Lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy.
This word is delightfully evocative, bringing to mind some languid person lolling on a couch while all around goes to ruin. It owes its origin, strangely enough, to an old saying of regret or dismay, lack-a-day!, a shortened form of alack-a-day!. Alack dates back to medieval times, and probably comes from a dialect word lack that is variously interpreted as failure, fault, reproach, disgrace, or shame. So alack-a-day! originally meant “Shame or reproach to the day!” (that it should have brought this upon me). But over time it became weakened until it became no more than a vapid and vacuous cry when some minor matter went awry. At some point in the eighteenth century, the form lackadaisy appeared, with lackadaisical coming along shortly afterwards for somebody who regularly used the cry. At first it meant that the person was feebly sentimental rather than lazy. The first person recorded as using it was Laurence Sterne, in his Sentimental Journey of 1768: “I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery. — Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever”. Later it moved towards the idea of somebody who was affectedly languishing, and thence to someone merely lazy.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Discombobulate
To confuse, upset or disconcert.
Another fine example of the speech of the wild frontier of the US of A, this came to life sometime in the 1830s. Whose invention it was we have no idea, except that he shared the bombastic, super-confident attitude towards language that also bequeathed us (among others) absquatulate, bloviate, hornswoggle and sockdolager.
It has much about it of the itinerant peddler, whose qualifications were principally a persuasive manner, the self-assurance of a man who has seen every sort of reluctant customer and charmed them all, and a vocabulary he had enlarged by gross disfigurement of innocent elements of the English language. In this case, the original seems to have been discompose or discomfit. In the early days, it sometimes appeared as discombobracate or discomboberate.
Here’s an example of a snake-oil salesman at work in 1860 (except that he was praising the water from the Louisville artesian well rather than any manufactured remedy). It was said to have been taken down verbatim: “It discomboberates inflammatory rheumatism, sore eyes, scrofula, dyspepsia, and leaves you harmonious without any defalcation, as harmonious systematically as a young dove”.
Worth a dollar a drop ...
Another fine example of the speech of the wild frontier of the US of A, this came to life sometime in the 1830s. Whose invention it was we have no idea, except that he shared the bombastic, super-confident attitude towards language that also bequeathed us (among others) absquatulate, bloviate, hornswoggle and sockdolager.
It has much about it of the itinerant peddler, whose qualifications were principally a persuasive manner, the self-assurance of a man who has seen every sort of reluctant customer and charmed them all, and a vocabulary he had enlarged by gross disfigurement of innocent elements of the English language. In this case, the original seems to have been discompose or discomfit. In the early days, it sometimes appeared as discombobracate or discomboberate.
Here’s an example of a snake-oil salesman at work in 1860 (except that he was praising the water from the Louisville artesian well rather than any manufactured remedy). It was said to have been taken down verbatim: “It discomboberates inflammatory rheumatism, sore eyes, scrofula, dyspepsia, and leaves you harmonious without any defalcation, as harmonious systematically as a young dove”.
Worth a dollar a drop ...
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Quinquagenary
The British Marxist magazine The New Left Review announced recently it had reached its fiftieth anniversary. True to its uncompromising intellectuality, it referred to its “quinquagenary issue”.
Here’s another relatively recent sighting of this rare word:
Having dubbed himself variously as the Man Who Sold the World, the Man Who Fell to Earth, and now, simply, Earthling, David Bowie has more than just his quinquagenary to celebrate at Madison Square Garden January 9.
The New York Magazine, 13 Jan. 1997.
The term is from classical Latin quinquagenarius, consisting of fifty, or fifty years old. This has also given the English language quinquagenarian, a slightly better known term, whose adjectival senses overlap with those of quinquagenary, in particular one that refers to a person in their fifties.
By the way, if the journal survives a further quarter of a century, it will reach its semisesquicentennial. The prefix sesqui- is a shortened form of a Latin word meaning “a half in addition” or 1½ times; it appears in the rather better known sesquicentennial that refers to a a 150th anniversary. So semisesquicentennial refers to half of 1½ of 100 or 75. (If you prefer, you can replace semi- with either of the other prefixes meaning a half, demi- or hemi-. All are extremely rare.)
In a further fifty years, the magazine might celebrate its quasquicentennial (125th anniversary, a century plus a quarter, created irregularly from Latin roots in the early 1960s). Assuming a longevity that’s extremely rare in any publication, it might one day achieve its demisemiseptcentennial (its 175th anniversary, a half of a half of 700) and perhaps even its semiquincentennial (its 250th, half of 500).
Here’s another relatively recent sighting of this rare word:
Having dubbed himself variously as the Man Who Sold the World, the Man Who Fell to Earth, and now, simply, Earthling, David Bowie has more than just his quinquagenary to celebrate at Madison Square Garden January 9.
The New York Magazine, 13 Jan. 1997.
The term is from classical Latin quinquagenarius, consisting of fifty, or fifty years old. This has also given the English language quinquagenarian, a slightly better known term, whose adjectival senses overlap with those of quinquagenary, in particular one that refers to a person in their fifties.
By the way, if the journal survives a further quarter of a century, it will reach its semisesquicentennial. The prefix sesqui- is a shortened form of a Latin word meaning “a half in addition” or 1½ times; it appears in the rather better known sesquicentennial that refers to a a 150th anniversary. So semisesquicentennial refers to half of 1½ of 100 or 75. (If you prefer, you can replace semi- with either of the other prefixes meaning a half, demi- or hemi-. All are extremely rare.)
In a further fifty years, the magazine might celebrate its quasquicentennial (125th anniversary, a century plus a quarter, created irregularly from Latin roots in the early 1960s). Assuming a longevity that’s extremely rare in any publication, it might one day achieve its demisemiseptcentennial (its 175th anniversary, a half of a half of 700) and perhaps even its semiquincentennial (its 250th, half of 500).
Xenoglossy
The ability to speak a language without having learned it.
This sounds like a really neat trick if you can manage it.
However, a typical place to find this rare word is the Journal of Parapsychology. That’s because the ability is regarded as a psychic phenomenon. It might come about because a person has been regressed to a previous incarnation through hypnosis. Or a medium might be in communication with a spirit person who speaks another language. The OED dates its first appearance to 1914; it’s from Greek xenos, stranger or foreigner, plus glossa, language; another spelling is xenoglossia.
It sounds as if it’s related to speaking in tongues, which is regarded among Christian groups such as the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements as evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit (though the phenomenon is found in many religions and has been recorded from the earliest historical times); the formal term for that is glossolalia (the second half from Greek lalia, speech).
But from a language point of view the difference is profound: in xenoglossy the implication is that a real language is being spoken that is intelligible to native speakers and in which the person can converse, while glossolalia is a succession of meaningless syllables interpretable only through faith.
This sounds like a really neat trick if you can manage it.
However, a typical place to find this rare word is the Journal of Parapsychology. That’s because the ability is regarded as a psychic phenomenon. It might come about because a person has been regressed to a previous incarnation through hypnosis. Or a medium might be in communication with a spirit person who speaks another language. The OED dates its first appearance to 1914; it’s from Greek xenos, stranger or foreigner, plus glossa, language; another spelling is xenoglossia.
It sounds as if it’s related to speaking in tongues, which is regarded among Christian groups such as the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements as evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit (though the phenomenon is found in many religions and has been recorded from the earliest historical times); the formal term for that is glossolalia (the second half from Greek lalia, speech).
But from a language point of view the difference is profound: in xenoglossy the implication is that a real language is being spoken that is intelligible to native speakers and in which the person can converse, while glossolalia is a succession of meaningless syllables interpretable only through faith.
Zenzizenzizenzic
The eighth power of a number.
This word is long obsolete, so much so that the Oxford English Dictionary only has one citation for it, from a famous work by the Welsh-born mathematician Robert Recorde, The Whetstone of Wit, published in 1557. It turns up from time to time as one of those weird words which is best known for being held up as an example of a weird word.
The root word, also obsolete, is zenzic. This was borrowed from German (the Germans were very big in algebra in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). They got it from the medieval Italian word censo, which is a close relative of the Latin census. The Italians (who were big in algebra even earlier) used censo to translate the Arabic word mál, literally “possessions; property”, which was the usual word in that language for the square of a number. This came about because the Arabs, like most mathematicians of those and earlier times, thought of a squared number as a depiction of an area, especially of land, hence property. So censo, and later our English zenzic, was for a while the word for a squared number.
Even by Robert Recorde’s time, there was no easy way of denoting the powers of numbers, a great hindrance to effective mathematics. The only term he had apart from the square was the cube, the third power of a number, and formulae were usually written out in words. Recorde, like his predecessors, represented a fourth power by the square of a square, zenzizenzic, which is just a condensed form of the Italian censo di censo, used by Leonardo of Pisa in his famous book Liber Abaci of 1202. An eighth power was by obvious extension zenzizenzizenzic. And similarly the sixth power was zenzicube, the square of a cube. None of these words survives in the language except as historical curiosities.
This word is long obsolete, so much so that the Oxford English Dictionary only has one citation for it, from a famous work by the Welsh-born mathematician Robert Recorde, The Whetstone of Wit, published in 1557. It turns up from time to time as one of those weird words which is best known for being held up as an example of a weird word.
The root word, also obsolete, is zenzic. This was borrowed from German (the Germans were very big in algebra in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries). They got it from the medieval Italian word censo, which is a close relative of the Latin census. The Italians (who were big in algebra even earlier) used censo to translate the Arabic word mál, literally “possessions; property”, which was the usual word in that language for the square of a number. This came about because the Arabs, like most mathematicians of those and earlier times, thought of a squared number as a depiction of an area, especially of land, hence property. So censo, and later our English zenzic, was for a while the word for a squared number.
Even by Robert Recorde’s time, there was no easy way of denoting the powers of numbers, a great hindrance to effective mathematics. The only term he had apart from the square was the cube, the third power of a number, and formulae were usually written out in words. Recorde, like his predecessors, represented a fourth power by the square of a square, zenzizenzic, which is just a condensed form of the Italian censo di censo, used by Leonardo of Pisa in his famous book Liber Abaci of 1202. An eighth power was by obvious extension zenzizenzizenzic. And similarly the sixth power was zenzicube, the square of a cube. None of these words survives in the language except as historical curiosities.
Callithumpian
Relating to a band of discordant instruments or a noisy parade.
Callithumpian is first noted in America in 1836. It’s possible it may have its origin in a southern English dialect word gallithumpian; the English Dialect Dictionary says this could refer to a heckler or someone who disturbs order at Parliamentary elections (which were then public events, not secret ballots); this probably derives from gally, “to frighten”, which turns up in another dialect word gallicrow for a scarecrow. But it’s also been said to be a blend of calliope and thump, which sounds plausible as an evocation of a noisy fairground atmosphere, except that unfortunately calliope, in the sense of the steam-driven musical instrument, is not recorded before 1858. The word survives, though it’s now rather regional even in the US, for example in the Callithumpian Parade on 4 July every year in Biwabik, Minnesota, and in the names of the Callithumpian Consort, which performs avant-garde music, and Jack Maheu’s Fire In The Pet Shop Callithumpian Jazz Band. It has a second meaning in Australia and New Zealand, referring to some unspecified nonconformist religious sect. This may be derived from the other meaning given in the English Dialect Dictionary of “a group of social reformers”.
Callithumpian is first noted in America in 1836. It’s possible it may have its origin in a southern English dialect word gallithumpian; the English Dialect Dictionary says this could refer to a heckler or someone who disturbs order at Parliamentary elections (which were then public events, not secret ballots); this probably derives from gally, “to frighten”, which turns up in another dialect word gallicrow for a scarecrow. But it’s also been said to be a blend of calliope and thump, which sounds plausible as an evocation of a noisy fairground atmosphere, except that unfortunately calliope, in the sense of the steam-driven musical instrument, is not recorded before 1858. The word survives, though it’s now rather regional even in the US, for example in the Callithumpian Parade on 4 July every year in Biwabik, Minnesota, and in the names of the Callithumpian Consort, which performs avant-garde music, and Jack Maheu’s Fire In The Pet Shop Callithumpian Jazz Band. It has a second meaning in Australia and New Zealand, referring to some unspecified nonconformist religious sect. This may be derived from the other meaning given in the English Dialect Dictionary of “a group of social reformers”.
Snollygoster
This is another of that set of extroverted and fanciful words that originated in the fast-expanding United States of the nineteenth century. I see a snollygoster as a outsized individual with a carpetbag, flowered waistcoat, expansive demeanour and a large cigar. It actually refers to a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician.
These days it’s hardly heard. Its last burst of public notice came when President Truman used it in 1952, and defined it, either in ignorance or impishness, as “a man born out of wedlock”. Many people put him right, some quoting this splendid definition:
A Georgia editor kindly explains that “a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy”.
Columbus Dispatch, Ohio, 28 Oct. 1895.
But an American dictionary fifty years earlier had defined it simply as a shyster.
The origin is unknown, though the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it may be linked to snallygoster, which some suppose to derive from the German schnelle Geister, literally a fast-moving ghost, and which was a mythical monster of vast size — half reptile, half bird — supposedly found in Maryland, and which was invented to terrify ex-slaves out of voting.
These days it’s hardly heard. Its last burst of public notice came when President Truman used it in 1952, and defined it, either in ignorance or impishness, as “a man born out of wedlock”. Many people put him right, some quoting this splendid definition:
A Georgia editor kindly explains that “a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy”.
Columbus Dispatch, Ohio, 28 Oct. 1895.
But an American dictionary fifty years earlier had defined it simply as a shyster.
The origin is unknown, though the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it may be linked to snallygoster, which some suppose to derive from the German schnelle Geister, literally a fast-moving ghost, and which was a mythical monster of vast size — half reptile, half bird — supposedly found in Maryland, and which was invented to terrify ex-slaves out of voting.
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