Skulduggery

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Something’s up in the underground.

Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of “skullduggery”? Is it related to grave robbing as in the 1800s for medical use of cadavers? Or is it much older? — Lyn Kin.

Ah, yes, body-snatching. The practice was so widespread in the 18th century that a device called the “mortsafe” was developed, a sort of iron cage that surrounded the coffin and prevented abduction of the occupant. Body-snatchers, who sold their product to medical schools, were known as “resurrectionists,” and some, such as the infamous team of William Burke and William Hare, were not above employing murder when the natural supply ran low.

skul08.pngThose readers who made it past that cheery paragraph may have noticed that I let the spelling “skullduggery” (to which my spell-checker objects) stand in the question, because the combination of “skull” and “duggery” (which sounds like an archaic form of “digging”) certainly puts one in mind of grave-robbing. But the original and more common spelling is “skulduggery,” with just one “l,” and the term actually has no connection to either skulls or digging.

“Skulduggery” today means “underhanded dealings,” “trickery” or “clandestine machinations.” The term is apparently an American invention, first appearing in print (as far as we know) in 1867 (”From Minnesota had been imported the mysterious term ’scull-duggery’, used to signify political or other trickery.”), but since that quotation is an explanation of the term, we can assume it had been in use for some time before that. Today “sculduggery” is most often associated with cloak-and-dagger intelligence agencies such as the CIA, but freelancers and domestic political operatives have made their own splashes on occasion with “skulduggery” (”Watergate was such a sensational piece of skulduggery,” The Times (London), 1980).

While “skulduggery” may be a US coinage, its roots appear to lie in Scotland. The 18th century Scots term “sculduddery” meant “indecency” or “breach of chastity,” defined at the time as meaning specifically “fornication or adultery.” While “sculduddery” may at one time have been a serious legal term in Scotland, most written instances of the term treat it as jocular slang.

In any case, just how “skulduddery” in Scotland became “skulduggery” in the US is a mystery, although the terms do share obvious overtones of secrecy and impropriety. We also have no idea of what the roots of “sculduddery” might be. On the bright side, however, we do have “skulduggery,” a great word for those times when something underhanded is afoot.

 

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Wend

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Hit the road.

Dear Word Detective: The phase “to wend one’s [merry] way” has a meaning which appears obvious — kinda. What does the verb “to wend” actually mean and can you “wend” anything other than your way? I hope you can help; I’ve not slept all day worrying about that one. — Andy.

Hi, Andy. Your boss has asked me to ask you to stop by his office before you leave for the day. Apparently the new pillow you ordered has arrived.

wend08.pngIt’s true that “wend” is rarely found today outside the form “wend [one's] way,” and even then it’s almost always used in a jocular or sarcastic sense (”Jones, perhaps this afternoon you could wend your way back to your desk and do some actual work”). When words come to be used only in such fixed phrases, it’s usually a sign that we’re dealing with a linguistic fossil, as in the case of “deserts” in “just deserts,” derived from the French “deservir,” meaning “to deserve.” This “deserts,” meaning “appropriate reward,” was once common in English, but today is heard almost only in that fixed phrase. (Incidentally, “desert,” the very empty place, comes from the Latin “deserere,” meaning “to abandon,” and “dessert,” post-dinner sweets, comes from the French word “disservir,” meaning “to clear the table.”)

“Wend” is just such a fossil, but, as we shall see, it has some very lively relatives. The source of “wend” is the ancient Germanic root “wand,” meaning “to turn,” which also gave us “wander” (to walk while turning this way and that), “wand” (originally a flexible, easily “turned” stick), and “wind” (to gather up by turning). In Old English, “wend” originally meant “to turn” or “turn over,” and acquired a variety of figurative meanings, ranging from “to change one’s mind” to “to translate” (to “turn” from one language to another) to “to die” (”to wend away”).

By the 13th century, however, “wend” was more often being used to mean “to go or journey in a certain way or direction,” and enjoyed a brief heyday as a popular verb in this sense. But “to wend” was always in competition with “to go,” and eventually “go” won out as the more common verb, leaving “wend” to the poets. “Wend” in fact, nearly disappeared between 1600 and 1800, when it was resurrected in the fixed phrase “to wend one’s way.”

But a final indignity awaited “wend.” Its past tense and participle forms were originally “wende” and “wended” or “wend,” but by around 1200 “wente” and “went” became popular in those roles. But when “wend” began to fade from use around 1500, the word “went” was gradually adopted as the past tense form of “to go” (which is how we use “went” today). From that point on, people who wanted to use “wend” in the past tense had to use “wended,” which is nowhere near as cool as the “went” hijacked by “go.” But, in language as in life, to the victors go (not, you’ll notice, “wend”) the spoils.

 

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