January
2006 Archives
Eponyms from World War II: Lord Haw Haw (Spenglerian);
Maginot line; Luger
(jackboot); Toyko Rose; K-ration (climactic); Garand
(Browning machine gun); Rosie the Riveter
Lazy People: layabout; chairwarmer; dabster (dab); faineant; fainéant (faineant
deity); sluggard; goldbrick; lollygagger
Antedating the OED: majorette; drum majorette; manhandling; mail slot;
man-hating (misogyny, misandry); mass market; mass of
maneuver; mass producer
Waters of the World: lacustrine;
littoral (viticulture); riparian (riverine, riprap,
gabion); pelagic (cetacean); palustrine (paludal); neritic (sublittoral, bathyal, abysmal, hadal, continental slope, benthic/benthonic, bathypelagic);
estuarial (kelt, limnology,
oceanography, oceanology)
"Untranslatable" Words from
German: Korinthenkacker; Feierabend; fisselig; Drachenfutter (propitiate); Radfahrer;
Schlimmbesserung (marmoreal); Papierkrieg
For this week I toyed with a variety of military
themes, such as "Eponyms of Traitors" or "Military
Eponyms". But let's face the challenge of coming up with words for a more
limited theme, "Eponyms from WWII".
Lord Haw Haw – a traitor, particularly one who
makes propaganda for the enemy
[The nickname given to William Joyce, American born but raised in
Instead there was
constant, heavy-handed propaganda … – a Spenglerian
radio lecture on the decadence of liberalism and the decline of the West,
delivered by a Lord Haw Haw figure with
a whining voice …
– Allister Sparks, Beyond the Miracle: Inside the
New South Africa
Bonus word:
Spenglerian – relating to the
views of Oswald Spengler, who held that all major
cultures undergo similar cycles from birth to maturity to decay
Maginot line – an impressive, expensive but
static defense which is ultimately useless against an agile attack. (see quotes; some use the term as a cultural references
rather than as a word)
[After WWI, French minister André Maginot devised a
line of fortresses along
The current Ofcom and BBC rules on product placement are a sort of Maginot line, say many
in the industry: they look very formidable in theory but in practice there are
many ways round them.
– Alex Benady, The Independent (London), Dec 12, 2005
… no government bureaucracy is ever going to be the kind of well-oiled machine
that can reliably and effectively prevent domestic terrorist threats. …
Instead, what we have is a kind of antiterror version
of
– Wall Street Journal, The Maginot Department: Homeland security is about more
than playing defense, December 31, 2005
Culturally,
-
Don't mistake today's word for luger, an athlete in the sport of luge.
Luger – semiautomatic pistol widely used by
Germans in WWII (though introduced earlier). Some consider it to be the finest
pistol ever produced.
[After Georg Luger,
Hordes of
brutal-looking, jack-booted police, with loaded Lugers strapped to their hips, moved in with
"huge, muzzled dogs at their heels," trying to move the crowd back.
– Bob Spitz The Beatles: The Biography
Bonus word:
jackboot – a person who uses bullying tactics,
especially to force compliance. (orig. and
also, a stout military boot that extends above the knee)
Toyko Rose – usually refers to the person, but
occasionally used to mean one broadcasting negative propagand
to military troops
[After the name "Tokyo Rose", given by WWII
In the Christmas
tradition of the Andrews Sisters wowing World War II GIs, comedian Al Franken
is headlining USO shows at military bases in
– USA Today, Dec. 22, 2005
[Chris] Wallace … had even harsher words for Democratic National Committee
Chairman Howard Dean, calling him a "Toyko
Rose" for suggesting that the war in Iraq is unwinnable.
– Contra Costa Times, Dec. 14, 2005
K-ration – a field
ration for
[After Ancel Benjamin Keys (1904-2004), American
physiologist]
[After D-day:] As
soon as the battle began, however, the advantage would shift to the Germans.
Once in
– Stephen E. Ambrose, D Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of
World War II
Bonus word:
climactic – adjective form of 'climax'
Garand – a semi-automatic rifle (better known as the M-1) used by
[After John Cantius Garand
(1888–1974), Canadian-born American inventor]
… the American M-1 Garand
was the best all-purpose military rifle in the world. Overall, however,
Americans in
– Stephen E. Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers [etc]
Another eponymous weapon is the Browning
machine gun – a belt-fed machine gun fired over 500 rounds per minute, used
by
Rosie the Riveter –
A picture is worth a thousand words. The picture of
Rosie, as the mythical poster girl in a campaign to boost war production, shows
her character and spirit. Her name is usually used in reference to her, and you
won't find it in the dictionaries, but sometimes you will see it as a word. For
example:
My father was a
foreman in a factory that made bomb-casings. My mother was a Rosie the
Riveter.
– Stephen King, It
Grandma worked in the
– Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher
The vocabulary of insult is huge. Let's
spend some time looking at terms for not-so-admirable people in our world,
specifically the lazy ones.
layabout – a person who
habitually does little or no work
The point
is," he said, "that people like you and me, Slartibartfast,
and Arthur-particularly and especially Arthur-are just dilettantes, eccentrics,
layabouts if you like."
– Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy
Today's word has several interesting, useful
meanings, and a hearer will immediately understand it from context. Thus,
though it is rare, it merits wider use. Few dictionaries define it, and they
define it poorly.
chairwarmer –
1. an interim officeholder "keeping the
chair warm" until the proper successor takes office
When he [Goh Chok Tong] was named Prime
Minister in November 1990, the PAP politician was only 49--and widely dismissed
as a chairwarmer for Lee Kuan Yew's older son, Lee Hsien Loong, then 38.¹
2. one who, with only office experience (in his chair), meddles
in practical matters
Some chairwarmer in [the Office] cooks up a
crack-pot notion of how things ought to be done. Maybe he was never in the
plant but he don't let that bother him.²
3. one who lounges long in a hotel lobby, etc.
He had heard
loungers about hotels called chairwarmers.
He had called them that himself in his day.³
¹Terry McCarthy
and Eric Ellis, Time Magazine, July 19, 1999
²Melville Dalton, Men who Manage, quoting a worker, in Sociology of
Economic Life (Mark Granovetter, Richard Swedburg, ed.) (brackets in text
cited)
³Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
Today's word dabster
has switched meanings. A dab, is one skilled in
something, an expert, an adept. Dabster
originally meant the same.
In contrast, to daub is to smear on; in painting it means to lay on
colors clumsily, and thus a daubster is a
clumsy painter.
Dabster was a positive word, but it sounds
much like both dabbler and daubster.
Perhaps that is why dabster acquired those
negative meanings. They now seem to be the more common meanings.
dabster – 1. a person skilled at something. 2. a
dabbler; or, a clumsy, inept painter
"No? Really,
can you paint?"
"Not as badly as they. No, I don't claim that, for I am not a genius; in
fact, I am a very indifferent amateur, a slouchy dabster,
a mere artistic sarcasm; but drunk or asleep I can beat those buccaneers."
– Mark Twain, The American
faineant; fainéant – noun: an irresponsible idler; a do-nothing
adj.: idle and ineffectual.
(fainéance; fainéancy)
[From French fait + néant, does + nothing]
Here's a tidbit that may aid your recall. The French king from 967-987, the
last Carolingian, was Louis le fainéant. Interestingly,
Muslim historians
claimed that Chingiz Khan communicated with devils in
trances. … The Muslim princes opposing the Mongols were by contrast judged as
ditherers and faineants.
– Robert Irwin, in The
… the negative, fainéant outlook which has been fashionable among
English left-wingers, the sniggering of the intellectuals at patriotism and
physical courage, the persistent effort to chip away English morale and spread
a hedonistic, what-do-I-get-out-of-it attitude to life, has done nothing but
harm.
– George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia, part I
Dictionary sources add that a god who does
not act in human affairs, and hence is not worshiped, is called a faineant deity.
Your industrious wordcrafter
has now found a seventh term for "idler," suitable to present here.
Let's continue through those terms.
sluggard – a lazy, sluggish person
'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard
him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."
– Isaac Watts, The Sluggard
goldbrick – a shirker: someone, esp. a soldier, who avoids assigned
duties (also, something that appears valuable but is actually worthless)
As one newspaper puts it, "A goldbrick is a soldier who is
allergic to work."
The term can also be pressed into use as a verb, and it shades into the notion
of playing hooky, spending some office time on personal calls, taking a bit of
time off.
"I think a
certain amount of goldbricking is necessary to preserve your
sanity," says Henry McCarl, professor of
economics … "I think anyone who says they don't goldbrick is
kidding themselves."
– Cristina Rouvalis,
lollygagger – one who dawdles or putters around (verb: to lollygag)
The life of a
traveler can be rough. But being a tourist is another matter. As tourists we
were free to sleep late, eat out, and keep no schedule at all. We became lollygaggers
at large. It was not a difficult transition.
– Marilyn J. Abraham, First We Quit Our Jobs
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a
remarkable feat of scholarship. The 20-volume second edition, dated 1989,
contains 291,500 entries (contrast about 107,000 for Merriam Webster on-line,
and 89,000 for American Heritage), with almost 2½ million quotations to
illustrate them.
But the OED is a work of 19th- and early-20th-century scholarship, one that OED
must constantly update as the language grows – and as our ability to research
it grows. OED editors give the earliest citations they know of, but they of
course could not check every single published work. Today, however, search
technology provides a new way to look for earlier citations, for antedates. It is
perhaps impossible for OED to keep fully up-to-date, and thus some antedates
have been found but not yet published, while other antedates remained
undiscovered.
My point in this theme goes beyond the individual words. The OED,
though wonderful, is far from perfect its citations. It is easy to say that, but far more convincing to demonstrate
it with several examples. To illustrate, this week we present words with
citations that antedate OED's earliest. OED has been revising its entries,
proceeding gradually through the alphabet, and we will concentrate on a portion
which OED revised as recently as 2000.
majorette or drum majorette – a girl or
woman who leads a marching band or accompanies it as a baton twirler
[Note: sources differ as to whether each term includes the leader, the twirler,
or the band-member playing an instrument.]
1923 cite [photo caption and subcaption]: ONLY
DRUM MAJORETTE Or would you call her a
drum majoress? She's Mrs. C. W. Williams, who led the
Elks band of
– Reno Evening Gazette July 23, p.2 col. 3-4:
OED's first cite, 1938: Drum majorettes are latest in ballyhoo.
– Life 10 Oct. 3/1 (heading)
manhandling (noun) – rough handling
1908 cite: The fight went about a half a round …. When the smoke cleared
away Dick was covered with blood as the result of his manhandling
…
– The Fort Wayne (Indiana) News, April 24, 1908, p.8 col. 5
OED's first cite, 1916: I feel we must treat the gifted Athenian stranger to a
little manhandling.
– A. T. Quiller-Couch, Art of
mail slot – a slot or slit in a door
(occasionally in a wall), through which mail can be delivered
Here OED can be antedated very substantially. Also, OED define mail slot
as "letter box", but it should be noted that that does not imply a
box or any other sort of closed container. Rather, mail pushed through the slot
simply falls to the floor, accessible to all on that side of the door. Our
first quote illustrates dire consequences of that access.
1910 cite: Some Fiend Places Poison in a Residence Through the Mail
Slot and Kills a Pet Dog.
– Headline of The Indiana Democrat, March 30, 1910 p.1
1892 cite:…
two horizontals slits in the door plate, above and below the mail slot.
– Olean Weekly Democrat, Dec. 20, 1892, p13 col 1
OED's first cite:
man-hating – hatred of the male sex; misandry
From the quote dates, it seems that such things run in cycles.
1892 cite: But we believe that this man-hating craze is a
passing phase of the time …
– Reno (Nevada) Evening Gazette, Sept. 15, 1892, 1/3
1922 cite: If the cult of man-hating goes on increasing
until it gains ascendancy, even were it possible to propagate the race without
the assistance of the male, the end of the world would be assured.
– The Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune, Apr. 20, 1922, 7/3
OED's cites:
1965 Shakespeare Q. 16 333 As for the principals, they were
in their fancy get-ups, showing no evidence that Spanish temperament had any
connection with Petruchio's heiress-hunting or Kate's
man-hating.
1991 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Sept. 301/1 [Feminism] began to go off
the rails into man-hating and victim-mongering.
Bonus words and side note:
Misogyny is a fairly well-known word for "hatred of women".
The counterpart for "hatred of men" is misandry,
but is much less familiar, and has only 1/17th as many google
hits. I am not brave enough to speculate on why there should be such a
difference.
mass market – the market for goods produced in
large quantities for the broad population
1927 cite: [advert.] Fur retailers have accomplished much in developing a
style appeal – the comfort – the economy of fur garments and by modern sales
methods have changed a class market into a mass market.
– Syracuse Herald, Oct. 14, 1927 36/1-2
OED's earliest cite:
1933 Jrnl. Polit.
Econ. 41 708: The most important bearing of population growth on industry
is that it furnishes a mass market for products.
mass of maneuver – something held in reserve, to be used when and where the
appropriate becomes clear
A rarely used phrase, used chiefly in military parlance, but available for
metaphorical use.
We'll skip the earliest cite found (1918), and OED's earliest (1919), and
instead give a Churchill passage that wonderfully explains the concept and its
importance. The French General has just detailed the disasterous
state of the battlefield.
… there was a considerable silence. I then asked: "Where
is the strategic reserve?" and, breaking into French, …
"Où est la masse
de manoeuvre?" General Gamelin turned to me and, with a shake of the head and a
shrug, said: "Aucune.."
[none]
.
. . no strategic reserve. "Aucune."
I was dumbfounded. … It had never occurred to me that any commanders having to
defend five hundred miles of engaged front would have left themselves unprovided with a mass of manoeuvre.
No one can defend with certainty so wide a front; but when the enemy … breaks
the line, one can always have, one must have, a mass of divisions which marches
up in vehement counter-attack.
– Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour, pp. 46-47
mass producer – a manufacture producing in large
quantities, typically by automated process
Our quote today, referring to Henry Ford's virulent anti-semitism,
illustrates both the literal and extended meanings of the term.
1927 cite: He is not only the greatest mass-producer of
automobiles, but the greatest mass-producer of hate.
– Congressman Sol Bloom, quoted in Syracuse Herald 7 Feb 22/1
OED's earliest cite:
1929 A. HUXLEY, Do what you Will 90 The mass-producers
will do their best to make everybody more and more prosperous.
This week we'll survey terms that refer to
the various waters of the world. We'll of course pass over the many familiar
terms, such as sea, lake, river, bay, inlet, etc. The less familiar
terms are sometimes technical ones and sometimes literary ones, but all are
available for your use.
lacustrine – relating
to lakes
When he first laid
eyes on Tenochtitlán [
– Fodor's Mexico 2006
littoral – relating to the shore of non-flowing waters such as lakes,
oceans, etc. [in more specific use, relating to the area which, as tides rise
and fall, is sometimes underwater and sometimes exposed.] Also used as a
noun.
"Littoral" can be used literally, but the figurative use (last quote)
is interesting too.
Sanibel and Captiva are part of the hundred littoral
islands basking in the sun off the west coast of
– Patricia Schultz, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die
These viticultural regions all lie within the littoral
Mediterranean climate zone of Algeria with its mild winters and hot, dry, and
sunny summers.
– Jancis Robinson The
Newt, who hadn't spent years on the littoral of business without
picking up a thing or two.
– Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett,
Good Omens
Bonus word:
viticulture – grape-growing [Latin vitis
'vine']
Littoral refers to
the shores of non-flowing waters. What of flowing waters?
riparian – relating to riverbanks (although
often mis-used to include littoral)
riverine – relating to riverbanks
The proposed partnership
is a win-win solution for the city to create and manage a riparian
green space along the Rappahannock and Rapidan
riverbanks
– Kurt A. Baden, The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia), Jan. 23, 2006
Second-home sales have boomed so much that in many popular rustric
retreats … vacation homes by the thousands line the desirable riparian
acreage, with land parcels growing scarce.
– Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox:
How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
Bonus words:
riprap – (illustration)
loose stone used to stabilize a riverbank, or for like purposes
If riprap is enclosed in a mesh cage, for modular use, it is called gabion
(illustration), and can also be used for dry purposes, such
as retaining walls (illustation). This use of "gabion" has not yet
entered the dictionaries.
Our words leave the shore and go out to sea.
We tell the tale of the whale in the
pelagic – relating to open ocean
Bonus word: cetacean – pertaining to whales
Prince of whales:
Our visitor played its part as if to the cetacean
drama of Moby Dick born. It dived, spouted and flipped its tail. The Water
Board was prompt to boast that its
– Philip Howard, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 25, 2006, expanding item in London
Times four days earlier. I combine excerpts from both versions.
Can you imagine Londoners "reaching for
their harpoons," which they doubtless had handy?
Two obscure ones today.
palustrine – relating
to swamps and marshes
paludal – 1. relating
to swamps and marshes; palustrine. 2. malarial
Each from Latin palus marsh.
Indeed one reads
of some old poets who were not able to produce a mere hundred lines in a day.
Under the "free-verse" system, some of the Palustrine
(or Marshy) School have been known to produce as many as three thousand lines
in a day …
– Punch, November 7, 1917
And they had good reason to fear that in warm weather the atmosphere might be
charged with dangerous miasma, of the kind that engenders paludal
fevers.
– Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island (Jordan Stump, translator)
Various terms measure ocean depths. Sources
conflict, and sometimes a source even contradicts itself (example
here: 3,000 or 4,000?), but I've tried to put it together.
neritic or sublittoral – of ocean depths to about 200 meters.
[probably named for a son of Nereus,
hence an eponym.]
bathyal – of ocean
depths below neritic, to 4,000 meters.
abysmal – of ocean depths below bathyal. (Some will instead call the deepest part of this,
below 6,000 meters, hadal as in
"Hades".)
Neritic depths are chiefly influenced by tides and
waves, bathyal depths by currents
Extras:
continental slope – the seabed where it gradually descends from
continental shore. (A steeper descent typically begins at 200 meters depth.
Compare "neritic".)
benthic; benthonic – of the deepest part
(however deep it may be) of an ocean or lake
Some sources list bathypelagic as "relating to a depth of about 600
to 3,000 meters".
estuarial – relating
to an estuary, the area near the mouth of a river where river flow mixes
with tidal flow, fresh water with salt water
Bonus word: kelt – (per OED) a salmon, etc. in
bad condition after spawning, before returning to the sea
Salmo salar, the
Atlantic salmon, having gone to sea, returns to the river of its birth to
spawn. On the way it may fall prey to estuarial nets. Once in the
river it may have to leap up and over waterfalls ('salar'
means the leaper) … until, having spawned, it dies in the river or returns to
the sea. In this final phase of its life it is known as a kelt.
– Simon Courtauld, The Spectator, June 18, 2005
(ellipses omitted)
Question for our
readers: In preparing this theme I learned that limnology is the study
of bodies of fresh water, including their biology and geology. But I
could not find no such -ology
word for that study of bodies of salt water. (For example, "marine
biology" is limited to biology and is not a single word.) Can anyone
provide the term?
Follow-up: We'd noted
that limnology is the scientific study of bodies of fresh water, and
we'd asked for a like term for salt-water bodies. Thanks to readers' input, I
can now tell you that according to OED on-line, oceanography has that meaning. The word oceanology
used to have that meaning too, but now is more used to mean "the branch of
technology and economics concerned with human use of the ocean."
I commend to you Howard Rheingold's book, They
Have a Word for It (1988), which is not just another word-book. Rheingold
focuses on
"untranslatable words" that don't exist in English but would add a new dimension to our lives if we were somehow to import them from their original languages. Words that would open a window on the way other cultures encourage people to think and feel, and thus point out new ways for us to think and feel.
This week I'll borrow from Rheingold,
trusting that he would view it not as plagiarism but as publicity. Rheingold's
words come from all over the world, but those from non-western cultures often
require an explanation of cultural context a bit longer than we'd like here.
Also, we've already enjoyed several such words from German: schadenfreude; gemütlich; katzenjammer; torschlusspanik.
This week we'll look at more German words, from Rheingold. And if we happen to
select those that bring a smile, who would complain?
Korinthenkacker (core-IN-ten-COCK-er) – a person overly concerned with trivial details
[Literally, "raisin-sh*tter"]
The Korinthenkacker is the guy whose desk has
every item perfectly in place, neatly aligned. The Korinthenkacker
is the guy who insists on figuring the precise to-the-penny amount (plus tax)
owed by each of six people who have dined together at a restaurant. The Korinthenkacker, says Rheingold, is "anyone who
couldn't find a forest because he or she is too busy applying a magnifying
glass to an inspection of the bark of one tree."
Feierabend – festive frame of mind at the end of the working day
Literally, "celebration evening". The
euphoric feeling of work is over and it's time to relax, enjoy a beer at the
pub, or put your feet up before the fire with your newspaper and slippers.
To me – and this is personal only – Feierabend
differs in two senses from "Thank God It's Friday". The latter
applies only one day a week, and more importantly, has the sense of relief from
the "bad hours" rather than relish of the "good hours".
Perhaps this old pop-song by The Vogues conveys the feeling, especially in with
last line?
Up every morning just to keep a job
I gotta fight my way through the hustling mob.
Sounds of the city pounding in my brain
While another day goes down the drain.
But it's a five o'clock world when the whistle blows
No one owns a piece of my time
And there's a five o'clock me inside my clothes
Thinking that the world looks fine.
fisselig – flustered into incompetence because a critical person is
watching
I think of a state of incompetent "stage fright", whether in the
theater itself or under the eye of a critical boss or professor.
Rheingold says, "flustered to the point of incompetence," but then
adds that flustered or jittery" are inexact because
"neither … puts any blame on the unwanted supervisorial
attention that brings on this nervousness and disintegration of
composure." I have tried to put this together into a brief definition. Any
correction or confirmation is appreciated.
Anyone who has been married will understand
today's word.
Drachenfutter – peace offering to one's wife
(chocolate, flowers, etc.) when one has behaved badly: a late night of poker
with the boys, etc.
Literally (oh, this is lovely!) "dragon
fodder". An attempt to propitiate the goddess in her
wrath.
Such gifts were so customary and common that the Germans coined a word for
them. Rheingold reports, "At one point it was common in
Bonus word:
propitiate – to appease; to gain or regain the favor of
Radfahrer – colloquial: one who flatters superiors and brow-beats
subordinates
This sort of two-faced person has been given a name that literally means
"cyclist": after toadying to his bosses, he turns around and abuses
subordinates. This despicable type is distinct from the sycophant, who merely
toadies.
Come to think of it, does English have a word for the boss who terrorizes those
who work for him? 'Martinet' comes to mind, but it means a strict
disciplinarian, a stickler for the rules. It does not necessarily imply terror.
Conversely, I would think that part of the terror of a Radfahrer
is that, without clear standards, one never knows what may set him off.
Schlimmbesserung – a so-called improvement that makes things worse
Surely readers can provide examples, and I'm providing
a thread here to share them. Rheingold's example is the bus-only
lanes on a highway: lanes that are empty most of the time, while the entire
traffic load must cram into the lanes remaining.
And who'd have expected a purple-prose example in the world of body-building?
Johnnie O.
resurrected the hallowed precepts of bodybuilding from the rubble of antiquity
and proudly poised himself at that Archimedean point from which he can lift the
whole world of our sport. … his physique evokes the
structure of bodybuilding's frontiersmen: marmoreal monsters who were as
thick and deep as they were wide … Now, among a generation seduced by the schlimmbesserung of progress, Johnnie O.
Jackson stands as a superhero.
– Julian Schmidt, Flex [Magazine], April, 2002
Bonus word:
marmoreal – like marble (emphasizing either
smoothness or hardness)
Papierkrieg – obsessively complicated paperwork, seemingly (or actually)
designed to make you give up in frustration
Can anyone comment on how this is related to Bürokratismus?
Rheingold defines Papierkrieg as "complicated
paperwork connected with making a complaint" that, unlike 'red tape', is a obstacle created deliberately to derail you. However, this
web-example shows that Papierkrieg is not be limited
to "complaint" forms.
Years ago outside