Amscray.

Dear Word Detective:  I’m wondering if the slang word “scidattle,” as is “let’s scidattle” or “time to scidattle,” may originate from a shortened version of “let’s get out of here,” which, when said quickly, has a similar sound and meaning.  If my hypothesis is incorrect, can you guys find out where “scidattle” came from?  Boy, I sure hope so. — Tyler Brummet.

Me too.  By the way, “you guys” really doesn’t apply in this case, because it’s just me and a bunch of illiterate cats here, plus two dogs who are of no use at all unless your heart’s desire is to find the nearest dead possum.  We originally let these two freeloaders, Brownie and Pokie, live here on the assumption that they would provide some basic security.  But just last week I watched Pokie attack a tree that hadn’t moved in at least ten years and didn’t seem to be menacing anyone, so we may have to rethink that bargain.

Onward.  While you were reading that paragraph, I was softly repeating “scidattle” over and over to myself, and after awhile it did start to sound a bit like “let’s get out of here,” especially if you say it very quickly with a Brooklyn accent.  But while some English words have been formed by combining other words (“motel” from “motor hotel,” for instance), I can’t think of an instance of an entire phrase (such as “Let’s get out of here”) being slurred into a single word.  It’s just not the way the language works.  Too many people would have to simultaneously adopt that usage for it to make any sense to anyone.

There’s also the fact that the word in question is actually spelled “skedaddle,” and its spelling has been fairly constant since it came into use during the American Civil War.  “Skedaddle” first appeared in written accounts of battles in that war, used to mean “to retreat quickly; to flee” (“As soon as the rebs saw our red breeches … coming through the woods they skedaddled,” 1862).  In military use there were definite overtones of cowardice under fire in “skedaddle,” but as the word quickly percolated into civilian usage, it came to mean simply “to leave quickly” or “to run away.”

There are a number of theories about the origin of “skedaddle,” but no definite answer to the puzzle.  The relatively sudden appearance of “skedaddle” as a fully-formed word, with no known ancestors in English, tends to argue for its importation from another language. There are theories that attempt to trace “skedaddle” to various Swedish or Danish words but fail on lack of evidence.  It is more probable that “skedaddle” is rooted in the Irish word “sgedadol,” meaning “scattered,” or the Scots word “”skiddle,” meaning “to spill or scatter.”  Given the Scots-Irish heritage of many of the states central to the Civil War, these both seem like reasonable bets to me.

And watch your toes.

Dear Word Detective:  What is the origin of the word “tare,” as in “tare weight” of a container?  Where did the word come from? — David Stepien.

That’s a good question.  I first encountered “tare” years ago when I worked in a warehouse recycling newspapers, where we used an enormous scale built into the floor to weigh big steel baskets of paper.  Obviously it was important to first set the “tare” on the scale to the weight of  an empty basket or you’d be several hundred pounds off.  Incidentally, I have some free advice for anyone who finds themselves in such a job.  Learn to drive the forklift.  It’s fun (a lot like playing pinball, in fact) and most of the time you get to work sitting down.

There are actually two “tares” in English, completely unrelated in either origin or meaning.  The older “tare,” which appeared in the 14th century, means the seed of a “vetch,” a large family of flowering plants that includes the fava bean.  In its original use, this “tare” meant “something very small” (especially something unwanted, like a vetch seed mixed in with seed corn).  “Tare” today is usually used to mean a particular species of vetch plant (“Vicia sativa”), which is grown as fodder for livestock.  The origin of this “tare” is something of a mystery, but similar (and possibly related) words exist in several other European languages.

“Tare” in the more common sense of “the weight of a container that is deducted from the gross weight to obtain the net weight” has a more interesting origin (although, granted, almost anything would be more interesting than “We don’t know”).  This “tare” first appeared in English in the late 15th century, borrowed directly from French.  Interestingly, however, “tare” in French at that time didn’t mean “weight of the container” and so on.  It meant “waste or deterioration in goods” or “deficiency or imperfection,” as in, for example, the percentage of a shipment of corn that was spoiled by rot or pests.

This sense of “tare” in French meaning “waste” was also found in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian (where the form was “tara”), all of which were based in the Arabic “tarah,” which means “that which is thrown away” (from “tarahah,” to reject).  The Arabic word had been picked up and adopted by European merchants in the course of trade with North Africa.  Apparently the sense of “waste” or “spoiled goods” was carried over into most of these languages, but by the time “tare” entered English it had become simply a way of specifying the actual weight of a shipment minus whatever container carried it.  “Tare” is still used this way, whether the container is a cargo ship, a trailer truck, or, at least implicitly, a box of cornflakes that species its “net weight” on its front.