Author Archives: Angela Tung

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Sailor Sayings: 12 Common Words with Nautical Origins

Torpedoes Away!

While we’re all for talking like pirates, today we’ll be speaking sailor and taking a look at some words that you may not know have nautical origins.

aloof

“The President thus remained aloof, not personally involved in the U.N. debate.”

Ted Lewis, “LBJ’s Aloof Pose Was Calculated,” The Spokesman-Review, June 21, 1967

Aloof, meaning distant physically or emotionally, was originally a nautical word. When a captain wanted to “keep the ship’s head to the wind,” therefore staying “clear of a lee-shore or some other quarter,” he’d order the ship to keep aloof. Aloof comes partially from luff, “the sailing of a ship close to the wind.”

bucko

“It was the doctrine of his officers that he could not be ruled by anything short of violence, and the man to tame and hammer him was the ‘bucko’ second mate, the test of whose fitness was that he could whip his weight in wild cats.”

Ralph D. Paine, The Old Merchant Marine, 1920

Bucko, “a blustering or bossy person” (and Richie Cunningham’s insult of choice), may play off the word buck meaning a “fashionable man; a fop; a blood; a dandy.” Such a type of sailor was often referred to as a bucko mate.

Chopsticks

chopsticks

“Mustering up much skill, one attempts getting the food on chopsticks from the tables to one’s mouth. The first few times most of it falls on the floor or one’s lap.”

“Dinner a la Japanese,” Baltimore American, June 12, 1900

British sailors first encountered chopsticks in China in the 17th century. The word is a partial transliteration of the Chinese term, kuai zi or “nimble ones.” This is also where we get chop chop, “right away, quick.”

cootie

“After a fellow has served eight days in the front line trenches he may be lonesome for a while after losing his ‘cooties,’ but he must be ‘de-loused.'”

“‘Cootie Cars’ Bring Relief to Sammies,” The Toledo News-Bee, May 9, 1918

The word cootie, otherwise known as the body louse, gained popularity as British slang during World War I but also had earlier nautical use. The word may come from the Malay kutu, “dog tick.”

galoot

“To our astonishment the heroine said as she looked with tenderness into the eyes of the hero, ‘You clumsy galoot, you stepped on my foot just now.'”

Mary Pickford, “Daily Talks,” The Day, December 7, 1915

A galoot is a clumsy or uncouth person. The Online Etymology Dictionary says the word was “originally a sailor’s contemptuous word for soldiers or marines.”

The origin of galoot is uncertain. Anatoly Liberman of the Oxford University Press’s blog proposes that it may come from the Middle Dutch galioot, which seems to refer to a sailor, pirate, galley slave, convict, or pimp.

hail from

“There will be no dearth of baseball in Ambridge this summer, judging from the number of teams that will hail from that town.”

“Ambridge Will Have Plenty of Baseball,” The Daily Times, March 26, 1913

To hail from, or “to be a native of,” was originally “said of a vessel in reference to the port from which she has sailed,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

hunky-dory

“‘I’m all hunky-dory, Gen’ral,’ answered the youth, resuming his temporarily interrupted apple.”

Robert Henry Newell, The Walking Doll: Or, The Asters and Disasters of Society, 1872

There are a few theories behind the origin of this term meaning “perfectly satisfactory; fine.” The Online Etymology Dictionary says it may be a reduplication of hunky, meaning “all right; in good condition.”  However, a 1876 theory traces hunky-dory “to Honcho dori, said to be a street in Yokohama, Japan, where sailors went for diversions of the sort sailors enjoy.”

Hunky meaning “having a well-developed physique; sexually attractive” comes from hunk, which may come from the Flemish hunke, “a piece of food.” Bohunk is a disparaging term for a person from east-central Europe, especially a laborer,” and may be a combination of Bohemian and Hungarian.

lopsided

“Standing anyhow and all wrong, upon this open space like something meteoric that has fallen down from the moon, is an odd, lop-sided one-eyed kind of wooden building, that looks like a church, with a flag-staff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger than a tea-chest.”

Charles Dickens, “American Notes,” Charles Dickens’ Complete Works, 1881

The word lopsided, originally lapsided, was first used of ships that were disproportionately heavy on one side, says the OED.

Lop in this case refers to “a short, ‘loppy’ sea,” or “to break in short, ‘loppy’ waves.” Loppy means short and lumpy as well as “hanging limp.” To be lop-eared means to have droopy ears.

skivvies

“I’ve lived in New York City long enough to expect the unexpected and keep cool in the presence of insanity, but an Orthodox Jew cold busting his human beatbox, dressed only in his skivvies and swilling Jack Daniels, still feels to me worthy of the term ‘spectacle.’”

Patrick Egan, “Family Feud: Teeth of the Sons,” The Huffington Post, May 9, 2011

The origin of skivvies, a North American term for underwear, is unclear. The OED puts the earliest citation at 1932. However, World Wide Words puts it much earlier, 1918. Another meaning of skivvy is London slang for a “female domestic servant.” However, this seems unrelated.

According to World Wide Words, the word might come from a term meaning “Japanese prostitute,” which was used by American servicemen in the Philippines in the early 1900s, possibly as an alteration of the “Japanese sukebei, randy or lecherous.” Sukebei “was later generalised to mean any Japanese, though it remained derogatory and was deeply resented by those so described.”

spin a yarn

“He was fond of society, was a good story teller, having traveled much, and was always willing to spin a yarn, but when asked about himself he immediately became taciturn.”

“Perhaps Jack the Ripper,” The New York Times, March 17, 1892

While the phrase spin a yarn may seem like it comes from the telling of tales in a knitting circle, it’s actually a sailors’ expression from the early 1800s. The saying is based on the “notion of telling stories while engaged in sedentary work such as yarn-twisting.” A yarn is not just a story but one “often implying the marvelous or untrue.”

squeegee

“The rule dates to a time when so-called squeegee men, who roamed the roadways demanding tips in return for washing windshields, were common.”

Michael M. Grynbaum, “Under Rule, Hailing a Cab for a Stranger Can Be Illegal,” The New York Times, November 25, 2011

Squeegee is another word that we know little about except that it has nautical origins. It could come from squeege, “a dialectal form of squeeze.” A squeegee band, another nautical term, is an improvised band, according to the OED, and is also known as a washboard band.

taken aback

“Admiral Davis was taken aback and considerably shocked at the tone and contents of this letter.”

“Admiral at Government House,” The Age, January 22, 1907

Like aloof, taken aback, meaning surprised, originally referred to the positioning of a ship, in this case “in reference to a vessel’s square sails when a sudden change of wind flattens them back against the masts and stops the forward motion of the ship.”

Finally, if you’re missing some pirate-speak, enjoy our classic post on pirate words.

[Photo: “Torpedoes Away!” Public domain by National Library of Ireland on the Commons]
[Photo: “Chopsticks,” CC BY 2.0 by Clare Bell]

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A Brief History of Newspaper Lingo

New York Times Building, NYC

The first issue of The New York Times was published on this day in 1851, and to celebrate we’re taking look at a brief history of some of our favorite newspaper words and slang.

Before newspapers, there were government bulletins. The Acta Diurna or Daily Acts of ancient Rome were carved in metal or stone and posted in public places. In ancient China, tipao, news sheets produced by the government, were “handwritten on silk and read by government officials.”

In 16th century Venice, a monthly notice was published and sold for one gazeta, a small copper coin, which may be where we get gazette, another word for newspaper.

However, gazeta also means “little magpie,” so it’s unclear if we get the word from the paper’s “price or its association with the bird (typical of false chatter),” says the Online Etymology Dictionary. What we do know is that gazette predates the word newspaper by about 60 years.

Workers at a printing press

By 1649, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), newspapers, journals, and periodicals were collectively referred to as the press. This of course comes from printing press, which was invented in the 15th century and quickly gained popularity in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. By the late 1860s press came to refer to journalists in general, and to journalistic coverage by 1908: “Mr. Leaf. . .has not had a good press lately.”

Both newsman and journalist came about in the late 17th century, says the OED. By then what’s considered the first American newspaper was published in Boston, although “only one edition was published before the paper was suppressed by the colonial officials.” A few years later, a weekly called The Boston News-Letter “became the first continuously published newspaper in the colonies.”

By 1734, you could insult a newspaper by calling it a rag. Know where the bodies are buried? You could make a living as a death-hunter, “one who furnishes a newspaper with reports of deaths,” says the OED.

Reporters weren’t called reporters until about 1776, as per the OED. By 1810, if you were a writer for hire, you might be called a hack, and in the 1870s, a story you got before a competitor was called a beat or scoop.

By the late 19th century, competition betweens papers was fierce. Some resorted to keyhole journalism, says the OED, with “allusion to the action of eavesdropping or spying through a keyhole.”

The Yellow Kid

The term yellow journalism was coined around 1898 during the peak of the “circulation battles” between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Yellow journalism is “journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers,” and comes from “the use of yellow ink in printing ‘Yellow Kid,’ a cartoon strip in the New York World.”

Pulitzer and Heart’s sensationalistic exploits were even blamed for the United States’ entry into the Spanish-American War, although historians have noted that “yellow journalism was largely confined to New York City, and that newspapers in the rest of the country did not follow their lead.”

In 1901, the term tabloid was being used to describe newspapers that gave stories in condensed form, “usually with illustrated, often sensational material.” The word tabloid was originally a trademark referring to a “small tablet of medicine,” says the Online Etymology Dictionary, and eventually came to refer to “a compressed form or dose of anything.”

Lead meaning the “introductory portion of a news story” is from around 1912. The spelling didn’t change to lede until 1965, perhaps “to distinguish this sense from other possible meanings of the written word,” such as the molten lead “used in typesetting machines.” The term bury the lead, beginning a story with secondary information and revealing the important points later, is from 1977, says the OED.

Lonely-hearts referring to lonely-hearts columns originated in the early 1930s while agony aunt, a British English term for the writer of an advice column, is from 1974. In 1950, if you wrote a story of “exaggerating praise,” you’d be writing a puff piece. Paparazzi, photographers who “pursue celebrities and attempt to obtain candid photographs,” comes from the “surname of the freelance photographer in Federico Fellini’s 1959 film ‘La Dolce Vita.’”

Tabloid Rack

Tabloid Rack

Supermarket tabloids arose in the 1960s, says Vanity Fair. Neighborhood newsstands and family-owned shops were closing as supermarket chains opened up. Generoso Pope, Jr., the creator of The National Enquirer, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) supermarket tabloid, “understood that the only way tabloids could thrive as their urban habitat declined was by being sold in supermarkets.”

We’re uncertain as to when the term supermarket tabloid originated exactly. The earliest citation we found was from 1980, and Google Ngrams shows its usage beginning around the same time. However, if anyone can antedate us, please do.

In 1971 journalist Hunter S. Thompson coined the term gonzo journalism, a kind of experimental journalism in “which facts are deemed to be less important than perceived underlying truth (especially where deliberately altered consciousness is involved).”

Such journalism could be full of factoids, which contrary to popular belief aren’t bite-sized facts but “unverified or inaccurate information that is presented in the press as factual, often as part of a publicity effort, and that is then accepted as true because of frequent repetition.” The word was coined by writer Norman Mailer in 1973.

Gotcha journalism, “journalism that seeks only to catch public figures in embarrassing or scandalous situations,” says Word Spy. The earliest citation is from 1988. (The gotcharazzi, in case you were wondering, are paparazzi who may say “Gotcha!” when photographing someone in an embarrassing situation.)

The charticle, an article that mainly consists of a chart or graph, is from 1996, while listicle, an article consisting of a list, is newer, from 2003 and apparently coined by a Gawker writer, according to researcher Barry Popik.

Red-top, a tabloid newspaper in the UK, is from 1996, and refers to the red banners often used by such papers. A marmalade dropper is “highly stunning information” that would, presumably, cause one to drop one’s marmalade. Word Spy says the term “has appeared almost exclusively in British newspapers and magazines” and originated around 1995.

A dead donkey is “a news item of no real significance, usually of whimsical or sentimental nature, placed at the end of a news bulletin or in a newspaper as filler.” Drop the Dead Donkey was a 1990s British television comedy set in a TV news company. It seems the term dead donkey comes from the title of the show.

Finally, churnalism, journalism that uses “ready-made press release material copied wholesale,” is from 2001, says Word Spy.

What are some of your favorite journalistic slang terms?

[Photo: “New York Times Building, NYC,” CC BY 2.0 by Alexander Torrenegra]
[Photo: “Workers at a printing press,” Public Domain]
[Photo: “The Yellow Kid,” Public Domain]
[Photo: “Tabloid Rack,” CC BY 2.0 by Paulo Ordoveza]

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Goodbye to the Twoosh

goodbye

Over two years ago we kicked off the Word of the Day Perfect Tweet Challenge. Every week we asked you to use our words of the day in twooshes, tweets that are no more than 140 characters.

You’ve more than met the challenge with your clever, often hilarious, and at times moving tweets. But like all good things, this must come to an end.

Starting next week we’ll be discontinuing our WotD Perfect Tweet contest. That means this week will be the last that we’ll be asking you to twoosh the words of the day.

To make this last week a little more special, we’ll be giving away a newly redesigned Wordnik T-shirt to one randomly chosen winner.

But don’t worry: in the future, we’ll still be holding special one-off contests, like our ones that asked you to use our words of the day in a haiku for National Haiku Poetry Day, create fictional dictionaries for Dictionary Day, or devise a new turducken word for Thanksgiving.

Still having WotD twoosh withdrawal? Check out the Best of the WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge 2012 and all of our twoosh stories on Storify.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by woodleywonderworks]

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Fo Shizzle My Chizzle: Our Favorite -izzle Words

Snoop Dogg made a whole language out of it — adding –izzle to just about anything. Of course there are “real” –izzle words, like sizzle, swizzle, and grizzle, but what about those you may not have heard of? Here we take a look at six of our favorites.

a walk in to the woods

mizzle

Today’s word of the day means to drizzle or “rain in very fine drops,” as well as to succumb, become tipsy, confuse, and to disappear suddenly. The rain meaning is the oldest, from the 15th century, says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and may come from the Middle Dutch misel, “drizzling rain.”

The meaning “to confuse” is from the 16th century and may come from mizmaze, a labyrinth or maze. Mizzle gained its “disappear suddenly” meaning in the 1770s. The OED says it might come from misli, a word from Shelta meaning “to go,” or that misli might come from mizzle. In other words, we don’t know.

By the way, to mizzle one’s dick is a nautical phrase that means “to miss one’s passage.”

pizzle

A pizzle refers to “the penis of an animal, especially a bull” or “a whip made from a bull’s penis.” This is a 15th century word that is now chiefly used in Australia and New Zealand, according to the OED, and ultimately comes from the Old Dutch pisa, “sinew, string, fibre.”

In the early 1900s, the word also became slang for a man’s penis.

rumswizzle

This awesome word is “a cloth made in Ireland from pure wool undyed, and valuable because of its power of repelling moisture.”

Unfortunately its origin is unknown. It may come from the cant meaning of rum, “good or fine,” and swizzle could be a play on frieze, “a thick and warm woolen cloth used for rough outer garments since the fourteenth century,” although that could be a stretch.

Predictably the word has been appropriated as the name of a drink.

Bacon

frizzle

The earliest meaning of frizzle is “to curl or crisp, as hair,” from which comes the newer and more common frizz. Frizzle also refers to “a ribbed steel plate forming part of a gunlock, to receive the blow of the hammer,” and “to fry (something) [like bacon] until crisp and curled.”

The word could be a blend of fry and sizzle, and may be related to Old Frisian frisle, “head of the hair, lock of hair.”

crizzle

Crizzle means “to become wrinkled or rough on the surface, as glass, the skin, etc.,” as well as “a roughness on the surface of glass which clouds its transparency.” The origin isn’t certain but the OED says it may be a diminutive of craze. The French crisser means to crunch or scrunch.

twizzle

To twizzle means to roll and twist, and may be a blend of twist and twistle. In case you were wondering, the word came first, then the candy: the OED’s earliest citation of twizzle is from 1825 while Twizzlers candy came out in 1845.

Want more -izzle? Gizoogle that shizzle.

[Photo: “a walk in to the woods,” CC BY 2.0 by Vinoth Chandar]
[Photo: “Bacon,” CC BY 2.0 by cookbookman17]

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Language Blog Roundup: Seamus Heaney, language peevers, when frogs grow hair

Hoyt's German Cologne perfumed with fragrant & lasting [front]

Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.

We were saddened by the recent passing of Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky fondly recalled a memory of Heaney, as did Meghan O’Rourke at The Atlantic. We learned about Heaney’s last words, and the famous last words of 20 other cultural icons.

In case you didn’t hear, the word twerk was added to Oxford Dictionaries Online. Some people hated this, but our own Erin McKean asserted that since the word has been around for 20 years, of course it belongs in the dictionary, and that “dictionaries merely report the language.”

Meanwhile, John McIntyre explained the problems of the language peever fallacy, Kory Stamper told us how to be a reasonable prescriptivist, and Matthew X.J. Malady told language bullies to step off.

A U.S. diplomat got schooled on proper language use in Hong Kong. We learned about the dangers of increasingly bizarre drug names. Slate launched a new language blog to accompany their podcast, Lexicon Valley, and RapGenius unveiled (ahem) WeddingCrunchers.com, “a searchable database of nearly 60,000 NYT wedding announcements from 1981 through 2013.”

At Lingua Franca, Lucy Ferriss discussed Chelsea Manning, names, and preferred address; Geoffrey Pullum considered ever thus and Dick Swiveller; and Allan Metcalf okayed OK as a magic word and explored bad words turned good.

The Economist explained what makes learning a language difficult. Stan Carey delighted us with Scottish words for snow. Arika Okrent gave us 14 Swedish words that are at odds with their associated Ikea products (rocking squirrel anyone?) and 22 songs that write themselves from a songwriter’s dictionary.

Neal Whitman dissected the affect/effect problem, and James Harbeck defended the semicolon. NPR’s Code Switch recounted the history behind the phrase, don’t be an Indian giver.

Idibon analyzed Burning Man camp names against names of corporations. Fritinancy delved into the Y for I naming trend as well as the sweet deal between Google and KitKat.

Word Spy spotted eye broccoli, “an unattractive person,” as opposed to eye candy; binge thinking, “thinking obsessively and intensely over a short period”; and chatterboxing, “watching a TV show while talking to other people about that program online.”

We love these innovative libraries and that Shanghai metro created a library for subway commuters. We want to hang this midcentury map of American folklore on our wall. We learned how to say how about never – is never good for you in different languages; the origins of American censorship; and how the Milky Way got its name.

Finally, we love the ridiculous tech gadgets in this Sears catalog from the 1980s. Of course our favorite part is the computer glossary.

That’s it for this week!

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Boston Public Library]