ornery

I saw this word in the blurb of a book I was looking at, where it referred to an ‘ornery teen’. In case you haven’t come across it before, it means ‘bad-tempered or difficult to deal with’. Despite its grumpy meaning, it’s a nice word, right? But where does it come from? Well, it turns out that ‘ornery’ actually has quite an ordinary background. Literally.

Let’s take a trip to 18th-century America. The word ‘ordinary’ was often slurred in speech to something like ‘ornary’ or ‘ornery’. Because of that, this pronunciation became associated with rural, working-class or ‘uneducated’ speakers. It then started to pick up negative connotations, implying something a bit rougher or more unsophisticated than ‘ordinary’. Over time, it moved even further from its ordinary roots, coming to mean contrary, grumpy or mean-spirited.

You’re most likely to hear ‘ornery’ in the south or midwest of Murica. It turns up a lot in ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain. He often uses it to show a kind of cranky self-loathing or backwoods stubbornness (this novel is also one of the earliest and most famous literary uses of the word):

‘… though I couldn’t make out how he was a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery.’

‘There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching—a mighty ornery lot.’

‘Ornery’ is an example of how pronunciation, social attitudes and a bit of good old-fashioned snobbery can shape the meaning of a word. This is called semantic drift. Not the snobbery bit – ‘semantic drift’ is where words acquire new senses, lose old ones or completely change their meaning (like how ‘gay’ shifted from meaning ‘cheerful’ to ‘homosexual’).

Semantic drift can lead to ‘polysemy’, which is when a word ends up with more than one meaning at the same time – like ‘wicked’, for example, which can mean ‘evil’ (from ‘wicca’, the Old English word for a male sorcerer) or ‘super cool’. As well as polysemy, ‘wicked’ is also an example of semantic inversion – where a word flips to mean its opposite (‘sick’ is another one that’s done that in slang).

Finally, if you’re looking for a band name, ‘semantic drift’ would be awesome.

flensing

I heard this gruesome little word on ‘Bookish’, a new detective show written by and starring Mark Gatiss, and set in post-war London. It isn’t for the faint-hearted or any animal lovers out there – it refers to the slicing and stripping of skin and fat from whales or seals.

‘Flensing’ itself is pretty old, and comes from an Old Norse word, ‘flesja’, meaning ‘to flay’. It came to English in the 1700s via the Netherlands and the Dutch word ‘flensen’, when commercial whaling was at its peak. At that time, every part of the whale had a use, including oil for lamps, baleen for corsets and blubber for soap.

Nowadays, most of us won’t hear or see flensing outside of ‘Moby Dick’ or grim Arctic documentaries. And thank goodness – because whales are some of the most extraordinary creatures on Earth. For example, male humpback songs can be heard up to 10 km (more than 6 miles) away, and follow patterns that are similar to human language.

This brings me on to the so-called ‘loneliest whale in the world’ – a mysterious creature that calls out at 52 hertz, a much higher pitch than other whales use. It’s been tracked since the 1980s but never seen, and scientists don’t think any other whales can hear its calls (sob).

The story of the loneliest whale has inspired books and documentaries, and even music – including ‘Whalien 52’ by K-pop behemoth BTS, which uses the 52-hertz whale as a metaphor for the alienation often felt by adolescents. The good news is that whale calls picked up by a sensor in California in 2010 suggest there might be more than one whale calling at 52 hertz. So maybe, at last, someone’s answering back.

Well, that was all a bit depressing, wasn’t it? To cheer us up, here’s a video of the Commerson’s Dolphin, a tiny black-and-white dolphin that lives in the cold waters near South America and the Kerguelen Islands. They look like teeny-weeny killer whales. (Of course, they’re critically endangered. Sorry.)

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scurrilous

It sounds posh, doesn’t it? But ‘scurrilous’ is actually the linguistic equivalent of getting slapped round the head with a rolled-up newspaper. It means ‘grossly or obscenely abusive’ or ‘slanderous’. So if you’re accused of making scurrilous claims, your pants are almost certainly in need of a visit from the fire brigade.

But how did such a fancy-sounding word end up doing such dirty work? Like lots of refined-but-rude words, ‘scurrilous’ comes to us from Latin. It traces back to ‘scurrilis’, which means ‘buffoon-like’ or ‘coarse’. And that comes from ‘scurra’, meaning ‘jester’ or ‘clown’ AKA someone who made a living making rude jokes (like previous star of the word of the week – and best job title evs – Roland the Farter).

Over time, ‘scurra’s association with low humour, insults and botty burps (sorry) stuck. So it wasn’t long before ‘scurrilous’ came to describe anything vulgar, mocking or abusive – especially in speech or writing.

Us English speakers got hold of ‘scurrilous’ in the 16th century. The earliest known printed use is in 1570 in the ‘Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ & Britannicæ*’ by Thomas Cooper (theologian, Bishop of Winchester and master of Magdalen College at Oxford University): ‘Scurrilous iesting and vnshamefast rayling.’

Translation: rude jokes and shameless ranting – or in modern terms, social media.

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*The full title of this is, deep breath, ‘Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ & Britannicæ: tam Accurate Congestus, vt Nihil Penè in Eo Desyderari Possit, Quod Vel Latinè Complectatur Amplissimus Stephani Thesaurus, Vel Anglicè, Toties Aucta EliotæBibliotheca’. Phew. You can also read it online, if you have a spare six months or so, and a magnifying glass.

cacophony

A cacophony is a big old noise, and an unpleasant one at that. Looking and sounding as chaotic as what it describes, ‘cacophony’ comes from the Greek kakophōnía. That’s a mash-up of kakos meaning ‘bad’, and phōnē which means ‘voice’ or ‘sound’. So it literally means ‘bad sound’. No sugar-coating here.

In classical rhetoric (the ancient art of persuasion through language), ‘cacophony’ referred specifically to harsh or clashing combinations of sounds in speech or writing – phrases that were awkward to say, unpleasant to hear or stylistically jarring. So if a sentence was hard to say out loud or just didn’t flow well, it might be criticised as ‘cacophonous’.

‘Cacophony’ first turned up in English in the mid-1600s, when people were busy developing new types of machinery and opera. So you can see why a word for noisy noises might be useful. Its first appearance in print was in Thomas Blout’s Glossographia, one of the earliest dictionaries (published in 1656 with the subtitle ‘A Dictionary Interpreting All Such Hard Words… As Are Now Used in Our Refined English Tongue’ which I love). There it was used to describe ‘an ill, harsh, or unpleasing sound’.

Despite its unpleasant meaning, ‘cacophony’ has a classy family tree, sharing a root with ‘symphony’ – that’s the same phōnē, but this time combined with sym-, meaning together. Its antonym (a fancy way of saying ‘opposite’) is the lesser-known ‘euphony’, which literally means ‘good sound’.

aspersion

Aspersions are critical or mean remarks about someone. They’re almost always ‘cast’, and usually a bit sneaky. But do you actually know what an aspersion is? Nope, me neither.

‘Aspersion’ actually has surprisingly saintly roots. It comes from the Latin ‘aspergere’, which means ‘to sprinkle’ or ‘to scatter’ (see also, ‘disperse’ and ‘intersperse’). In ye olde church services, priests would sprinkle holy water over the congregation – a ritual called, you’ve guessed it, an aspersion.

An AI-generated picture of people casting aspersions on each other

In print, one of the earliest known uses of ‘aspersion’ (in that blessing sense) appears in John Foxe’s 1570 translation of Actes and Monuments, a work of Protestant history and martyrology (sounds like a banger). The exact phrase is ‘the aspersion of the blood of Jesus Christ’. I’m pretty sure this isn’t literal (I hope so, at least – the dry cleaning bills would be a bitch).

You can also find this use of ‘aspersion’ in Shakespeare’s The Tempest:

‘No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall / To make this contract grow.’

So how did we get from a light dousing of holy water to someone suggesting you’re morally bankrupt? Well, by the late 16th century, the OED and other sources record the word shifting meaning. It picked up a figurative use as a ‘bespattering with slander, derogatory criticism’ in the 1590s, losing its literal connection to holy water. By 1749 it was firmly in the negative, as shown in this quote from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones:

‘… for I defy all the world to cast a just aspersion on my character: nay, the most scandalous tongues have never dared censure my reputation.’

Are aspersions always plural? No, they can be singular – ‘an aspersion was made against me’, for example. But you’ll sound super weird if you say that (and deserve that aspersion).

‘Aspersion’ is a great example of how words evolve – from blessing people with holy water to lightly soiling their reputation. Sprinkle responsibly.

nimrod

You probably know nimrod as a slightly old-fashioned way of calling someone an idiot. A dope or a dimwit. But like lots of our words, it didn’t start out like that.

‘Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care’ (Nimrod by David Scott, 1832)

The OG Nimrod was a biblical figure. In the Book of Genesis, he’s described as ‘a mighty hunter before the Lord’. He was one of Noah’s great-grandsons, a warrior, a king, a symbol of power and skill, and an all-round over-achiever. Oh, except for the fact that he commissioned the Tower of Babel which, if you know your bible, didn’t end well. Despite that, for centuries, the word ‘nimrod’ was used to mean a hunter or someone with great prowess.

Then Looney Tunes got involved. Yup.

In a 1948 cartoon, What Makes Daffy Duck, Daffy calls Elmer Fudd a ‘nimrod’. Not because Elmer was a great hunter – quite the opposite. He was famously incompetent, and Daffy was being hella sarcastic. Bugs Bunny also used the word later, calling Yosemite Sam ‘the little Nimrod’ in Rabbit Every Monday (1951).

But here’s where it gets interesting: the audience didn’t always get the reference. In fact, most people didn’t know the biblical meaning. So while they understood that Daffy and Bugs were mocking Elmer/Yosemite, they took ‘nimrod’ to mean idiot, not hunter. And because Looney Tunes was such a massive part of pop culture at the time, that misinterpretation stuck.

This is a great example of how language evolves in unexpected ways – not because of formal definitions or careful usage, but because a cartoon duck and rabbit made high-brow jokes that nobody got.

pontificate

These days, to pontificate is to talk about something in a self-important way. To hold forth. To bang on. If someone’s pontificating, it usually means they think they’re making an important point, but everyone else is just waiting for them to stop (cough Donald Trump cough).

Originally, ‘pontificating’ didn’t have anything to do with pompous speakers. It comes from the Latin ‘pontificatus’, which means the office or duties of a pontifex – a high-ranking priest in ancient Rome. Later, the term was used for popes and bishops in the Catholic church. So to pontificate once simply meant to act as a pontiff i.e. to carry out religious ceremonies.

Over time, the link between pontiffs and authority became more important than the religious context. By the early 1800s, ‘pontificate’ had taken on a more figurative meaning – to speak like someone with unchallengeable authority. Over a bit more time, it came to mean someone talking at length with way more confidence than they should actually have.

The papacy has been around for nearly 2,000 years. That means there’s been plenty of time for drama, scandal and the occasional orgy. Here are some weird pope facts:

• In 897, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, dug up, dressed in papal robes, propped up on a throne and put on trial for perjury and abuse of power. The verdict? Guilty. His body was thrown in the river.

• Pope John XII (955–964) was allegedly killed by a jealous husband who caught him in bed with his wife – though some accounts say he died of a stroke (heehee) during sex. Either way, it’s not exactly holy.

• Pope Benedict IX first became pope around the age of 20 (or possibly younger), in 1032. His reign was so corrupt and chaotic that he sold the papacy to his godfather. Yep – sold it. Benedict was pope three separate times and is considered one of the most scandalous popes in history. So much so that he was eventually excommunicated.

• Legend says there was once a female pope – Pope Joan – who disguised herself as a man and gave birth during a procession. Most historians agree it’s just a myth, but it was taken so seriously in the past that popes reportedly had to sit on a chair with a hole in it to prove they were male. Nice to see men’s bodies being subjected to humiliating checks for once…

shoo-in

A shoo-in (not a ‘shoe-in’ as I thought) is someone or something that’s certain to succeed – the winner before the race has even started. Today, we use it for everything from obvious Oscar contenders to politicians with an easy lead. But did you know that its roots actually lie in early 20th-century American horse racing? And dodgy horse-racing at that?

‘Shoe-in’ first appeared in print around the 1920s – Merriam-Webster’s earliest citation dates it to 1928. The ‘shoo’ bit comes from the verb ‘to shoo’, as in to urge or guide someone or something away, like an annoying fly or other people’s children. But the things being shooed in this case are those horses I mentioned earlier, in races that had been rigged for betting purposes. Jockeys would deliberately hold their horses back and shoo the chosen horse to the front, guaranteeing it would win. So that horse was – you’ve guessed it – the shoo-in. And as long as enough of the jockeys were in on it, it was easy for trainers, owners, bookies, syndicates or whoever to quietly control the result and cash in.

By the 1940s, the term ‘shoe-in’ had broadened its meaning beyond the racetrack and was being used metaphorically in politics, entertainment and business – wherever someone seemed like a guaranteed winner. So while it’s now a harmless way to say ‘that’s a sure thing’, like lots of our words (and politicians), ‘shoe-in’ actually has quite the shady past.

discombobulate

Discombobulate is one of those words that sounds exactly like what it means. If you’re discombobulated then you’re confused, off balance or generally flustered (AKA me, 99 per cent of the time). In my family we call it ‘having a sweaty moment’.

Because it’s got loads of syllables, ‘discombobulate’ might sound like it has some serious historical and etymological chops. But the truth is, it’s a fairly new kid on the block, and even has a bit of a fun backstory (WHAT).

‘Discombobulate’ first appeared in American English in the mid-1800s. It’s what linguists call a ‘fanciful coinage’ – a word invented for humorous effect, typically with a focus on the sound or a playful association, rather than one that evolved naturally from older roots. It was most likely created as a mock-Latin version of ‘discompose’ or ‘discomfort’. Why? I hear you ask. Well, in the 1800s, Latin was seen as the language of the educated – so pretending to use it badly or exaggeratedly was a way of taking the piss out of seriousness or formality. ‘Discombobulate’ was part of that – it sounds grand, academic and archaic, but was actually completely made up by some smug smart arses.

The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first recorded use of ‘discombobulate’ as 1916. Related forms (including ‘discombobricate’) appeared in slang earlier than this though, especially at universities, as part of this trend for deliberately silly-sounding words.

Little did those smarty-smart arses know that ‘discombobulate’ would become a fully accepted word in both British and American English. So joke’s on you, smuggos.

hench(wo)man

These days a hench(wo)man is a villain’s loyal-to-a-fault sidekick, and the one who does the dirty work. But where does the ‘hench’ bit come from? Well, it actually has a quite noble backstory.

(Just FYI, henchperson sounds weird, which is why I’ve gone for that less sexist bracketed version.)

Hench comes from an Old English word ‘hengest’, which meant a horse – more specifically, a stallion or gelding ridden into battle. In the Middle Ages, a henchman (or henxman – an early spelling) was someone who walked or rode beside a noble or royal, often leading their horse. They were trusted servants, sometimes young noblemen, who acted as attendants in a lord’s household or during travel. The role was both practical and symbolic – yes, they were there to help with the horses, but having a henchman also showed off the lord’s status.

‘Henchman’ first appeared in Middle English in the 14th century. Records from 1360 mention ‘henxmen’ in the service of King Edward III. Over time, as the roles of squires and personal grooms disappeared, ‘henchman’ came to mean any loyal supporter or follower. By the 17th and 18th centuries, it was used more generally for someone who backed up a powerful figure. The more sinister meaning – a thug or blindly loyal enforcer – only became common in the 20th century, helped along by fiction books and films.

Talking of which, the most famous henchmen and women have probably gone up against James Bond. Here are just a few of my favourites along with JB’s perfectly delivered one liner.

• Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964), who’s electrocuted when Bond jams his steel-brimmed hat into electrified metal bars: ‘He blew a fuse.’

• Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995) is crushed against a tree when Bond shoots down her helicopter harness: ‘She always did enjoy a good squeeze.’

• Necros, The Living Daylights (1987) (my favourite Bond film), who falls to his death after Bond cuts his bootlace during a fight hanging out the back of a plane: ‘He got the boot.’

• Vargas, Thunderball (1965), is shot by Bond with a speargun, and impaled against a palm tree: ‘I think he got the point.’

(Oh, and the slang term ‘hench’ for someone who’s big, strong and muscular probably does come from hench(wo)man, although no one’s completely sure.)

refurbish

If you refurbish something, you renovate, refresh or rejuvenate it to make it look new again, like furniture or phones. Although I could definitely do with some refurbishing…

My personal issues aside, where does the word come from? You undoubtedly already know that the prefix ‘re’ means ‘again’, so added to ‘furbish’ it means ‘to furbish again’. But what’s furbishing? Well, it appeared in Middle English in the 14th century from an Anglo-French word, ‘furbisshen’, a verb which originally meant ‘to polish’. Its lineage stretches even further back than that though, to ‘furben’, an Old High German word which also meant ‘polishing’. There was obviously a lot of stuff that needed a shine back in the day. (Oh, and in case you’re not up on your ancient languages, High German was spoken roughly between 500 AD and 1050, and was the earliest stage of the German language. And Anglo-French words are words that originated from the French language as it was used in medieval England after the Norman Conquest.)

Over time, ‘furbish’ developed an extended sense of ‘renovate’ just in time for English speakers to coin ‘refurbish’ in the 17th century with the same meaning. Its first appearance in print was in 1611, in Randall Cotgrave’s A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. Cotgrave was an English lexicographer (AKA ye olde Susie Dent), and his bilingual dictionary was seen as groundbreaking at the time – that’s because as well as basic translations and explanations of French words in English, it also included idiomatic expressions, phrases, technical terms and even recipes. Cotgrave’s work contributed to the development of bilingual dictionaries and language-learning resources, and influenced how dictionaries were compiled for centuries. Think of it as the 17th-century version of Duolingo, but without the passive-aggressive owl.

Back to ‘refurbish’. It’s an example of an unpaired word, i.e. one that looks like it should have an opposite, but doesn’t anymore. This usually happens because the antonym (a fancy way of saying ‘opposite word’) has fallen out of fashion. Or it might be that it never existed in the first place, for example if we nicked the unpaired word from another language. Other examples of unpaired words include disgruntled, unruly and impervious. If you’d like to know more about whether you can actually be gruntled, ruly or pervious, head to the blog. Spoiler alert – you totally can.

gambol

This is inspired by the gorgeous lambs I saw running about this morning while I was walking my dog, Gus. (I also saw two dead ones which kind of ruined my day. Sorry. Anyhoo, moving on…) To gambol is to skip, frolic or jump about playfully, just like those lambs (the alive ones, obviously). It’s light, carefree and unbothered.

‘Gambol’ has been bouncing around the English language since the 1500s. It comes from the Middle French word ‘gambade’, which means ‘a leaping or springing action’. That, in turn, comes from ‘gamba’ which is Italian for ‘leg’. ‘Gamba’ also gave us ‘gambit’ and ‘gamble’ – I’m not going to tell you more about that now though, as I’m going to use both of these as future words of the week. Mean, I know.

One of ‘gambol’s first appearances in print in English was in Arthur Golding’s 1567 English translation of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’: ‘Full oft he gamboled up and downe.’ So it’s describing a character literally leaping or frolicking around – very much in line with the way we still (occasionally) use the word today. Gambolling – not just for lambs.

Golding’s ‘Metamorphoses’ translation was a big deal in Elizabethan England because it made classical mythology widely accessible in English for the first time. He translated the entire work from Latin into English verse – and in a style that was rhythmic, vivid and packed with dramatic imagery. It was one of the most popular books of the time, and lots of writers drew on it (by which I think we mean plagiarised it) for stories, imagery and language. Shakespeare ‘borrowed’ some scenes and references from ‘Metamorphoses’ for plays including ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘Titus Andronicus’ and ‘The Tempest’. Luckily for Will, there weren’t any copyright laws then. (To be fair, he did transform those stories into something new, often with better pacing, deeper characters or sharper language. So that’s alright then.)

Golding translated the entire ‘Metamorphoses’ in just over a year – between 1564 and 1567. He mentions in his preface that he worked on it during his ‘leisure time’ while staying at the country estate of his nephew, Edward de Vere (the 17th Earl of Oxford – and one of the people some claim wrote Shakespeare’s plays, though that’s a whole other rabbit hole). Considering the translation runs to over 15 books of Latin poetry – around 12,000 lines – doing that in just over a year, by hand, in rhyming couplets is pretty bloody impressive. Thanks goodness he didn’t have Netflix.

descry

To descry something is to spot it – to catch sight of something faint, distant or difficult to see. You might descry land on the horizon, for example, or a face in the crowd. It’s easy to confuse ‘descry’ with ‘decry’ (although I doubt either of them are coming up that regularly in your daily life), which is understandable – they look and sound similar, but mean very different things. If you decry something then you condemn it, usually loudly and with lots of disapproval.

‘Descry’ and ‘describe’ come from the same Latin root – dēscrībere, meaning ‘to write down’ or ‘to represent’. That Latin word gave rise to an Old French verb, ‘descrier’, which meant ‘to proclaim’ or ‘cry out’ (often in the sense of calling something out that you’ve just seen). That’s where we borrowed it from.

‘Descry’ has been around for a long time, having first appeared in print in 1330, in the Middle English romance Reinbrun. Nope, me neither – it sounds pretty awesome though. Apparently Reinbrun is abducted by some merchants as a child and shipped off to Africa, where he’s presented to King Argus. During his captivity, he gets all buff and turns into a kickass knight. He goes on to rescue Amis, a friend of his father’s, from an enchanted castle controlled by a fairy knight. Sounds good, right? Oh, and just FYI, medieval ‘romances’ don’t actually involve much in the way of snogging – they’re more about heroic adventures, quests, battles and chivalric deeds, often with a bit of the supernatural thrown in. Sadly they’re also in Middle English which means they’re unpossible to comprehenden.

magenta

Magenta is that colour that sits somewhere between red and purple. It’s also one of the four inks in your printer (showing my age there) that the colour cartridge uses. But where does the word ‘magenta’ come from? Well, it turns out it has quite the bloody backstory.

Magenta is a town in Lombardy in northern Italy. It’s also the site of the Battle of Magenta. This was a key moment in the Second Italian War of Independence which took place in 1859, when the French and Sardinians fought the Austrians. Not sure where the Italians were*. Around the same time, lots of chemists were in fierce competition to develop new synthetic dyes. In 1859, the same year as the battle, French chemist François-Emmanuel Verguin created a vibrant reddish-purple dye from coal tar derivatives. Originally called ‘fuchsine’ (after the fuchsia flower), it was soon rebranded as ‘magenta’, probably because the colour was reminiscent of the bloodshed at the battle.

Before synthetic dyes like magenta, rich red and purple hues were difficult and expensive to produce. They were often made from crushed insects (like cochineal) or rare plants. The invention of magenta dye changed this, making vivid colours more accessible for clothing, art and industry. PHEW.

Magenta isn’t a real colour in the way that red or blue are. That’s because it doesn’t have its own wavelength of light. Instead, our brains create magenta when we see both red and blue light at the same time, basically filling in the gap in the spectrum where green would normally be. Weird, right? This reminds of the mindblowing (or noseblowing) fact that our brains filter our noses out of our vision, as otherwise they’d get in our way.

* I did some Wikipedia searching and here’s a quick history lesson – Italy wasn’t unified at the time, and lots of Italian states didn’t take part in this war. The one that did, Piedmont-Sardinia, knew it couldn’t win on its own, so it teamed up with France (the cost was that they had to hand over Nice and Savoy to Napoleon III). And because much of northern Italy was under Austrian rule, it was essentially a war between Austria and France (there were lots of Italian nationalist volunteers in it too though). The battle of Magenta was a decisive victory for the Franco-Sardinian alliance.

This is the linear visible spectrum – look, no magenta!

macaroni

Now, you might think you know what I’m talking about here – pasta, right? Wrong. Penguins? No, not them either. Allow me to take you back to the 18th century. If you were a macaroni, then you were likely the most flamboyant and extravagantly dressed man in the room (which was no small feat in an era of powdered wigs and embroidered everything).

A macaroni was the 18th-century equivalent of a fashion influencer – but with more lace, bigger wigs and a worrying obsession with teeny-tiny hats. The term referred to young men who’d been on the Grand Tour, a kind of aristocratic gap year where wealthy Brits swanned around Europe pretending to appreciate Renaissance art. Italy was a popular destination for these men and many developed a taste for maccaroni (okay, so it is pasta-related) which was little known in Britain at the time. When they returned to London draped in silk, covered in frills and with wigs so tall they made walking through doorways a logistical nightmare, they were said to belong to the Macaroni Club – not an actual club, but a subculture of worldliness, superior style, sophistication and enlightenment. They would even refer to anything that was fashionable or à la mode as ‘very maccaroni’.

It wasn’t all fun and games and tiddly hats though. Macaronis came to be seen in stereotyped negative terms in Britain, and as symbols of inappropriate effeminacy and bourgeois excess – satirical prints of the time show them mincing around in ludicrous outfits, clutching canes and sporting expressions of supreme self-satisfaction. And with the aristos over the Channel in France losing their heads, this type of extravagant dressing began to fall out of favour at the end of the 18th century when a more restrained aesthetic took over. Don’t worry though – although the French Revolution definitely put a dampener on the most OTT aristocratic styles, dandyism (led by figures like Beau Brummell) emerged soon after. And while it was a little more understated, it still embraced a meticulous approach to fashion. No small hats though, sadly.

The most famous reference to macaronis is probably in the nursery rhyme Yankee Doodle, where the American hero ‘stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni’. Written by a Brit, the joke was that the Yankees were so naïve that they believed a feather in the hat was enough to turn them into a sophisticated European macaroni.

But what about the penguin, I hear you ask? Well, the macaroni penguin sports a very fetching yellow crest. They were named by English sailors who came across them in the Falkland Islands in the early 19th century, and thought they bore a spooky resemblance to our macaroni fashionistas.

chimera

A chimera (pronounced ky-MEER-uh or kih-MEER-uh, depending on who you ask) is something made up of different parts. The original Chimera (with a big C) was a fire-breathing creature n Greek mythology with the head of a lion, the head of a goat on its back and a serpent for a tail. The name comes from ‘khimaira’ (Χίμαιρα) which means ‘she-goat’.

There’s also a mountain in southern Turkey named after the chimera. Mount Chimaera (or Yanartaş) is a rocky hillside where natural gas seeps from cracks in the earth, creating flickering fires that burn night and day. With lions, goats and snakes roaming the surrounding hills, it’s easy to see how it came to be named after a hybrid beast that spat flames.

Chimeras aren’t just mythological. Don’t worry though, you’re not going to run into a fire-breathing goat mix on your next package holiday. We’re talking science here – specifically, genetics. A chimera is an organism made up of cells from two different sources, something that can happen naturally or in a lab. Humans and animals can be chimeras when two fertilised eggs fuse into a single embryo, which means they end up with two sets of DNA. This can go completely unnoticed or reveal itself in surprising ways, like different coloured eyes or patches of skin with different pigmentation.

One famous example of a human chimera is an American woman called Karen Keegan. In 2002, she needed a kidney transplant and used genetic testing to find a donor in her family. But the tests showed that genetically she couldn’t be the mother of her sons. The mystery was solved when doctors discovered that Keegan was a chimera – the DNA in her blood cells was different to that in the other tissues in her body. That’s because when her mother was pregnant with her, two separate eggs had been fertilised, creating two separate balls of cells each with its own DNA. At some point, these two groups of cells fused into one, and Karen was born with cells from both balls randomly distributed throughout her body. I’m pleased they figured that out – it could have led to some super awkward questions otherwise.

Chimeras are also a godsend for crime writers – I’ve definitely seen them used in more than one drama when DNA evidence at a crime scene was discredited because the suspected perp was actually a chimera.

This is Venus the Two-Faced Cat, an American tortoiseshell cat whose face is half black and half red tabby. Opinions differ as to whether she’s a true chimera or her markings are simply a matter of luck and heterochromia (two different coloured eyes). Whatever the real answer, she looks awesome. (And you can of course follow her on Instagram.)

Bunburying

Because I is well high-brow, last night I went to see the filmed version of the National Theatre’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ (the handbag one) by Oscar Wilde. It was very funny, and also brought this word to my attention. If you’ve ever made up a friend as an excuse to dodge plans or just because you needed to disappear for a bit of peace and quiet, then congratulations – you’ve been Bunburying.

In the play, Algernon Moncrieff (Ncuti Gatwa in the National Theatre show) invents an ill friend called Bunbury. Poor old Bunbury’s terrible health means he needs constant attention – usually whenever Algy fancies a weekend in the country or wants to get out of a dull engagement. Genius, right? Here’s a quote when he introduces the concept to his friend Jack:

‘You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose.’

Wilde, of course, uses the idea of Bunburying to skewer the hypocrisy of Victorian society. But for the rest of us, it could be the perfect way to stay home and watch Netflix in our PJs instead of having to go out and actually talk to people. Also, if you do decide to Bunbury someone, don’t feel guilty – you’re simply carrying on a proud literary tradition.

Why Bunbury? No one really knows, but there are of course some theories, many of which lean into the idea that Wilde used it imply a secretive double life due to his homosexuality. (In case you’re not as high brow as me, many linguistic aspects of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ have been interpreted as allusions to gay culture and stereotypes.) For example, one put forward by none other than occultist and self-proclaimed prophet Aleister Crowley – who knew Wilde – was that Bunbury was a portmanteau word (i.e. two words smushed together), coined after Wilde took a train to Banbury, met a man there, then arranged a second liaison at Sunbury. Or it might just be named after the village in Cheshire.

The opening night of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ marked the peak of Wilde's popularity. But it was followed shortly afterwards by his downfall – he was convicted and imprisoned for ‘homosexual acts’ only a few months later. Due to this, the play closed after only 86 performances, and would be the last comic or dramatic work Wilde would produce. Despite that, it’s now regarded as one of the greatest comedies in the English language, and has been performed continuously since its debut.

diadromous

‘Diadromous’ is a scientific word used to describe fish that migrate between fresh and salt water at different stages of their life. Diadromous fish are divided into two categories – those that move from the sea to rivers to spawn (like salmon) are called anadromous, while those that go in the opposite direction (like eels) are called catadromous. Ooh, that’s actual proper science.

‘Diadromous’ comes from a Greek word, diadromos, meaning ‘running through’ or ‘passing through’. It first appeared in English in the early 20th century.

Even this picture gives me the willies

If you know me personally, you might know that I have a bit of a phobia of fish in general (called ichthyophobia, fact fans), and particularly of sharks (I didn’t see Jaws until I was well into my twenties for precisely that reason). But it’s okay, because sharks only live in the sea, which I don’t go near very often. OR DO THEY? Let me introduce you to the bull shark which, unlike most sharks, can thrive (THRIVE) in both salt and fresh water, and regularly moves between the two. Oh, and bull sharks are also one of the most dangerous sharks in the world – they’re aggressive, have a powerful bite and often hunt in shallow, murky waters. Along with great white sharks and tiger sharks, they’re responsible for the highest number of recorded shark attacks on humans.

Bull sharks’ salt/fresh water adaptability has lead to them being found far inland in rivers and lakes including, famously, at the Carbrook Golf Club in Queensland, Australia. A flood in the 1990s swept six bull sharks into the golf course’s water hazard. When the water receded, they were stuck there, which made for an interesting game of golf, I’m sure.

The bull sharks’ invasion of the golf course has actually been good for both the club, and for science. The club made the most of the publicity by adding a shark to their logo, renaming their youth programme the ‘Junior Shark Academy’, and holding feedings at tournaments and corporate events – including one wedding in 2009 where all six sharks appeared at once (is that a good or a bad omen, I wonder?). Science-wise, previously no one had studied how long bull sharks could survive in low-salinity water – they had only been recorded twice before surviving for years in isolated bodies of water. One group made it at least four years in a freshwater lake in Panama in the 1980s, while another survived a decade in high salinity in South Africa’s Lake St Lucia after becoming trapped in 2002. Our golfing sharks stayed in the water hazard for at least 17 years – more than half a bull shark’s lifespan – which was unprecedented. It showed scientists that there’s presumably no limit to how long these sharks can live in freshwater environments like lakes and rivers, and that they could theoretically spend their entire lifetime in these habitats. Great.

No sharks have been seen at Carbrook since 2015 (although a comment on the YouTube video below begs to differ). But I’m sure people still think twice about retrieving any balls that find their way into that water hazard.

lampoon

If you lampoon someone or something, you take the piss out of them in a satirical way, often exposing their flaws or hypocrisy. As well as being a verb, lampoon can also be a noun – so you could publish a lampoon of someone, for example (even though that sounds weird).

Rabelais – Il était très drôle

‘Lampoon’ first appeared in print in English in 1645. Both the noun and the verb come from a French word, ‘lampons’, a form of the verb ‘lamper’, which means ‘to drink to the bottom’. So what does downing a pint (or downing un demi-litre as we’re in France) have to do with taking the mick out of someone? Well, apparently the word ‘Lampons!’, meaning ‘Let us guzzle!’ was a frequent refrain in 17th-century French satirical poems. For example, it appears in ‘Le Vin’ (which translates as ‘Wine’ – I knew all that Duolingo French would pay off eventually), a poem by François Rabelais, a 16th-century French writer known for being a bit rude. Rabelais also used it in ‘Gargantua et Pantagruel’, a series of satirical novels, as a drinking song:

‘Buvez toujours, ne cessez,
Lampons! Lampons!
C'est à ce coup que nous paierons!’

(‘Drink on, never stop,
Let us guzzle! Let us guzzle!
This time, we’ll pay!’)

Thanks to his literary legacy, Rabelais got his own adjective –‘Rabelaisian’. It means ‘marked by gross robust humour, extravagance of caricature or bold naturalism’. Not bad for a former monk, right?

scavenger

A scavenger is a creature that survives by picking through leftovers, scraps, rubbish and dead things. Think vultures circling roadkill, foxes raiding bins or that friend who says they’re on a diet then eats all your chips.

You wouldn’t want to mess with that, would you?

‘Scavenger’ didn’t always conjure up images of vultures and bin-diggers though. In fact, its origins are less animal-ly and more administrative. It comes from ‘scavager’, which is from an Anglo-French word, ‘scawageour’, which means ‘collector of scavage’. WTF is scavage, I hear you say. Well, in ye olde medieval times, ‘scavage’ was a tax (grrr) levied by towns and cities on goods sold by non-residents. This was actually a fairly well-intentioned tax, as it was supposed to give resident merchants a competitive advantage.

You might think that scavenger came to mean one who roots through crap as a way to insult the taxman (or woman). But it actually happened because the officers in charge of collecting this tax were later made responsible for keeping streets clean (I’m not entirely sure how these two skills became interchangeable, but I suspect it was to do with budget cuts).

Over time, ‘scavenger’ stopped referring to people altogether (apart from the chip guy I mentioned above) and settled on animals that lived off refuse, carrion and other unappetising delights.

Fun scavenger facts:

• vultures have stomach acid that’s so strong it can digest anthrax, botulism and cholera. I don’t want to know how they found this out. They also have a diet that’s 90% bone. Yum

• hyenas are often mistaken for scavengers, but they actually hunt most of their food – spotted hyenas (the most well-known type) catch up to 80% of their food themselves and have a hunting success rate that rivals lions. They are, however, very opportunistic and won’t turn down an easy meal if they happen to find one on the floor. Same as me, to be fair

• my parents once saw a seagull steal a piece of cake with a whole fork in it – a metal one too.

It’s worth saying that scavengers play a vital role in our ecosystem by getting rid of all the dead crap on the ground. So without them, the world would be a much messier place.