Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

readme: 

OK, it’s not November. November was not a good month. October wasn’t so hot, either. There will be a December issue as soon as I can muster one.

We went to a doctor’s appt. in Columbus, 40 miles away, in late October and somebody kicked in our back door and robbed us. We don’t have much of anything anyone would want, but these creeps went straight upstairs to the bedroom and took some heirloom jewelry (grandparents’ rings, etc.) that they found in a drawer. Unfortunately, what they took was not only emotionally important to Kathy, the only direct, physical mementos of her parents and grandparents, but also our last-resort, end-of-the-world nest egg. Now we’ve really got nuttin’.

It was a weirdly fastidious robbery; they closed the drawers and some boxes on the dresser, and closed the back door on their way out. If they hadn’t cracked the door frame and part of the wall next to it, we might not have noticed the robbery for days. The Sheriff’s Deputy who came to investigate suggested that, based on the method, it might be the work of either a family member or a neighbor, but we lack an eligible relative and it has since become apparent that our robbery was just one of about a dozen identical crimes that have swept our general are in recent weeks. What we need now is an alarm system that plays the sound of somebody racking a 12-gauge pump shotgun.

Brownie & Fifi the Cat

What happened next is hard to write about, so I’m going to keep this short. Our beloved dog Brownie died the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, apparently of a seizure of some kind as she slept on the living room floor. Brownie was 14-1/2 years old. She was our best friend, the most wonderful, loving, smart, sweet dog I have ever known. We got her as a foundling puppy soon after we moved to Ohio from NYC, and we were lucky to have spent all day every day with her ever since. Apart from some arthritis, she had no known health problems; I had taken her for a walk earlier in the day around the yard, and she seemed fine. I’m glad she wasn’t sick, I’m glad she could still play ball with me in the living room the night before she died, I’m glad she knew how much we loved her, but we miss her terribly. She was the third person in the house, and it seems impossible that she isn’t sleeping downstairs right now.

Onward. Because this seems to be how the universe works, I greeted Thanksgiving Day by coming down with either the worst case of food poisoning possible or, more likely, a killer case of some Norovirus. Whatever it was meant a solid week of Exorcist-level projectile vomiting and inability to eat that left me too weak to walk and severely dehydrated. Multiple Sclerosis acts as a force multiplier in such things, so everything hurt like hell and my eyes went completely blurry, making it impossible to read. I seem to be on the mend now, but I lost about ten pounds and I still feel yucky and my eyes are still iffy. Thanksgiving, of course, simply did not happen.

Have I mentioned that today is my birthday? Oh, yay.

But the Holidays are here, and Subscriptions make lovely holiday gifts! So please consider giving a few. And random acts of contribution are, of course, always appreciated.

And now, on with the show….

Cheerfully rotten.

Dear Word Detective:  An acquaintance of mine related that he had provided “moral support” to a friend in need. I like to think I am a person of sound morals, but it seems to me that “morale support” would be a more accurate description of the act. So how about it? Are “moral” and “morale” related?  And if not, how in the world did the phrase “moral support” come about? — Steve Ford.

I can has world domination?

Morals? How quaint, Mister Bond. Here I sit behind my vast desk, petting my peerless and remarkably obese white cat, and you speak as if these “morals” of yours will stop me in my ruthless march to control the world’s supply of adjectives.

Speaking of obese white cats, I read an article the other day about the tiny camera-equipped drones, controlled with an iPhone app, that are now available for a few hundred bucks to regular (if somewhat pallid and weedy) buyers. A perceptive commenter pointed out that in recent years, thanks to such technology, the cost of being a super-villain has fallen dramatically, meaning that we should expect a bumper crop of suburban Ernst Blofelds vamping on their neighbors. I guess I’d better hurry up and finish my death ray.

“Moral” and “morale” are not only related in origin and usage, but so intertwined that they come very close to being the same word. Apart from that silent “e” at the end of “morale,” the most noticeable difference between the two words is that the stress is on the first syllable in “moral” and on the second in “morale.”

It all began with the Latin word “mor” or “mos,” which meant “custom or habit.” The plural of “mor” was “mores” (pronounced “more-ays,” like multiple nasty eels), which was adopted into English in the late 19th century to mean “the shared customs, attitudes and manners of a community.” The use of “mores” seems to have dropped off in recent years, but back in the 1960s, when half the US was foaming at the mouth over the “immorality” of hippies, you could always turn on PBS and find a serious pseudo-sociological discussion about the “change in American social mores” that all those libidinous potheads represented.

But by the time “mores” came into vogue in the 1890s, the adjective “moral” had already been in common use in English for more than 400 years. “Moral” as an adjective ultimately came from that same Latin “mor,” but English adopted it from the French “moral,” meaning “concerned with questions of right, wrong and ethics” or, of a person, “able to act in a right or wrong way.”

Although in its basic sense the adjective “moral” merely posed the question of a thing or action being right or wrong, in practice the assumption soon became that a “moral” person, book, act, etc., reflected the “good side” of human nature and, optimally, inculcated those values in people, such as children, prone to wander off the path of righteousness if not watched closely. There are some modern vestiges of the original “value-free” use of moral; “moral support” (1852) means support of the mental and emotional kind, rather than actually jumping into the fray, and a “moral victory” (1896) is a defeat in which the loser can be proud of sticking to a moral principle (which may not necessarily be one perceived by others as “morally good”).

“Moral” as a noun appeared in English in the 14th century meaning “a moral principle,” but today it’s almost always used in the plural “morals” to mean a person’s moral beliefs or behavior. Another sense still in use today is that of “a moral lesson or teaching,” the “moral of the story” in many old children’s tales.

The noun “morale” appeared in English in the late 18th century, also drawn from French, where “morale” is the feminine form of the adjective “moral.” It was initially used as a synonym of “moral” in English, but this seems to have been the result of some confusion about the finer shadings of meaning in French, where “morale” has more to do with a person’s emotional state than moral rectitude. Eventually “morale” in English came to mean almost exclusively the state of confidence, optimism, hope or simply contentment in a person or group (“To improve the morale of the entire mercantile community,” 1866). So now we have “morale boosting” (1960), “morale building” (1943) and “morale raising” (1946) to make us feel better about whatever pickle we find ourselves in at the moment.

You could make a case that “moral support” should actually be “morale support,” but I see two problems. One is that “moral support” involves matters of principle, not just the subjective confidence or contentment of the person you’re supporting. I’ve known some utterly unprincipled jerks who seemed to have excellent morale. The real problem, however, is that it’s just too late to change it.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Dear Word Detective:  I am reading an interesting book about a murder in New York City in 1897. The book is called “The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime that Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars.” I’m only just beginning, and I don’t know whodunnit yet, so don’t tell me! My question is about this: One of the policemen involved is a Captain Stephen O’Brien. There is some discussion about his effectiveness at interrogating and the interrogation rooms, which are appropriately sound-proofed so that the Captain can give suspects the “third degree.” According to the author, this is a phrase that Captain O’Brien’s predecessor, Inspector Thomas Barnes, coined. Any way to verify that? — Jenny Nunemacher.

Ah yes, the Gilded Age, that late 19th century era of the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, the Carnegies, Mellons, Astors and their rarefied ilk, their opulent mansions, yachts, sweatshops, tenements, corrupt politicians and lurid scandals. How exotic I wish that all sounded today. Incidentally, the term “Gilded Age” was actually coined by Mark Twain and C.D. Warner as the title of their novel, published in 1873.

I can’t tell you whodunnit, and wouldn’t if I did, but apparently Paul Collins, the author of that book, is far from the first to write about that singularly grisly murder (A.J. Liebling titled his 1955 New Yorker piece about the crime “The Case of the Scattered Dutchman”). It was also the occasion of an important early battle in the war between the Pulitzer and Hearst newspaper empires.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the sense of “third degree” in your question as “An interrogation of a prisoner by the police involving the infliction of mental or physical suffering in order to bring about a confession or to secure information.” The phrase is often used in an extended sense to mean a less intense but still thorough sort of questioning, such as by a parent of a tardy child or an irate boss of a feckless underling. In the “police interrogation” sense, the first printed use of “third degree” found so far is from 1895 (“From time to time a prisoner … claims to have had the Third Degree administered to him,” 1900). But an 1880 Harvard Lampoon story refers to “a personal chastisement in the third degree,” apparently meaning a severe scolding, so the phrase may be a good deal older.

Use of “third degree” to mean a third step in severity of something dates back to the 16th century, and a “third degree burn” has been the most serious sort since the mid-19th century. Oddly enough, given that “third degree” in the police sense is definitely a US coinage, in US criminal law a crime “in the third degree” is the least serious grade of that crime.

The exact origin of “third degree” in the “brutal interrogation” sense is, predictably, unknown. I’m not sure on what evidence Paul Collins bases his statement that Inspector Thomas Barnes coined it, but I strongly suspect that he’s wrong. It’s not uncommon for people to claim to have invented words and phrases (or to know who did) and for writers decades or centuries later to take those claims as being true simply because they were made at about the same time that the phrase first appeared. But it’s also not absolutely impossible that Inspector Barnes either invented or popularized the term in that sense. It does seem to have originated in New York City.

More likely, however, is that “the third degree” in the “beat with a rubber hose” sense was adopted by analogy to another use, perhaps the burn classification, which certainly would have been familiar to police officers.

A more intriguing (and I think likely) possibility is that “third degree” was originally a reference to the Third Degree in Freemasonry, the level of Master Mason, which is only reached after undergoing a rigorous examination and questioning by elder Masons. Freemasonry was more popular in the 19th century US than it is today, and the “Third Degree” of Masonry, which was established around 1725, would have been familiar to many police officers in the 1890s. Since the Masonic interrogation ceremony was undoubtedly intellectually difficult but far from the “third degree” administered by the police, the first use of the term by police may well have been, in fact, as a jocular euphemism.

I’ll stick with the leeches, thanks.

Dear Word Detective: I was reading a novel the other day that referred to one of the characters as having been “trepanned.” I was confused, because my understanding was that the word referred to drilling holes in something, often a skull, and I seemed to have missed the scene where the guy got his skull perforated. An obligatory search of Dictionary.com revealed that there is a secondary meaning of “trepan” as a verb — to trick or swindle — and, as a noun, — one who does the tricking or swindling — implying that one who is “trepanned” is one who has been tricked or swindled (something that made far more sense in the context of my novel than having holes bored in one’s head). My question, then, is this: are these two terms related? If so, what is the logic there, and if not, what is the origin of the latter definition? — Gwyn.

Well, I hope they’re not the same word, simply because I’ve always had a secret gnawing dread of having holes drilled in my noggin and would prefer not to have to think about it.

As it turns out, the “trepan” that refers to drilling holes in your head and the “trepan” which means “to swindle” (or the person or trick involved in a swindle) are not the same word, and there’s no real connection between the two words. Except maybe a little.

The earlier of the “trepans” to appear in English was the “hole in the head” one, around 1400. The noun “trepan,” from which the verb was formed, is defined as “a surgical saw for cutting out pieces of bone, especially from the skull,” and was derived, via French, from the Greek “trypan,” meaning “to bore.” “Trepan” as a noun has also been used to mean a contraption used to bore holes in the walls of fortresses under siege, as well as a shaft used to drill holes in the ground for a variety of purposes. The associated verb “to trepan,” meaning “to bore through bone, particularly the skull” appeared at about the same time (“Prince Rupert is … so bad, that he doth now yield to be trapan’d,” Diary, Samuel Pepys, 1667). “Trepan” has also been used since the early 20th century to mean “to bore a hole through something (wood, metal, etc.) so as to remove a core in one piece” (“The smaller holes are best bored, but large holes can be trepanned in order to save a useful piece of material,” 1970).

“Trepan” in the “hoodwink” sense first appeared as criminal underworld slang in the mid-17th century both as a noun (meaning both “someone who tricks or traps victims” and the trick or trap itself) and as a verb meaning “to ensnare, beguile, cheat” (“Ten of those Rogues had trapann’d him out of 500 Crowns,” 1662). As you can see from that 1662 quotation, the original spelling of this “trepan” was “trapan,” and the most likely explanation of the word is that “trapan” was simply derived from the verb “to trap.” So, in origin, the two “trepans” are completely separate words.

Now things get a little weird. The later change in the spelling of “trapan” to “trepan” may have arisen at least in part because “trepan” in the “bore a hole in your head” sense was a far more well-known word than “trapan,” which was fairly obscure thieves’ slang. (It also probably didn’t help that “trepan” in the “bore” meaning was, at that time, occasionally spelled “trapan.”) The Oxford English Dictionary also suggests that the switch from the spelling “trapan” to “trepan” occurred because people thought “trapan” must be a figurative use of “trepan,” i.e., that people who were beguiled or cheated were metaphorically being “bored into” by the con artist. That apparently made so much sense to so many people that both words are now spelled “trepan.”

 Pigeons plot in secrecy.

Dear Word Detective:  I was reading a book originally published in the late 1800s when I came across a reference to a character with a “plastic personality.” I was somewhat taken aback, thinking that plastic was a fairly new word (think “The Graduate”). However, upon searching your archives, I found this bit of light: “Prior to the invention of the ‘stuff’ sort of plastic, however, the term ‘plastic’ was used primarily as an adjective meaning ‘pliable’ or ‘moldable,’ having been quite logically drawn from the Greek ‘plastikos,’ or ‘fit for molding.’ Appearing in English first in the 16th century, this sense of ‘plastic’ was applied to everything from modeling clay to the ‘plastic,’ or highly impressionable, nature of political opinions among voters.” Well, first question answered. Because I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between “plastic” and “elastic,” I conducted a second search of your archives but failed to turn up the latter. Are they related? — John Pearson.

Hmm. I really need to pay closer attention. It wasn’t until I read through your question a second time that I realized you were quoting something I wrote ten years ago. Speaking of “plastic” in the “Graduate” sense (a 1967 film, in the course of which a friend of Dustin Hoffman’s father gives him “one word [of career advice]: plastics”), I have a question. Elsewhere in the 1960s, “plastic” became a popular slang epithet for something, or someone, considered inauthentic and phony. The Monkees, for instance, were considered a “plastic” pop group because they were invented by a TV network. Whatever happened to “plastic” in this “phony junk” sense? It came in handy.

As I noted in that column from 2002, what we think of as “plastic” today (“polymers of high molecular weight based on synthetic resins or modified natural polymers,” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it) was developed in the early 20th century but didn’t come into widespread use until the 1950s.

While the signature quality of “plastic,” both as a noun and an adjective, is the ability to be molded into nearly any shape, and to permanently retain that shape, the point of “elastic” is just the opposite. Something that is “elastic” can be stretched, compressed, or twisted in several directions at once, but when the force is removed it will return to its original shape. “Elastic” first appeared in English in the mid-17th century, derived, via Latin, from the Greek “elastos,” meaning “flexible.” The initial use of “elastic” in English was as an adjective applied to gases capable of spontaneous expansion; solid materials were first described as “elastic” later in that century. But “elastic” as a noun, usually meaning a cord or string suffused or interwoven with rubber, didn’t appear until the mid-19th century.

Just as “plastic,” originally an adjective meaning “pliable, moldable,” came to be applied to the mental states and emotions of people who were easily convinced of things, “elastic” began in the late 18th century to be applied to the sort of personality that “bounces back” from adversity or depression (“This elastic little urchin,” T. Carlyle, 1822). Apart from that sort of extended, psychological use, and having to do with the change of shape of substances, and having Greek roots, there’s no real connection between the two words.

Much classier than “stick out,” I guess. But it’s still a freakin’ tree.

Dear Word Detective: I had lunch with a friend today and we got to talking about Christmas trees (we talk about all sorts of stuff).  He described his pre-lighted tree as having lights that “sat proud of the branches.” I don’t believe I ever heard anyone use that term in actual conversation. Where does it come from? He thought woodworking. I said, “Or maybe it’s nautical.” He just sneered. — Bob McGill.

Well, there you go. That’s why I don’t have friends. Always sneering at you, undermining your confidence by mocking your socks, whispering things to your dog when they think you’re not looking, posting pictures of livestock on Facebook tagged with your name, and nominating you to A&E for some horrible reality show about untidy collectors. They claim they care about you, but I’ll take a house full of loyal ducks any day.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone actually say “sat proud” either, and I’m sort of envious. I once used the word “fungible” in a chat about furnace filters with the guy at the hardware store downtown and I’m pretty sure he thought I was talking about mold. I just like the word. It comes in handy, at least in some alternate universe in which I don’t happen to live.

“Proud,” of course, is a venerable English adjective meaning, as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) puts it, “Feeling greatly honored, pleased, or satisfied by something which or someone who does one credit; acutely aware of some honor done to oneself, taking pride in something” or “Having a high or exalted opinion of one’s own worth or importance.” The root of “proud,” which first appeared in Old English, was the Old French “prod,” which meant “good, noble, prudent, wise, profitable” and similar things, which in turn came ultimately from the Latin “prodesse,” meaning “to be of value; to be good.” The noun “pride” is actually derived from the adjective “proud,” and, oddly enough, “proud” is also a noun in its own right, meaning “a proud, noble or stately person or thing” or a group of people who are proud (“The blazings of the proud will goe out in a stench and smoke,” 1628). It can even be an adverb, specifically in the phrase “to do [a person] proud,” meaning “to be a source of pride” or “to treat someone well” (“Lunch at Pauline’s. She did me proud — a half-bottle of champagne and a delicious meal,” 1986).

Meanwhile, back at “proud” the adjective, a variety of extended senses gradually developed over the centuries. “Proud” was used to mean “noble” or “stately,” “vigorous” or “valiant” (“proud warrior”), or, applied to a turbulent sea or river, “strong, tumultuous.” Of a plant or crop, “proud” meant “full of sap” or “luxuriant in growth,” especially when said plant was growing out of season (“If the winter has been open and mild, the autumn-wheat plant will have grown luxuriantly, .. so … that it may have become ‘proud,’ that is, in a precocious state of forwardness for the season,” 1844). “Proud” in this sense is also used to describe the first buds of a tree or other plant in spring.

Your friend’s use of “sat proud” to describe Christmas lights projecting notably from the branches of his “pre-lighted” tree is derived from this sense. It’s a use that first appeared in print in Scotland and Northern England in the early 19th century meaning “projecting from a surface; slightly raised,” and it can be applied to just about anything that projects or stands out from its environment (even, apparently, in automobile design: “The horn push, sited right across the central spoke of the steering wheel, is well proud of the spoke and this gives rise to occasional, accidental blasts,” 1974). “Sit proud” is a form of the established idiom “stand proud,” meaning simply “stick out” or “project.” This sense does seem to be used often in carpentry to describe a part of something that, whether by design or by accident (e.g., an errant floor board), sticks out, so your friend was onto something in his “woodworking” guess. But there’s no call for sneering.

No, really. Honest.

Dear Word Detective:  Could you be frank and earnest with me and tell me about the origin of the word “disingenuous”? It makes sense to me that it might have come from someone not being “in genuine,” but since that seems logical, it’s probably not true. And if you have any time to spare, how about Frank and Ernest? Are the names related to being frank and earnest? — KT Kamp.

That’s a heck of a question. Are you sure you don’t want to throw in Sam and Janet Evening? How about Ima Hogg and Ura Hogg, the unfortunately-named sisters? There actually was an Ima Hogg (1882-1975), daughter of Big Jim Hogg, Governor of Texas. Ima became a noted philanthropist and patron of the arts. Ura Hogg, however, didn’t actually exist. Texas legend has it that when Big Jim Hogg was campaigning for re-election as Governor in 1892, he took along Ima and a friend of hers, whom he jokingly introduced as Ima’s sister Ura. Ima spent the rest of her life being asked whatever happened to her non-existent sister.

Ima apparently decided rather late in life to try going by the name “Imogene,” an effort which might have been slightly disingenuous, though understandable. But “disingenuous” is a bit too harsh anyway, because to be “disingenuous” is to be consciously dishonest and insincere while (and this is the important part) striving to appear innocently sincere (“Bob’s sending flowers to Ted in the hospital was disingenuous, since he was the one who put the rat poison in Ted’s taco”). We’ve been accusing folks of being “disingenuous” since the mid-17th century.

At its etymological level, “disingenuous” simply employs the prefix “dis” in its “not” sense, leaving us with the meaning “not ingenuous,” which is nice because “ingenuous” is a much more interesting word. The original meaning of “ingenuous” when it first appeared in English in the 17th century was “noble in character; kind, generous, high-minded.” It was derived from the Latin “ingenuus,” meaning “free-born, native, having the qualities of a free man” (“in” plus “gen,” root of “gignere,” to beget). Given that noble lineage was equated at the time with personal virtue, it’s not surprising that “ingenuous” was expanded to mean “honest, open, candid” and similar nice things. By the late 17th century, however, “ingenuous” had narrowed into its usual modern meaning of “innocent; innocently open and frank, guileless” (“These were fine notions to have got into the head of an ingenuous country maiden,” 1877). This modern sense can also be found in the French equivalent “ingenu” which, in the feminine form “ingenue,” is used in English to mean an innocent young woman, especially in a novel or drama. “Ingenuous” is also sometimes used to mean “clumsy; lacking craft or subtlety” (“His ingenuous attempts to frighten voters backfired badly”), and back in the 17th century, several authors, including Shakespeare, mistakenly used “ingenuous” to mean “ingenious.”

“Ernest” as a man’s name is indeed drawn from “earnest” the adjective, specifically from the French form of the Germanic “Ernst,” which signified “earnestness.” The adjective “earnest,” which we use today to mean “serious, honest and intense,” first appeared in Old English, derived from the noun “earnest” meaning “seriousness” and ultimately based on the Germanic root “ern,” meaning “vigor.”

“Frank” is a near-synonym of “earnest,” meaning “candid and direct,” and comes from the Franks, the Germanic nations that conquered Gaul in the 6th century (and from whom the nation of France takes its name). In English, where it appeared in the 14th century, “frank” as an adjective originally meant “free; not in serfdom or bondage” because, in Gaul under the Franks, only the Franks were truly free. Through a few twists and turns over the centuries, this “free” sense came to mean “unrestricted, open, honest, undisguised” (“The manners of the Afghans are frank and open,” 1815). The name “Frank” for the Germanic nations is uncertain, but the personal name “Frank” is clearly related to the Frank heritage, whether with regard to the Frankish nations themselves or to the later “honest” connotation of the word.

“Frank and earnest,” is a duplicative fixed phrase often employed in government press statements (“After frank and earnest discussions, all parties have agreed to give themselves raises”). More constructively, it was the inspiration in 1972 for the creation of “Frank and Ernest,” a very popular single-panel newspaper comic strip originally drawn by Bob Thaves (and now by his son Tom).

Bad news, dude. We’ve settled for Happy Hour.

[Note: this column was written in January, 2012 (when subscribers read it).]

Dear Word Detective:  Rick Santorum is telling us that, in the days of the Founding Fathers, “happiness” meant living in accordance with moral principles, rather than the current meaning of a state of emotional well-being. I am skeptical; how about you? — Harold Russell.

Land O’ Goshen, are you people having another election? Laws, talk about slow learners. I warned you last time that no good would come of such foolishness. The whole ruckus is just a magnet for mountebanks and charlatans, a giant national dinner bell for every grifter and con artist north, south, east and west of the Pecos, wherever the heck the Pecos are. And then y’all always come crying, “He broke his promises!” Well of course he did. He has you in his pocket, and now he wants to hang out with all those other people you thought he didn’t like. Did everybody around here sleep through junior high school? Wasn’t this the plot of ten zillion ABC Afterschool Specials?

Anyway, thanks for an interesting question. I also like this question because it proves to me that my resolution of a few months ago to stop listening to any of these clowns is working, because I had no idea Mister … Santorum (which one is he again?) said any such thing. But the Google says he did, and the Google never lies. Maybe I should vote for the Google. It’s a corporation, and thus a person, so why not?

Onward. Apparently Rick Santorum, former US Senator from Pennsylvania and current presidential candidate, was addressing some college students in New Hampshire the other day, in the course of which, according to Politico.com, “Santorum explained that when the Declaration of Independence promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it did not mean happiness as we know it today. ‘Happiness is not enjoyment or pleasure,’ Santorum said. ‘Happiness means to do the right thing — to do not what we want to do, but what we ought to do.’” He reportedly also noted that “America is not a melting pot. It’s a salad bowl.” Oh goody. Wake me when it’s over.

The relevant text of the Declaration of Independence is “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The noun “happiness” means, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “The quality or condition of being happy.” The adjective “happy” first appeared in the 14th century with the meaning “lucky; fortunate,” which made sense because “happy” was based on the noun “hap” (from the Old Norse “happ”), meaning “luck” or “good fortune.” Other descendants of “hap” include “happen” (originally meaning “to occur by chance” rather than, as now, simply “to occur”) and “hapless,” meaning “unlucky.” In modern use, “happy” is most often used to mean “having a great feeling of pleasure or contentedness.”

So the question posed by Senator Santorum’s “clarification” is whether the noun “happiness,” back around 1776, meant something other than the state of being happy, content, satisfied with one’s lot, etc. Thanks to the tireless folks at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), we have a pretty complete record of how “happiness” has been used since it first appeared in the early 16th century.

There have, indeed, been various shades of meaning attached to “happiness” over the years. From the earliest “Good fortune or luck in life or in a particular affair; success, prosperity” (OED) came, in the 1590s, “The state of pleasurable content of mind, which results from success or the attainment of what is considered good” (OED). The only other major sense to develop was around 1600, when Shakespeare introduced the use of “happiness” meaning “Successful or felicitous aptitude, fitness, suitability, or appropriateness” (OED) (“Claudio: He is a very proper man. Prince: He hath indeed a good outward happiness …,” Much Ado about Nothing).

I suppose that one could attempt to stretch “The state of pleasurable content of mind, which results from success or the attainment of what is considered good” to fit the former Senator’s definition (“Happiness means to do the right thing — to do not what we want to do, but what we ought to do”), but it really won’t work. It’s pretty clear that the Founders intended “the pursuit of happiness” to mean “a fair shot at success, enjoyment of life and contentment” not “the chance to do what is right.” People should do the right thing, of course, but Mr. Santorum should argue that point on its own merits, not by mangling history.

Just don’t ask me to explain “pediddle.”

Dear Word Detective:  Growing up, my mother used to say, “Please side-up the counters in the kitchen,” or “side-up” a place, which meant to us to clean up or clear off an area. Do you have any info on this expression or history of “side-up” or “sideup”? — Betsey.

It’s not fair, I tell you. Half you people out there seem to have grown up in a far more linguistically colorful world than I did. Your parents and grandparents were always telling you to “side up” things, or “redd up” the living room, or noting that Aunt Mabel “cleans up good” but Cousin Hubert’s car “needs washed.” I, on the other hand, spent my childhood in Connecticut just being asked to “clear off” the table or “straighten up” the living room. You guys learned to recognize “polecats” and “whistlepigs,” while I just saw skunks and groundhogs. You want to hear something truly scary? I was in college before I saw someone put ketchup on french fries. Malt vinegar, yeah, but ketchup? Weird. Seriously.

I had never heard “side” used in the “side up” way you mention, and I was expecting to have a bit of trouble tracking it down. So I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) lists it under the verb “to side,” and defines it as meaning “to put in order, arrange; to clear or tidy up,” frequently in the form “side up.” The OED’s earliest print citation for “side up” is from about 1825 in glossaries of dialect used in Northern England, and a citation from an 1847 letter employs it in the sense you remember (“I have plenty to employ me, in siding drawers.”).

The verb “to side” itself dates back to the late 15th century, and its most familiar modern use, “to take a side; to align oneself with one party in a dispute,” dates back to the early 17th century (“The Nobility are vexed, whom we see have sided in his behalf,” Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 1623). “Side” as a verb comes, of course, from the noun “side,” which has a dizzying number of senses in English but comes from Germanic roots meaning “the long part of a thing.” I think the folks at Oxford charged with writing the entry on “side” the noun deserve some sort of medal, or at least a long vacation. The definition of one basic sense (of many) reads “One or other of the two longer (usually vertical) surfaces or aspects of an object, in contrast to the ends, or of the two receding surfaces or aspects, in contrast to the front and back.” They then add, in tiny type, “The precise application depends to some extent on the form of the object and its position in relation to the observer.” I agree, and if you need me, I’ll be upstairs lying down.

The use of “side up” to mean “to put in order, arrange; to clear or tidy up” is actually explained by a related sense, the use of “to side” as a shortened form of “to put aside,” meaning “to remove; clear away” (“Mrs. Wilson was ‘siding’ the dinner things,” 1848). It’s apparent that this sense was also used to mean “tidy up” in general, not just after a meal (“Now side everything away. The medicines too, put them in the cupboard,” 1894).

I have the funny feeling that I ought, out of simple decency, to also explain “redd up,” to which I referred above. The verb “to redd” appeared in Scots and Northern English dialects in the 15th century meaning simply “to clear out or unblock; to remove a person or a thing from a place; to clear a space.” Today it’s still used in Scotland, Northern England, and the northern Midwest in the US, most often in the sense of “to tidy, to put in order,” often in the form “to redd up” (“To do something that she suggested towards redding up the slatternly room,” 1855). The roots of “redd” are uncertain, but it’s pretty obviously related to the older and now obscure verb “to rede,” meaning “to clear,” and both “redd” and “rede” may be related to the far more familiar verb “to rid.” Interestingly, “redd” in the US may also reflect the influence of the related  Low German and Dutch “redden,” meaning “to put in order, make ready,” which would make sense given the German heritage of many parts of the US Midwest. It may also be influenced by, or even linguistically connected to, our common verb “to ready.”

Yeah? Well, MY trees are blue.

Dear Word Detective: The phrase “color me [insert word]” appears numerous times on your site. I’ve heard it and used it often myself but where, may I ask, does it come from? — Mark.

Sorry about that. I do seem to have used the phrase without explanation quite a few times in my columns. Thanks to the awesome power of The Google, I see that my website boasts one “color me envious,” one “color me cautious,” a “color me psychic,” a somewhat wobbly “color me extremely unconvinced,” and three, count ‘em, three, instances of “color me stupid.” I guess “stupid” wins. But “color me” as a rhetorical device is useful. “Color me cautious,” for instance, seems more vivid, and less dismissive, than the dull “I’m skeptical.” Of course, that “color me extremely unconvinced” is pretty dismissive, just a tad shy of declaring something (in that case, a silly theory about “moolah”) to be “utter hogwash.” But it was.

The common noun “color” first appeared in English in the early 13th century, and the verb “to color” followed in the 14th. “Color” is frequently spelled “colour” in British English, reflecting its Anglo-Norman heritage, but “color” is far more frequent elsewhere. However you choose to spell it, “color” comes ultimately from Latin roots that carried the sense of “covering, concealment.”

The earliest senses of “color” were those related, as you’d expect, to hue, tint, pigment, etc., but almost immediately we also began to employ “color” in various figurative senses, usually regarding appearances, authority or other intangible aspects of society (“This [action] … would at once give the movement the colour of a general revolt,” 1941). One of the more interesting uses of “color” has been to mean “pretext” or “excuse” (“The transfer was only a colour for an advance of money,” 1855). Since the early 18th century, “color” has also been used to mean “features that make something interesting,” as in “local color” or “color commentary” in sports matches.

“Color” as a verb has been used in a variety of senses, most of which involve either literally or metaphorically applying color (either literal or figurative) to something, which brings us to “color me stupid” and similar “color me” or “color him/her/them” phrases. In its most basic sense, “color me” means “consider me” or “regard me as,” often in a jocular sense (“Me — I just left. — Color me gone.” 1963), although it can be used to impart serious emotion as well (“Well, color me stupid, because I didn’t want to believe he was seeing another woman,” T. Macmillan, 1992).

The fact that the internet is apparently awash in people looking for an explanation of “color me” phrases would tend to indicate that the technology, or lack thereof, that underlies the idiom has, sadly, largely dropped from our radar in recent years. I’m talking about coloring books for very young children (kinda like iPads, but made from paper). Children armed with a box of crayons of various colors would be instructed by the books to “color the trees green” or “color the pond blue,” thus learning to recognize the words “tree” and “pond” as well as the colors themselves. A few years of seeing such instructions and you’re ready, decades later when your husband strays, to declare “color me stupid.”

Coloring books also develop hand-eye coordination in young children, and generations of teachers urging their charges to “color inside the lines” of the drawings in coloring books have given us “color inside the lines” as a useful metaphor for “follow the rules.”

The Oxford English Dictionary dates “color me” to 1963 (and cites an unattributed example from that year in a promotion for the US TV comedy “I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster”), but, given the fact that coloring books first became available in the late 1870s, I’d be surprised if the phrase weren’t quite a bit older.

There’s no “there” thence.

Dear Word Detective: For years, I have felt smugly superior to writers who say “from whence” or “from hence” (so, err, I hope you never have), because I’ve been under the impression that “whence” and “hence” by themselves mean “from where” and “from here,” respectively. That’s why “Get thee hence!” seems perfectly grammatical to my ear, though also over-the-top 19th-century Gothic. It struck me just now that I have no hard evidence for this belief. Have I been wrong all this time, or can I go back to being smug? — Alan Clark.

Good heavens, sire, thou art laboring under a most unfortunate misapprehension; to wit, that smugness or excessive self-esteem in one’s manner regarding grammar and usage has any necessary connection to linguistic virtue. Nay, the two are frequently opposites, and even a cursory survey of commercial literature devoted to correctness in speech and writing will often reveal a multitude of witless errors, masquerading as inviolate principles, pronounced with absolute Biblical certainty. Proceeding apace to the bottom line and cutting thenceforth to the chase, most of the iron laws of language are no more eternal (or natural) than a pile of Cheez Whiz in the path of a hungry dog. So don’t sweat it. Personally, I take great pride in peppering my speech with “they” and “their” used as singular epicene pronouns. Drives the foamers nuts.

By the way, you missed a spot. In addition to “whence” (meaning “from where”) and  “hence” (“from here,” “from this time” or “for this reason”), we also have “thence,” which means basically “from there” (“I’m going to the Quickee-Mart and thence to Pizza World. Can I get you anything?”).

“Whence,” “hence” and “thence” are all very old words, from ancient Germanic roots, first appearing in Old English. The Indo-European root of “whence,” incidentally, was the interrogatory stem “qwo,” which is also connected to “when,” “who,” “where,” “which,” “why” and “how.”

“Whence,” “hence” and “thence” strike modern ears as a bit odd because they each contain a sort of built-in preposition, in most cases “from.” But they also all denote a particular point (“where,” “here” or “there”) away from which action flows in some form, which is a prescription for most modern English-speakers to dust off “from” and deploy it. This leads to all sorts of fun, most notably in the ruckus over “whence.” Since “whence” in itself means “from where,” saying “from whence” is considered, by many people, to be redundant, equivalent to saying “from from where.” On the other hand, the average modern reader or listener is far more likely to accept “from whence” without a problem, and far more likely to stumble over a simple, unadorned “whence,” which can seem a bit jarring, even to the cognoscenti (“His first stop will be Morocco, followed by Senegal, whence he will embark across the Atlantic Ocean,” Newscom.au, 1/12). Most readers would pause a moment at that naked “whence,” and most writers wisely avoid erecting such tiny hurdles in their narrative stream.

Consequently, “from whence” is far from rare today, has actually been commonly used since the 13th century, and was very popular in the 16th and 17th centuries. It has been used, indeed, by some very famous writers (“Let him walke from whence he came,” Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, 1616; “From whence have we derived that spiritual profit?”, Dickens, Bleak House, 1853). “From hence” and “from thence” have been similarly popular over the centuries.

But such an illustrious pedigree hasn’t conferred immunity from censure on “from whence.” Samuel Johnson called it “a vicious mode of speech” in 1755 (though “vicious” was not as strong a word then as today), and 18th, 19th and 20th century grammarians have almost unanimously condemned “from whence.” Since “hence” has gradually lost its connotation of physical location and is now used mostly in reference to either logic in the sense of “from this flows that” (“He died broke, hence the money he stole was never repaid”) or time (“Six years hence we’ll look back at this and laugh.”), “from hence” is almost never encountered. “From thence” keeps its head down these days and is rarely spotted in the wild.

The bottom line on the “whence” versus “from whence” question is the same as that in a hundred other usage questions. There’s nothing really “wrong” with “from whence,” and it’s attained the status of a common idiom in the minds of many literate people. The only question is whether you satisfy the sticklers with a simple naked “whence,” or risk their wrath but ensure comprehension in your audience by going with “from whence.”

Me swank, you swoon.

Dear Word Detective:  I live 15 miles outside of town, which keeps me up to date on some of the billboards in our neck of the woods. The new ad that has me puzzling is for a local furniture company, running a campaign alleging that the furniture I have is deficient. The ad uses the word “swanky,” and when I saw it I immediately wanted to check your archives. No luck. Does “swanky” have an recent, amusing, pert history? Or is it just another vestigial Germanic/Norse cuss word? — Sally.

Billboards, eh? I remember (I’ve heard stories from the Ancient Ones…) when billboards were considered the Number One Menace blighting the landscape and threatening Our American Way of Life. Seriously. Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the US, made it her personal mission in the 1960s to beautify America’s roadside vistas. Editorials were written. Laws were passed. And the campaign worked so well that today, if you drive down any of our major suburban thoroughfares, you’ll be greeted by a parade of giant blinding full-motion LED billboards apparently designed to sell used cars to whoever lives on Mars. Oh, well.

I am intrigued, however, by the fact that the billboard you saw apparently used the word “swanky” in a positive sense, because I don’t remember encountering it in anything but a sarcastic or ironic context in quite a long time.  And if someone were to say, “My Uncle took us to a swanky restaurant downtown,” I’d assume that the speaker was signaling that the place was more pretentious than truly sophisticated.

“Swanky,” to me anyway, carries overtones of Dean Martin, Las Vegas and the Rat Pack, and I just this moment realized why that is. Back when I was a kid, a company named Swank produced all sorts of inexpensive but flashy tie clips, cuff links and other men’s accessories. Misguided relatives started giving me Swank tie clips and cuff links when I was about twelve. I know it’s hard to believe, but I have yet to wear cuff links even once in my life. Anyway, apparently Swank, Inc. now owns major brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Nautica. Who knew?

In any case, back at your question, “swank” is a noun, a verb, and an adjective. It first appeared in English in the early 19th century as a verb meaning “to swagger, behave ostentatiously or arrogantly; to act in a superior or pretentious way” (“I met him swanking along the road, ever so genteel,” 1848). The noun “swank,” meaning “ostentatious or pretentious behavior” or simply “pretense,” appeared in the mid-19th century, as did the adjective form “swanky” (“An English producer and a London critic … in the swanky bar of the Excelsior,” 1959). The adjective “swank,” which first appeared in print in 1913, tends to be applied to hotels, restaurants etc. that are genuinely fancy; “swanky” has a bit more of a sarcastic edge to it, and is often applied to both people and places in a pejorative sense meaning “pretentious” or “boastful” (“‘I read that too,’ interrupted Ginger, ‘so you needn’t be so swanky,’” 1929).

The roots of that original verb form of “swank” are uncertain, but it was used as a dialect slang term in central and southeastern England before it was adopted into the common vernacular. There’s some evidence that “to swank,” meaning “to swagger” either literally or metaphorically, is related to the Old High German “swanc,” meaning “to swing,” and/or to the Middle High German “swanken,” meaning “to totter or sway.” If “swanc” is indeed the source, “to swank” could originally have been a reference to the swinging arms and rolling gait of a strutting, swaggering person.

Interestingly, “to swank” also appeared as school slang in Britain in the late 19th century meaning “to work hard; to study diligently” (also known in school slang at the time as “to swot,” which is simply a variant pronunciation of “to sweat”). It’s hard to see what connection exists between this use of “to swank” and “swank” meaning “to swagger or boast,” but perhaps it’s tied to the conspicuous activity and effort needed to attain high academic status.