Sard off, you bescumbered rantallion!

The inimitable Eva Price, of Coronation Street fame, uses the word ‘pigging’ (I presume) in place of swearing. She uses it a lot. And that got me thinking – leaving aside all the gangsters, murder, affairs etc, the inability to swear (not even the mildest of rude words like a ‘bloody’ or a ‘bugger’ seems to be allowed pre-watershed) is one of the things that makes soaps less believable (that and how people always just order ‘a pint’ when they go in the pub – A PINT OF WHAT!?!).

It must be tough for scriptwriters to come up with a decent insult when a character’s slept with someone’s husband/wife, murdered their family, stolen their baby (and so on), and the worst they can call them is a git or a pillock. If I was a soap opera writer, I’d be plundering the English language’s glorious back catalogue for swears* – there are ye olde insults galore which could definitely slip by the censors. Here are eight of my favourites.

1. Cumberworld

Nope, not a theme park devoted to Benedict Cumberbatch (although how I wish that was a thing), a cumberworld is a person who’s so useless that all they do is take up space. Think Piers Morgan, most politicians, etc.

2. Gillie-wet-foot

This is an old Scottish word for a businessman who swindles people out of their money, or someone who gets into debt then legs it.

3. Scobberlotcher

A scobberlotcher’s someone who never works hard. So not me then (because I’m definitely not looking up swear words on the internet when I should be working). It probably comes from scopperloit, which is an old English dialect word for a holiday (which I’ll be using in my next out-of-office).

4. Wandought

No, not a spell from Harry Potter – a wandought is a weak and ineffectual man (wandoughty is an old word for impotence. Say no more). 

5. Sard

This is basically the f-word of its day (which was pre-18th century). Apparently it first turned up in a 10th-century Old English translation of the Bible which said ‘...don’t sard another man’s wife’. Good advice. Especially as it leaves us ladies free to sard as many husbands as we like apparently.

6. Beardsplitter

An alternative for ‘dick’, this is Victorian slang for penis. I’m not going to walk you through the why as you can probably work it out for yourself. Paints a vivid picture, doesn’t it?

7. Rantallion

Another uncharacteristically graphic Victorian insult. It means a man whose scrotum’s longer than his penis. So basically someone with a teeny weeny winkie.

8. Bescumber

Still nothing to do with Cumberbatch (although when I open Cumberworld I might adopt it as a ride name where you get covered in Benedicts), to ‘bescumber’ someone is a swear that means to ‘discharge ordure’. Regular readers (hello Dad!) will know ‘ordure’ means poo. So if you say you’re going to bescumber someone, then you’re going to cover them in poop.

So, there you are scriptwriters – eight alternatives to bitch, pratt, idiot, etc. I’m sure we’ll be hearing Phil Mitchell yelling ‘You sarding wandought!’ in the Queen Vic any day now.

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* So it’s probably lucky I’m not a soap opera writer.

Welcome to the masquerade ball

Have you ever heard a lovely word, then realised it actually means something horrible? Here are six terms that are masquerading as pretty things, but have not-so-nice meanings.

*Warning: Contains references to faeces. A LOT of references to faeces.

Oh, and some swears.

1. Tenesmus

Okay, so this sounds like some kind of beautiful landscape feature. Come my darling, stroll with me along the tenesmus and we can watch the sun go down together...

What it actually means

Cramping rectal pain. Yep, it’s when you really need to poop, and can’t. Nice.

2. Nugatory 

Mmmm, this must be an adjective for something creamy and delicious. Maybe something chocolatey...?

What it actually means

From the Latin nugari (‘to trifle’) it means unimportant, of no value or useless. Futile basically.

So definitely not chocolate then.

3. Meconium

Ooh, it’s science-fictiony, right? I’m sure I remember Captain Kirk asking Scottie to fire up the warp drive with some meconium.

What it actually means

Well, it’s kind of science-y. Nope, who am I trying to kid – it’s poop again, sorry. Originally it was used to describe a brown, syrupy substance made from crushed poppy heads (from the Greek word mekon for ‘poppy’). But we now use it to describe the poos a baby does when it’s born. Oh.

4. Moribund

Maybe just because it sounds vaguely like ‘fecund’, this one could be something to do with being bountiful or fertile. Or maybe relating to mushrooms? I don’t know why.

What it actually means

Close to death. Sorry.

5. Ordure

This one’s got a certain air of respectability about it. I can just imagine Dickens writing about a well-dressed gentleman with a double-barrelled name exuding an air of ordure. He’d be wearing a very smart stovepipe hat.

What it actually means

Once again, I apologise, because this one’s also poo. Ordure literally means excrement or dung, and goes all the way back to the 14th century. So you’d probably want to avoid any gentlemen exuding it, stove-pipe hat or not.

6. Coprolalia

Wait, I know this one. It’s the name of a 19th-century ballet about a mechanical doll. Nailed it, right?

What it actually means

No smarty pants, that’s Coppélia. Coprolalia is a psychiatric term for the involuntary use of obscene language. Still, at least it’s nothing to do with motherfucking shit this time.

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So, the moral of this blog post is that you should never judge a word by the way it sounds. And that the English language has a lot of words about poo.

It ain’t necessarily so

I’m a big EastEnders fan (I even have a weird crush on Danny Dyer). One of the soap’s most famous lines after ‘Hello Princess’ came about when Zoe Slater bellowed at her ‘sister’ Kat, ‘You ain’t my muvver!’ (spoiler: she is). After reeling for a moment at this revelation my mind then obviously turned to grammar* – why is ‘ain’t’ considered persona non grata in the world of contractions? We’ve embraced ‘won’t’, ‘can’t’ and ‘aren’t’ and the like. So what’s made ‘ain’t’ so universally reviled?

Contractions – not just for babies

When we’re speaking, we naturally run words together. So we’ve been using contractions for pretty much as long as we’ve been using English. I encourage my clients to use them all the time, even in formal writing – without them, words can sound stilted and robotic. And even though I get the occasional die-hard who just won’t accept that, most people are happy to embrace the likes of ‘we’re’, ‘shan’t’ and ‘don’t’ (one notable exception was a client from a large accountancy firm who, when I suggested we say ‘we can’t do that’ instead of ‘we cannot do that’, told me he didn’t want any of ‘that hip-hop rap-speak, thank you very much’).

Having said all that, I’d never use ‘ain’t’ instead of ‘am not’ or ‘has/have not’ in business writing. But why the hell not?

Fear of the unknown

One not-particularly-feasible theory for our suspicion is that it’s not immediately obvious which words ‘ain’t’ is formed from. We can easily see where (for example) ‘don’t’ and ‘we’ll’ come from. And if we’re using ‘ain’t’ in place of ‘am not’, we should probably follow the style of its more acceptable cousins – which would make it ‘amn’t’ (which is quite hard to say) or ‘an’t’ (which isn’t). So where did the ‘i’ come from? Maybe it snuck in from ‘isn’t’ via ‘in’t’ – another reviled contraction. (I can’t even hazard a guess about how ‘has/have not’ –  as in ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’ – turned into ‘ain’t’, so I’m just not going to go there.)

Unfortunately this whole theory falls flat when you look at ‘won’t’, which is short for ‘will not’. According to the five seconds of internet research I just did, this comes from ‘woll not’ which is ye olde English (y’know, from yore). And we’re all alright with ‘won’t’, right?

What the dickens?

So, the next place we need to look is Dickens (it’s almost always either Dickens, Shakespeare or Carroll when it comes to word origins). Some of the earliest appearances of ‘ain’t’ in writing appear in his novels. And it’s generally a Cockenee, and – quite often – criminal type, what says it:

• ‘Look at your clothes; better ain’t to be got!’: Magwitch in Great Expectations
• ‘She ain’t one to blab. Are you Nancy?’: Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist (I’m still traumatised by that bit in the musical when Oliver Reed bludgeons Nancy to death. IT’S A KIDS’ FILM FOR CHRISSAKES).

It seems that this is an association that stuck – authors generally use ‘ain’t’ to indicate a character comes from a, ahem, less salubrious background. So it looks like our fear of ‘ain’t’ is simply down to a lingering Victorian snobbery which we’re yet to get over. So despite the fact that ‘ain’t’ does appear in the OED, it doesn’t look like it’ll be making the leap from EastEnders scripts into polite conversation/writing any time soon…

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* And then 17 years later I wrote a blog post about it.

A partridge in a pear tree? I’d rather have a blog on etymology

I blimmin’ love Christmas. I put my decorations up on 1 December every year without fail, then I get really depressed on Boxing Day because it’s ALL OVER. So, before that happens, here’s my Christmas gift to you – six Christmassy words and their etymology (I was going to do 12 – as in the 12 days of Christmas – but it was too many and I ran out of steam. Sorry).

1. Eggnog

Yum, eggy booze. Who on earth thought that sounded nice? Maybe that’s why we only drink it once a year. Anyway, the ‘nog’ bit of ‘eggnog’ is a 17th-century word for strong beer (looks like the English have always been lager louts) from Norfolk. And the ‘egg’ bit? Well, you can probably work that out for yourself. 

2. Carol

Nothing to do with Vorderman or King, we used to use the word ‘carol’ to talk about any celebratory song. It was the Tudors who started using it for Christmas songs only. We nicked the word ‘carol’ from our Gallic friends across the channel in the Middle Ages – a carole was French for a circle dance accompanied by singers. And they probably got it from the Italians (carola), who took it from the Latin (choraulēs – ‘flute player accompanying a chorus dance’), which came from the Ancient Greek word khoraulḗs (‘one who accompanies a chorus on the flute’). That has its roots in Proto-Indo-European language, but as you probably stopped reading a while ago, I won’t go into that.

3. Mistletoe

This one’s a bit of a mystery (a mistle-tery? Nope?). Well, ‘mistle’ is – the ‘toe’ bit’s fairly straightforward, as it comes from ‘tān’, which is an Old English word for ‘twig’. But no one’s really sure where the ‘mistle’ part came from. Wikipedia just says it’s ‘from Proto-Germanic *mihstilaz (“mistle”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃meyǵʰ- (“to urinate”)’ which I feel merits more explanation, but sadly, doesn’t give any.

Mistletoe’s a parasitic plant, which means it sucks the nutrients out of other plants, either stunting their growth or killing them (which is why it stays green all year round, the bastard). And some of it’s poisonous. Kissing under the deadly parasitic twig doesn’t seem quite so romantic now, does it?

4. Poinsettia

The poinsettia is a Mexican plant which the ancient Aztecs called ‘cuetlaxochitl’. Presumably because no-one could pronounce that, when American ambassador Joel Roberts Poinsett bought one back with him from Mexico to the US of A they decided to name it after him. The association with Christmas comes from an old Mexican legend (which I was in a production of at primary school). You can read it here (the myth, not my primary school production).

5. Tinsel

Beloved of 80s Christmas trees, ‘tinsel’ was originally the name for a cloth that was woven with gold or silver thread. It comes from the Middle French word estincelle which means ‘spark’ or ‘spangle’.

Tinsel was invented in Nuremberg in the 17th century. Originally made from real silver, apparently it’s supposed to mimic the appearance of ice. I never knew that, even though now I do it seems blindingly obvious.

I like saying the word ‘tinsel’.

6. Yule

Like a lot of stuff to do with Christianity, this one was stolen from paganism (technically called ‘Christianised reformulation’ fact fans). It comes from the word jól, the Norse name of a pagan festival which took place in the 12 days leading up to 25 December. It’s connected with the myth of the wild hunt (which is a pretty frickin’ awesome myth). We nicked the word jól and added it to Old English as ġéol, which morphed into ‘yule’ some time in the middle of the 1400s. I’m not really entirely sure what we use it for these days, except for making bad puns (‘yule love this festive blog post!’) and the yule log. I totally thought a yule log was a cake, but it’s an actual log which also has pagan roots (BOOM BOOM).

If you’d like to find out more about the yule log (and why wouldn’t you?), have a look at this article on ManyEats.com.)

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So, there you have it. A little bit of Christmas cheer, in blog form. Oh, and thanks for reading my word-based musings this year – here’s to plenty more in 2018.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Immigrant song

According to the OED, there are at least a quarter of a million words in the English language. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got everything covered. So sometimes we adopt words from other languages to fill the gaps. Chances are you’ve already come across ‘schadenfreude’, and new kid on the block ‘hygge’. But what about ‘tartle’? It’s a Scottish word for that panicky pause when you have to introduce someone whose name you’ve forgotten. Good, right? So here are my top 12 (because anyone can do a top ten) foreign words without an equivalent in English. Bloody foreign words, coming over here and stealing our words’ jobs.

Aktivansteher

I’m annoyed that the Germans have got this word and we haven’t. The literal translation is ‘energetic queuer’ – basically it’s for those clever people (of which I’m, sadly, not one) who always join the right queue.

Baggerspion

Another German one, the direct translation of which is ‘digger truck spy hole’. It’s the desire to peek into a boarded-up building site. C’mon, you know you’ve done it...

Bagstiv

A Danish word for something that I’ve obviously got no experience of – when you wake up in the morning still drunk from the night before (it translates as ‘backwards drunk’). Nope, never happened to me. And definitely not this morning.

Culaccino

This is an Italian word for the stain left on a table from a cold drink. Use a coaster people!

Gigil

A Filipino word for when you see something really cute and feel the urge to squeeze or pinch it. I get this every day for my dog Bella. Cue gratuitous picture...

Greng-jai

Being as the English are known for not wanting to cause a fuss, it’s odd that the Thai have a word for this one and we don’t. It’s when you don’t want someone to do something for you because it’s a pain for them.

Iktsuarpok

This is an Inuit word for when you’re so excited about someone coming round to your house that you keep going outside to check if they’ve turned up yet. Like me and the Amazon delivery man.

Mangata

I love this one. It’s a Swedish word for the road-like reflection of the moon on water. Gawjuss.

Mencolek

You know that thing when someone taps you on one shoulder from behind so you turn one way, when they’re actually standing on the other side? Well, the Indonesians came up with this word for it.

I actually already have a word for people who do this. It starts with ‘w’ and ends with ‘ankers’.

Politikerleden

This is a Danish word for being disgusted by a politician. So basically everyone in the world then.

Tsundoku

Think ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, ‘The Satanic Verses’, ‘The Alchemist’... yep, this is a Japanese word for when you buy books and then never read them. At least they look nice on the shelf.

Zeg

This is a Georgian word for ‘the day after tomorrow’ and has equivalents in lots of languages including German (übermorgen) and Polish (pojutrze). I’m cheating slightly here because there is actually an English version – ‘overmorrow’. But unfortunately it’s ye olde middle English, so no one uses it anymore. There’s also the equally delightful ‘ereyesterday’ in English for ‘the day before yesterday’. I’m going to make it my mission to bring these back.

This woke blog post is lit AF

The other day I got an email from a company I buy quite a lot of clothes from. The subject line was ‘Something for your bae’. Now this threw me, as I have no idea who or what my bae is. After asking the internet I now understand that this is shorthand for my girlfriend or boyfriend. Good to know. But it got me thinking – how out of touch with the yoof am I?

It turns out, quite a lot.

So here’s my pick of some young people’s speak, along with what it actually means and some handy examples for if you want to chuck any into conversation. (And I’ve now instigated a rule that if a company send me an email with slang I don’t understand, then I’m too old to be buying whatever it is they’re selling.)

Woke

What? To be woke about something means to be well informed about it.

In action: I stay woke by listening to Radio 4. 

Lit

What? One of my friends used this the other day and I had to ask her to explain it (because I’m not woke about millennials). Confusingly it turns out it has a few meanings, depending on the context. It can mean that something’s really good, or drunk/stoned/had a great night. This second meaning’s actually been around for a long time, and first showed up in the 1910s.

In action: This cross stitch I’ve just finished is lit or Emma got lit at book group last night.

AF

What? Short for (sorry Mumsy) ‘as fuck’. Because who wants to type/say a whole FOUR extra letters?

In action: This Farrow & Ball paint colour I’ve chosen is delightful AF.

Glo up

What? When I googled this the first result was the village of Gloup in the far north of the island of Yell in the Shetland Islands. How did I not know there’s an island called Yell? It’s home to the most haunted house in the Shetlands as well as some trolls (the old-fashioned kind, not the internet ones).

Anyway, I digress. To glo up is to suddenly become really attractive.

In action: Plain Jane Superbrain did glo up in Neighbours (FYI I’m not entirely sure what the past tense is – maybe she glo'd up? Answers on a postcard please). 

I so wanted to be Plain Jane Superbrain when I was young. Check her out in action below (the clip also features some little-known Australians called Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue. I wonder what happened to them?).

Hangry

What? When you’re angry because you’re hungry, obvs. I like hangry because (a) it makes perfect sense and I can’t believe there isn’t a word for it already, and (b) I love a portmanteau. Who doesn’t?

In action: My Waitrose delivery is an hour late and I’m super hangry.

Mansplaining

When a man explains something to a woman in a patronising way, or by interrupting or speaking over her. It’s often about something she already knows, or is already an expert in. (Not to be confused with manspreading which is a whole different thing.)

In action: Check out these awesome examples. And it even happened to an ACTUAL ASTRONAUT.

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So, that’s it for yoofspeak for the time being. If you’re as old as me, then hopefully this will help you out if you have to interact with any millennials any time soon. And if you’re a yoof yourself, feel free to correct me or give me some more examples (without mansplaining though please).

Fancy a fuksheet?

The English language is a wonderful thing. And one of the reasons for that is because we have lots of rude words. Think about it. There are loads of them. I can come up with five words for my you-know-what off the top of my head right now. But there are also a lot of words which sound rude but are actually perfectly acceptable in polite society. Here’s just a small selection of some of my favourites – why not see how many you can get into the conversation at your next dinner party?

1. Bumfiddler

Depending on which part of the internet you look at (and I wouldn’t recommend Googling this if you’re easily offended), to be a bumfiddler either means that you pollute or spoil something (like a document, not a bottom), or that you’re a fidget or a busybody. If you put a space in it (i.e. bum fiddler), it means to harm or attack. And if you look it up on urbandictionary.com, it’s to do with playing a fiddle with your arse. Obviously.

2. Cockchafer

It’s a big old beetle. It was almost eradicated with pesticides but numbers are on the rise again, you’ll be pleased to hear. And apparently Nikola Tesla once made an engine out of four of them (I don’t know how). 

Here’s a picture of one – it’s surprisingly cute for a family of bugs which can apparently ‘terrorise ... with their high-pitched screams as they leave a trail of destruction’ (a quote in this well-balanced article from the Daily Star which was published last summer. I must have missed the cockchafer plague).

3. Copula

A copula is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (i.e. the bit that describes or expands on the subject). So in the sentence ‘The cockchafer is furry’, ‘is’ is the copula. It also crops up in probability theory and statistics where it’s a multivariate probability distribution for which the marginal probability distribution of each variable is uniform. But you knew that already, right?

4. Formication

Nope, not that. It’s actually pretty unpleasant – a feeling that you have insects crawling over your skin. From the Latin formica which means ‘ant’. So you could legitimately say that you feel like you’re being formicated by cockshafers. If the situation ever arises.

5. Fuksheet

Okay, so ‘fuk’ with no ‘c’ is a Middle English word for a sail. So you attach a fuksheet to a fukmast. And then you fuk off in your boat.  

6. Invagination

Turning something inside out, innit. And the opposite is called ‘evagination’. One source said it also applies to putting one thing (not that) inside another (not that either), like a sword into a sheath. (If you’re anything like me you’re now singing ‘Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure invagination...’)

7. Jaculate

When you throw something, especially something like a dart or a javelin, you jaculate it. Yep. Not to be confused with ejaculate, which is when you eject something suddenly. And, you know, the other thing.

8. Peniaphobia

Nothing to do with being scared of winkies, this is the fear of poverty. It comes from the Greek penia.

9. Teasehole

Less ooh er, matron and more opening in a glassmaking furnace for putting fuel in.

10. Vagitus

Despite sounding like some kind of ailment you have to whisper over the counter at the chemist, this is actually rather nice – it’s the name given to a newborn baby’s first cry. Aw.

Let’s talk about techs baby

This week I was working on some copy that told the reader to ‘dial’ a number. Which got me thinking – even though I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually used a phone with a dial (probably about 1985, when we also had a three-digit phone number – tru dat kids) – everyone knows what you mean when you talk about dialling a number. So what other tech terms live on, even though the technology that coined them is long dead?

CC

CC stands for carbon copy, which harks back to when people used to make copies of things (like receipts) by putting a piece of carbon paper under the sheet before writing on it. Then the ink transferred onto the other piece of paper (or something – it’s kinda hard to explain). We also used it for card payments in the dark days before electronic readers (and identity theft. Coincidence? Yes, probably).

We now of course use CC when we’re emailing people and BCC when we’re being sneaky. And we still use ‘carbon copy’ when we’re talking about someone or something being a dead ringer for another person or thing, which I used to think was something to do with Han Solo, but almost definitely isn’t. And I wonder how many people under the ago of 20 (or 30 even?) know where it comes from?

Rewind

Alongside ‘tape’ for ‘record’, this is left over from the days of VHS. These days there’s no actual tape being wound backwards – only different bits of a drive being accessed.

(Remember when you could only record one thing at a time, you needed a science degree to set the video and most of the time it didn’t record what you wanted anyway? Ah, memories.)

Tune in

Still applicable to some radios, this one’s from when you used to have to turn a dial to get a station. It also applied to TVs to pick up a channel. Luckily there were only three, so it didn’t take too long.  

Hang up

Another phone-related one here. Back in the days of yore we used to have to actually put the phone back on a cradle to finish a call. Whereas nowadays we never actually hang up anything – just press a button or swipe the screen (which makes angrily ending a phone call much less satisfying).

Wind down the window

Or up, for that matter. You’d be hard pushed to find many non-classic cars on the road these days where you actually have to rotate a handle and wind down the window. They’re all buttons these days. And thank god, because otherwise this awesome movie moment would never have happened...

All this makes me wonder what terms we’ll be using in, say, 20 years? With the speed technology’s moving words are becoming obsolete almost as soon as we learn them. Take ‘click’ for example – something I use a lot when I’m writing copy for emails or web pages. It’s becoming increasingly irrelevant as more and more people are using touchscreens which don’t involve any kind of clicking.

Or maybe we’ll still be talking about ccing people in 100 years’ time when we’re communicating entirely telepathically from inside our flying cars.

It’s not unusual (to hate double negatives)

• ‘I don’t know nothing.’
• ‘You ain’t going nowhere.’
• ‘I can’t see no one.’

Yep, this time around I’m looking at the double negative. Beloved of songwriters and people in EastEnders, it’s one of the few grammatical mistakes that annoys almost everyone. 

Double trouble

So, just to make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s look at the rules around double negatives. You’ll notice that the three examples at the start of this post all have one thing in common – they’re horrible. They also have two negative words in them. And if we correct them, they only have one. I’ve highlighted the negative words below:

• Wrong: ‘I don’t know nothing.’ Right: ‘I don’t know anything.’
• Wrong: ‘You ain’t going nowhere.’ Right: ‘You ain’t [are not] going anywhere.’
• Wrong: ‘I can’t see no one.’ Right: ‘I can’t see any one.’

The simplest way to look at it is that, like in maths, two negatives make a positive (or cancel each other out). So you only need one to make a negative sentence. So far, so logical. But, as we so often find, the English language is a bit stupid sometimes. There are actually two types of double negatives – the ones I mention above which aren’t okay, and a second type, which are grammatically acceptable. (Honestly, I don’t know how anyone ever learns to speak this ridiculous language of ours.)

Double negatives that aren't not okay (i.e. okay)

Right, stay with me. It’s okay to use two negatives in the same sentence if you’re expressing a positive idea. Got it? No? Okay, here’s an example: ‘I can’t just do nothing.’ So you’ve got two negative words there – the ‘n’t’ of ‘can’t’ and ‘nothing’. But the sentence means I must do something, and actually expresses a stronger sentiment than just saying ‘I must do something’. This is called litotes – a figure of speech which uses negative words to make positive statements. It’s one of those annoying things that’s all about nuance (and is also terribly British) so is quite hard to explain. Here are some more examples of litotes in action:

• he’s not hard to look at (i.e. he’s Brad Pitt’s better-looking brother)
• it’s not too shabby (it’s blimmin’ awesome)
• this wasn’t my best idea (this was the worst idea I’ve ever had, ever).

Finally, here’s one from a proper writer – master of subtlety Jane Austen in the excellently named Emma: ‘She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely without inclination for the party.’ We’ve all been there.

So technically speaking, the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd go straight to the bottom of the class for crimes against grammar (I Can’t Get No Satisfaction/We Don’t Need No Education), while Sir Tom of Jones gets a gold star for his use of litotes in It’s Not Unusual. 

Language never stays unchanged

As I’ve previously mentioned on this blog, language evolves. If I was writing this in the 17th century (on parchment, by candlelight) I’d be saying exactly the opposite – it wasn’t until then that people tried to impose more logical rules on English. Check out this impressive triple negative from a little-known writer called William Shakespeare: ‘I never was nor never will be.’

And let’s not forget – language isn’t maths. So why do we feel the need to impose logical rules on it? Maybe it’s just so we can break them?

Why so Sirius?

Monday marked 20 years since Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published. Apart from making me feel well old (I know, I know, you’d think I was barely a twinkle in my mother’s eye 20 years ago (!), but in fact I’d just started university when it came out), it reminded me of how much I admire JK Rowling – she’s created a world that people of all ages, myself included, have come to love. (When the last book came out I once hid in the loo at work in the middle of the day so I could finish a chapter.) So this week, I thought I’d take a look at the etymology of the names of some of my favourite characters in the series. Rowling studied French and classics at university so the origins of her character’s names are often very pertinent – she put a huge amount of thought into even minor characters’ names. 

FYI: I find it hard to believe there are many people who haven’t read an HP book or seen a film, but just in case you are that one person, be warned that this way spoilers lie...

‘You’re a wizard Harry’

• Sirius Black: Oh Sirius. I was convinced right up until the last page of the last book that you’d somehow come back from the dead. Sigh. Anyway, Sirius is the name of the brightest star we can see from the earth. Because he’s lovely, you see. And of course it’s also called the Dog Star, which refers to Sirius’ status as an animagus.
• Remus Lupin: My second favourite after Sirius (which apparently is the kiss of death for HP characters), this one’s a bit of a double whammy. ‘Remus’ must be a reference to ‘Romulus and Remus’ who, as I’m sure all my highly educated readers already know, were the legendary twin brothers who were abandoned then brought up by a wolf (obvs), and then went on to found the city of Rome. So that’s our first clue to Remus’ wolfy secret. Secondly, presumably Lupin is a reference to ‘lupine’ (rather than the flower), which of course means ‘of, like, or relating to a wolf’. Boom.
• Albus Dumbledore: ‘Albus’ is Latin for ‘light’, which makes sense as he’s number 1 good guy. And ‘Dumbledore’ is apparently an English dialect word for bumblebee. Nope, me neither. Maybe JK just liked the sound of it? (Some further googling reveals that apparently she imagined him bumbling round his office like a bee. Why not, I guess?)
• Severus Snape: Fantastically portrayed on film by the much-missed Alan Rickman, Severus was a complicated character who ultimately turned out to be working for the good guys (he just had a really long endgame). So, ‘Severus’ means ‘stern’ in Latin (which is where we get ‘severe’ from), which makes sense as he was a fairly scary teach. And according to the lady herself, JK Rowling took the name ‘Snape’ from a village in Suffolk (where I’m writing this right now – Suffolk, not Snape), but it also means ‘to snub or rebuke or give a hard time to’ which is a nice coincidence (although probably entirely intentional).

‘I solemnly swear I’m up to no good’

• Voldemort: The big bad himself, ‘Vol de mort’ means ‘flight [or ‘theft’ depending on which bits of the internet you read] of death’ which makes sense considering the whole horcrux-hiding-bits-of-your-soul thang. 
• The Malfoys: This one’s not too hard to decipher – ‘mal’ comes from old French for ‘evil’ or ‘bad’. In the same language ‘foi’ means ‘faith’ or ‘trust’ which could well have something to do with the Malfoys putting their trust in the wrong dude. Draco is presumably a reference to ‘draconian’ or possibly dragon or snake (i.e. devious). (And hello to Jason Isaacs!)
• Fenrir Greyback: One of the more minor characters, I put Fenrir in because I like the way it sounds. Fenrir was a big ole nasty wolf in Norse mythology, and a big ole nasty wolfman in Harry Potter land. It’s him who infected Lupin’s family with lycanthropy originally, and he also takes a chunk out of Bill Weasley. Bastard.
• Argus Filch: Argus Panoptes is a Greek giant with a shedload of eyes. A perfect moniker for someone who’s always watching round corners. And obviously ‘filch’ is an informal term for stealing, which again fits for a man who likes to confiscate shiz. 

So, there you have it. There are loads more links in HP to Latin, French and Greek, as well as astrology, biology – the list goes on. Feel free to leave a comment about your favourite.

Bonus material

Check out this Harry Potter-based sock puppet video – guaranteed to be stuck in your head for DAYS. 

What’s in a name?

Nominative determinism. Go on, say it. Nominative determinism. Sounds nice right? And clever. 

Say what?

Now I know that my many (she says hopefully) readers are super intelligent, but just in case any of you haven’t come across this lovely term before, it’s basically the idea that people quite often end up doing jobs that match their names. Also called aptronyms, think William Wordsworth (poet, obvs), Usain Bolt (I confess I hadn’t actually made the connection until I started writing this), or Mr Greenacre, who was the man that looked after the hockey pitches at my school. Possibly less famous than the first two, but you get the point.

The term nominative determinism was coined in an article in the New Scientist. They gave examples including:

• a man who wrote a book about polar exploration with the surname Snowman
• an article on treating disorders of the urinary system by two researchers called Splatt and Weedon (BEST. THING. EVER).

The theory goes that this isn’t just coincidence – it’s possibly down to genetics, or a thing called implicit egotism. As this is a blog about words, I’m not going to delve into the science, just the funny names. So here’s a list of my favourite examples of this theory in action.

Sara Blizzard

She’s a blimmin weather forecaster for the BBC. And across the pond there’s an Amy Freeze and a Larry Sprinkle.

Igor Judge

Judge Judge innit.

Christopher Coke

He’s a big ole drug dealer. 

Lord Brain

Guess what he wrote books about? Neurology.

Sir Manley Power

He was a total military ledge. 

Dr Alter

He’s a plastic surgeon. Well of course he is.

Frances Crook

She runs an organisation that works to reform prisons. In a double whammy, ‘Frances’ means ‘free the criminals’ apparently.

Vania Stambolova

I’m not sure if this one really counts because she’s from Bulgaria and it only works in English, but I don’t care because it’s awesome. I bet you can’t guess it. She’s a... wait for it... 400m hurdler. Amazing.

Marion Moon

She was Buzz Aldrin’s mum. I can’t believe I only just found this out.  

Ann Webb

She founded the British Tarantula Society. REALLY.

Robin Mahfood

He’s the president of a charity called Food for the Poor. Even though his name says otherwise.

Dr Richard Chopp

HE DOES VASECTOMIES. Honest.

So, dear reader, if you can beat Dick Chopp, please let me know in the comments. I’ll buy you dinner (chops, of course).

A myriad of wrongness

I got pulled up by a client today for writing that something came ‘in a myriad of colours’. She told me that ‘myriad’ doesn’t need an ‘a’ before it or an ‘of’ after it. Because I’m super-competitive and really don’t like being told I’m wrong, especially when it comes to anything word-related, I immediately consulted Google to check this. And turns out, I’m wrong (and I’ve been using it wrongly for as long as I’ve known what it means).

According to some very in-depth research (I looked at at least one website), myriad comes from the Greek for ‘murioi’ which means 10,000. Modern usage isn’t so specific – it’s now come to mean ‘a great many’. But either way, adding that ‘a’ and ‘of’ is officially bonkers, because you wouldn’t write that it came in a a great many of colours. It’s a bit like saying PIN number which is actually personal identification number number.

So this got me thinking – what other words have I been using completely wrongly for pretty much my whole life? Turns out there are loads. I mean, LOADS.

I think this may well be the start of a series of Emma-is-stupid themed blog posts.

Poisonous

WTF? I hear you say (or at least that’s what I said when I read this). Apparently you should only say poisonous when you’re talking about something that will kill you when you eat it. Not if it eats (or bites) you. So if you say a snake is poisonous, you’re actually saying that it will kill you if you eat it (which it might, but that’s not the point – I’m not flipping David Attenborough for god’s sake). Snakes are venomous, not poisonous.

Factoid

I thought this meant a small fact. It doesn’t. It’s a false fact. Gasp! It was first used by Norman Mailer in 1973 to describe a fact that people believe to be true because it appears in print (‘facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper’). Hmmm, topical…

At least I know I’m in good company – DJ Steve Wright has published a couple of books about (true) small facts titled ‘Factoids’. So that makes me feel better (not really). And also brings me on to…

Entitled

Don’t panic – when you say someone’s entitled to something, you’re not wrong. But it is wrong to say that a book (or anything else) is entitled [title]. As in The sequel’s entitled Fast and Furious 17. It’s just titled that. Which doesn’t really seem that hard to remember.

Ultimate

When you say that, for example, ‘Paris is the ultimate city break’ what you’re actually saying is that it’s last on the list. Yep, ‘ultimate’ means ‘last in a progression or series’ (think ‘penultimate’). So you’re actually being really mean about Paris. I know we’re leaving Europe and all, but there’s no need for nastiness.

Inflammable

It means flammable. Not not flammable. Even though the prefix in- almost always means ‘not’ in English, in this case ‘inflammable’ comes from the word ‘enflame’. So it doesn’t.

Sometimes English is stupid.

Electrocute

If you grew up in the English countryside in the 70s or 80s, chances are at one point you put your hand on an electric fence round a field just to see what it was like (this was before the internet kids). And you may well have then told your friends at school that you got electrocuted. Well, you didn’t, because then you would be dead – to be electrocuted means to die from an electric shock. So unless your best friend was Haley Joel Osment (dated reference) what you actually got was an electric shock.

The last word

Language evolves. It’s one of the things that makes it great. If enough people continue to use a word one way, even the wrong way, then eventually its original meaning doesn’t matter anymore. And that is a factoid.