flingee

If you’re a flingee, it means you’ve just had something thrown at you. I’m sorry.

Words like this, i.e with the suffix ‘ee’ (the bit at the end), generally indicate that someone’s got something from someone or something else – or has received the action of a verb, if we want to be smartarses about it. So that’s words like:

If that hits me, I’m going to punch you in the face

• interviewee – you’re getting the interview

• employee – you’re getting the employment (you must have aced that interview)

• trainee – you’re getting the training

• payee – you’re getting the payment, lucky you (must be all that employment and training).

(Other non-employment ‘ee’ words are available.)

Back to ‘flingee’. The word ‘fling’ probably comes from an Old Norse word, ‘flengja’, meaning ‘to whip or flog’. Over time it came to be associated with sudden, impulsive movements or actions, which is how we got ‘fling’ in English.

No one’s quite sure how ‘fling’ came to describe brief romantic liaisons, although that didn’t come about until the late 19th or early 20th century (the meaning, not the flings – those have been going since time immemorial). Maybe it’s something to do with throwing stuff being impulsive and fun? (There’s a tossing-off joke here, but I am of course far too mature to make it, so I’ll just leave that with you.)

fizgig

If you’re of a similar age to me, i.e. very young (stop laughing), then you’re probably thinking of the small, but actually quite scary (he’s got two rows of teeth, for chrissakes), dog-like friend of Kira, one of the lead characters in ‘The Dark Crystal’, a film that traumatised an entire generation of children in the 80s (I’m still scared of the Skeksis). Sadly he has a double ‘z’ in his name, so forget him. A single-z fizgig actually has several meanings.

1. A frivolous woman

Ah, a nice bit of everyday sexism (because as per usual there’s no male equivalent). A fizgig can be used to refer to a woman who’s silly, flighty or likes a bit of flirting. No one knows quite where this came from, but it’s possible it originated in 16th or 17th century England. One theory is that it comes from the Middle English word ‘fiche’, which means a small object or trifle. Another theory is that it’s related to ‘fizzle’, as in the hissing or sputtering sound. Either way, it eventually came to be associated with something small, frivolous or trivial, which was then applied to women. SIGH.

BOOOOOORING

2. A firework

A fizgig can also be a type of firework that produces a hissing or sizzling sound. Again, the etymology isn’t clear, but it’s probably onamatopoeic. I find fireworks incredibly boring. That’s not relevant.

3. A type of fishing tool

This type of fizgig has a long pole or handle with a sharp, pointed metal tip at the end, and is used for spearfishing. Fizgigs have been used in this way for centuries and still are in some parts of the world today. Apparently they work particularly well in murky or shallow waters that other types of fishing gear aren’t suitable for.

4. A type of hand-held spinning toy

A fizgig is also a term used to describe a small, hand-held toy made out of wood, metal or bone (ew). It typically consists of a small rod or handle with a pointed end, with a cord or string wound around it. You pull the string to make it spin. Again, no one really knows why this is called a fizgig, although it might relate to that word ‘fiche’ again, or simply be onamatopoeia (again).

So there you have it – four meanings for a word you probably didn’t even know existed in the first place. Don’t say I never give you anything.

cenobite

I’m a big fan of horror films – the schlockier the better. And I’ve recently been trying to catch up with 80s video-nasty classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Evil Dead and, most recently, Hellraiser (although I gave up after Hellraiser 2, as the internet tells me the nine (yep) sequels get progressively worse). Hellraiser is based on ‘The Hellbound Heart’, a novella by Clive Barker, who also wrote and directed the first film.

Pinhead. He got pins in his head

Even if you’ve never seen Hellraiser, you’re probably familiar with Pinhead, the primary antagonist. Pinhead and his pals are called the cenobites, and are part of ‘The Order of the Gash’. They’re demonic beings who were once human but have been transformed by their experiences in the afterlife, and now look pretty damn gross (in fact, Pinhead’s probably the least minging). The cenobites live in an alternate reality called the Labyrinth or the Leviathan’s Domain, and their favourite thing is inflicting pain on humans who summon them (some accidentally, some on purpose). They do that using a puzzle box called the Lemarchand Configuration, which opens a dimensional fissure.

The Hellraiser cenobites all look a bit BDSM as they wear various combinations of leather and chains, often with bits of their own skin thrown in, ewww. The original novella and first two films have them as morally ambiguous (‘demons to some, angels to others’) but later films and comics make them more straightforwardly sadistic.

After all that, it turns out that Barker didn’t invent the term ‘cenobite’, and it originally had a much more benign and less BDSM-ey meaning. It started out as a word for the followers of Pythagoras (he of the theorem), who founded a commune in Italy for philosophical study and also for the ‘amicable sharing of worldly goods’ (sounds like a cult to me – call your dad). ‘Cenobite’ first appeared in English in the 17th century where it referred to a member of a monastic community who lived in a common house under a common rule (i.e religion). It can also refer to any person in a communal or shared living situation (like a commune). The word itself comes from the Greek ‘koinos’ meaning ‘common’, and ‘bios’ meaning ‘life’.

A group of monks living in this type of community is often referred to as a cenobium. And cenobitic (or coenobitic if you want to make it really hard to spell) monasticism is the opposite of eremitic monasticism, which is when you’re a hermit (like me).

Back to Hellraiser. Pinhead’s nickname was created by the Hellraiser production crew and then picked up by fans, although Barker hated it. In ‘The Scarlet Gospels’ he’s simply known as ‘The Hell Priest’, which is much less fun. In the first eight films, he’s played by an actor called Doug Bradley. But for the (not-very-good) 2022 remake, the character’s played by Jamie Clayton, a female actor and model. This is actually truer to the original novella, where he’s described as having a voice that’s ‘light and breathy – the voice of an excited girl’. Other cenobites that regularly appear in the Hellraiser franchise include Chatterer, whose name comes from the constant clicking of his teeth, The Female, whose only attribute seems to be ‘woman’, and Butterball, who’s really fat (but wears cool shades).

‘We have such sights to show you…’

hobby

I’ve recently taken up needle-felting, which resulted in this utter monstrosity (pictured next to what it was supposed to look like – I’ve got better since, honestly). And this new hobby got me thinking, why is it called a hobby? Also, don’t give up the day job.

How it started vs how it’s going

In the 14th century the word ‘hobby’ referred to a small horse or pony, specifically one used for riding or racing. This probably comes from the Old English word ‘hobyn’, meaning small horse or pony (well, durr). In the 16th century the term ‘hobby horse’ appeared (in a payment confirmation, which I assume means ‘receipt’), which, if the etymology is correct, is actually a tautology i.e. it says the same thing twice. Like Sahara desert, Gobi desert and Kalahari desert, all of which mean ‘desert desert’ – ‘sahara’ is Arabic for ‘desert’, ‘gobi’ is Mongolian for desert’ and ‘kalahari’ is Tswana (one of the 11 official languages recognised by the South African constitution) for, you’ve guessed it, ‘desert’. Anyway, I digress. If you’re a young person, you might not know what a hobby horse is – a toy which was basically a horse head stuck on a stick that you’d straddle (sounds horrific – no wonder kids today prefer iPads) and run about with pretending to be on an actual horse.

Fast forward three hundred-ish years, and the term ‘hobby’ evolved to refer to any activity that people do for pleasure (except rude ones, obviously) or relaxation in their leisure time.

In the 17th century, people used ‘hobby’ as a bit of an insult, as these pasttimes were seen as something children did. But in the 18th century, with the advent of the industrial revolution and more leisure time for people, hobbies suddenly got cool. Although this might not have happened if anyone then had seen my zombie-alpaca needle-felting disaster.

slapstick

Personally, I’m not a fan of slapstick comedy. That whole brand of wackiness just doesn’t really do it for me. But, I have always wondered why it’s called that. Thank god for the internet.

Harlequin – that’s a natty outfit

To find the answer, we have to travel to 16th-century Italy, and the commedia dell’arte (which literally translates as ‘comedy of the profession’ – sounds hilarious, right?), an early form of improvised bawdy theatre performed by a troupe of professional actors, often in marketplaces and town squares. Commedia dell’arte uses stock characters, or ‘masks’, each of which always wear the same costumes and make-up, and use the same physical gestures. The most recognisable of these to you and me is probably Harlequin (also known as the scheming servant Arlecchino), who was accompanied by Scaramouche (still don’t know if he can do the fandango), Pierrot (a sad clown), and star-crossed lovers Isabella and Flavio (who I think are on Strictly Come Dancing), among others. The plays themselves were largely improvised, with the actors using their knowledge of these stock characters and their relationships with each another to create comedic situations and dialogue.

There was often lots of physical comedy in the commedia dell’arte, which is where our slapstick comes in. Actors used a club-like object made of two pieces of wood to produce a loud smacking noise. Originally called a ‘batacchio’ or ‘bataccio’, the Italian word for a knocker on a door, the English gave it the rather more obvious name of ‘slapstick’. Due to the fact that you could hit people with it very gently and still make a loud comedy noise that sounds like you’ve proper walloped them, it was actually one of the earliest theatrical special effects. It wasn’t long before the slapstick became a symbol of any type of highly physical comedy, and the word was then used to refer to that type of comedy itself.

The OG slapstick (still looks quite painful to me)

While you aren’t likely to see anyone perfoming commedia dell’arte in your local market square these days, it’s had a significant influence on the development of modern theatre. Lots of the stock characters and comedic situations continue to be adapted and reused in TV, film and literature. Most recently Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith used it in the Inside No. 9 episode ‘Wuthering Heist’ (with added Tarantino).

Slapsticks themselves aren’t all that common anymore either, except in (super-sinister) Punch and Judy shows – the thing Punch uses to hit everyone (including some casual wife-beating) is a slapstick. And percussionists use them to imitate the sound of slaps, whip cracks, gunshots and so on, too.