The virtual linguist

Geekgasm

The word geekgasm, which I spotted in this Guardian piece today, hasn’t yet made it into the OED. Geekgasm is an exciting experience caused by something very nerdy or geeky.

 

Interestingly, there is only one word ending –gasm in the OED, and that is orgasm. This word comes from the Greek ὀργᾶν (pronounced 'organ'), meaning 'to swell with sexual desire, be excited or eager. Ultimately it comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *wrōg-, meaning to burgeon or swell with strength'. I cannot find any other English cognates. The English words orgy and organ, which begin similarly, are related to the Greek ἔργον work, and ultimately stem from the PIE root *worg- or *werg-. The OED tells us that the singular orgy was rare before the 19th century. It entered English from Middle French as a plural, meaning “Secret rites or ceremonies practised in the worship of various gods of Greek and Roman mythology; esp. those practices connected with the festivals in honour of Dionysus or Bacchus” (from OED).

The difference between doctor and physician

I heard the newsreader on the BBC this morning, who was reporting on the Queen's admission to hospital, say 'the Queen's physician'. In Britain we don't generally use the word physician - we say doctor. However, physician is used in formal and historical contexts - for instance, there is the Royal College of Physicians, and the term Physician to the Queen is a historical, formal title. Another term for the latter is Head of the Medical Household. The position is currently occupied by Professor John Cunningham.

 

Physician is an older word in English, according to the OED. Its first reported usage was in the early 13th century, when it was spelled with an F (or sometimes a V). It comes ultimately from the Latin word for remedy, or medical or natural science.

 

Doctor was first used in the 14th century to mean medical practitioner. Before that it meant teacher or instructor. Indeed, it comes from the Latin docere, to teach. Even now, doctor has a wider application than medical contexts, referring to learned people with higher degrees in any subject.

Daffodil

It's St David's Day today, so I looked up the word daffodil in the OED. And a very interesting history it has too. The Dictionary says it does not know how the initial d crept in to the word - the flower was originally affodill, belonging to the Asphodelus genus. Suggestions as to where the d came from, according to the Dictionary, include: that it followed the same process that saw Edward become Ted; that the d is based on the th of 'the daffodil', or northern English t'daffodil; that the d came from the word and, as in 'fennell an-d affodil'; that it came from the Dutch or Flemish article, de affodil; or from the French de meaning 'of', as in fleur d'aphrodille.

 

An affodill was originally the flower asphodel, but the name then mistakenly came to be applied to the narcissus. Botanists retained the name affodil for the asphodel (a flower with spiky petals, see here), and applied the name daffodil to the yellow narcissus.

 

Other words for the daffodil in the OED are: bell-rose, chalice-flower, churn, yellow crow-bells, daffadowndilly (or daffydowndilly), hen and chickens, hoop-petticoat, and Lent lily.

 

The Welsh for daffodils is Cennin Pedr, which translates as (St) Peter's leeks. The Welsh word for leeks is cennin, which explains why both daffodils and leeks are Welsh symbols. Here's a BBC page on more Welsh words and traditions.

Beyond reasonable doubt

Instead of doing their job and coming up with a verdict, a jury in a trial currently being reported in the UK presented the judge with a list of questions to which they wanted answers. One question was "Can you define reasonable doubt?" The judge answered, according to this Guardian article, "A reasonable doubt is a doubt which is reasonable", which does not seem a terribly helpful explanation to me.

 

The jury has been criticised in several newspapers - for idiocy or obstinacy or lack of understanding of their role, depending on the stance of the newspaper - but I can understand why people might not be sure of the meaning of the phrase. The trouble is the word 'reasonable', which has a number of meanings. Presumably, 'beyond reasonable doubt' means 'there is no doubt' or 'we are virtually certain' (this phrase came up a week or so ago when archaeologists described the body found in Leicester as being 'beyond reasonable doubt' that of Richard III). However, if I say 'the price is reasonable', I just mean 'ok', and if I say 'my chances of passing the exam are reasonable' I mean 'quite good'. I would probably be allowed to use 'reasonable force' on an intruder, which means 'not too much'.

 

The OED's definition of 'reasonable doubt' is: "uncertainty as to the guilt of a criminal defendant; spec. doubt in the minds of the jurors that enough proof that the defendant is guilty has been presented in a criminal case".

Eurobabble

EU translator Jeremy Gardner appeared on the Radio 4 Today programme yesterday (listen here, about 52:13 m in) to talk about his collection of almost 100 'Eurospeak' words and phrases, which he comes across in his job. EU officials don't talk about cows, sheep and goats, but bovine animals, ovine animals and caprine animals (see this old post of mine looking at adjectives relating to animals). Another example given was 'voluntary modulation', which is something to do with farming.

 

One reason for the preponderance of such nonsensical phrases is that most EU officials are writing in a language that is not their native language, so their English is affected by their first language. On a positive note, most of them understand what is meant - even if native English speakers don't. FT journalist Alex Barber, who also appeared on the programme, gave an instance when a hapless British diplomat corrected a grammatically wrong and meaningless phrase used by his colleagues in a meeting, only to be overruled by the chair. He said that Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council, once extolled the virtues of 'asymmetric translation' ie countries' representatives translate words in different ways depending on what goes down well at home (so, for instance, the British and the Germans talk about economic governance, but the French talk about economic government).

 

There are more examples from Jeremy Gardner's EU-Speak dossier here.

Exchequer

The Minister of Finance in many countries is known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the United Kingdom. The role dates back to the 12th century, when the holder was appointed by Henry III. The Exchequer was a department of state managed by the Treasurer, and its role at the time was to collect and administer royal revenues. The original Chancellor of the Exchequer was the assistant to the Treasurer.

 

The word exchequer referred to the checked tablecloth that was used as a sort of abacus by the finance officials - counters were reckoned up after being placed in the squares. It comes from the Old French word eschequier, meaning chessboard. This French word actually came from the Latin for chessboard, scaccarium, but it was believed in England that the es- of eschequier was the French equivalent of the Latin prefix ex- (just as eschange came from the Latin excambium and esploit was from explicitum). Hence the French eschequier became the English exchequer.

Hogs - pigs or sheep?

I was in Winchester yesterday and heard for the first time the slang name for a person from Hampshire, Winchester's county - Hampshire hog.

 

Now, a hog is a pig, and always has been, ever since the word hog entered the language in the Old English period. However, Hampshire is not particularly known for pigs; it is more associated with sheep. Winchester was once an extremely important city in the wool trade. It was one of a handful of English towns designated 'staple towns' in the 14th century, which meant that wool and a few other goods, could be exported from these towns only. Winchester wool and looms were highly prized, according to the British History Online site. 

 

Interestingly, a hog can, or could, also be a sheep (the OED has the definition "a yearling sheep" or a sheep in its second year). Other words for the same thing are hogget, hoggaster and hoggerel. So, a Hampshire hog may indeed be a reference to a sheep.

Dragged or drug?

A tourist guide I was listening to today said something like "They drug his body ..." (she was talking about the desecration of graves and buried bones during either Henry VIII's time, or Oliver Cromwell's - or both, I forget exactly now). The guide had a North American accent. It was quite obvious from the context that she meant 'dragged', but I had never heard the past tense form 'drug' before. However, it is given in the OED, which says:

"drug also occurs as a past tense and past participle form of drag v. in nonstandard and regional use (especially U.S. regional (southern and Midland)); drugged is also sometimes found in U.S. use."

 

Moreover, there is another entry in the OED for the verb drug, defined as "to pull forcibly, to drag". This verb is described as being a Scottish or southern English regional form. Drug is also listed as a form of the past participle. Although the first two citations are dated a1250 (a = ante ie before) and c1405 (c = circa ie about), the OED says it cannot be sure whether the verb drug or drudge was intended, as both were spelled drugge in earlier times.

Meteor or meteorite

Both the words meteor and meteorite are being used in the press today to describe the 'shower' in Russia. I have probably always used the words wrongly, so I looked up the difference. According to various scientific websites (I just stuck to the ones aimed at children), if the debris particles survive their fall through the atmosphere and actually hit the ground, then they are meteorites. Meteors, on the other hand, usually burn up in the atmosphere, so don't make it to Earth. Both meteors and meteorites are meteoroids.

 

The OED defines meteorite as "a fallen meteor", although, just to confuse matters it goes on to say "more generally: a meteor; a meteoroid". The word meteor entered English from Middle French, coming from the translated title of a treatise by Aristotle, Metheores. Originally, the word was a plural noun (metheours or meteora in Middle English), with the sense 'celestial phenomena'. The word meteorite entered English much later, only in the 19th century.

 

These days most people pronounce the word meteor with three syllables (meet-ee-or), but the OED tells us that up until the late 19th century (and later in some authoritative sources eg Daniel Jones' English Pronouncing Dictionary) it was pronounced /ˈmiːtjə/ (meet-yer).

The Old English letter ash

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Ash refers to ashes, the residue of wood or something that has been burnt, and is meant to symbolise human mortality.

 

The word 'ash' has been around in English for a long time - there is the common tree, the ash, for instance. Ash is also the name of the Old English letter, or ligature (2 letters joined together), æ (ash was written æsc at the time). This vowel was pronounced like a short a, and was commonly used in Old English words (see this old post of mine, for instance).

 

When the Angles and the Saxons invaded England in the 5th century they brought their runic alphabet with them. One of the runes was ᚫ, called ash because it also meant ash tree. The letter æ developed from ᚫ, so kept the same name.

 

Occasionally, the ligature æ is used in modern English spelling eg archæology or encyclopædia, but it is not as common as it used to be, and it is becoming even less so.