March 2003 Archives
Pleasant Conversation: eutrapely; persifleur/persiflage/quiz; causerie/causeur/causeuse; phatic; subtlist/subtilism; birkie; bridgebuilder
Epi- Words: epigone; epicenter; epicure; epicene; epiphany; epicrisis; epithet
A Hodge-Podge of Reduplicatives: higgledy-piggledy; niminy-piminy; namby-pamby; tuppenny-ha'penny; jiggery-pokery; hunky-dory; hugger-mugger
Words of the War: billet; cadre; frag; hydrophobic; inveigh; hubris; atavistic
Pleasant Conversation (Week of March 3, 2003)
eutrapely pleasantness in conversation, one
of the seven moral virtues that Aristotle enumerated. In the New Testament this
word was used to mean 'reprehensible levity of speech'.
The are few quotations available other than from
reviews of the book, by Erin McKean, in which I found this word.
This week we'll feature pleasant conversationalists. Sadly, fewer words are available for pleasant conversationalists than for unpleasant ones -- so do feel free to supplement our offerings.
(A reader asks: "Where, in the N.T. would I look to find 'eutrapely'?" An excellent question. My source is the book Weird and Wonderful Words by Erin McKean, of OED, which says that 'eutrapely' is so used but gives no cite. I'll e-mail her a note.)
persifleur one who indulges in persiflage;
a banterer; a quiz
(persiflage light teasing; good natured or
frivolous talk)
(quiz [in this sense] chiefly British
to poke fun at; mock)
This sense of 'quiz' seems negative, although 'persiflage' does not. Can our brits comment on whether 'quiz' is negative, and if so perhaps used to have a different overtone?
A raven sat upon a tree,
And not a word he spoke, for
His beak contained a piece of Brie.
Or, maybe it was Roquefort.
We'll make it any kind you please --
At all events it was a cheese.
Beneath the tree's umbrageous limb
A hungry fox sat smiling;
He saw the raven watching him,
And spoke in words beguiling:
"J'admire," said he, "ton beau plumage!"
(The which was simply persiflage.)
- Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven (a
retelling of Aesop's fable)
causerie informal discussion or chat,
especially of an intellectual nature (also, a chatty piece of writing)
causeur an easy talker, frequently witty,
plesant to hear
causeuse formerly meant a female version of the same; now means a small cozy sofa for two people to have a long chat
Until recently, the history of art, particularly that of literature, has
had more in common with causerie than with scholarship. It obeyed
all the laws of causerie, skipping blithely from topic to topic,
from lyrical effusions on the elegance of forms to anecdotes from the artist's
life, from psychological truisms to questions concerning philosophical
significance and social environment.
Roman Jakobson, On Realism and Art, (1921; translated), reprinted in Context
on-line forum of literary criticism
"How are you? Lovely day, isn't it?"
(smile; nod of head) We're familiar with talk and gesture that, though it
doesn't really communicate anything, is the social lubricant to maintain our
channels of communication. But the word for this familiar phenomenon hasn't
entered everyday vocabulary.
phatic relating to speech used to share feelings
or to establish a sociable mood, rather than to communicate information or
ideas
English on-line
explains: [The term was coined] by [Bronisław]
Malinowski [1923], the anthropologist who studied the speech and customs of the
Trobriand Islanders. He described such talk as a means by which 'ties of union
are created by the mere exchange of words.' Typically, in
For example:
Don't tell your friends about your indigestion.
"How are you?" is a greeting, not a question.
(apparently Arthur Guiterman, but sometimes attributed to Robert Benchley)
A reader notes with surprise that according to AHD, phatic, emphasize and empathy come from three different roots:
phatic: Greek phatos, phanai = spoken, to speak: e.g., aphasia: partial or total inability to speak or to comprehend speeh
emphasis: Greek phainein, to show
empathy: -pathy, feeling,
suffering, perception (e.g., telepathy), from Greek -patheia, pathos
When I adopted this 'pleasant conversation' theme, several of my seven words came from a single compilation-book. But now, a check of OED reveals that one is not recognized, two others are not necessarily pleasant, and still others are pleasant but not necessarily conversation.
It's a sad thought that I can only find two words
for pleasant conversation plus an obscure Aristotelian word and a technical
20th-century coinage. So for the rest of the week, we'll stretch the scope of
this theme just a bit.
subtlist (also subtilist) one addicted to subtleties
subtilism the quality or state of being
subtle; subtlety
Not necessarily a positive word.
The rude,
discursive Thinker is the Scholastic (Schoolman Logician). The true Scholastic
is a mystical Subtlist; out of logical Atoms he builds his
Universe; he annihilates all living Nature, to put an Artifice of Thoughts (Gedankenkunststuck,
literally Conjuror's-trick of Thoughts) in its room. His aim is an infinite
Automaton. Opposite to him is the rude, intuitive Poet ...
- Thomas
Carlyle, 1829, discussing and quoting Novalis (pseudonym of Friedrich von
Hardenberg). I glean that Novalis wrote in German, and Carlyle is quoting a
translation.
birkie a lively, engaging, intelligent
clean-cut, confident person
So says J.N. Hook's The Grand Panjandrum, saying
that English ought to adopt this Scottish word. In fact it is already in our
English dictionaries, but with oddly varying definitions.
- a man, especially one who is spirited and
energetic (AHD)
- a lively smart assertive person (Webst. Coll.)
- a lively or mettlesome fellow (Webster's Rev.
Unabridged)
- a strutting or swaggering fellow (Chambers Dict.,
as cited in World Wide Words)
- a smart fellow, a conceited fellow, or a
sharp-tongued, quick tempered person, usually a woman (on-line source)
I'd like to take it as a complimentary term. Here are some usages, some of them complimentary:
Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that.
- Robert Burns, A Man's A Man For A' That (ca'd = called; coof =
fool)
LADY KATE: It was at a tournament at Langholm. I was seated in the grandstand
alang wi' umpteen ither lassies. Effie was beside me. She was my personal maid
then. There he was, this young birkie, aboot tae ride in
the lists, astride a muckle grey horse. I'd never seen sic a braw handsome
figure.
from Brodie the Broadsword by Alan Richardson, Winner of the 1975 SCDA
Playwriting Competition
And this young birkie here, that ye're hoying and hounding on the
shortest road to the gallows and the deevil, will his stage-plays and his
poetries help him here, dye think.
Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy, ch. 23
bridgebuilder a peacemaker; an arbirator;
one who seeks to help opposing sides understtand each others positions, and to
reconcile their differences
The word could have broader use. It appears largely in the religious context and into the bafflegab of government-body mission statements.
The vivacious non-denominational minister acts as a bridgebuilder
between orthodoxy and new thought, between religions, races and languages.
Janet Heard, From pink to wed; The 'rebel' preacher who's in demand,
Sunday Times (South Africa) 17 October 1999
ISPO, the Information Society Promotion Office of the [European] Commission,
acts as a bridgebuilder between the Commission and the many European counterparts ...
Website of the European Commission's Information Society
Epi- Words (Week of March 10, 2003)
This week we'll explore words using the Greek prefix
epi-.
epigone a second-rate imitator or follower
(especially of a writer, artist or musician)
Pronounced with three syllables; the 'e' at the end
is silent.
The Epigonoi were the sons of the Seven
against
This patronizing habit of writing off Clare as an unsophisticated epigone
began in his own lifetime -- indeed, to judge by the facts of that life, any
dutiful gradgrind would have concluded that Clare couldn't
possibly have amounted to much of a poet at all.
David Barber, in The Atlantic on line, Dec. 9, 1999, on poet John
Clare (1793-1864)
From 1883 to 1892, during Winston's formative schooldays, Winston was his
father's epigone, pasting press cuttings and cartoons of Lord
Randolph in scrapbooks.
Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel, republished within The Winston
Churchill Home Page (original publication unclear)
A reader notes: A better reference would be to the Greek epνgonos '(one) born afterwards'.
epicenter the focal point, especially of a
crisis (originally, the point of the earth's surface directly above the focus
of an earthquake)
AHD's usage experts strongly approve the figurative use as focal point, in dangerous, destructive, or negative contexts. Approval is lower when the context is neutral or positive. Compare these two illustrative quotes:
Al-Qaida has changed, but it's still at the epicenter of
anti-Western terrorism.
Paul Haven, Associated Press, 3/6/2003
How did
Business Week, August 25, 1997
The term is also used specifically as the focal point from which a disease spreads:
"According to the patients they all ate
in the restaurant, which has been pinpointed as the epicenter for
the disease." People's Daily Online (
Time has been kind to today's word.
The greek philosopher Epicurus taught that pleasure
is the highest good, to which life should be devoted, and that virtue is the
greatest pleasure. Subsequent generations adopted the first precept and forgot
the second, so that 'epicure' became a pejorative word meaning for 'one who
gives himself up to sensual pleasure', especially the pleasures of food and
sex.
But in our time the word, cleaned up, applies to
fine dining. The earlier pejorative meaning still is valid, but is secondary.
epicure one with refined taste, especially in food and wine. (With a sense of "over-refined'; contrast 'gourmet')
An epicure dining at
Once found quite a large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter, "Don't shout
And wave it about,
Or the rest will be wanting one too."
epicene having characteristics of both the
male and the female, as an epicene angel
Also, in linguistics, a word having the same form
for both male and female. AHD discusses the effort to create epicene
pronouns, such as s/he and hisser.
This word, like 'epicure', has been cleaned up over time. The sources say it stems from Greek epikoinos 'common to many; promiscuous'. Considering the current definition, my guess is that this is another of the many cases where lexicographers are coy about sexual matters, and that 'promiscuous' is their euphemism for 'bisexual'.
What about Beckham's nail varnish?" growled Dennis Skinner, a
reference to the pink fingernails sported by
Simon Hoggart, At the end of the day, they were clutching at balls,
The Guardian, July 9, 2002
He has a clear-eyed, epicene handsomeness -- cruel, sensuous
mouth; cheekbones to cut your heart on -- the sort of excessive beauty that is
best appreciated in repose on a 50-foot screen.
Franz Lidz, Jude Law: He Didn't Turn Out Obscure at All, New York
Times, May 13, 2001 (thanks to dictionary.com)
epiphany a usually sudden manifestation or
perception of the essential nature or meaning of something
Originally (as I understand it), an appearance or
manifestation, especially of a divine being. The Christian Church used the term
as referance to the advent of Christ.
from Greek for "manifest, conspicuous," which comes for from epi- = on, to + phainein = to show
The heroine experiences a bizarre epiphany while strolling
on the shore: she comes to see a dying, beached whale as a symbol of her own
mismanaged lie, and she begs, with a nearly religious fervor, that it (and
presumably she) might be granted a second chance.
Marianne Wiggins, reviewing in the New York Times, August 19, 1987
These small epiphanies are what I've come to think of as Eureka
Moments, those times when all doubt melts away and a parent becomes certain she
has discovered the perfect preschool for her child.
Mona Behan, in Parenting, September 1995
Epicrisis is one of those unusual words which
has two different pronunciations, with two different meanings.
epic΄risis a detailed critical study
or evaluation (some sources add 'of a literary work')
(accent on second syllable)
ep΄icri΄sis medical: a
secondary crisis; one following the primary of a disease
(accent on first syllable; secondary accent on the penultimate [= next to last])
A word with interesting variations The sources give three
related meanings, which I list from narrowest to broadest. I'd think the first
sense is the generally understood one, and that the last, broadest sense is
completely obscure -- but I should admit that the sources neither confirm nor
reject that thought.
epithet a smear-name:
--- "He used the epithet 'communist' for
everyone who disagreed with him."
--- "There is no place for racial epithets
in a police officer's vocabulary."
AHD notes: "Strictly speaking, an epithet need
not be derogatory, but the term is commonly used as a simple synonym for term
of abuse or slur. Which leads us to the more general meaning;
epithet (more generally) a characterzing adjective or substitute-name, positive or negative:
--- Catherine the Great (adjective); The Great
Emancipator for Abraham Lincoln.
Basically, a name "added on". We see this
in the etymology: from Greek epithetos "attributed, added,"
from epi- "in addition" + tithenai "to put."
epithet (most generally but, I'd say, quite rare) an adjective naming some particularly appropriate quality: a just man; a verdant lawn.
A Hodge-Podge of Reduplicatives (Week
of March 17, 2003)
Phrases like "hanky-panky', 'legal eagle' and
'culture vulture' (and 'hodge-podge', which we'll take up later this week) are
called reduplicatives, and many of them have an amusing,
sardonic twinge. Out of the plethora of reduplicatives, we'll cherry-pick some
special ones. Some have interesting histories; others, in honor of the current
"Double Dactyl" thread on or board, are the rare gems that that pair
three-syllable words.
higgledy-piggledy in utter disorder or
confusion.
In the controversy that raged when
Labour voting [in 1983] was tested to destruction by a higgledy-piggledy,
amateur, undisciplined rabble of a campaign that put forward hundreds of wild
policies.
The Observer, Sunday May 20, 2001
Sarah Crown, in The Guardian, November 20, 2002
As to etymology, take your choice between two
theories of how today's word arose.
Etymology on-line:
"1598, probably formed from pig and the animal's suggestions of
mess and disorder."
Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898): "A higgler is a pedlar whose stores are all huddled together. Higgledy means after the fashion of a higglers basket; and piggledy is a ricochet word suggested by litter; as, a pigs litter."
niminy-piminy affectedly delicate or refined; mincing
Early in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Jo
makes a perfect and characteristically blunt use of the term:
I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits! Jo
Gilbert and Sullivan used an alternate form in Patience and in The Grand Duke.
A most intense young man, / A soulful-eyed young man,
An ultra-poetical, super-aesthetical, / Out-of-the-way young man!
A Japanese young man - / A blue-and-white young man -
Francesca di Rimini, miminy, piminy, / Je-ne-sais-quoi
young man!
Gilbert And Sullivan, Patience ('Blue-and-white' is probably a
reference to blue and white china.)
Jack Straw make a statement most of which was loudly cheered by the Tories, and
by nobody else at all. "The vandals desecrated the Cenotaph and defaced
the statue of Sir Winston Churchill ..." said Mr Straw in that faintly
nerdy, niminy-piminy voice he adopts for the most serious
matters.
Simon Hoggart, in The Guardian, May 3, 2000
namby-pamby weak, foolish or silly: She
probably regarded us as a bunch of namby-pamby liberals.
AHD gives the origin from Ambrose Philips, a little-known poet whose verse incurred the sharp ridicule of his contemporaries Alexander Pope and Henry Carey. In poking fun at some children's verse written by Philips, Carey used the nickname Namby Pamby: "So the Nurses get by Heart Namby Pamby's Little Rhimes." Pope then used the name in the 1733 edition of his satirical epic The Dunciad. The first part of Carey's coinage came from Amby = Ambrose; 'pamby' repeated the sound with the initial of Philips's name.
tuppenny-ha'penny British slang for anything inferior and trivial
The issue that we are discussing and which we should like to debate next
week is the fact that we can pass an Act of Parliament about fundamental issues
and next week any tuppenny ha'penny court in the land -- I do not
mean that pejoratively -- can kick it into touch, send it across to the
European Court and, however long it takes the European Court, the decision of
this House and this Parliament is thrown into abeyance.
Mr. Tony Marlow, House of Commons Debates, June 21, 1990
jiggery-pokery some sources say "underhand scheming or behavior". Others say it must be dishonesty in words: "verbal misrepresentation intended to take advantage of you in some way".
Probably alteration of Scots joukery-pawkery, from jouk to dodge, cheat + pawk trick, wile. Think of it as a "cheating trick".
Before 1993, records were not routinely kept by British police forces of
complaints about or recorded incidents of domestic violence. The true extent of
"wife battering" was, therefore, an open field for speculation,
guesswork and statistical jiggery-pokery.
Neil Lyndon and Paul Ashton, Knocked for six: the myth of a nation
of wife-batterers, The Sunday Times of London, Jan. 29, 1995
hunky-dory (slang or informal)
perfectly satisfactory; fine
Wordcrafter note: This would refer to a situation,
not a thing. Thus you might say, "Nobody's angry; everything's hunky-dory,"
but not, "This portrait is a hunky-dory likeness."
An interesting etymology:
1866, Amer.Eng., popularized c.1870 by a Christy
Minstrel song.
- perhaps a reduplication of hunkey "all
right, satisfactory" (1861), from hunk "in a safe
position" (1847)
- A theory from 1876, however, traces it to Honcho
dori, said to be a street in
- I gather that Hunkidori was the name of a breath freshener introduced in 1868.
Warning: I have some trouble defining this one. Some
sources emphasize on aspect, some the other.
hugger-mugger 1. secrecy; concealment (adj. clandestine)
2. disorderly confusion; muddle (adj. disorderly;
jumbled)
one-look says, "ritual
accompanied by complicated and purposeless activity that obscures and confuses:
He engaged in the hugger-mugger of international finance."
The origin of hugger-mugger is also secret and confused. Perhaps from Anglo-Irish cuggermugger, a whispered gossiping, cogair, whisper. Perhaps from Scot. huggrie-muggrie; from hugger = to lie in ambush, mug = mist, muggard = sullen.
In this confusion we turn to the ultimate authority, whose thoughts seem appropriate in this time of war. Shakespeare, Hamlet IV.5; King Claudius speaking:
... O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain:
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment
Words of the War (Week of March 24, 2003)
We live in remarkable times at the moment, and our words
this week are taken from the press coverage of the military events in
billet noun lodging for soldiers, or
an order for their lodging; verb to provide housing for soldiers
cadre a nucleus of traind personnel around which a larger organization can be built. Typically used for a military or political group
A local contact told me that Saddam Hussein ... has also forcibly billeted
troops and loyalist cadres in civilian homes in readiness for
street fighting.
Melik Kaylas, Beware of the Kurds, Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2003
frag; fragging to wound or kill a fellow
soldier by a grenade or similar explosive.
from frag, slang for fragmentation grenade
I understand this as limited to victimizing your fellow soldier, deliberately, and not covering accidents, or attacks on the enemy. But perhaps I'm mistaken:
The depressing neweekend news -- a firefight that caught our troops
here, the American POWs there, the fragging of U.S. troops
apparently by one of their own -- are all real things that happpened. But while
the camera can record them accurately, the one thing it cannot do is provide
the larger perspective.
Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2003
An unfamiliar meaning of a familiar word:
Sharon
Begley, Burning Oil Wells May Be Less Damaging Than First Thought, Wall
Street Journal, March 21, 2003 (excerpted):
As Iraqi forces blew up an estimated 732 Kuwaiti oil wells at the end of
the 1991 Gulf War, some scientists warned that the infernos could produce a
pall of black soot that would reach the stratosphere, circle the planet and
remain aloft long enough to trigger a mini-nuclear winter. Because oily
droplets are hydrophobic (they don't mix with water),
worst-case models predicted the smoke plumes would be immune to "cloud
scavenging," or removal by precipitation.
Fortunately, "because of all the salt and sulfur in the plumes,
many of the particles acted like cloud-condensation nuclei, which seed the
formation of raindrops when they encounter a cloud."
inveigh to attack with harsh criticism or reproach
hubris overbearing pride or presumption
Inveighing against
the president's commitment to mounting "a massive democratic revolution
throughout the Arab world," Gary Hart writes, "The extravagance, not
to say arrogance, of this epic undertaking is sufficiently breathtaking in its hubris
to make Woodrow Wilson blush."
We end this theme with an overall reflection.
atavistic from atavism: the return of a trait or behavior after a period of absence; throwback
... an age-old reminder about the reality of war. Under the armor there
is still only the body, the flesh and blood and sinew of young soldiers. It
makes no difference whether that armor is the shield of an ancient Greek
soldier or the electornics jamming of a modern attach aircraft. A small cluster
of young men gathered around their howitzer still look [sic] much as
they did even in WordWar II.
There
is a far more atavistic element playing out in this war as well.
New York Times editorial, March 29, 2003