Hang on a moment, buster.

Dear Word Detective: I am currently in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Yeomen of the Guard.” One of the characters, Jack Point, commands a rowdy audience member to “hold thy peace and perpend.” It led to a minor discussion on the meaning of the word, which I originally thought meant “wait,” although I see now that the definition is “think carefully,” descending from root words meaning “to weigh.” One of the other cast members speculated on the connection to “perpendicular,” which looks to have descended from an Old English word that was, essentially, “perpendicular” with nothing prior. On another note, searching for “perpend” will also lead to reference to “perpend walls” which are created with “perpends” or “perpend stones,” which are stones which extend from the inner to outer walls. My guess would be that “perpend stones” grew from a shortening of “perpendicular” (since essentially that’s what they are, stones resting perpendicular to the direction of the wall to reinforce the construction), but I am far from an etymologist, of course. So, long question made short, what sort of a connection is there between “perpend” the verb, “perpend” the noun, and “perpendicular” the adjective, if any? — Sean Duggan.

Well, that is a long question, but the good news is that it’s long because you’ve done most of the explaining that’s needed to answer the question. In fact, I’m tempted to leave the room for a few minutes in hopes that my oh-so-smart computer will tie up the loose ends by itself (if it can tear itself away from sending my credit card numbers to Belarus, of course).

To begin near the beginning, the Latin verb “pendere” meant two things: “to weigh” and “to hang,” which makes sense since weighing things back then usually involved hanging them in some fashion, often on a balance scale with known weights on the other side. The Latin “pendere” lies behind many of our common English words today, including “pending,” “appendix,” “depend,” “impending,” “suspend,” “penchant,” “pendulum,” and even “penthouse,” originally a small “appended” structure alongside, and eventually atop, a building. (“Pent” as in “pent-up anger,” is a different word, a variant of “penned,” confined in a pen.)

The verb “perpend,” meaning “to ponder, to carefully consider,” first appeared in English in the mid-14th century, derived from the Latin “perpendere,” where “per” is attached to “pendere” as an intensive prefix, making the result “to weigh very carefully.” Our “perpend” is considered archaic today, although it still pops up on the cultural radar from time to time (“He perpends the advice and reflects that … their situation is both worse than ours and better,” 1994), and can be used both transitively and intransitively.

“Perpend” as a noun is simply a shortening of “perpendicular,” which appeared in English in the 15th century, originally meaning “vertical; at a right angle to the plane of the horizon” but now simply “at a right angle to a given plane, angle or surface.” The root of our “perpendicular” was the Latin “perpendicularis” (vertical) from “perpendiculum,” which meant “plumb line,” a weight on a string used by builders to determine a perfectly vertical line. You’re correct in your hunch that “perpend stones” are those set perpendicular to other stones to strengthen a wall. In fact, the only sense of “perpend” recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary as a noun is this masonry sense.

So “perpend” as a verb is closely related to “perpend” as a noun and “perpendicular” as an adjective, and they all hark back to that Latin “pendere.” But while “perpend” as a verb invokes the “weigh” sense of the Latin verb, as a noun (and in “perpendicular”) it draws more on the “hang” sense.

Sometimes, however, it’s the sound of loose screws.

Dear Word Detective:  In John Mortimer’s story “Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation” (1988), a judge uses the phrase “rattling good yarns” to refer to certain stories. I had written this off as a one-off until this morning, when I observed that USA Today had used virtually the same phrase (“rattling good read”) in a review of James L Swanson’s “Manhunt” (2006). I found several other occurrences of “rattling good” online (mostly in relation to stories, but also with other applications). What’s the origin of this phrase, and (with respect to a narrative) does it in any sense suggest a fantastic or unbelievable quality?  (Swanson’s book is non-fiction.) — Charles.

Well, now you’ve done it. Thanks to your question, I’ve gone and increased my cultural literacy by looking up “Rumpole” on Wikipedia. I had, of course, been vaguely aware of British writer (and barrister) John Mortimer’s creation Horace Rumpole, a barrister in London, mainly from promos for the long-running (and apparently eternally re-run) TV series on PBS, and I knew there were a multitude of Rumpole books. I’ll try one or the other as soon as I finish my current sojourn in the works of John LeCarre, which I am reading as an antidote to the imbecilic, incoherent, and infuriatingly stupid third season of “Homeland.”

“Rattling” in its most common sense is an adjective or adverb that describes something that “rattles,” i.e., “[gives] out a rapid succession of short, sharp, percussive sounds, especially as a result of being shaken rapidly or of striking against something” (Oxford English Dictionary). The verb “to rattle” appeared around 1330, and may be related to the Dutch “ratelen,” meaning “to rattle” or “to babble,” but the ultimate origin of “rattle” and its relatives in other languages was probably imitative — “rattle” simply sounds like something rattling.

Apart from simply meaning “make a rattling sound,” “to rattle” has also developed a range of figurative and metaphorical meanings, including “to speak or recite very rapidly and smoothly” (“He rattled off the stats of every player in the league from memory.”), “to move rapidly with a rattling noise” (“We rattled to town in Dave’s old clunker.”), “to have far more room to move or live than is necessary” (“Mother rattled around in the empty house for a year, then moved to a small condo.”), and “to disconcert, startle, frighten” (“The sudden appearance of the Swat team in his driveway seemed to rattle Dwayne.”).

“Rattling” as a modifier reflects most of those senses of “rattle,” with an interesting addition. In the 17th century, that “speak or move rapidly” sense produced “rattling” meaning “brisk or vigorous” with overtones of “very good.” By the early 19th century, “rattling” was being used as an intensifier meaning “extremely or remarkably,” often coupled with “good” or similar positive terms (“A rattling fine dinner we had of it.” 1828; “This is a rattling good story.” 1930).

“Rattling” today is more often heard in Britain than the US, and, applied to a story, simply means “very fine and well-written,” as well as often “fast-moving, exciting and vivid.” Non-fiction and journalism can also be “rattling” if the narrative carries the reader along with energetic and lucid prose. A slightly archaic synonym with a similar evolution, “ripping,” now tends to be associated with adventure stories of the Indiana Jones genre. In fact, as some of us fondly remember, Monty Python veterans Michael Palin and Terry Jones produced a TV series for the BBC in the late 1970s called “Ripping Yarns,” an homage to (and parody of) the sort of “action stories for schoolboys” popular in Britain before World War Two.