Scottish words — Words of the week

Picture the scene. You’re at a party (not that I ever go to parties anymore. But I do remember them. Vaguely). You’re making small talk with someone you’ve met a few times, but whose name currently escapes you. Then disaster strikes. Your partner/friend/someone else you know comes over to join the conversation. They both look expectantly at you, waiting for introductions. You hesitate just a bit too long. Panic… PANIC…!

Congratulations, you’ve just tartled.

This lovely Scottish verb is the act of hesitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name. It’s important to note that it’s the hesitation that ‘tartle’ is referring to here – not the act of bad memory itself. If you do this type of thing a lot, then you can be described as ‘tartlesome’.

Sadly ‘tartle’ hasn’t taken off as much as it should, so there’s not much info on its origins. It’s possible that it comes from an Old English word, ‘tealtrian’, which means to totter, shake, stagger or generally be uncertain.

So there you have it. Next time you find yourself trying to introduce someone whose name you’ve forgotten, just fill that awkward silence with ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve just tartled.’ And hope no one thinks that means you’ve broken wind.

You know what ‘sabotage’ is – an awesome song by the Beastie Boys. It also means to deliberately damage or destroy something. And it has an interesting backstory, which I heard on this week’s Wittertainment podcast (currently being broadcast from Mark Kermode’s under-stairs’ cupboard and Simon Mayo’s spare room). So, apparently French labourers in ye olde times used to wear wooden shoes (why?) called ‘sabots’. And when they got pissed off with les crappy working conditions, they’d chuck these wooden shoes into the machinery to break it. So this became known as sabotage. Interesting, right?

Well, it would be, except a little bit of internet research reveals that it’s sadly bollocks. Although the word ‘sabotage’ does relate to those painful sounding wooden shoes, no one was hurling them angrily into machinery as a protest. Apparently the French word it comes from, ‘saboter’, actually means ‘to walk noisily’, as you would if you were wearing wooden shoes (probably because you’re saying ‘ouch, why am I wearing shoes made of tree’ every two seconds). This fake news story was made popular by the film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Random, I know.

So what’s the real story? Well, ‘sabotage’ first appeared in writing in an 1897 report by two French anarchists (best job title ever), called Émile Pouget and Paul Delassale. They recommended that French labour unions follow in the footsteps of British trade unionists who’d successfully protested bad working conditions using work slowdowns and inefficiencies (apparently we’ve always been good at going on strike). Us Brits called this Ca’ Canny, a Scottish colloquialism which basically means ‘don’t do too much work’ (my mantra). While looking for a French equivalent, Émile came up with ‘sabotage’, inspired by the phrase ‘Travailler a coups de sabots’, or ‘to work as one wearing wooden shoes’, which had long been used to refer to slow workers. It made its way into English in the early 1900s.

Turns out it’s still a quite interesting story, even if it doesn’t involve any angry French shoe throwing.

(With special thanks to the Grammarphobia blog for the info.)