flitch

I’m meeting up with my pal Sarah in a few weeks. We wanted to find somewhere that’s roughly halfway between us, and we settled on Great Dunmow in Essex. The only thing I know about Great Dunmow is that it’s a flitch town. I know this because I’ve driven past the sign for it on the A120 a few thousand times, and it says that there. But as I’m finally going to go there, I thought I should find out what a ‘flitch’ actually is.

Picture courtesy of the Dunmow Flitch Trials website.

Turns out it’s not, as I had assumed, an Ancient Brit-type tribal figure, akin to the Iceni. In fact, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Because a flitch is a side of bacon (it’s actually about half a pig – apologies to any vegetarians out there). So why is Great Dunmow a flitch town? Because of a tradition that dates back to at least the 12th century. The idea is that a married couple (the ‘petitioners’) can claim a flitch of bacon if they can prove to a jury of six unmarried men and six unmarried women that they haven’t had a row or regretted marrying each other for a year and a day. The jury listens to the petitioners’ testimonies and decides whether the couple has met the criteria to win the flitch. The winners are then seated on an ancient chair and paraded through the town in a procession to the Market Square, where they take the Flitch Oath (similar to marriage vows). This is followed by a big old Essex party (the best kind of party).

More than one couple can win the Flitch Trials (although I’m not sure if they get a side of bacon each or they have to split it). But the losers have to walk behind the empty chair to the Market Square. Although they do get a prize of gammon (hopefully not with a side of divorce), so it’s not all bad.

The tradition of the Flitch Trials is said to have begun in 1104, when Lord of the Manor Reginald Fitzwalter and his (unnamed, of course) wife dressed themselves as peasants and asked for a blessing from the Prior (the head of the Augustinian Priory of Little Dunmow), a year and a day after their marriage. The Prior was so impressed by their devotion that he gave them a big old bit of bacon. Then Reggie revealed his true identity, and gave his land to the Priory on the condition that any couple who could claim they were similarly devoted would also be awarded with a flitch of bacon. My dad has always said that ‘bacon makes everything better’, and if this is anything to go by, he’s bang on the money. Unless you’re Reggie of course, who it seems swapped all of his land for half a pig. I bet his wife wasn’t quite so devoted after that.

The Dunmow Flitch Trials are held every four years. The next ones are actually in a couple of weeks, on 13th July (there’s also a spot the pig competition!). Sadly entries for this year’s comp are already closed, but if you’re up for the next one in 2028, couples from anywhere in the world can enter – you just have to have been married for at least a year and a day.

The earliest recorded winner to take home the bacon* was one Richard Wright (once again, no mention of his wife’s name) in 1445, which was when winners began to be officially recorded. He travelled all the way from Norwich (66 miles as the crow flies) to try his luck. And in 2018 a group from Frome called the Bad Detectives were inspired to write a song about the Dunmow Flitch, which you can listen to below.

* Sadly, the phrase ‘bring home the bacon’ has nothing to do with the Flitch Trials. It’s instead linked to a prizefighting event in America in 1906, when one Joe Gans got a telegram from his mum before a fight, urging him to ‘Bring home the bacon’. Gans won the fight and declared: ‘I not only brought home the bacon, but I fried it and ate it.’

gung-ho

If you’re gung-ho about something, you’re extremely enthusiastic, possibly to the point of being stupid or annoying. But did you know it has its origins in China? Let’s get gung-ho about gung-ho. Sorry.

‘Gung-ho’ comes from the Chinese phrase ‘gōnghé’ meaning ‘work together’ which is short for ‘gōngyè hézuòshè’ (工業合作社), meaning, rather uninspiringly, ‘industrial cooperative’. The full phrase refers to the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives, organisations established in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) to support the country’s war effort. They organised unemployed workers and refugees to work together to increase production. In the 1930s, a US Marine commander called Lieutenant Colonel Evans F Carlson spent some time in China observing these operations. He was so impressed by how enthusiastic the workers were, and how well they worked together, that he adopted the term ‘gung-ho’ as a motto for his Marine Raiders a few years later. From there, it spread throughout the US Marine Corps, where it was used as an expression of spirit (whatever that means), and then into American society as a whole. ‘Gung-ho’ was firmly cemented into English when it was used as the title of a 1943 war film about the 2nd Raider Battalion’s 1942 raid on Makin Island, which was led by Carlson.

‘Gung-ho’ is a great example of a foreign word being adopted into English with a completely different (by which I mean completely wrong) meaning. According to the linguist Albert Moe, in Chinese, ‘…this is neither a slogan nor a battle cry; it is only a name for an organization’.

hat-trick

It’s another sporting term this week. A hat-trick is when someone has three successes in a row. It’s most often used in football for when the same player scores three goals in the same game (not necessarily consecutively). We also use it metaphorically when lots of good stuff happens in a row.

So what put the hat into hat-trick? Well, the answer isn’t football, but cricket. ‘Hat-trick’ first appeared in the 19th century when a bowler who took three wickets with three consecutive balls was often rewarded with a hat – or there would be a collection for the bowler to buy a hat. This is believed to date back to 1858, when HH Stephenson, an English cricket player during the game’s roundarm era (I don’t know what this means), took three wickets in three consecutive deliveries (I also don’t know what this means. Various male relatives and ex-boyfriends have tried to explain the rules of cricket to me. None have succeeded). This was for the All-England Eleven against the twenty-two of Hallam at the Hyde Park ground in Sheffield, in 1858. To celebrate this achievement, the spectators held a collection (something which was quite usual at the time when a professional sportsperson did something great), and Stephenson was given a hat bought with the proceeds.

The term ‘hat-trick’ first appeared in print in 1865 in the Chelmsford Chronicle (now the Essex Chronicle) and was eventually adopted by lots of other sports, including football. And the first hat-trick in an international soccer game was by Scottish player John McDougall against England on 2 March 1878 (which is exactly 100 years before I was born). And the fastest World Cup hat-trick, measured by time between goals, belongs to Fabienne Humm of Switzerland, who scored her three goals in the 47th, 49th and 52nd minutes against Ecuador in the 2015 group stage.

Footballers who score hat-tricks don’t get a hat, sadly, but traditionally they’re allowed to keep the match ball as a memento. Oh, and if you score two goals in a match, it’s called a ‘brace’.

hooligan

I’ve recently been watching Ryan Reynolds’ and the other guy’s programme about Wrexham football club. And in the most recent episode I saw, they talked about the ridiculousness that is football hooliganism – a largely British (and male) phenomenon (although embarrassment would be a better word). It’s actually referred to as the ‘British [or ‘English’] disease’. With that out of the way, they then talked about the etymology of the word ‘hooligan’. Sometimes the WOTW just writes itself.

The word ‘hooligan’ has been around since the late 19th century, and first appeared in print in London police court reports in 1894. These were referring to the name of a gang of rowdy yoofs in Lambeth – the Hooligan Boys. There are a couple of theories as to where the word ‘hooligan’ came from, but arguably the most popular is that it originated from the surname – Houlihan – of a rowdy Irish family who may or may not have existed in real life. Another theory is that it came from one Patrick Hoolihan, an Irish bouncer and thief who lived in London. And finally, there’s an even older theory – apparently General Wade, the English commander-in-chief during the Jacobite rising of 1745, misheard the local Scots-Gaelic word for midge (‘meanbh-chuileag’) and coined the word ‘hooligan’ to describe how angry he was with getting bitten by the little buggers.

Football hooliganism isn’t a new thing – English men have been being stupid about ball games since the Middle Ages. Fights between groups of youths often took place during football matches between neighbouring towns and villages on Shrove Tuesdays and other holy days. Merchants who were worried about the effect of this on trade called for the control of football as early as the 14th century. In fact, King Edward II banned it completely in 1314, as did Edward III in 1349.

The good news is that since the 1980s and 90s, a widescale crackdown on football-related violence has been fairly successful. And although organised football-related punch-ups are still a thing (?), these days British football fans have a better reputation abroad. Long may it continue.

amateur

You know what an amateur is. Someone who’s not a professional, or who isn’t very good at something. These days ‘amateur’ has a bit of a negative association, and we even use it as an insult for something or someone that’s a bit crap – ‘the writing was rather amateurish’ or ‘what a bunch of amateurs’, for example. But, it actually has a sweet little backstory.

‘Amateur’ originates from the French word, ‘amateur’ (bet you couldn’t have guessed that), which itself comes from a Latin word, ‘amator’. ‘Amator’ means ‘lover’ or ‘one who loves’. That comes from the verb ‘amare’, which means ‘to love’, and is where we get words like ‘amorous’, ‘enamoured’ and ‘amiable’ from.

So why does ‘amateur’ relate to love? Because historically, an amateur was someone who took part in something just for the love of it, not for any money or kudos. Of course, we do still use ‘amateur’ in this way, but it’s been rather overtaken by the more negative meaning. Shame.

There are lots of famous amateurs throughout history who’ve done amazing things without any formal or professional training. Here are just a few of them.

Hedy Lamarr – she got all the good genes, didn’t she?

Hedy Lamarr

Known for her acting skillz in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s (she was promoted as the ‘world’s most beautiful woman’ by Louis B Mayer), Lamarr co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication. Before you say ‘so what’, know that without this technology we wouldn’t have many modern wireless communications including wi-fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Which means I, for one, would be constantly lost. This was despite Hedy having no training in engineering.

Roger Bannister

Roger Bannister was a medical student and an amateur middle-distance runner. On 6 May 1954, he became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, something most people thought was impossible at the time. He did all of that while studying to become a doctor and without a professional training regimen. Bannister went on to become a neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.

Philo Farnsworth

At the age of 21, while labouring on the family farm, the excellently named Philo Farnsworth developed the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (AKA a video camera tube) and the first fully functional and complete all-electronic TV system. His innovations laid the groundwork for modern TV (thank god – otherwise what would we all point our living-room furniture at?). And, you’ve guessed it, he didn’t have any training in this field (only in actual fields, hahaha). Oh, and if you didn’t know that but his name sounds a bit familiar, it might be because the ‘Futurama’ character Professor Farnsworth was named after him.

Well, now I feel like quite the underachiever.

yonic

I expect you know what ‘phallic’ means. But you’ve probably never heard of ‘yonic’, which is basically the female equivalent* (shakes fist at patriarchy) – an adjective that describes objects or symbols that resemble or represent the female genitalia, particularly the vulva.

‘Yonic’ is derived from a Sanskrit word, ‘yoni’ (योनि), which means ‘womb’, ‘uterus’ or ‘vulva’, as well as ‘source’. In various Eastern religions and spiritual traditions, the yoni is revered as a symbol of divine feminine energy and fertility, and the origin of life. The concept of the yoni is often associated with the goddess Shakti in Hinduism, representing the creative and nurturing aspects of the universe. Yoni and linga (the masculine version) iconography is found in Shiva temples and archaeological sites across the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia.

The yoni may well be the oldest spiritual icon not just in India but in many ancient cultures. It’s only here in the West that we’ve traditionally treated feminine sexual organs and sexuality as taboo – in Indic religions (i.e. Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism) and other similar ancient cultures, the yoni has long been seen as as a deep philosophical and cosmic truth that represents feminine power and potential. It’s closely linked with the natural cycles of the moon, earth and life itself. Take that, patriarchy.

Roses are often considered a yonic symbol, which seems a bit odd to me as men often give them to women as a romantic gesture. Maybe they should be giving us more phallic flowers. Like the phallus impudicus, for example, AKA the common stinkhorn, a fungus renowned for being shaped like a penis and for having an absolutely horrible smell. Hmmm, maybe this is why I’m single…

*Which presumably gets paid 13% less than her male counterpart.

milquetoast

A milquetoast is a person who’s meek or timid, lacks character or is ineffective. A wimp or a wuss, if you will. I first heard this term in the PS4 game ‘Bloodborne’ where it’s one of the starting classes. If you’re not a gamer then you might not have come across it, although I did also hear it in ‘American Horror Story’ (‘Delicate’, in case you’re wondering) the other day.

Apparently the term is much more common in American English than it is over here. That’s probably because ‘milquetoast’ comes from an American comic strip called ‘The Timid Soul’, which was published in 1924. Created by American cartoonist Harold Tucker (HT) Webster, the comic strip featured a character called Caspar Milquetoast, who was himself named after the American dish milk toast, which is, you’ve guessed it, toasted bread in warm milk. Why America, why?

Webster described Caspar Milquetoast as ‘the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick’. Aw. He’s named after milk toast because it’s light and easy to digest, and good for people with weak stomachs. Caspar was featured in books, films, radio programmes and vaudeville acts, and, according to a 1945 article in ‘Time’ magazine, was as famous as Tom Sawyer, and even more so than Don Quixote. Wow.

HT Webster drew more that 16,000 single panel cartoons in his lifetime. In 1927 a severe case of arthritis meant he could no longer draw with his right hand – so he taught himself to do that with his left, and his career carried on for another 25 years after that. I can’t even paint the nails on my right hand without making a hash of it, so kudos to Mr Webster.

(Credit: H. T. Webster, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

slogan

If you hear the word ‘slogan’, you probably think of advertising and Don Draper (or, if you’re a little bit older, of Samantha’s husband Darren in ‘Bewitched’). And you’d be right – the OED defines a ‘slogan’ as ‘a short and striking or memorable phrase used in advertising’. That might make you assume that ‘slogan’ is a fairly modern word. But you would be wrong. Very wrong, in fact…

‘Slogan’ first appeared in writing in the 16th century, but it’s actually much older even than that. Let’s take a little trip to the beautiful Scottish Highlands. ‘Slogan’ comes from a Gaelic term, ‘sluagh-ghairm’, which means ‘battle-cry’ or ‘war-cry’. Scottish Highland clans cried these cries to rally their troops, signal that they were ready to start kicking some ass and to intimidate enemies during battles. Each clan would personalise their battle cries to reflect their identity, heritage and allegiance. I couldn’t find any specific examples of the exact words they used, but historians seem to agree they’d be something along the lines of ‘Die, you English bastards’.

‘Sluagh-ghairm’ was adopted into English as in the 18th century as ‘slogan’. And, as the need for rallying battle cries diminished, it came to represent a memorable phrase used to convey a message.

If all this talk of Scottish battle cries means you’re now thinking of Mel Gibson yelling ‘they’ll never take our freedom!’, then you’d be right. It’s very likely that Scottish warriors at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 (during the First War of Scottish Independence), led by Mel Gibson, sorry, William Wallace, used sluagh-ghairm battle cries to bolster their spirits and unsettle their English adversaries. They didn’t do it in kilts, however, as these weren’t widely worn until many centuries later. Oh, and there was a bridge at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, even though the creators of ‘Braveheart’ decided not to include it.

nostalgia

I’ve always thought this sounds a bit like a medical condition (oh dear, I’ve got a nasty case of nostalgia) and it turns out, I’m right – although it isn’t anything contagious. As you of course know, nostalgia is a noun (person, place or thing) that describes a sentimental longing or affection for the past.

The word itself hasn’t actually been around for all that long. It was coined by a Swiss physician named Johannes Hofer in the late 17th century (1688, to be specific). He used it to describe a medical condition observed in Swiss mercenaries. These mercenaries were a powerful infantry force made up of professional soldiers who served in foreign armies from the late Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Their proven battlefield capabilities made them sought-after troops-for-hire, especially among the military forces of the kings of France. The Swiss Constitution of 1874 banned the recruitment of Swiss citizens by foreign states, and these days there’s only one Swiss mercenary unit left – the nattily-dressed Swiss Guard at the Vatican.

Despite all this military success, when they were fighting away from home, Swiss mercenaries all got terribly homesick (bless them), pining for their beautiful Swiss landscapes. This was the medical condition that Hofer observed – symptoms were thought to include fainting, high fever and even death. Cases were so serious, and led to so many desertions, illnesses and deaths, that the mercenaries were banned from singing the ‘Kuhreihen’, a melody traditionally played by Swiss alpine herdsman as they drove their cattle to or from pasture, in case it pushed the mercenaries over the figurative edge.

After seeing all this extreme homesickness, Hofer combined two Greek words to describe it: ‘nostos’, meaning ‘homecoming’ (the word ‘nostos’ also refers to a theme used in Ancient Greek literature when an epic hero returns home, usually by sea) and ‘álgos’ meaning ‘pain’.

For many centuries, nostalgia was considered a debilitating and potentially fatal medical condition. But by the 1850s, it began to lose its status as a disease, and this meaning had almost completely vanished by the 1870s (although it was still recognised as such in both the First and Second World Wars, mainly by the American armed forces). Nowadays nostalgia is seen as an emotion rather than a condition – a yearning for the ‘good old days’, even if they actually often weren’t that great.

misanthrope

A misanthrope is a noun (person, place or thing) that describes someone who doesn’t like or trust their fellow humans, and avoids human society. They tend to be cynical and pessimistic, and are often loners. Hmmm, maybe I’m a misanthrope... Anyway, my issues aside, you can also use misanthrope as an adjective (a describing word) – so someone can be ‘misanthropic’.

‘Misanthrope’ has its origins in Greek. It combines two Greek words: ‘misos’, meaning ‘hatred’, and ‘anthropos’, meaning ‘human being’ or ‘person’ (‘anthropos’ is also where we get the word ‘anthropology’ i.e. the study of the cultural, social, biological and evolutionary aspects of human life and behavior). Put them together and ‘misanthrope’ literally means ‘hater of humanity’.

When I asked ChatGPT what ‘anthropos’ meant, it said ‘human being or man’. I called it out for being sexist, and it apologised and corrected it to ‘human being or person’. I then asked it for some examples of misanthropes in fiction. The results were all male, and in books by male authors (Holden Caulfield from ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by Salinger, Meursault from ‘The Stranger’ by Camus, Scrooge from ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Dickens, Ahab from ‘Moby-Dick’ by Melville and Gregor Samsa from ‘The Metamorphosis’ by Kafka). When I pushed it for some female misanthropes by female authors, I got Miss Jean Brodie from ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark, Edna Pontellier from ‘The Awakening’ by Kate Chopin and Mildred Montag from ‘Fahrenheit 451’ by Ray Bradbury. The latter is clearly a MAN. I said that and it apologised again and gave me Miss Havisham from ‘Great Expectations’ by well-known female author Charles Dickens. SIGH. It’s a shame that even brand-new technology already has sexism baked in.*

This is why I’m a misanthrope. Also, litter.

* As an experiment, I also asked ChatGPT who the five greatest tennis players of all time are. I got three men and two women, which I’ll let slide as I didn’t give it an even number. It then described Federer as ‘one of the greatest tennis players of all time’ and Williams as ‘one of the greatest female tennis players of all time’. I DESPAIR.

parchment

You know what parchment is – ye olde paper, usually made from some poor old animal’s skin. But did you know it’s named for a city? OOH.

The word ‘parchment’ comes from a Latin word, ‘pergamenum’. This is derived from ‘Pergamon’, the name of an ancient city in Asia Minor (now Turkey), which was renowned for producing top-notch parchment back in the day.

Parchment was big business. That’s because it lasted longer and was easier to make than papyrus – the papyrus plant was primarily grown in Egypt and other regions with similar climates, making it difficult to get anywhere else. That meant parchment would take over as the preferred writing material in Europe during the Middle Ages, and remain in use for centuries afterwards.

‘Reconstructed’ (which I assume means ‘made up’) view of the Pergamon Acropolis by Friedrich Thierch, 1882

Pergamon was the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon, which was founded in the 3rd century BCE by the Attalid dynasty. The Attalid guys loved a bit of art and science, and Pergamon was a cosmopolitan city that attracted scholars, artists and intellectuals from all over the Mediterranean. It was also home to a famous library that rivalled the Library of Alexandria in Egypt (which was mahoosive), being home to at least 200,000 scrolls.

(In the interests of being a little bit historically accurate – although that’s not something the normally stops me – parchment had been used in Asia Minor long before Pergamon became a major city. Not sure what they called it though…?)

Sadly Pergamon didn’t survive, and by medieval times was no longer a major city. The good news is that it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can even go and tourist there next time you’re in Turkey.

eclipse

On Monday (8th April), there was a total solar eclipse. Sadly you could only see this if you were in North America – here in the UK it was only a partial (described as a ‘small grazing’ on one website I saw). I didn’t manage to see any of it, but it did get me wondering – where does the word ‘eclipse’ come from?

These days, ‘eclipse’ refers to the partial or complete obscuring of one celestial body by another, or the shadow cast by one celestial body on to another. We also use it metaphorically to describe someone or something being overshadowed by something else.

‘Eclipse’ comes from ancient Greek, from ‘ekleipsis’, meaning ‘an abandonment’ or ‘a failing’, to reflect those poor old ancient Greekies being abandoned or failed by the sun or moon. Over time, the word was adopted into Latin as ‘eclipsis’, then into Old French as ‘eclipse’, before finally making it to Middle English as, you’ve guessed it, ‘eclipse’.

Eclipses have long been viewed with some superstition, and there have been various odd things that have happened during them. Here are just a few.

• The Battle of the Eclipse (585 BCE): One of the earliest recorded instances of an eclipse influencing human affairs happened during this battle between the Lydians and the Medes in what’s now Turkey. According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, there was a total solar eclipse in the middle of the fighting, which both sides took as a sign to stop battling and make peace. So that’s nice. On the flipside, during the Battle of Muye (c. 1046 BCE) in ancient China, a total solar eclipse terrified the soldiers, causing panic on both sides. It’s thought that one side (the Zhou) used this to their advantage to boost morale, claiming it was some sort of divine favour, and went on to defeat the Shang dynasty.

• The death of Henry I (1133): The OG Hazza died from eating a shitload of lampreys, a type of jawless fish (yum), during a feast. His death also coincided with a total solar eclipse which many people took as a portent of his impending demise, or as a sign of divine displeasure at all those poor fish he ate.

• The New Madrid Earthquakes (1811–1812): This was a series of powerful earthquakes – in fact, some of the most powerful ever recorded in the contiguous United States (I had to look up what that means – it’s all the states that are connected to each other, i.e. the 48 adjoining states on the North American continent – so it doesn’t include Alaska and Hawaii). The earthquakes happened during a time of heightened celestial activity, including multiple solar and lunar eclipses. There’s no scientific connection here but it must have brown trousers all round for anyone in the middle of them.

bellwether

A bellwether is ‘an indicator of trends’. Here’s a very egotistical (and patently untrue) example:

‘Emma’s family and friends often look to her as a bellwether of fashion.’

Bellwether can also mean ‘one that takes the lead or initiative’, which is also not true of my fashion sense.

Nowadays you’re most likely to see the word ‘bellwether’ in political or economic commentary. Here’s an actual example from the Washington Post:

‘Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain and considered a bellwether for the industry, is just the latest to shake up its print offerings.’

So what do trendsetters have to do with bells or, indeed, wethers? Well, to answer that, please come with me to… a sheep farm.

All flocks of sheep have a leader. And shepherds and farmers have traditionally hung a, you’ve guessed it, bell around the top sheep’s neck. A ‘wether’ is a word for a male sheep (nowadays the term specifically means a castrated male sheep) – so the leading sheep is called a ‘bellwether’.

This term for the sheep prime minister has been around since the 15th century. And over time we started to use it to refer to anyone who’s the leader of the pack (or flock), who takes initiative or who establishes trends that are then taken up by others.

If you’re wondering how the sheep choose their leader, they either do that themselves, by letting the most dominant one take the lead, or the farmer does it for them. Why does the farmer want to rig the sheep election? Well, they might do this because one sheep is particularly good at navigating obstacles or familiar with the terrain, and can therefore keep the rest of the sheep on the straight and narrow. Who knew? (Well, all the sheep farmers, obviously.)

mundivagant

This is a lovely old word which has now sadly all but disappeared. It’s an adjective (AKA a describing word) which means ‘wandering through the world’. It has Latin roots and comes from ‘mundus’ meaning ‘world’, and ‘vagant’ meaning, you’ve guessed it, ‘wandering’ or ‘roaming’.

While you’re being mundivagant, you can also be a solivagant (this one’s a noun – and former word of the week – not an adjective, so it needs an indefinite article i.e. the ‘a’ before it). That means you like to wander on your own – ‘soli’ being Latin for ‘alone’ or ‘solitary’. And if you only want to do it at night, then you’re ‘noctivagant’ (this one’s an adjective again), ‘nox’ being ‘night’ in Latin. Although being a noctivagant solivagant might make you look a bit creepy…

Diogenes no-longer-of-Sinope-because-he-was-a-big-old-fraud (dunno who the dog was)

The ‘vagant’ bit of these words is also where we get the less-romantic word, ‘vagrant’. Nowadays ‘vagrant’ has quite negative connotations and we usually use it to describe people who’ve ended up on the streets. But it wasn’t always that way. Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the 4th century BCE, and was often referred to as a ‘vagrant philosopher’. He lived in a jar (yes, you did read that right – it was a very big jar, obviously) and survived by begging for food. He used this simple lifestyle and behaviour to criticise the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt, confused society.

This is all well and good until you find out that Diogenes’ dad, Hicesias, was a banker, and it was likely he followed in his father’s footsteps. At some point, Hicesias and Diogenes were involved in a scandal involving adulterating or debasing currency (that’s when you lower the value of coins by reducing the quantity of gold, silver or nickel in them, but continue to say they’re worth the same amount). Because of that Diogenes was exiled from Sinope, and lost his citizenship and all his possessions. Hmmm, that makes the mundivagant lifestyle a little bit less of a philosophical choice and more of a necessity, doesn’t it, Diogenes…?

marionette

It’s World Puppetry Day today, which is organised by the Union Internationale de la Marionnette (UNIMA). So that’s why I’ve chosen ‘marionette’ as this week’s WOTW (as no one calls it).

A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings (so other types of puppets like ventriloquists’ dummies or Sooty aren’t marionettes – except in France, where it refers to any type of puppet). As you can probably guess from the spelling, the word ‘marionette’ comes from French. For some reason we lost an ‘n’ when it came into English, as the OG French term was ‘marionnette’. That comes from an Old French word, ‘marion’, which means ‘little Mary’. This is likely because the earliest marionettes were used to depict biblical events, in which the Virgin Mary was a big star.

How much is that scary puppet in the window?

Puppetry has been around for bloody ages, and some historians claim they actually predate actors in the theatre. In fact, there’s evidence of string operated puppets as far back as 2000 BC in Egypt. But who cares about that when we can talk about HAUNTED PUPPETS?

In 2015 paranormal investigator Jayne Harris filmed a supposedly haunted puppet every night for three months using a timed night vision camera. She was called in after its previous owner, who inherited it from his late father, claimed it tried to CHOKE HIM TO DEATH in the middle of the night. You can read more and see the (slightly underwhelming) video footage in this article.

If that doesn’t convince you, what about Mr Fritz, a disembodied ventriloquist doll’s head, which was caught on camera BLINKING in the middle of the night. Mr Fritz was made by a prisoner at the World War II Stalag II-B concentration camp. His new owner noticed that the door to the case the head was stored in kept opening over night, so he set up a camera to see what was going on. You can see the footage of the blinks in this article (my apologies that it’s from the Daily Mail). HIS LIPS BLOODY MOVE TOO.

Sleep well tonight…

anodyne

Someone said this to me on the phone the other day, and I realised I didn’t know what it meant (look, I don’t know ALL the words, guys). If you already know what it means, well done you. If not, we mainly use anodyne as an adjective (AKA a describing word) to refer to something that’s unlikely to offend or cause discomfort. So basically something that’s a bit meh. We also use anodyne as a noun (person, place or thing) for a medicine or substance that relieves pain.

Anodyne has been around in English since the 16th century. We nicked it from the Latin word ‘anodynos’ which is itself derived from the Greek word ‘anōdunos’. Both of these mean ‘painless’ or ‘free from pain’. So that’s where the literal meaning for painkiller comes from. And over time ‘anodyne’ has evolved a more figurative meaning for something that’s very middle of the road and doesn’t cause any upset.

A painkiller that certainly isn’t anodyne is general anaesthetic, which knocks you out for operations or if you’re trying to get BA Baracus on a plane*. But did you know that, even though we’ve been using them for hundreds of years, no one actually knows how general anaesthetics work? Scientists have worked out that they put you to sleep by reducing communication between your brain cells, but that’s pretty much all they know. That’s not at all scary. And my apologies if you have any kind of procedure coming up and didn’t know that.

*Dated reference.

fathom

Fathom has a few meanings, the most well-known of which is probably as a unit of measurement for the depth of water, one fathom being equal to six feet (1.83 metres for my metric friends). ‘Fathom’ also has a figurative meaning which is when you use it to describe understanding or comprehending something – ‘despite her best efforts, she couldn’t fathom what the hell was going on’.

Fathom comes from an Old English word, fæthm, which means ‘outstretched arms’ or ‘embracing arms’. In fact, ‘fathom’ was once used as a verb to mean ‘embrace’ – so you could say you were going to fathom someone if you were going to hug them (although that does sound vaguely threatening). In the 1600s, ‘fathom’ ran away to sea, and the verb came to mean ‘to measure with a sounding line’ – a sounding line being a bit of rope with a weight on the end used to measure the depth of water. The measurements then became known as fathoms, because sailors used their outstretched arms to measure the length of these ropes or cables (which makes much more sense that what I was imagining – lots of sailors trying to measure the depth of water by getting in the sea and stretching their arms out). Eventually this measure was standardised as six feet.

At the same time as all this was happening on the ocean waves, landlubbers started using ‘fathom’ to mean ‘probe’ or ‘investigate’. That’s because it was all about getting to the bottom of something – just like those sounding lines.

myriad

I once got told off by a client for writing ‘a myriad of XXX’. She said that it should be simply ‘myriad’ whatever it was, because ‘myriad’ is only an adjective (a describing word), not a noun (a person, place or thing). Because I only remember the mean things people say to me, many years later I’ve finally googled this, and it turns out she was WRONG. And in this post I’m going to tell you why. (She’s not a client anymore. Not because of that. Honest.)

Before we get into that, let’s talk about what ‘myriad’ means (although I’m sure you know that already, clever reader). As an adjective – as in ‘he has myriad issues’ – it means ‘innumerable’ i.e. too many to be numbered AKA a buttload. As a noun – as in ‘he has a myriad of issues’ – it means either a buttload again or, specifically 10,000. Why 10,000? Well, in ancient Greek, the word for 10,000 was μυριάς, which was pronounced ‘myrias’. Over time this word evolved and was used more broadly to talk about the concept of a vast or countless number. We then started using it figuratively to describe an indefinitely large quantity or multitude. It was adopted into English as ‘myriad’ in the mid-1500s.

A myriad of bottles

So why was that client so insistent that it was only an adjective? Well, apparently lots of folks were taught this at school. But much like ‘you can’t start a sentence with “and” or “but”’, and ‘you can’t end a sentence with a conjunction’, this is another ‘rule’ that has absolutely no basis in fact. When ‘myriad’ appeared in the English language in the mid-1500s it was as a noun, not an adjective. And it went on to appear as such in works by writers including Milton, Thoreau and Twain – and they did alright with the words. ‘Myriad’ as an adjective didn’t actually appear until 200 years later. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, client.

Petty, moi?

cretin

Before we get into this, it goes without saying that ‘cretin’ is a horrible word used to describe someone who’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic (which also isn’t a very nice phrase, sorry). So I’m definitely not encouraging you to say it to anyone. But it does have an interesting backstory, which is why it’s the word of the week. Which for this week, I’m renaming the problematic word of the week.

So, what’s that interesting backstory? Well, ‘cretin’ comes from ‘cretinism’, is a form of severe congenital hypothyroidism which means babies with the condition have a deficiency of thyroid hormones when they’re in the womb (thyroid hormones are crucial for proper physical and mental development), often caused by a lack of iodine – in fact, these days the condition is known as congenital iodine deficiency syndrome. Cretinism typically stunts these people’s physical and intellectual growth, as well giving them various other health issues. (That’s not the interesting bit, that’s just depressing.)

Cretinism was particularly prevalent in the French Alps due to several factors, one of which was a lack of iodine-rich foods – and that’s where the name came from. Its origins lie in the French word ‘chrétien’, which actually means ‘Christian’. They called it this as a reminder that, despite their mental and physical issues, people suffering from this condition were still humans, and should be treated with dignity and respect. Aw.

I should probably just end this here, but in reality, that’s only a theory as to the etymology of ‘cretin’. The other, not so kind, ones are:

• it describes these people’s ‘Christ-like’ inability to sin because they can’t recognise the difference between right and wrong

• it’s from ‘creta’, Latin for chalk, because people with the condition were pale

• it’s from ‘cretira’, the Romansh word for ‘creature’ (Romansh is a language spoken in the Swiss Canton of the Grisons (Graubünden))

• it’s from ‘cretine’ which is French for ‘alluvium’ (soil deposited by flowing water). This is a reference the condition's suspected origin in crappy soil.

Whatever the answer, don’t say ‘cretin’, kids. And if someone calls you one, please send them to this post.

barbarian

You know what a barbarian is – someone who pillages villages (and other places that don’t rhyme). The word has an origin that you might not know though. It comes from ancient Greece where the term ‘barboros’ was used to refer to any non-Greek-speaking bunch of people, or anyone those high-falutin’ Greeks thought inferior. ‘Barboros’ is literally based on the sound ‘bar-bar’ which is the Greeks taking the piss out of other languages by imitating what sounded like gibberish to them. I imagine it was probably accompanied by a ‘blah-blah-blah’ hand gesture as well.

Over time, the term ‘barbarian’ evolved to cover not only linguistic differences, but also cultural, social and perceived intellectual disparities between the Greeks and everyone else. It wasn’t long before the Romans picked up on the term, using it to describe non-Romans, particularly those outside the Roman Empire.

My favourite historical barbarians are the Vandals, a Germanic tribe who played a big part in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Believed to have originated from the area around modern-day Poland and Ukraine, in the early 5th century AD they established a powerful kingdom in North Africa. They also formed alliances with other groups, including the Alans, an Iranian nomadic tribe with the best name ever.

In 455AD, under the rule of King Genseric, the Vandals invaded Rome. There’s a story that they ended up in the imperial wine cellars. Instead of looting them as they were supposed to do, they decided to have themselves a little tipple. As anyone who’s gone to the pub after work for ‘just one drink’ has experienced, this ended up in a raucous party that including parading around the city streets wearing posh Roman clothes, and even crowning one of their own as the ‘Vandal King of Rome’. We’ve all been there.

Although the Vandals sacking of Rome wasn’t as devastating as earlier barbarian invasions (like the one by the Visigoths in 410AD), it did show the rest of the world that the Empire was in trouble. Combined with their conquest of North Africa (an important source of grain and revenue for the Romans), the Vandals were the beginning of the end for the Romans.

Despite this, the Vandal kingdom in North Africa didn’t last an awful lot longer. It fell in 534AD when the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I got the better of our tribe in the Vandalic War. Their most enduring legacy is probably (as I imagine you’ve guessed) the word ‘vandalism’, which is based on their reputation for looting and generally making a big old mess.