But they both have lobbies, yuk yuk.

Dear Word Detective: Sometimes the Oxford English Dictionary is about as useful as a cat and not nearly as cute. Perhaps you can do a better job explaining how Latin “caput” (head) split into two words, “capital” and “capitol,” that have given generations of elementary school children and people who rely on word processing spell checkers a bad case of the sweats. — Jackie.

Hey, my cats resent that, and I happen to think the OED is very cute. Of course, I have the special Hello Kitty Edition with large print, bright colors and lots more pictures, so I guess that may make a difference.

But that’s a good question. When you consider how much time and anguish have been expended over the years by people wrestling with “capital” versus “capitol” when talking about Washington, D.C., you begin to suspect it might be easier just to rename that big building full of politicians. Of course, at the rate things are going, in a few years the US Capitol probably will be renamed something like “The KBR Pfizer Verizon Legislative Lounge and Lobbyist’s Buffet” and the issue will be moot.

The ultimate root of both “capital” and “capitol” is, as you note, the Latin “caput,” meaning “head.” “Capitol” with an “o” first appeared in English in the 14th century, derived directly from the Latin word “capitolium” (a derivative of “caput”) which dates all the way back to the Roman Empire. The Capitolium was the most important temple in Imperial Rome, dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus (the patron god of the Roman Empire) and located at the summit of the Capitoline Hill. While Jupiter was definitely the “head deity” in town, the temple took its name from its location at the top, or “head,” of the hill. When “capitol” entered English, it was used both in reference to the original Capitolium in Ancient Rome and, more generally, any citadel, castle, etc., at the “head” of a hill. The use of “capitol” to mean a legislative building is an American invention, most likely tied to our historic fondness for Roman architecture in such buildings. “Capitol” was first applied to the legislative chambers in Washington, D.C., by Thomas Jefferson in 1793.

Compared to the fairly simple history of “capitol,” the form “capital” has been stuck with all the heavy lifting. Its immediate ancestor was the Latin “capitalis,” meaning “of the head,” and the family tree branched far and wide from there, taking “head” both literally and figuratively in the sense of “first” (as in “capital letters,” so called because sentences and names begin with them), “chief” or “most important” (as in “capital cities,” such as Washington, D.C.), or life itself (as in “capital punishment”). “Capital” also took on the sense of “property” (which is the prerequisite of profit) or “wealth,” which begat not only “capitalism” but “chattel” and even “cattle,” which originally referred to any sort of livestock, not just cows.

So “capital” and “capitol” do share a common root, but there has been enough evolution of meaning since then, especially in the case of “capital,” to make them entirely different words.

Macrame Days.

Dear Word Detective: I just overheard my co-worker on the phone telling someone she had the “heebie jeebies.” It brought up a memory from the daze of my youth, when I lived in a hippie house in Michigan in the 1970’s. From the ceiling of our recreation room, the household had hung a scary mask complete with dreadlocks of straw, which was named, yes, Heebie Jeebie. During our petite soirées, this mask would slowly twist in the air and, in a mournful chant, someone would exhale “heebie jeebie,” sending us into fits of giggles. Please kind sir, lift the cloud covering the origin of this evocative phrase. — Anonymous.

Ah yes, the Age of Giggles. I remember sitting in my living room with a group of friends very late one night in 1969 and watching the plaster of the wall across the room spontaneously crack and collapse into a pile on the floor. We probably should have fled the building, or at least left the room, but we were way too busy laughing.

Human beings are naturally anxious creatures, which is why every culture has a wide variety of words to describe the feelings that make up the spectrum of fear, from vague premonitions of doom to nameless dread to blind panic. The “heebie-jeebies” lie somewhere in the lower ranges of the fear index, and are usually defined as “a feeling of nervousness; the jitters,” or “a feeling of intense apprehension.” The “heebie-jeebies” are what you get when you’re home alone watching TV and the cat keeps staring intently at the darkness behind your chair. It’s probably nothing. Almost certainly not a 50 pound flying vampire spider.

While the origins of other terms for this state of unease, such as “the willies” or “the wimwams,” are lost in the mists of time, we do, remarkably, happen to know exactly where “heebie-jeebies” first appeared. It was in October 1923, in the popular “Barney Google” comic strip (which debuted in 1919), drawn at that time by its creator, Billy De Beck (“You dumb ox — why don’t you get that stupid look offa your pan — you gimme the heeby jeebys!”). By November of that year De Beck had changed the spelling to “heebie jeebies,” and he continued to use the phrase frequently in the strip.

Such was the popularity of “Barney Google” (it’s still running today, under the title “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith”) that “heebie jeebies” quickly captured the public imagination and spread around the world. Interestingly, “heebie-jeebies” wasn’t the only famous De Beck coinage; he’s also credited with “hotsy-totsy” (meaning “excellent, just right”), “sweet mama,” and “horsefeathers.”

So did De Beck actually dream up “heebie jeebies” out of thin air, or did he borrow it from some now-lost source? There have been attempts to trace the phrase to various ancient chants and incantations, but no one has ever made a convincing case that Billy De Beck didn’t simply invent “heebie jeebies,” which seems pretty hotsy-totsy to me.