etymology – Page 3 – Richmond Writing

Word of the Week! Dastardly

Thanks to Josh Wroniewicz, Director, Business Office at our Campus Business Services, for this nomination. In election season, we usually have major candidates calling each other names. “Dastardly” would be a fine, if rather quaint, bit of mud to sling at one’s opponent.

Younger Boomers and older Xers will recall Dick Dastardly, a mustachio-twirling villain of the silent-movie sort, who appeared in a few Saturday-morning cartoons from the late 1960s onward. He says things such as “curses! Foiled again!” before being flattened like a pancake or blown up by one of his own traps.

Today I find the cartoons cringeworthy, save for the infectious laugh of Dastardly’s dog, Muttley (think of him as The Anti-Snoopy). No, I cannot resist giving you a link to a short video of Dick’s and Muttley’s “best” moments. Despite this cornball association, the word retains a good deal of its antique power. Dick certainly fits a few obsolete meanings of our word, as given in the OED entry. He’s dull and stupid, at times, and when he hatches his hare-brained schemes, he usually acts in secret. Thus we get at a certain type of evil: done not openly but from under cover. This type of evil would not work with malevolent,” “sinister,” “diabolical,” or other terms for active, even gleeful, doers of evil.

The most common definition still in use would be “showing mean or despicable cowardice.” One OED example illustrates this nuance well, “The slanders of an avowed antagonist are seldom so mean and dastardly as those of a traitor.” The word comes from the 15th Century “dastard,” no longer used but of an interesting and possibly English origin.

That gives us a word far more inscrutable than the modern villain who takes its name.

The blog will continue all year, so send in useful words or metaphors, by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below. You are invited to write a guest post as well.

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

Word of the Week! Galoot

I didn’t know this term’s origins, though I’ve long used it to mean someone large, clumsy, and unskilled. I suspect that students will encounter it in literature from the 19th Century, as well as Southern and Cowboy fiction. I’m fond of this week’s word, personally.

When we adopted a truly giant Anatolian Mountain Dog, Swede, he was never clumsy but got called a “big galoot” when he began working on our farm. An experienced livestock guardian dog, Vela, taught him the ropes. There I go with the nautical metaphors again, as noted in a recent post. In fact, a “galoot” can mean an inexperienced sailor, as the OED entry on our word notes. They cite a first recorded use from 1808.

Back to dog-as-galoot. With Vela’s passing Swede became boss-dog now on the farm, teaching a new dog how to protect livestock as these breeds do. So my galoot is no longer inexperienced. At over 150 pounds, and standing on all four feet taller than my hip, he remains large. And I still lovingly call him “the Big Galoot,” which got howls of laughter from a Scottish friend. Thus I assumed that the term might be from Scots Gaelic.

The OED lists the word’s etymology and origin as “uncertain” but corroborates my sense that one may find it in Southern US vernacular. I was surprised to see that the noun can refer to folks of any gender, as in this 1866 example: “Wake, Bessy, wake, My sweet galoot!” And thus this blog post dived down a digital and print rabbit-hole.

Perhaps Bessy in “Artemus Ward among Fenians” is a farm animal? Not so. She’s the wife of a character visited by the narrator Artemus Ward, the nom de plume for humorist Charles F. Browne. I own a disintegrating copy of the 1887 edition The Complete Works of Artemus Ward; Browne’s sketches, like so many pieces of what has come to be known as “The Humor of the Old Southwest,” skewered everyone, including Browne’s friend Abraham Lincoln. The Wikipedia entry notes that Lincoln read one of Ward’s sketches to his Cabinet before sharing The Emancipation Proclamation, perhaps to lighten the mood for an earth-shattering event. Lincoln was no galoot; he knew how to sway an audience.

Browne, a Maine native, traveled the Antebellum South, thus making him a Southern humorist, then England and Ireland. His work proved wildly popular; he even took the stage to portray Ward, Wikipedia puts it, as a Yankee rube gifted with common sense. He died young, while traveling abroad, in his 30s. One wonders if his reputation and literary work might have equaled those of his friend Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) had Browne lived longer.

Those with an interest in the humor that influenced Mark Twain need to study some of the work of Browne and his contemporaries in Humor of the Old Southwest, an anthology edited by Hennig Cohen and William B. Dillingham. Though out of print, cheap copies of a first and second edition abound. For a digital collection of Browne’s humor, you can find “Fenians” and other sketches at Project Gutenberg. Now back to this week’s word!

Frequency of our word rose rapidly until 1920, when a slow decline in usage, if not galoots, occurred. Things hit bottom in 1990. I’m heartened by a rebound since, with a noticeable uptake in usage this century. We clearly have no shortage of galoots about, some quite famous; it’s a gently non-sectarian, bipartisan, international jibe on anyone new, unskilled, perhaps clumsy. I enjoy how the term lacks malice, if not exasperation. We all are galoots, as some point. “Greenhorn” in Wild-West slang or “still wet behind the ears” captures some aspects of being a galoot.

I’ve wandered, like Browne’s alter-ego, all over Ireland and Scotland without finding the origin of “galoot.” Got any ideas? Please share!

Send in useful words or metaphors, by e-mailing me (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or leaving a comment below. You are invited to write a guest post as well.

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

Image of galoot and best friend, by me. you decide which is the galoot.

Word of the Week! Apricate

Thanks to George Hiller, on the faculty of our School of Professional and Continuing Studies, for tipping me off, back when it was still summer. Professor Hiller noted six forgotten summertime words defined in a short BBC video.

Of all six, I find apricate most interesting. I’m no sun-lover or summer-lover. My year begins when the heat breaks. That said, a little time in the sun proves healthy for your body’s levels of Vitamin D. Cats must know this. My pair love to apricate. Aprication for me begins on Fall afternoons, though begrudgingly I apricate in summer, usually when doing farmwork in the morning.

From Wiktoniary, we have the definition “to bask in the sun,” but what’s the etymology of our word? The Latin apricus, or as defined in this online source, “warmed by the sun.”

We can use sun-bathing, basking, tanning, or the casual “lie out” as synonyms. I suppose others exist.

Savor a bit of apricity (the light or warmth of the sun), moderately, while you can, all fall and winter. It’s good for you mentally and physically, and most likely you won’t get a sunburn.

Send in useful words or metaphors, by e-mailing me (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 Source: Kitty apricating, from the Wiktonary page about our word.

Word of the Week! Ennui

Some time back, I picked up a copy of Thomas Jefferson: Travels, Anthony Brandt’s edited collection of Jefferson’s correspondence from 1784-1789, his years working in Paris. I find the “American Sphinx,” to use Joseph Ellis’ term, endlessly fascinating in all his complexities, obscurities, and patent hypocrisy. In some ways, his is the story of the state of Virginia, even the entire South. Partly my interest stems from Deism, a spiritual path I share with the Founding Father, partly the long shadow cast by my alma mater, The University of Virginia.

Jefferson, with his many flaws, lacked one: idleness. That brings us to our word, one he saw as the emotional outcome of doing nothing. Here, in a letter to Martha Jefferson from 1787, “guard you at all times against ennui, the most dangerous poison of life. A mind always employed is alway happy. . . .it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui is. . .” In an earlier letter from the same month, he finds the cause of such poison to be “want of industry which I had begun to fear would be the rock on which you would split.”

Ennui, as befits Jefferson’s experience, come to us from French. In its modern sense, it only dates to 1758, during Jefferson’s own lifetime. Thus, we have a ‘Modern Problem”! On the other hand, The OED dates an older sense to the 13th century, meaning “weariness.” Often the word “annoy” got employed in the same sense.

The modern loan word implies an annoyance or torpor of the soul, a lassitude. it’s that waiting-for-Godot state of mind. I’ve covered the words malaise and doldrum here before. They both can be used as near synonyms for our week’s word.

I fear we turn to dopamine-dispensers called smart phones and social media for quick bandages to slap over ennui, when instead we might find uses for our time that leave us with something tangible. If you experience ennui, get some exercise. Do some useful work. Improve your mind (and yes, you can find such content via a phone). As Jefferson advises Martha, “it is wonderful how much can be done, if we are always doing.”

Spend your time well! Send us a word or metaphor and I will feature it here. Let me know 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 Source: Ennui by Robert Seymour, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

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.