Ho-Hum, yadda yadda.

Dear Word Detective: Reading a Slate article photographically documenting life in NY housing projects (photos taken by the residents themselves), I saw the sentence “In the images selected from among thousands for Project Lives, one sees depictions of daily life that are everyday almost to the point of being banal, which, Carrano says, is the point: Life in the projects, it should be known, can be as ordinary and sometimes dull as life anywhere.” “Banal” seems a common enough word, but has not been part of my vocabulary. (I’ve noticed short words often have rich histories.) A quick search indicates it’s from French/German “ban” — a call to arms. Surely there’s more to the story than it just becoming known as “common.” — Ray.

There is a bit more to the story of “banal,” but before we begin, a note on pronunciation is in order. When I was very young, I often found myself using words which I had read in books, but never heard spoken. This could be, on occasion, embarrassing. I remember spending quite a while trying to figure out how to pronounce “Sioux” (See-awks? Sy-oh?). I not only never thought to ask my parents (who were lexicographers, for Pete’s sake), but I never caught onto the fact that the word was used in nearly every Western horse-opera ever made. (It’s “Soo,” by the way.) Similarly, my initial attempts at “banal” made it sound like “bay-nall,” which I quickly learned was generally considered mockably wrong. It’s usually pronounced “bah-nal,” emphasis on the second syllable, which rhymes with “Al.”

The source of “banal,” which first appeared in English in the mid-19th century, is the French word “banal,” which, as it does in English, means “commonplace, ordinary.” But it also originally meant “communal” or “open to all,” and was formed on the noun “ban.” Today we use “ban” to mean an order forbidding something, but a “ban” was originally any sort of official edict, ranging from an order of conscription into military service to a decree granting permission to use shared facilities in feudal society such as mills, ovens, etc. The verb “to ban” itself comes from the Germanic root “bannan,” which also gave us such English words as “bandit” (from Italian “bandito,” from “bandire,” to banish), “banish” and “contraband” (literally something “against orders”).

Between the use of “ban” to mean “military conscription” and its use to define common resources “open to all,” the adjective “banal” took on the meaning of “commonplace,” and from there “banal” developed its modern pejorative sense of “ordinary, boring, trivial, uninteresting.”

Incidentally, if you’ve ever read any of the P.G. Wodehouse “Jeeves” stories, you’ve encountered one of the older members of the “ban” family, the form “banns,” meaning “proclamation of an intended marriage; a wedding announcement,” usually in the form of “publish” or “put up the banns,” giving an opportunity for aggrieved parties to object to the marriage. Nearly every Bertie and Jeeves story seems to involve someone (usually Bertie Wooster) attempting to evade the dreaded “banns.” This form is notable in that it preserves the original sense of “ban” as simply “a public proclamation,” not necessarily a negative one.

I don’t care for their music, but “Steely Dan” would be a great name for a candidate.

Dear Word Detective: Political commentary is rife with the phrase “rock-ribbed,” but it’s almost completely absent from the modern vocabulary otherwise. What gives, and how did the GOP get a monopoly on this evocative term? — Ben.

You’re right. A brief sojourn through a Google News search for the term produces dozens of examples of “rock-ribbed Republican,” and also a nearly equal incidence of “rock-ribbed conservative.” But “rock-ribbed Democrat” produces exactly five hits, and “rock-ribbed liberal” turned up nada. Totals for all of them are higher on the general web, with more than 5,400 hits for “rock-ribbed Republican,” but those are edged out by “rock-ribbed liberal” at more than 9,000. Many of the “liberal” sites, however, are clearly asserting themselves as “rock-ribbed” in response to perceived Republican/conservative hegemony over the term. Good luck with that.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the first appearance of “rock-ribbed” in print was in 1776, which I suspect will strike some people as significant. The term itself, however, lacked its modern meaning; at that point it simply meant “Of a landscape: characterized or dominated by rock formations; rocky, craggy” (OED). Such vistas are often described as “forbidding” or “bleak” (“Nearer and nearer we drew to the rock-ribbed, ice-encompassed shore.” 1900).

By the late 19th century here in the US, however, we were using “rock-ribbed” to mean “uncompromising, unyielding, resolute,” by analogy to actual rocks, which are notably resistant to fads, panics, whims, or much of anything, really. As applied to individuals, the implication is that the person is not merely resolute, but so sturdy in moral fiber — ribs of rock, spine of steel — as to defy any challenge (“The rock-ribbed republican clergy men … waited on Mr. Blaine yesterday to assure him of their ‘loyalty’ and ‘allegiance’.” 1884).

As to how the Republican Party in the US cornered the “rock-ribbed” franchise (if they indeed have), I think several factors might be at work. One is that the metaphor lends itself more to a conservative ideology and a high value placed on tradition. Another is that a rocky landscape suggests a rural or western setting, also historically amenable to conservatism. And lastly, especially in the case of “rock-ribbed Republican,” there’s the simple, seductive alliteration of the phrase, certainly as opposed to “rock-ribbed Democrat,” which sounds like a tongue-twister. The role of the news media in promoting such catchy tropes, preferably alliterative, is also obvious, as evidenced by this 1950 quotation from the Manchester Guardian in the UK: “The dyed-in-the-wool Democrat can be fanatical in devotion to his party’s creed and traditions. So can the rock-ribbed Republican.”