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.
Jester
Happy April Fools’ Day! On this day that originated in the 1680s with the custom of “sending people on false errands” (or hunting the gowk, as the Scots called it), we’re rounding up our favorite fool words.
Not interested? Check out Google’s newest product instead. Happy gowk hunting!
cat’s-paw
“I see what you are after; but you’ll not wheedle me: I am no cat’s-paw.”
Charlotte Bronte, Shirley, 1849
A cat’s-paw is “a person used by another as a dupe or tool.” The term comes from the earlier cat’s-foot, which refers to “the fable or tale of a monkey (or a fox) using the foot or paw of a cat to rake roasted chestnuts out of the burning coals,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
A cat’s-paw is also “a light breeze that ruffles small areas of a water surface,” and “a knot made by twisting a section of rope to form two adjacent eyes through which a hook is passed, used in hoisting.”
cully
“On being let in, the girls of the house flocked round Charles, whom they knew, and from the earliness of my escape, and their perfect ignorance of his ever having so much as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his being accessory to my flight, they were, in their way, making up to him; and as to his companion, they took him probably for a fresh cully.”
John Cleland, Memoirs of Fanny Hill, 1749
Cully refers to a fool or a dupe, or the act of fooling or duping. The origin of the word is uncertain. It may come from cullion, an obsolete term for “a low or despicable fellow,” as well as slang for “testicle.”
Cullion is French in origin and ultimately comes from the Latin coleus, “a leather bag, the scrotum” (see the Spanish cojones).
dotterel
“The names of various stupid birds have been used at different periods for ‘fool’ or ‘dupe’: – gull (properly a ‘young bird’ of any kind), pigeon, daw, dodo, dotterel, and rook.”
James Bradstreet Greenough and George Lyman Kittredge, Words and Their Ways in English Speech, 1901
A dotterel is a kind of bird in the plover family. The word seems to come from the Middle German doten, “to be foolish” (see dotage). The bird, says the Century Dictionary, “derives its name from its apparent stupidity, or tameness, allowing itself to be easily approached and taken.” Hence, dotterel gained the meaning of a person who is easily duped.
dupe
“When Taffy turned to look for him, he was gone, without even taking the trouble to call his dupe a fool.”
William Elliot Griffis, Welsh Fairy Tales, 1921
Dupe, which we would have guessed came from duplicity, is thieves’ cant, possibly coming from the phrase de huppe, “of the hoopoe.” The hoopoe is “an extravagantly crested and reputedly stupid bird.” Duplicity, by the way, comes from Late Latin duplicitās, “doubleness.”
gudgeon
“The sharper then retires to his place of business and keeps a lookout for the gudgeon, who turns up soon afterward.”
“Catching Gudgeons: Horse Sharpers and the Way They Swindle,” The Daily Herald, January 9, 1885
Gudgeon is another dupe word based on the apparent stupidity of an animal, this time a small freshwater fish related to the carp. The gudgeon has a reputation of being easily caught and therefore used for bait. The word comes from the Latin gobios, a kind of small fish.
gull
“It should be observed, however, that ‘gull,’ a dupe, did not refer specially to the sea gull, the word having formerly meant a young bird of any kind.”
“Rook and Crook,” The Pittsburgh Press, February 7, 1913
The origin of the dupe meaning of gull has a number of possibilities. It may come from an early meaning of any “unfledged bird,” or else from gullet, with the idea of a gull being “someone who will swallow anything thrown at him,” says the Online Etymology Dictionary.
Gull helped give rise to gullibility, which is an alteration of the older cullibility. Cullibility comes from cully, which we discussed earlier. Gullible is a back-formation of gullibility.
muggins
“Any muggins can write about Old Times on the Miss. of 500 different kinds, but I am the only man alive that can scribble about the piloting of that day–and no man ever has tried to scribble about it yet.”
Mark Twain, The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete, 1853-1866
According to the OED, “the surname Muggins is well attested in the names of various characters presented as foolish or easily tricked in 18th- and 19th-cent. popular and comic writing,” hence the meaning of muggins as a fool or idiot, often when ironically referring to oneself.
Muggins also refers to a children’s card game, a game of dominoes, and the act of scoring against an opponent due to the opponent’s mistake.
pigeon
“Pigeon dropper. It’s the name the Windsor Police have given to teams of two, three or four persons who conspire to dupe a ‘pigeon,’ or victim, of hard-earned cash.”
Rosemary McCracken, “Police Warn of Frauds,” The Windsor Star, December 27, 1974
Pigeon came to mean “a simpleton to be swindled” probably due to the bird’s perceived lack of smarts. According to the Century Dictionary, a pigeon is opposed to the savvier rook, a kind of crow, which also came to mean a swindler or cheat. To pluck a pigeon means to swindle someone, says the OED.
The term stool pigeon, “a person acting as a decoy or as an informer, especially one who is a spy for the police,” comes from the hunting practice of “tying decoy pigeons to a stool to attract other pigeons.”
rabbit-sucker
“’Oh, yeah, (dropping the formality of thou art), you’re a reeky, pale-hearted rabbit-sucker,’ a student says.”
Bruce R. Posten, “Students Learn Shakespeare Is to Be Played, Not Just Read,” Reading Eagle, October 19, 2000
A rabbit-sucker is a suckling rabbit, therefore someone young, naive, and ripe for the picking by predators.
William Shakespeare seems to have originated the phrase in Henry IV: “Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulters hare.”
schnook
“In the seven ‘Road’ movies with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour, Hope fashioned his classic persona: the cutesy coward, the bumbling braggart, the schnook who loses the girl to the debonair Crosby.”
Jack Kroll, “Springing Eternal,” Newsweek, April 10, 2003
While schnook now refers to any gullible person, the Online Etymology Dictionary says it first referred specifically to “a customer easily persuaded, a sucker.”
The word is U.S. slang that became popular in the 1940s, and either comes from the Yiddish shnuk, “snout,” or is an alteration of schmuck.
younker
“What, will you make a younker of me? shall I not take mine case in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked?”
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, 1597
In addition to a dupe, younker also refers to “a young man of condition; a young gentleman or knight,” and “a young person; a lad; a youngster.”
The word probably came to mean a novice or simpleton from the idea a youngster being easily tricked and taken advantage of. The word comes from the Obsolete Dutch jonchere, “young nobleman.”
[Photo: “Jester,” CC BY 2.0 by David Merrett]
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.
Gun Failing
NPR spoke with Katherine Connor Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries for Oxford University Press, about how gun metaphors have become embedded in the English language.
Kory Stamper discussed how the Iraq war transformed the English language, and Arika Okrent told us how the U.S. Army used Esperanto, a language of peace, as a language of war.
Jen Doll told us what the definition of marriage tells us about marriage equality, and Katy Steinmetz rounded up seven hang-ups in the language of gay rights.
In grammar news, Megan Garber looked at the decline of whom, and a grammar war was sparked in Britain by some dropped apostrophes, to which Robert Lane Greene and Geoff Pullum both responded.
At Lingua Franca, Anne Curzan wrote about guys, girls, and women, and Ben Yagoda spoke with an expert about March Madness cliches. In other basketball news, Ben Zimmer had a chalk talk.
At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Dorothy Zemach revealed the story behind the word wayzgoose; Gill Francis talked about weather words; Michael Rundell delved into some J.R. Ewing sayings; and Stan Carey explored some U.S. regional slang. On his own blog, Stan had fun with alternative names of the exclamation mark and asked for your suggestions.
In the week in words, Fritinancy chose fiberhood, “a neighborhood that has Internet access via fiber-optic cable,” and subtweet, short for subliminal tweet, “a tweet that refers to a person without including his or her Twitter handle; the online version of talking about someone behind his back.”
Erin McKean‘s weekly word choices included loquat, a kind of fruit; landspout, a whirling storm; ludologist, one who studies games and game-playing; and skaldic poetry, poetry of the Vikings. Erin also rounded up February’s also-rans, noteworthy words that didn’t make it into her Wall Street Journal columns.
The Word Spy spotted Proteus phenomenon, “the tendency for early findings in a new area of research to alternate between opposite conclusions”; datasexual, “a person who obsessively collects and shares data about his or her own life to improve self-knowledge and embellish self-presentation”; and crime-as-a-service, “Web-based software that enables or enhances online criminal activity.”
Meanwhile, the narcotic word of the week was sizzurp, prescription cough syrup “mixed with soda and sometimes hard candy, like Jolly Ranchers.”
Oz Worders considered the archaic girt. The Dialect Blog explored Jane Austen’s English. The Virtual Linguist examined the phrase not on your nelly as well as a country suffix, while Sesquiotica, aka James Harbeck, discussed trendy suffixes and, at The Week, Scandinavian pronunciations of common English words. The Atlantic gave us 14 Swedish words that English should immediately adopt, including ogooglebar, or “not found via Google.”
This week we learned what the word clue has to do with a ball of string, what online dictionaries are learning about us, and fifty shades of the color gray. We enjoyed these collective nouns, these old-timey political words, and these old-fashioned swear words.
We were happy to hear that landmark status is being sought for the New York Public Library’s Rose Reading room, and that the Los Angeles County Museum has made 20,000 images available for free. We’d also like to visit these weirdly specific museums and to read all these academic papers on ‘90s TV shows.
We agreed with this list of blacklisted biz speak words. We were horrified by these bad covers of classic books and hope we never get one out of a book vending machine.
We enjoyed this regional vocabulary throwdown and these 18 obsolete words that should come back in style. We loved this piece in The New York Times about how the author’s sister cured her writer’s block, and the idea of a Hip Hop Word Count database. The OxfordWords blog told us about the language of My Fair Lady, and Fast Company discussed how the the title of a movie can determine if it will be a hit or a flop.
That’s it for this week!
[Photo: “Gun Failing,” CC BY 2.0 by andorand]
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.
Happy World Puppetry Day!
Who doesn’t love puppets? Okay, some are super creepy, but at least we know our 10 favorite puppet words won’t come suddenly come alive and attack us. At least we hope not. Enjoy!
mammet
“The unhappy Charles II. of Spain, a kind of ‘mammet’ (as the English called the Richard II. who appeared up in Islay, having escaped from Pomfret Castle), had for his first wife a daughter of Henrietta, the favorite sister of our Charles II.”
Julian Hawthorne, The Lock and Key Library, 1915
A mammet is a false god, idol, or “person who is the tool or puppet of another; a man of straw,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The word comes from the Old French mahommet, “idol,” which comes from the medieval Christian belief that the prophet Muhammad was worshipped as a god.
marionette
“Don’t expect a flight sim here: The control is very arcadelike, and at slow speeds can feel more like you’re controlling a marionette than a group of planes.”
Chris Kohler, “Super Paper Mario Leads Onslaught of New Wii Games,” Wired, April 27, 2007
The word marionette is French and means literally “little little Mary,” says the Online Etymology Dictionary. Marionette is a diminutive of the Old French mariole, “figurine, idol, picture of the Virgin Mary.”
In addition to being a puppet on strings, marionette also refers to the buffie or buffle-headed duck, as well as “a small complicated arrangement at the end of the batten in a ribbon-loom,” which, according to the Century Dictionary, “is curiously lifelike in its motions,” hence the name.
Muppet
“With the exception of curmudgeons (RIP Andy Rooney) such as Oscar, Statler, and Waldorf, the Muppets are brimming with optimism from their pieholes to their puppetholes.”
Mark Peters, “Fake Squid, Psychiatric Patients, And Other Muppet Meanings,” The Huffington Post, November 23, 2011
The Muppets were created by Jim Henson in 1955, and the term, Muppet, was apparently an arbitrary coinage by Henson, says the OED, and not a blend of marionette and puppet, although puppet is an obvious influence as well as perhaps moppet.
Throughout the 1980s, Muppet gained other meanings, including a fishing lure made to resemble “a young squid”; British prison slang for “a prisoner with psychiatric problems”; and “an incompetent or ineffectual person; an idiot.”
neurospast
“The Czar, a miserable neurospast at best, has neither the courage nor the brains to cope with the situation.”
The Comrade: An Illustrated Socialist Monthly, September 1903
Neurospast, a puppet on strings, is Greek in origin, coming from neuron, “nerve,” and spastikos, “afflicted with spasms.”
pootly-nautch
“If it is true, and I believe it is, that every great institution must have a big man behind it, what do you expect of Patton’s Princeton Pootlynautch?”
Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, Mother Earth, March 1907
Pootly-nautch, a puppet show, comes from a Hindi term meaning “wooden-puppet-dance.” For more English words derived from Indian languages, check out our post, Hobson-Jobson Soup.
poppet
“Six days ago, when I brought her my first earnings in full—twenty-three roubles forty copecks altogether—she called me her poppet: ‘poppet,’ said she, ‘my little poppet.’”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, 1917
Poppet, an obsolete term for puppet, is also a term of endearment, a doll, an effigy used in witchcraft, and in shipbuilding, a piece of wood used for various purposes.
There are a number of possibly origins of the word, says the OED, including the Middle French poupee, the Anglo-Norman poppe, and the Middle Dutch poppe, all of which mean “doll” and ultimately come from the Latin pupa, “girl, doll.” (The pupa is so-called because of its resemblance to a swaddled infant or doll.)
Punchinello
“Sophia was charmed with the contemplation of so heroic an action, and began to compliment herself with much premature flattery, when Cupid, who lay hid in her muff, suddenly crept out, and like Punchinello in a puppet-show, kicked all out before him.”
Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling
Punchinello is “the short fat buffoon or clown in an Italian puppet show” originating in the 17th century. The word ultimately comes from the Italian pollecena, “turkey pullet (from the resemblance between its beak and Punchinello’s nose).”
Punch, “the quarrelsome hook-nosed husband of Judy in the comic puppet show Punch and Judy,” is a shortening of Punchinello. This is where we get the term pleased as Punch, which refers to “his unfailing triumph over enemies.”
quisling
“Using the 2011 English riots as justification, the conservative junta introduced a brutal and oppressive regime where the BBC has become a quisling tool of the state by commandeering every CCTV camera in the UK.”
Kevin McKenna, “When Glasgow’s Undead Rise Up,” The Guardian, August 20, 2011
A quisling is “a traitor who serves as the puppet of the enemy occupying his or her country,” and is named for Vidkun Quisling, the head of Norway’s government during the Nazi occupation in the 1940s.
sock puppet
“One of the joys of the Internet age is the great new lingo it is producing. To ‘flame wars’ and ‘phishing’ we can now add ‘sock puppet.’”
“Sock Puppet Bites Man,” The New York Times, September 13, 2006
A sock puppet is a false identity used by someone on the Internet “to talk about themselves in the guise of a neutral observer,” often in the form of extravagant praise. Some notable examples.
Wayang (musée d'art oriental, Venise)
wayang
“Wahid may be the ultimate master of the wayang, Javanese shadow puppetry in which nothing is as it appears.”
Ron Moreau, “Duel of the Shadow Puppets,” Newsweek, October 24, 1999
Wayang refers to “the shadow-play of [Indonesia and Malaysia], played with colored marionettes cut out of flat pieces of leather.” Wayang is the Javanese word for “shadow.”
[Photo: Untitled, No known copyright restrictions, by Smithsonian Institute]
[Photo: “Wayang (musée d’art oriental, Venise),” CC BY 2.0 by dalbera]
Every week we watch tons of TV for weird and interesting words so you don’t have to. Here are our latest selections.
Delicious Cheese
affineur
Andrew Zimmern: “He’s also an affineur, a master in the art of aging cheese, a process that’s integral to the creation of world-class fromage.”
“Wisconsin,” Bizarre Foods America, March 11, 2013
Affineur, one responsible for aging cheese, is French in origin. Related is affine, “to refine (metal).”
bumper
Casteau: “Why the shit are you maggots not prepping!”
Archer: “Wait, are you doing a bumper?”
“Live and Let Dine,” Archer, February 28, 2013
A bumper is, in broadcasting, a pause between a television show and a commercial, often including voiceover and a dramatic clip from an upcoming segment. A bumper may also be a recurring theme music or an eyecatch, a recurring scene or illustration, often used in anime programs.
Changnesia
Dr. Kedan: “Changnesia is a fascinating and extremely rare disease on the forefront in psychological landscape.”
“Advanced Documentary Filmmaking,” Community, March 14, 2013
Changnesia is, according to Community, “the complete loss of memory caused by sudden trauma that was, itself, also forgotten.” It’s also known as “Kevin’s Disease” and comes from the Greek amnēsiā, “forgetfulness,” and the Chinese surname, Chang.
conclave
Samantha Bee: “Conclave is Latin for ‘with key.’ It describes the closed door meeting [to elect the new pope].”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 7, 2013
In addition to “the meeting held to elect a new pope,” conclave refers to a secret meeting in general, “the private rooms in which the cardinals meet to elect a new pope,” a private apartment, and “the body of cardinals.”
defenestrate
Mindy: “Sam was helping out around my apartment, and he was defenestrated.”
Danny: “You threw a soldier out a window?”
“The One That Got Away,” The Mindy Project, February 26, 2013
Defenestrate means to eject out of a window and is a back-formation of defenestration, which partly comes from the Latin fenestra, “window.”
electrocutioner
Louise: “I’m going to tell everyone the truth about Edison, the electrocutioner!”
“Topsy,” Bob’s Burgers, March 10, 2013
The word electrocutioner, “an executioner who uses electricity to kill the condemned person,” has been around at least since the late 19th century. (The earliest citation we found was from 1890.)
The Electrocutioner is also DC Comics character whose “costume possesses circuitry that allows him at will to either stun or kill his victims with a bolt of electricity.”
Gorn
Stephen Colbert [regarding President Obama’s mixing up Jedi mind trick and Vulcan mind meld]: “Do you even know what planet Yavin 4 is? That’s a trick question. It’s not a planet, it’s a moon. You are such a Gorn.”
The Colbert Report, March 4, 2013
A Gorn is a humanoid reptile from the Star Trek universe.
hooligan fish
Anthony Gastelum: “These are hooligans. These come from the Stikine River.”
Andrew Zimmern: “Hooligans are smelt, very rich in oil, preserved by smoking them.”
“Alaska,” Bizarre Foods America, March 11, 2013
The hooligan fish is also known as the eulachon or candlefish, a type of smelt rich in fat and oil. Eulachon-oil was “made to serve as a natural candle by inserting in it the pith of a rush or a strip of bark as a wick,” hence the name, candlefish.
Eulachon comes from Chinook jargon, “a pidgin trade language of the [U.S.] Pacific Northwest.” Hooligan is an alteration of eulachon. Other alterations include oolichan, oulachon, and uthlecan.
MacGuffin
Dean Martin: “Assisting in Kevin’s recovery has put a financial strain on the school. That’s why we are appealing to the MacGuffin Neurological Institute for this $40,000 grant, so we can continue to fight this terrible disease and hopefully one day pay for this documentary.”
“Advanced Documentary Filmmaking,” Community, March 14, 2013
A MacGuffin is “a plot element or other device used to catch the audience’s attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.” The MacGuffin in this episode of Community seems to be the making of the documentary or the need for the grant money.
The first recorded usage of the word may been by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939.
snowquester
Stephen Colbert: “The word snowquester is a combination of the word snow and the sequester. I think this is fantastic and ridiculous. Or fantasticulous.”
The Colbert Report, March 6, 2013
Colbert suggests naming all weather events “after what kind they are plus whatever people are talking about on television at the time,” such as blizzardashian, a blend of blizzard and Kardashian, and drone-cicle, a blend of drone, a pilotless aircraft, and icicle.
subsistence living
Andrew Zimmern: “People like Anthony Gastelum, Ruth Demmert, and Steve Rose put a lot of time intro training a new generation in the art of subsistence living.”
“Alaska,” Bizarre Foods America, March 11, 2013
Subsistence living depends upon subsistence farming, “in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families.” In rural Alaska, subsistence living is often protected over “commercial or recreational fishing and gaming.”
Van de Graaff generator
Teddy: “In high school my buddies and I built a Van de Graaff generator. You know, to get girls.”
“Topsy,” Bob’s Burgers, March 10, 2013
A Van de Graaf generator is an electrostatic generator invented in 1929 by American physicist Robert J. Van de Graaf. Touching a Van de Graaf generator makes one’s hair stand on end, due to the machine’s “static-producing qualities.”
wilding
Al Madrigal: “Now if you guys [Puerto Rico] become a state, you’re not gonna have that parade anymore. . .Montana doesn’t have a parade.”
Woman: “If we don’t have the parade, I guess we have less wilding opportunities. [laughs manically] Because you know my peeps can go a little crazy sometimes.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 6, 2013
Wilding is slang for “the act or practice of going about in a group threatening, robbing, or attacking others.”
The term was coined in the late 1980s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and made its first appearance in an April 22, 1989 article of The New York Times regarding the Central Park Jogger case: “Some of the 20 youths brought in for questioning had told investigators that the crime spree was the product of a pastime called ‘wilding’. ‘It’s not a term that we in the police had heard before,’ the chief said.”
[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Chris Buecheler]
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.