nog

Yes, I’m talking about eggnog here. I’ve never tried eggnog, because why would I? I don’t want to drink egg, thank you very much. Even if it does have booze in it.

Yuck

My taste aside, what even is a nog? The truth is that no one’s completely sure, which doesn’t make for a very good blog post. But luckily lots of intrepid etymologists have taken a guess, with most tracing it back to the 17th century, when ‘nog’ referred to a strong ale brewed in East Anglia (where I sit as we speak). It might also come from ‘noggin’, a Middle English word for a small wooden cup or mug. Which would mean that ‘nog’ essentially means ‘booze in a little cup’. I don’t know which nutter decided to stick some egg in it though.

You might be wondering if nog and noggin – slang for head, first recorded in the 17th century – are related. And the answer is… maybe. No one really knows where ‘noggin’ for head comes from. But it’s possible that it’s just a metaphor likening heads to containers full of ideas (or, if you’re me, song lyrics from the 80s). The earliest recorded use of ‘noggin’ for head seems to be from the 1769 farce ‘The Stratford Jubilee’. A character called Captain Blarney says ‘Keep off your fore foots; or, devil burn me, but I'll crack your noggin for you.’ A quote worth chucking in to any arguments over the Christmas dinner table, methinks.

When I was researching this, I learned about the Eggnog Riot of 1826 – yup. Also known as the Grog Mutiny (great name for a band), it took place at the United States Military Academy at West Point (the school that Robert Sean Leonard’s dad tries to force him to go to in Dead Poets Society [which should have an apostrophe but doesn’t] – with DEVASTATING consequences that I’m still not over). On 24–25 December, armed with homemade eggnog spiked with whiskey, some cadets threw a party that quickly descended into a full-blown brawl. Windows were smashed, furniture was thrown about and weapons were drawn. The aftermath was a disciplinary nightmare for West Point, with 19 cadets facing punishment and several having to be expelled. Another reason to stay away from eggy alcohol.

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This is the last word of the week for 2024. Don’t worry though – I’ll be back in 2025 with lots more etymological oddities. Until then, a very merry Christmas to you and yours.

gynoid

We’re heading into the realms of science fiction (with a bit of science fact) for this one. A gynoid is a humanoid robot designed to look like a woman – think Maria in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), one of the earliest depictions of a female android, and Ava from the film Ex Machina (2014).

The term ‘gynoid’ was first introduced by sci-fi guru Isaac Asimov in a 1979 editorial as a theoretical female equivalent to the word ‘android’, which is usually gender-neutral or male by default (OBVIOUSLY). It comes from the Greek word gynē meaning ‘woman’ and the suffix -oid, which means ‘resembling’ or ‘like’.

In fiction, gynoids are often used to explore societal themes, including gender roles and artificial intelligence. And by ‘explore … gender roles and artificial intelligence’, I mean men exploring having sex with them – I can’t think of a single fictional gynoid who doesn’t have a man trying to insert himself into her charging port.

Real-life examples of gynoids who hopefully aren’t suffering the same fate (yet, anyway) include:

Actroid in action

EveR, looking scarily real

• Actroid, life-like gynoids developed by Osaka University and manufactured by Kokoro Company. They can mimic human functions including blinking, speaking and breathing, and the latest models can recognise, process and respond to speech

• EveR (‘Eve’ plus ‘r’ for robot), a series of female androids developed by a team of South Korean scientists. This gynoid can recognise 400 Korean and English words, and respond to questions both verbally and with facial expressions. She’ll also get annoyed with you if you poke her (unlike a lot of real women who just put up with that shit)

• Vyommitra (from the Sanskrit words Vyōma meaning ‘space’ and Mitra meaning ‘friend’), a gynoid made for space travel (although not far, as she doesn’t have any legs). She was designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation to work on board the Gaganyaan, a crewed orbital spacecraft expected to launch in 2026.

Just to even up the scores a little, here’s Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, a ‘male pleasure Mecha’. You’re welcome.

enervate

I love the wonderful English language. But sometimes it’s stupid. This is one of those times.

Much like lots of us think ‘inflammable’ means something won’t catch fire (it means it totally will catch fire*), ‘enervate’ isn’t a synonym (AKA a word that means the same) for ‘energise’. It actually means completely the opposite – as a verb (a doing word), to enervate is to sap something or someone’s strength, to weaken or exhaust them.

You can also use ‘enervate’ as an adjective, AKA a describing word. So you can be enervated by someone or something. Hopefully not this post.

‘Enervate’ comes from a Latin word, ‘enervare’. The ‘e’ at the start means ‘out of’, and ‘nervus’ means ‘sinew’ or ‘nerve’. Together, the term originally meant ‘to remove the sinews’. Why? Well, in ancient Roman and Classical contexts, sinews (or tendons) were seen as essential to physical strength and vitality. So cutting or removing them was a way to render someone literally powerless. Over time, this vivid and somewhat minging image of losing strength evolved into the metaphorical sense of being drained of energy or vitality. And that’s where we get ‘enervate’ from.

You might also have heard of the word ‘innervate’, which comes from the same Latin root. If you innervate someone or something, it means you supply it or them with nerves. Chaotic parking situations do this to me.

* Yes, the prefix in- almost always means ‘not’ in English. But not in this case – ‘inflammable’ comes from the word ‘enflame’. And that’s why inflammable means flammable, not not flammable.

crotchety

If you’re crotchety, you’re a bit cross and fed-up. Not full on angry, but definitely somewhere in the middle of the pissed-off scale.

‘Crotchety’ comes from an Old French word, ‘crochet’, which dates back to around the 12th century, and meant ‘a little hook’. That in turn comes from the Latin word ‘cruciculus’, which is a diminutive (i.e. a word that conveys a smaller or lesser version of something) of ‘crux’, meaning ‘cross’. (I don’t know why the smaller version is much longer and more complicated than the short version, sorry.)

My whole life, I’ve had an irrational fear of getting a fish-hook caught in my cheek.

Around the 16th century, we stuck a ‘t’ in ‘crochet’ to create ‘crotchet’ in English, which still meant ‘small hook’. And that’s where we get ‘crotchety’ from – probably due to the idea that crotchety people’s minds get ‘hooked’ on small, trivial annoyances. This association didn’t become common until the early 19th century (maybe people were just super-chilled before then) which is when we get the first recorded use of ‘crotchety’ in print. According to the OED, the earliest known use was in 1847, in some writing by Benjamin Disraeli, UK PM and novelist.

The musical crotchet (i.e. a quarter note in British English) also shares the same linguistic root – this is due to the hook-like symbols used in early musical notation. And of course, the name of the craft of ‘crochet’ comes from the same place as it involves a little hook (one which I cannot master, despite trying really hard. The last time I tried, I ended up throwing it across the room, where it landed in the dog’s water bowl.).

I got extremely crotchety with ChatGPT while writing this article, as it contradicted itself four times while I was trying to get the facts straight on this etymology. So the moral of this crotchety story is, don’t rely on ChatGPT to write factually accurate articles – hire me to do that instead.

(It did then help me with a particularly complicated knitting pattern though, so we’re friends again now. Not a crochet pattern though, sadly, because I CAN’T DO THAT.)

filipendulous

If something is filipendulous, it means it’s hanging by a thread or a filament. It’s most often used to describe things that appear suspended by delicate or slender attachments, and look like they could drop at any moment. Like a spider suspended by a single thread. Or my sanity.

Like many of our words (especially the complicated ones), filipendulous comes from Latin. It’s a combination of the Latin word ‘filum’ meaning ‘thread’, and ‘pendere’ which means ‘to hang’.

You’re most likely to come across the word filipendulous in botany, where it’s used to describe plants with structures on fine stalks or threads. There’s actually a genus of plants called Filipendula containing 12 species of perennial herbaceous plants. That includes meadowsweet and dropwort, and the excellently named queen-of-the-forest (Filipendula occidentalis) and queen-of-the-prairie (Filipendula rubra), both of which are native to North America.

Filipendula species are food plants for the larvae of some Lepidoptera (AKA butterflies and moths) species, including the emperor moth, one of the biggest in the world. The largest emperor moth has a wingspan of between 15 and 20cm (6 to 8 inches). Yeesh. (I’ve literally just finished reading ‘The Travelling Bag’ by Susan Hill which makes this fact particularly freaky. If you know, you know.) These moths live in Europe, but haven’t made it across the Channel to us (YET). Having said that, our largest moth is the privet hawk moth, which can get up to a not-too-shabby 12cm (4.7in) wingspan.

You wouldn’t want either of those flapping round your bedroom light, would you?

winnow

If you’re one of the many (including me) people who’ve read the adult fairy-tale series (and by ‘adult fairy-tale’ I mean dirty, dirty soft porn) ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses’ by Sarah J Maas, you’ll be very familiar with the verb ‘to winnow’. It’s not filthy, sorry. In the books, winnowing is the ability to transport yourself to a different location using magic. Only some of the Fae in the series can do it, as it takes lots of concentration and strength.

Winnow is a real word, although it doesn’t have anything to do with teleportation. If one of us non-Fae folk winnows, it’s much more mundane, I’m afraid – it means we’re separating grain from chaff using a current of air. That’s a fancy way of saying that you chuck it in the air and let the wind do the hard work, blowing away the lighter chaff while the heavier grain falls back down.

Figuratively, ‘winnow’ can also mean to separate the valuable or desirable part of something from the crap bit, or to sift through and choose stuff that’s useful or valuable. So it’s basically a much quicker way of saying ‘separate the wheat from the chaff’.

‘Winnow’ has its origins in Old English and Old High German. The Old English verb ‘windwian’ meant ‘to fan’ or ‘to blow’. That’s related to the Old High German word ‘winnan’, which means the same. And that word has roots in Proto-Germanic and ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *wē- or *weh- which means ‘to blow, to move air’. So it’s actually a pretty good verb for a fictional process that involves moving yourself through the air really fast.

PS I realise I sounded a bit snobby when I referred to ACOTAR as ‘dirty, dirty soft porn’. I didn’t mean to – I actually really enjoyed all of them, and leant them to both my mum and my sister (is that weird?). I’m not alone either. The series has sold over 13 million copies, is a New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for a TV series adaptation. (They are super filthy though – especially ‘A Court of Silver Flames’. So if you decide to read them, don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Apparently this is a ‘book trailer’. I didn’t know this is a thing, but I’m here for it.

gamut

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘run the gamut’, which sounds like something torturous in The Hunger Games. Don’t worry though, a thing that runs the gamut is actually just something that covers every possible point in a range. So if you’re feeling all the feelings, you can be described as having ‘run the gamut of emotions’.

But WTF is a gamut?

Guido of Arezzo laying down some phat beats

Allow me to take you back to the 11th century to meet a monk called Guido of Arezzo. Guido’s favourite thing to do was to organise sounds (obviously – well, I guess he didn’t have Netflix). He also spent a lot of time teaching Gregorian chant to young monks, and as part of this he developed a way to teach his singers to remember the musical scale more easily. He named the very lowest note in his scale ‘gamma-ut’. This was from ‘gamma’, the Greek letter used for that low note, and ‘ut’, the first syllable of an ancient hymn Guido loved. Over time, ‘gamma-ut’ was shortened to, you’ve guessed it, ‘gamut’, and people began using it to refer to the entire musical range of notes.

As musical theory evolved, so did ‘gamut’. It grew beyond music to mean a full scope or range of anything, which is why we get to run gamuts today in any arena we like.

I confess that I’ve done Guido a bit of a disservice above, as he wasn’t just a singing teacher. In fact, he’s known as the father of modern musical notation. Guido’s most significant contribution was to develop a musical notation system that allowed notes to be written down and read consistently. He also created the basis of the four-line staff, which positioned notes at fixed heights to show their pitch more clearly than earlier systems. This eventually led to the five-line staff we use today.

He didn’t stop there either. Guido also invented the solfège syllables, AKA ‘do-re-mi’. He originally used ‘ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la’ from a Latin hymn for St John the Baptist, and maybe just because he seemed to like an ‘ut’. This helped singers remember pitch relationships more effectively, and revolutionised teaching music by ear.

Guido’s inventions allowed people to share music in written form across Europe. So it’s pretty safe to say that without him, we wouldn’t have most of the music we have today. Or that song from The Sound of Music.

maven

A ‘maven’ is someone who’s an expert or connoisseur in a particular field. They’re not just knowledgeable about it though – they’re also super passionate about their area of expertise. We generally use the term ‘maven’ to describe people whose insights and advice we value due to their understanding and experience. So you could describe me as a grammar and punctuation maven. Except for the ‘highly valued’ bit, as generally people just get annoyed with me when I tell them their apostrophes are in the wrong place.

Anyway, it’s not all about me. The etymology of ‘maven’ traces back to Yiddish, a language spoken by Ashkenazi Jews that blends elements of German, Hebrew and other languages. It comes from ‘meyvn’, which means ‘an expert’. That, in turn, comes from the Hebrew word ‘mevin’, which means ‘one who understands’.

Despite sounding quite old-fashioned, ‘maven’ is actually a fairly late addition into English, not making an appearance until the mid-20th century. That’s thanks to the influence of Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants in the United States, especially in New York. It wasn’t long before the term was being used more broadly beyond the Jewish community, especially in marketing and media circles.

‘Maven’ saw a resurgence in the late 20th century, partly thanks to its use in the marketing and tech industries. Author Malcolm Gladwell popularised it further in his 2000 book The Tipping Point, which is sadly nothing to do with the weirdly compelling ITV teatime gameshow. In it (the book, not the gameshow), he described mavens as people who have a wealth of information and seek to pass it on to others. I wish I could say I know this because I’ve read Malcolm Gladwell, but ChatGPT told me. I’m clearly not a Malcolm Gladwell maven.

pariah

I always think this sounds like a fish name. It’s not, of course. A pariah is a social outcast – someone who’s rightly or wrongly rejected or shunned by society or a particular group, often due to their actions, beliefs or circumstances. We use ‘pariah’ in lots of different contexts, from politics to social circles. The kids would probably say it’s when someone gets cancelled.

Etymologically, ‘pariah’ actually has a bit of a dark history. It has its roots in the Tamil language of southern India. It comes from the word ‘paṛaiyar’, which referred to members of a lower caste group who played the ‘parai’, a large drum used at public ceremonies. Over time, the term became associated with those considered low status or outside the main social hierarchy.

‘Pariah’ was eventually adopted by Portuguese colonisers, entering English in the 17th century where it took on a much broader meaning. By the 19th century, it had lost the ‘caste’ connotations, and was commonly used to describe any individual or group that was socially or politically ostracised, regardless of their background.

Lots of figures we celebrate today were considered pariahs when they were alive (which is sad). Some examples:

• Vincent Van Gogh – reviled and ridiculed during his lifetime, and probably only ever sold one painting. Now we know he was suffering from mental illness (probably bipolar, maybe schizophrenia) which makes this doubly sad. His brother’s wife (Jo van Gogh-Bonger) promoted him when he passed as a way to survive, and it’s thanks to her efforts that he’s so appreciated today.

• Edgar Allen Poe – he died alone and miserable, probably with rabies. He did marry his 13-year-old cousin though…

• Alan Turing – despite playing a crucial role in breaking the Enigma code during World War II, helping to shorten the war and save countless lives, and laying the foundations for modern computer science, Turing was persecuted throughout his lifetime just for being gay.

If you can get through this without blubbing, then you must be a bit dead inside. Sorry.

anapodoton

This popped up on a recent episode of quiz show ‘Only Connect’. The four things the people had to find a connection between were:

• ‘Fine intellects’

• ‘Mention Satan’

• ‘If headwear is the right size’

• ‘While kitty’s not here’.

The answer was ‘Paraphrased anapodoton’.

If you didn’t see the episode (and maybe even if you did), you’re probably thinking ‘Huh’? Maybe it’ll be clearer if I un-paraphrase these anapodotons:

• ‘Great minds’

• ‘Speak of the devil’

• ‘If the cap fits’

• ‘While the cat’s away’.

If you’re still thinking ‘WTF’, an anapodoton is a term used in language to describe a situation where we leave part of a sentence unsaid, but the listener or reader knows exactly what we mean. So you start a phrase, but you don’t finish it because the ending is implied. Here’s another example which (weirdly) cropped up on fact-based podcast ‘No Such Thing as a Fish’ a couple of days later: ‘Don’t count your chickens’. You know the rest without anyone having to say it i.e. ‘... before they’ve hatched’ (although on that podcast, one of the presenters had never heard the second half. Cue much piss-taking). And that’s anapodoton.

The word ‘anapodoton’ comes from Greek, as lots of language-related terms do. ‘ana-’ means ‘back’ or ‘again’, and ‘apodoton’ means ‘that which is given’. So it’s basically something being left ‘given back’, or unsaid.

Despite its somewhat inaccessible name, anapodoton is a handy little trick in language that lets us skip the obvious bits of a sentence, trusting the other person to fill in the blanks. It’s interesting because it shows how much meaning we can convey without actually saying everything. And it highlights how important context and common knowledge are when it comes to understanding each other – something that’s often missing on social media, for example.

More importantly, next time you find yourself trailing off halfway through a familiar phrase and leaving someone to fill in the blanks, you can smugly say ‘And that was anapodoton’.

Just in case you’re wondering, the ‘Only Connect’ anapodotons end like this:

• ‘Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ’

• ‘Speak of the devil and he will appear’

• 'If the cap fits, wear it’

• ‘While the cat’s away, the mice will play’.

This first one’s really interesting as the full phrase doesn’t really mean what we think it means (to misquote ‘The Princess Bride’). It actually implies that dimbos can also agree on things. I found a few more like this where the second half has been lost over time which has led to a change or simplification in meaning. Like:

• ‘Blood is thicker than water ... [but] the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.’ I’m not surprised we dropped the second half of this – not exactly catchy, is it? While we usually interpret the first half to mean that family bonds are the strongest, the full phrase suggests that bonds we choose (like friendship) can actually be even better. Aw.

• ‘The customer is always right … in matters of taste.’ This is often attributed to early 20th-century department store owner Harry Gordon Selfridge. Over time we’ve lost the nuance of ‘taste’ in the second half, so now it simply means the customer is always right. But the actual phrase is saying that’s only the case for subjective things like style or choice. Which changes the meaning completely. OOH.

• ‘Actions speak louder than words, but not nearly as often.’ The truncated version tells us that action is better that words. Fine. But the full phrase adds that while actions are more powerful, they don’t happen as often as words, making words just as good. Which is lucky for me.

ur-text

Like lots of previous words of the week, I heard this on Kermode & Mayo’s Take, in reference to new horror film ‘Substance’ (which sounds awesome). An ur-text is the original or earliest version of a text, the foundation that later versions are based on. The term’s often used in literature, history and religious studies to describe a document that’s thought to be the source of all later editions, translations or interpretations. The concept of an ur-text is important in academic circles, because seeing the original can help us understand how ideas or stories have evolved over time.

Now, etymology. The ‘text’ bit of ‘ur-text’ is (hopefully) obvious. But what about the ‘ur’? Well, it’s a German prefix meaning ‘original’ or ‘primitive’. So ‘ur-text’ literally means ‘original text’. Why is it German? Because German literary theory, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, has had a significant impact on the study of texts. For example, it’s influenced concepts like authenticity, interpretation and textual analysis, and scholars like Wolfgang Iser and Hans-Georg Gadamer have increased the term’s popularity in literary criticism. It’s also a concise way to refer to a complex idea which might need a longer explanation in English (although I think ‘OG text’ would work just as well, but maybe that’s why I’m not a literary academic).

A good example of an ur-text is Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623), the first collected edition of his works. The First Folio contains 36 plays, divided into three categories: comedies, histories and tragedies. It includes iconic works like Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Othello. Some plays, like The Tempest and Twelfth Night, were published for the first time in the Folio. Without it, many of Shakespeare’s works might have been lost, and generations of schoolkids would have nothing to moan about.

The First Folio was compiled by two of Shakespeare’s BFFs and fellow actors, John Heminges and Henry Condell. They wanted to preserve his work for future generations as many of the plays hadn’t been formally published, and only existed in scripts or incomplete versions. Well done, John and Hazza.

Around 750 copies of The First Folio were originally printed, and there are about 235 in existence today, most of which are in libraries and museums around the world. One copy of The First Folio sold for $9.98 million at auction in 2020. It was bought by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, and holds the record for the most expensive literary work sold at auction.

prestigious

If something or someone’s prestigious, they’re generally highly respected and renowned. But ‘prestigious’ is one of those words which has completely reinvented itself over the years. When it first appeared in English in the 16th century, it referred to someone or something that was deceptive or fraudulent, or that involved trickery. It wasn’t until the 19th century that ‘prestigious’ tricked us all and morphed into the positive meaning it has today.

Before we get into the ‘why’ of that, let’s take a look at the etymology. Like lots of other words of the week, prestigious has its roots in Latin. It comes from the word ‘praestigiosus’, which meant ‘full of tricks’ or ‘deceitful’. That’s derived from ‘praestigiae’, meaning ‘delusions’ or ‘illusions’, and was often used to refer to conjuring tricks or sleight of hand. (You might also have heard the word ‘prestidigitation’, which also comes from ‘praestigiae’, and refers specifically to the skill of performing magic tricks or illusions, often using quick hand movements). The root word ‘prae-’ means ‘before’ or ‘in front of,’ while ‘stringere’ means ‘to bind’ or ‘to tighten’, suggesting something that deceives or confounds the senses.

So how did ‘prestigious’ fool us all into turning it into something positive? It’s probably down to the fact that we’re all impressed by someone who has the power to dazzle and deceive. And over time, we started using ‘prestigious’ to describe someone or something that does that as having earned our admiration and respect. By the mid-19th century, the association with trickery had pretty much completely disappeared, and we were only using it in the positive sense we do today.

Harrison Ford’s reaction to this is PRICELESS.

vaccine

‘Vaccine’s history begins in 1796 with Edward Jenner, a country doctor in Gloucestershire. Smallpox was a leading cause of death at the time, with a mortality rate of about 20% to 30%. Survivors were often left with severe scarring and sometimes blindness too. Jenner noticed a pattern among the local milkmaids. Lots of them caught cowpox, a mild disease that caused sores similar to smallpox but was far less dangerous. But they rarely caught the much deadlier smallpox. He decided to investigate why.

On 14 May 1796, Jenner took material from a cowpox sore on the hand of a local milkmaid (called Sarah Nelmes). He then made small incisions on the arm of an eight-year-old boy called James Phipps (whose parents must have been very trusting), and inserted the cowpox stuff. The boy developed a mild fever but recovered quickly.

A few weeks later, Jenner exposed James to smallpox to see if the cowpox had protected him (seriously, that poor child). Thankfully for everyone concerned, he didn’t develop smallpox, proving the theory that cowpox had made the boy immune to it.

Jenner performing his first vaccination on poor old James Phipps

The concept of deliberately introducing a bit of a disease (not the technical term) to bring about immunity wasn’t new. Called ‘variolation’, people had been doing it with smallpox for centuries (it was used in China as early as the 10th century). But it didn’t always work, and sometimes led to severe cases of the disease. Jenner’s innovation was much safer because it used cowpox, which was less dangerous than smallpox. That’s why it got a new name – ‘vaccine’ – which comes from the Latin word ‘vacca’, meaning ‘cow’ (we got there eventually).

Jenner’s method spread across Europe and eventually the world, laying the groundwork for modern immunology and the development of vaccines for many other diseases, including covid. In 1802, he got a grant from the British government to continue his research, which would eventually lead to the global eradication of smallpox by the World Health Organization in 1980. Well done, Edward.

If you’re wondering what happened to James, he died of smallpox a few years later. KIDDING. There’s not actually much known about his later life, although he did get a free house from Jenner. Which seems like the least he could do, frankly. Phipps died in 1853, making him 65. And in a nice twist, that cottage went on to house the Edward Jenner Museum between 1968 and 1982.

(I don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but in the interests of balance I should probably point out that Phipps wasn’t the first child to be experimented on, I mean, vaccinated against smallpox with cowpox. In 1791, a man called Peter Plett picked a pickled pepper, sorry, inoculated three children in Germany, and in 1774 a guy called Benjamin Jesty also did it on three of his family members (!). But Jenner was the first person to publish details of the vaccination, which is why he gets the credit.)

mooch

‘Mooch’ has two different meanings depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on. In British English ‘mooching’ is pretty relaxed – it means to wander or loiter aimlessly, often with no particular purpose in mind. We often have a mooch round the shops, for example. Across the pond, however, ‘mooching’ is a bit more sinister. In American English, it refers to someone who takes from others without giving anything in return, AKA a freeloader or sponger. (We do use it in this way over here as well, e.g. ‘he’s mooching off his friends’, although probably not as often...?)

A man, mooching

Whether you’re British or American, ‘mooch’ has been about since the mid-nineteenth century. It’s believed to originate from the Middle English word ‘mocchen’, which meant ‘to loiter or slink about’. This itself likely comes from an Old French word ‘muchier’ or ‘muscher’, meaning ‘to hide or lurk’. There’s also a possible influence from a Dutch word ‘mutsen’, which means ‘to sulk’ or ‘to dawdle’.

I asked ChatGPT why this change happened and it said that people in America have ‘a strong emphasis on self-sufficiency and individual responsibility’ which we Brits don’t. RUDE. So now AI is not only sexist (see previous word of the week, misanthrope), but also xenophobic. That bodes well for the future.

coiffeur

My lovely hairdresser asked me if I could so a hairdressing-related word for her. So this one’s for you, Alexia.

A coiffeur is a fancy word for a professional hairdresser, particularly one who specialises in styling hair. It’s a French word that specifically refers to a male hairdresser (obviously). The female version, ‘coiffeuse’, appeared later, although that distinction has pretty much gone these days and we use ‘coiffeur’ for everyone. (Just once I’d love it if we started using the female version of something for everyone, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.)

Coiffeur’s roots (pardon the pun) go back to the French verb ‘coiffer’, which meant ‘to cover or dress the hair’. This verb comes from the Old French word ‘coife’ which referred to a headdress or cap worn in the Middle Ages (that comes from the Late Latin – AKA, Latin used roughly between the 3rd and 6th centuries – ‘cofia’, meaning a helmet or a head covering). A coife was a close-fitting hat that covered the top, sides and back of the head, and was often made from linen or another soft fabric. It was tied under the chin, keeping it secure. But definitely not very cool, judging by that description.

Over time, the meaning of ‘coiffer’ evolved and by the 17th century, it had come to describe the act of styling or arranging hair. And that’s where we got ‘coiffeur’ from.

During the reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King) in France, coiffeurs were highly regarded as artists, and were often employed by the aristocracy to craft elaborate wigs and hairstyles. A coiffeur’s work wasn’t just about cutting hair – it was about creating a statement. One of the most famous was Claude de Rambouillet, known professionally as ‘Monsieur Champagne’ (best name ever), who was known for creating elaborate baroque hairstyles at the French court, incorporating ribbons, jewels and feathers.

Bonus hairdressing word: tonsorial. In Holt in Norfolk, there’s a barbershop called ‘The Tonsorial Artist’. (it has an excellent sign) That comes from comes from the Latin word ‘tonsor’, meaning ‘a clipper’ or ‘a shearer’, and ‘tondere’, meaning ‘to shear’ or ‘to clip’. Head to their website to find out the origin of the barbers’ pole, which, as it turns out, is gross.

font

Ah, fonts. Most of us have our favourites. In fact, I once had a wonderful evening with a guy in a bar in New York after we got chatting because he had my then-favourite font (Trebuchet) tattooed on his leg. But that’s a story for another time. Back to business – do you know where the word ‘font’ comes from? Well, it actually goes all the way back to the Middle Ages and the early days of printing.

‘Font’ comes from the Middle French word, ‘fonte’, which means ‘something that’s been melted’. That in turn comes from the Latin verb ‘fundere’, meaning ‘to melt’ or ‘to cast’. So what’s with all the melting? Well, it refers to the traditional process of creating typefaces, where individual letters were cast in metal. A printer would use these metal letters to create a page of text, which they’d then cover in ink and press on paper. Each typeface needed a full set of these metal pieces, which were collectively referred to as, you’ve guessed it, a font.

Bonus word of the week – leading. I’m referring to the one pronounced ‘ledding’, which these days refers to the distance between lines of text. It’s called that because traditionally printers would insert strips of lead between lines of type to increase the spacing. Interesting, right?

(Oh, and if you’ve ever wondered how some of the fonts we use every day got their names, have a read of this blog post. It also explains the difference between ‘font’ and ‘typeface’, if you care about such things.)

spondulicks

‘Spondulicks’ (also spelled ‘spondoolicks’ or ‘spondulix’) is a slang term for money, which I’m almost certain Delboy Trotter used more than once. It first emerged in the United States in the mid-19th century, where it quickly gained popularity, even appearing in a New York Times article in 1857. Its exact origins are unknown, but there are a couple of theories about its etymology.

The first one, and the most widely accepted, is that it comes from the Greek word ‘spondylos’, meaning vertebra or a type of shell. What do shells have to do with money? Well, they were often used as currency in ancient times, and even as late as the early 20th century in some regions. (I read this in a fab book called ‘Spirals in Time: The Secret and Curious Afterlife of Seashells’ by marine biologist Helen Scales – nice bit of nominative determinism there.)

Cowrie shells were among the most widely used shells for currency across various cultures and regions, including West and Central Africa, India, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand and The Maldives. There’s even a cowrie shell called cypraea moneta or money cowrie. Why cowries? They’re hard and durable which makes them good for lots of handling, and they also come in relatively uniform sizes and shapes, so they’re easy to count and use as a standardised form of money. They’re also really pretty.

The second theory for ‘spondulicks’ is that it comes from the Latin word ‘spondere’, which means ‘to promise’ or ‘pledge’. This one’s less popular though.

When I asked ChatGPT for a list of slang words for money it gave me the usual suspects including ‘bucks’, ‘cash’, ‘dough’, ‘quid’ and ‘moolah’, but also some others I’ve never heard of. These included ‘cheddar’, ‘cabbage’, ‘simoleons’ and ‘bones’. Who knew?

Makes me laugh every single time.

flatulist

Not to be confused with ‘flautist’ (that could be embarrassing), a flatulist is a professional farter. (Look, I wanted to take a break from railing against the patriarchy, okay? It’s very tiring.)

Professional farting has a surprisingly rich history, going all the way back to medieval times, and possibly even earlier. ‘The City of God’, a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century AD, mentions some performers who had ‘such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at will, so as to produce the effect of singing’. I’m not sure what that has to do with Christian philosophy, but never mind.

Possibly the most famous flatulist was Roland the Farter, who lived here in England in the 12th century. He was a jester for King Henry II, and each year performed ‘Unum saltum et siffletum et unum bumbulum’, or ‘one jump, one whistle and one fart’ for the king’s court at Christmas. For services to farting, Roland was given Hemingstone Manor in Suffolk (which is just up the road from where I am now) and 30 acres (12 hectares) of land.

Le Pétomane, just about to let one go

Another famous flatulist was Le Pétomane (real name Joseph Pujol) who was born in 1857. He was known for his remarkable control of his abdominal muscles, which meant he could fart at will. Apparently he wasn’t passing intestinal gas like us unprofessional farters do though – he was actually ‘inhaling’ air into his rectum and then controlling its release with his anal sphincter muscles (apparently he could even suck water up there and then blow it back out). Some of the highlights of his stage act including making sound effects of cannon fire and thunderstorms with his bum, as well as playing ‘O Sole Mio’ and ‘La Marseillaise’ on an ocarina through a rubber tube in his anus. He could also blow out a candle from several yards away. His audience included Edward VII, King Leopold II of Belgium and Sigmund Freud.

Flatulists haven’t really managed to make the leap to modern-day entertainment, with one notable exception. If you’re a fan of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, you might remember Mr Methane, who claims to be the only performing farter in the world. Mr M (real name Paul Oldfield) gave up a career as a train driver in Sheffield to become a flatulist, and went on to appear as a guest on ‘The Howard Stern Show’ in the States, even performing a series of fart acts on Broadway.

Crime might not pay, kids, but it seems farting definitely does.

Mr Methane in action on BGT – watch it if you dare (I couldn't get to the end).

gossip

You know what ‘gossip’ is – trivial chat, usually by women and usually a bit mean, about which celebs are sleeping together, the friend in your group that no one actually really likes (aw) or other people’s bad haircuts. (Also, an awesome indie rock band fronted by the legend that is Beth Ditto.)

But ‘gossip’ originally meant something completely different, and much nicer. It comes from an Old English word, ‘godsibb’, which referred to a godmother or godfather. ‘Godsibb’ was a compound (aka two words smushed together) of ‘god’ (you know what that means) and ‘sibb’, meaning a relative or friend, or kinship.

By the Middle English period (approximately the late 11th to late 15th century), changes in pronunciation meant that ‘godsibb’ had evolved into ‘gossib’. And its meaning had expanded to include close friends and companions, not just godparents. It was often used to describe women’s close and intimate friendships, especially those who supported one another during childbirth.

Later, the term became closely associated with women’s social interactions, and the personal and detailed conversations we have when gathered together to support each other. As these gatherings and conversations became more visible, ‘gossip’ began to be used more specifically to describe talk among women.

By the 16th century, ‘gossip’ had acquired the modern sense of idle or pointless talk or rumour-mongering, especially about other people’s personal or private affairs.

The way that ‘gossip’ morphed from something positive into something negative is called semantic derogation. This is a phenomenon where everyday words, usually related to women or female-associated things, become a pejorative (i.e. a word that expresses negative or disrespectful connotations). Other examples include:

• spinster: this simply meant a woman who spun thread for a living. But we now use it to describe an unmarried older woman who’s lonely and will be eaten by her many cats when she dies

• madam: this used to be a respectful term for a woman of authority. But now it’s mainly used to refer to women who run brothels

• mistress: this was also a term for a woman with control or authority. Now we use it to describe a woman involved with a married man

• diva: now used for women seen as ‘high maintenance’ or demanding, this used to just be a term for a kick-ass female opera singer

• biddy: an annoying or nosy elderly woman. According to ChatGPT, this once meant a young chicken. But according to me, it was originally a shortening of ‘Bridget’, a popular Irish girls’ name – see previous word of the week, ‘biddy’. Either way, it’s sexist

• crone: this originally just meant an old woman, but now has much more negative connotations of ugliness and nastiness.

GRRRR, patriarchy. Here’s some Beth Ditto being awesome to make us all feel better.

electricity

Electricity. Without it, we couldn’t run life-saving machinery or straighten our hair (among other things). But have you ever wondered why it’s called ‘electricity’? Don’t worry, I’ve asked ChatGPT so you don’t have to.

Like a lot of words of the week, ‘electricity’ has its roots in ancient Greek. It comes from the Greek word ‘ἤλεκτρον’ (AKA elektron), which means ‘amber’ after the yellow fossilised tree resin which caused Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill et al so many issues in Jurassic Park.

Why? Well, the ancient Greeks noticed that when they rubbed amber with fur, it attracted small objects like feathers or bits of straw. They attributed that to a mysterious force within the amber. In the 16th and 17th centuries, scientists began to study similar phenomena in other materials (like using glass rods to generate static electricity), and coined the term ‘electricity’ to describe it. That was based on Latinising that Greek word ‘elektron’, and adding the suffix ‘-ity’ which denotes a state or condition (other examples of that include ‘equality’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘simplicity’).

Over time, as our scientific understanding of electricity expanded, we started to use the term to cover the whole range of electrical phenomena, including electric currents, electromagnetic fields and electrical energy.

As I’m writing about electricity while in Ely, a region previously known for its eel population, I think I have to spend a little bit of time talking about electric eels. They can generate electric shocks of up to 600 volts to stun prey or scare off predators. They can also deliver multiple shocks in rapid succession to immobilise whatever it is they’re trying to eat or frighten. This is down to specialised organs made up of thousands of electrocytes, which are electrically excitable cells (I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it). These organs can generate both high-voltage electric discharges for defence, and low-voltage ones for navigating and communicating. They can also detect minute electric fields generated by the muscle contractions of nearby prey. Electric eels can grow to over 8 feet (2.5 meters) long (WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK) and weigh up to 44 pounds (20 kilos). Thankfully they’re native to the Amazon and Orinoco River basins in South America, so you’re unlikely to run into one if you decide to take a dip in the Great Ouse.

Gratuitous Jeff-Goldblum-with-his-shirt-off scene from Jurassic Park. You're welcome.