Bail

Filed Under January 2007, columns | Leave a Comment

Get me out of here.

Dear Word Detective: I came across this expression while reading Treasure Island, and I thought I’d try asking you about it, even though it’s probably old-fashioned. It’s used in Chapters 6 and 8. Page references below are in the Oxford Classics edition. “I’ll go with you [in search of treasure]; and, I’ll go bail for it, so will Jim, and be a credit to the undertaking” (34). “…I would have gone bail for the innocence of Long John Silver” (45). I think it means something like “to risk oneself in an undertaking,” “vouch for,” or “stand security for,” but the two uses in the story are different from each other. I’m curious where the expression originated, and what the meaning of “bail” is here. Is it related to the legal use of the term (i.e., paying bail for someone’s release from custody), or perhaps to the action of bailing water out of a boat (though I can’t see the connection right now). — Steve.

“Bail” is quite a word. We “bail” our friends out of jail, the government “bails out” the airlines and automakers every few years, people “bail out” of airplanes or bad relationships, and we “bail” the water out of a leaky boat as fast as we can. As a noun, “bail” also means a cross-bar, especially the one forming the top of a wicket in the game of cricket, as well as being an archaic term for the wall of a fortress or the like. Several of these senses are definitely related, and some authorities believe they all are.

The root underlying several senses of “bail” is the Latin “bajulare,” meaning “to carry” or “to bear a burden,” which begat the French “baillier,” meaning “to take charge of” or “hand over or deliver.” This “take charge of” sense produced the most common sense of “bail,” that of “release of a person who would otherwise be in jail” either upon payment of a security deposit (also known as “bail”) or into the charge of one who swears to ensure the accused’s appearance at trial. This use of “to bail” meaning “to vouch for” or “to guarantee” produced, in the 16th century, the senses in the passages you cite, both of which amount to a solemn commitment to see the task through.

The “bailing” one does on a sinking boat comes directly from the French “baille,” meaning “bucket,” but that word may hark back to the “carry” sense of the Latin “bajulare” as well. “Bailing out” of an aircraft probably echoes the sense of bailing water from a boat (although in the UK it is often spelled “bale,” as if a bundle of something were being jettisoned).

 

 

Gnu

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Wild thing.

Dear Word Detective: I am trying to find out the origin of the word “gnu.” It is an alternate name for the wildebeest, a large African antelope. — Jason.

That thing is an antelope? Looks to me like a buffalo that’s been through the rinse cycle once too often. But your email address indicates that you’re writing from Zambia, so I’ll take your word for it.

OK, a “gnu” is indeed an antelope, but it sounds like one put together by a committee. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, the gnu’s “heavy head and humped shoulders resemble those of a buffalo, while the compact hindquarters are like those of a horse. The gnu has a beard, a short, erect mane, and a long, flowing tail.” Well, I suppose something had to balance out the butterflies.

Onward. As you note, the gnu is otherwise known as the “wildebeest,” which is Dutch for “wild animal,” the Dutch having been a powerful colonial presence in Southern Africa at one point.

“Gnu” itself is the word for the animal in the language of the Khoikhoi ethnic group of southwestern Africa. Early European settlers called these folks “Hottentots,” a name, now considered offensive, which in the settlers’ Dutch dialect meant “stutterer,” a reference to the Khoikhoi use of “clicks” as consonants. The word “gnu” is presumed to be echoic in origin, an imitation of the snorting grunt of the animal itself.

Although in Khoikhoi the “g” of “gnu” is pronounced (”g-noo”), in English it is generally not and the word is pronounced simply “noo.” One notable exception, which has been running through my head since I started answering this question, is the immortal song “The Gnu” by the British comedy team of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, who made a point of stressing the “g” right over the edge: “I’m a G-nu, I’m a G-nu, The g-nicest work of g-nature in the zoo; I’m a G-nu, How do you do, You really ought to k-now w-ho’s w-ho’s; I’m a G-nu, Spelt G-N-U, I’m g-not a Camel or a Kangaroo; So let me introduce, I’m g-neither man nor moose, Oh g-no g-no g-no, I’m a G-nu.”

p.s. — There is also a free, open-source computer operating system called GNU, commonly encountered as part of the GNU/Linux operating system.

 

 

Kitty

Filed Under January 2007, columns | 1 Comment

Hooray for whatsisname.

Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of the word “kitty” when used to mean a “collection of cash between several people”? — Alan West.

Good question. I’m more familiar with the plural form, “kitties,” which are small hairy creatures that collect cash from your pocket in return for shredding your furniture and sleeping in the sink.

But most of us are also familiar with a “kitty” in the sense you mean. Among the delights (cough, cough) of working in a large office, as I did for many years, are the incessant collections of such “kitties” to throw office birthday parties for people you’ve never met. After a while you begin to wonder if Larry in the fax room even exists. The only certainty is that if you fail to kick in a buck or two, you’ll never get another fax. “Kitty” is also often used as a synonym for the “pot” of money at stake in a poker or other card game.

Since I mentioned cats, the first step in our kitty-quest is to note that “kitty” in the “money” sense has no connection to “kitty” in the cat sense, a form of “kitten,” which in turn is derived from the French “chaton,” the diminutive of “chat” (cat). And although, as fans of “Gunsmoke” will remember, Miss Kitty was often seen hovering in the vicinity of poker games in the saloon, her moniker was simply a derivative (along with “Kate” and “Katy”) of the name “Katherine,” and thus unrelated to either gambling or cats.

Now as to the origin of “kitty” in the “collected money” sense, which first appeared in the late 19th century, the Oxford English Dictionary has an interesting theory, tracing it to “kidcote,” a dialect term from northern England for a prison. The OED is silent on the exact logic of this “kitty-kidcote” connection, but Michael Quinion (at the excellent www.worldwidewords.org) notes a related theory that the money in a gambling “kitty” is “locked up” for the duration of the game as if it were in prison. Mr. Quinion rates this theory as not credible, and I agree.

Far more likely is a connection between “kitty” and “kit,” an 18th century English slang term for “outfit” or “collection,” also found in a soldier’s “kit bag” and “kit and caboodle” meaning “a collection of everything.”

 

 

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