“Digress” is my middle name.

Dear Word Detective: How did the “polka dot” get its name? — Chris Owens.

That’s an interesting question, but there was something about the way you phrased it that struck me as odd, and it took a moment before I realized what it was. One does not often, if ever, see the phrase “the polka dot.” As a matter of fact, you could argue (and I love to argue, which may be why I don’t get invited to more parties) that a single “polka dot” is not a “polka dot” at all, but merely a “dot,” and usually a pretty boring dot at that. Not like a microdot at the center of a spy story, or a suspicious dot on a satellite photograph, or even a dot of marinara sauce on your glasses after you’ve been eating spaghetti. Just a boring old dot.

Onward. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “polka dot” as “Any of a number of round dots of uniform size repeated so as to form a regular pattern, usually on fabric.” The term itself first appeared in the mid-1800s (“Scarf of muslin, for light summer wear … surrounded by a scalloped edge, embroidered in rows of round polka dots,” 1857), and “polka dot” fabrics have been intermittently fashionable ever since. I don’t spend a lot of time monitoring current fashion, but my sense is that polka dot designs are (except among the preciously retro) considered uncool at the moment (“Wooden cutouts of Granny bending over in her flowerbed exposing her polka-dot bloomers,” At Home in Heart of Appalachia, 2001).

“Polka dots” are obviously “dots” (from the Old English “dott,” meaning “speck”), so the question is what “polka” has to do with the pattern. The “polka” is a dance, simple and lively as dances go, which took Europe and America by storm soon after its introduction in 1835. The name “polka” is itself a bit of a mystery. “Polka” is Polish for “Polish woman,” but the “polka” dance is actually of Bohemian origin. Some authorities believe that “polka” may actually be a corruption of the Czech word “pulka” (“half”), referring to the short half steps involved in the dance.

So, what does the polka dance have to do with polka dots? Essentially nothing. The polka craze, which lasted for several decades in the 1800s, was sufficiently intense to inspire manufacturers to append “polka” to the name of a wide variety of completely unrelated products in an attempt to capitalize on polka-mania. There were several items of clothing and even food labeled “polka” at the time, much as the prefix “cyber” was slapped on everything from TV news shows to dog food in the mid-1990s. Most of such “polka” tie-ins disappeared as the dance fad faded. “Polka dots,” however, survived (as did the polka itself).

Balderdash Ho!

Dear Word Detective:  In a recent boating magazine, I read an explanation of the phrase “as the crow flies.”  I had always thought this to be straightforward, meaning overland, as a bird would fly, as opposed to by the road.  According to this magazine, however, it arose from an extraordinary practice by sailors at some unexplained time in the past: sailors would keep caged crows in anticipation of fog.  When fog became dense, they would release the bird, its flight being unerringly to the nearest land, so they could take a bearing off the crow’s flight to shore.  This seems wildly improbable, but since it is print, it must be true, right? — Sam Glasscock.

Oh boy.  Take a seat, Sam.  I’m afraid I have some bad news.  That “if it’s in print it’s trustworthy” business hasn’t been true since pretty much the day after the invention of movable type.  In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that stories about word and phrase origins found in popular magazines are usually untrue, sometimes hilariously so.  Sadly, even books devoted to word origins, including some from reputable publishers, often repeat stories debunked years ago.  I can only assume that the authors of such works are so taken with a particularly charming and “neat” story about a word or phrase that they decide that it must be true and forgo any sort of actual research.

But even by the low standards of the mass media, the story you read is a humdinger.  As usual in such cases, there is a suspicious lack of detail; as you note, this practice supposedly took place “at some unexplained time in the past.”  200 B.C.?  1924?  Add to that the fact that the story does not make even superficial sense.  If the sailors were lost in fog, wouldn’t the crow immediately disappear into the fog?  And what if the shortest course to the shore turned out to be onto a reef that would sink the ship?  The bird wouldn’t care.  In fact, given how smart crows are, it might take revenge for its captivity by directing the ship onto the nearest rocks.  Trust me, a crow is a lousy substitute for charts and a compass, both of which were in common use in 1800 when “as the crow flies” first appeared in print.

The logic behind “as the crow flies” meaning “in a direct line overland” is simply that crows are fairly large, highly visible (and very noisy) birds that generally fly directly to their source of food (as opposed to swallows, for instance, which feed by swooping around and catching insects).  In an age before human flight, the sight of a crow gliding smoothly through the sky to its destination must have inspired envy in earthbound travelers, who had to deal with natural obstacles (mountains, rivers, etc.) in their path.  “As the crow flies” was thus the best way to explain that the distance specified was direct (“The distance … is upwards of twenty-five miles as the crow flies,” 1810), as opposed to the route a plodding human would have to take, which would likely be much longer.