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.

sarcophagus

Tis the season for ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties, with Halloween (or Hallowe’en if we’re being grammatically correct) just around the corner. So the word of the week is also jumping on the spooky bandwagon with ‘sarcophagus’.

A sarcophagus is a type of stone container or coffin, usually made of limestone, marble or something similar. They were particularly popular in ancient Egypt as people believed that bodies should be preserved, and sarcophagi were good protection for those mummified remains.

The word itself actually has Greek origins. It comes from ‘sarx’ (σάρξ) meaning ‘flesh’, and ‘phagein’ meaning ‘to eat’ or ‘to consume’. So sarcophagus actually translates as ‘flesh eating’. Yum. Why? Well, the term was originally used to refer to a particular type of limestone that was believed to decompose or consume the flesh of the deceased more quickly. And unlike the Egyptians, many religions saw this as a good thing as it would speed up the journey to the afterlife.

The word ‘sarcophagus’ was adopted into Latin as ‘sarcophagus’ (which was very unimaginative). From there it passed into various European languages, including our own, keeping its meaning as a stone coffin or tomb, but losing the whole flesh-eating bit.

One of the most famous sarcophagi in history belonged to Tutankhamun, or King Tut, whose mummy was discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings. Tut was actually entombed in a series of ornate sarcophagi, with the innermost one being made of solid mother-flipping gold.

Tut facts:

• he was only around 18 or 19 years old when he died, so didn’t actually get to do much pharaoh-ing

• no one really knows what killed him – theories include complications after a leg injury or a genetic disorder

• a few people died after the discovery of Tut’s tomb giving rise to the legend of the ‘Curse of the Pharaohs’ (and lots of terrible horror films). One of those was Lord Carnarvon, a financial backer of Carter’s expedition who died from an infected mozzie bite shortly after the tomb was opened. His half brother also died not long afterwards (of blood poisoning) as did his secretary, and two other members of the expedition. Howard Carter didn’t shuffle off for another 17 years or so though, so it wasn’t a very good curse.

salary

Ah, salaries. Something we’re all a bit obsessed with as we navigate the cozzie livs*. But did you know that the word itself actually has a fairly surprising etymology?

‘Salary’ comes from the Latin word ‘salarium’, which itself comes from ‘sal’ in Latin, meaning ‘salt’. This is because, back in the ancient Roman day, salt was a really valuable commodity. This wasn’t just about making food taste good either – salt was vital for preserving it in a pre-fridge world. And that was crucial for those Romans centurions off conquering and building roads, installing sanitation, and all the other things mentioned in The Life of Brian.

Because of all this value, salt was actually used as a type of currency. And that meant the word ‘salarium’ was used to describe payments given to soldiers to cover their expenses, including to buy salt (presumably not with salt as currency though – that would be mental). Over time, the meaning of ‘salarium’ expanded to include any regular payment made to someone in exchange for their services, becoming ‘salary’ along the way.

The St Kinga Chapel (by Cezary p, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Salt mines have existed for thousands of years, and one of the most famous ones is the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland. It produced salt from the 13th century right up to 1996 (when it was closed due to falling salt prices and flooding). The mine is now a tourist attraction and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and reaches a depth of 1,073 feet (327 metres) while extending for over 178 miles (287 kilometres). It’s particularly famous for the St Kinga Chapel, which is entirely carved out of salt, including the floor, walls and even the chandeliers. The chapel is about 330 feet (101 meters) below the surface of the Earth, and is named after St Kinga, the patron saint of salt miners. Apparently the acoustics are fantastic, so lots of concerts are held there, as well as an annual music festival – you can even get married there.

*Irritating slang for the cost-of-living crisis.

pia

My mum put this down in Words With Friends the other day, which prompted me to look it up as I’d only ever seen it as a woman’s name before and obviously proper nouns are NOT ALLOWED. Well, it turns out we all have a pia – it’s an anatomical term, the full version of which is ‘pia mater’. And it has quite an interesting backstory. (Disclaimer: I’m no biologist, so apologies if you are and I’ve got any of this wrong.)

The pia mater plays a vital role in keeping our central nervous systems healthy and functioning properly. It’s one of three meninges (sets of membranes that provide a protective covering) that surround and protect our brains and spinal cords. The other two are the dura mater and the arachnoid mater. The pia mater is the innermost layer that directly covers the surface of the brain and spinal cord. It’s a thin, transparent membrane that sticks closely to our brains’ contours, following the folds and grooves. It also surrounds the spinal cord.

The pia mater’s primary function is to support, protect and nourish the underlying neural tissues by carrying blood vessels that supply nutrients and oxygen to the brain and spinal cord. If you fall down a lot like I do, then you should be grateful to your pia mater, as it protects that brain and spinal cord from impacts.

We are of course here for the words, so why is it called a pia mater? If you did any Latin in school then you might be ahead of me here – it translates to ‘tender’ or ‘gentle’ ‘mother’ (the word ‘pia’ is the feminine form of the Latin adjective ‘pius’). The name ‘pia mater’ was introduced during the Renaissance period (14th to 17th centuries) when anatomical knowledge was expanding, and Latin was the universal language of science and academia, and has stuck around ever since. It was probably called that because of the way it encloses the surface of the brain and spinal cord, cradling them like a mother. Nice, right?

Oh, and you’ve probably guessed that ‘arachnoid mater’ translates as ‘spider-like mother’, because of its web-like appearance. And ‘dura mater’ means ‘tough mother’ due to this outermost meninge’s durable and robust nature. It’s one tough mother f*cker.

evanescence

Today’s word of the week is brought to you by ‘I Capture the Castle’, a coming-of-age novel by Dodie Smith (who’s probably most famous for having written ‘The Hundred and One Dalmatians’). I’d never read it before, and if you haven’t either I thoroughly recommend it. It tells the story of Cassandra Mortmain, who lives with her bohemian but impoverished family in a crumbling castle in rural Suffolk in the 1930s. The family is made up of her beautiful but bored sister, Rose, her glamorous stepmother, Topaz (who enjoys dancing naked in the rain every now and again), her little brother Thomas, her eccentric novelist father who’s been suffering from crippling writer's block after publishing one successful book and Stephen, a sort of servant/adopted child who has an almighty crush on Cassandra. Honestly, it’s wonderful. And it’s also where I saw this word used in the following quote:

Perhaps he [Simon, Rose’s fiancé and Cassandra’s crush – yep, there’s a love triangle*] finds beauty saddening—I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked Father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

Now if you, like me, were a teenager in the 90s, you’re probably thinking of American goth rockers Evanescence who released bangers like ‘Bring me to life’ and… actually, that’s the only one I can think of. And really, it’s a perfect name for an angsty alternative band. The word ‘evanescence’ is an adjective (a describing word) for something that’s temporary, ephemeral (another good word), or likely to be forgotten over time. Like fleeting moments, fading memories or the passage of time itself…

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. Let’s come straight back down to earth with some etymology. ‘Evanescence’ comes from the Latin verb ‘evanescere’. That’s a combo of the prefix ‘e-’, meaning ‘out’ or ‘away’ (see also ‘eject’, ‘evict’ and ‘emit’, among others) and the verb ‘vanescere’ which means ‘to vanish or disappear’. That’s formed from ‘vanus’, meaning ‘empty’ or ‘vain’, and the suffix ‘-escere’ which indicates the beginning of a process or state. This suffix also turns up in words like ‘convalesce’ (to start getting better), ‘effervesce’ (to start bubbling or frothing) and ‘adolesce’ (to start being a stroppy teenager). Sorry, I think I sucked all the beauty out of it, didn’t I?

*If you factor in Stephen as well, then maybe it’s a love square? There’s also Neil, Simon’s brother, who I suspect may also be involved, but I haven’t finished it yet so I can’t be sure. Also, that would make it a love pentagon which is ridiculous.

trivia

You know what trivia is – information that’s usually quite interesting and perhaps not that widely known, but probably not that important. Also a thing that you have to have ready when you’re female and you tell a man you’re interested in something, and he immediately asks you to prove it (actual conversations with male friends: ‘I’m a big Star Wars fan.’ ‘Really? How many forms of communication is C-3PO fluent in*?’ And: ‘I love watching tennis.’ ‘Yes? How many French Opens has Nadal won**?’)

The word ‘trivia’ comes from Latin and is the plural form of ‘trivium’ (but don’t ever use the singular version because you’ll sound like a dick), which means ‘place where three roads meet’. In ancient Rome, ‘trivium’ was used to refer to the three subjects of the beginners’ liberal arts course at university, which were: grammar (my fave), rhetoric (the study and practice of persuasive public speaking) and logic (a branch of philosophy focusing on valid and sound reasoning). While these might not seem that trivial to us, the fact that ‘trivium’ was the name for the beginners’ class is probably why it’s since evolved to refer to less important information.

I asked my robot overlord, ChatGPT, to tell me some trivia, and here’s what it said:

• Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible.

• The shortest war in history occurred between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896. It lasted only 38 minutes.

• The world’s oldest known recipe is for beer. It dates back to ancient Sumeria around 1800 BCE.

• The Eiffel Tower in Paris was originally intended to be a temporary structure, built for the 1889 World’s Fair. It was almost dismantled afterward but was saved because of its value as a radio transmission tower.

• The average person spends around six months of their lifetime waiting at red traffic lights.

• The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.

• The world’s largest flower is the Rafflesia arnoldii, which can grow up to three feet in diameter and weigh up to 24 pounds. It’s also known for its distinctive smell, often likened to that of rotting flesh.

• Astronauts’ height can change in space. Without the force of gravity compressing their spines, they can grow up to 2 inches taller while spending extended periods in space.

*It’s six million. Which I did know.

** It’s 14. Which I didn’t know. But I do now, and I’m ready for you, men.

botuliform

Shaped like a sausage. That’s what it means. Because the Latin word for ‘sausage’ is ‘botulus’. I can’t believe it’s not more popular. Now, you might be thinking that’s because it sounds like ‘botulism’, a rare but serious illness that attacks the body's nerves and causes difficulty breathing and muscle paralysis until your heart stops and you die. And you would be right.

SAUSAGE

Botulism was first identified in 1822 by someone called Justinus Kerner, a German poet and doctor. His doctoring was apparently better than his poetrying (the only one I can find is about a saw – yes, the things you chop wood with), and when lots of his patients started dying of a horrible illness that paralysed every part of their bodies, he realised they’d all been chowing down on cheap sausages. So he decided to call this new illness botulism, or ‘sausage disease’. He also rightly worked out that these sausages must contain a toxin which he called ‘botulinum’.

Fast forward to 1895 and a funeral in Belgium. Three of the guests at the wake drop dead from food poisioning (which cut out the middleman funeral-wise), and the culprit was found to be some ham they’d all eaten. The ham was sent to the University of Ghent where someone put it under a microscope and identified the bacteria whodunnit. And in a strange case of medical serendipity, it turns out the little bastards were sausage-shaped.

Turn that frown upside down with some biological warfare

Now called ‘clostridium botulinum’, this bacteria is so bloody lethal that it’s up there with anthrax as one hell of a biological weapon, causing almost instant death by paralysis. So surely it must be banned, right? Wrong. Because a little bit of instant paralysis can actually be a very good thing, at least if you’re a woman (or man – but mainly woman) of a certain age or a Kardashian. Because sausage poison has since been rebranded as, you’ve guessed it, botox. The world is a funny place, isn’t it?

PS: If you’ve ever wondered why sausages are sometimes called hotdogs, it’s because in 19th-century America many people believed sausages were made of, you’ve guessed it, dog meat. So they called them hotdogs. Simple, but gross. And hopefully not true today.

quiddity

The most popular sport in the wizarding world, it’s played on broomsticks, and involves each team… I jest, of course. Quiddity is a philosophical concept that describes the thing that makes something what it is – its essence. So you could write: ‘Emma’s weekly posts capture the quiddity of complicated words in straightfoward prose.’ Oh really? How kind of you to say, thank you so much.

It’s nothing to do with HP. But there are no good pictures for ‘essence’.

Now, my two major word-of-the-week sources (which are Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster), disagree on the meaning of quiddity. The one above is Merriam-Webster’s definition, which is the one I’m going with because it’s easiest to understand. But according to Wikipedia, quiddity is a bit more complicated, and describes the properties that a particular thing shares with others of its kind. This makes it the opposite of something called ‘haecceity’ or ‘thisness’ (which apparently is an actual word) i.e. a positive characteristic of an individual that causes it to be this individual, and no other. See why I’m going with the first one?

Quiddity comes from a Latin word, ‘quidditas’. That’s a translation of a Greek phrase ‘to ti en einai’ , meaning ‘the what it was to be’, which sounds like something a drunk person would say.

Quiddity can also refer to a small and usually trivial criticism or complaint, or to a quirk or eccentricity in someone's behaviour or personality. Hamlet uses it in this way in, well, ‘Hamlet’ in his graveside speech, referring to a lawyer: ‘Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures.’

That’s not a very fun note to end on, so here’s a quidditch joke:

Why should you never have sex with a wizard?

Because you might catch Hogwarts, and they never stop quidditching.

(I didn’t say it was a good joke.)

carceral

Carceral is an adjective meaning of, or relating to, jails or prisons. The sharp-eyed among you have probably already realised that it shares its roots with ‘incarcerate’ (i.e. put in prison). Both of these come from the Latin word for prison, ‘carcer’. And that comes from ‘karkros’, a Proto-Italic word for ‘enclosure’ or ‘barrier’. In case you’re wondering ‘Proto-Italic’ languages are the ancestors of the Italic languages, spoken on the Italian Peninsula in the first millennium BC. So well old, then.

There are lots of other slang words for prison and going to jail. Here are just a few I found.

Slammer

This one didn’t appear until the 1950s in the US of A. It’s pretty straightfoward – it refers to doors being closed noisily behind you.

Clink

Possibly from the sound of the blacksmith’s hammer closing the irons around the wrists or ankles of prisoners. There was also a prison called the Clink in Southwark which goes all the way back to 1129 (and is now the site of The Clink prison museum, where my sister and I once spent a memorable afternoon – there are A LOT of awesome photo opportunities in there). It might also have been influenced by the Flemish word ‘klink’ meaning ‘latch’.

Doing bird

Cockney rhyming slang for ‘birdlime’ which translates to ‘doing time’. This is probably because birdlime is horrible sticky stuff spread on twigs to trap small birds by utter bastards (thankfully banned in most places now).

Pokey

This first appeared in the early 20th century, although no one knows its exact origins. It might come from ‘pogey’, a 19th-century English slang word for poorhouse.

Pen

This is short for ‘penitentiary’, which has been around since the early fifteenth century. Then it meant a ‘place of punishment for offenses against the church’, from the Medieval Latin ‘peniteniaria’ meaning ‘of penance’. The slang term ‘pen’ first appeared in 1884.

In other prison news, England and Wales have the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe, locking up 149 people for every 100,000 of the population. Yay us. And apparently old people are getting naughtier – between 2002 and 2015, the number of prisoners aged 60 and over rose by 164%.

If all that’s left you feeling a bit depressed, here’s Johnny Depp in a parody of Jailhouse Rock in John Water’s stone-cold classic ‘Cry Baby’. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest you watch it immediately – alongside JD, it also has Iggy Pop and Ricki Lake in it, for crying out loud.

cathedral

I live in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, which is a cathedral town. Not a city – contrary to what a lot of people think, a town doesn’t immediately become a city just because it has a big ole church in it. In fact, Suffolk doesn’t have any cities in it at all. It’s not alone in this – there are actually nine others which are also city free. Want to have a guess at which ones? Answers at the bottom of the post…

Bury St Edmunds Cathedral (photo by DAVID ILIFF. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0)

Anyway, I digress. A cathedral is called a cathedral because it contains a cathedra, which is basically a nice chair (or throne) for a bishop. Originally the Latin word cathedra didn’t have any religious connotations though – it literally just meant ‘armchair’, and was a term usually reserved for a chair specifically for ladies. I’m not sure what makes a chair female – maybe it gets paid significantly less than the men’s chairs?

The origins of ‘cathedra’ go way back to ‘kmt’ (you can tell that’s an old word because it doesn’t have any vowels in it), a Proto-Indo-European word meaning ‘down’ or ‘with’. It’s thought that the Proto-Indo-European language, or PIE, was spoken from 4500 BC to 2500 BC (I told you it was old). This went into Greek as ‘kata’, meaning ‘down’, and soon fused with ‘hedra’, which comes from another PIE root ‘sed’, ‘to sit’. This created ‘kathedra’ for ‘seat or bench’. When words went from Greek to Latin, the ‘k’s often changed to ‘c’s (which is something to do with how they’re pronounced I think) – hence, ‘cathedra’. And with the Catholic church’s penchant for Latin, it wasn’t long before it made it into their lexicon (losing its femininity along the way, of course).

Time for Bury St Edmunds facts. Did you know…

1. The single largest witch trial in England was held in BSE in 1645. It led to 18 women being executed by famous witchfinder general Vincent Price, sorry Matthew Hopkins, sorry utter sexist bastard. The site of the trial is now a Premier Inn hotel, and the places where the witches were executed are now a garden centre and a golf club.

2. Bury St Eds featured prominently in Armando Iannucci’s film The Personal History of David Copperfield. Dickens himself stayed in The Angel Hotel in town three times during his life. You can even sleep in the same four-poster bed as he did in room 215 (although presumably they’ve changed the sheets since then).

3. Measuring just 15ft by 7ft, The Nutshell pub is officially the smalled pub in Britain. Opened in 1867, it has a mummified cat hanging over the bar which was discovered behind the walls during renovations. Mummified cats were often placed in the walls of newly built homes to ward off unwanted spirits back in the day. There are also several mummified cats in our local museum – I’m not sure why we love them so much here.

Some mummified cats (and mice). Sorry

So, did you guess the other city-less counties? They are: Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Dorset, the Isle of Wight, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Rutland (also Britain’s smallest county), Surrey and Warwickshire. Buckinghamshire was on the list until quite recently, but the Queen made Milton Keynes a city at part of the Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours, whatever they are.

nidification

Spring be sprunging. And that means animals and birds be having babies. And it’s birds we’re looking at here – nidification is the act, process or technique of building a nest.

Nidification has its origins in Latin – nidificare means ‘to build a nest’. This comes from nidus, meaning (somewhat unsurprisingly) ‘nest’. A couple of related words are ‘nidifugous’, which means ‘to leave a nest soon after hatching’, and nidicolous, which means ‘reared for a time in a nest’, and also just ‘living in a nest’.

The Guinness world record for the largest birds’ nest is currently held by a pair of bald eagles and was found in Florida in 1963. It measured 2.9m (9ft 6in) wide and was 6m (20ft) deep. It was estimated to weigh more than two tonnes (4,409 lb). Another massive nest builder is the Australian mallee fowl whose creations can measure up to 4.57m (15ft) in height and 10.6m (35ft) across. We also have some big birds over here as well – in 1954 a golden eagle nest was found in Scotland that was an impressive 15 feet deep.

Phwoar, look at the nest on that – a sociable weaver nest in Namibia (photo by Harald Süpfle).

Little birds are also getting in on the big-nidification game as well. The sociable weaver (who sounds like it’d be a laugh in the pub) is only around 15cm long (so it’ll struggle to carry the drinks). But it builds massive nests which house hundreds of its mates. These are made up of several different ‘rooms’ – they use the inner ones for sleeping at night (as they’re warmer) and the outside ones for hanging out in during the day. They even place sharp sticks at the entrances to stop any predators from getting in.

Birds don’t have the monopoly on nidification. Lots of other animals build nests, including insects (termites and ants, for example), frogs and fish. Gorillas also build nests which they sleep in at night – they make a fresh one every day, which is the equivalent to changing the sheets, I guess.

geminate

I’ve been doing some geminating this morning, with my socks, which I hate (the geminating, not the socks. I’m fine with socks in general).

Not to be confused with germinating, ‘geminate’ as a verb means to put something into pairs. Although it’s usually used in this way by linguists to describe sounds that are doubled, you can also use it to be fancy-dancy when you’re doing laundry (and who doesn’t need to add a bit of fancy-dancy when they’re sorting out washing?).

Geminate is also an adjective (AKA a describing word). So when you’ve finished sorting those goddamn socks, you can says that they’re geminate (sadly I still can’t say this about mine as many of them are still lounging in the laundry basket).

It’s not just about socks of course – you can use ‘geminate’ for anything that comes in a pair, like headlights, eyes or the twins from The Shining (other twins are available).

So, where does the word come from? Well, if you were born between 21 May and 20 June then you’re probably well ahead of me – like the star sign gemini, it comes from the Latin word ‘geminatus’ which itself comes from ‘geminus’, meaning ‘twin’.

The constellation Gemini is named for the twins Castor and Pollux from Greek mythology. The story goes that their mother, Leda, was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan (the logistics of this always bother me). She later laid four eggs (because, swan) out of which hatched the aforementioned twins, as well as two others – Helen (later to become ‘of Troy’ and launch a bunch of boats) and Clytemnestra (which I always think sounds like an STD). Because Leda had also had relations with her husband (not a bird) on the same night, it seems that Castor and Clytemnestra were his kids, while Pollux and Helen were Zeus’, which therefore gave them demigod status, and immortality. When Castor was later killed in battle, Pollux was so upset that he begged his dad to let him give up half his immortality to give to his bro. Zeus agreed, and Castor and Pollux were transformed into the Gemini constellation.

Woman impregnated by swan? Sounds like a load of old Pollux to me.

The geminate twins from ‘The Shining’. I used to work with the grown-up version of one of these actresses. Yes, really. Dunno which one though.

shrift

Have you ever given someone or someone short shrift? And if you have, have you ever wondered what it actually means? No? Oh.

For anyone who’s still here, if you get or are given short shrift, it means you’re treated without sympathy and don’t get much in the way of attention. The word ‘shrift’ is well old, going all the way back to ye olde Anglo Saxons. Back then a shrift referred to the penance you were given by a priest for doing something naughty. That comes from the verb ‘shrive’, which means to hear confession, or give someone penance or absolution. And ‘shrive’ goes all the way back to the Latin word ‘scribere’, which means ‘to write’. I told you it was well old.

Ricky III #nohunchback

But why are shrifts generally short nowadays? As with many of our words and phrases we can thank Shakespeare for that. ‘short shrift’ appears in ‘The Tragedy of King Richard the Third’, first performed in 1594. Lord Hastings, who’s loyal to Ricky’s bro Edward IV, is sentenced to be executed for treason. He’s told to make his pre-beheading confession – AKA his shrift – quick, because the Duke of Gloucester (the Lord Protector of England who’s ordered the separation of H’s head from his body) is hangry:

‘Dispatch, my lord [Hastings]; the duke would be at dinner:

Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.’

It wasn’t long before people took the phrase ‘short shrift’ and started using it to describe giving something little thought or sympathy.

The word ‘shrive’ also gave us the ‘Shrove’ in Shrove Tuesday. That’s because it’s traditionally a day for Christians to be be shriven (or shrove) i.e. do some confessing before Lent. Oh, and eat a load of pancakes at the same time.

matutolypea

I can guarantee you’ve had matutolypea at some point in your life. Don’t panic – it’s not some horrible internal disease or toe fungus. It’s when you wake up in the morning feeling grumpy and out of sorts. So it’s basically a posh way of saying that you got out of bed the wrong side.

A very old figurine that may or may not be Hakuna Matata, sorry Matuta Mater (from Wikipedia).

Etymology wise, despite its grand appearance, matutolypea is actually pretty straightforward. It’s a word of two halves. The ‘matuto’ bit comes from ‘Matuta Mater’, an ancient Roman goddess of the dawn. She was worshipped on the western and southern edges of the Roman empire and would later matutate (this is a bad play on words, sorry) into the slightly better-known Aurora. The second part of matutolypea comes from the Greek word ‘lype’, which means ‘grief or sorrow’. So it basically translates as ‘morning mourning’, which is pleasing (unless you’ve got it, or live with someone who does).

Even with these impressive classical roots, ‘matutolypea’ seems to be a fairly modern word, first turning up in print in the 1990s. Sadly, you won’t find it in any mainstream dictionaries either (but that’s never stopped me before).

Despite Matuta being largely forgotten when it comes to goddesses, we get lots of other morning-type words from her name, some more well known than others. They include ‘matins’ which are morning church services, ‘matinee’ for an afternoon performance and ‘matutinal’ which means something is happening in the morning (these have come to us via the French word ‘matin’, which I’m sure you’ll remember from school means ‘morning’).

Your challenge for this week is to say something like this to as many people as you can:

‘Don’t talk to me for at least an hour until my matutolypea subsides.’

And feel free to let me know their reaction in the comments.

inimical

If something is inimical, it means it’s hostile or unfriendly. Here it is in a sentence: today I pulled a burr out of my dog’s tail, and he fixed me with an inimical stare. It’s not to be confused with inimitable, which is much more positive – it means that something is not able to be imitated or is uniquely extraordinary.

‘Inimical’s etymology is a bit Wayne’s World (#datedreference) – the ‘imicus’ bit comes from ‘amicus’ which means ‘friend’ in Latin. That’s also where we get ‘amicable’ from. So that’s nice. But the ‘in’ suffix means ‘not’.

AKA friendly. NOT.

Even though I’ve used inimical above to describe my dog, we actually don’t generally use it to describe people (wait, what do you mean my dog isn’t a person? Get away with you). It’s used to talk about forces, concepts or situations that are harmful or hostile. Like climate change, the Taliban, Texas law courts… pretty much everything that’s happening in the world right now.

That got dark quickly, sorry. Here’s some Bohemian Rhapsody to cheer you up.

‘Don’t touch my tail.’

majuscule

You already know what a majuscule is, even if you don’t know the name of it. In fact, I’ve used three majuscules in this post already. Go back and have a look, and see if you can find them (that’s four now).

OK, I’ll stop being a smart-arse now. A majuscule is just an upper-case (or large) letter, or script in which every letter is the same size. It was first used in 1722, and comes from the Latin word ‘majusculus’ which simply means ‘rather large’. So not ‘really large’ – just ‘rather’.

You can also use majuscule as an adjective to describe things that are rather large (stop it) e.g. ‘that’s a majuscular carrot’ or ‘I’ve made a majuscular mistake’. No one will know what you mean though (except me).

You’ve probably guessed that the opposite of ‘majuscule’ is ‘miniscule’. Originally ‘miniscule’ was only used to describe lower-case letters in printing. But while it’s since evolved to describe anything that’s ickle, poor old majuscule got left behind. Shame.

Majuscule scripts are actually harder for us humans to read. That’s because we use the up-and-downness (yes, that is the technical term) of upper and lower-case letters to help us recognise words. So when people capitalise things (like headings) because they want to make them look more IMPORTANT, they’re actually making them harder to read (and they look like they’re shouting). So only use majuscule letters where they belong – at the start of sentences, and for proper nouns.

illeist

If you’re an illeist, it means you’re speaking about yourself in the third person, instead of the first. So if I said ‘Emma has a wet bum, because she just spilled a full cup of coffee in her lap’ (true story folks), then I’d be using illeism. And also sounding like a bit of an idiot.

Etymology-wise this one’s pretty straightforward, with ‘ille’ being Latin for ‘that man’ or ‘he’, plus the suffix ‘-ist’ which we add to things to show that someone’s doing them (if that makes sense) – like ‘pianist’ or ‘capitalist’. The term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (he of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which I genuinely love, and also the opium-induced, unfinished Kubla Khan) in 1809.

One of the most famous historical illeists is Julius Caesar, who used it in Commentarii de Bello Gallico, his non-fictional account of the Gallic Wars. This was to make it sound like it was impartial, when obviously it wasn’t at all. And it might also be better filed in the ‘Fiction’ section at Waterstones, as several of Caesar's claims seem to have been outright lies. For example, he said that the Romans fought Gallic forces of up to 430,000, which was an impossible army size for the time, and also that not one Roman died during this battle. I call bullshit…

Other more modern illeists, both fictional and non-fictional, include:

• Gollum from Lord of the Rings – although he does it because he doesn’t have anyone else to talk to, which is sad

• Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson who used illeism in his wrestling catchphrases – ‘Do you smell what The Rock is cooking?’ (um, no thanks)

• Hercule Poirot, who almost always talked about himself and his little grey cells in the third person

• Dobby the house elf in the Harry Potter series (god rest his soul) – ‘Dobby has no master. Dobby is a free elf!’

While you might think talking about yourself in the third person makes you sound like a dick, in fact psychologists suggest that there are real benefits to doing just that – but only in your head, not out loud. The idea is that it can help you change your perspective to get past biases and improve decision-making. Emma will definitely be trying this from now on (once her bum dries off).

(With thanks to the No Such Thing As A Fish podcast, which is where I heard this word.)

sanguine

This is one of those words that (to misquote The Princess Bride) doesn’t mean what I think it means. If you’re sanguine then you’re confidentally optimistic about something, or eagerly hopeful (I thought it meant you were resigned to something, which is entirely wrong). It also means ‘of or relating to blood’, and you can use it as an adjective to describe something that’s blood red. This second meaning makes sense when you know that the Latin word for blood is ‘sanguis’.

But how did a word that means ‘bloody’ also come to mean ‘optimistic’? Well, during the Middle Ages people believed that the human body contained four different liquids. These were called humours, and they were:

(Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.)

• phlegm

• black bile (also called ‘melancholy’)

• yellow bile

• blood.

The key to perfect health was to have all these humours balanced. But, everyone had one that dominated. So people who were solid, calm and unemotional were thought to have too much phlegm going on – which is where we get the word ‘phlegmatic’. Too much black or yellow bile meant you were bilious i.e. bad tempered. Blood was the best of the humours to be dominated by – these people were strong, confident and courageous. In short, sanguine.

As medical science advanced and germ theory came to the fore, the idea of humours slowly disappeared. But the words attached to them have stayed with us.

We get a few other bloody words from the same roots as ‘sanguine’ which you may or may not have heard of. These include:

• ‘sanguineous’ meaning ‘bloodthirsty’

• ‘consanguineous’ which means ‘descended from the same ancestor’

• exsanguination, which is what vampires do i.e. drain your blood

• sanguinary which means ‘murderous’ or ‘bloody’

• sanguinolent which is an adjective meaning something is ‘tinged with blood’.

(Thanks to my friend Rob Frankson for giving me the idea for this.)

The four humours in action – which one are you?

(Image from Wikipedia)

cupidity

Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash.

The ‘cupid’ bit of this has probably given you a clue as to the meaning. And while it does relate to the chubby Roman god of sexy times, it’s a bit darker than that. If you’re suffering from cupidity then you have a very strong desire for something, usually wealth or possessions. The word’s been around in English since the 15th century, and comes from the Latin ‘cupere’ which means ‘to desire’.

Cupid facts: The Roman god of love started out in classical myth as a slender youth, but for reasons best known to themselves (maybe because when you’re in a new relationship you always get a bit fat?) painters during the Hellenistic period (323 BC to 31 BC – but I’m sure you already know that, clever reader) made him increasingly chubbier until he became the lard-arse with a bow and arrow we see today. He’s the son of Venus (goddess of love – yay!) and Mars (god of war – boo!). According to the usual in-depth research I did (which just means I read the Wikipedia page on Cupid), Isidore of Seville (a Spanish scholar and cleric born in the year 560), Cupid is depicted with wings because lovers are ‘flighty and likely to change their minds’, he’s a young boy because love is ‘irrational’, and he has a bow, arrows and a torch (I assume not the battery-powered kind) because love ‘wounds and inflames the heart’. Sounds to me like Isidore hadn’t been having much luck with the ladies (or the gents – no heteronormativity here) when he wrote that.

adamant

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of…

To be adamant about something is to have an opinion about it which you absolutely refuse to change, despite evidence to the contrary. It’s also, of course, a popstar from the 80s who I once dressed up as for a fancy-dress party (and yes, I did do the Prince Charming dance when I was there, despite being stone-cold sober due to driving, and also only knowing the crossed-arms move and nothing else). But the meaning of adamant as we know it only dates back to around the 1800s. Before that it was used as both a noun and an adjective for something that was really bloody hard – that’s hard like a diamond, not Jason Statham. In fact, ‘adamant’ was used as a synonym (i.e. another word for) a diamond.

If you’re a fan of the Marvel comic/film franchise you’ll probably have realised that this meaning is where ‘adamantium’ comes from – the fictional metal alloy that’s grafted onto Wolverine’s skeleton and claws and is virtually indestructible. ‘Adamant’ or ‘adamantine’ as an unbreakable substance also pops up in lots of classical literature – in Greek mythology, Cronus (Zeus’ dad) castrated his father Uranus using an adamantine sickle given to him by his mother Gaia. That must have made family gatherings quite awkward. And here it is in action in a particularly sexist bit of the novel ‘Romola’ by George Eliot (even though SHE WAS A WOMAN):

Trust not in your gold and silver, trust not in your high fortresses; for, though the walls were of iron, and the fortresses of adamant, the Most High shall put terror into your hearts and weakness into your councils, so that you shall be confounded and flee like women.

Oh, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the name Adam – that’s a Hebrew word meaning, basically, ‘man’.