September 2004 Archives
Terms of International Relations:
uti possidetis,
balkanized (narrowcasting),
Bizarre etymologies: nimrod, dupe, indri, dumbbell, grapefruit,
gunsel, bizarre
Confusing Doublets, redux: solecism/solipsism, egoism/egotism, incommensurable/commensurate/commensal,
venial/venal (venery¹, venery²), perspicuous/perspicacious ,
obscurant/obscurantist, hebetic/hebetude
Lifestyles, "On the street
where you live":
easy street, Park Avenue, Queer Street, Tobacco Road,
skid row, Main Street, Acacia Avenue
Terms of
International Relations
Last week's
"Italian" theme began with such "intenational relaions"
term (irredentist), and its final quote had another (uti possidetis).
That subject this week's theme.
uti possidetis – the principle that unless otherwise stated:
1. upon a peace treaty, each belligerent keeps the captured territories
then holds
2. when a political subdivision achieves independence, its international
boundaries are simply the previous administrative boundaries (Black's Law
Dictionary)
[Late Latin; literally "as you possess", or more fully,
"as you now possess it".]
The second usage is far more frequent, though on-line dictionaries omit
it. Yesterday's quote and the first quote today illustrate the former sense; we
then illustrate the latter.
[In late 1944] Stalin was staking out claims to Eastern
and
– Christopher Duffy, Red Storm on the Reich: The Soviet March on Germany,
1945
... a presumption that often runs against self-determination … Uti
possidetis arose from an international consensus that States created
through decolonization should normally maintain the external colonial borders,
regardless of the tribal, ethnic, religious, or political affiliations of those
who had been colonized. The attraction of the principle lies in its promotion
of stability, by disfavoring unpredictable and excessive fragmentation.
– Gregory H. Fox, Democratic Governance and International Law
The disputed islands and islets range from small to tiny, are uniformly
unattractive, waterless, and habitable only with great difficulty [, but] they
straddle what has been, since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, one of the
most important and busiest seaways in the world.
- Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague, Eritrea-Yemen Arbitration, Oct. 9,
1998
balkanized;
Balkanized– fragmented into
small and mutually hostile units
[From the political division of the Balkans in the early 20th century.]
The term originally was originally limited to political
fragmentation of a region, but the broader use, illustrated below, now
the more common. The dictionaries, particularly AHD, have given little attention
to that expanded meaning.
Narrowcasting also deepens America's political and cultural balkanization.
Mightn't the case for subsidizing nationally unifying media actually grow
stronger as technological fragmentation proceeds apace?
– New Republic, Feb. 3, 1995
Bonus
word: narrowcasting – the practice
of "specialty" cable channels (or other media) geared to a specific
group of viewers, such as physicians, businesspeople, or teenagers
How do we
tell whether a usage is a cultural reference, or is a "word"? I have
no answer. The dictionaries do not list what follows as a "word", but
you can consider the citations and make your own decision.
Munich – shortsighted and often dishonorable appeasement of a
tyrant
[After the
Munich Conference of 1938. But sometimes used to refer to the murder of 11
Israeli athletes the Munich Olympics, Summer 1972.]
The analogy that came to most Americans' mind on Sept. 11
was Pearl Harbor. But the perpetrators, not surprisingly, see matters
differently. … an online column by Abu Ubeid Al-Qurashi, an al Qaeda
"activist," says the attack was another Munich.
That's Munich 1972, not Munich 1938.
– James Taranto, Wall Street Journal on-line, March 12, 2002
The transition reflects a pendulum swing between the "no more Munichs"
syndrome – no more appeasement of aggressors and dictators – and the "no
more Vietnams" syndrome – no more plunging America into Third Word
quagmires."
– Daniel Schorr, New Leader, Jan. 13, 1997
[Discussing Slobodan Milosevic:] The determination of the previous generation
of American policymakers to allow "no more Munichs"
led to the Vietnam War. The determination of this generation to allow ''no more
Vietnams'' promises another Munich.
– William Pfaff, Democracies in Confusion, or How to Guarantee Another
Munich, International Herald Tribune, May 6, 1999
And any move in this direction by a U.S. president would lead to conservative
cries of another Munich.
– James Ridgeway, Looking Backward, Village Voice, July 29, 2004
I suppose
this word isn't "international relations", but the first quote is, and
the word is fun. Says Oxford:
frogmarch – to force (someone) to walk forward by pinning their
[sic] arms from behind
[Why "frog"? The term originally (mid-1800s) meant to carry an
uncooperative drunk, prisoner or the like face down, one person holding onto
each limb. Hence, splayed out like a pinned-down frog.]
"At the end of the day it's of keen interest to me to
see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the
White House in handcuffs."
– Joseph Wilson, disgruntled former ambassador, much-quoted in the press (2003)
The twins forced the sweater over his head, knocking his glasses askew.
"And you're not sitting with the prefects today, either," said
George. "Christmas is a time for family." They frog-marched
Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his side by his sweater.
– J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
But Rowling
gave what I think is a better definition. During an Oct. 20, 2000 interview on
the Today show, she took questions from kids.
Dark-haired
girl: My name is
Rio, and in the first book, what did she mean by "they frog-marched Percy
around the room"? Rowling: That's when two people stand on either
side of the third person and they force them to walk along. It's like you're
under arrest.
prisoner
of war – a captured member a country's
armed forces (or of an organized resistance movement, in certain
circumstances)
(The specific circumstances: they must have a commander responsible for
them; wear clear identification (as by uniform); carry their ams openly; and
adhere to the laws of war)
Many think a POW is "anyone captured in war". This erroneous
view is in essence what you'll find in OED, MW, AHD, Encarta, and
on the Red Cross
website.The Third Geneva Convention, at Artcle
4.A., defines that term as I have summarized, and is quite clear that only the
military (and certain other that behave "like a military"), get
POW status. Indeed, it makes sense that a captured soldier would have special
rights beyond those of a civilian. For example, a soldier kills the enemy,
within his job, cannot be charged with murder for those killings. (Article
118).
In the press, some very strong criticism seems to have been based on the
mistaken notion that "POW" means anyone captured in war.
Molly Ivins (syndicated columnist in 114 newspapers), Love
it or screw you: America’s double standards Jan. 24, 2002:
So we take the prisoners we've captured, and suddenly announce that they are
not prisoners of war after all, because this isn't really a war we've been
fighting. Therefore the prisoners are "illegal combatants," and we
don't have to treat them in accord with the Geneva Convention on POWs. This is
why a lot of people hate us. For the sheer bloody arrogance of having it both
ways all the time. For thinking that we are above the rules, that we can laugh
at treaties, that we can do whatever we want
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it considered al Qaeda
fighters held by U.S. forces to be prisoners of war, "They were captured
in combat and we consider them prisoners of war," ICRC spokesman Darcy
Christen told Reuters.
– CNN, Feb. 8, 2002
Later, we'll
talk about those who are not covered by Geneva 3 and the term "POW":
non-combatant civilians, and combatant civilians who do not act "like a
military". They have rights too, but their rights come under other
documents, particularly Geneva 4
(whose title says "[for] "the Protection of Civilian Persons")
and the U.N. Convention against
Torture.
illegal
combatant (or unlawful
combatant) – one who is a combatant but would not, if captured, meet the
standards of a prisoner of war
Geneva 3 deals only with POWs, and provides no name for with captured combatants
who do no qualify as POWs. But the concept and term are long-recognized in
international law. The U.S. Supreme Court explained it in 1942, in ex parte
Quirin.
By
universal agreement and practice the law of war draws a distinction between the
armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations and also
between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are
subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military
forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and
detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military
tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who
secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time
of war, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the
lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are
familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled
to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war
subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals.*
An important
difference, between POW and non-POW rights, is in an interrogation. Think of
the TV police shows where the interrogator says, "If you cooperate, and
help me nail your superiors, I'll agree to a lesser charge against you."
Such a tactic is forbidden when questioning POWs (Geneva 3, Art. 17:
"Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be ... exposed to any
unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.") But is allowed
when interrogating others, subject of course the general restrictions (i.e.,
the prohibition against torture).
*A number of
writers (examples below) erroneously state that "illegal combatant"
is merely a term conveniently inventioned by President Bush. They are wrong.
The United States created a non-existent legal
phrase of "illegal combatant".
– MP Jeremy Corbyn, speaking in
Parliament 27 Nov 2003
President Bush's invention of such hitherto unknown categories as "illegal
combatant"
– Historian Chalmers Johnson,
History News Network, June 14, 2004:
The Bush administration has gone so far as to invent the new category of
"illegal combatant" to excuse its own refusal to treat enemies
captured on the battlefield according to the Geneva convention.
– The Morning Star, 28 July 2004
casus
belli – an event that
provokes or is used to justify war
Churchill certainly did not want war against Japan, but
only American assistance in the fight against Hitler, which a casus belli
in the Pacific would not necessarily assure; as we have seen, Hitler's perverse
decision to declare war on the United States in the immediate aftermath of
Pearl Harbor solved problems of diplomacy which otherwise might have needed
months of negotiation between the White House and Congress.
– John Keegan, The Second World War
On the way there was a fight between two of the tramps. They had quarrelled
overnight (there was some silly casus belli about one saying to
the other, "Bull shit," which was taken for Bolshevik-a deadly
insult), and they fought it out in a field. A dozen of us stayed to watch them.
– George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
Bizarre
etymologies
This week
we'll enjoy seven words, some familiar and some not, with etymologies that
range from the curiously odd to the completely bizarre.
nimrod – slang: an silly or insensitive jerk who is a
petty annoyance
[Your humble
wordcrafter drafted this definition, since AHD's definition seems to a poor
match to the usages noted. No other on-line dictionary gives the slang
meaning.]
Fulbrook proposed while they were scuba diving in
Venezuela. "Do you love me?" he wrote underwater. "Of course,
you nimrod," she wrote in response. "Will you
marry me?" he then scribbled.
– Anna Jane Grossman, Loving Tribute, New York Post, September 12, 2004
Anyone who leaves a cell phone on ‘ring’ while in a movie theater and then
takes a call without leaving is seeking only to display his perceived stature.
Such individuals are known by various appellations. 'Nimrod,' 'pinhead,'
'moron,' and the always appropriate 'jerk' come most readily to mind.
- Larry Simoneaux, American Daily, March 30, 2003
Most of us can’t sing, and shouldn’t sing. But that doesn’t stop people from
trying. If you go to your nearby mall, you will undoubtedly encounter one
deluded nimrodwho sings along to the piped-in Musak while you’re
waiting in line for a cappuccino.
– Michael Ventre, Rub-a-dub-dub, some songs for the, er, shower, MSNBC,
Aug. 18, 2004
This slang
meaning is now more common that the originially sense of "a mighty
hunter", based upon a biblical character. ("The Queen ... hunts in a
chaise with one horse, which she drives herself, and drives furiously, like
Jehu, and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod." –
Johnathan Swift, The Journal to Stella, July 19, 1711.)
How did "mighty hunter" acquire its slang meaning? From the
cartoons: picture if you will Elmer Fudd, with his shotgun and hunting garb,
futilely hunts Bugs Bunny in the cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s. Bugs, with
classical precision, comments ironically comments, "Neh, I couldn't do
that to the little nimrod."
(wave file) An audience that didn't know the word would take it for the amused
put-down that Bugs obviously meant. From there, the ironic sense acquired its
own life.
Notes re
Nimrod meaning "numbskull": the Bugs Bunny theory
Bugs first appeared in 1938. I
don't have the date of the episode where he used "nimrod", but my
sense is that he used it in many episodes. The first print-use I find is 1939,
with the same sort of double meaning as Bugs has.¹
Some websites, apparently copying each other, dispute the "Bugsian
origin" by saying that Jesse Sheidlower has found two cites that predate
Bugs. However, I find no such claim by Mr. Sheidlower himself. He is quite
reliable, and a note has been sent to him. But let's take it further.
Others argue that these Bugs episodes could not be the source of this
sense of "nimrod", because the sense did not become common until much
later, in the late 1980s or early 1990s. They are probably correct that it did
not have much 1930s impact, since it is not mentioned in Mencken's work. But
with all respect, I'd say that the later prevalence suggests that Bugs was
the source. How could a minor 1930s usage, having died out, have suddenly
revived fifty-odd years later, except via media-speak from the 1930s that
remained in the public eye fifty years later?
Indeed, it looks like the Bugsian sense of "nimrod" revived
precisely at a time Bugs himself was having a revival. In the 1980's his old
cartoons were released on video, and he himself was a presenter at the 1987
Oscar Awards. When did his sense of "nimrod" come back into usage?
The earliest I find is 1990, and indicates that the sense was not brand new.²
You'll also find that usage in a 1994 mass-market movie, Pulp Fiction.³
My data is far from complete, but I conclude that Bug indeed brought the
term into our language. Not in the 1930s, when the term didn't stick, but in
the 1980s.
¹Lewis
Copeland, Ten Thousand Jokes, Toasts and Stories (1939, reading the 1965
reprint), where item 6133 uses the word as Bugs does: "First Simple
Nimrod-'Hey, don't shoot. Your gun isn't loaded.' His Partner-'Can't help that;
the bird won't wait.'"
²Gordon Korman, Losing Joe's Place (1990): "As soon as a
girl steps into a place like this," he told us as we sipped on our Cokes,
"she divides all the guys into the nimrods and the cool people."
³John Travolta, as Vega: Jules, if you give that fuckin' nimrod fifteen
hundred dollars, I'm gonna shoot him on general principles.
dupe – verb: to deceive or swindle. noun:
a person who is easily duped
This comes from a bird! The French word huppe means a certain
small, elaborately crested bird, which we call the hoopoe. In
Middle French the phrase du huppe ("of the hoopoe") became
slang duppe, meaning a dupe, and passed into English with the same
meaning.
Frankly, I'm betting that the French have a phrase tête du huppe
(hoopoe-head) meaning "stupid", somewhat like our 'birdbrain'. One
source seems to so indicate; can anyone confirm?
I welcome any input from those familiar with French, and they may be able
to make something of these two items.
Son plumage, de couleur orange, semble compose d'ecailles
metalliques. Sa petite tete, garnie d'une huppe d'argent,
represente un visage humain. Il a quatre ailes, des pattes de vautour, et une immense
queue de paon, qu'il etale en rond derriere lui.
– Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of Saint Antoine
From a website in French, as translated by Google:
The French name derives from Latin upupa, it would have been given in
correlation with the cry of the bird "oupoupa". Then, the name of
huppe was compared to the peak of feather particular to this bird. On this
subject, written Buffon: "Thérée, king de Thrace, having been
metamorphosed in huppe following several horrors, and in particular after Progné,
its wife, and Philomèle, his/her sister-in-law, had made serve on her table her
Itys son whom they had put in parts, this unfortunate father could form of
another cry only louse, louse, which, in Greek, means "where,
where", as if it still had sought or redemandé his son."
In
Madagascar, locals were taking European explorers though the rainforst. One of
the locals, spotting a lemur in the trees, pointed to it and exclaimed 'indri',
meaning, "Look!" or, "There it is!" The explorers mistook
this as the name of the primate, now known as the indri.
Similar misunderstandings are claimed as the basis of several other
animal names, such as kangaroo and llama, and several place names, such as
Canada, Istanbul, Luzon, Nome (in Alaska), Senegal and Yucatan. Those stories
are disputed, but indri appears to be the real thing.
indri – the largest of the all of the lemurs. It is the only
lemur with vestigial tail, and it is severely endangered. Picture here.
A dumbbell
is a fine tool for exercise, but what does it have to do with a bell?
A church's bell ringer would pull down on a rope, causing the bell to
swing and toll the hours. Since bells were heavy, bell ringers developed great
upper body strength.
Their work also required a good deal of practice. (I presume this was,
in part, to learn to time the pulls to match the bell's swing-period.)
Apprentice bell ringers practiced on a rope and pulley apparatus that mimicked
the action but which used a deadweight rather than a bell, thus saving money
and avoiding noise pollution. In other words, it was a bell that was silent, or
"dumb", and quite naturally came to be a "dumbbell".
Gentlemen in the 1700s adopted the same apparatus for healthy exercise, and
"dumbbell" became associated with weights for exercise.
But a
moment! Some idle thoughts:
What I've given you is the standard story, and it's interesting enough. But
isn't it odd that the word first appears so late as 1711, though church bells
are centuries older? If bell ringers needed a training apparatus, surely one
was built, used, and given a name long before 1711.
The first known use of the word is by Joseph Addison in The Spectator
of Thursday, July 12, 1711, copied below. Addison seems to be making an implied
pun that the exercise dumbbell renders the ladies silent; that is, it renders
the belles dumb. His very next paragraph also makes a witty analogy between an
exercise method and the larger world. An idle speculation: could it conceivably
be that Addison concocted the word 'dumbbell' as a term that would describe the
apparatus and also make his word-play? That would certainly explain why no
prior use of the word has been found.
For my own
part, when I am in Town, I exercise myself an Hour every Morning upon a dumb
Bell that is placed in a Corner of my Room, and pleases me the more because
it does every thing I require of it in the most profound Silence. My Landlady
and her Daughters are so well acquainted with my Hours of Exercise, that they
never come into my Room to disturb me whilst I am ringing.
When I was some Years younger than I am at present, I used to employ myself in
a more laborious Diversion, which I learned from a Latin Treatise of Exercises
that is written with great Erudition: It is there called the skiomachia,
or the fighting with a Man's own Shadow, and consists in the brandishing of two
short Sticks grasped in each Hand, and loaden with Plugs of Lead at either End.
This opens the Chest, exercises the Limbs, and gives a Man all the Pleasure of
Boxing, without the Blows. I could wish that several Learned Men would lay out
that Time which they employ in Controversies and Disputes about nothing, in
this Method of fighting with their own Shadows. It might conduce very much to
evaporate the Spleen, which makes them uneasy to the Publick as well as to
themselves.
grapefruit [etymology]
The grapefruit's origin is a mystery. It appeared suddenly, as if from
nowhere, first noted around 1750 in the Barbados. It was long thought to be a
mutation of the pummelo, which is of similar size. We now know that is a hybrid
of the pummelo and the sweet orange.
Also a mystery is the name "grapefruit". It originated in
Jamaica around 1810, but it is a ridiculous name. This fruit has nothing to do
with the grape, is vastly different in size and color and every other way, and
grows on trees rather than (grape)vines. Then why this name?
The usual
claim is that it arose because the fruit supposedly grows in clusters, like
grapes. Some at least have the good grace to admit that this is speculation
[AHD: "Probably so called because the fruit grows in
clusters"], but some drop the word "probably". None I've found
gives the slightest support for the theory.
The theory strikes me as nonsense. It implies that the fruit was named
by someone who'd seen it growing on the tree – but anyone who'd seen it would
know that it does not grow in clusters. Like any other citrus, its
fruits happen to be close together in some parts of the tree and spread out in
others (see here and here). Where they happen to be
close, leaves mix amid them (unlike in grapes), and the branching structure is
completely unlike that of grapes. If you've seen it on the tree, you can't
possibly think it grows in grape-like clusters.
Ciardi proposes another theory. The pummelo's botanical name is Citrus
grandi, meaning "great citrus [fruit]." It would be natural to
call the new pummelo variety a "greatfruit". But try saying that name
a few times, with its consonant cluster. It sounds like "grapefruit",
unless you make an extreme effort to enunciate, and it would easily have
morphed to that form.
This suggestion is completely speculative, without attestation, but
seems much more reasonable than the equally speculative "grape
cluster" theory.
Anyone here a
fan of The Maltese Falcon? That's the source of today's word.
gunsel – a gunman in the criminal world; sometimes used to mean
any hoodlum
It was Jackie Newton, with some gunsel
straight out of old Chicago. Jackie wasn't carrying anything, but the enforcer
was packing a big gun. The gunsel was a bodyguard, a bonecrusher,
a cheap hood. – John Dunning, Booked to Die (2000)
Nothing could have prevented Richard Nixon from accepting that nomination. If
God himself had showed up in Miami and denounced Nixon from the podium, hired gunsels
from the Committee for the Re-Election of the President would have quickly had
him arrested for disturbing the peace.
– Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail
Before
Dashiell Hammett, the word had a very different meaning, that wouldn't
withstand the censors. Hammett, tired of his editor's censorship, tweaked him
by slipping 'gunsel' into The Maltese Falcon where the unwitting would
think it meant "gunman". The new meaning caught on. Erle Stanley
Gardner tells the story:
But he [Editor Shaw] left the word "gunsel" because
Hammett had used it so casually that Shaw took it for granted that the word
pertained to a hired gunman. Actually, "gunsel," or
"gonzel," is a very naughty word with no relation whatever to a
bodyguard, a gunman, or a torpedo. What happened? All of the writers of the
hard-boiled school of realism started talking about a gunsel as the equivalent
of a gunman. The usage has persisted.
– Erle Stanley Gardner, Getting Away with Murder, The Atlantic, Vol.
215 No. 1 (1965)
Before
Hammett, gunsel was slang (from Yiddish 'little goose') for the passive
member of a male homosexual pair; often a boy (catamite). It is still
occasionally used that way. Here's how it was slipped into The Maltese
Falcon.
Book:
The boy's eyes were wide open and dark with wide pupils. Their gaze ran over
Spade's body from shoulders to knees. "Another thing," Spade
repeated, glaring at the boy: "Keep that gunsel away from me
while you're making up your mind. I'll kill him. I don't like him. He makes me
nervous. I'll kill him the first time he gets in my way. I won't give him an
even break. I won't give him a chance. I'll kill him. "
Movie (screenplay; final scene a bit different):
Spade (violently angry): (He tosses his cigar away in disgust) Now think again
and think fast. I told that gunsel of yours you'd have to talk to
me before you're through. I'm telling you now, you'll talk to me today or you
are through! (Throwing his drink to the floor.) What are you wasting my time
for? I can get along without you! And another thing: Keep that gunsel
out of my way when you're makin' up your mind! I'll kill him if you don't, I'll
kill him!
bizarre:
I'd promised
you "etymologies that range from the curiously odd to the completely
bizarre". Bizarre itself is an odd term, for it means very
different things in different languages. In Spanish bizarro (fem. bizarra)
means "strong; handsome; soldierly; gallant; brave", but in English
and French (and apparently Italian too) the like term means "odd,
fantastic".
Does bizarre
have a typical, unremarkable etymology – or does it come from a scandal of
incest, infidelity, infanticide and intrigue among the elite of 1790s Virginia?
Doubtless you'd like to hear about the scandal first.
In 1789, when
Julia and Nancy Randolph were 16 and 14, their mother died at Tuckahoe, the
family estate. On Christmas Day that year Julia, married her 19-year old cousin
Richard and went to live with him at his family's Virginia plantation, named
Bizarre. Within the year Nancy's homelife became intolerable when father
married a girl barely older than she, and by early 1791 she went to live in
Bizarre with the pregnant Julia, Richard, and Richard's eligible brothers Jack
and Theodorick.
All three brothers – including Richard, who perhaps found a pregnant
wife less attractive – acted as young men sometimes will in the company of a
pretty young lass whose motto is "I must be sought". In time Theo and
Nancy became engaged; Jack became enraged (and became Nancy's lifelong bitter enemy);
and Theo then became mysteriously ill, lingered for months, and died in
February 1792, a few days after his 21st birthday.
Nancy liked to use such words as 'tautology' and 'ecclairissement' and
she sometimes used them properly, but she seems not to have learned the meaning
of 'chastity,' for in 1792 an ominous swelling of the belly distended Nancy's
pleasing form. On October 1 her nighttime screams woke the household. The
ladies rushed to her door and managed but a peek at blood-stained sheets before
their ministrations were discouraged by Richard. Rumors spread immediately that
the corpse of a white baby had been found buried nearby.
Richard was arrested for "feloniously murdering a child said to be
borne of Nancy Randolph." It is unclear whether Nancy was also charged.
Richard had excellent and prominent attorneys and, despite abundant public
displays of an affection between Nancy and Richard that was more than
brotherly/sisterly – and despite the revelation that Nancy had discussed
abortifacients with Patsy Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson’s daughter – the
charges against Richard were dismissed. Whereupon Richard stiffed his lawyers
on their legal fees.
As you can imagine, this story was quite the talk, and was called 'The
Bizarre Murder'.
The word 'bizarre' appears in English long before Nancy Randolph. But was it a
recognized word then, and if so, what did it mean? Was it the Spanish meaning
(brave, soldierly, etc.), which then changed due to the Bizarre scandal? Or did
it already have the French meaning of "weird"?
The authorities say the latter. And yet, "weird" would seem an
odd name to give a plantation. Also, a reader's letter to Bill Safire states
that English dictionaries predating Nancy's scandal give only meaning of
"brave" or "handsome", much more suitable for a
plantation-name.
It should be easy to check those dictionaries for pre-Nancy usage. Few
are not available to me, but I do note that Bailey's dictionary (1772 edition)
does not include the word at all. My very tentative guess is that our meaning
of 'bizarre' comes from the 1790s Randolph scandal.
Acknowledgement: I liberally quote Bill Kauffman's review of a recent
book on the scandal.
Confusing
Doublets, redux
Several
months ago we said, "This week we'll present seven pairs of
easily-confused words. This being Wordcraft, however, our pairs will not be so
commonplace as imply/infer or lie/lay."
We return to that thought and, as then, "We start with a pair half
of which is familiar."
solecism – 1. a word blunder: a nonstandard usage or grammatical
construction 2. a social blunder: a violation of etiquette; an impropriety
solipsism – the philosophical view that the self is all that
exists, or is all that can be known to exist
The NBC network carries the Olympics in prime time, which
is, given the time difference, anywhere between seven and twelve hours after
they took place in Greece, while maintaining the absurd fiction that no one
knows the outcome of events that are already aeons old in modern
information-age time. I can think of no greater testament to American solipsism
than this assertion of the assumption that nothing has happened until viewers
in New York and Los Angeles have turned on their TV sets at 8pm.
– Gerard Baker, The Statesman (India), August 25, 2004
Yesterday's
word solipsism leads us naturally to today's two words. Though they are
often used interchangeably, and that use is quite proper, there is a
distinction.
egoism – excessive concern for oneself (often with an inflated
sense of self-importance)
egotism – talking about oneself too much; self-exaltation;
self-praise; magnifying or parading oneself (in words or in action)
Our first quotation keys on the distinction between the two, in careful
speech. Says MW, "Egoism is a state in which the feelings are concentrated
on one's self. Its expression is egotism. Egotism
is the acting out of self-conceit, or self-importance, in words and exterior
conduct."
The NFL* draws a reasonable line in terms of what is an
``excessive'' celebration. The idea is to strike a fair balance. The idea is to
permit players to naturally express their happiness, but not to the degree it
becomes unsportsmanlike. Don't get so caught up in your egotistical
self-praise that it becomes showboating, and showing up the opponent.
– Greg Cote, The Miami Herald, August 31, 2004
[*NFL = National Football League, the professional league in US football]
This is a typical act of seeking regional egoism of local
politicians, who only think of the interest of their constituents, ignoring
national real estate policy.
– Local egoism runs amok, Joongang Daily, South Korea, Sept. 6,
2004
Poland joined an outcry Thursday against a French proposal to cut structural
funds for new European Union members that have tax rates below the EU average.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski said: "We should be able to benefit from
structural funds, if not we will never be able to overcome the inequalities
that exist on our continent. European leaders must renounce their egoism."
– EUbusiness, UK, Sept. 9, 2004
incommensurable – without a common measure on which to
compare; "like apples and oranges"
How do you measure relative power? Realistically, it's
hard to quantify the differences between, say, a chief executive and a Supreme
Court justice. They wield power in vastly different ways. But we attempted the
impossible — comparing the incommensurable — by creating a power
scorecard.
– Elizabeth Macdonald and Chana R. Schoenberger, World's 100 most powerful
women, Forbes, Aug. 20, 2004
commensurate – of corresponding size or degree;
proportionate (can also mean "commensurable")
[Meetings] are ineffective. The most justifiable reason to
loathe meetings is that they don't contribute to the success of our organizations.
With so many demands on people's time, it is especially frustrating to have to
invest energy and hours in any activity that doesn't yield a commensurate
return. So the big question is why? Why are meetings boring and
ineffective?
– Patrick M. Lencioni, Death by Meeting
commensal – (zoology) of a relation where one
species obtains benefits from another without damaging or benefiting it. (contrast
parasitic, symbiotic; MW Unabridged says, "both species may be
benefited.") [originally, "eating at the same table"]
The 560 acres of Muir Woods National Monument on the
southwestern slopes of Mount Tamalpais symbolize a commensal
relationship between man and nature.
– Marta Yamamoto, Berkeley Daily Planet, September 17, 2004
venial – forgivable; not heinous; pardonable
[A venial sin is often contrasted with a mortal sin, in Catholic
religious doctrine.]
venal – corruptible; open to bribery
[Venal is related to vendor,
with the underlying sense of "available for purchase".]
venery¹ – sexual love (adj. venereal)
venery² – the act or sport of hunting (adj. venatic; venatical)
[Each sense of venery comes, sensibly, from the root wen-
"to desire, strive for". From that same root are win, wish,
and venerate.]
Democrat turned Republican Terry Johnson wasted no time in
gaining the endorsement of an influential GOP [Republican] club. Johnson was a
Democrat [in his previous terms], a venial sin the
club apparently was willing to forgive. "We enjoyed his great awakening[;]
he just had to become a Republican," Niemeyer said.
– Michael Burge and Elena Gaona, San Diego Union-Tribune, August 28, 2004
While my companion eyed the tarte tatin and checked whether gluttony was mortal
or just venial, I chose strawberry meringue.
– Zoë Strachan, The Scotsman, Aug. 21, 2004
The lack of system and order in our streets gives venal
traffic enforcers an opportunity to mulct
unsuspecting motorists for imagined violations.
– Dante A. Ang, Manila Sunday Times, Sept. 5, 2004
On a sunny autumn afternoon like yesterday, this lush little course on the
Netherhampton downs seems a world away from the venal business of race-fixing.
– Greg Wood, The Guardian, Sept. 3, 2004
That which is
easily understood, vs. he who is good at understanding.
perspicuous – clearly expressed; easy to understand
perspicacious – having penetrating mental discernment, keen
understanding
To remember which is which, it may help to associate 'perspicuous' with
'conspicuous'.
[H]er strengths - offbeat but perspicacious
observations of modern life, the creation of luminously unusual, eccentric
characters - have always been better shown in short stories.
– Katie Owen, reviewing a novel by Nicola Barker, The Telegraph, Sept. 15, 2004
The philosopher clarifies basic theoretical ideas and sets out conceptions of
justice in a perspicuous form, so that people can see clearly the
arguments for and against them, and can compare them to their own considered
judgments about justice.
– Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Professor of Law and Ethics at the University
of Chicago, as intervied in Change, Jan.-Feb., 2002
Allow me to
share an older quotation, on the subject of words. From Thomas Hobbes, A
Brief Of The Art Of Rhetorick, Bk. III ch. II, Of the Choice of Words
and Epithets:
THE Vertues of a Word are two; the first, that it be perspicuous;
the second, that it be decent; that is, neither above, nor below the thing
signified; or, neither too humble, nor too fine. Perspicuous are
all Words that be Proper. An Orator, if he use Proper Words, and Received, and
good Metaphors, shall both make his Oration beautiful, and not seem to intend
it; and shall speak perspicuously.
Yesterday we had
a word-pair about clarity. Today we have a pair obscurity. The dictionaries
obscure the meanings in a tangle of inconsistencies between dictionaries and,
sometimes, within a single dictionary.
To
disentangle: just as "I see," can mean, "My eyes behold,"
or, "I understand," so too something obscure can hard to view, or
hard to understand. Today's terms make that distinction.
obscurant – something that obscures to the vision, as a
smokescreen [chiefly military] (adj: tending to obscure visually: obscurant
clouds)
obscurantist – one who writes with deliberate vagueness, obscure
to the understanding (adj: so written)*
Calif. Health And Safety Code: "Obscurant"
means fog oil released into the atmosphere during military exercises which
produces a smoke screen.
My mathematician friend insists the book is "a parody of math books."
He couldn't make head nor tail of it, and said that Mr. Wallace is either an "obscurantist"
or just showing off. The text is a thicket of symbols and equations. Mr.
Wallace lists 37 abbreviations on pages 3 and 4, supposedly for convenience. It
is not convenient.
– Dick Teresi, book review, The New York Observer, Nov 17, 2003
Also, our
words have a second sense, in which they are synonymous.
obscurant; obscurantist – one opposing new ideas or social or
political reform (adj: opposed to same)
Tim Dowley, Introduction to the History of
Christianity: "The term 'fundamentalism' came to denote an unduly
defensive and obscurantist attitude which was anti-scholarly,
anti-intellectual and anti-cultural."
William Manchester, A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the
Renaissance:
p. 184: "The fog of religious strife was, if anything, thicker than those
of secular wars; obscurant theologians in Rome and hard-liners in
the dioceses abroad saw the widening apostasy as an opportunity to stifle
dissent."
p 119: "Then, in 1509, Johannes Pfefferkorn, a Dominican monk who was also
a converted rabbi, published an anti-Semitic book proposing that all works in
Hebrew be burned. Reuchlin, dismayed by the possibility of such desecration,
formally protested to the emperor. Pfefferkorn, he wrote, was an
anti-intellectual 'ass.' Reuchlin's riposte so outraged the Dominicans that the
order, supported by the obscurantist clergy throughout Europe,
lodged a charge of heresy against him."
Andy Rooney
missed the distinction, in Sincerely, Andy Rooney: "His booklet of
black poems seems pretentious. I took little from a first reading. Anyone who
decides to write poetry, should first master prose. I have not read enough of
Ken Boulding's prose to know whether or not he had a license to write obscurant
verse."
The sound of
a word in one language might coincidentally also be a word, in another
language, but with entirely different meaning. For example, to a Spaniard the
sound [sē] (long e) means "yes," while in English the same sound
means either "view" or "body of water" (see or sea).
Simalarly, Hebe in Greek was the goddess of youth, while hebes
in Latin meant "dull" (like either a dull knife or a dull mind).
Naturally, the English words derived from Greek Hebe and from Latin hebes
have very similar sounds, but very different meanings.
hebetic – occurring at puberty [Gk Hebe=youth]
hebetude – mental dullness; lethargy [L hebes=dull] (adj:
hebetudinous; hebate. verb: hebetate – to stupefy; to make dull)
Note: With minor exception, this is mental dullness only. You
cannot speak of "a hebate knife".
These words
look very useful, and I commend them to you. But each is extremely rare.
Indeed, for hebetic I can't find a single decent quotation.
Messrs. Buecheler and Vahlen are hampered by two grave
encumbrances: they know too much Latin, and they are not sufficiently obtuse.
Among their pupils are several who comprehend neither Latin nor any other
language, and whom nature has prodigally endowed at birth with that hebetude
of intellect which Messrs. Vahlen and Buecheler, despite their assiduous and
protracted efforts, have not yet succeeded in acquiring.
– A. E. Houseman, Commentary on Manilius
an epidemic of hebetude among young people who . . . are placing
too great a reliance on electronic devices to do their thinking and
remembering.
– Reader's letter, in The Weekend Australian, Oct. 2, 2001
Habitude has engendered hebetude; and familiarity,
overfamiliarity.
– Paul West, A Stroke of Genius: Illness and Self-Discovery
Lifestyles,
"On the street where you live"
Where you
live can say much about who you are. This week's words tell of the streets
where you and others live.
easy street – a state of financial comfort or security
When Bunny's Book Club chose my book, I knew I had it
made, easy street, the sweet dreams of the saved. No more
halving spicy poorboys, no more baldy tires, no second-hand paperbacks, obsolete
WordPerfect or American beer.
– short story by R.T. Smith, in The Carolina Quarterly, Spring, 2003
If you move
way up from easy street, you might even reach Park Avenue.
Park Avenue – the world of those who are ultra-rich in both money
and social standing
The first quotation encapsulates it perfectly.
Katherine Cassavetes was extroverted, animated and
status-conscious. The daughter of a Greek ship captain (a prestigious position
within Greek society), she was a member of the Park Avenue high
Greek aristocrcacy (where the family joke was that Aristotle Onasis was an
unstart businessman without true 'style' or 'class').
– John Cassavetes, Cassavetes on Cassavetes (speaking of his mother)
[in a divorce:] A Park Avenue wife may successfully contend that
she is used to a standard of living that qualifies her for both a property
settlement and a generous living allowance.
– Marilyn Crockett, The Money Club: The Park Avenue Women's Guide to
Personal Finance
Park Avenue
in Manhattan has long been a fashionable and very expensive address. The
dictionaries have not picked up the metaphorical sense, but Online Etymology
notes "Park Avenue as an adj. meaning 'luxurious and fashionable',"
dating from 1956. Indeed. The advertising world slaps the Park Avenue name
on everything from real estate to automobiles to even dog carriers, to denote
high-class luxury:
�. Our Park Avenue Executive Suite
provides big city luxury and style – Las Vegas Hilton
�. the luxurious Park Avenue,
Buick’s most elegant sedan – General Motors
�. Park Avenue Pet Carrier:
You might rise
from Easy Street to Park Avenue. But if things go ill you may find yourself on
Queer Street ...
Queer Street – a condition of financial instability or
embarrassment [but see below]
How should we take Gray’s protestations of poverty? If we
accept his word, he is living on the crust of the breadline, a cul-de-sac away
from Queer Street. He has nothing in the way of “worldly
goods”, he says, except his books, his typewriters, a couple of televisions,
various pieces of furniture and his honour.
– Alan Taylor, in The Sunday Herald, April 25, 2004
"You see, I've run rather short." "Yes?" said my father.
"Well, I'm the worst person to come to for advice. I've never been
'short,' as you so painfully call it. And yet what else could you say? Hard up?
Penurious? Distressed? Embarrassed? Stony-broke?" (Snuffle) "On the
rocks? In Queer Street? Let us say you are in Queer
Street and leave it at that."
– Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
Where does
the phrase come from? Some say a London street, site of the bankruptcy court,
was informally called Queer Street, 'queer' being slang for 'in financial
straits'. Others say that traders, in their books, would put a query (?)
against the names of customers with suspected financial problems.
In boxing "queer street" is slang for "stumbling and
groggy from a blow to the head'. It is often used to refer to the gay
community, as in the recent book The Rise and Fall of an American Culture,
by James McCourt.
Tobacco
Road – a squalid
poverty-stricken rural area or community
[From the 1932 novel Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell]
I was the second-to-the-last of 10 children. We were Tobacco
Road looking folks -- big time poverty -- from Arkansas, who wound up
in Salem, Ore., and then moved down here. We were crop pickers, following the
crops around. The kids would all go to school and also pick out in the crops.
– Judy Phillips, small businesswoman, quoted in Stockton (Califoria) Record,
Sept. 27, 2004
They managed graft on a scale comparable with that of their political bosses.
The head of the Mexican police force managed to build a residence that makes
the homes of Arab sheiks look like Tobacco Road.
– William F. Buckley, Jr., National Review, Mexican cant, June 29, 1984
The term is
often used in a different sense, in sports reports, to refer to the collegiate
basketball teams from Carolina.
skid row – a squalid city district, inhabited by
derelicts, alcoholics. addicts and the homeless
Many of them are said to have a skid-row
existence — living hand-to-mouth, sleeping in their cars, hiding out behind
commercial trash bins or living in groups of 10 or 12 in low-rent apartments.
– Nancy Perkins, Deseret (Utah) Morning News, August 26, 2004
[in Philadelphia:] Franklin Square, the city's Skid-Row park
where the homeless, the unemployed and the people of indigent leisure gather
amid the adjacent flophouses, cheap hotels, missions, second-hand clothing
stores, reading and writing lobbies, pawnshops, employment agencies, tattoo
parlors, burlesque houses and eateries.
– Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Main
Street – typical, average
Americans, taken as a group [see first two quotes]; sometimes limited to those
typical of rural and small-town America [see last three quotes]
[Note: Dictionaries also give a meaning of "parochial,
conservative, smugly-complacent mediocrity," sometimes as the primary
definition or even the sole definition. But that negative sense (spread by
Sinclair Lewis's 1920 novel Main Street) seems to be rather infrequent
in actual usage.
George Bush wants to help people on Easy Street.
I want to help people on Main Street.
– Michael Dukakis, 1988 US presidential candidate opposing the first George
Bush:
… the late president’s funeral did not take place in Arlington Cemetery alone.
It took place in a living room in Los Angeles, in Grand Central Terminal in New
York, in kitchens and offices across the United States. John F Kennedy’s casket
did not ride down Pennsylvania Avenue only. It rode down Main Street.
– Newsweek, Dec. 9, 1963
Pain on Main Street: Rural Americans are bearing a
disproportionate price on the battlefield in Iraq.
– Article title, Newsweek, Aug. 9, 2004
Drought is the quiet killer that slowly squeezes the life out of Main
Street America.
– Max Baucus, USA Today, Sept. 23, 2004
I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known
that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our
national character.
– campaign speech by Herbert Hoover, U.S. president 1929-1933
Acacia
Avenue – Brit; facetious:
any middle-class suburban street.
In London, the straggling Acacia Avenue
suburbs, often gone to seed, could be pulled down and rebuilt to intensive city
density to give more people homes.
– Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, Sept. 3, 2004
So to put it
all together:
If you strive to move up from Easy Street, you might even reach Park Avenue.
But with things go ill you may find yourself on Queer Street, or fall even
lower to Tobacco Road, or even to the depths of skid row. Isn't it better to be
an ordinary fellow on Main Street, or on a suburban Acacia Avenue?