Category Archives: Word Soup

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Word Soup Wednesday: blood eagle, gestictionary, low riding

Vintage Televisions

Vintage Televisions

Welcome to Word Soup Wednesday, in which we bring you some weird, funny, and interesting words from recent TV.

blood eagle

Jimmy: “Vikings used to execute Christians by breaking their ribs, bending them back, and draping the lungs over them to resemble wings. They used to call it a blood eagle.”

“Coquilles,” Hannibal, April 25, 2013

The blood eagle is “a method of Viking ritual execution” mentioned in skaldic poetry and Norse sagas. Whether or not such a practice actually took place is disputed.

Not surprisingly, Blood Eagle is also the name of a band, specifically “a heavy rave trash duo.”

catarrh

Mr. Gillepsie: “If I don’t smoke, I can’t clear my catarrh.”

Episode 3, Call the Midwife, April 14, 2013

Catarrh is an “inflammation of a mucous membrane, especially of the air-passages of the head and throat.” The word comes from the Greek katarrein, “to flow down.”

Cigarettes were once advertised as having a variety of health benefits, including the “temporary relief of paroxysms of asthma.”

co-POTAL

Selina: “We’re going co-POTAL.”

“Midterms,” Veep, April 14, 2013

Thanks to Nancy Friedman, aka Fritinancy, for pointing out this Word Soup-worthy word. As per Nancy, co-POTAL relates to a “shared presidency,” and comes from POTUS, President of the United States.

folie à deux

Abigail: “Can you catch somebody’s crazy?”
Dr. Bloom: “Folie à deux. It’s a French psychiatric term. Madness shared by two.”

“Potage,” Hannibal, April 18, 2013

Folie à deux is “a condition in which symptoms of a mental disorder, such as the same delusional beliefs or ideas, occur simultaneously in two individuals who share a close relationship or association.” The terms seems to have first appeared in English around 1913, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Some real life cases.

gestictionary

Gary: “Those signals took years! I can’t just tear up the gestictionary and come up with new codes like that.”

“Signals,” Veep, April 21, 2013

Another hat tip to Fritinancy! A gestictionary is a “guide to coded gestures,” what Gary and Selina, the Vice President, have devised to allow Selina to signal when she, for instance, wants an early departure from an undesirable situation. The word is a blend of gesture and dictionary.

han

Anthony Bourdain: “To take a peek into the dark heart of the Korean psyche, maybe it helps to get familiar with han. It’s a concept that for non-Koreans can be difficult to fully grasp.”

“Los Angeles (Koreatown),” Parts Unknown, April 21, 2013

Han is a “concept in Korean culture” that “denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds,” and “aspects of lament and unavenged injustice.”

The concept may have arisen from “Korea’s history of having been invaded by other neighboring nations, such as the Khitans, the Manchu/Jurchens, the Mongols, and the Japanese,” as well as “class system strictures, such as the distinction between the elite Yangban class and the peasants.”

Han’s cognates in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese translate simply as “hate.”

locavore

Anthony Bourdain: “What do you do if you’re a locavore in L.A.? You look around. What’s local and delicious?”

“Los Angeles (Koreatown),” Parts Unknown, April 21, 2013

A locavore is someone “who tries to eat only locally grown foods.” The word combines local and the –vore ending of such eating words as carnivore, omnivore, etc. -vore ultimately comes from the Latin vorare, “to devour.”

Locavore was coined in 2005 by “a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius,” and was the Oxford American Dictionary’s 2007 word of the year.

Lowrider Wynwood

Lowrider Wynwood

low riding

Anthony Bourdain: “Few things embody that particularly southern California Latino street culture than low riding.”

“Los Angeles (Koreatown),” Parts Unknown, April 21, 2013

Low riding is the chiefly U.S. “practice of driving a low rider,” says the OED,” or “the (youth) culture associated with this, esp. that originating amongst the male Chicano and Hispanic populations of southern California.” A low rider, or lowrider, is “a customized car whose springs have been shortened so that the chassis rides close to the ground, often equipped with hydraulic lifts that can be controlled by the driver.”

(And now the Low Rider song is stuck in our heads. And now it’s stuck in yours. [You’re welcome.])

mohinga

Anthony Bourdain: “Mohinga? This I must have. Correct me if I’m wrong [but] if there’s a national dish, a fundamental most beloved dish, would it be this?”

“Myanmar,” Parts Unknown, April 14, 2013

Mohinga is a Burmese dish of rice noodles in fish soup and is “usually eaten as breakfast.” More fish soups.

shrike

Abigail: “Why do they call him the Shrike?”
Freddie: “It’s a bird that impales its prey, harvests the organs to eat later.”

“Potage,” Hannibal, April 18, 2013

A shrike is a type of carnivorous bird that has “a screeching call and a strong hooked bill with a toothlike projection.” It often impales “its prey on sharp-pointed thorns or barbs of wire fencing.” The word shrike may come from an Old English term that may have generally been used for birds with shrill cries, says the OED. Also known as the butcher bird.

terroir

Roy Choi: “For me I don’t see mustard plants and sheep grazing. I see barbed wire and telephone poles. I see puddles, and all of that stuff contributes to the flavor of the food. It’s truly what I call a terroir, a regional food.”

“Los Angeles (Koreatown),” Parts Unknown, April 21, 2013

Terroir, which is French in origin, refers to “the complete set of local conditions in which a particular wine or family of wines is produced, including soil-type, weather conditions, topography and wine-making savoir-faire.” The word also now applies to foods. Choi is referring to his Kogi Korean BBQ cuisine, a blend of Mexican and Korean flavors unique to L.A.

For even more about this concept, check out Rowan Jacobsen’s American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields.

thanaka

Anthony Bourdain: “But [what] they all seem to have in common, however, is thanaka, a face paint and sunblock made from tree bark that masks many of their faces.”

“Myanmar,” Parts Unknown, April 14, 2013

Thanaka, used often in Myanmar and neighboring countries such as Thailand, is a sunblock paste made from the ground-up bark of thanaka and theethee trees. Thanaka is also thought to remove acne, promote smooth skin, and act as an anti-fungal.

tourist triangle

Anthony Bourdain: “It should be pointed out that we are still within the confines of the tourist triangle, areas permissible for travel. Whole sectors of this country, much of it in fact, are off limits.”

“Myanmar,” Parts Unknown, April 14, 2013

The tourist triangle of Myanmar refers to the route of Yangon, Mandalay, and Pagan. The Golden Triangle is an opium-producing area of Asia while the Bermuda Triangle is “an area in the western Atlantic Ocean where many ships and planes are supposed to have been mysteriously lost.”

That’s it for this installment!

[Photo Credit: “Vintage Televisions,” CC BY 2.0 by Tiffany Terry]
[Photo Credit: “Lowrider Wynwood,” CC BY 2.0 by Phillip Pessar]

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Cullions, Fustilarians, and Pizzles: A Short Dictionary of Shakespearean Insults

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

While Shakespeare’s actual date of birth remains unknown, April 23, the date of his death, is celebrated as his birthday. Bardolators pay homage by learning to talk like him and his characters – what better way to start than with insults?

Here we round up ten of our favorite Shakespearean jabs, what they mean exactly, and where they came from.

assinego

Thersites: “Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee.”

Act 2. Scene I, Troiles and Cressida

Assinego, also spelled asinego, is “a little ass” or “foolish fellow.” The word comes from the Spanish asnico, diminutive of asno, “ass.”

bed-presser

Prince Henry: “I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,—”

Act 2. Scene IV, Henry IV, Part 1

A bed-presser is someone who’s lazy and loves their bed. Other old-timey synonyms for sluggard include idlesby, loll-poop, curry-favel, and, our favorite, loitersack.

bull’s pizzle

Falstaff: “’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish!”

Act 2. Scene IV, Henry IV, Part 1

This quote from Henry IV is jam-packed with insults. A starveling is someone who is starving but probably means a weakling here. An elf-skin is “a man of shrivelled and shrunken form,” says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). A neat’s tongue is a tongue of cow or ox, where neat is an obsolete term for a “domestic bovine animal,” and a stock-fish is fish “cured by splitting and drying hard without salt,” perhaps with the idea of something dried up and shriveled.

Finally, a bull’s pizzle is a bull’s penis. The word pizzle comes from a Low German word meaning “tendon,” and is now mostly used in Australia and New Zealand, according to the OED. Penis, in case you were wondering, is Latin in origin.

cullion

Queen: “Away, base cullions!”

Act 1. Scene III, Henry VI, Part 2

A cullion is “a contemptible fellow; a rascal.” An earlier meaning is “testicle,” coming from the Latin culleus, “bag.” See also cully and cojones.

fustilarian

Falstaff: “Away, you scullion! you rampallion! You fustilarian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe.”

Act 2. Scene I, Henry IV, Part 2

Another quote that’s teeming with taunts! A scullion is “a servant who cleans pots and kettles, and does other menial service in the kitchen or scullery,” a rampallion is a villain or rascal, and a fustilarian is a scoundrel.

Fustilarian comes from fustilugs, “an unattractive, grossly overweight person.” Fustilugs comes from a combination of fusty, musty or lacking freshness, and lug, “anything that moves slowly or with difficulty.”

Catastrophe here refers to “the posteriors,” as the OED puts it. So I’ll tickle your catastrophe means something like “I’ll kick your ass.”

harebrained

Charles: “Let’s leave this town; for they are hare-brain’d slaves, / And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.”

Act 1. Scene II, Henry VI, Part 1

Harebrained means having “no more brain than a hare.” Shakespeare’s is the earliest recorded use of this word, which is now often associated with the phrase harebrained scheme.

The earliest mention of harebrained scheme we found was from an 1892 New York Times article: “Of course this is nonsensical, but it appears to have a certain excuse in the fact that the Queen did harbor some such harebrained scheme, and actually summoned Devonshire to Osborne House to discuss it.”

Know of an earlier mention of harebrained scheme? Let us know in the comments.

hobby-horse

Leontes: “My wife’s a hobby-horse, deserves a name / As rank as any flax-wench that puts to/ Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t.”

Act 1. Scene II, Winter’s Tale

In this context a hobby-horse is a loose woman or prostitute, according to Gordon H. Williams’s Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature. The hobby-horse was “one of the principal performers in a morris-dance,” which  says Williams, was “notorious for licentious behaviour under the mask of Maygaming.”

lily-livered

Macbeth: “Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, / Thou lily-liver’d boy.”

Act 5. Scene III, Macbeth

Lily-livered means cowardly or timid, and this use in Macbeth seems to be the earliest. Shakespeare seemed to also be the first to use lily to mean pale or bloodless. During Elizabethan times, the liver was believed to be the “seat of love and passion,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. As a “healthy liver is typically dark reddish-brown,” a pale liver is presumably unhealthy and weak.

puppy-headed

Trinculo: “I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster.”

Act 2. Scene II, The Tempest

Being puppy-headed means being stupid, like a puppy. While puppy at first meant “a small dog kept as a lady’s pet or plaything; a lapdog,” says the OED, by Shakespeare’s time it meant “a young dog.”

In the quote Trinculo is referring to Caliban, “a ‘savage and deformed’ slave of Prospero, represented as the offspring of the devil and the witch Sycorax,” and “figuratively, a person of a low, bestial nature.”

three-suited

Kent: “A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave.”

Act 2. Scene II, King Lear

Three-suited means having “only three suits of clothes,” and therefore being “beggarly,” or so petty or paltry “as to deserve contempt.” Broken meat refers to “fragments of meat” left after a meal. Worsted stockings seem to be lower quality stockings.

Not insulting enough? Check out these, these, and finally these as told by, what else, cats. Also be sure to see these Wordnik-made lists, Slings and Arrows, 135 Offensive Shakespearean Terms, and today’s list of the day, Knaves, Rogues, and Stewed Prunes. For some now-common words and phrases that the Bard coined or popularized, revisit last year’s post.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by tonynetone]

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Word Soup Wednesday: dead flight, Horlicks, Southern strategy

When you've had a Horlicks of a day...

When you've had a Horlicks of a day...

Welcome to Word Soup Wednesday, in which we bring you those weird, funny, and interesting words from recent TV.

baby boom

Jenny: “We’re in the middle of a baby boom.”

Episode 2, Season 2, Call the Midwife, April 7, 2013

A baby boom is “a sudden large increase in the birthrate,” especially referring to the one that occurred starting in the early 1940s through the early 1960s in the United States. The post WWII-baby boom in the United Kingdom was shorter, “peaking in 1946.” A baby boomer is someone born during these years.

The earliest use of baby boom is from 1880, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).

beard

Reporter [to Angela]: “A question for the Senator’s beard.”

“Stairmageddon,” The Office, April 11, 2013

A beard, according to the OED, is someone who pretends to be “in a heterosexual relationship with a homosexual person in order to help to conceal that person’s homosexuality.”

This seems to come from an earlier meaning from the gambling world: someone “who performs a transaction or (in later use) other action on behalf of another in order to conceal the identity of the principal,” perhaps from the idea of wearing a beard as a disguise.

bread and circuses

Abed: “Placating students with a fun event. Classic bread and circuses. In ancient Rome the emperor would distract the populace from their problems by allocating money for free bread and circuses.”

“Herstory of Dance,” Community, April 4, 2013

Bread and circuses refers to “offerings, such as benefits or entertainments, intended to placate discontent or distract attention from a policy or situation,” and comes from a 1914 translation of the Roman poet Juvenal’s Latin phrase, panem et circenses.

Juvenal is referring to the “Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power.”

cabochon

Appraiser: “What you do have is a really nice example of a cabochon moonstone that’s really clean and really clear. And if you move it, you can actually see the light go through it.”

“Cincinnati,” Antiques Roadshow, April 8, 2013

Cabochon is “a polished but uncut precious stone,” as well as “a convex style of cutting gems.” This word comes from the French caboche, meaning “head,” which also gives us cabbage.

dead flight

Stephen Colbert: “What is the cause of death [of Detroit]?”
Charlie LeDuff: “It’s a lot of things. White flight, black flight, business flight, job flight. We even have dead flight.”

The Colbert Report, April 9, 2013

White flight, a term that originated in the late 1960s, is “the migration of white people from inner-city areas (esp. those with a large black population) to the suburbs,” says the OED.

Dead flight is, according to journalist and Detroit-native Charlie LeDuff, the exhumation of dead bodies from inner-city cemeteries to those in the suburbs. “People who grew up in Detroit and now live out in the suburbs and are afraid of it,” says LeDuff, “have gone and got Grandma, exhumed her, and brought her out to the suburbs to visit her.”

duppy

Trick: “Lisa is a duppy, a Fae spirit that lives in the earth.”

“Adventures in Fae-bysitting,” Lost Girl, April 1, 2013

The duppy is, in Caribbean folklore, a ghost or spirit, often said to be malicious in nature.

growler

Pierce: “I’m gonna go take a growler.”

“Intro to Felt Surrogacy,” Community, April 11, 2013

Growler is slang for a type of defecation. It also refers to a small iceberg, named for the sound the iceberg makes when it plunges deeper into the water, and a container used for carrying beer, again perhaps coming from the sound it makes, in this case being pushed across a bar.

guinea worm

Jimmy Carter: “If you drink a [guinea worm] out of a filthy water hole. . .you drink the Guinea worm eggs and in a year’s time it grows into a worm about 30 inches long.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, April 9, 2013

The guinea worm is a long threadlike parasitic worm found in tropical Asia and Africa. “It stings the inside of your skin,” says Carter, “and creates a big sore and it emerges. It takes 30 days to come out and destroys muscle tissue and leaves you a cripple.”

Horlicks

Chummy: “With any luck, we’ll be back in time for Horlicks.”

Episode 1, Season 2, Call the Midwife, March 31, 2013

Horlicks is a hot malted milk drink, often taken before bedtime, and named for the drink’s manufacturer. In the mid 1970s, according to the OED, it gained the slang sense of “a mess; a disordered or spoiled state of affairs,” often used in the phrase to make a Horlicks of.

Nailsea glass

Appraiser: “That style of all this white glass like little dots in the green, that’s generally referred to as Nailsea glass.”

“Cincinnati,” Antiques Roadshow, April 8, 2013

Nailsea is a town near Bristol, England, once “an industrial centre based on coal mining and glass manufacture,” now “replaced by service industries.” The name may come from the Old English for Naegl’s island.

nigger-rig

County Commissioner Jim Gile: “I guarantee it would be the same if you go to nigger-rigging it.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, April 11, 2013

Jim Gile, County Commissioner of Saline County, Kansas, used the term nigger-rigging “in a study session with his fellow commissioners.” Nigger-rig is an offensive term meaning to create or repair in a makeshift or haphazard manner.

Gile went on to say that he is “not a prejudiced person” as he has built “Habitat [for Humanity] homes for colored people.” Describing African Americans as “colored” is also offensive.

Pachira tree

Manny: “It’s a Pachira, a Taiwanese symbol of good financial fortune. It’s also known as a money tree.”
Jay: “That makes two of us.”

“Flip Flop,” Modern Family, April 10, 2013

The Pachira, or Pachira aquatica, is a tropical tree that grows in swamps. The origin of how it came to be associated with good financial fortune is unclear. The “legend” is that “a poor man prayed for money, found this ‘odd’ plant, took it home as an omen, and made money selling plants grown from its seeds.”

Another story is that in the mid-1980s a Taiwanese truck driver was the first to cultivate the trees, which became popular as ornamentals first in Japan then the rest of East Asia.

A money tree also refers to a source of seemingly inexhaustible funds, as well as “a kind of holy tree believed to bring money and good fortune.”

shandy

Shivrang: “Who fancies a shandy?”
Winston: “What the hell is that?”
Shivrang: “It’s a drink.”

“Bachelorette Party,” New Girl, April 9, 2013

Shandy, short for shandygaff, is beer and lemonade mixed together. The origin of the word is unknown although an earlier meaning of shandy is “wild, boisterous,” and gaff can refer to a fair, “any public place of amusement,” and “humbug, nonsense,” says the OED.

Southern strategy

Jon Stewart: “For the last 50 years, the Republican Party has embraced a craven political calculation known as the Southern strategy.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, April 11, 2013

In a recent speech at Howard University, a historically black college, Republican Senator Rand Paul asked, “How did the party that elected the first black US Senator, the party that elected the first 20 African American Congressmen become a party that now loses 95% of the black vote?”

The answer, said Jon Stewart, is the Southern strategy, a Republican party tactic to get votes in the South by “appealing to racism against against African Americans.” The Southern strategy started in the late 1960s during the Presidential campaign of Richard Nixon, who said in 1970: “The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are.”

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Duncan Verrall]

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Tax Soup: 10 Weird Taxes

Considering The Tax Shelter

Considering The Tax Shelter

Filing taxes is a pain but be glad you’re (hopefully) not paying any of these ludicrous levies. From a penalty on hirsuteness to fees for pig-feeding, here are 10 of our favorite bizarre taxes.

beard-token

“Russians who wanted to keep their beards were forced to a ‘beard tax’ upon payment of which a token or receipt was issued. This was the famous Russian ‘beard token.'”

Robert Svensson, “Coin Collector’s Corner,” Reading Eagle, September 24, 1972

King Henry VIII of England set up a tax on beards in 1535, perhaps as a convenient way to raise funds (the bearded king was himself exempt from the fee). His daughter, Elizabeth I, reintroduced the tax, penalizing “every beard of more than two weeks’ growth.”

The beard-token was introduced by Peter the Great of Russia in 1724. It was a copper coin given as a kind of receipt “to those who had paid the tax of 50 rubles every year for the privilege of wearing their beards.” The czar introduced this beard tax in the spirit of modern reform.

Danegeld

“Æthelred had in an earlier part of his reign levied a land-tax known as the Danegeld to pay off the Danes – the first instance of a general tax in England.”

Samuel R. Gardiner, Student’s History of England, 1915

The Danegeld was “a tax levied in England from the 10th to the 12th century to finance protection against” Danish invaders, otherwise known as Vikings. Danegeld comes from an Old Norse word meaning “Dane tribute.”

fumage

“Another of Sir William Petty’s helps in the arithmetic of population was the Chimney Tax, a revival of the old fumage or hearth-money- – smoke farthings, as the people called them – once paid, according to Domesday Book, for every chimney in a house.”

Sir William Petty, Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic, 1888

Fumage, or tax on chimneys, was set up in England in 1662, as “it was considered easier to establish the number of hearths than the number of heads” per household. The tax was repealed in 1689 by William and Mary, who stated that fumage was:

not only a great oppression to the poorer sort, but a badge of slavery upon the whole people, exposing every man’s house to be entered into, and searched at pleasure, by persons unknown to him.

Fumage, which ultimately comes from the Latin fumus, “smoke,” is also known as chimney-money, feuage, hearth-tax, and hearth-penny.

obrok

“The peasants came to understand that what he wished was to break up the Mir, or rural Commune, and to put them all on obrok – that is to say, make them pay a yearly sum instead of giving him a certain amount of agricultural labour. Much to his astonishment, his scheme did not meet with any sympathy.”

Donald Mackenzie Wallace, Russia, 1905

In feudal Russia, a peasant absent from his lord’s estate had to pay a special tax or rent called the obrok. Obrok translates from Russian as “rent, tribute,” and is also known as quitrent.

 pannage

“The importance of the family had thus dwindled, but they still retained the old Saxon manor-house, with a couple of farms and a grove large enough to afford pannage to a hundred pigs – ‘sylva de centum porcis,’ as the old family parchments describe it.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company, 1890

Pannage was, in medieval England, “a tax paid for the privilege of feeding swine in the woods.” It was apparently a common practice to release domestic pigs in the forest to let them feed on “ fallen acorns, beechmast, chestnuts or other nuts.”

Pannage also refers to the act of pigs foraging in the woods, says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), as well as the fallen acorns, etc. that they feed on. The word ultimately comes from the Latin pastio, “feeding, pasturing.”

piccage

“The usual payments made to the owners of markets and fairs are of toll and stallage. In some places, however, piccage, pennage, and other dues are payable.”

Joseph Gerald Pease and Herbert Chitty, A Treatise on the Law of Markets and Fairs, 1899

If you were a strolling player in Tudor-era England, you had to pay a piccage tax for the privilege of setting up a booth at a fair. Also spelled pickage, the word probably comes from the Anglo-Norma pic, “pickaxe,” perhaps for the act of breaking ground to set up a booth.

poll tax

“The Justice Department, acting swiftly under President Johnson’s orders, filed a federal court suit yesterday to wipe out Mississippi’s poll tax. Under the law, state voters must pay $2 a year to cast ballots in state elections.”

Nicholas Katzenbach, “U.S. Sues to Kill Mississippi Poll Tax,” The Miami News, August 8, 1965

A poll tax is “a tax levied on people rather than on property, often as a requirement for voting.” The term poll tax originated in the 17th century where poll means “head” and comes from the Middle Dutch pol, “head, top.” Poll meaning “the casting and registering of votes in an election” also comes from the Middle Dutch pol, from “the notion of counting heads.” Thus, a poll tax as a requirement for voting has a double meaning: a tax on a person rather than property, and a tax to vote.

In the 19th century United States, the poll tax as a requirement for voting emerged “as a means of restricting eligible voters,” such as African Americans, Native Americans, and poor whites. In 1937, the poll tax was found to be unconstitutional.

scutage

“Continued abuses of scutage, extortion of money from nobles in return for certain privileges, aroused not only the Barons, but the lesser gentry and even the lowly citizens.”

Lynn Poole, “Stamp Will Mark Anniversary of The Magna Carta,” The Morning Record, June 3, 1965

Scutage, also known as escuage, is “a tax paid in lieu of military service in feudal times.” The word comes from the Latin scūtum, “shield.”

sheriff-tooth

“The sheriffs themselves must brood upon the long decline of their once powerful office. Why was the ancient custom of tenure by ‘sheriff tooth‘ abolished? The tenant was bound to furnish abundant good food and drink to the sheriff of his county.”

“N.Y. Times Comment on Raid Made on Sheriffs’ Banquet,” The Montreal Gazette, July 13, 1928

In 13th century England, the sheriff-tooth was levied for “the service of providing entertainment for the sheriff at his county courts.” Between 1327 and 1377, according to the OED, residents of Derbyshire, a county in England, complained of the sheriff-tooth as “wrongful exaction,” akin to extortion.

wax-scot

“There was at one time in England a due called wax-shot or wax-scot, a gift of wax candles presented to churches times a year.”

William S. Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs, 1898

Wax candles don’t come cheap, or at least they didn’t in 17th century England. Parishioners were required to pay a wax-scot “to supply the church with wax candles.”

Wax-scot is also known as wax-shot. Shot meaning “discharge of a weapon” comes from the Old English gesceot, which also means “payment.” This is also where we get the term scot-free, “without having to pay.”

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Word Soup Wednesday: arabber, fuchsteufelwild, nerd glaze

Decca Colour Television ( 1973 )

Decca Colour Television ( 1973 )

Every week we watch tons of TV for weird and interesting words. Here are our latest selections.

AHLTA and VistA

Jon Stewart: “The Defense Department uses a medical tracking program called AHLTA while the VA uses a generally superior program called VistA, and those two programs are unable to communicate with each other.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 27, 2013

AHLTA, or the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application, is “the electronic medical record (EMR) system used by medical providers of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).” VistA, the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, is the system used by the Veterans Health Administration, the medical system of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

The systems are not entirely compatible, causing major backlogs in the processing of veterans’ disability claims.

arabber

Andrew Zimmern: “Starting in the late 1800s, arabbers were a common sight in east coast cities, markets on wheels, bringing fresh produce to people before there were neighborhood supermarkets and offering a living to African Americans who were barred from taking jobs traditionally offered to whites.”

“Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay,” Bizarre Foods America, March 25, 2013

An arabber is “a street merchant who sells fruits and vegetables from a colorful, horse-drawn cart.” The term seems to come from street arab, an obsolete and now offensive term for “a homeless vagabond in the streets of a city.” (Fans of The Wire will remember that arabbers played a part in several seasons of that show.)

autopsy

Jon Stewart: “Last week the Republican party released its report on what went wrong in the 2012 election, and how the Republican party can reverse its fortune in the future. It’s a document of idealism, principle, and hope.”
Newscaster: “Officials are calling it an autopsy.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 26, 2013

An autopsy is the “examination of a cadaver to determine or confirm the cause of death.” The word comes from the Greek autopsiā, “a seeing for oneself.” An analysis of a finished event is also often referred to as a postmortem, which is Latin for “after death.”

beagling

Andrew Zimmern: “They’ve invited me along to try a very particular kind of rabbit hunting, better known as beagling.”

“The Ozarks,” Bizarre Foods America, April 1, 2013

Beagling is hunting with beagles. The word beagle may come from the Old French bee gueule, “loudmouth.” More on dog words.

dirk

Appraiser: “Now, dirk is basically a fancy name for a type of a dagger or a knife that evolved really from a utilitarian item to something that became very important to ceremonial purpose for the Scottish military.”

“Cincinnati,” Antiques Roadshow, April 1, 2013

A dirk is a dagger in general but refers especially to “the long and heavy dagger worn as a part of the equipment of the duniwassal, or gentleman, among the Celtic Highlanders of Scotland.”

flimflam

Mawmaw: “The man said he’d bring the oil to the house, but I was flimflammed.”

“Mother’s Day,” Raising Hope, March 28, 2013

To be flimflammed means to be swindled or cheated. The origin may be Scandinavian, possibly coming from the Old Norse flim, “a lampoon.”

fuchsteufelwild

Nick: “Its stomp can cause the earth to shudder beneath him. Its muscles secrete a highly concentrated acid allowing him to burn and slice through their victims.”
Hank: “Sounds like our guy. That is one ugly fuchsteu – whatever.”
Nick: “Fuchsteufelwild.”

“Nameless,” Grimm, March 29, 2013

A fuchsteufelwild is a creature, or Wesen, in the Grimm universe that can transform between human and goblin-like form. The word translates literally from German as “fox devil ferocious,” and idiomatically as livid or very angry.

The fuchsteufelwild in this episode refers to himself as “rage.”

mandola

Appraiser: “The mandola is related to the mandolin the same way a viola is related to a violin.”

“Myrtle Beach,” Antiques Roadshow, March 23, 2013

A mandola is “an older and larger variety of the mandolin.” Mandolin is a diminutive of mandola, which means “lute” in Italian.

nerd glaze

Jon Stewart: “I have people who work here, in this office, who disappear for days on Game of Thrones jags, and they just come back with that sort of, ‘Can’t wait – ‘”
Peter Dinklage: “Nerd glaze.”
Jon Stewart: “You just coined something, sir. If somebody doesn’t have nerdglaze dot com right now, you have to register that.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, March 25, 2013

Nerd glaze is a term coined by Games of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage on a recent episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. It seems to refer to an expression of daze and awe as a result of binge-watching a favorite TV show, or awe-struck fandom in general.

Nerdglaze.com has indeed been registered.

tikbalang

Tamsin: “Tikbalang. They’re forest creatures. I hunted them in the Philippines.”

“Delinquents,” Lost Girl, March 25, 2013

The tikbalang is “a creature of Philippine folklore said to lurk in the mountains and forests of the Philippines.” It’s a “tall, bony humanoid creature with disproportionately long limbs” and “the head and feet of an animal, most commonly a horse.” More Asian mythical creatures.

Trojan horse

Cam: “I hide what I want in something bigger and more expensive. Then when she rejects that, we ‘compromise’ on what I wanted all along. I call my method the Trojan horse. You know how I got Lily? I asked Mitchell for triplets.”

“The Wow Factor,” Modern Family, March 27, 2013

The Trojan horse is, in classical mythology, “a large hollow wooden horse built by Greek soldiers besieging Troy during the Trojan War, and left as a ‘gift’ when they pretended to abandon their seige.” The horse “was taken into the city by the Trojans, and Greek soldiers concealed inside came out and opened the gates to the city, enabling the capture of the city by the Greeks.”

Trojan horse has many figurative meanings, including “a subversive person or device placed within the ranks of the enemy”; in computing, “a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software”; and in business, “an offer made to lure customers, seeming like a good deal, that has the ultimate effect of extorting large amounts of money from the customer.”

[Photo: “Decca Colour Television ( 1973 ),” CC BY 2.0 by Andy Beez]

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Puppet Words on a String

Untitled

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 (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]

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Word Soup Wednesday: affineur, Changnesia, snowquester

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

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]