Could be worse, though I’m not sure how.

Dear Word Detective: While browsing your archives (yes, I have no life!), I came across your definition of the term “scut work.” I can only assume that your were trying to keep it clean (pun intended). I am told authoritatively (by my wife, who’s an author), that the term “scut work” means the messy business of shearing the tail end of a sheep. I am inclined to agree with her (you would, too…), since one of the definitions of “scut” is “a short tail” as in a rabbit or sheep. — Jim Brown.

I have archives? Hmm. Oh, right. I have archives. Comes in handy when I forget I’ve ever answered a question about a certain word, as I just did. In my own defense, I must note that said column was written in 1999, i.e., way back in the 20th century, when cellphones had rotary dials. Incidentally, when I get the time I plan to work myself into at least half a huff over your allegation that browsing my archives means that you “have no life.” I’ll have you know that I have nearly 2,500 “likes” on my Word Detective Facebook page, which is probably way more people than I’ve actually met in my entire life. And as soon as I figure out how to get each one of them to send me fifty bucks, I’m outta here.

So the question I was answering way back when had to do with “scut work,” meaning dull, repetitive, menial and unpleasant chores, emptying bedpans in a hospital being a good example, and hospitals being one place where the term is commonly found. I had suggested the term may have come from “scut” as a 19th century slang term for “a degenerate or contemptible person.” There are, however, four separate “scuts” in English, some of which may be related, so we have some exploring to do.

The oldest “scut” appeared around 1440, meaning “a short, erect tail,” as is found on rabbits, deer, bears and hares. I suppose a sheep’s tail would also count as a “scut,” and the south end of a northbound sheep is famously unappetizing. One famous Australian personal insult, in fact, is “dag,” slang for the dried excrement found in such a place. So your wife’s observation is perfectly logical. This “scut” is of unknown origin, but may simply be a form of “short,” and seems to be related to the obsolete adjective “scut” meaning “short” as well as the obscure use of “scut” as a noun to mean “short garment.”

Another “scut” is an obsolete word for “embankment” (probably from the Dutch “schut”), which we can safely ignore.

That brings us to “scut” meaning “tedious work,” most often seen in “scut work.” This “scut” is a relatively new term, first appearing in print in 1960 (although, since that appearance was in a dictionary of slang, we can assume the word was in use for at least a decade before that). This “scut” is considered a US coinage, and is by far the most commonly encountered of all the “scuts” (“I did all the scutwork: paid the bills, ran the houses, drove the children.” 1976). As I said in my 1999 column, most authorities trace this use to “scut” meaning “a contemptible person,” which seems to be rooted in “scout,” 18th century college slang for a servant (which may in turn be based on a verb of Scandinavian origin meaning “to mock or reject”).

The theory tying “scutwork” to the “contemptible person” sense of “scut” makes sense to me, simply because the logical connection of “scutwork” being the tasks you delegate to a “scut” (or someone who ends up feeling like a “scut”).

Neither here nor there.

Dear Word Detective: Though you occasionally have referred to your TWD Headquarters in rural Ohio and mention a particular “township,” I find no explanation of “township.” Even I can fathom the “town” part but whence “ship”? Maybe from some hippie commune’s hastily scrawled graffiti: “This town’s hip!”? OK, feeble, sorry! — Ken Young.

Oh yeah, this town’s hip, all right. In fact, this place is known as the Williamsburg of Central Ohio, the pre-war Paris of the US Midwest. Actually, the scary thing is that there are people around here who would agree with that. A few years ago someone on the radio, speaking about the annual festival in our county seat, described the environs of that fair city as the spitting image of Provence. Yes, that Provence. In the South of France. Um, yeah, OK, assuming Provence is now one huge strip mall plagued with exploding meth labs and random gunfire.

A “township,” at least in the Northeastern and Midwest US, is a division of land within a county. Townships frequently contain a town or two, but have their own elected government (in our case, three Trustees I call Larry, Moe and Surly). In a rural area such as ours, the Township Trustees polish the potholes, conduct the coin flip in zoning decisions, and ensure that the local schools don’t go puttin’ on airs.

Our modern English word “township” dates back to the Old English “tunscipe,” which combined “tun,” the earlier form of “town” (from Germanic roots, possibly via the Celtic “dun,” meaning “fortress, village, or garden”), plus “scipe,” a form of the common suffix “-ship.” That “ship” has many uses in English, but in this case it signifies a noun with a collective connotation.

That original collective sense of “township” came from the fact that “township” initially meant the inhabitants or population of a town or village; the people, rather than the place. The use of “township” in the sense of a geographical division didn’t arise until the 15th century. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), in the US and parts of Canada a “township” is a division of land “six miles square” (i.e., thirty-six square miles) determined by government survey and not necessarily “settled,” so a “township” could, in theory, consist of nothing but trees, rocks and chipmunks. On a less appealing note, the term “township” was also used during the apartheid period in South Africa to designate areas (usually brutally poor shantytowns) within or adjacent to cities, where black South Africans were forced to live.

I said that the suffix “-ship” has many meanings in English, and it’s a fascinating little critter. It comes from a Germanic root (“skap” or “scep”) which meant “to create, ordain or appoint,” and which also gave us “shape.” In ancient Germanic a form of the root was used as a suffix to denote “creation, creature, constitution, condition” (OED), and in Old English “-ship” was used to form words meaning conditions or habitual states, e.g., “druncenscipe” (“drunkenship”). It was also used to signify the state of being a certain thing, as in “friendship” or “partnership.” The suffix “ship” can also signal position or rank (“ambassadorship”), or be tacked onto a title as a form of address (“Your Ladyship”).