “let go Mr. Lee.” (Elsewhere in the article, the writer uses the more idiomatic “was let go” version.)

In another use of “let go,” meaning “to neglect one’s appearance, personal habits, etc.,” the two words are nearly always divided by a reflexive pronoun, as in these citations from the OED.

1960, from Woman magazine: “The first step towards ‘letting yourself go.’ ”

1970, from Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch: “She tries not ‘to let herself go,’ keeps young-looking.”

1971, from Ruth Rendell’s novel One Across, Two Down: “I wouldn’t want Ethel to think I’d let myself go.”

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Q: Here’s a sentence in a note from a friend and his siblings about the death of their mother: “For those of you who knew her, on all of our behalves, we thank you for loving our mother.” Is “behalves” correct here? I’d have used “behalf,” but maybe I’m out of it.

A: In modern usage, “behalf” is an invariable noun and has no plural form. The old plural “behalves” is considered obsolete and has been for some time.

It’s labeled “obsolete,” for example, in my 1956 copy of Webster’s New International Dictionary (the unabridged second edition).

If your friend and his siblings wanted to use such an expression, they should have written “on our behalf” instead of “on all of our behalves.” But in fact, no such phrase was necessary.

We don’t usually thank people “on our behalf”; we simply thank them. It’s implied that a thank-you note from several people is giving thanks on behalf of all the writers.

Now, if the writers had been thanking people on somebody else’s behalf, then a “behalf” expression might have been appropriate.

For example, a son and daughter may be writing thank-you notes for their newly widowed mother, who’s too ill to write them herself.

They might write: “We’d like to thank you on our mother’s behalf for the lovely flowers you sent to Dad’s funeral.”

But back to “behalves.” Right or wrong, the obsolete plural is still alive and kicking in legal terminology.

We found this passage in a petition filed in a privacy lawsuit against AT&T in the state of Illinois:

“Plaintiffs Terkel, Currie, Geraghty, Gerson, Montgomery, and Young bring this action on their own behalves and on behalf of a statewide class of all individuals who ….”

And here’s another example, from a legal website:

“The women asked that the court issue the injunction not just on their own behalves, but on behalf of all women in Massachusetts.”

And yet another, in reference to a suit in Texas:

“Plaintiffs have filed suit on their own behalves and on behalf of all similarly situated employees.”

It’s understandable that in a legal document, it might be necessary to make clear that the petitioners have separate interests (or “behalves”).

But legal language is one thing and real English is another. It ill behooves us non-lawyers to use “behalves.”

On a related subject, people sometimes ask us whether the proper usage is “in behalf of” or “on behalf of.” Both are correct, but traditionally they’ve been used in different ways – at least by sticklers.

We wrote a blog item about this nearly four years ago. As we explained then, the traditional meaning of “in behalf of” is “for the benefit of” or “in the interest of,” while “on behalf of” is supposed to mean “in place of” or “as the agent of.”

Here’s an example: “The Red Cross was given a donation, on behalf my family, to be used in behalf of Haitian relief.”

But that old distinction is going by the wayside (if it isn’t gone already).

In Britain, the sole, all-purpose version is “on behalf of.” Both the “on” and the “in” versions are still used in the US, but most Americans now use them interchangeably, ignoring the traditional difference.

This is according to The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage (3d ed.), Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

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Q: I have a question about these two question sentences: 1. “Will you close the door?” 2. “Won’t you close the door?” Both elicit the same response (“Yes”) while they (seem to) have opposite meanings. How did these “opposite” sentences get identical meanings?

A: Sometimes a question that’s cast in the negative in fact implies a positive, as in “Isn’t she pretty?” … “Won’t you join us?” … “Aren’t they the clever ones?” … “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” … “Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”

It’s a long-established form of expression in English. In this case, a negative interrogative sentence only poses as a question. In fact, the speaker is biased in favor of a “yes” answer, so it’s more of a suggestion than a real question.  

We wrote a blog item a while back that touches on this phenomenon.

Some kinds of “Why not?” questions act the same way, as in “Why not go to the movies this afternoon?” or “Why not tell the truth?”

But not all negative interrogative sentences are biased in favor of a “yes” answer. Some of them imply that the answer is “no.”

Examples would be “Can’t you do anything right?” and “Didn’t you save your allowance?”

As the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language says, “Questions with negative interrogative form are always strongly biased.”

The bias “can be towards either the negative or the positive answer.” 

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Q: I’m hoping you can clear up something for me. I was reading a video game review in the New York Times, and the author used the phrase “far be it for me.” I’ve always thought it was “far be it from me.” Please let me know which is the proper usage.

A: The correct expression is, as you say, “far be it from me.” The Oxford English Dictionary says the phrase is “a form of deprecation” equal to “God forbid that (I, etc.).”

The usage is very old, and in fact appears in the first English translation of the Bible, the Wycliffe Bible of 1382. Here’s the quotation, from Genesis 44:17: “Josephe answerde, Fer be it fro me, that Y thus do.”

This is rendered in the King James version as “And he said, God forbid that I should do so.”

The author of the Times review you mention may be spending far too much time playing video games, but we can’t blame the overuse of joysticks for his boo-boo.

A search of the Times archive finds 15 other examples since 1986 – in the national, arts, opinion, style, and sports sections.

To be fair, though, scores of other Times writers (or their editors) got it right during that time.  

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Q: I was going to ask you about the origins of the phrase “out of pocket,” but instead searched for it on your site first. I found that you posted back in 2007, but had no real evidence on how the “unavailable” meaning evolved. I wonder if you’ve been able to find anything out since then? I’ve had two people use the phrase in the past week, and it has made me curious.

A: Since we wrote that blog entry, the Oxford English Dictionary has come up with an antedating – that is, an earlier appearance in print – of the phrase “out of pocket” in the sense of “out of reach, absent, unavailable.”

We previously reported that this sense of the phrase dates from 1946. But now the OED has found the expression in an O. Henry story, “Buried Treasure,” published in Ainslee’s magazine in July 1908.

Here’s the quotation: “Just now she is out of pocket. And I shall find her as soon as I can.”

So there’s an earlier date for the phrase, but we have nothing new to offer as far as the derivation.

We can only repeat that the expression “to have someone in your pocket,” which dates from the early 1600s, means to have him under your control.

And maybe that’s why someone who’s no longer under your control or scrutiny is said to be “out of pocket.” Just speculation on our part.

At any rate, we all seem to have cell phones in our  pockets these days, so it’s rarer to actually be out of pocket.

[Update, April 24, 2014. A reader writes: I can back you up on the reporter’s use of ‘out of pocket’ for being away from a phone. I was the Tulsa UPI bureau chief in the late ’70s and whenever we were out of the office and away from a phone (this was way before cell phones and just barely after radio telephones), we would message the Dallas Com Center on the teletype: ‘outta pocket.’ Another phrase I remember is ‘outstepping lunch.’ No clue as to the origin of ‘out of pocket,’ but I got the feeling it was an expression common among the old time Unipressers.”]

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Q: I caught only part of Pat’s discussion of “Dutch uncle” on WNYC, so I don’t know if she mentioned this. I grew up in rural Indiana in a German-American community where “Dutch uncle” referred to someone who told you something you needed to hear, but didn’t want to hear.

A: We had a blog entry a few years ago about the many “Dutch” expressions in English, but we left out a lot of them, including “Dutch uncle.” Thanks for giving us a chance to update the post.

Your explanation of “Dutch uncle” is pretty much the same as the definition in Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang: “one who talks severely and critically, who lays down the law; usu. in the phr. talk like a Dutch uncle.”

Cassell’s dates the expression from the mid-19th century.

Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English concurs. It says that to talk to someone like a “Dutch uncle” (circa 1830) means “to lecture in a way didactic and heavy-handed, yet kindly meant for the person’s own good.”

Partridge says the phrase is a reference to “the Dutch reputation for extremely rigorous discipline.”

As we say in our earlier blog item, the Oxford English Dictionary traces the many derisive “Dutch” expressions in English to the rivalry and enmity between the English and the Dutch in the 17th century.

With apologies to the Dutch, here are a few more expressions, all from Cassell’s, Partridge, or the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang:

“Dutch auction (or sale)”: one in which the price reductions are imaginary, or in which the starting price is outrageous.

“Dutch bargain”: a one-sided transaction or one arrived at while drinking.

“Dutch bath”: a cursory washing.  

“Dutch cap”: contraceptive device.

“do a Dutch”: go AWOL or desert.

“Dutch concert”: one in which everybody plays a different tune.

“Dutch courage”: it comes from a bottle.

“Dutch feast”: one in which the host is the first to get drunk.

“in Dutch”: in trouble.

“Dutch leave”: time off taken without permission.

“Dutch nightingale”: a frog.

“Dutch palate”: a coarse or crude sense of taste.

“Dutch reckoning”: a bill that gets higher the more one complains.

“Dutch widow”: a prostitute.

Again, our apologies to the Dutch, who we’re sure are exemplary people and a credit to their nation!

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Q: If you fall down and get up by yourself, which expression is grammatically appropriate: “When I fall down, I rise myself” or “When I fall down, I raise myself”?

A: This sentence is correct: “When I fall down, I raise myself.”

The verb “raise” here requires an object, the thing (or, in this case, the person) being raised.

However, the verb “rise” does not need an object. So this sentence would also be correct:  “When I fall down, I rise.”

If you want to emphasize that you get up without any help when you fall down, you could say: “When I fall down, I rise by myself.”

The construction “rise myself” is ungrammatical.

If you’d like to read more, we’ve discussed “raise” vs. “rise” before on the blog, as well as another confusing pair of verbs: “set” and “sit.”

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Q: Is it correct to say, “I need to clean house” when what you really mean is “I need to clean THE house”?

A: The phrasal verb “clean house” is pretty well established in English. Like many verb phrases, it’s idiomatic, which means it may not look exactly right when parsed literally, though in fact it’s perfectly acceptable.

A couple of other “the”-less examples from housekeeping are “do laundry” and “cook dinner.” No article is needed.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) notes that the phrasal verb “clean house” also has a meaning in slang: “To eliminate or discard what is undesirable. The scandal forced the company to clean house.”

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