Sly Boots

Filed Under October 2008, columns | Leave a Comment

Cousin of Sneaky Pete.

Dear Word Detective: Would you be able to tell me about the origin of “sly boots”? It is a funny way to describe someone who is acting like a “sly dog,” but I have no idea where the saying came from (or even where I personally picked it up!). Thank you for your assistance. — Miriah P., Illinois.

Oh no, thank you. You just saved me from answering a question about football terminology. I had been staring at that question for a half-hour, at a complete loss for words, when your email arrived. I think it’s fair to say that I regard football with the same degree of enthusiasm the average person has for being trapped on a elevator with Alan Greenspan. Yet I have learned from experience that football fans are sensitive folk (putting it mildly), and do not respond well to gently mocking levity, my usual resort in such cases. Trapped twixt the Scylla of catatonia and the Charybdis of having to change my phone number, I’ll gladly jump ship to “sly boots.”

You’re not the only one who is having trouble remembering where you first encountered “sly boots.” My guess is that we both first ran across it in some bit of classic English literature, one of those Penguin paperbacks we bought, at least in part, because we liked the painting on the cover. I also, for some reason, associate the phrase with Beatrix Potter, but that may just be some crossed synapses in my noggin.

In any case, the Oxford English Dictionary defines “sly boots” as “a sly, cunning, or crafty person; one who does things on the sly,” and notes that the phrase is usually applied in “mild or jocular use.” It’s not a phrase used in anger, in other words, but the sort of thing you say when you discover you’ve been mildly deceived (”Oh, you sly boots. You snuck a seventeenth kitten into the house!”).

“Sly boots” is a very old phrase, defined (”a seeming silly, but subtle Fellow”) in Nathan Bailey’s 1721 Dictionary of Canting and Thieving Slang, and probably a good deal older. “Sly,” of course, means “cunning, clever or wily,” and comes from an Old Norse word meaning “crafty.” “Boots” is the interesting bit, originally, in the 17th century, used as slang for a servant in a hotel who cleaned the guests’ boots. It was also used to mean the most junior officer of a regiment or member of a club, the one most likely to be stuck with menial chores (”My chief resistance to discipline was at mess where I could not brook the duties of Boots..,” 1806). “Boots,” used as a synonym of “fellow,” also found its way into various humorous and colloquial phrases of the period, such as “smooth boots” (one who is adept at flattery and manipulation), “clumsy boots” and “lazy boots.” These phrases are rarely heard today, but I think there’s an excellent case for bringing back “smooth boots,” especially here in the US. It is, after all, an election year.

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School

Filed Under October 2008, columns | 1 Comment

Swim if you can.

Dear Word Detective: I am doing a report on the word “school.” Can you please tell me what its origins are and when the word was first used. Which came first — a school of fish or a school for learning and education? Why is a group of fish called a “school” anyway? — Alyssa.

Oh boy, a school question. I usually don’t answer research questions from students on principle, the principle being that I spent many years not doing my own homework, so why in the world should I now do theirs? In this case, however, the question has a delightful recursive quality, and the answer is not what most people (possibly including your teacher) expect, so we’ll give it a shot. Besides, I must admit that I enjoy participating in the educational process from a safe distance. It’s like watching the guy next door shovel his walk from the warmth of your own living room. In fact, I think I’ll have a tasty stick of gum while I write.

I’ve never been good at keeping a secret, so I’ll cut to the chase right away. The “school” one attends in hopes of having a well-rounded education and success in life is an entirely different word than the “school” fish join in hopes of whatever fish hope. This probably seems strange and perhaps a bit of a letdown, considering that fish in “schools” display a regimentation that is the envy of every human teacher out there, but they are indeed two different words, with two different origins.

The “school” meaning “place of instruction” comes from the Latin “scola,” itself derived from the Greek “skhole,” meaning “lecture or discussion.” Interestingly, that Greek “skhole” originally meant “leisure, free time.” It then developed to mean “time used for intellectual discussion,” then to mean the discussions themselves, and finally to mean the place where such discussions were conducted, what today we would recognize as a “school.” We inherited “school” from the Old English form “scol,” and almost immediately began using it in the figurative sense of “an environment which teaches through experience” as in the “school of disappointment,” or the 20th century variant “school of hard knocks,” meaning a period of deprivation and abuse. By the early 17th century we were also using “school” in the figurative sense of “group of people who share agreement on a subject” (as in “school of thought”). And “school,” as you’ve probably guessed, also gave us “scholar,” “scholastic” and similar derivatives.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in English, we were adopting the Middle Dutch word “schole,” which meant “group of fish or other animals.” Although originally it was possible to speak of a “school” of pheasants, for example, in modern usage this “school” is applied only to fish swimming together.

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