Vesting

Filed Under December 2007, columns | Leave a Comment

And a picture of a gold watch.

Dear Word Detective: Can you tell me where the word “vesting” comes from? I know it is a derivative of “vest,” but I’d like a clear explanation of its history. — Elizabeth Hunt.

Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s trade — I’ll explain the history of the word “vest,” and you can explain (I hope) how “vesting” (as in a pension plan) works. I worked in an office for nearly twenty years, and around year five they told me I was “fully vested,” pension-wise. I figured I was fixed for life, but lately they’ve been sending me statements indicating that my pension at age 65 will consist of a monthly box of Cheez-Its and a subscription to Popular Caulking. I’m certain it used to be more than that. Am I losing money by continuing to breathe? Are the market moths eating holes in my vest?

Onward. “Vest” is, of course, both a noun and a verb, and the two forms have diverged quite a bit over the centuries. “Vest” the noun first appeared in English in the 17th century, derived from the Latin “vestis,” meaning “clothing or garment.” The earliest vests in England were sleeveless garments worn by men under their coats, a fashion introduced by Charles II in 1666 on an occasion chronicled by Samuel Pepys in his famous Diary (”This day the King begins to put on his vest; …being a long cassocke close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black riband like a pigeon’s leg.”) Shorter vests eventually came to be called “waistcoats” in Britain, but “vest” persisted in America.

“Vest” the verb is more a parallel development than an actual derivative of the waistcoat sort of “vest.” The root here is the Latin verb “vestire,” meaning “to clothe,” with the specific sense of dressing someone in the robes or vestments (another derivative) of office or power. When “vest” the verb appeared in English around 1425 (about 200 years before the noun “vest”), it already carried the metaphorical meaning of “to place or secure something in the legal possession of a person,” a sense it retains to the present day. Thus, when you are “vested” in your pension, it’s 100 percent yours, for what that’s worth. “Vest” is also still used in specific instances to mean “to grant authority to,” found in such portentous phrases as “By the power vested in me….”

The verb “to vest” has two close cousins, “invest” and “divest,” both of which originally involved putting on or taking off clothes. Our modern “loan money to a business or enterprise” meaning of “invest” is an outgrowth of the “give power to” sense of “vest,” but it this case it is money that is being given (and taken away in “divest”). “Vest” the verb is also related to “travesty” (from the Italian “transvestire,” meaning “to change clothes as a disguise” the source of “transvestite” as well), meaning “a grotesque or mocking imitation” or “a parody” (which is a pretty good description of my so-called pension).

 

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Drag

Filed Under December 2007, columns | Leave a Comment

The low hems of high-heeled boys.

Dear Word Detective: I’m hoping you can solve a question that came up in a rehearsal last night. Actors were discussing the origin of the term “drag” as it refers to someone playing a role of the opposite gender. Someone said that it was from old script notations, where a Stage Manager or someone like that would indicate in the margins “DRAG,” meaning “DRess like A Girl.” I said I thought that was probably apocryphal (right word?), that it was a little too pat an explanation, and that it was more likely derived from street lingo. But my confidence wavered, and I started wondering indeed where the term might have come from. I also started thinking about the many uses of “drag,” as in “drag your feet” and “drag on a cigarette” and “What a drag” and “dragnet,” and my head got dizzy. So please help me! I’d love to put that old story to rest if it is in fact bogus. — Jeanie.

Gosh, I wish I had invented the acronym. I could charge a small fee per use, say three cents, and after about six months I could buy my own country and set up my own laws. I would be just, of course, but firm. Television would be outlawed, every household would be issued three cats (we could start by passing out a few of mine), and possession of either eggplant or a banjo would land you in the pokey. Oh well. You folks don’t know what you’re missing.

“Apocryphal,” meaning “of questionable veracity” or simply “erroneous,” is certainly the proper word for the story you heard about “drag.” As for the other senses of “drag” you mention, they all go back to the original (and still primary) sense of “to drag,” which was “to draw or pull something which resists motion,” as in “dragging” a heavy trunk across your attic floor. English adopted “to drag” in the 15th century from either the Old English “dragan” (which gave us “draw”) or the Norse “draga.” “To drag one’s feet” invokes the basic sense of “to move against inertia” (whether physical or emotional), and “to drag” on a cigarette, meaning to strongly pull smoke from it, was first used around 1919. A “dragnet” in the literal sense is a type of fishing net that scours the sea bottom for any and all fish; the metaphorical use to mean “a thorough police search” is from the early 20th century. Calling an annoying thing or boring person a “drag” dates, surprisingly, all the way back to 1813.

The use of “wear drag” or “in drag” to mean, originally, a man wearing women’s clothing is first found in print in the late 19th century, and simply reflects the sensation, novel for men of the day, of a long skirt or the like “dragging” across the floor. The acronymic explanation of “drag” is a later attempt to “reverse-engineer” the term, but, like most such attempts, bears no relation to the much simpler reality.

 

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