May 2007 Archives
More Game/Sport Words: crapshoot, debonair, bandy-legged, well-heeled,
stymie, screwball, hat trick
Words of the Theater: greenroom, claque, proscenium (terrane), histrionic,
wing it, dramaturg
Words from Arabic: hagira, loofah, minaret (masjid), giaour, dura mater (pia mater, arachnoid mater, meninges), feinghee, kismet
2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee: coryza, Schuhplattler, tournure, genizah,
punaise, Belial, calenture
More Game/Sport Words
Last
week we presented words used in games and sports. This week we'll see some
words of broader use that originate in the game/sport worlds.
crapshoot a risky enterprise
If you've knit for a three-year-old, then
you understand. Just because he says he wants purple mittens, and you believe
you have knit purple mittens, there is no reason to believe that the
three-year-old in question will believe that these are indeed purple mittens.
It's a total crapshoot.
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too
Much
From medieval French falconry. Hawks of the best
temperament, pound and noble, were said to be de bonnne air, "of
good air".
debonair pleasant and affable in outward
manner or address
My thesis title was "Oliver St. John
Gogarty: A Critical Study." ... I chose Gogarty
because of my admiration for him. If I read him and wrote about him, some of
his charm, talent and learning would surely rub off on me. I might develop some
of his flash and dare, his flamboyant air. He was a
- Frank McCourt, Teacher Man: A Memoir
bandy-legged with legs that
curve outward at the knees
[Bandy was a 17c. Irish game, precursor of field
hockey. "Bandy-legged" means "legs curved like the sticks
used in bandy".]
She was a kind of monster, cross-eyed, bandy-legged,
poor in flesh and spirit.
Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People (quoting
Georgette Leblanc, Souvenirs: My Life with Maeterlinck)
Commanding the most aggressive division in this corps was Philip Sheridan, a
small, bandy-legged man whose only distinctions in the prewar
army had been pugnacity and a handlebar mustache. The pugnacity served him well
once the war gave him a chance.
James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
well-heeled well-off
financially
From cock-fighting. A cock equipped with an artificial spur on its foot was
called "heeled". From there, in the
Root's death stunned Burnham, stunned
Erik Larson, The Devil in the
stymie to impede,
obstruct, frustrate, thwart (a person, an activity, or a project)
[From golf, where a stymie is a ball on the putting green that blocks
another player's line between his own ball and the hole.]
The New South Wales Department of Planning
has refused to comment on reports that an endangered flower species could stymie
housing development in the Queanbeyan area. It's understood the
Small Purple
Pea is listed as a threatened species and is known to live in the Queanbeyan
region.
IBN News,
screwball whimsically
eccentric (noun: such a person)
[from an oddly-behaving pitch in baseball, which curves in the opposite
direction of a regular curveball]
Kathryn and Ross Petras' book pulls the
demanding divas, screwball stars and celebu-twits off their
pedestals
Fort Worth Star Telegram,
They are bits of folklore that originated for screwball
reasons
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
hat trick three goals or other major achievement by player in a
sport; hence occasionally, a threefold feat in other activities
[originally from cricket; common in football (soccer) and in ice hockey]
Czech: hattrick (same in Danish, Dutch, Slovak)
Estonian: kόbaratrikk
Finnish: hattutemppu
German: der Hat-Trick
Norwegian: hat trick (same in Polish,and in Portuguese (Brazil), Swedish)
Romanian: hat-trick
Russian: хет-трик
the values
promulgated by today's mass market. Happiness, in their terms, equals wealth,
stardom, and thinness. Since few can achieve this rare hat trick
in life, most people are left unhappy, and that's not right.
Allen Rucker and Michele Scicolone, The
Sopranos Family Cookbook
Words of the Theater
greenroom a waiting room or
lounge for the performers, when they are offstage
You might forget this word, but you'll never forget this story that
Phyllis Diller tells on herself in our second quote!
When we weren't working, we hung out in the
dressing rooms or the greenroom and talked or just gawked at each
other.
Ellen Burstyn, Lessons in Becoming Myself
Early in her career, she and Tony Randall were guests
on a television variety show. Chitchatting in the greenroom
before the show, Randall used a word that was completely unfamilliar to Diller:
fellatio. Not wanting to reveal her lack of sophistication, but well
aware of Randal's classical training as an actor, she said: I haven't read much
Shakespeare.
Mardy Grothe, Viva la Repartee [etc.]
claque 1. a group of people hired to applaud or heckle a performer; a
"rent-a-crowd" 2. a group of
sycophantic followers (esp. in politics)
[from Fr. claquer "to clap"]
Outside the windows
Drumont's claque, paid at forty sous a head, hooted and
jeered.
Barbara Tuchman, The
[Lyndon Baines Johnson] went public only after it was all done, and even then,
when he dealt with the press, he was the private man, calling in a small claque
of reporters whom he knew and trusted.
David Halberstam, The Best and the
Brightest
proscenium an arch framing
the opening between the stage and the auditorium; also called proscenium
arch.
(A secondary meaning of proscenium is "the part of a stage in front
of the curtain".)
Our
second quote makes lovely metaphorical use of proscenium as the
"opening" into the special world presented on stage.
... the curtain
rises to show an actor before an enormous screen, and on either side of the proscenium
other screens light up, flashing ever-changing images from
Andrew Ferguson,
Geologists are inconsistent drivers. When a road-cut presents itself, they tend
to lurch and weave. To them, a road-cut is a portal, a fragment of a regional
story, a proscenium arch that leads their imaginations into the
earth and through the surrounding terrane.
John McPhee, Annals of the Former World
Bonus word (defined by a
reader):
terrane "an accretion that
has collided with a continental nucleus, or 'craton' but can be recognized by
the foreign origin of its rock strata" (from Wikipedia). It's as if the
plate
histrionic theatrical in
style; 'stagey';
hence histrionics exaggerated emotional behavior calculated for
manipulative effect
I suppose all acting is "faking it." Certainly
today's quote, of which I'm fond, concerns "faking it".
I am quite sure that the only things Lois
knew about love was how to spell the word and how to make the physiological
adjustments traditionally associated with the idea. She did not spell very
well, but she made those adjustments with great skill and relish. The relish
was nature, but the skill was art, and ars longa est.
I knew this despite the very expert and sustained histrionics of
which Lois was capable. I knew it, but I succeeded in burying it out in the
back yard of my mind
I didn't really care, I suppose, so long as nothing
happened to make me have to face the fact.
Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men
wing it to attempt a task
without sufficient preparation, and be forced to improvise
A reader points out to me (thanks, Susan!) that this comes from the theater,
where a thespian might be suddenly thrust into a role on short notice, without
time to learn the lines. How does this relates to the
"wings" of a theater? OED's quotes give two different explanations:
the artiste frequently received the assistance of a special prompter
screened
by a piece of the scenery or a wing
refreshing his memory for each scene in the wings before he goes on to play
it
even
Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life
(By
the way, though wing and a prayer might seem related, it is a later
phrase from WWII aviation.)
Theater
companies in continental
Let me see if I can approach the concept:
Dramaturgy can be described as 'preparing
the text for performance'. A dramaturg will normally be involved in detailed
research for the production, bringing an intimate knowledge of the script to
the production process. They will have gathered material that will help the
rest of the production team to understand the piece better ... During the
development of a production the dramaturg
may also be a resource for actors,
designers and technicians... their task is to help the production remain in
line with the original vision
Peter Maccoye, Essentials of Stage Management
A dramaturg is a person with a knowledge of the history, theory, and
practice of theatre, who helps a director, designer, playwright or actor
realize their intentions in a production. The dramaturg
is an in-house
artistic consultant cognizant of an institution's mission, a playwright's
passion, or a director's vision, and who helps bring them all to life in a
theatrically compelling manner.
But to me the best definition is a New Yorker cartoon
where a man in open vest parts the curtain, looks out to the audience, and asks
hopefully, "Is there a doctor of literature in the house?"
Words from Arabic
Arabic
has given us many common, ordinary words, such as apricot, syrup and chemistry, that do
not look particularly Arabic. This week we look at some less-familiar words,
from Arabic, that retain a Middle-Eastern flavor.
Muhammad's flight from
hagira an exodus or departure
Some dictionaries define hegira as a flight to escape danger. t is often used this way (see first quote), but "from
danger" need not be an element (see second quote, perhaps familiar from a
few days ago).
He [Douglas Sirk] left
New Republic,
Invited to write and deliver a poem
, [Bret] Harte had showed up late, his
poem unfinished. He had tried to wing it with some other verse he'd brought
along; the verse was blatantly irrelevant to the occasion, and the press that
had kept track of his great eastward hegira several weeks earlier
pronounced him "A Fizzle."
Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life
loofah a scratchy
bath-sponge, made from the fibrous insides of the fruit of the loofah plant
(seems to be rather popular nowadays)
[from lufah, the name of the plant in Egyptian Arabic (botanical name Luffa
ζgyptiaca)]
Sloughing off dead skin with a loofah
or exfoliating shower gel allows a self-tanner to work on fresh, new skin. Your
tan will look more even and will last longer.
MSNBC, May 25, 2007
The loofah's abrasive texture tones your skin, stimulates
healthy circulation and leaves your skin soft and smooth with a rosy glow.
Greeley (CO) Daily Tribune,
Today's
word comes from Arabic through Turkish. Its cognates in Arabic include manarat
"lighthhouse", manar "candlestick", nar
"fire", a rather nice progression.
minaret a slender tower of a
mosque, with a balcony from which a crier (the muezzin) calls
Muslims to prayer
there is a God,
there has always been. I see Him here, in the eyes of the people in this
corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God,
this is where those who have lost God will find Him, not the white masjid
with its bright diamond lights and minarets.
Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Bonus word:
masjid
a mosque (also musjid)
giaour an infidel; a
non-Muslim, esp. a Christian
[from Persian "fire-worshipper," originally applied Zoroastrians]
In our thought-provoking first quote, where Zorba recalls his youth, the term
is used almost affectionately. But in general it is a term of contempt, as in
the other quotes.
The hodja came to me. 'Listen, young
Roumi,' he said to me. 'Come with me.' 'No,' I said. 'Where d'you want to take
me to?' 'There's a pasha's daughter whos's like spring water. She's waiting for
you in her room. Come, little Roumi!' But I knew that at night they murdered
infidels in the Turkish districts. 'No, I'm not coming,' I said. 'Don't you
fear God, Giaour?' 'Why should I?' 'Because, little Roumi,
he who can sleep with a woman and does not, commits a great sin. My boy, if a
woman calls you to share her bed and you don't go, your soul will be destroyed!
That woman will sigh before God on judgment day, and that woman's sigh, whoever
you may be and whatever your fine deeds, will cast you into Hell!'
Nikos Kazantzakisw Zorba the Greek
You are a usurer and a money-lender. All Armenian
swine are usurers and money-lenders. You unclean giaours are
responsible for the wretchedness of our people.
Franz Werfel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh
The Turks at this day count us no better than of dogs, so they commonly call us
giaours, infidels, miscreants, mave that their main
quarrel and cause of Christian persecution.
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Notice that in the last quote
Carroll did have that misunderstanding, for
whatever reason, and it shows up in his famous poem Jabberwocky. In the
The first stanza appeared in 1855 in
'Misch-Masch', one of the private handwritten magazines Carroll produced for
his brothers and sisters. It was presented in a mock-scholarly way 'as a
curious fragment' under the heading of a 'Stanza of
Anglo-Saxon poetry' and accompanied by a set of pseudo-philological notes and a
'translation': ... GYRE, verb (derived form GYAOUR or GIAOUR,
'a dog'). To scratch like a dog.
dura mater the outermost
membrane (of three) enveloping the brain and spinal cord
Latin loan-translation of Arabic umm al-dimagh as-safiqa, "thick
mother of the brain." Says Klein, "In Arabic, the words 'father,'
'mother,' and 'son' are often used to denote relationships between
things." Wonder if this is where Saddam Hussein got his "Mother of
all Wars".
The dura mater is the toughest and the outermost of three such layers.
The other two are the the arachnoid mater and the pia mater.
The three collecively are called the meninges (singular meninx).
While common for pituitary tumors, surgical
access through the nose is rare for tumors inside the brain because surgeons
must go through the dura mater, the tough membrane that
covers the brain and contains the cerebrospinal fluid.
Like
our recent word giaour, the next term is a usually-contemptuous word for
"someone not of our kind".
feinghee a European (term used in
[from Old French Franc + Arabic. ethnic suffix -i. Why did the r-sound
move so that FRanc became FeRingee? Because the fr- sound is not possible in Arabic.]
The thing stands thus, sahib, and I tell
you this because I know that an oath is binding upon a Feringhee,
and that we may trust you. Had you been a lying Hindoo, though you had sworn by
all the gods in their false temples, your blood would have been upon the knife
and you body in the water.
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, ch. XII
I
had the happy idea of presenting one of my own pistols on the spot to the
Kahn's son
. He shouted with delight, and his eyes shone as he handled the
weapon I was off to a good start.
Then once of the courtiers came forward, and I felt a prickle up my spine as I looked at
him.
"I can kill parrots with a sling," he said. "Are the feringhee
pistols good for anything else?"
Sher Afzul damned his eyes, more or less,
for casting doubt on his fine new weapons, and thrusting one into the fellow's
hand, told him to try his luck. And to my amazement, the brute turned straight
about, drew a bead on one of the slaves working in the garden, and shot him on
the spot.
George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman: A Novel
A reader sent me the following. Based on it, I question whether feinghee
is truly from European Franc (as my sources state) rather than from
hingi rang.
'rang' is colour in
hindi/hindustani and phirangi means roughly some one of a different colour
literally. it is still used in hindi with a whiff of
the pejorative. but it is interesting that europeans
(white) were called franks by the turks. iam not sure
if rang is of sanskrit origin or it came to hindi by way of arabic. will check on that. the sound is
phir not phr which is most def. skt
kismet fate; fortune;
destiny
[from Arabic qisma, portion, lot, from qasama, to divide, allot]
On the other hand, maybe it was kismet,
running into him like that ... Maybe it was good that he had seen her with
another man
Gigi Levangie Grazer, The Starter Wife
2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee
The
semifinals and finals of the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee were held last
week, and broadcast on ESPN, no less. This week we'll look at some of the words
the contestants had to face in the day's rounds.
Now many of the words that day are, frankly, not very interesting. (I mean,
granted that pschent is a difficult word to spell but is there any
interest or utility in a word that means "the double crown of ancient
coryza a runny nose, as with a cold (or more
exactly, the inflamed nasal membrane that causes the runny nose). Greek koruza,
nasal mucus
[Some sources, such as AHD, define it as the cold itself. But the word refers to
the nasal symptom, not to the underlying disease.]
The headache
had never completely gone away.
He'd been ascribing the lingering throb to anxiety, but now there were new
symptoms. He had a vague sore throat accompanied by mild coryza.
There was still a chance it was all psychosomatic, but he was still worried.
Robin Cook, Contagion
Here's
a fun one.
Schuhplattler a lively Bavarian and Austrian folk-dance, with slapping
of the thighs and heels
[the roots are German for shoe and slap]
You can occasionally see wild birds going
through their courting dances. In
Rick Luttmann and Gail Luttmann, Chickens In Your
Backyard: A Beginner's Guide
Today's
word has an interesting pair of meanings, each of which we'll illustrate.
tournure 1. graceful
manner or bearing 2. a woman's bustle or other
padding "to give shapeliness" to her waist or hips
good breeding and
personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with those of every
other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished themselves in
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures
A pair of women whose paint & tournure
advertised their ancient calling peered at me & crossed themselves.
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
genizah a repository for
Hebrew documents and sacred books that are no longer in use (e.g. old and
worn), but must not be destroyed
Francesca took a deep breath. There was a certain, indefinable
scent, she noted. Not just the old calf-leather bindings or the parchment but
something more, something indefinably mysterious, almost mystical. Like incense
on an altar. "How old are they?"
"They range from good first editions of
early twentieth-century classics
to medieval Latin and Hebrew manuscripts
dating back to 1210."
"Actually, Uncle Alex," Marius
interrupted, "we had one scroll that was a Greek translation of the Bible
dating from 900 A.D."
"Ah, yes. How could I forget? That was
a find! Marius got it from an Egyptian trader who'd found it in the genizah
in
"Genizah?" Francesca inquired.
"Hebrew books, which contain the sacred
name of G-d, cannot be thrown away when they get torn or old. They must either
be buried in a cemetery, or put in a safe resting place, usually the attic of a
synagogue. Such a repository is called a genizah, and it
is a gold mine for rare-book hunters.
Naomi Ragen, The Ghost of Hannah Mendes
These
are not common words this week. Today's is particularly rare but fun.
punaise a bed-bug
Robin suddenly and brilliantly announces
that the gardener will allow us to have a picnic in the hen-house. Everybody
says The Hen-House? Except Vicky, who looks enchanted, and Mademoiselle, who also
screams, and refers to punaises, which she declares will
abound.
E. M. Delafield, Diary of a Provincial Lady
Belial the spirit of evil personified
John McPhee, Coming into the Country
Today
we have a once-common term for a heat-induced fever or delirium. Famous works
used it thus, and (like 'fever') it can also be used figuratively to mean
'passion'.
If
this were all, it would be rather dull. But Samuel Johnson's old dictionary
(perhaps influenced by mariner's tales) gave a too-narrow but striking
definition, from which have come two rare but beautiful figurative usages.
Johnson wrote:
calenture a distemper peculiar to sailors in hot climates, wherein
they imagine the sea to be green fields, and will throw themselves into it
On this basis, sometimes the term is used metaphorically to mean the
self-destructive urge, such as the urge, when at a great height, to throw
oneself off:
Few can look down from a great height
without
vertigos and that aerial calenture which prompts them
to jump from the pinnacle on which they are standing.
Wellsboro (PA) Agitator, Jan. 10, 1888
'Tis but the raging calenture of love.
To walk, plunge in, and wonder that you sink.
Dryden, The Conquest of
Oh what spiritual Calenture possesses you, to make this hard
shift to destroy your selves?
John Donne, Pseudo-Martyr [etc.]
And
sometimes it evokes our mental magic which transform
the mundane into something transcendent and magical. Literature?
Hope? Love? As Hamlet reminds us, "there is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
[The theater-spectator is] passing the first
hour at
Samuel Johnson, Preface to Shakespeare
It were not easy to overestimate the astounding sensation which was caused by
this story [Byron's The Vampyre]
which promised infinite possibilities
in the way of that sensation and melodramatic calentures which
the period craved.
Montague Summers, Vampire: His Kith and Kin
Isn't life, after all, pretty much a matter of
imagination? Do we not lend to many things, to many
happenings, in order that we may enjoy them more, charms which they do not
really possess?
some calenture of the
brain at all times
G. Allison Phelps, Tides of Thought
Literal ('heat fever'):
I had several men died in my ship of calentures.
Jonathan Swift, Gullivers Travels
I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent calenture
by the excessive heat of the climate
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Figurative (passion):
John presumed she was a cold fish, but Ian
saw a fire and vitality that were vigilantly banked. There was passion bubbling
just below the surface
. He wanted to be present when all that pent-up calenture
came tumbling out.
Cheryl Holt, Complete Abandon
The calentures of music
Lord Byron, Don
Juan