Roll Up!

Filed Under March 2007, columns | 2 Comments

But he did drive a Mustang, didn’t he?

Dear Word Detective: “Roll Up! Roll Up!” There’s a phrase we’ve heard at the circus and even in Beatles and ELP lyrics. When and where did this phrase originate? I’m writing a play that takes place in late 19th century rural England and I’m hoping to be as accurate with my phrase usages as possible! — Annie, New York.

Good question. I certainly remember “Roll up! Roll up!” at the beginning of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. But what is “ELP”? The Wikipedia “disambiguation” (I love that word) page for “ELP” suggests several possibilities, including the baggage code for El Paso Airport, but I suspect you mean Emerson, Lake and Palmer, a British “progressive rock” band popular in the early 1970s. Personally, I was (and remain) partial to Procol Harum.

I’m glad to hear that you are paying close attention to historical accuracy in your novel. There’s nothing that seems to tick off certain reviewers more than Julius Caesar lighting a cigar or Tom Paine greeting Washington with “Wassup, dog?” I wish I thought that readers would also appreciate your attention to detail, but I keep reading surveys indicating that many college students believe Paul Revere used speed-dial on that fateful night.

I think you’re on solid ground having your character use the phrase “Roll up! Roll up!” in the late 19th century, although your margin will be decades rather than centuries. The use of “roll up” as slang for “congregate or gather” (making “Roll up! Roll up!” the equivalent of “Gather round!”) first appeared in print in Australia in 1861. However, as is often the case, we can assume it was in spoken use for at least a few years before it made it into print, and I think we can also assume that the phrase was current in England by your deadline.

The use of “roll up” in this sense appears to invoke the image of rolling things, in this case people, together, perhaps even by allusion to “rolling up” a carpet. A similar sense of “roll up” has long been used to mean “methodically destroy or neutralize” (”He had made a mistake in Berlin, and … his network had been rolled up,” John Le Carre, 1963).

The Oxford English Dictionary lumps the “gather or assemble” usage together with another use of “roll up,” this one in the sense of “arrive” (”A townie. A bit overdressed … he once rolled up in a velvet jacket,” 1976). But while the two senses may be logically related, I would argue that “roll up” in the “arrive” sense refers, at least metaphorically, to the wheels of a conveyance.

 

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Skittish

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Eek.

Dear Word Detective: Could you tell me the origin of the word “skittish” please? –David Franklin.

Thanks for an interesting question. The moment I read it, of course, I realized that many readers would wonder whether “skittish” has any connection to the noun “skit” meaning a short, humorous playlet. As it happens, the two words are indeed related, but the connection is a tangled one.

Today we use “skittish” to mean “nervous, restless, fickle or unreliable,” as in “The skittish witness against the mob boss was eventually found to be living in Ulan Bator disguised as a itinerant fly swatter salesman.” Animals as well as people can be “skittish,” and one of the better definitions of the word comes courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) speaking, in this case, of “skittishness” in horses: “Disposed or apt to start or be unruly without sufficient cause; given to shying or restiveness through high spirits or playfulness; unduly lively or spirited.” The general sense of “skittish” today is of a person or animal that is nervous, easily distracted or “spooked” and perhaps a bit paranoid.

The sense of “skittish” when it first appeared in English in the 15th century, however, was a bit different. As the OED puts it, “skittish” meant “Characterized by levity, frivolity, or excessive liveliness,” and many uses at the time gave the distinct impression that the person under discussion was simply not taking things as seriously as they ought (”She is like a frog in a parsley-bed, as skittish as an eel,” 1592).

The origin and development of “skittish” is, unfortunately, a bit unclear. “Skittish,” the verb “to skit” (meaning “to move lightly”), and the noun “skit” (originally meaning “a vain or frivolous woman”) all appear to be related to the Old Norse word “skjuta,” meaning “to shoot or throw.” The underlying sense of all these words seems to be something that moves lightly and quickly, perhaps unpredictably, a meaning also reflected in the use of “skit” to mean a quick shower of rain or snow, a squirt of water, and the stroke of a pen. Thus “skit” the noun, by the early 18th century, was also being used to mean a quick, biting remark or quip, a sense which, by 1820, had grown into the dramatic satire or parody known as a “skit” today.

 

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