Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

readme:

Just under the wire again.  Awesome.  Hey, your high school didn’t issue the yearbook in the first week of class, did it?  It took a while for April to sink in.

First up, thanks to all the folks who have generously contributed to my upkeep and the continued existence of this site.  Special super-duper thanks to S, J, and E for their ginormous generosity.  Your cats are in the mail.

I’ve been noodling around the internet for a long time, long enough that, when I started, the first thing I bought was a primer on Unix commands.  I think the reason I’ve managed to avoid a major disaster so far is my natural skepticism, which some people call paranoia, but you can call raspberry jam for all I care.  It works. Thanks to my deeply suspicious nature, I managed to use Windows computers for more than ten years and never caught a virus, trojan or spyware.  Yeah, I probably deleted a boatload of unopened hilarious and touching digital greeting cards from friends and relatives, but one must be strong.

Lately, however, I’ve felt a weird, inexplicable craving to join Facebook.  It comes on at strange times, often in the wee hours of the morning (which, for me, is nine or ten am), and manifests itself in a ravening desire to see what that kid from fourth grade has been up to for the past [mumble mumble] years.  I also know gazillions of people who have Facebook pages, and, since I’m famous for not answering email from them, being on the damn thing might make life easier.

But then I actually look at Facebook and it creeps me out.  The thought of being asked to “friend” people I barely know and may not actually … like … is bad enough.  The stress of just thinking about it makes me wish I drank.  Then there’s the distinct possibility that someone I “friend,” just to be nice, will turn out to have also “friended” the Pol Pot Fan Club or something similar.

But then I forget all that and just want to join and not be missing something.

Fortunately, about once a week for the past month, Facebook has stepped up to the plate and proven that I’m not the one missing something.  See also this.  And especially this.  And they’re not even good at being evil.  Long story short, these creeps are not your friends, and their promises are worthless.

But let’s look on the bright side of the net.  Futility Closet is always fun.  The Browser and Give Me Something to Read are good sources of things to, uh, read.  And Harper’s offers consistently good stuff.

The Journal of a Disappointed Man is fascinating.  The author, W. N. P. Barbellion, was an English diarist diagnosed, in 1915, with what is now known as multiple sclerosis.  The preface to the book (free to read at that first link) is by H.G. Wells.

Onward, ready or not.  I try to look forward to the coming of Spring, I really do.  But I think it’d be a lot easier to do so in New York City.  Last week I noticed that (a) our neighbors had apparently been mowing their lawns for a couple of weeks (maybe since January, who pays attention to that stuff?), and (b) our lawn was starting to look more than just a bit feral, like maybe there could be wolverines lurking in there.  Snakes, definitely.  Plus which Pokie would wander out there and get lost.  Of course, Pokie wanders into the living room and gets lost, but this was worse, because she’s both deaf and demented, so even if you spot Pokie and call really loud and wave your hands, she looks at you like she’s never seen you before and goes right back to licking the tree.  Pokie likes to lick trees.  Pokie also likes to lick the gravel in the driveway.  And the rug in the living room.  For hours on end.

Anyway, it was about his time that our neighbor stopped by and asked if I needed help fixing My Little Tractor.  This is about as subtle as it gets around here, but I was sharp that day and caught his drift.  So a couple of days later I pried the garage door open and fired up the beast, or tried to, but the battery was dead.  Rats.  Well, maybe next year, eh?

Pushing my luck, I tried again later that afternoon, and the damn thing started right up.  But I had virtually no gas, so I turned it off and went downtown.  After I filled it up upon my return, I discovered that the front left tire was flat.  Jeez louise.  So I pumped it up (having fruitlessly tried to patch it last year), and finally I was good to go, at least for an hour or two until the tire went flat again.  Vroom vroom, I piloted My Little Tractor onto the side yard and began to mow.

Ten seconds and fifteen feet later, the mowing deck emitted an ear-splitting screech and the whole tractor ground to a halt.  Dismounting, I began crawling through the unmown grass, rather like a large, clumsy reptile, peering under the mowing deck and muttering under my breath. Eventually I realized that I had, in a moment of colossal stupidity, mowed over a length of steel cable we use to tether Pokie to a tree when we can’t take any more of that damn licking sound.  Said cable was now wrapped tightly around the spindles of all three blades under the deck.  About the time I figured this out, I noticed the shoes of our helpful neighbor planted at my eye level, about three feet away.  He had arrived to offer his help, which, rising as best I could from the ground, I politely declined while striving to project a Chuck Norris air of confidence (“No problem, I’ll just put ‘er up on the rack and untangle it!”). Even I could tell I was coming across more like an over-caffeinated Wally Cox.

Yes, I know I’m incredibly lucky to have such a nice neighbor.  But every time I let him help me with the tractor I feel like an idiot.  I’ve been mowing this misbegotten patch of swamp for twelve years come this summer, and I shouldn’t be mowing over dog cables.

I then spent the next 90 minutes lying on the driveway wrestling with that stupid cable, which had apparently been designed to be impervious not only to the teeth of elderly dogs but to every wire-cutter I owned.  And when I say “lying in the driveway,” I mean literally with my head resting in gravel and dirt.

I did finally untangle the mess without un-mounting the entire mowing deck, which would have involved cotter pins and belts and been a major PITA, so I was rather pleased with myself when I finally climbed back into the saddle and roared off again to do battle with the evil grass.  Fortunately, about an hour later it got dark enough to make mowing difficult, so I had to knock off and go watch TV.  Only about a quarter of the lawn is mowed, but it’s the part most visible from the road, and I plan to get back to it right away, next week at the latest.

Elsewhere in Nature News, there’s a persistent urban legend that says that bumblebees, judged by technical aerodynamic principles, should not possibly be able to fly.  Too heavy, wings too short, and so on.  But fly they do, sort of like this website (gotcha).  In our case, we make up for our stubby little wings with your subscriptions, those nutritious little nuggets of moolah (a mere 15 clams per year) that make it possible for us, if, perhaps, not actually to fly, at least to make a really loud humming sound.  So please subscribe.

Next month: Marley sees something nasty in the woodshed.

And now, on with the show….

Shoes for industry!

Dear Word Detective:  How did a type of shoe come to be called a “pump”? — Adsaka.

That’s a good question, albeit a short one.  I actually prefer questions with a bit of backstory to them, such as “My mother says that the kind of shoe called a ‘pump’ got its name because in the early days of motor cars all the gas station attendants were female, men being considered unsuitable for the job because they smoked cigars.  Anyway, these female pump attendants supposedly all had to wear special shoes called ‘pumps’ that were designed not to slip on oily pavement.  Is Mom right, or should we have her committed?”

I have the horrible feeling that someday soon I’m going to run across that paragraph on the internet, copied and pasted as fact.  The funny thing is that the kind of shoe called a “pump” actually may be connected to “pump” in the “gas pump” sense.  By the way, the fancy word “albeit,” seen in my first sentence, is simply a Middle English shortening of “although it be.”  Go forth and impress your friends.

The word “pump,” as one would expect in a world where most of the water you’d like to drink is underground, is very old, first appearing in English in the 15th century with the basic meaning of “a mechanical device for raising water.”   Almost all pumps consist of a cylinder of some sort, within which moves a tightly-fitted piston or plunger that draws the water or other fluid through the tube, and a valve that prevents the water from going right back out when the piston goes down again.  There are, of course, types of pumps that don’t involve pistons, but for our purposes that piston is the part to remember.

The origins of the word “pump” are uncertain, but most authorities believe that “pump” was onomatopoeic (or “echoic”) in origin, simply formed as an imitation of the sound of a pump.  “Pump” is, of course, also a verb, and apart from its literal uses, “to pump” has acquired an impressive array of figurative senses over the past few centuries.  We “pump up,” strengthen and enlarge, our muscles at the gym, and we “pump” money or other things into places where they are thought to be needed (“The Fed is still pumping money into Wall Street”) or places where they are definitely not (“You never saw anybody that was deader.  Must have had thirty pills pumped in him,”  Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest, 1929).  Reporters “pump” (intensively question) sources for information, a usage that dates back to the 17th century, and a good speaker can “pump up” (excite) a crowd using nothing more than florid adjectives.

But even given the wide use to which “pump” as both a noun and verb has been put, it’s not easy to discern its connection to “pump” as a type of low-heeled, close-fitting women’s shoe, a usage that arose in the 16th century.  It has been suggested that “pump” in this sense is derived from “pomp” meaning “display of splendor and magnificence,” although the “pump” is usually a pretty simple shoe.

It seems more likely that the “pump” shoe owes its name to the humble mechanical “pump.”  The classic “pump” shoe lacks straps or other fasteners, and the key to the shoe staying on one’s foot is its snug fit, rather like the piston of a pump.  In fact, back in the 16th century, such pistons in pumps were known as “pump shoes” from their vaguely shoe-like shape.  It’s likely that the “pump” shoe took its name, in a 16th century pun, from these close-fitting “pump shoe” pistons.

Past its prime.

Dear Word Detective:  I was watching cartoons this weekend (I’m 46 years old, why do you ask?), and of, course, as we all know, old cartoons are the best cartoons.  One of the characters in a Bugs Bunny episode I was enjoying reacts to a strong smell by holding his nose and shouting “PEE-YOU!”.  I laughed, and I hope if I ever stop laughing at that kind of gem, somebody puts me in the ground.  Anyway, it occurred to me I had no idea where that particular phrase comes from; a brief internet search turns up many different spellings (include one very intriguing “P.U.”), but not much information on origin.  Can you help? — Chris, Kansas City.

Old cartoons are indeed the best cartoons, and, in my humble opinion, old cartoons are one of the few rationales for the existence of television.  By old cartoons, incidentally, I mean, as you do, those of the Looney Tunes school of inspired nonsense, not that lame Disney stuff.  Looney Tunes brought us Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Tweety, and Marvin the Martian.  Disney gave us Mickey, Minnie and, let’s see, oh yeah, Goofy.  No contest.

Since the early 17th century (and probably much earlier), English has had a number of interjections intended to express disgust, impatience or weariness.  These have included “pfeu,” “pooh,” “pfu” and, most enduringly, “phew” and “pew.”  All of these forms were “imitative,” simulating the action of blowing through pursed lips as an expression of disgust, etc. (“Phu, a fig for his Money,” 1726).  While we use “phew” to express relief (often sarcastically) today, “pew” or “pyoo” in particular came to be a common reaction when encountering a bad smell or another disgusting phenomenon (“Pew!  That yogurt must be old enough to vote!”).

Now fast forward to the early 19th century, when there was a fad among fashionable young people which consisted of abbreviating popular sayings into initialisms.  “All right” was rendered as “A.R.,” “no good” became “N.G.,” and so on.  Often the words were also deliberately misspelled before they were abbreviated, as in the case of  “all correct,” transformed into “oll korrect” and thereafter into “O.K.”  (Martin Van Buren’s unsuccessful re-election bid in 1840, supported by campaign clubs called O.K. Clubs as a pun on his nickname “Old Kinderhook,” further established “O.K.” in the popular lexicon.)

It is very likely that this “initialization” rage among the youth of the day also expanded “pew” into “pee-yoo,” and transformed it into “P.U.”  It’s hard to pin an exact date on the invention because many of the products of this fad didn’t make it into print until years later (if at all), but my guess is that “P.U.” and its longer form “pee-yoo” have been signifying disgust since at least the mid-19th century.

A long time to be gone.

Dear Word Detective:  This one may not travel well across the Atlantic, but, whilst wandering round the pleasant and historic port of Whitby (see Captain Cook), I looked into one of the many antique shops and noticed a cabinet, full of carvings in wood, bone, shell and other such, labeled “Scrimshaw.”  At first I took that to be the name of the artist, but the shop assistant told me that that was the name of stuff carved or whittled by sailors of old on their interminable voyages.  Of course, when I looked later at various dictionary sources, the dreaded “origin unknown” came up.  Could you shed any light on the matter? — David, Ripon, England.

I’ll give it a shot.  By the way, your port of Whitby sounds quite similar, as a tourist attraction, to the Mystic Seaport near where I grew up on the coast of Connecticut.  Mystic was a major whaling center in 19th century New England, and today tourists flock to the recreated village and the historic ships berthed there, including the Charles W. Morgan, the only surviving whaling ship from the 19th century American fleet.  I vividly remember wandering around the decks of the Morgan as a lad, going below to see the crew’s quarters, peering into the whaleboats, and gawking up at the towering masts.  It was every seafaring story I’d ever read come to life, and it was even better because it was the real thing.

The origin of “scrimshaw” is, as you discovered, a mystery. It first appeared in print (as far as we know at this point) in 1825, in the variant spelling “scrimshonting.” Other forms include “scrimshander” and “scrimshandy,” and a maker of scrimshaw is called a “scrimshoner.”

There are, of course, theories as to the origin of “scrimshaw.”  One suggestion ties “scrimshaw” to a military term of the same era, “to scrimshank,” meaning “to shirk duty.”  That seems plausible, but it doesn’t get us very far because “scrimshank” appeared after “scrimshaw” was already in use, and no one has the faintest idea of where “scrimshank” came from either.

One of the more intriguing facts bedeviling etymologists for years is that “Scrimshaw” is also a surname in England.  No connection between the proper name and the ornate carvings has ever been established, although the existence of an especially artistic seaman named Scrimshaw is clearly a possibility.

Serendipitously, however, earlier this month Stephen Goranson, a poster to the American Dialect Society mailing list, suggested a truly plausible connection between the name and the carvings.  It seems that there was, in the 19th century, a woman in London named Jane Scrimshaw who was famously reputed to have lived to the age of 127 years.  The tale itself is obviously unlikely.  But Jane Scrimshaw’s name became synonymous with “a long time,” especially a long time served in an occupation or endeavor.  And in light of the fact that some early mentions of scrimshaw are actually phrased as “scrimshaw-work” (“… anything made by sailors for themselves in their leisure hours at sea is called Scrimshaw-work,” 1864), it seems likely that Jane Scrimshaw’s name and legendary lifespan gave us a word meaning “crafts done to pass the time while at sea for a really, really long time.”

Slip-sliding away.

Dear Word Detective:  I was just trying to find the origin of the phrase “Individual as a hog on ice,” and your website popped up.  I don’t see it there, so I was just wondering if you could find the answer and post it.  Thanks a billion! — Whitney.

Well, I’ll give it a shot, I guess.  This afternoon, probably, tomorrow at the latest.  You do realize that “a billion” isn’t what it used to be, right?  Definitely an also-ran in the motivational sweepstakes.  Even “a trillion” doesn’t take your breath away the way it once did.  The good news about all this conceptual inflation is that the average person may soon be able to truly grasp the concept of infinity. The bad news is that we’re gonna be pondering it while living under a bridge.

But hey, be here now, as my boss used to say.  I actually tackled a question about “hog on ice” about ten years ago with only middling success, and things haven’t gotten any clearer since then.  But it’s not just me — etymologists have been searching for an explanation of the phrase pretty much since it first appeared back in the mid-19th century. In fact, back in 1948 etymologist Charles Earle Funk titled his first book of word origins “A Hog on Ice,” and his foreword to that book contains a seven page narrative of his quest, ultimately inconclusive, for the roots of the phrase.

One of the possibilities that Funk explored was that the “hog” in “hog on ice” doesn’t actually refer to a pig, but to a stone used in the ancient game of curling, which involves sliding large flat stones across ice.  A “hog” in curling is a stone that has failed to travel the required distance and sits immobile in the way of further play.  But while this is an interesting convergence of “hog” and “ice,” it’s unlikely to be the source of a phrase so widely known today in both the US and the UK.

It’s more likely that “as independent as a hog on ice” simply refers to an actual hog that has escaped and somehow managed to wind up in the middle of a frozen pond or stream.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines the phrase as “denoting independence, awkwardness, or insecurity,” and I think all three qualities perfectly fit the predicament of a hog at such a moment.  While he’s technically free, his trotters can get no traction on the ice, making real escape impossible, and he’s more than likely to end up splayed helplessly on his belly, easily recaptured and returned to his pen.  This sense of “you’re free, but it’s not doing you any good” seems to be an important aspect of “independent as a hog on ice” in common usage (“They like to think of themselves as independents … independent as a hog on ice,” Time magazine, 1948).

And hold the bangers.

Dear Word Detective:  I’m currently directing a production of Hay Fever by Noel Coward, and there are two phrases in the play that I can’t find reference to anywhere.  I don’t know if Coward just made them up or if they were standard British phrases in 1925.  We kind of know what they mean in context, but it would be great to know more exactly — can you help?  The first is when the housemaid Clara says that Amy, the scullery maid, has toothache, and says, “the poor girl has been writhing about in the scullery like one o’clock.”  The second is later in the play when, at breakfast, Richard says he’s having haddock, and Myra says, “I’ll have the haddock too — I simply couldn’t strike out a line for myself this morning.”  Any clarification would be most appreciated! — Jeanie Forte Smith.

Thanks for an interesting question.  I’ve never seen “Hay Fever,” so I went to Wikipedia looking for a summary, and Wikipedia replied, “Best described as a cross between high farce and a comedy of manners, the play is set in an English country house in the 1920s, and deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family and their outlandish behaviour when they each invite a guest to spend the weekend.”  It sounds like the sort of thing I’d enjoy, since I’m a total sucker for the “madcap weekend at an English country house” genre.  I have, in fact, an application on file for reincarnation as a character in a P.G. Wodehouse story.

Before we begin, a quick show of hands:  who knows what the “scullery” is?  That’s right, Nigel, it’s the division of the household staff that deals with dishes, pots, silverware, etc., in the “scullery,” a room like a pantry that takes its name from the Latin “scutella,” meaning “serving platter.”  A scullery maid is the lowest ranked, and usually the youngest, member of the maid staff at a large house.

Noel Coward didn’t, as it happens, invent either of the phrases you folks have, understandably, found so puzzling.  When the housemaid says that the scullery maid “has been writhing about in the scullery like one o’clock,” by “like one o’clock” she means “vigorously, energetically, without stopping.”  The phrase “like one o’clock,” which can also be used to mean “enthusiastically” or “excellently,” has been in use in Britain since at least the mid-19th century (“He had a taste for literature, and we got on together like one o’clock,” 1901).  The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the phrase began as a reference to the speed necessary to eat lunch in the middle of a workday.  That makes sense to me, especially since the phrase originated in a time when the idea of a full hour for lunch for the average worker would have been considered a wild fantasy.

When the character Myra picks the haddock (yuck) for breakfast and notes, “I simply couldn’t strike out a line for myself this morning,” the explanation is a bit simpler.  “To strike a line” or “strike out a line” has, since the mid-19th century, meant “to pick a direction or course of movement,” as if in reference to a course plotted on a map.  So she was simply saying that she didn’t have enough energy to bother choosing from the available options for breakfast, and preferred to simply “go with the flow.”  I’d have picked the waffles, personally, and I must remember to amend my reincarnation request with the proviso “No fish for breakfast.”

Tanned, tough and mysterious.

Dear Word Detective:  I’ve heard a quaint little phrase for describing resilience nearly all my life, but have no idea if ever such a product exists.  Cobblers, makers of leather articles and tack have looked askance at me when I enquired of the item in question.  From whence did this arise:  “as tough as whit leather”?  Thank you for any assistance you may offer, or even for an incredulous look. — Mark.

Don’t worry — I don’t do incredulous looks.  I learned years ago to assume that if I’ve never heard of the word or phrase a reader is asking about, it simply means that my education is incomplete, not that the reader is loco in the coco, as my father used to put it.  Of course, I do get the occasional inquiry from Planet Non Compos, but I can usually spot those from the exclamation marks and creative capitalization in the subject line.

I’d never heard of “whit leather” before your question arrived, but you seem to be in good company wondering about the phrase “tough as whit leather.”  Wandering through Google, I came across a passage in Tom Wolfe’s 2001 novel “A Man in Full” in which a character is musing on the women in his life:  “Serena … not even thirty yet and already tough as whit leather … How the hell had that expression floated into his head? … His daddy used to say it all the time … Never could figure out what whit leather was….”  I wonder if Wolfe himself ever looked up “whit leather.”  I suppose he must have, just in case it turned out to be something scandalous (which, as Robert Browning discovered, is a real danger when you use a word you don’t understand).

In this case, however, “whit leather” is entirely proper and quite interesting.  It’s simply an alternate form of “white leather,” and is usually spelled as one word (“whitleather”).  The form “whitleather” dates back to the mid-14th century in its literal sense, and has been used figuratively since the early 17th century.

“Whitleather,” as it turns out, is leather, often goatskin, that has been tanned and treated with alum and salt.  That process not only lightens the color of the leather, but also renders it soft and pliable, yet very strong and tough, making it a popular material for straps and thongs.  Whitleather also used to be known as “alum leather” and “Hungarian leather,” and a tanner who made whitleather was known as a “whittawer,” the archaic verb “to taw” meaning (what else?) “to prepare leather by steeping in alum and salt.”  I’m not a big leather buff (I’ve been wearing the same belt for nearly 20 years, in fact), but I’ll bet there’s an easier way to make white leather today.

The phrase “tough as whitleather” in a figurative sense meaning “tough, hardened, resilient,” often applied to a person, has been popular since the 17th century (“A widow o forty-five, As has sludged like a horse all her life, Till ‘er’s tough as whit-leather..,” D.H. Lawrence, 1913).  But “whitleather” has also been used, figuratively, in comparisons of softness and even paleness (“Her eyes grew preternaturally pale, and her lips wan as whit-leather,” 1839).

Interestingly, another use of the word “whitleather” since the 18th century has been as a synonym for the “paxwax,” the tough, thick ligament connecting the skull of a large quadruped (horse, ox, etc.) to its spine, thus supporting its head.  This use of “whitleather” is probably derived from the ligament’s similarity to strong thongs made of “whitleather.”

He wasn’t there again today; I wish to hell he’d go away.

Dear Word Detective:  My mother sometimes used the word “chibbles” to refer to small bits of debris such as those that resulted from kids playing with scissors.  The debris that search engines have turned up suggest that this is a (relatively rare) regional usage (more often applied to cut-up food) but I still wonder.  Is there any relation to “kibble” (little bits of dry animal food)? — James

Funny you should ask.  I was just on my way out to buy dog and cat food.  I must remember to keep them straight this time.  A few months ago I somehow managed to put the dog kibble in the cat food bin and vice-versa.  The dogs were thrilled with the cat chow, but the cats were much less so with their new fare.  Obviously, somebody needs to invent a universal pet food, something that cats, dogs, fish, hamsters, parakeets and those weasel things (oh right, sorry, ferrets) will eat.  Bonus points if it’s palatable to humans as well.  My life would be far easier.

I’ve spent the past day or so looking into your question, and I have a suggestion:  pick a different question.  I’m no stranger to dead ends (I grew up on a dead-end street, in fact), but it seems that literally everywhere I go in search of “chibble” I hit an unsatisfying answer.  What I’ve been looking for, of course, is any use of “chibble” to mean “small pieces” or “bits of debris left over.”  Long story short, no dice, at least no such uses printed in a book or newspaper (rather than just being reported in an online forum or the like).

What I have found, however, is the use of “chibble” to mean “small onions” or “scallions,” a usage that dates back at least to the late 19th century here in the US.  The forms most often found in the US are “chibbol” or “chibal,” both of which are variations on an old English dialect word, “chibol,” meaning a kind of leek (a sort of cross between an onion and a proper leek).  This “chibol” dates back to the mid-14th century in English, and was apparently derived from the French “ciboule,” which itself was based on “cepa,” the Latin word for “onion.”  So what we have here is a word which sounds like your mother’s “chibble,” but means “small onions.”

Meanwhile, peeking under the hood of “kibble” isn’t much help.  As a noun meaning “coarsely ground grain or cereal,” it’s a fairly recent word, first appearing in the early 20th century.  Meaning “pellets of pet or animal food,” it’s even newer, dating back only to 1965.  These noun forms came from the verb “to kibble,” which appeared around 1790 meaning “to grind coarsely, to crush into small pieces.”  Unfortunately, no one knows where “kibble” came from or what its roots might possibly be.  Anybody see a pattern here?

My guess is that your mother’s use of “chibble” was, perhaps, a form of “chibbol” (small onion) expanded to mean “bits of food,” then “food debris,” and then further extended to mean “bits of any kind of debris.”  It is entirely possible that this mutation in meaning was partly driven by the similarity in sound of “chibbol” to “kibble,” but the words don’t seem to be actually related.  The fact that such a use isn’t documented in print doesn’t, of course, mean that your mother invented it or that she was the only person to use it.  Such uses often arise and exist under the radar of lexicographers for years, and may even fade away again without ever being noted.  Judging by the absence of this usage in print, I’d say this one is definitely on its way out.

Whoopsies.

Dear Word Detective:  I love community theater and am lucky enough to have been cast in several musical productions.  We are currently presenting “The Sound of Music” and are intrigued by the word “flibbertigibbet” which we, as the nuns, use to describe Maria.  I am imagining it comes from the flitting to and fro of butterflies or birds.  But I am asking for your help with its origin. — Marsha.

The hills are alive … run!  You know, every so often I realize that I’ve never actually seen “The Sound of Music,” just the same few movie clips over and over on the TV.  (We call it “the TV” out here in the boonies.)   But that doesn’t seem to prevent that darn song from running through my head.

I haven’t heard anyone actually use the term “flibbertigibbet” aloud in years, and even Google News comes up with only an anemic twenty-six hits for print use lately.  I did, however,  have the word on my mind a some months ago after seeing the film “Julie & Julia,” a painfully tedious chronicle of one blogger’s attempt to leverage unearned fame and fortune on the life and reputation of the late Julia Child, author of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”  I would characterize “Julie & Julia” as essentially a very boring vampire movie.  Anyway, Meryl Streep, adding insult to injury in my view, chose to portray Child as a whooping flibbertigibbet, which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as “a silly, scatterbrained, or garrulous person,” and which Child was definitely not.

Onward.  “Flibbertigibbet” is an interesting, and more than slightly mysterious, word.  As far as anyone has been able to determine so far, it first appeared in print in 1549, with essentially the same “blithering fool” meaning it has today.  Though “flibbertigibbet” is, strictly speaking, a gender-neutral word, in practice it is, and long has been, usually applied to women.

Although that basic sense of “flibbertigibbet” has been in constant use since the mid-16th century, there have been two interesting exceptions.  In King Lear (1605), Shakespeare used “Flibbertigibbet” as the name of a demon (“The foule Flibbertigibbet … hurts the poore Creature of earth”), apparently drawing the name from a list of such creatures published several years earlier.  Two centuries later, Sir Walter Scott, in his novel Kenilworth (1821), used “Flibbertigibbet” as the nickname of an impish, impetuous child.  Until “King Lear,” incidentally, “flibbertigibbet” had been spelled in a wide variety of ways (including “flybbergybe” and “flebergebet”) but Shakespeare’s version became the standard spelling (apart from occasional excursions such as “Flibber de’ Jibb” later in the 17th century).

The source of “flibbertigibbet” was, as far as anyone has been able to tell, our old friend onomatopoeia, the “echoic” formation of a word in imitation of a sound or other characteristic of a thing.  “Flibbertigibbet” almost certainly arose as an attempt to duplicate the sound of someone babbling or prattling on in meaningless chatter.

The air-brained motormouths among us have given us more than just “flibbertigibbet,” of course.  The words “babble,” “prattle” and “chatter” all also originated as onomatopoeic attempts to replicate the sound of someone who has nothing to say but simply will not shut up.

In fact, they originally called it “Iwanttoeatyourbrainsbook,” but no one would join.

Dear Word Detective:  As a Middle Eastern Studies major at Florida State University, I am taking a course on Middle Eastern Culture. This week, my professor offered us a bit of reading concerning the naming of the American bird “turkey” after the country in the Middle East.  While I found the reading entertaining, I wondered at the validity of the story.  I am attaching a link to the Facebook page that includes this story.  Can you verify that this is indeed how turkeys (the not especially smart, but very tasty bird) got their name?  If the link doesn’t work it can be found under the title “The Story of How the Unofficial Bird of the United States Got Named After a Middle Eastern Country” by Giancarlo Casale. — Katherine “Kat” Holton.

That’s a good question and, since Thanksgiving is approaching here in the US, a timely one as well.  I did go to the Facebook link you sent along for the article by Dr. Casale, who is an Assistant Professor of History (specializing in the Islamic world) at the University of Minnesota.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t open the page, probably because I am not registered with Facebook, nor do I intend to be.  Readers keep writing me asking why I’m not “on Facebook” (a phrase which strikes me as way too reminiscent of  “on pep pills” or “on parole”), and my answer is simple: zombies.  Facebook is full of zombies. Pass it on.

I did manage to track down Dr. Casale’s turkey opus fairly easily, however, because more than 30,000 other web sites had taken the liberty of reposting it. Not to be left out, I’ve reposted it myself at www.word-detective.com/turkey, so y’all can follow along at home.

Dr. Casale’s explanation of how a bird native to the Americas came to be known as a “turkey” is indeed accurate, and his narrative of his investigation makes a charming story.

The key to understanding how the turkey got its name is the fact that, until the early 16th century, a “turkey” was not the bird we today regard as a Thanksgiving and Christmas tradition, but an entirely different bird.  The “turkey-cock” or “turkey-hen” was (and is) a smaller bird (what Professor Casale calls a “chulluck” in his piece), and was also known as a Guinea-fowl, referring to its original home in West Africa.  The Guinea-fowl, apparently a tasty little critter, had been imported into Europe since the time of the Roman Empire, most notably, for our purposes, by the Turkish empire (which explains how the birds came to be known as “turkeys”).

At the beginning of the 16th century, however, travelers to the New World began bringing back (and soon importing in bulk) a similarly tasty bird native to Mexico.  Through a process of mass public confusion, this bird came to be known as a “turkey” as well, and eventually took sole possession of the name.

Perhaps the best indication of how confused most of the world seemed to be at one point about what was or was not a “turkey” and where the darn things came from is the fact, as noted by Dr. Casale, that just about every European country has a different name for the bird.  Several languages refer to the turkey with names that mean, roughly, “bird of India,” a relic of the days when the locations of India and the Americas were far from clear in the public mind.  After all, as Dr. Casale discovered, even in Turkish what we call a “turkey” is known as a “hindi,” meaning “from India.”