Category: Usage

Q: The Watergate scandal wasn’t about a gate (or, for that matter, water), so why has the press (and the public) decided that “-gate” is a negative suffix? For example, “Troopergate” “Filegate,” etc.

A: The Watergate scandal has had a lot of fallout, some of it linguistic.

As you probably know, the story broke when people connected with the Nixon administration were caught breaking into the Democratic Party’s national headquarters on June 17, 1972.

The affair soon became known simply as “Watergate” because that’s the name of the building in Washington where the burglary took place.

A 1972 article in Time magazine, for example, says the Democrats “hope they can make Watergate a devastating—and durable—campaign issue.”

Since 1973, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “Watergate” has also been used to describe any large-scale scandal.

For instance, Doctor Frigo, a 1974 thriller by Eric Ambler, refers to a “Central American Watergate.”

And a 1974 theater review in the Times of London refers to the Sophocles tragedy Oedipus the King as a “Theban Watergate drama.”

The OED entry on “Watergate” also cites examples of the verb to “Watergate,” the verbal noun “Watergating,” and the noun “Watergater.”

And the dictionary has a separate entry on the suffix “-gate” used as “a terminal element denoting an actual or alleged scandal (and usually an attempted cover-up), in some way comparable with the Watergate scandal of 1972.”

The first citation for the suffix used this way is from a 1973 issue of the National Lampoon that refers to a Russian scandal as “Volgagate.”

Other OED citations for the suffix attached to a place associated with a scandal include “Dallasgate” (1975), “Koreagate” (1976), “Hollywoodgate” (1978), and “Irangate” (1986).

The dictionary also includes many citations for the suffix attached to the names of people, organizations, commodities, activities, etc., implicated in a scandal.

Here are some examples: “Motorgate” (1975), “Cattlegate” (1976), “Oilgate” (1978),  “Billygate” (1980), “Hearingsgate” (1983), and “Stalkergate” (1986).

We might add that this usage has become a cliché and ought to be retired.

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Q: I recently wrote a report that recommended rehiring a university colleague “contingent on available funding and staffing needs.” My department chair said this use of “contingent” was incorrect, and suggested using “if funding and staffing needs permit.” Was I wrong?

A: We think you used the word correctly but awkwardly. We like your department head’s version better.

Most people use “contingent” in one of two ways. (We won’t go into the legal and accounting senses of the word.)

(1) As an adjective used alone, the Oxford English Dictionary says, “contingent” means “liable to happen or not; of uncertain occurrence or incidence.”

This was the word’s original meaning when it entered English sometime before 1400.

Here’s an 1860 example from the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “All salaries are reckoned on contingent as well as on actual services.”  

(2) In the adjectival phrases “contingent on” and “contingent upon,” the OED says, the word means dependent on or upon something else—“some prior occurrence or condition.”

This usage dates from the early 1600s.

Here’s an example from Hamon L’Estrange’s The Reign of King Charles (1654): “In things contingent upon free and voluntary agents, all the Devils in hell can but blunder.”

So by itself, “contingent” means something like “possible.” But combined with “on” or “upon,” it resembles “conditional” or “subject to.”

By using the phrase “contingent on available funding and staffing needs,” you spoke of an occurrence (a hiring) as dependent on two prior conditions: available funding and staffing needs. 

Although your use of “contingent on” is correct here, it strikes us that your department head’s version (“if funding and staffing needs permit”) is more direct and a word shorter to boot.

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Q: As I catch up on missed reading, I see that Anna Fifield, writing in the Financial Times, referred to the “opposing” Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies in Washington on Oct. 30 as essentially “one in the same.” I would have written “one and the same.”

A: You’re right. Anna Fifield should have written “one and the same,” not “one in the same.” The two expressions are not one and the same.

But the Financial Times writer is not alone here. “One in the same” is an extremely common misunderstanding of an expression handed down from ancient times.   

The phrase “one and the same,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “used as a more emphatic form of ‘the same.’ ”

Published examples of its use in English date back to 1531, but it ultimately comes from classical Latin (unus et idem) and an earlier version in Greek.

This example from Newsweek in 2001 is a good illustration of the usage: “The two groups are not one and the same … but their issues often overlap.”

Our guess is that the “and” in the phrase gets contracted in speech. People hear it spoken as “one ’n’ the same,” so they think it ought to be written as “one in the same.”

This reminds us of an ad we clipped from a newspaper years ago. A store was advertising a sale on “Chip ’n’ Dale” furniture.

(The store’s ad manager confused “Chippendale” with Chip and Dale, the Disney cartoon chipmunks.)

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Q: I can’t remember the last time I saw the word “insightful” spelled that way. My correspondents seem to favor “inciteful.” Have you noticed this? Does it drive you crazy? It does me.

A: Yes, we’ve noticed this misspelling, but we don’t see it much among our correspondents. Definitely not enough to drive us crazy.

And “inciteful” isn’t always a misspelling. Although you won’t find the word in standard dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary has an entry that defines it this way: “Liable to rouse to passion; provocative.”

The earliest OED citation is from a 1971 case in the Federal Supplement, a collection of US court opinions:

“The public mutilation of the flag is an act which is likely to elicit a violent response from many who observe such acts. The Supreme Court has clearly recognized the inciteful impact of flag desecration.”

In a more entertaining citation, a 1984 issue of The Listener, a now defunct BBC magazine, refers to the provocative Diana Rigg as “terribly sexy and coolly inciteful.”

By the way, “insightful” isn’t all that much older than “inciteful.”

The first citation in the OED is from The Country House, a 1907 novel by John Galsworthy: “As if she had been guilty of thoughts too insightful, Mrs Pendyce blushed.”

One final comment on this “inciteful/insightful” business. Some googling suggests that many of the people who use “inciteful” are using it correctly. Perhaps these two words will sort themselves out over time.

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Q: A few years ago, I was watching a “Tom and Jerry” cartoon with my kids, when one of the characters serenaded his girlfriend by singing, “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?” My little girl, Marcia, responded, “Yes, I is.” Where does this expression come from? Is it idiomatic? Regional? Colloquial? Archaic?

A: The immortal question “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?” can’t be labeled idiomatic or regional or colloquial or archaic.

It’s a song lyric that might be described as humorous dialect, specifically jazzy black slang exaggerated for comic effect.

The song “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” didn’t originate with that Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

It was written in 1944 by Billy Austin and Louis Jordan for the movie Follow the Boys.

In the “Tom and Jerry” cartoon you refer to, it’s sung by Tom (the cat) to one of his many love interests.

The cartoon, entitled “Solid Serenade,” was a “Tom and Jerry” short made for theatrical release in 1946. And it enjoyed a long life on television in later years.

Tom wasn’t the only vocalist to record the song. It’s a standard of classic jazz, and has been performed by dozens of artists, black and white, including B. B. King, Bing Crosby, Nat “King” Cole, Dinah Washington, and Diana Krall.

The  lyrics are slightly different depending on which version you listen to, but here’s one verse:

Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?
The way you’re actin’ lately makes me doubt.
Youse is still my baby-baby.
Seems my flame in your heart’s done gone out.

It should be noted that the question “Is you is or is you ain’t?” had been recorded in writing a generation or so before the song appeared.

It occurs more than once in the comic detective fiction of the Southern white writer Octavus Roy Cohen. His stories are populated by black characters—perhaps “caricatures” is a better word—including a private eye named Florian Slappey, from “Bumminham,” Alabama.

In “Chocolate Grudge,” a story published in the collection Assorted Chocolates (1922), an angry creditor says to Florian, “Well then, I asts you: Is you is or is you  ain’t?”

And in “Horns Aplenty,” published in Florian Slappey Goes Abroad (1928), one jazz musician says to another, “I asks you: Is you is or is you ain’t?”

We’ve given the dates the stories appeared in books. But both were originally published in the Saturday Evening Post, in 1921 and 1926, respectively.

Cohen’s stories, with their exaggerated black dialect and stereotypical characters, would undoubtedly be considered insensitive today.

Not surprisingly, during the 1940s he briefly wrote for the radio series Amos ’n’ Andy.

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Q: I use “get one’s hands dirty” in reference to the grime from hard work, and “dirty one’s hands” in reference to dishonest activity. But some dictionaries say the two expressions can be used interchangeably. Your thoughts?

A: Both of the expressions you mention—“get one’s hands dirty” and “dirty one’s hands”—can be used literally or figuratively.

They can imply either that soap and water are called for or that something unsavory is going on. There’s good, honest dirt, but there’s also the metaphorical kind.

The verb “dirty” means to soil, and the adjective “dirty” means unclean. For centuries, both words have been used figuratively as well as literally.

Both are derived from the noun “dirt,” which showed up in English around 1300, probably adapted from the Old Norse drit (excrement), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The adjective “dirty” came into English in the early 1500s and the verb followed in the late 1500s. When the words were first used, they were meant literally.

But figurative usages soon followed, so that the adjective also meant morally unclean or dishonorable, and the verb also meant to make morally unclean or dishonorable.

The adjective later took on other figurative meanings: unsportsmanlike (as in “a dirty tackle”), unpleasant (“a dirty job”), regrettable (“a dirty shame”), hateful (“dirty politics”), and so on.

In short, you can “dirty your hands” or “get your hands dirty” either by happily working in the garden or by doing something less pleasant.

But if you prefer to use one expression figuratively and the other literally, that’s up to you.

The noun “dirt,” as you know, can also be used both literally and figuratively. A child can eat dirt literally and an adult apologizing for a lapse can eat it figuratively.

And, of course, anyone who loves gossip can “dish the dirt,” an expression that the OED cites from P. G. Wodehouse’s 1964 novel Frozen Assets: “He thinks you fall short in the way of dishing the dirt.”

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Q: For me, “industry” means heavy manufacturing—autos, steel—big, noisy machines and lots of sparks. But the term is now used for any type of business: insurance, medicine, even nursing. I think this destroys a useful distinction. How say you?

A: We had a question over the summer from someone who was working on a public-health paper and wondered about the term “medical industry.”

Somehow our answer fell through the cracks and never made it onto the blog. This gives us a chance to make up for that omission.

Here’s how we answered the original question, more or less. We think this will answer your question as well. 

The term “industry” is often used in ways that are not … well … industrial.

In fact, when it entered English in the 15th century, the word meant skill, cleverness, or diligence in the performance of some craft or task.

In its entry for “industry,” the OED says the noun is sometimes preceded by “a personal name or the like” to refer to scholarly or diligent work on a particular subject, as well as the practice of a profitable occupation.

Examples given are “Pindar industry” (1965), “Shakespeare industry” (1966), “Joyce industry” (1969), and “abortion industry” (1969).

The specific phrase “medical industry” doesn’t appear in the Oxford English Dictionary.

But a search of the New York Times archive shows that the phrase first appeared in the newspaper in the 1920s.

As far as we can tell, however, it wasn’t used in a general way—to include medical practitioners—for another 40 years. And it certainly had no pejorative meaning in early usage, as it sometimes does now.

On April 17, 1923, which was during the Prohibition era, the Times quoted an official of the American Drug Manufacturers Association as saying alcohol is “absolutely essential in the manufacture of medicine.”

“The legitimate industry, including the medical industry, which uses alcohol and depends upon it, are very much alarmed at the attitude of the Federal Prohibition Commission,” the official added.

By “medical industry,” did he mean physicians and hospitals, or drug makers? Probably the latter

The next citation is from a May 17, 1945, article about conditions in Germany after the surrender: “It is hoped that enough medical supplies can be provided from Germany’s large medical industry to take care of the people’s needs, the general added.”

Here again, the reference was to supplies rather than medical treatment, and by “medical industry” the writer probably meant the drug industry.

The next three entries (from 1946, 1948, and 1950) refer to the Soviet Union, where the Ministry of the Medical Industry, which became a separate department in the 1960s, oversaw the production of medicines and instruments.

In 1964, the Times ran a story about a man whose work was “designing electronic equipment for the medical industry.” Again, this could be a reference to the equipment manufacturers rather than to physicians.

The first Times citation we can find that uses “medical industry” to include medical treatment appeared on April 4, 1965.

In a letter to the editor of the Book Review section, the author William Michelfelder wrote, “I spent nearly 10 years writing about the medical industry before writing ‘Cheaper to Die.’ ”

Later the phrase became more common—and more critical, perhaps helped along by books (like Michelfelder’s) criticizing the medical industry.

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Q: I think it’s unnatural and pretentious when radio personalities say “on this date in history,” rather “on this day in history.” Would you please let me know the history if this construction and your feelings about it.

A: Common usage seems to be on your side. Both “this day in history” and “today in history” are far more popular than “this date in history,” judging from a few Google searches.

Unfortunately, we can’t provide an authoritative history of these three constructions, but we can speculate about them.

The Oxford English Dictionary has only one example, and it’s of the “date” version.

It comes from Anthony Burgess’s novel Time for a Tiger (1956): “One dribbling patient was able to state the precise day of the week for any given date in history.”

Our guess is that some people say “this date in history” rather than “this day in history” because it’s more precise. To them, “this date” implies a month and a number (say, Dec. 11).

“Date” clearly has a narrower meaning in the OED, where its use in reference to a point in time is defined as “the precise time at which anything takes place or is to take place.” 

But “day,” when used in a roughly similar way, has many more definitions in the OED.

It can mean, for example, “a fixed date,” or “a specified or appointed day.”

It can also mean “a specific period of twenty-four hours, the whole or part of which is assigned to some particular purpose, observance, or action, or which is the date or anniversary of some event.”

It can even be used vaguely, as in “Shakespeare’s day,” “this day and age,” “the present day,” “those were the days,” and so on.

We’ve mentioned only a few of the many usages given in the OED.

But clearly, “day” can sometimes be used in place of “date.” So if you prefer “this day in history,” be our guest.

But we happen to think that “this date in history,” though less popular, is more precise and just as good.

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Q: Why do so many people mistakenly insert “of” in the name of the NY agency that runs tunnels, bridges, and airports? And is there a term for using “of” where it has no right to be?

A: If there’s a term for sticking “of” where it doesn’t belong, we’re not aware of it.

But we too have noticed that many people say and write the “Port of Authority” instead of the “Port Authority.”

Our guess is that the people who incorrectly insert “of” here are influenced by such phrases as “the Port of New York” and “the Port of New Jersey.”

Another reason might be that the agency’s full name does indeed contain “of.” In full, it’s the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

By the way, the agency was called the Port of New York Authority when the two states created it in 1921. So “of” originally followed “Port,” not “Authority.”

A reader of the blog suggests that’s why “the authority’s name was sometimes (and mainly orally) shortened to ‘the Port of Authority’ by some New Yorkers in the past and to this day.”

It wasn’t until 1972 that New Jersey joined New York in the authority’s name, and the preposition moved to its present place: the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Why “authority” rather than agency, office, department, or whatever?

“The name was borrowed from the British,” Julius Henry Cohen writes in They Builded Better Than They Knew (1946), a book about the people responsible for the building of New York.

Cohen, a lawyer who helped draft the compact establishing the Port Authority, says the name was influenced by that of the Port of London Authority in Britain.

In case you’re wondering, the word “authority” entered English in the late 1300s, borrowed from the French autorité, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

It initially referred to the “power to enforce obedience,” and didn’t come to mean “the body of persons exercising power” until the early 1600s.

[Note: The post was updated on June 5, 2017.}

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Q: Do you “reshelf” or “reshelve” a book in the library?

A: You “reshelve” a book, though you won’t find the word in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) or Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

That’s because dictionary editors have to pick and choose to keep the number of words at a manageable level, and not every word with a “re-” prefix makes the cut.

We did, however, find “reshelve” in the king-size Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged.

And all the standard dictionaries we checked have entries for “shelve” as a verb and “shelf” as a noun.

So you’d better shelve “reshelf” and use “reshelve” when you’re talking about returning a book to its proper place in the library.

Interestingly, the Oxford English Dictionary has entries for both “shelve” and “shelf” as verbs meaning to put on a shelf.

But “shelve” is by far the older verb, dating from 1655, and “shelf” has been used only figuratively in the sense of putting something aside or forcing someone into retirement.

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Q: Is “societal” a word? I much prefer “social.”

A: Yes, “societal” is a legitimate adjective. It’s been in use since 1843, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Here’s the first recorded use in print, from Hints and Reflections for Rail Travellers and Others, by an author calling himself (no doubt pseudonymously) Minor Hugo:

“Our monetary system, like that of trade, or any other societal occupation, is unfair from first to last.” (More about this book later.)

The OED defines “societal” as meaning “of or relating to society.” The word combines the noun “society” and the adjectival suffix “al.”

But why did Minor Hugo bother to coin the word “societal”? How was it an improvement on “social”?

After all, the adjective “social” had had the same meaning (“of or relating to society”) since 1579, the OED says.

We’re guessing that “societal” appealed to that 19th-century writer because “social” had so many other meanings besides.

“Social” entered English in the late 1300s from Middle French, where social meant “allied militarily,” according to the OED.

The English adjective started out as “designating a war fought between allies,” the OED says. (In this respect it resembled the word “civil” as used in the phrase “civil war.”)

But early on, “social” had friendlier overtones. This was only natural, since it came from the Latin noun socius, meaning an ally, companion, comrade, etc.

(In the 1400s, English acquired an identical noun, “socius,” with the same meaning: companion, associate, or colleague. It’s still used today, and the plural is “socii.”)

By the 1400s, according to the OED, “social” meant “devoted to home life; domestic.”

And from the 1500s onward, its senses blossomed in many directions.

It could mean “of or relating to society,” or specifically “high society.”

But it also had the sense of “sociable”—that is, agreeable, companionable, living or associating with others, characterized by friendly interaction.

It also took on more neutral meanings having to do with groups or communities, whether of humans or animals or even plants found together.

Perhaps those who first used “societal” felt they needed a more purely human, neutral term. 

Which brings us back to Minor Hugo’s book, Hints and Reflections for Rail Travellers and Others. In the mid-19th century, when it was published, reviewers were a vicious lot.

Here’s how an anonymous reviewer in a London journal, The Monthly Review of December 1843, summed up poor Mr. Hugo’s effort:

“Trash! vile, irredeemable trash! nonsense so staringly idiotic, so inconceivably absurd, that the reader, wherever he may open the book, will be prompted to exclaim, (‘more in sorrow than in anger’) Alas! has this poor unfortunate no friends who can feel for his miserable situation, and who possess sufficient means to place him in some comparative retirement, where, under a competent degree of discipline and sanatory treatment, his mind might, perhaps, be so far relieved from its present disordered condition, as to afford him a sufficing glimpse of the ‘chaotic obscure’—the dark, waste, and inculturable region presented by his narrow and infirm intellect—and thereby dissuade him from any future attempt to advertise the public of his melancholy state of imbecility.”

That’s just the beginning. It goes on for page after page. Now there’s a tough reviewer! We might even call him antisocial.

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Q: What’s up with the all-purpose term “monger”? A fishmonger sells fish, a warmonger stirs up war, a gossipmonger indulges in gossip, a whoremonger patronizes prostitutes. If one were simply to “mong,” what would one be doing?

A: The word “monger” is a favorite of ours, so we’re glad to have an excuse for writing about it.

In modern times, it can refer to a dealer in some commodity (an “ironmonger,” for example), a person who engages in something undesirable (a “scandalmonger”), or one who stirs up something disreputable (a “warmonger”).

The word is ancient, dating back to early Old English. It has roots in the Latin mongo (a dealer or trader), and has cousins in Old Saxon, Old Icelandic, and other Germanic sources.

Its original meaning, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was “merchant, trader, dealer, or trafficker (freq. of a specified commodity).”

So, for example, a fish seller might have been called “a monger of fish.”

From about the 16th century, the OED says, “monger” also acquired a derogatory meaning: “a person engaged in a petty or disreputable trade or traffic.”

In fact, in the 17th and 18th centuries “monger” was frequently short for “whoremonger,” one who buys the services of whores. So the “monger” wasn’t always the one doing the selling!

But a “monger” is usually peddling something, and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) says a “whoremonger” is one who either buys or sells the services of a prostitute.

The OED says the term by itself is “sometimes short for an established compound such as cheesemonger … where the context makes this clear.” 

Citations for the use of “monger” alone extend well into the 20th century.

In a couple of examples from British journalism, the OED cites references to “fruit one knew from the monger’s stall” (1925), and to “bulletin boards as mongers of pornography and pirate software” (1995).

We see “monger” more frequently, however, as part of a compound, like “ironmonger,” which has been around since the 14th century.

Some other examples in the OED include “fishmonger,” a 15th-century coinage, and “costermonger,” a 16th-century word for a fruit seller (from “costard,” an old word for an apple).

Modern usages (often hyphenated) are contemptuous for the most part: “rumor-monger,” “scandal-monger,” “fashion-monger,” “scare-monger,” “fad-monger,” and so on.

These mongers are peddlers or distributors or promoters of something, though they may not always do it for money.

You asked what one would be doing if one were simply to mong. Well, there is such a verb, and we’ve had it since Anglo-Saxon days.

The verb “mong,” according to the OED, means to barter or trade in something, chiefly to trade or spread gossip, rumors, and so on.

We don’t see it much these days, and when we do, it’s often used in a comical way, as in this 1949 example from Ogden Nash: “These editorial scandalmongers have to mong scandal.”

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