etymology – Page 2 – Richmond Writing

Word of the Week! Shenanigans

Thanks to Kim Chiarchiaro, of the Modlin Center For the Arts, who nominated this wonderful word. We see the word in names of bars, unusually, and not the sort where I want to order a Martini (somewhat dry, Hendricks Gin, dash of bitters, clean not dirty, olive not lemon, shaken and VERY cold, thank you). Try that on a server or bartender in a bar named Shenanigans. You might get punched out.

Yet beyond that dark vision, the word has a Gaelic sound. I asked the robotic brain at the OED, and found “unknown origin.” Now we have a mystery. The definitions are also delightful, including “Trickery, skulduggery, machination, intrigue; teasing, ‘kidding’, nonsense; (usually plural) a plot, a trick, a prank, an exhibition of high spirits, a carry-on.” The OED records first usage as 1855.

The word might be a bit informal for student work, but I’m thinking that it could be of use to scholars describing several rascals, past or present, who influenced public events. Have shenanigans increased in the past century? I am not certain, but the usage of the term has skyrocketed, from 0 instances in 1870 to just under .05 instances per million words in 1930 to .25 per million in 2010.

Shenanigans may also be on the rise.

This blog will continue all year, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below. Also let us know if you would like to write a guest column.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia, from the University of Tulsa’s alumni who placed a memorial stone to celebrate “wonderful memories of their college days, including their participation in many shenanigans.”

Word of the Week! Administrivia

Sad to say, but I didn’t invent this word. I have used it for years, thinking (wrongly!) that I coined this portmanteau word. Others have long had similar notions.

Today I ran across this sentence in a white paper from McKinsey and Company, “Middle managers confront endless administrivia—and in many cases, burnout.” I get all their briefs on generative AI. I’d prefer to leave shuffling and sorting files, as well as attending most meetings, to an AI, so I see the sentence both as proof I did not coin the term and as vindication: administrative work can often be thankless, but some of it is merely trivial.

What surprised me most involved first use: 1937, in an ethics journal, with this sentence cited in the OED entry, “He recognized that grave problems of public policy were neglected because legislative time was so largely taken up with what might be called administrivia.” That encapsulates the dilemma of our word: important work needs to be done, but in the parlance of office-speak today, too often we “get into the weeds” instead of thinking strategically.

I fear administrivia is rising faster than carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Consider the OED’s usage-frequency chart. The image blurred but the red line goes one way: right up, a sevenfold increase since 1930.

So think about what you can do to reduce administrivia and get on with important work while at work.

This blog will continue all year, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image Source: Touch not Milton’s red Swingline stapler! Mike Judge’s superb Gen-X comedy, Office Space.

Word of the Week! Halcyon

A break in the tropical, oppressive weather of late made move-in day at the university a pleasant event for our first-year students. I hope they’ll recall it later as part of a four-year halcyon time in their lives.

Students face a great deal more anxiety than I did, 45 years ago (!) when I arrived as a clueless but hopeful freshman on the UVA campus (I mean Grounds–sorry for that near slip, Virginia Cavaliers). I regard those four years, especially the last two after I found my way academically and socially, to be a tranquil, happy time in my life. I recall those years, as do a few UVA friends I still see, quite fondly.

I’ve not covered this word, which seems a pity. It’s common in Humanities texts, especially literary works. We might use “idyll” as a near synonym. The etymology interests me a great deal; I didn’t know it before writing this post. We get our word thanks to Ancient Greeks and Romans; the OED tells us that our “halcyon” descends from the Latin “alcyōn. . . a mythical bird identified by the ancients with the kingfisher, believed to nest on the sea < ancient Greek ἀλκυών, in the same sense, of unknown origin; perhaps a Mediterranean loanword.”

How did a bird come to signify a lovely, even blissful period of life, when the cares of the world seem far away? The halcyon of myth would brood on her nest for days, The OED etymology tells us. It would “charm the wind and waves into calm.”

That’s sense of calm serves as our currently common definition. Again, the OED has it, as noun or adjective, to denote “A period of calm, happiness, or prosperity; (as a mass noun) calm, tranquillity. Also: a period of calm or pleasant weather.” The dictionary notes the phrase “halcyon days” as well.

Usage of our word has declined from its peak of popularity in the 19th Century. Perhaps the nastiness and breakneck pace of the century that followed put “halcyon” into my category of “endangered words.” I’d like to think that when our current troubles–and they are multiple–pass, we might again enjoy some halcyon days.

Meanwhile, students, slow down enough to at least savor Fall in Central Virginia. It can be a wistful, lovely time that will pass quickly but that you will recall forever.

This blog will not pass on but instead continue all year, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image “Move-in Day, Tulane University, 2009” courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Metaphor of the Month! Mercurial

Special thanks to contributor Sarah Spencer, studying Psychology at Richmond. She nominated this word, one I use personally but have not yet covered here.

August proves generally hot in Central Virginia, and even if nearly all modern thermometers do not use toxic mercury, the mercury does begin to rise and fall more than in July. Our most mercurial months, October and March, lie in wait. Our metaphor refers to these quick rises or drops, but not merely in temperature. A mercurial person shifts moods as fast as temperatures in Fall or Spring.

The OED is acting up today, but I got as far as seeing a 14th Century date of first recorded use, as well as the definitions “having a lively, volatile, or restless nature.” I have encountered the rather dainty term in literature; it also appears in journalistic pieces about public figures with thin skins; it gives us a polite alternative to calling someone a “brat,” or a “jerk.” Not all mercurial persons are mean; one might shift back and forth from giddy to sad without hurting anyone else. A mercurial child (if not your own) who throws a tantrum in a store can be humorous.

Ultimately, our term goes back to the fleet-footed Roman god Mercury, who lent his name to quicksilver, the element found in older thermometers.

Thanks, Sarah. I hope you can avoid mercurial persons, except in a professional capacity, even if we cannot avoid mercurial weather.

This blog will roll on into better weather and the start of classes, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Word of the Week! Quine

I really enjoy the New York Time‘s five-letter-word game, Wordle. Today I guessed “quine” on my third guess of six. The correct answer, that I got on try five, was “penne,” but I won’t digress about pasta, despite the great basil from our garden, waiting to be turned into pesto.

The Wordle got me to wonder where I had heard “quine,” a word I never use. Now, after doing some reading, I plan to use it a great deal. It describes perfectly an action we encounter daily. While the OED gives many antique definitions, the free site Wikionary provides a modern definition, to “deny the existence or significance of something obviously real or important.” The etymology interests me:

Named after philosopher and logician Willard Van Orman Quine. Senses related to self-reference are coined by Douglas Hofstadter in 1979 in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach (referencing the paradox named after him), while the verb sense of “to deny the importance or significance of something” was independently coined by Daniel Dennett in 1978 in The Philosophical Lexicon.

Now we have a verb for what climate-change deniers, flat-earth believers, and conspiracy theorists do. With hearsay “evidence” and pretzel logic (more than a Steely Dan album) they quine when presented with facts and reason.

Thank you, social media, for enabling these quiners in our midst. We might call social media a “Quine Engine.” I’d prefer a world where the quiners acted like Grandpa in the Simpsons, for all the evil it would do.

Yell all you wish, even quine if that makes you happy, but this blog will continue in the summer months, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image Source: Wikipedia Commons for “angry”

Word of the Week! Saunter

The Atlantic, still one of my favorite publications after more than 40 years as a subscriber, runs archived pieces from its illustrious past; no less a writer than Henry David Thoreau contributed to the magazine in its first decades. Recently Thoreau’s “Walking” ran and this passage by the sage of Walden Pond struck my fancy:

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre,” to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, — a Holy-Lander.

There the Republic was in 1862, fighting for its life in a bitter Civil War, and Thoreau found solace in walking and in words. The OED lists the etymology of our word as “obscure,” noting only a 15th Century first recorded use. I’m going with Thoreau’s folk etymology, given no other compelling counterargument.

I’ve never encountered one connotation of sauntering before, given by the dictionary, to “wander or travel about aimlessly or unprofitably; to travel as a vagrant.” The next definition, given as “obsolete” is to stroll in a leisurely way.

Well then, I’m obsolete, like Thoreau who also rambled on his walks. The devil take the power-walkers, the step-counters, the harried moms I see on my way to work. They frantically push a baby, walk a dog, and talk on the phone at the same time.

Thoreau adds about sauntering that “we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?” Indeed. The writer worried about the fencing off of once-wild lands until the walker would only be able to stay on paths and roads. He hoped that day would be far off, and he got his wish. He died about the time The Atlantic ran his piece before our modern era of sign-posts and security systems, secure (as am I) that “in Wildness is the preservation of the World.”

So I encourage you to leave the smart watch counting your steps at home and just take a walk in a National or State Park. Yes, you’ll want a phone if you get lost or injured, but try sauntering. Take a topo map you’ve learned to read, a magnetic compass, water and snacks; I’ll defy Thoreau on that as I’ve been lost only once in the woods and my map-reading training got me out. Or stay on well marked trails. They are still wilder than where the baby-strollers and power-walkers make their frantic way.

Sauntering will refresh your soul, as Thoreau intended.

As we all saunter toward the Fall semester (my final one as Writing Center Director) send words and metaphors of interest to me by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image: from Wikipedia, Thoreau’s Cabin (replica) and statue of the writer out sauntering, Walden Pond.

Word of the Week! Session

Session at University of Limerick Scholars Club Pub

Beannachtaí ó Luimneach, or greetings from Limerick!

I alluded to one Irish entry while on holiday, so here it is.

I have been at the the EWCA Conference, my second visit to the University of Limerick on the banks of the River Shannon. While here, I presented data from my and research assistant Cady Cummins’ second year of surveying students about their use of generative AI for writing assignments.

The Irish have more than lived up to their reputation as welcoming folks, hosting us in comfort and catering to our needs while on the campus. We closed out our second day with a delightful “barbecue” at a campus pub, where over pints of Guinness and hard cider, local musicians and a step-dancer held a proper “session” for academics who arrived from as far as South Africa.

You see posters in every Irish city for traditional Irish music sessions, called seisiún in Irish, so I wondered about the origin of this common word. The Etymology Dictionary Online provides an interesting history, starting with sitting down, which is what the audience does during a seisiún, though an Irish colleague who dances did join in the fun for a while.

You may have heard of a Cèilidh, pronounced kay-lee, which I had understood to mean an informal and spontaneous jam-session in a pub. This word can also embrace other sorts of informal meetings for social visits, including in a home. Sessions, on the other hand, appear to be public events that are planned ahead.

The word “session” dates back to the 14th Century, “from Old French session ‘act or state of sitting; assembly,’ ” with far older roots, “from Latin sessionem (nominative sessio) ‘act of sitting; a seat; loitering; a session, ‘ ” which makes our Irish and English words both borrowings from the Romans.

Sessions happen concurrently at conferences, Congress and other legislators are “in session,” and you can probably add dozens of other contemporary uses of the word, including “bull session” and more. So put down your phones, have one of those bull sessions in person, and decide where to go to hear some live music this summer. It’s probably closer than Limerick, though perhaps not quite as fun.

This blog continues all summer after a hiatus (a 2022 WOTW) for the rest of June, while I finish holidays and plan the next long journey to Ireland; Donegal and the North next time, on a driving tour into the backcountry, like our first one in the Southwest back in 2011.

As you enjoy your holidays, send words and metaphors to me by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Word of the Week! Fickle

Oh, the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fate,” which is where I first heard our word, as a wee lad, back when “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” was the hottest show on television in 1968. Their FFFF was an award of dubious distinction given for a poor performance. The US Congress was the first recipient. Makes sense. They have earned a lifetime award.

So there. That’s where I learned how fickle fate can be. But I never learned the origin or currency of our word. So let’s have a look, shall we?

Our word has multiple origins but all point to something changeable, unusally not in a good way. Some of fickleness relates to dishonesty, though the OED gives both that original meaning and a newer one meaning “puzzling.” Often fickle behavior, from a person or even the weather, puzzles us even if it does not hurt us.

From about the year 1200, we have “false, treacherous, deceptive, deceitful, crafty” (obsolete), probably from Old English ficol “deceitful, cunning, tricky,” related to befician “deceive,” and to facen “deceit, treachery; blemish, fault.” Common Germanic (compare Old Saxon fekan “deceit,” Old High German feihhan “deceit, fraud, treachery”), from the same source as “foe.” This all comes from the The Online Etymology Dictionary. Fickleness, then, antagonizes the predictable.

We live in fickle times. It seems that anything can happen, which could explain why since Rowan and Martin’s day, usage of the word has doubled from 1968 to 2014, attested by the entry cited above. The OED also records a more gradual uptick.

There are other words I would rather see gain popularity. Wouldn’t you? I hope no fickle fingers point your way this summer, but this blog will continue in the summer months, and I hope in some form in 2025, when I retire from full-time teaching on our faculty.

So until they carry me out feet-first after some fickle fate finds me, send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image Source: from a site selling an original FFFF award!

Word of the Week! Insipid

Some time back, during my rip through the R.W.B. Lewis biography of Edith Wharton, I covered the word fatuous. Our pick this week, also one Wharton employed, could be first cousin to that word. Fatuous means something silly or stupid. Wharton found much of modern life (and fiction) fatuous, insipid, or both. Truly, both words walk down the decades hand in hand.

Our word should bring to mind, to those with decent vocabularies, a bowl of very thin soup. Such a dish possesses more flavor than hot water, but the result tastes thin and lacking, quickly leading to an empty stomach. The OED seconds this culinary linkage, with references dating back to the early 17th Century, coming to us via French via the Latin insipidus.

Sometimes, silliness and blandness are not twins. For many first-years, their writing strikes me not as fatuous, because most of them work in earnest to prove themselves in college. Yet often the results too often prove insipid, featuring too many verbs of being, limited vocabularies, generalizations or superficial claims not original to themselves. I do scold them a bit, but mostly my work involves getting them to hear how insipid (and boring) the prose appears. They don’t care for their first grades of C or even B-, but there it stands. Too much writing we read remains insipid, as uninspired as the work Wharton disliked.

Frequency for our word has not been common since the days of tricorn hats, when it enjoyed about eight times the use we see today. Insipid writing, however, never went away. I suppose common terms such as “bland” or the more interesting “voiceless” have filled the void. “Tasteless” does not mean, except literally, much about food. When used metaphorically, it can mean crude or vulgar or, well, fatuous.

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

image source: “Clear Soup” by dielok at Flikr. That soup looks excellent, not insipid!

Word of the Week! Nostrum

My students training to be Writing Consultants recently conducted an experiment in class. They traded papers with a partner and held a writing conference. Then they employed both Grammarly and Chat GPT 4.0 to see what sort of commentary these pieces of software would provide.

Results varied but one commonality emerged: software tends to dispense generally positive-sounding but generic advice such as “be sure you integrate all the sources well” or “check the first sentence of each paragraph to be certain it connects to the final idea in the paragraph before.”

Well, duh. Teaching students to prompt-engineer their questions to an AI helps, but meanwhile, thanks for the nostrums, ChatGPT. I gave one student that word, one I knew but have rarely have used. I suspect that soon I’ll be using this word too much.

What is a nostrum? Where did it come from? And why is it related to our photo of “polite soothing syrups”?

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary quotes a famous writer for a usage example, “Whether there was real efficacy in these nostrums, and whether their author himself had faith in them, is more than can safely be said,” wrote 19th-century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, “but, at all events, the public believed in them.”

A nostrum in our modern sense can still mean a dubious medical cure; several nostrums were hyped at the highest levels of government as preventatives for COVID-`19, with a few fatal and un-prosecuted outcomes. Typically, we instead call these sorts of pharmaceutical scams “snake oil” or just “quackery.” Yet a soothing word or phrase that means little of substance can still go by “nostrum,” especially if otherwise they do not harm a patient.

In terms of origins, our obviously Latin word has an interesting backstory. From my favorite online etymology source, I leaned that current usage dates to about 1600, so again we have a Renaissance term from that era’s renewal of interest in Classical texts for secular learning. You’ll also find many good synonyms for our word at this site, so I highly recommend it. I think I found the origin of the Spanish cura, meaning priest or a cure, there. We have a link to the historically medical (as well as their typically spiritual) cures that clergy brought to folks in earlier times.

I’d heard of the Roman name for the Mediterranean, Mare Nostrum, our sea. And so it was for centuries. That fact must have been soothing to Romans who could live near the coast without fear of dark enemy sails appearing on the horizon!

If you have a word or metaphor you enjoy, send them by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below.

See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.

Image Source: public domain image from Picryl