Just give me something so I can refuse to pay it.

Dear Word Detective: Can you locate the origin of the usage of the term “check” to actually mean “bill,” as in “Check, please”? This has bugged me for years! It is a bill, paid by a check perhaps (though this is becoming more and more rare), and yet we refer to it as a check. Why, oh why? — Larame in CO.

My heavens. You folks get riled up about the strangest things. I’m usually less annoyed by the “check” in a restaurant than by what precedes it. For instance, whatever happened to food being served hot? It’s hot at my house, but in nine out of ten restaurants I wander into, it’s not even really warm. Am I really supposed to bring my own microwave?

“Check” is a very interesting word, and I actually touched on its origin in the course of explaining “rain check” last year. English acquired “check” in the early 14th century from the Old French “eschequier,” meaning “to threaten the king in a chess game,” a situation known in chess as “check.” A chess game ends when one player’s king is put “in check” and cannot escape capture, a predicament called “checkmate.” The term “check” comes ultimately from the Persian word “shah,” meaning “king” (as in the Shah of Iran) and “checkmate” comes from the related and very appropriate Arabic phrase for this grim situation, “shah mata” (“the king is dead”).

“Check” in English has acquired a wide range of non-chess meanings, mostly involving the senses of “impede or block” (as the king is blocked in chess) or “control.” We use this “control” sense when we speak of “checking” someone’s work, or “checking” financial accounts. Thus the “check” you may write to pay for your dinner was originally called that because it furnishes all parties with a “checkable” record of the transaction.

One of the meanings that “check” picked up in the 19th century was that of “token, proof of claim” (as in “hat check,” or “rain check,” originally guaranteeing admission to the re-staging of a sporting event that had been rained out). In practice, such “checks” were almost always small sheets of paper or cardboard, and in the mid-19th century people in the US began to call the summary of charges in a restaurant a “check,” probably because it was usually of similar size. In other words, we’ve been calling those things “checks” for more than 150 years.

So why not call that tally the waiter hands you a “bill”? Technically, it is. “Bill” has been used to mean “statement of account owed” since around 1400. Derived from the Medieval Latin “bulla,” meaning “seal” of the sort found on official documents, “bill” also has many meanings (including those enormous things they shove through Congress), but the sense of “official list” has been in use since Old English. And most of us get an “official list” of charges from the electric and gas companies every month, so “bill” in the “you owe us” sense is very much alive today.

My guess (and it’s only a guess) is that some restaurateur decided at some point that the word “bill” was a bit too blunt and vulgar a term to inflict on diners and that somewhat more subtle “check” sounded more refined. It was probably the same guy who decided we’d rather be called “guests” than “customers.” Personally, you can call me Elroy the Wonder Horse as long as the food is even remotely hot.

Shocked, shocked…

Dear Word Detective:  I am easily amazed. So it is nice to know that there are so many ways to express this bewildered state. I can choose, for example, to be “flummoxed,” “flabbergasted” or “gobsmacked,” depending on my state of stupefaction. Is it is a coincidence that all of these are such amazing words? Where did they come from? — Janis Landis.

Easily amazed, eh? I envy you. It must be nice to derive surprise from everyday life. Of course, it probably helps not to live in the middle of nowhere, as I do. There are only so many times “Look! A groundhog!” carries the thrill it first did. On the bright side, I remain, as my relatives will tell you, as easily amused as a small child, which comes in handy, given the current state of US culture. And although I’m not often “amazed” these days, I am frequently  appalled, but that may be simply because reality keeps upping the ante.

The terms you mention are all fine words denoting various degrees of amazement, but before we get too far into the tall grass with them, it’s worth considering the word “amaze” itself. It comes from the Old English word “amasian,” which meant “to stupefy, to stun, to confuse,” and which may have been rooted in Old Norse. Our modern positive sense of “overcome with wonder, astonish” dates back only to the 16th century. The older “confuse, befuddle” sense of “amaze,” incidentally, gave us “maze” in the 15th century meaning “a structure designed as a puzzle, with a complex network of paths leading through it, only one of which actually leads out.”

“Flummox” is a very useful word, meaning not only “to confuse” but also “to confound,” i.e., to frustrate so much that the only course is to give up and abandon the task or goal. Unfortunately, the origins of “flummox,” which first appeared in print in the early 19th century, are a mystery. There is some evidence that it comes from an English country dialect, and it may originally have been “echoic,” imitating the sound of something thrown down in disgust and  disorder on the ground.

“Flabbergast” is another useful word, meaning “to astonish; to render someone speechless with surprise” (“Bob was flabbergasted when the pizza he had ordered actually arrived hot”). “Flabbergast,” which first appeared (and was noted as then-fashionable slang in a magazine) in the late 18th century, is another mystery, but was most likely concocted as a combination of “flabby” or “flap” and “aghast” (which itself harks back to the Old English “gaest,” ghost). The original sense thus may have been of someone’s flab flapping or shaking with fear upon seeing an apparition. The proper term for the state of being “flabbergasted” is, incidentally, “flabbergastation,” which should come in handy next time oil prices go up.

There are two interesting things about “gobsmacked,” meaning, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, “Flabbergasted, astounded; speechless or incoherent with amazement.” The first is that “gobsmacked” is, thank heavens, not a mystery. It’s simply a combination of “gob,” very old English slang for the mouth or face, with “smack,” meaning “to strike with a slap or a blow.” (The roots of “gob” are, alas, slightly vague, but it probably comes from the Gaelic “gob,” meaning “beak or mouth.”) So to be “gobsmacked” is to be as surprised and amazed as if you had been struck in the mouth (“Won’t they be gobsmacked when you tell them that you wrote to me?”, 1989). The other noteworthy thing about “gobsmacked” is that, while it wouldn’t sound out of place in one of Shakespeare’s plays, it’s actually a very new word, first appearing in print in 1985. I won’t claim to have been “amazed” by that date, but it was a bit surprising.