Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from last week.
Thanks to everyone for playing! As always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Another season of Mad Men is wrapping up, and we’ve been collecting our favorite groovy words along the way. We have 15 here, including slang of the times, a bit of sales lingo, and some catsup (or is it ketchup?).
1-A
Arnold: “It doesn’t matter if he goes back to school. He’s 1-A. His induction could be tomorrow. He’s on a damned list for the rest of his life.”
“Favors,” June 9, 2013
1-A, or Class 1-A, is a classification of the Selective Service System, “an independent agency of the United States government that maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription.”
Someone who is classified as 1-A is “available for unrestricted military service.” Class 1-S is someone who has deferred by statute, either high school or college. In 1969, President Nixon established “conscription based on random selection,” otherwise known as the draft.
bake-off
Stan [upon seeing Peggy and her rival agency]: “It’s a bake-off? Since when?”
“To Have and to Hold,” April 21
The first bake-off was held by the Pillsbury Company in 1949. At the time the contest was called the Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest, and was first referred to as a bake-off by Sheboygan Press, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “In a grand final bake-off at the Waldorf-Astoria, Pillsbury Mills will award $150,000 in prizes.”
The word bake-off comes from playoff, which was coined around 1895, and cook-off, coined in 1936. It’s unclear when the figurative use of bake-off began. The earliest citation the OED has is from 2003.
blow (someone’s) mind
Ted [to Peggy]: “Your friend’s mistake was underestimating you. I hope ketchup makes the same mistake so you can blow their minds.”
“Collaborators,” April 14, 2013
The phrase, blow (someone’s) mind, originated in the mid-1960s to mean “to induce hallucinatory experiences (in a person) by means of drugs,” says the OED. It gained its figurative meaning, to astonish or shock, around 1967.
In 1965, a band called The Gas Company released a song called “Blow Your Mind,” while in 1966, the Barry Goldberg Blues Band had an LP called Blowing My Mind.
bogart
Rollo: “Should I roll another? Your friend bogarted the last one.”
“The Quality of Mercy,” June 16, 2013
Bogart has a few different meanings. The OED says the word originated around 1965 as African American slang meaning “to force, coerce; to bully, intimidate,” named for the actor Humphrey Bogart’s tough guy characters.
The meaning, “to appropriate (a marijuana cigarette) greedily or selfishly,” is from 1968, also named for Humphrey Bogart, in this sense referencing his “frequent on-screen smoking, especially to the long drags he took on cigarettes.”
Bogart also refers to “the first cup of brewed coffee collected from under the coffee filter.” We couldn’t find how this meaning came about. If you know, please fill us in.
catsup
Peggy: “So, what’s the difference between ketchup and catsup? Well, catsup has more tomatoes, comes in a bigger bottle, is cheaper, but tastes just like ketchup. Now we know that’s not true, but that’s what your competitors are saying.”
“To Have and to Hold,” April 21
As Slate tells us, there’s no difference between catsup and ketchup (and catchup for that matter) except the spelling. Catchup seems to have come first with a 1699 citation in the OED. Ketchup is next in 1711 and catsup brings up the rear in 1735.
These catsup varations may come from Amoy, also known as Xiamenese, a Chinese dialect. Kôechiap or kê-tsiap is Xiamenese for “brine of pickled fish or shell-fish.”
Ketchup caught on when Heinz, again according to Slate, changed “Heinz Tomato Catsup,” to “Heinz Tomato Ketchup” to distinguish it from competitors.
close
Roger: “I have this check for $10,000 because I close, Pete. I close things.”
“For Immediate Release.” May 5, 2013
Close here means to close a deal or bargain. The earliest citation, according to the OED, is in Charles Dickens’s 1839 novel, Nicholas Nickleby: “He closed the bargain directly it reached his ears.” The word closer, someone good “at bringing business transactions to a satisfactory conclusion,” is from around 1906, says the OED.
Always be closing (ABC) is “a sales strategy in which a salesperson should constantly look for new prospects, pitch products or services to those prospects and complete the sale.” According to Investopedia, “the phrase was popularized in the 1992 film ‘Glengarry Glen Ross.’”
get it on
Wendy [to Don]: “Do you want to get it on?”
“The Crash,” May 19, 2013
Anachronism alert! While this episode takes place in 1967, the term get it on, or to have sex, didn’t come about until 1971, according to the OED, appearing in B.B. Johnson’s Blues for a Black Sister: “She gripped him with her legs and they got it on.” But if anyone can antedate this term, please let us know in the comments.
grok
Squatter [to Betty]: “What you can’t grok is that we are your garbage.”
“The Doorway,” April 7, 2013
To grok means “to understand profoundly through intuition or empathy.” The word was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 novel, Stranger in a Strange Land: “Now that he knew himself to be self he was free to grok ever closer to his brothers.”
In Heinlein’s invented language, grok “is described as being from the word for ‘to drink’ and, figuratively, ‘to drink in all available aspects of reality.’” Grog is an alcoholic drink named for Old Grog, the nickname of a British admiral who always wore a grogram cloak.
groovy
Ted: “Fleischmann’s. Groovy. We’ll get right on that.”
“Man with a Plan,” May 12, 2013
Groovy originated in the late 1930s as jazz slang, says the OED, meaning “playing, or capable of playing, jazz or similar music brilliantly or easily.” Groovy comes from in the groove, which has the same meaning. Groove refers to the groove of a record, perhaps from the idea of a record playing smoothly and easily in a groove, as opposed to skipping.
margarine
Peggy: “[Margarine] was invented for Napoleon III because armies need to move and it never spoiled.”
“Man with a Plan,” May 12, 2013
Peggy’s right: in the 19th century, Napoleon III “offered a prize to anyone who could make a satisfactory alternative for butter, suitable for use by the armed forces and the lower classes.” In response, a French chemist “invented a substance he called oleomargarine, the name of which became shortened to the trade name ‘margarine’.”
Margarin, which comes from the Greek margarites, “pearl,” was the French term given to “a peculiar pearl-like substance extracted from” animal fat, a main ingredient in the original formulation of margarine.
out of sight
Party-goer: “I heard the bread is out of sight.”
“A Tale of Two Cities,” June 2, 2013
While out of sight might seem like typical slang from the ‘50s or ‘60s, it’s actually much older than that. The OED has it originating as U.S. slang for “excellent” or “wonderful” in 1891. We particularly like this citation from 1902: “‘How do you feel old chap?’ ‘Out of sight,’ replied the American.”
Bread as slang for money is from the 1940s, and comes from breadwinner, which originated in the 19th century with the idea of winning or earning bread or other food.
rap session
Ted: “I want to have a little rap session about margarine in general.”
“Man with a Plan,” May 12, 2013
The term rap session, “an informal discussion held especially by a group of people with similar concerns,” was very new at the time of this episode. The OED’s earliest citation is from 1968. To rap meaning to talk is from the 1920s.
Second Avenue subway
Realtor [to Peggy]: “Believe me, when they finish the Second Avenue subway, this apartment will quadruple in value.”
“The Flood,” April 28, 2013
While a few subway lines run up and down the west side of Manhattan, only one runs the entire length of the east, the Lexington Avenue Line. Plans for constructing a second east side subway, the Second Avenue subway, began in 1929. As of today, it is nowhere near completion.
truncheon
Michael: “You’re a truncheon, Cutler!”
“A Tale of Two Cities,” June 2, 2013
A truncheon is “a staff carried as a symbol of office or authority,” and ultimately comes from the Latin truncus, “trunk.” It may also be used figuratively to refer to an authority figure.
Yankee wrinkle
Pete: “How come you didn’t get yourself a job?”
Duck Phillips: “That’s a Yankee wrinkle. You interested in my business?”
“The Better Half,” May 26, 2013
A wrinkle is a “clever trick, method, or device, especially one that is new and different.” This meaning originated around 1817. Yankee, in addition to referring a native of New England or the U.S., has the 19th century meaning of “to deal cunningly with like a Yankee, to cheat,” says the OED. Thus, a Yankee wrinkle is an especially cunning trick or scheme.
From a 1912 article: “I have discovered the latest Yankee wrinkle. You couldn’t guess what this new scheme is if you tried a hundred times.”
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from last week.
Thanks to everyone for playing! As always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Homemade cronuts
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.
In language news, Russian’s most isolated dialect was found in Alaska. Phonemica, an open-archive, ethnographic project, is on a quest to preserve China’s languages. A study shows a link between altitude and the way language is spoken. Pit talk, a miner dialect in East Midlands, England, is in danger of disappearing.
We learned why regional accents return when you’re drinking and, via some wonderful dialect maps, that everyone else in the U.S. talks funny but us. Meanwhile, Grammarphobia shed some light on why people say yeah, no; the Week discussed derp; and a dog learned grammar.
Ben Zimmer told us how the word emo got political. Robert Lane Greene explored why there’s so little Chinese in English. Arika Okrent rounded up 12 old words fossilized in idioms.
At Lingua Franca, Anne Curzan shared the silent but deadly origins of the word fizzle; Lucy Ferriss talked about silent letters; and Ben Yagoda blogged a blog about blog blogs and wittily discussed the wordplay of Arrested Development and the catchphrases of TV’s funniest show.
At the Macmillan Dictionary blog, Michael Rundell discussed prescriptivism in the Daily Telegraph; Ana Maria Menezes told the story behind the word box; and Stan Carey collided with common sense and usage. On his own blog, Stan dangled some modifiers. The Dialect Blog explored what rhymes tell us about changing English and the phrase, causing a row.
In words of the week, Word Spy spotted superdiversity, “extreme diversity, particularly with respect to the ethnic and racial mix of a population.” Fritinancy noted prankvertising, “an extreme form of guerrilla marketing that involves unsuspecting people,” and so explored the word so.
Erin McKean’s selections included Texican, a kind of Texan-Mexican food; omnichannel, “a term that is meant to signify a seamless integration of brick and mortar stores with online and mobile commerce”; and gunslinger, a quarterback who tries “to make any throw, no matter how unlikely, whatever the consequences.”
In honor of the French word for French kiss, galocher, finally entering the French dictionary, Nerve listed 10 more ways to describe kissing while The Week gave us 10 more mots merveilleux that have recently been added. Mental Floss let us know of six dictionary mysteries we can help solve. Meanwhile, we can say goodbye to the German language’s longest word.
Slackpropagation nerdily – or geekily? – showed us the difference between a geek and a nerd. Novelist Sherman Alexie asserted that “grammar cops are rarely good writers” and that “imagination always disobeys.”
In book news, in the light of the NSA scandal, sales of George Orwell’s 1984 have increased. Jen Doll has a great rundown of summer Young Adult reading.
And speaking of summer reading, the latest book of our own Erin McKean has just come out. Check out The Hundred Dresses: The Most Iconic Styles of Our Time, which of course is full of cool dress names like The Wench, The Austen, The Siren, and The Biohazard.
In more book stuff, we loved this list of the 25 most challenging books; these 11 weird books; and this ranking of all 185 Choose Your Own Adventure titles. We also found these book paintings and artful book stacks very cool.
We chuckled at these movie titles with bad grammar and would like to see all of these movies starring books.
In music and language, we learned that learning Finnish may be a good idea for heavy metal musicians; that the music business has its own grammar guide; and there are hiphop artists in Quebec who dare to use English.
We loved these literary-themed restaurants, and that this chef named his newest dish after 2013 Scripps National Bee winner, Arvind Mahankali. We’re not sure, however, how to feel about cronuts.
That’s it for this week!
[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Arnold Gatilao]
Before Jane Austen, there was Fanny Burney.
English writer Fanny Burney was born on this day in 1752. Known as Madame d’Arblay after she married, Burney wrote several novels and plays, as well as voluminous journals and letters.
Jane Austen was a great fan, going as far as to derive the title of one of her most-loved books from the concluding pages of Cecilia, Burney’s 1782 novel: “The whole of this unfortunate business, said Dr Lyster, has been the result of PRIDE and PREJUDICE.”
In addition to inspiring other writers, Burney also coined or popularized at least a few dozen words that we still use today. Here are our 10 favorites.
Bonbons
bonbon
“’Incomparably well observed!’ cried he, collecting some bonbons from a bonboniere, and swallowing one after another with great rapidity.”
Camilla, or A Picture of Youth, 1796
A bonbon is a dainty candy that is often covered in chocolate and has at its center fondant, a kind of sweet creamy paste, fruit, or nuts. The word is French in origin and reduplication of bon, “good.” Burney was the first to bring the word into English.
In case you were wondering, a truffle could be considered a kind of bonbon. While truffles are always chocolate, bonbons may or may not be.
bumptious
“No, my dearest Padre, bumptious!—no! I deny the charge in toto.”
Diary and Letters, Volume 6, 1793-1812
Burney formed bumptious, “crudely or loudly assertive; pushy,” by combining bump, perhaps with the idea of someone rudely bumping into another, and the –tious suffix of words like fractious.
fubsy
“In the evening we had Mrs. Lawes, a fat, round, panting, short breathed, old widow; – & her Daughter, a fubsy, good-humoured, Laughing, silly, merry old maid.”
Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume 4, 1780-1781
Fubsy is British slang for “somewhat fat and squat.” Burney added an –sy to the already existing fub, “a plump, chubby person,” which is now obsolete. Fubsy may be a play on chubby, which was coined around 1611, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
gag
“I gagged the Gentleman with as much ease as my very little ease would allow me to assume.”
Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume 2, 1774-1777
Gag meaning “to play jokes upon” is older than the noun meaning, “a joke, especially a practical joke; a farce; a hoax.” Burney’s use was either figurative “with the notion of thrusting something down the throat of a credulous person,” says the OED, or imitative, like an older meaning of the word gaggle, “to make a noise like a goose; cackle.”
Day 261: Grumpy
grumpy
“You know very well I wanted to borrow Mr. Smith’s room, only you were so grumpy you would not let me.”
Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, 1778
Before grumpy, or even grump, there was humps and grumps, “slights and snubs,” a phrase coined by author Daniel Defoe in 1727, according to the OED. Next came the grumps, a state of ill-humor, the grump, and finally Burney’s grumpy.
For even more on grumpy words, check out our post, A Short-Tempered History of the Curmudgeon.
keepsake
“She sent me a neat little pocket volume, which I accept from that valuable friend, as just the keepsake, I told her, that could give me only pleasure from her hands.”
Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay, 1778-1840
While now a memento in general, Burney originated the word keepsake specifically as “a token of friendship.” The word was also “used as the title of some of the holiday gift-books formerly published annually.”
Around 1839, says the OED, the word gained the cynical meaning of “having the inane prettiness of faces depicted in a keepsake volume,” or “the namby-pamby literary style of such books.”
pinafore
“A pin-a-fore for Master Mortimer Delvile, lest he should daub his pappy when he is feeding him.”
Cecilia: Memoirs of an Heiress, 1782
A pinafore is “a sort of apron worn by children to protect the front part of their dress,” and is so-called because it was formerly pinned to the front of the dress. In pinafores means “ at a very young age, childish, inexperienced,” according to the OED.
A pinafore dress is like a jumper in American English, “a sleeveless dress worn over a blouse or sweater.” To add to the confusion, in British English, a jumper is a pullover sweater.
sulk
“In sitting down, he flung himself unto the back of his Chair just as he used to do at Twickenham, when he was not in spirits, & I never in my life saw a youngman sulk longer.”
The Early Letters and Journals of Fanny Burney, 1782-1783
The next time the teenager in your life goes to sulk in his room, you can tell him the word is a back-formation of sulky, which may be an alteration of the obsolete sulke, “sluggish.” The sulks, like the grumps, are a state of ill-humor, and came about after Burney’s use of sulk as a verb.
tea-party
“The room was so very much crowded, that but for the uncommon assiduity of Sir Clement Willoughby, we should not have been able to procure a box (which is the name given to the arched recesses that are appropriated for tea-parties) till half the company had retired.”
Evelina, or The History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World, 1778
Burney probably didn’t expect the seemingly innocuous phrase tea party to become as loaded as it is today.
What was “an afternoon social gathering at which tea and light refreshments are served” became linked to the Boston Tea Party, a demonstration in 1773 by Bostonians disguised as American Indians. As a protest against taxation without representation (for instance, on tea), they “raided three British ships in Boston harbor and dumped hundreds of chests of tea into the harbor.”
The Tea Party movement is an American political movement that “tends to be anti-government, anti-spending, anti-Obama, anti-tax, nationalistic, in favor of strict immigration legislation and against compromise politics.”
tranquilizer
“I find, however, useful employment the best tranquiliser, & however my heart still aches – I have less of the violent emotions which have hitherto torn me.”
The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, 1797-1801
While we may primarily think of a tranquilizer as a drug to reduce anxiety or put you sleep, it originally referred to anything soothing or relaxing. Burney’s usage, the earliest recorded, is from 1800.
Tranquilize originated around 1623, says the OED, and tranquil in 1616. The earliest citation of tranquil is in Shakespeare’s Othello: “Farewell the tranquile mind, farewell content.”
[Photo: “Bonbons,” CC BY 2.0 by fdecomite]
[Photo: “Day 261: Grumpy,” CC BY 2.0 by Emily]
The Word of the Day Perfect Tweet Challenge is back!
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. Here are our favorites from last week.
Thanks to everyone for playing! As always, to get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
The Portuguese got around. Starting in the 15th century, Portuguese sailors and navigators explored Africa, South America, Japan, China, India, and the Middle East. Eventually the country had established the Portuguese Colonial Empire, the “first global empire in history.”
Inevitably Portuguese words worked their way into these cultures and eventually over to English, sometimes in surprising ways. Here are eight words you might not know come from Portuguese.
albino
“Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers. . . .Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.”
Jeffrey Gettleman, “Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania,” The New York Times, June 8, 2008
An albino is “a person or animal lacking normal pigmentation.” Prevalence of albinism is “highest overall in people of sub-Saharan African descent.”
The word is a diminutive of Portuguese albo, meaning “white,” and was used “by Portuguese of white-spotted African[s].” The Portuguese first began exploring the African coast in 1419.
amah
“Graduating smoothly from running errands and doing odd jobs to acting as amah and housekeeper, she became the backbone of the Buck household and later, when Pearl finally left China, of the Thomsons’ too.”
Hilary Spurling, Pearl Buck in China: Journey to The Good Earth
We would have assumed that the word amah, “a housemaid, especially a wet nurse, in India and the Far East,” came from an East Asian or Indian language. However, it comes from the Portuguese ama, “nurse,” which comes from the Medieval Latin amma, “mother.”
From the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries, the Portuguese had long stopovers in China during their travels to and from Japan.
ayah
“There was Rickon Goold, the ringleader, and four others, and they brought away a little boy who was lying fast asleep, because one of them had been in the service of his father, and because of the value of his Indian clothes, which his ayah made him wear now in his little cot for warmth.”
R.D. Blackmore, Mary Anerley, 1880
Ayah is another word we thought would have Asian roots. The Hindi āyā actually comes from the Portuguese aia, “nursemaid,” which comes from the Latin avia, “grandmother.” While amah is often used in East Asian countries and cultures, ayah seems to be primarily used in India.
In addition to China, India was a stopover for the Portuguese during the time they journeyed back and forth from Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries.
dodo
“The Dodo was native to Mauritius when no humans lived there, but its numbers rapidly dwindled after the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch sailors in the 1500s.”
“Dutch Diggers Discover Skeleton of Extinct Dodo Bird,” Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, December 26, 2005
The dodo, as most people know, is a clumsy, flightless, long-extinct bird that once inhabited the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. When Portuguese sailors first encountered the bird, they dubbed the poor thing doudo, simpleton or fool.
The dodo is now something of a celebrity among extinct species, making appearances in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the idioms dead as a dodo and to go the way of the dodo, which describe anything out-of-date or obsolete.
emu
“Nevertheless, they saw, though unable to get near them, a couple of those large birds peculiar to Australia, a sort of cassowary, called emu, five feet in height, and with brown plumage, which belong to the tribe of waders.”
Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island, 1874
The emu is a large flightless bird found in Australia and “related to and resembling the ostrich and the cassowary.” The word emu was once thought to have come from an Arabic term meaning “large bird,” but now is thought to have originated from the Portuguese word for “ostrich,” ema.
While it’s commonly thought that Australia was “discovered” by the Dutch in 1606, there’s the theory that the Portuguese first arrived on the continent more than 80 years earlier.
fetish
“This indeed was the solution, and had the boys known it there are many such rocks in Africa, carved out by some forgotten race, and the weird cries that the vent-holes give out in the wind doubtless acted as a powerful ‘fetish’ to keep away troublesome enemies.”
Captain Wilbur Lawton, The Boy Aviators in Africa, 1911
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest English forms of fetish came directly from the Portuguese feitiço, “charm, sorcery.” (The Portuguese came from the Latin factīcius, “artificial.”) The word originally referred to objects “used by the indigenous peoples of the Guinea coast and the neighbouring regions as amulets or means of enchantment, or regarded by them with superstitious dread.”
In the 17th century, fetish came to refer to any object “believed to have magical or spiritual powers, especially such an object associated with animistic or shamanistic religious practices”; by the 1830s, “something irrationally reverenced”; and around 1901, “a material object or a nonsexual part of the body, that arouses sexual desire and may become necessary for sexual gratification.”
joss
“This ‘joss’ was a thick stake of wood, six or eight feet high, with the upper part roughly carved into the shape of a very ugly human face, and crudely coloured in vermilion and green.”
F.A. McKenzie, Korea’s Fight for Freedom, 1920
Joss, a Chinese god or idol, is another word that came from Portugal’s time in China. Originally Chinese pidgin English, the word is corruption of the Portuguese deos, “god,” which comes from the Latin deus.
tempura
“Tempura embodies qualities Japanese cooks hold dear: fresh ingredients, precision cooking and beautiful presentation.”
“Tempura – Or Is It Tapas?” Brisbane Times, May 12, 2008
Wait, so tempura isn’t originally Japanese? Nope: the word probably comes from the Portuguese tempero, “seasoning.” According to this Brisbane Times article, which cites the book, Japan: Its History and Culture, by W. Scott Morton:
by 1569, there were about 300,000 Christian converts in Japan and that linguistic borrowings from this period include the Portuguese words for bread (“pan,” from the Portuguese “pao”) and tempura “for fried shrimp in batter, derived from the fact that on Ember Days, “quattour tempora” days of fasting and abstinence, the Jesuit fathers ate only seafood.
The Portuguese remained in Japan until they were expelled in 1639.
[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Port of San Diego]