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All contents herein (except the illustrations, which are in the public domain) are Copyright © 1995-2020 Evan Morris & Kathy Wollard. Reproduction without written permission is prohibited, with the exception that teachers in public schools may duplicate and distribute the material here for classroom use.

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Cupidity

Little winged pickpocket?

Dear Word Detective: How do we get the word “cupidity” for greed? If anything, it ought to have meant something exactly the opposite of greed, shouldn’t it, since (I suppose) the word is derived from Cupid, the God of love? — Partha Sen Sharma.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It’s the story of English. It could have been such a nice, orderly language, if only it hadn’t listened to all those ruffians. If only it had sat up straight and not slouched. If only it had played by the rules. And now just look at it. Last week, the Associated Press announced that it would henceforth be accepting the use of “hopefully” as a sentence modifier (e.g., “Hopefully, Bob will get a job”), as opposed to only as an adverb meaning “in a hopeful manner” (“Bob arrived at the interview hopefully”). Yes, I know everyone has used it the “new” way for a few hundred years, but some of us have standards. Not me, but some of us do.

Meanwhile, back at the God of Love, yeah, that’s weird, although if you try to buy a piece of cardboard bearing the little chap’s picture in the vicinity of February 14, it’ll cost you, like, four bucks, which would seem to indicate an organic connection twixt Cupid and greed. Cupid was indeed the Roman god of love, the son of Venus and Mercury. Like many Roman gods, Cupid was actually a recycled Greek god, in this case Eros, the Greek god of love and desire. While Eros was (and is) usually portrayed in art and sculpture as a hunky young man, Cupid is usually depicted as a chubby winged infant brandishing a tiny bow and arrows, with which he shoots people, making them fall in love.

The word “Cupid” first appeared in English in the 14th century, drawn from the Latin “cupido,” love or desire, which was rooted in the Latin verb “cupere,” to desire. “Cupidity” arrived in English about a century later, adapted from the French “cupidite,” meaning “passionate desire.” And now things get a little strange. In Latin and French, the family tree of “cupidity” was focused on love and erotic desire. But the earliest written uses of “cupidity” found so far in English employ the word to mean “strong desire for wealth or possessions; greed.” The more general senses of “inordinate desire, ardent longing” made an appearance a bit later, but are now considered archaic. So the only sense of “cupidity” now in accepted use is “avarice; greed; a burning desire for wealth and shiny things,” which is a bit depressing.

How and why the “burning desire for money” meaning of “cupidity” crowded out the “ardent amorous desire” senses is a mystery. Perhaps the fact that “cupidity” is more than simple greed or avarice, something amounting to a psychological fixation, made the “gimme the money” sense especially useful in English.

On a brighter note, in the early 20th century, Cupid made another appearance in popular culture in a form accessible to the humblest citizen. Created as a character by illustrator Rose O’Neill in 1909, the “Kewpie doll,” a chubby baby doll with a twee topknot and a dementedly cheerful expression, was an instant popular sensation. The name “Kewpie” was, of course, a reference to Cupid. Kewpie dolls remained popular well into the 20th century and were frequently awarded as prizes in midway games at carnivals and county fairs.

Jim Dandy

Whatever it was, it was a really good whatever it was.

Dear Word Detective: I often reply “Jim Dandy” when asked how I’m feeling. Was Mr. Dandy a real or fictional gentleman, and if so, was he known for his contented nature? Or have I been using his name in vain? — Regards from Jane Dandy.

You too, eh? I generally reply to the question with either “fine” or “peachy.” It’s some weird compulsion, probably based in all that positive thinking folderol we were fed as kids. Then again, maybe you really do feel “Jim Dandy” most of the time, in which case you have some ‘splainin to do. I watch enough TV commercials to know we all feel awful and need at least nineteen prescription drugs just to get out of bed every day. In fact, I don’t think you’re as “Jim Dandy” as you think you are. I think you have Chronic Pervasive Health and Contentment Syndrome (CPHCS), a serious disorder I just invented, for which an appropriate treatment will no doubt be marketed shortly. You’ll know you’ve beaten CPHCS when you think you have 37 other diseases.

“Jim Dandy” is interesting in several respects. First, it’s a noun as well as an adjective. It’s also apparently a US invention, first appearing in print, as far as we know, in the Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky in 1887 (“Dear Sir: Though a stranger to you (yet a Democrat), let me say you are a ‘Jim Dandy'”). In this noun form, “Jim Dandy” meant simply “an excellent person or thing.” The first verified adjectival use of “Jim Dandy” appeared in a Chicago publication one year later (“George C. Ball came upon the floor yesterday arrayed in a jim-dandy suit of clothes.”). As an adjective it’s used to mean “strikingly fine” or “excellent.” The use of “Jim Dandy” as a noun is rare today, but the adjectival form is obviously alive and well, and usually appears in print lower-case and hyphenated.

As to whether “Jim Dandy” ever referred to an actual person, the jury is still out (it’s hard to prove a negative), but the consensus among etymologists seems to be “probably not.” That doesn’t mean that the term just dropped out of thin air, however. There was a popular minstrel song back in the 1840s called “Dandy Jim of Caroline” (words and music by Silas Sexton Steel and J. Richard Myers, respectively) which may have planted the seed of “Jim Dandy” in the public consciousness. The song, written in a mock African-American dialect, tells the story of a “dandy” young man who woos and wins a young woman named Dinah and goes on to have “eight or nine young Dandy Jims of Caroline.”

“Dandy” as a noun dates back to the late 18th century, when it first appeared in England meaning a young man who devotes excessive attention to fashionable dress and grooming, otherwise known as a “fop.” The origin of word “dandy” itself is a mystery, but it may be a shortened form of the 17th century term “Jack-a-dandy,” which meant “a conceited little man.” It may also be significant that “Dandy” is a familiar form of the name “Andrew” in Scotland.

The historical existence of the term “dandy” and an inexplicably popular 19th century song titled “Dandy Jim of Caroline” are probably the closest we’ll get to an explanation of “Jim Dandy!” as a positive personal status update. But, in an interesting sidelight, etymologist Gerald Cohen has uncovered what seems to have been the avenue by which the term “Jim Dandy” was widely popularized. Fittingly for an American colloquialism, it was baseball. Although the earliest instance of the term found so far in print is in a non-baseball context, according to Cohen, sports reporters instantly fell in love with in the term (“The Giants gave the local patrons of the game a couple of surprises during the past week, and whereas on Wednesday night they were proclaimed ‘Jim Dandy’ players, they were on Thursday declared to be ‘no good,'” The World (New York), June 19, 1887), and used it frequently.

Draw a long bow

We call it “enhancing the reading experience.”

Dear Word Detective: What is the best connection you can dream up between “lying” and  “drawing a long bow”? Is it related to what I call “adding to the truth”? I used to see it as related to playing on a violin but I could never get anywhere with that. — Ken in Alaska.

Ah, yes, the violin, the most deceptive of musical instruments. So fragile and delicate, yet so shamelessly manipulative. The mere sound of swelling violins on a film soundtrack has long been recognized as a signal of impending hokum and hornswoggling, and violins are, of course, anathema to cats. No instrument, save the harmonica, is so redolent of deceit and perfidy. And it doesn’t help that the things make anyone playing one look like Richard Nixon in his worst “I am not a crook” moment. The furrowed brow, the trembling jowls; like a bulldog eating an end table.

Thank heavens that violins have nothing to do with the phrase “to draw a long bow,” eh? It’s an idiom dating back to at least the 1660s meaning “to exaggerate; to tell tall tales,” so it’s both more and less than simply “lying.” There’s something about the topic of exaggeration, incidentally, that brings out the colorful phrases. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Historical Thesaurus lists such synonyms for “draw the long bow” as “to go beyond the moon” (circa 1430), “to turn every goose into a swan” (1621), “to overegg the pudding” (1845), and, of course, “to lay it on with a trowel” (which, a bit surprisingly, dates back to around 1616).

The “long bow” in the phrase is the English “longbow,” a fearsome weapon which dominated European warfare from its rise in the 13th century until the widespread adoption of gunpowder in the 16th century. The longbow was indeed “long,” usually roughly the height of a typical archer, made of English yew wood, and required a hefty 90-110 pounds of force to “draw” in order to fire an arrow. Using a longbow required long training as well as development of the physical strength required to use one. But in trained hands, the longbow was capable of punching an arrow through Medieval metal armor at great distances, and the English victory over the French at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 was both the most famous victory and the high water mark of the longbow.

By the way, to “draw” (pull back) the bowstring on a bow employs “draw” (from the Old English “dragan,” to pull or drag, also related to “drag”) in its original sense of “to pull.” When an artist “draws” a picture, the pencil, etc., is “pulled” across the paper. “Draw” in the archery sense dates to the early 14th century; the “create a picture” sense arose around 1200.

As the “killer app” of Medieval warfare, the longbow inspired a large body of popular lore about the extraordinary feats of its users. English folk legends centering on Robin Hood, for instance, depict him as a master of the longbow and an almost supernaturally gifted marksman, easily capable of hitting tiny targets at enormous distances. The longbow also featured in a number of popular sayings still used today. “To have many strings to one’s bow,” a reference to archers carrying at least one spare bowstring into battle, means to have several alternatives or resources available (“Miss Bertram … might be said to have two strings to her bow,” Jane Austen, 1814). “To shoot another’s bow” means to practice an art or skill not your own, and “the bent of one’s bow” refers to a person’s character or inclination (“I have the bent of his bowe, that I know,” 1562).

Given the centrality of the longbow to English culture and the number of legends and “tall tales” that sprang up about the near-magical skills of its users, it’s not surprising that someone relaying an exaggeration or fantastic story would be said to be “drawing a long bow” as if  relating Robin Hood-esque feats of derring-do. Appearing first in print in 1668 (“There came to us several Tradesmen; the first of them a Poor Rogue that made profession of drawing the long Bow”), to “draw the long bow” is the equivalent of telling the traditional “fish story” about the huge catch that got away. It’s not really lying, because no one within earshot truly believes it’s true.