July 2007 Archives
Monk words: monkish, cappuccino, lubber (abbey-lubber), banoffi
pie, chartreuse, mulligan, mulligan stew or mulligan,
whirling dervish
Animating Adjectives: piquant (pique, pikeΉ, pike², turnpike), frenetic, obstreperous,
mordant, salubrious, timorous,
strident
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows : billycan, vol-au-vent, berk, orifice, diadem, besom, plinth, fraught
What's Our Theme?: jalousie, milquetoast, vinaceous (cerulean),
loudhailer, sternutation (aeolipyle), autocide,
praseodymium
Monk words
Last
week we had religion-words. This week, just for grins, we'll look at a subset of
religion-words: those that somehow involve monks. Starting with the obvious
one.
monkish inclined to disciplinary self-denial
"Forget it, lad, and
get out into the big world. The rich tapestry of life is waiting for you out
there. I've been watching you working all hours and when you're not working
you're reading up on cases in you text books and I tell you the dedicated vet
thing is all right up to a point. But you've got to live a little. Think of all
the lovely lasses in Darrowby you can hardly move for them. And every one
just waiting for a big handsome chap like you to gallop up on his white horse.
Don't disappoint them." He leaned over and slapped my knee. "Tell you
what. Why don't you let me fix something up? A nice little foursome -- just
what you need."
"Ach, I don't know. I'm not keen
really."
"Nonsense!" Tristan said. "I
don't know why I haven't thought of it before. This monkish
existence is bad for you. Leave all the details to me."
James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small
Today's
familiar word illustrates how a word can develop a sense far from its original
meaning.
A certain order of friars, who wore a cloak with a pointed capuche, or
hood, was named after the Italian word of 'hood' (cappuccio,). English
using the French version of that name, calls them the Capuchin friars.
Whoever named this order could not have foreseen the friars' name would become
a monkey! The capuchin monkey
was so named because it looks somewhat as if it were wearing the hood of a
friar's habit.
Nor could he have imagined that the friars would become a drink, so named
because it has the light-brown color of the Capuchin friars' habit. (Again, the habit. The order's name
seems to be 'habit-forming'. [groan]) The drink's name is the Italian name for
that order of friars, tracing back to the original 'hood'.
cappuccino
coffee with milk; white coffee, esp. as served in espresso
coffee-bars, topped with white foam
lubber a big, clumsy, stupid fellow; esp. a lazy one; a lout
(abbey-lubber was once a common term of reproach for a lazy
monk.)
He looked forward to the boys growing up
soon; he was going to put them through the mill just as his own father had done
with him when he was a boy; they were going to learn how to take hold and run
the place right. He wasn't going to overdo it; but those two boys were going to
earn their salt, or he'd know why! Great big lubbers sitting
around whittling! Mr. Thompson sometimes grew quite enraged with them, when
imagining their possible future, big lubbers sitting around
whittling or thinking about fishing trips. Well, he'd put a stop to that,
mighty damn quick.
Katherine Anne Porter,
banoffi pie a flan filled with bananas, toffee, and cream
[from banana + coffee/toffee]
Why is this a monk word? Because it was invented, in 1972, at the Hungry
Monk restaurant in
It became very apparent that they were about
as welcome as a banoffi pie at a Weight Watcher meeting.
Russ Kane and Sally Kane, Shout at the Moon
Recipe
here. Does it look good to you? I solicit your feedback.
chartreuse a pale yellowish apple-green color
[from a liqueur (also named chartreuse), of this color, made
by the monks of La Grande-Chartreuse]
She had always regarded the color turquoise,
like shocking pink and chartreuse , as the color
equivalent of the word ain't: quaint when seldom used but vulgar in
great doses.
E. L. Konigsburg, The View from Saturday
As Milo frantically conducted [the orchestra], all the flowers suddenly
appeared black, the gray rocks became a lovely soft chartreuse
, and even peacefully sleeping [dog] Tock changed from brown to a
magnificent ultramarine. Nothing was the color it should have been, and yet,
the more he tried to straighten things out, the worse they became.
Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Many
quotes today, for we have two words, each probably from the surname Mulligan.
The surname is a double diminutive of Gaelic/Old-Irish mael 'bald', and
so means "the little bald (or shaven) one," probably referring to a
monk. Hence our two mulligan words are indirectly monk-words.
mulligan a second chance to play a golf shot; a "do-over"
literal: As a golf teacher, Pop was demanding.
And he always began our literally thousands of rounds together with the same
terse but merry challenge - "No gimmes. No mulligan.
No bullshit. Let's play golf."
James Patterson and Peter de Jonge, Miracle on the 17th Green [etc.]
figurative:
"Don't start," I warned.
"I've admitted he was a huge mistake. I think I should get a what's that word they use in golf? When
you take a bad stroke and it doesn't count?"
"A mulligan."
"Yeah. Richard was my mulligan."
Mary Kay Andrews,
mulligan stew or mulligan a stew made with whatever's
available (also fig: a mixture, jumble, hotchpotch) [hobo slang]
literal: I followed Johnny back into the
kitchen. "Ever make a mulligan stew?" he asked.
I had to admit I hadn't. "What do you
put in them?"
"Everything
."
Everything in
one pot.
I watched enthralled as caribou, grouse, pork, rice, potatoes, corn,
canned tomatoes, macaroni and celery followed each other into the pot. Johnny
laughed.
"The more the better. Everything
flavors everything else in a real mulligan." Johnny
stopped talking to stir. Soon the smell of it was in the air, and the look on
Johnny's face was one of reverence.
Benedict Freedman and Nancy Freedman, Mrs. Mike
figurative: Every two weeks the children had to report on a book they
had read outside class. Marva [the teacher] was accumulating a stockpile of
books, some donated and some purchased at charity book fairs or used
bookstores. The inventory was a literary mulligan stew,
classical authors mixed in with writers of popular children's fiction. E. M.
Forster, Somerset Maughm, and William Faulkner shared the shelves with Judy
Blume, Roald Dahl, and Shel Silverstein.
Marva Collins, Marva Collins' Way: Updated
I was accustomed to a broth of history from my father and Koussaint Rennie,
some single topic at a time, but Stanley's version was a brimming mulligan
stew.
Ivan Doig, English Creek
A
dervish is a Muslim friar who has taken vows of poverty. One order is
called the whirling dervishes, after their ritual of wild, frenzied
dancing. The dictionaries give no further meaning for whirling dervish, but
in actual usage the term is also used figuratively, as below.
whirling dervish one in constant frenzied activity
... sharing, taking turns, being gentle and
being truthful ... few if any of these traits can be fully understood, let
alone embraced by the whirling dervish that is a toddler.
Vicki Iovine, The Girlfriends' Guide to Toddlers
Training an energetic dog is fun.
If you dont put the time into training
your dog to have better overall manners, you will live with a whirling
dervish that never learns to simply hang out with people.
Gerilyn J. Bielakiewicz, et al., The Everything Dog Training and Tricks
Book
Grandma
turns on Grandpa. Get out of it. Out. If you stay a minute longer
Ill take a hatchet to you, you drunken lunatic. By Jesus, Ill swing at the
end of a rope for you. Get out. She runs at him and he melts before this whirling
dervish
He stumbles from the house, up the lane, and doesnt stop
till he reaches
Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Animating Adjectives
This
week we look at some adjectives to spice up conversation (not so rare as to be
obscure to the hearer, but not so common as to be ordinary).
We start with one that has a spicy meaning. But the figurative sense is much
more attractive.
piquant (accent on first syllable)
1. of pleasantly sharp (esp. spicy) taste (crisp, piquant
flavor and fragrance Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook)
2. pleasantly stimulating or exciting; engagingly provocative; also :
having a lively arch charm
[French, 'stinging, pricking'.]
[She has just received a new hairstyle] It
was the style, he told her, affected by all the great ladies and it quite
transformed her features, giving her a piquant air at once
provocative and alluring.
Kathleen Winsor, Forever Amber
A shiver chased along his spine. The danger had a certain piquant
quality, something like the thrill experienced by a soldier, he felt sure.
John Jakes, Love and War
For
words interestingly akin to this (pique and turnpike), see below.
From
the same 'pricking' root:
pique a feeling of wounded pride (verb: 1. to cause
resentment 2. to provoke; arouse: to pique one's curiosity
pike a kind of spear
pike a certain large freshwater fish [probably
referring to its long, pointed jaw]
turnpike originally, a spike barrier obstructing a road, as a defense
[Note: a pricking spike might seem related to pike, but I can
find no connection.] Later, turnpike came to mean 'a tollbooth
obstructing a road', the road coming to be called a 'turnpike road', and then
simply a 'turnpike'.
frenetic frenzied; fast and energetic in a wild and
uncontrolled way
[traces back to Greek phrenitis 'delirium']
I had thought the constant crowing of our
roosters would drive [our dog] Marley insane. In his younger years, the sweet
chirp of a single tiny songbird in the yard would set him off on a frenetic
barking jag as he raced from one window to the next, hopping up and down on his
hind legs.
John Grogan, Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog
the holiday season is chaotic: chock-full of frenetic shopping
trips, party planning and a packed calendar of events
Peter Walsh, How to Organize (Just About) Everything [etc.]
I
like todays quotes for obstreperous. (In them we'll also see turgid,
but well save that word for another theme where well try to distinguish turgid,
torbid and tumid. Not to mention torpid.)
obstreperous 1. noisily and stubbornly defiant 2.
aggressively boisterous
the more generally uncooperative, obstreperous
behavior which is the hallmark of adolescence.
Anthony E. Wolf. Get Out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me &
Cheryl to the Mall: A Parent's Guide to the New Teenager
"Honey, you can't go around calling
people--"
"You ain't fair." I said, "you
ain't fair."
Uncle Jack's eyebrows went up. "Not fair?
How not?"
"You're real nice, Uncle Jack, an' I
reckon I love you even after what you did, but you don't understand children
much."
Uncle
Jack put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. And why do I not
understand children, Miss Jean Louise? Such conduct as yours required little
understanding. It was obstreperous, disorderly, and
abusive--"
"You gonna give me a chance to tell you?
I don't mean to sass, I'm just tryin' to tell you. ... you never stopped to
gimme a chance to tell my side of it--you just lit right into me. ... you told
me never to use words like that except in extreme provocation, and Francis
provocated me enough to knock his block off--"
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
"He's very clumsy, that boy," the
girl said.
"He can be. He gets into
everything."
"Boys can be very obstreperous."
Tessie smiled. "You have quite a
vocabulary."
At this compliment the girl broke into a big
smile. "'Obstreperous' is my favorite word. My brother is very obstreperous.
Last month my favorite word was 'turgid.' But you can't use 'turgid' that much.
Not many things are turgid, when you think about it."
"You're right about that," said
Tessie, laughing. "But obstreperous is all over the
place."
Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex: A Novel
mordant (or mordacious) (especially of humor) caustic; biting;
sharply sarcastic (also has noun senses)
[from Latin mordere 'to bite']
To crack and especially tough opponent,
[Robert] Moses might invite him to a lunch at which he would be the only person
present besides [Moses] and his aides: then, if the guest tried to argue, he
would be in the position of trying to argue alone against a whole platoon of
"informed opinion."
disagreement would touch off an argument with
the host
there would not be the uncontrolled, wall-pounding, inkwell-throwing
rage that could fill a room, but a mordant scorn that could slash
across a dinner table like a carving knife.
Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
(Pulitzer Prize winner)
(Jack,
in Guy Wetmore Carryl's poem How Jack Made the Giants Uncommonly Sore, is
young man who had been raised by a domineering father.)
In the editor's seat / Of a critical sheet
He found the revenge that he sought;
And, with sterling appliance of / Mind, wrote defiance of
All of the giants of / Thought.
He'd thunder and grumble / At high and at humble
Until he became, in a while,
Mordacious, pugnacious, / Rapacious. Good gracious!
They called him the Yankee Carlyle!
salubrious health-giving; healthy
[Martin] Luther was the product of a
terrifying Teutonic childhood .. Since children were born wicked, as [his
father] Hans believed, it was virtuous to beat them senseless with righteous
cudgels.
his mother
shared Hans's convictions, including his belief in the salubrious
effect of a vigorously applied lash. On one occasion, according to Luther, she
caught him stealing a nut and whipped him to a bloody pulp.
William Manchester A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind [etc.]
timorous timid; or (as in final quote) expressing
timidity
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous
beastie
Robert Burns, To a Mouse
Several witnesses
spoke well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of
which they supposed her guilty rendered them timorous, and
unwilling to come forward.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Still, in Pete's presence, Schlichtmann's demeanor underwent a drastic change.
He always spoke softly, in a meek and timorous voice, and he
would quickly defer to Pete's judgment in all matters.
Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action
strident 1. loud, harsh and grating 2.
presenting a point of view in an excessively forceful way
[form Latin for 'to creak']
The former is the original meaning, and to my surprise seems to be more common
than the latter, figurative sense. We illustrate each, and end with a third
quote which interestingly combines both senses.
Suddenly his voice was so strident
that I looked up startled.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
the roll of the strident, often vicious press was
changing the whole political atmosphere.
David McCullough, John Adams
The telescreen had changed over to strident military music.
George Orwell, 1984
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The
final book in the Harry Potter series hit the bookstores last weekend
and has been, as expected, a smashing success. So it seems appropriate to
devote this week to words from that book.
billycan (Australian) any container in which water may be
carried and boiled over a campfire, ranging from a makeshift tin can to a
special earthenware kettle
they had had nothing to eat except some
wild mushrooms that Hermione had collected from amongst the nearest trees and
stewed in a billycan.
vol-au-vent a small light puff pastry filled with a meat or fish
ragout
[French, flight in the wind]
Mrs. Weasley kept Harry, Ron, and Hermione
so busy with preparations for the wedding that they hardly had time to think.
I think Mum thinks that if she can keep the three of you getting together,
shell be able to delay you leaving, Ginny told Harry in an undertone
.
Then what does she thinks going to happen? Harry muttered. Someone else
might kill Voldemort while she's holding us here making vol-au-vents?
In
today's passage, as Aberforth vents his jealously of his brother, authoress
Rowling comes quite close to "language not suitable for minors."
"That old berk,"
muttered Aberforth, taking another swig of mead. "Thought the sun shone
out of my brother's every orifice, he did. Well, so did
plenty of people
"
berk a stupid person that is easily taken advantage of
[abbreviation of Berkeley or Berkshire Hunt, rhyming slang for
c*nt].
orifice a hole opening into a bodily cavity
diadem a jeweled crown or headband
"Sorry, but what is a diadem?
asked Ron. "It's a kind of crown," said Terry Boot. "Ravenclaw's
was supposed to have magical properties, enhance the wisdom of the
wearer."
"I stole the diadem," repeated Helena Ravenclaw
in a whisper. "I sought to make myself cleverer, more important than my
mother. I ran away with it."
besom 1. a broom made of twigs tied round a stick 2. derog.;
ch. Scot. & N.Engl.: a woman or girl
Amycus bellowed, shaking the door for all he
was worth, but it wouldn't open
in a second a more familiar voice rang out
"May I ask what your are doing, Professor Carrow?" "Trying to
get through this damned door!" "But isn't your sister in
there?" asked Professor McGonagall.
"Perhaps she could open the
door for you? Then you needn't wake half the castle." "She ain't
answering, you old besom! You open it! Garn! Do it
now!"
plinth a heavy base supporting a statue or vase [cognate with flint]
And all along the corridor the statues and
suits of armor jumped down from their plinths, and from
the echoing crashes from the floors above and below, Harry knew that their
fellows throughout the castle had done the same. "Hogwarts is
threatened!" shouted Professor McGonagall. "Man the boundaries,
protect us, do your duty to our school!"
fraught causing or characterized by emotional distress or tension
[fraught with filled with a specified element, as fraught with
danger]
[from the sense of "laden" (as a ship); cognate with freight]
Dealings between wizards and goblins have
been fraught of centuries
. There has been fault on both sides,
I would never claim that wizards have been innocent.
What's Our Theme?
Your
challenge this week is to figure out what our theme is!
jalousie a blind or shutter made of a row of angled slats (Wordcrafter
note: can be adjustable glass slats)
[French, jealousy, from Italian geloso jealous (notion of looking
through blinds without being seen), associated with the screening of women from
view in the
"It's hot as heck in here," I complain.
"So, open a window." Dad snaps. I
yank up the avocado-green curtain with its insulated rubbery backing, then
crank open the jalousie window. "Leave the curtains shut,"
Dad says.
Wally Lamb, Couldn't Keep It to Myself: [etc.]
milquetoast a timid, meek, or unassertive person
[from the cartoon character Caspar Milquetoast, "The Timid
Soul," created by H. T. Webster in 1924]
They know I'm no Caspar Milquetoast
but a person of strength and courage. Plenty of moxie.
Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King (Penguin Classics edition)
(Interestingly, some editions vary. When I went to verify the quote I
used the 1959 Macmillan of Canada edition, which has not "I'm no Caspar
Milquetoast" but "I'm no Milktoast".)
"Aaron Brown is a lily-livered milquetoast pantywaist!"
Lauren Weisberger, Everyone Worth Knowing
vinaceous wine-colored (the color of red wine)
With rare exceptions, this word is used only in descriptions of birds. Why not
use it more?
Cerulean skies and deep vinaceous
bands of sandstone become places of power. Pit houses dug in the earth and
cliff dwellings hanging on ledges still house the Anasazi spirit. Listen. You
may hear music inside their ancient earth architecture.
Terry Tempest Williams, Pieces of White Shell
[We culinary writers were] licking our vinaceous lips in
anticipation of some truly goofy responses. Instead, we were confronted with a
smart, sassy lass who coolly diffused each of our questions.
Bonus word:
cerulean
deep blue in color like a clear sky.
[from a Latin word that traces to Latin caelum 'sky']
loudhailer a megaphone
How descriptive!
the Major's jeep had breasted the hill
they had just started down. He came past them on the shoulder
and raised a
battery-powered loudhailer to his lips. "I'm pleased to
announce that you have finished the first mile of your journey, boys."
- Stephen King and Richard Bachman, The Long Walk
Two
quotes today, each so nice that I could not bear to give only one.
sternutation formal: the action of sneezing
[Latin, from sternutare to sneeze]
If a child were severely beaten every time
it sneezed, it is probable that a phantasy world would in time build itself up
in his mind around the conception of sneezing; he would dream of heaven as a
space where the spirits of the blest sneeze unceasingly, or on the contrary
might think of Hell as a place of punishment for those who live in open sternutation.
Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook
During the season of gathering the pepper, the persons employed are subject to
various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and long-continued sternutation
or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these attacks, that the subjects of them
are often driven backwards for great distances at immense speed, on the
well-known principle of the ζoliphile.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
Bonus word:
aeolipyle; aeolipile a hollow ball that turns through steam escaping through
valves
autocide the use of a vehicle to commit suicide
Why such a distinct term? See last sentence of quote.
the driver was the lone occupant, and he
was killed.
daylight, clear, road dry, level and straight, no skid marks.
"Cause: improper driving." Or was it suicide? No one can know for
sure, but more and more police and traffic experts suspect that "autocide,"
as one expert calls it, is an important cause of traffic deaths. Estimates
range
from less than 1% to about 10%. The evidence is almost always circumstantial,
and the chance of identifying an automobile death as anything other than
"accidental" is just about nil ... Because it cannot be clearly
labeled, autocide not only avoids the social stigma attached to
suicide, but also, as Arthur Miller's Willy Loman realized, almost
automatically guarantees double indemnity on most life-insurance policies.
Time Magazine,
As some have figured out,
our theme this week has been "words containing a, e, i, o and u,
each once only". It's an elementary concept, so its fitting that we end our
theme with an "elementary" word, indeed one that includes a y
as well.
This is one of those words of "mongrel" origin: one part Greek, and
one part Latin. Or should we call that a "hermaphrodite" word? The
name also traces to a color and a food. Delicious!
praseodymium a rare silvery-white metallic element, of the
lanthanide (rare-earth) series
[named from Greek prasios "leek-green" (from prason
"leek"), because it forms green salts, + Latin (di)dymium
"double; twin".]
The "twin" aspect is interesting. Mossander discovered two element,
so similar that he was unable to chemically separate them, and he named them
lanthanum and didymium, the "twin". Decades later as the
techniques of chemistry improved, it was found that Mossander had been only
half right: lanthanum was indeed an element, but didymium was not: it was found
to be a combination of two new elements, which were then named neodymium
and praseodymium So didymium is a twin in two chemical
senses: the twin paired with lanthanum, and the result of the twin pairing of neodymium
and praseodymium.
And of course, praseodymium is itself a "pairing" in a
linguistic sense, in that it is made up of both Greek and Latin components.
Wordcrafter's
response to a critic:
Im in a precarious position, for you
might view my motives questionably, so I admit to a bit of anxiousness
in saying this. Please dont think my behaviour to be vexatious, or an uncongenial effort to outdistance your work above. If
I transgress any boundaries of etiquette, is it unforgivable?
But doubtless these words are but a formal precaution; surely we can
further our mutual preoccupation with our linguistic education and, by tenacious effort, do groundbreaking work on AEIOU. Well
each subordinate pride of place to
the hellaciously encouraging prospects of consultative work, as would any
businessman or businesswoman. Are you of the same persuasion?