Category Archives: Word Soup

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Word Soup Wednesday: Geophagy, Hog Maw, Rexie

1963 ... television eyeglasses

Television Eyeglasses, by James Vaughn

[Photo: CC BY-SA 2.0 by James Vaughn]

Updated.

Welcome to Word Soup Wednesday, in which we bring you our favorite strange, obscure, unbelievable (and sometimes NSFW) words from sitcoms, dramas, news shows, and just about anything else on TV.

baldy house

Anthony Bourdain: “I gotta know: why do they call it a baldy house?”
Guide: “It was believed, sort of incorrectly, that if you shave a woman’s crotch bald, she’d be less likely to transmit crabs.”

“Philadelphia,” The Layover, December 3, 2012

A baldy house is a brothel and may be a play on bawdyhouse. Brothel comes from an Old English word meaning “to decay,” and at first referred to “a wretch” or “lewd man or woman.” Bawdy may come from a Welsh word meaning “mud.”

Belsnickel

Dwight: “What about an authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas? Drink some gluhwein, enjoy some hossenfeffer. Enjoy Christmas with St. Nicholas’s rural German companion, Belsnickel?”

“Dwight Christmas,” The Office, December 6, 2012

Belsnickel is “a crotchety, fur-clad Christmas gift-bringer figure in the folklore of the Palatinate region of southwestern Germany,” and is “preserved in Pennsylvania Dutch communities.” The name comes from the German pelz, “to pelt,” and the name Nikolaus. See also Krampus.

filibuster

Shep Smith: “You know that one friend who just won’t let you get a word in edgewise? Well, the U.S. Senate has a friend like that. His name is filibuster.”
Jon Stewart: “And you know that one friend who comes to where you live and rearranges your stuff? Gerrymander.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, December 3, 2012

Filibuster is “the use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speechmaking, for the purpose of delaying legislative action.” The word originally referred to “an adventurer who engages in a private military action in a foreign country,” specifically “the West Indian bucaneers or pirates of the seventeenth century.” Filibuster ultimately comes from the Dutch vrijbuiter, “pirate.”

flaneur

Woman: “The word ‘flaneur’ in French is just to kind of wander. Here it’s okay to just be a flaneur and to dream and to walk along and then stop in a cafe.”

“Paris,” The Layover, November 26, 2012

A flaneur is “an idle, gossiping saunterer; one who habitually strolls about idly.” The word is French in origin.

geophagy

Sabrina: “It’s called geophagy. I sense you have questions. Go ahead.”
Burt: “Do you wash your hands before you eat dirt? If it falls on the ground, is there a five second rule? Have you ever tried sand?”

“Squeak Means Squeak,” Raising Hope, December 4, 2012

Geophagy is “the eating of earthy substances, such as clay or chalk, practiced among various peoples as a custom or for dietary or subsistence reasons,” and is a combination of the Greek words for “earth” and “eat.”

Pica is “an abnormal craving or appetite for nonfood substances, such as dirt, paint, or clay,” and comes from the Latin word for magpie, “from its omnivorous nature.”

granny pod

Newscaster: “We’re checking out a business that makes granny pods. . . . They’re long term care housing options for the elderly. They’re portable. They can be set up right on your property, in your backyard if you want.”

The Colbert Report, December 3, 2012

Pod meaning “a casing or housing forming part of a vehicle” originated around 1950, says the Oxford English Dictionary. The earliest meaning was “in botany, a more or less elongated cylindrical or flatfish seed-vessel, as of the pea, bean, catalpa.”

guillotine

Anthony Bourdain: “Maurice and I catch up with a cold rosé and a snack called a guillotine, thin slices of bread with equally thin slices of meat and cheese. Simple and good.”

“Paris,” The Layover, November 26, 2012

The guillotine, “a device consisting of a heavy blade held aloft between upright guides and dropped to behead the victim below,” or “an instrument, such as a paper cutter, similar in action to a guillotine.”

The device was named for Joseph Guillotin, who “proposed, for humanitarian and efficiency reasons, that capital punishment be carried out by beheading quickly and cleanly on a machine.”

Perhaps the snack is named for the device that slices the meat, cheese, and bread.

hog maw

Kevin: “I love this hog mama.”
Phyllis: “Dwight said it’s hog maw.”
Kevin: “What’s maw?”
Phyllis: “It’s the lining of the stomach of the pig.”

“Dwight Christmas,” The Office, December 6, 2012

The maw of hog maw comes from the Old English maga, “stomach.” Hackin is “a pudding made in the maw of a sheep or hog,” and seems similar to haggis.

housewife

Jon Stewart: “[Congresswoman Candice Miller] will be the chair of the House Administration Committee, whose responsibilities apparently range from ‘making Congress more open and accessible’ to ‘ensuring the House runs efficiently and smoothly.’ So we’ve got a woman to be, to coin a phrase, the House wife.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, December 4, 2012

A housewife is “a woman who manages her own household as her main occupation.” The word hussy, “a woman considered brazen or immoral,” is an alteration of housewife, and originally had the same meaning, “the mistress of the house.”

hyperemesis gravidarum

Jon Stewart: “While morning sickness may be all right for commoners, the royals puke fancy.”
Newcaster: “[Kate Middleton is] suffering from what is called hyperemesis gravidarum.”
Jon Stewart: “Isn’t that the spell they used to defeat Voldemort?”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, December 6, 2012

Hyperemesis is “excessive vomiting” while gravidarum means “during pregnancy.” Gravid is a clinical term for being pregnant, and comes from the Latin gravis, “heavy.”

merkin

Guide: “They actually didn’t want the women to be shaven bald. That meant you were either underage or a prostitute. So they would make them wear crotch wigs.”
Anthony: “Crotch wigs known as a merkin. Why I know this, I don’t know.”

“Philadelphia,” The Layover, December 3, 2012

Merkin is probably an alteration of malkin, “a kitchen servant, or any common woman; a slattern,” or “a mop.”

rexie

Jake [regarding Marley]: “She hasn’t been eating. She’s been skipping lunch.”
Santana [to Kitty]: “Because you’ve been telling her to? You’ve been trying to turn her into a damned rexie?”

“Swan Song,” Glee, December 6, 2012

Rexie refers to someone who views having anorexia nervosa as attractive and admirable. A synonym is pro-ana, or pro-anorexia. Rexie may be a blend of anorexia and sexy.

vagenius

Sadie: “Schmidt, in my professional opinion, you have definitely earned the rank of, and I will use a phrase you coined, vagenius.”

“Eggs,” New Girl, November 27, 2012

Vagenius is a blend of vagina and genius, and refers to someone adept pleasuring a woman.

And on that note, that’s it for this week! If you notice any Word Soup-worthy words, let us know on Twitter with the hashtag #wordsoup.

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Gaming Words: Celebrating Pong’s 40th Anniversary

pong

pong, by Trevor Pritchard

[Photo: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Terry Pritchard]

Forty years ago today, Atari released Pong, that ridiculously simple video game that paved the way for an entire industry and, for some, a lifestyle. In celebration, we’ve gathered ten of our favorite gaming words here.

chiptune

“Having germinated in the hacker stronghold of 1980s Scandinavia, chiptune music has become a worldwide scene with no clear geographical center. Perhaps the ultimate musical form for hackers, the international chiptune scene spawned directly from the cracking of copyright protection.”

Eliot Von Buskirk, “‘Chiptune’ Bands Blitz New York for Blip Festival,” Wired, November 28, 2007

Chiptune refers to “a piece of computer music in which the sounds are generated and mixed in realtime, common in the 1980s before the advent of mass storage for prerecorded sound.” The term seems to have originated in the 1970s or 1980s.

Other video game music genres include fakebit, Game Boy music, bitpop, Nintendocore, and skweee.

frag

“And how does it feel, Julia,” Oprah Winfrey soon purrs, “when you… what was that again? When you ‘frag’ someone?”

Wagner James Au, “Deathmatch: Julia Roberts-style,” Salon, June 23, 2003

To frag means “to kill (another player) in a deathmatch computer game.” Deathmatch refers to “a competitive mode found in first-person shooter games in which competitors attempt to assassinate one another.”

Frag probably comes from another sense of the word, “to wound or kill (a fellow soldier) by throwing a grenade or similar explosive at the victim,” which comes from fragmentation grenade, “a grenade that scatters shrapnel over a wide area upon explosion.”

griefer

“A griefer is a person who likes to cause problems for the sake of causing them. As the criminals of the virtual world, their goal is to make virtual life miserable for the other player. Depending on the environment, the mischief can come in the form of player killing, vandalism, player trapping or taunting.”

Nicole Girard, “Griefer Madness: Terrorizing Virtual Worlds,” Linux Insider, September 19, 2007

A griefer is “a player who plays a game primarily to reduce other players’ enjoyment of it.” The terms seems to have originated in 2000 or earlier, “as illustrated by postings to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online USENET group,” while griefing is older, dating back to the late 1990s. The word grief comes from the Old French grever, “to harm, aggrieve.”

Related is ganking, in gaming, “to kill, ambush, or defeat with little effort,” as well as “to swindle; to steal; to copy, reproduce, reuse, or save an image, idea, or work of another person, often in the context of materials posted on the Internet.”

hack-and-slash

“Using an improved version of the conversation mechanism from Mass Effect 2 and battles that demand strategic thought alongside the more usual hack-and-slash technique of repeatedly battering the ‘attack’ button, Dragon Age 2 manages an impressive story to complement its more involved combat.”

Nick Gillett, “This Week’s New Games,” The Guardian, March 11, 2011

Hack-and-slash refers to a game or movie that focuses on violence and combat. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the gaming term seems to have originated first, in the late 1970s, while the film term came about in the mid-1980s.

Slasher movie seems to be more specific than a hack-and-slash in that it depicts “the activities of a vicious attacker whose victims are slashed with a blade,” says the OED. Slasher originally referred to snuff films, and came to its more mainstream definition in the 1980s.

ludology

“Game studies (or ‘ludology,’ as it’s known, from the Latin for ‘game’), has spawned a new class of academics who devote themselves to analyzing how the wildly popular form of entertainment tells stories — and what it reveals about how we express ourselves.”

Nick Wadhams, “Academics Turn Their Attention to Video Games,” USA Today, February 13, 2004

Ludology is “the study of games and other forms of play,” and comes from the Latin ludere, “to play,” which gives us ludicrous, “laughable or hilarious because of obvious absurdity or incongruity.” Game comes from the Old English gamen, “game, joy, fun, amusement.”

XCU

Screenshot from machinima, Breathing

[Photo: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Lainy Voom]

machinima

“In the cash-strapped world of low budget movies, many see machinima as a cheap way of getting their ideas on screen. The technique involves recording footage from games consoles and editing shots together to tell stories.”

Peter Price, “Machinima Waits to Go Mainstream,” BBC News, October 16, 2007

Machinima, a blend of machine and cinema, “the rendering of computer-generated imagery using low-end (real time) 3D engines such as those found in video games, as opposed to the high-end, complex 3D engines used by professionals.” According to the OED, the word originated around 2000 and may be influenced by the word anime.

MMORPG

“Designing an MMORPG is a unique creative challenge. The initial game universe can take up to five years to build and often requires the formation of a complex mythology to provide and maintain its narrative thrust through future add-ons and expansion packs.”

Keith Stuart, “World of Warcraft Cataclysm,” The Guardian, July 15, 2010

MMORPG stands for massively multiplayer online role-playing game, “an online computer role-playing game in which a large number of players can interact with one another.” A precursor is the MUD, or multi-user dungeon, “a text-based command line online game in which players may jointly engage in role-playing.”

nerf

“Across the roster the Japanese company has resisted the temptation to nerf powerful characters (Sagat and Ryu), and instead tried to make established lower to mid tier characters more viable.”

“Super Street Fighter IV Preview,” Video Gamer, March 22, 2010

To nerf means “to water down, dumb down or especially weaken, particularly in the context of weapons in video games,” coming from Nerf brand foam rubber toys, known for being relatively safe. The opposite of nerf is buff, to make a character stronger.

pwn

“‘Some common [gaming] words originated as typos when people are typing fast during a game,’ says Chandronait. A popular word used by gamers is ‘pwn,’ which means ‘to own’–as in ‘you are better than’ or ‘own’ another player. Chandronait suspects ‘own’ probably turned to ‘pwn’ because the p and o keys are adjacent on a standard keyboard, and gamers, during their quick typing, simply hit the wrong key.”

Anna Vander Broek, “Gamer Speak for Newbs,” Forbes, April 23, 2009

Another popular theory of the origin of the word pwn is that “the term originated back in the 1930s in the world of chess when a Russian competitor’s accent changed ‘I will pawn to your knight’ to ‘evil pwn you tonight.’”

zerg

“In some multi-player games, ‘zerging’ has come to refer to a gamer who, often against the game’s rules, creates multiple accounts to get an unfair advantage over other players.”

Doug Gross, “‘Zerg Rush’ Chews Up Google’s Search Results,” CNN, April 27, 2012

To zerg is “to attack an enemy with a large swarm of units before he/she has been able to build sufficient defenses.” The word comes from the game StarCraft and its Zerg race of insects which operate “as a hive mind. . .[striving] for genetic perfection by assimilating ‘worthy’ races into their own, creating numerous different strains of Zerg.”

As for what typing “Zerg rush” into Google does to your search results, give it a try.

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Word Soup Wednesday: Boom carpet, Iron Dome, waggle dance

Welcome to Word Soup Wednesday, in which we bring you our favorite strange, obscure, unbelievable (and sometimes NSFW) words from TV.

awesome sauce

Jon Stewart: “Right there [Broadwell was] talking about how thick a coat of awesome sauce Petraeus is bathed in – the thing never crossed my [expletive] mind!”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 12, 2012

Awesome sauce refers to something particularly awesome. The term seems to have originated around 2001 from the sketch comedy show, The Kids in the Hall.

boom carpet

Jon Hagstrum [regarding the Great Pigeon Race Disaster]: “It turns out they flew [the pigeons] across the English Channel just as the Concorde, which was leaving Paris, was going supersonic, and laying down a boom carpet that these pigeons were caught in.”

“What Are Animals Thinking” NOVA ScienceNOW, November 7, 2012

A boom carpet is the result of a sonic boom. An aircraft going supersonic fills out “a narrow path” – like a carpet  – “on the ground following the aircraft’s flight path.” According to NASA, “the width of the boom ‘carpet’ beneath the aircraft is about one mile for each 1000 feet of altitude.”

boydle

Teddy: “And now I’m fat.”
Bob: “You’re not that fat, Teddy.”
Teddy: “I’m wearing a guy girdle. It’s called a boydle.”

“The Deepening,” Bob’s Burgers, November 25, 2012

Boydle is a blend of boy and girdle, “an elasticized, flexible undergarment worn over the waist and hips, especially by women, to give the body a more slender appearance.” Boydle may also be a play on goidle, the pronunciation of girdle in a stereotypical Brooklyn accent.

dabbling

Narrator: “Buffleheads are diving ducks, but this little female has spied something delicious beneath the surface. She’s not good at dabbling, but she can’t resist.”

“The Original DUCKumentary,” Nature, November 4, 2012

Dabbling is the act of “[bobbing] forward and under in shallow water so as to feed off the bottom.” Dabble comes from the Dutch dabben, “to strike, tap.”

high-frequency trading

Stephen Colbert: “In high-frequency trading, computers can move millions of shares around in minutes, earning a tenth of a penny off each share.”

The Colbert Report, November 14, 2012

High-frequency trading, or HFT, is “the use of sophisticated technological tools and computer algorithms to trade securities on a rapid basis,” and has taken place since 1999.

Iron Dome

Newscaster: “The Iron Dome, Israel’s homegrown defense shield. The system is designed to protect populated areas, allowing non-threatening short range missiles to drop into open fields or water, and intercepting those headed for cities.”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 26, 2012

The Iron Dome, also known as the Iron Cap, is a “mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems,” a defense technology company in Israel. The iron curtain was “the military, political, and ideological barrier established between the Soviet bloc and western Europe from 1945 to 1990.”

shanghai

Bob: “Linda, we’re being shanghaied!”
Linda: “Shanghai? Ooo, ancient Chinese vacation!”

“Mutiny on the Windbreaker,” Bob’s Burgers, November 11, 2012

To shanghai means “to kidnap (a man) for compulsory service aboard a ship, especially after drugging him,” or “to induce or compel (someone) to do something, especially by fraud or force.” The word is named for the Chinese city of Shanghai, “from the former custom of kidnapping sailors to man ships going to China.”

trepanning

Anthony Bourdain: “Back in the day, if you had a bad headache or were acting weird or were just out of sorts, a popular treatment [called trepanning] involved popping your head open like a beer can and letting the pressure out. Fun, huh?”

“Chicago,” The Layover, November 19, 2012

Trepanning is “the operation of making, with a trepan, an opening in the skull for relieving the brain from compression or irritation.” A trepan is “an instrument, in the form of crown-saw, used by surgeons for removing parts of the bones of the skull.” The word ultimately comes from the Greek trūpē, “hole.”

waggle dance

Tom Seeley: “Each bee that finds something comes back and announces her discovery by performing these waggle dances.”

“What Are Animals Thinking” NOVA ScienceNOW, November 7, 2012

A waggle dance is “a dance in the form of figure eight performed by the honey bee in order to communicate the direction and distance of patches of flowers, water sources, etc.,” first discovered by Austrian ethologist Karl von Frisch.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, waggle dance translates from the German schwänzeltanz, which appeared in a 1923 paper by von Frisch and translates literally as “tail wagging dance.”

wendigo

Nick [reading]: “I came upon the cave of the wendigo, rife with human remains and the scene of many murders and cannibalistic acts.”

“To Protect and Serve Man,” Grimm, November 9, 2012

A wendigo, also windigo, is “a malevolent, violent, cannibal spirit found in Anishinaabe, Ojibwe, and Cree mythology, which inhabits the body of a living person and possesses him or her to commit murder.”

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Hobson-Jobson Soup: English Words from Indian Languages

Happy Diwali!

To celebrate this festival of lights, we’re celebrating English words that owe their roots to Hindi and other Indian languages. There are over 2,000 of them in Hobson-Jobson, “a historical dictionary of Anglo-Indian words and terms from Indian languages.” We’ve rounded up 12 of our favorites here, 11 from Hindi and one from Bengali. Enjoy!

Lac Bangles

Lac Bangles, by hoshi 7

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by hoshi 7]

bangle

“So he took the bangle and repairing to a goldsmith, said to him, ‘Break up this bracelet and sell it;’ but he said, ‘The king seeketh a perfect bracelet: I will go to him and bring thee its price.’”

Richard Burton, Arabian Nights, 1886

The word bangle originated around 1787, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, and comes from the Hindi word bangri, “colored glass bracelet or anklet.”

cummerbund

“Fellows are discarding waistcoats and wearing what they call a cummerbund—silk sash round the waist. I think I must follow the fashion.”

George Gissing, The Paying Guest, 1895

A cummerbund is “a broad sash, especially one that is pleated lengthwise and worn as an article of formal dress, as with a dinner jacket.” The word originated in the 1610s and comes from the Hindi kamarband, “loin band.”

cushy

“For decades a palace of well-paid vice presidents in cushy offices presided over the manufacture of Budweiser, America’s beer, in that most American of cities, St. Louis.”

Patrick Cooke, “This Bud’s For Sale,” The Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2012

While the word cushy, “making few demands; comfortable,” may seem like an alteration of the word cushion, it actually comes from the Hindi khush, “pleasant, healthy, happy.” Cushion comes from the Middle English cushin, which ultimately comes from the Latin coxa, “hip.”

Juggernaut

Juggernaut, by graymalkn

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by graymalk]

juggernaut

“Likewise, had Apple opened its iTunes-iPod juggernaut to outside developers, the company would have risked turning its uniquely integrated service into a hodgepodge of independent applications — kind of like the rest of the Internet, come to think of it.”

Leander Kahney, “How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong,” Wired, March 18, 2008

A juggernaut is “an overwhelming, advancing force that crushes or seems to crush everything in its path,” and “something, such as a belief or institution, that elicits blind and destructive devotion or to which people are ruthlessly sacrificed.”

These figurative senses originated in the 1850s while the original sense, “huge wagon bearing an image of the god Krishna,” is from the 1630s, and is an alteration of Jagannatha, “a name given to Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu,” literally, “lord of the world.”

Jagannatha is also “a celebrated idol of this deity at Puri in Orissa,”  at which “great multitudes of pilgrims come from all quarters of India to pay their devotions.” According to Century Dictionary,

On these occasions the idol is mounted on an enormous car—the car of Juggernaut—resting on massive wooden wheels, and drawn by the pilgrims. Formerly many of the people threw themselves under the wheels to be crushed to death, the victims believing that by this fate they would secure immediate conveyance to heaven. The practice is now of very rare occurrence.

Juggernaut is also the name of a character in Marvel Comics. The Juggernaut’s powers include superhuman strength, “extreme durability,” and being “physically unstoppable once in motion.”

loot

“She was no longer the same Moran of that first fight on board the schooner, when the beach-combers had plundered her of her ‘loot.’”

Frank Norris, Moran of the Lady Letty, 1898

Loot refers to “booty; plunder, especially such as is taken in war,” as well as “goods illicitly obtained, as by bribery”; “things of value, such as gifts, received on one occasion”; and “money.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, loot comes from the Hindi lūt, which according to some scholars, comes from Sanskrit lōtra, lōptra, “booty, spoil.”

monkey business

“Those inventors and pioneers who came out of New England and made this country from a hunting-ground into an empire – they didn’t have all this monkey-business in technical schools and trade schools.”

William Hard, The Women of Tomorrow, 1910

Monkey business, which is sometimes hyphenated, is “silly, mischievous, or deceitful acts or behavior.” According to the OED, the phrase is attested to 1835 and probably comes from the Bengali bãdrāmi.

According to a comment on Language Hat, bandrami “connotes different shades of mischievousness that are not conveyed by monkey business,” such as children climbing trees to dangerous heights, adults not acting their age, and men trying “to draw the attention of a female with unbecoming gestures.”

punch

“You know from Eastern India came
The skill of making punch as did the name.
And as the name consists of letters five,
By five ingredients is it kept alive.”

Alice Morse Earle, Customs and Fashions in Old New England, 1894

This sense of punch meaning “a drink commonly made with wine or spirits, and either water or some substitute, as a decoction of tea, and flavored with lemon-juice or lemon-peel and sugar,” is believed to have come from the Hindi panch, meaning “five,” referring to “the number of original ingredients (spirits, water, lemon juice, sugar, spice).”

pundit

“Like Walter Lippmann, Alsop saw himself as a kind of pundit grandee, entitled to advise the public figures he wrote about.”

Evan Thomas, “The Real Cover-Up,” Newsweek, November 21, 1993

Nowadays a pundit is known as “a source of opinion; a critic,” but it also refers to “a learned person,” and specifically, “a learned Brahman: one versed in the Sanskrit language, and in the science, laws, and religion of India.” These latter senses originated in the 1670s, while the “source of opinion” sense is newer, attesting to 1816. The word comes from the Hindi paṇḍit, “learned man.” See also punditocracy.

seersucker

“Cissy put on the blue and white seersucker dress with the sailor collar and the red kerchief that she’d chosen, with Mummy, at David Jones department store in Sydney.”

Claire Messud, “Land Divers,” The New York Review of Books, July 16, 2009

Seersucker is “a light thin fabric, generally cotton or rayon, with a crinkled surface and a usually striped pattern.” Attested to 1722, the word comes from the Hindi sirsakar, a corruption of the Persian shir o shakkar, “striped cloth,” literally “milk and sugar,” referring to “the alternately smooth and puckered surfaces of the stripes.”

shampoo

“Just how this unusual shampoo works these miracles is a new scientific secret. It isn’t oil, it isn’t soap – it isn’t anything you’ve heard of before.”

“New-Type Shampoo Amazes Women Everywhere,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, October 18, 1936

The original meaning of shampoo was “to massage,” especially “in connection with a hot bath, for the purpose of restoring tone and vigor to the system.” This sense is attested to 1762 and comes from the Hindi champo, the imperative of champna, “to press, knead the muscles.” It came to mean “the act or operation of shampooing,” says the OED, around 1838; “to subject (the scalp) to washing and rubbing with some cleansing agent” around 1860; and the cleansing agent itself in 1866.

thug

“If a bearded thug who attacked two women is lurking in the dark shafts of an old Overbrook mine, chances are that he will never roam again.”

“Thug Faces Death If He’s in Mine,” The Pittsburgh Press, April 17, 1952

A thug, commonly known as “a cutthroat; a ruffian; a rough,” originally referred to “a member of a confraternity of professional assassins and robbers formerly infesting India, chiefly in the central and northern provinces.” The word comes from the Hindi ṭhag, which may come from the Sanskrit sthagaḥ, a cheat. See also Thuggee and thugocracy.

toddy

“A small china punch-bowl was then produced by the host, and was twice replenished with the very popular beverage called toddy, of which the Prince expressed his unqualified approbation.”

Mrs. Thomson, Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745, 1845

Toddy refers to “the drawn sap of several species of palm, especially when fermented,” and “a drink made of spirits and hot water sweetened.” The word comes from the Hindi tāṛī, “sap of palm.”

For even more English words derived from Indian languages, check out this list, and for more on Hobson-Jobson, see this article from BBC News Magazine.

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Word Soup Wednesday: Battleground state, die dreaming, unwindulax

Have you recovered from the election? We have (barely). To help you out, here are some interesting and ridiculous words we’ve learned from TV.

battleground state

Anderson Cooper: “Is it all going to be about voter turnout [in Virginia]?”
Commentator: “Yes, here and other battleground states.”

The Colbert Report, November 5, 2012

A battleground state is also known as a swing state or purple state, as opposed to a blue or red state, which have “a majority of its electorate voting for,” respectively, the Democratic or Republican “candidate in a U.S. presidential election.”

A battleground state “is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state’s electoral college votes.” The term originated around 1832, says the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), while swing state is much newer, coming about around 1964.

celtuce

Chef: “This is celtuce. . . .A cross between celery and lettuce. It’s really popular in Asia.”

“Brooklyn,” No Reservations, November 6, 2012

Celtuce is  “a type of lettuce. . .valued especially for its edible stems.”

chum

Liz: “What the hell, Jack? I thought you said I was your chum.”
Jack: “You are my chum. The bait I throw in the water to attract the big fish.”
Liz: “Dammit, second meaning!”

“Unwindulax,” 30 Rock, October 24, 2012

Chum originally referred to “one who lodges or resides in the same chamber or rooms with another; a room-mate: especially applied to college students.” The word is an alternative spelling of cham, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, which is “short for chamber(mate), typical of the late-17c. fondness for clipped words.” By extension, chum refers to “an intimate companion; a crony.”

The “second” meaning, “bait, consisting usually of pieces of some oily fish,” originated later, around 1857, and comes from the Scottish chum, “food.”

die dreaming

Guide: “We’re drinking orange juice with Carnation milk. We call it die dreaming.”

“Dominican Republic,” No Reservations, October 29, 2012

Die dreaming, which translates from the Spanish morir soñando, is “a popular beverage of the Dominican Republic. . .usually made of orange juice, milk, cane sugar, and chopped ice.”

green on blue

Jon Stewart: “Now [the situation in Afghanistan has] become more dangerous. This whole idea of what they call green on blue violence, which is Afghani troops embedded with American troops, turning on [the American troops].”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, November 5, 2012

Green on blue, says OxfordWords Blog, “is modeled after an earlier phrase, blue on blue, referring to inadvertent clashes between members of the same side in an armed conflict.” The colors don’t have to do with uniform hue but with standardized military symbols, where “blue is used for friendly forces, red for hostile forces, green for neutral forces, and yellow for unknown forces.”

light-fingered

Constable: “They all believe that Sister Monica Jane is known to them as, and I quote, light-fingered.”

“The Adventures of Noakes and Browne,” Call the Midwife, November 4, 2012

Light-fingered in this context means “dexterous in touching and taking; thievish; addicted to petty thefts: applied particularly to pickpockets.” The phrase originated in the 1540s.

lurker

Scientist: “Take away their arms so they can’t grab you. Take away their jaws so they can’t bite you. Take away their ability to eat, they lose interest in doing so. . . .They become docile, in a sense.”
Governor: “Lurkers.”
Scientist: “Mm, docile. . . .Or lurkers, whatever you like.”

“Walk with Me,” The Walking Dead, October 28, 2012

A lurker is “one who lurks, hides, or keeps out of sight,” as well as “an impostor; a cheap quack.” Lurker comes from lurk, which is probably Scandinavian in origin. In internet slang, a lurker is “a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing, social networking site. . .but rarely or never participates actively.”

prefab

Sister: “Those prefabs are only ever expected to last four or five years.”

“We Are Family,” Call the Midwife, October 28, 2012

Prefab, short for prefabricated, or manufactured in advance, refers to “something prefabricated, especially a building or section of a building.” According to the OED, prefab refers specifically, in British English, to “a light, often single-storey house of the kind built in large numbers as temporary housing during and after the Second World War (1939–45).”

punditocracy

Stephen Colbert [to statistician Nate Silver]: “Those of us in the punditocracy make our bread and butter by telling people what the truth is as we see it from our gut.”

The Colbert Report, November 5, 2012

Punditocracy is “a group of pundits who wield great political influence.” The word is a blend of pundit, “a source of opinion; a critic,” and –cracy, “rule of government by.” While –cracy is Greek in origin, pundit comes from the Sanskrit paṇḍitaḥ, “learned, scholar.”

sea moss

Anthony Bourdain: “Sea moss is a mix of powdered, dried, deep water seaweed, milk, cinnamon, and other spices, legendary for one reason.”
Michael K. Williams: “Very potent. He’s gonna make a baby tonight.”

“Brooklyn,” No Reservations, November 6, 2012

Sea moss is a “seaweed shake that comes from Trinidad and is said to help men retain their virility.”

shants

Claire: “You finally found something less cool than those pants that zip off into shorts.”
Phil: “My shants, which you have been gunning for since day one.”

“Yard Sale,” Modern Family, October 31, 2012

Shants is a blend of shorts and pants. Other sartorial blends include skort, jeggings, and jorts.

unwindulax

Fan: “Jenna is playing a Today Show in a couple of days so we’re just camping out and unwindulaxing.”

“Unwindulax,” 30 Rock, October 24, 2012

Unwindulax is a blend of unwind and relax. The figurative meaning of unwind, “to become free of nervous tension,” originated around 1958, says the OED. Relax meaning “to relieve from attention or effort” is much older, according to the OED, attested to the 17th century.

Unwindulax is a play on chillax, a blend of chill and relax.

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Election Day Soup: Words on Politics and Campaigning

Election Day 2008

Election Day by brooklyntheborough

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by brooklyntheborough]

Happy Election Day! To celebrate, we voted (of course) and rounded up some of our favorite old-timey words about American politics and campaigning.

Rock the vote (or Chris Rock the vote) and enjoy.

barnstorm

“O’Malley dubbed the upcoming barnstorm ‘Super Saturday’ after casting his own ballot Friday afternoon in North Baltimore, where he remains registered despite living in the governor’s mansion.”

Aaron C. Davis and John Wagner, “Parties Rev Up Political Machinery in Maryland to Boost Early Voting Turnout,” The Washington Post, October 22, 2010

To barnstorm means “to travel around the countryside making political speeches, giving lectures, or presenting theatrical performances.” The theatrical performances sense came about first, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, around 1815, “in reference to a theatrical troupe’s performances in upstate N.Y. barns,” while the electioneering sense originated in 1896.

dark horse

“The Missouri Democrat has long been viewed as a possible dark horse candidate for the nomination in case of a convention deadlock.”

“Symington Regarded Likely Demo Dark Horse Candidate,” Oxnard Press-Courier, March 30 1956

A dark horse is “one who achieves unexpected support and success as a political candidate, typically during a party’s convention.” The phrase comes from horse racing, where a dark horse is a “a little-known, unexpectedly successful entrant, as in a horserace,” and “dark is used in its figurative sense of ‘unknown.’”

gerrymander

“Every 10 years, states redraw their congressional lines, and often what result are some very oddly shaped districts drawn for political reasons. In recent decades, these so-called ‘gerrymandered’ districts have come to be known by any number of derogatory noms de guerre, including the ‘ribbon of shame,’ ‘earmuffs,’ ‘bug splat,’ ‘flat cat roadkill,’ ‘rabbit on a skateboard,’ and even simply ‘Z.’”

Aaron Blake, “Name That District! (Gerrymandering Edition),” The Washington Post, July 27, 2011

A gerrymander is “an arbitrary arrangement of the political divisions of a State, in disregard of the natural or proper boundaries as indicated by geography or position, made so as to give one party an unfair advantage in elections.” Gerrymander is partially named for Elbridge Gerry, “an American statesman and diplomat,” as a blend of Gerry and the –mander of salamander, “from the shape of an election district created while Gerry was governor of Massachusetts.” For more political blends, see Ben Zimmer’s recent post.

lame duck

“The American constitutional system of checks and balances will be strained for 10 months while we have a lame duck President.”

“Lame Duck Presidency Presents Its Hazards,” The Deserest News, April 21, 1952

A lame duck is “an elected officeholder or group continuing in office during the period between failure to win an election and the inauguration of a successor,” or “an officeholder who has chosen not to run for reelection or is ineligible for reelection.” This sense, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, “is recorded by 1878. . .from an anecdote published in that year of President Lincoln, who is alleged to have said, ‘[A] senator or representative out of business is a sort of lame duck. He has to be provided for.’”

For more words and terms coined by U.S. presidents, check out this list.

logrolling

“The truth is, that if ‘lobby members’ endeavor to carry their points by threats or bribery or treating or forming combinations, called logrolling, they are reprehensible.”

Kemp P. Battle, History of North Carolina

Logrolling is “mutual aid given by persons to one another in carrying out their several schemes or gaining their individual ends: used especially of politicians and legislators.” The term comes from the “early American practice of neighbors gathering to help clear land by rolling off and burning felled timber,” and the phrase, “You roll my log and I’ll roll yours.”

mugwump

“Mark Twain had been a ‘mugwump’ during the Blame-Cleveland campaign in 1880, which means that he had supported the independent Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland.”

Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boys’ Life of Mark Twain

A mugwump originally referred to “a person of importance; a man of consequence; a leader,” a sense “long in local use along the coast of Massachusetts and the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound.” The word comes from the “Algonquian (Natick) mugquomp ‘important person,’” which was “derived from mugumquomp ‘war leader.’”

The meaning was extended to “a Republican who bolted the party in 1884, refusing to support presidential candidate James G. Blaine,” and has come to refer to, in general, “a person who acts independently or remains neutral, especially in politics.”

pork barrel

“Denouncing the Congressional ‘pork barrel,’ President Taft to-day urged a change of method in dealing with waterway improvements in the United States.”

“Taft Declares War on ‘Pork Barrel,’” The New York Times, September 22, 1910

Pork barrel is slang for “a government project or appropriation that yields jobs or other benefits to a specific locale and patronage opportunities to its political representative.” The term originated around 1902 and comes from the idea “of food supply kept in a barrel.” Pork meaning “government funds, appointments, or benefits dispensed or legislated by politicians to gain favor with their constituents,” is older, from around 1862.

psephology

“The science of interpreting elections has a dance name: psephology. A shorter, simpler and more accurate title for much election analysis is: fiction.”

David S. Broder, “Deciphering the Meaning of Elections,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 18, 1989

Psephology is “the study of political elections.” The word comes from the Greek psēphos, “pebble, ballot,” from the ancient Greeks’ practice of using pebbles for voting.

roorback

“Dorgan knows how to make the best use of such a roorback on the eve of an election and even if I not only deny but prove that they are a fake, I’m afraid the harm will be done.”

Arthur B. Reeve, The Ear in the Wall

A roorback is “a fictitious story published for political effect; a ‘campaign lie.'” The word is named after “Baron von Roorback, imaginary author of Roorback’s Tour Through the Western and Southern States, from which a passage was purportedly quoted in an attempt to disparage presidential candidate James K. Polk in 1844.”

straw vote

“A straw vote conducted by the Pathfinder, a magazine devoted to politics, gives Hoover the majority. Popular votes totaled 233,315 for Hoover and 197,408 for Smith.”

Leo R. Sack, “Campaigns Are Gaining Speed, With Tours On,” The Pittsburgh Press, September 17, 1928

A straw vote is “an unofficial vote or poll indicating the trend of opinion on a candidate or issue.” The term came about in 1866 and, according to William Safire et al, “may allude to a straw (thin plant stalk) held up to see in what direction the wind blows, in this case, the wind of group opinion.” Newer are straw poll and straw ballot, both of which originated around 1932, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

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Happy Halloween! Some Ghostly Words

Gustave_Moreau_-_The_Apparition_-_Google_Art_Project

Boo! Did we scare you? No? Maybe these 10 ghostly words will give you the screaming abdabs instead.

boo

“Harlin relies on cheap ‘Boo!’ scares more often than any film needs, which was never the point of this franchise, but merely what other filmmakers (or producers) have reduced it to.”

Brian Orndorf, “Review: Exorcist: The Beginning,” Film Fodder, August 21, 2004

In addition to “a loud exclamation intended to scare someone,” boo also means “a sound uttered to show contempt, scorn, or disapproval.” Douglas Harper, the founder of the Online Etymology Dictionary, says:

Common people had few opportunities to gather in a mass and express disapproval through much of Western history, but when they did, loud, insulting barnyard noises tended to be their weapon of choice. . . .These included hissing, like a goose, or booing, like a cow.

Boo is also slang for “a close acquaintance or significant other,” perhaps as an alteration of beau.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, boo as a scary exclamation seems to have originated in the early 18th century as a “word used in the North of Scotland to frighten crying Children.” To say boo to a goose means “to speak up, to stand up for oneself.” For how to say boo in other languages, check out this post from the Virtual Linguist.

dobby

“On the stairs certain bloodstains are pointed out, said to be those of a lady who was killed in the glen below, and who was afterwards known as the ‘Mortham dobby.'”

John Murray, Richard John King, Handbook for Yorkshire

A dobby, in addition to being a well-known house-elf, is “a sprite or apparition.” Also spelled dobbie, the word seems to derive from the common name Robert, and in Sussex is known as Master Dobbs.

fetch

“The ‘fetch‘ is supposed to appear when the person whose ‘counterfeit presentment’ it is happens to be at the point of death.”

“‘Fetch,’ Its Derivation and Use,” The New York Times, December 24, 1899

A fetch is “ a ghost, an apparition; a doppelgänger.” While the origin of fetch is largely unknown, it seems to come from Ireland, according to the OED.

Fetch may be short for the earlier fetch-life, “a messenger sent to ‘fetch’ the soul of a dying person,” where fetch means “to go and bring.” This sense of fetch comes from the Old English feccan, “apparently a variant of fetian, fatian ‘to fetch, bring near, obtain; induce; to marry.’”

larva

“’It is a dead thing!’ said Glaucus.
‘Nay – it stirs – it is a ghost or larva,’ faltered lone, as she clung to the Athenian’s breast.”

Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Last Days of Pompeii

While most of us know larva as “the newly hatched, wingless, often wormlike form of many insects before metamorphosis,” it’s also, in Roman mythology, “a malevolent spirit of the dead.”

The word comes from the Latin lārva, “specter, mask,” with the idea that the wormlike form “acts as a specter of or a mask for the adult form.”

pareidolia

“This psychological phenomenon is called pareidolia. It is when random images or sound are perceived as something non-random. This is always a danger in paranormal research, for instance when people believe they see a face in the static of a video.”

Alejandro Rojas, “Recording Ghost Voices: The Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) ,” The Huffington Post, October 23, 2011

Pareidolia is “a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant.” The word comes from the Greek para, “alongside, beyond,” and eidolon, “mental image, apparition, phantom.”

poltergeist

“‘In half an hour we were all sitting about the table in a dim light, while the sweet-voiced mother was talking with ‘Charley,’ her ‘poltergeist‘–’

‘What is that, please?’ asked Mrs. Quigg.

‘The word means a rollicking spirit who throws things about.’”

Hamlin Garland, The Shadow World

A poltergeist is “a ghost or spirit that indicates its presence by the sound of moving objects, knocks, and similar noises.” The word is German in origin, coming from poltern, “to make noises,” plus Geist, “ghost.”

Apport is “the supposed paranormal transference of an object from one place to another, or the appearance of an object from an unknown source, often associated with poltergeist activity and séances.”

revenant

“While looking on this side and that side, striving to pierce their mysteries, taking a step this way and a step that, and trembling all the while lest she should see the revenant, said to haunt the place, a dreadful sound like the huge fluttering of large wings arose above in the arches.”

Mrs. Henry Wood, Charles William Wood, The Argosy

A revenant is “one who returns; especially, one who returns after a long period of absence or after death; a ghost; a specter.” The word comes from the French revenir, “to return.”

spook

‘”It made a lot of people come to see me,’ the youngster told county police yesterday between sobs as she admitted the spook that haunted the Henry Thacker family was her own creation.”

“Girl Admits Spook Hoax,” Reading Eagle, January 4, 1952

Spook may come from the Dutch spooc, “ghost.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “the derogatory racial sense of ‘black person’ is attested from 1940s, perhaps from notion of dark skin being difficult to see at night.” Spook as slang for “secret agent, spy” is from 1942, perhaps from the idea of being hidden. Spooky, frightening, is from 1854, while the “easily frightened” sense is from 1926.

taisch

“As the Taisch murmurs the prophecy of death in the voice of one about to die, so does the Wraith, Swarth, or Death-fetch, appear in the likeness of the person so early doomed to some living friend of the party; or as in some rare instances, even to the individuals themselves.”

Walter Cooper Dendy, On the Phenomena of Dreams, and Other Transient Illusions

A taisch refers to “the voice of one who is about to die heard by a person at a distance,” as well the “second sight.” According to the OED, the word comes from the Middle Irish tadhbais, “phantasm.”

wraith

“Banquo’s wraith, which is invisible to all but Macbeth, is the haunting of an evil conscience.”

Henry A. Beers, Chaucer to Tennyson

A wraith is “an apparition in the exact likeness of a person, supposed to be seen before or soon after the person’s death; in general, a visible spirit; a specter; a ghost.” The word is Scottish in origin, and may come from either the Old Norse vorðr, “guardian,” or the Gaelic arrach, “specter, apparition.”

Want more? Check out our posts on fear words, devil names, devil words and facts, vampire vords and accents, and words and phrases related to zombies and werewolves.