peristeronic

No, I haven’t spelled (spelt?) ‘prehistoric’ wrong. If something or someone (god forbid) is peristeronic then it means it or they relate to or resemble a pigeon.

The etymology is pretty straightforward – the ancient Greek word for dove or pigeon is ‘peristera’. Both of these birds come from the columbidae family. We get a couple of nice words from that as well:

• ‘columbarium’ – another word for a pigeon loft or a dovecote (I wonder why pigeons get lofts but doves gets cotes? Seems a bit racist), and also any type of vault which has niches for storing urns in it

• ‘columbine’ – which means of or relating to a dove, in innocence, gentleness, colour and so on. It’s also the name of one of the stock characters in commedia dell’arte (a form of popular theatre from 16th-century Italy that Inside No. 9 used as a basis for an episode that most people – including me – didn’t understand).

Time for pigeon facts. Pigeons are monogamous and mate for life. Mum and dad pigeons share parental responsibilities equally, meaning they’re already far more evolved than most humans (and I bet there’s no gender-pay gap). They’re also pretty clever. Aside from their awesome navigational abilities – an Oxford University study found that pigeons use manmade landmarks as signposts and often fly along roads and motorways, even changing direction at junctions – they can apparently recognise all 26 letters of the English alphabet and solve problems (I think I need a pigeon assistant).

GI Joe. He’s not dead, he’s resting.

Homing pigeons were used extensively during the First and Second World Wars for communication and reconnaissance. In fact, pigeon USA43SC6390, AKA GI Joe, saved the lives of the inhabitants of an entire Italian village, and the British troops who were occupying it, on 18 October 1943. Air support had been requested to deal with German soldiers in the village (called Calvi Vecchia). GI Joe flew 20 miles in 20 minutes to deliver a message that the British 169th (London) Infantry Brigade had captured the village, arriving just as the planes were getting ready to take off to bomb the target. He saved the lives of at least 100 men. GI Joe was given the Dickin Medal (which sounds rude but isn’t) for ‘the most outstanding flight made by a United States Army pigeon in World War II’.

I’m not crying, I’ve just got something in my eye.

‘Feed the birds’ from Mary Poppins – the dirty old bird lady always makes me well up.

penthouse

You know what a penthouse is – the super-expensive apartment at the top of a block which has its own special key for the lift and amazing views (AKA something I’ll never live in). But why is it called a penthouse?

(Obviously there’s also a softcore porn magazine called Penthouse. If that’s what you’re interested in, you might need a different kind of website though – I’m afraid there’s only word porn here.)

Phwoarr, look at the views on that penthouse.

Well, it turns out penthouses haven’t always the purview of poshos. The word ‘penthouse’ has actually been around for about four centuries (so much longer than very tall buildings), and originally referred to any kind of outhouse or structure attached to the outside of a building. It comes from an Old French word, ‘apentis’, which means ‘attached building’ or ‘appendage’. This comes from a Latin verb, ‘appendere’, meaning ‘to hang something up’. That’s where we get other words like ‘pendulum’, ‘appendix’ and ‘depend’ (not ‘penis’ though, surprisingly).

In the 1300s, ‘apentis’ made its way into Middle English, dropping the ‘a’ somewhere along the way. It was still used to describe small structures with sloping roofs that were attached to other larger buildings though. People usually kept things like tools and animals in them, rather than super-rich celebs. Through a process called folk etymology (which is basically when we change a – usually foreign – word due to a mistaken assumption about its meaning, or mispronounce it so throughly and for so long that it becomes something else) the ‘is’ of ‘appentis’ became ‘house’.

It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that penthouse took on the meaning it has today. As is often the case, no one seems completely sure how. Rooftop units were seen as pretty undesirable before the invention of lifts, and people tended to stick machinery, and servants, in them. The publisher Condé Nast takes some of the credit for popularising rooftop living. In the early 1920s he bought a building in New York and had the top floor – originally the servants’ quarters – converted into a 5,100-square foot apartment complete with six bedrooms, dining room, drawing room and library, all arranged around a 23 by 43 foot ballroom. Structures like this were often called ‘roof bungalows’ which doesn’t sound half as grand as ‘penthouse’ – so perhaps that’s why they were rebranded. The architect Emery Roth might have been responsible for this – he designed many top-floor apartments with terraces and is credited by his biographer Steven Ruttenbaum as having called these penthouses.

The upshot of all this is that I’m pretty sure that next time you’re in your shed, garage or outside loo, you can legit tell people you’re hanging out in your penthouse.

moxie

A few weeks ago I was doing the Wordle, and I was down to the very last row. I had MO?IE. Quite obviously, the word was ‘movie’. But for reasons known only to my subconcious, I put in an ‘x’, for ‘moxie’. FAIL. But it turns out that what’s bad for my Wordle statistics is good for the word of the week as it got me thinking – where does ‘moxie’ come from?

If you’ve heard the word ‘moxie’ before, you’ve probably watched a lot of black and white Hollywood movies from the early 20th century. It’s an American word which means having the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage, or ‘spunk’ (hee hee hee). It’s generally rather patronisingly applied to women who want to achieve things (bloody women), much like ‘feisty’.

So where does it come from? Well, ‘Moxie’ is actually a brand name for a bitter syrup (yum) first marketed as a medicine called ‘Moxie Nerve Food’ in the US in 1876. It was invented by one Augustin Thompson, a physician, businessman and philanthropist, who sold it as a cure for ‘paralysis, softening of the brain, nervousness and insomnia’ (I could do with some of that). Thompson claimed that he named the drink after a secret South American ingredient which was in turn named after his friend who discovered it. This super-secret medicinal magic was later found to be gentian root extract, a pretty common ingredient of tonics. In fact, it’s been used in these since at least 170BCE. It’s more likely Thompson took the name from a few different rivers and lakes in Maine where he was born. Lots of these have names that sound like ‘moxie’ which is similar to the word for ‘dark water’ in some Native American languages.

In an early example of some excellent viral marketing, people soon started using the word ‘moxie’ as a generic term for having extra pep in the face of adversity. This was due to the original drink’s claim that it could improve your nerve.

In 1884 Moxie rebranded as a soft drink alongside better-known teeth-rotters like Dr Pepper (I LOVE Dr Pepper but I only drink it about once a year as I can feel my teeth decaying with every sip). And you can still buy yourself a can of Moxie if you live in the States, although it’s now owned by the behemoth that is Coca-Cola. In fact, it was designated the official soft drink (because apparently that’s a thing) of the state of Maine in 2005.