lullaby

You know what a lullaby is – a song you sing to a baby that won’t sleep (hello to my nephew). ‘Lullaby’ comes from the Middle English phrase ‘lullen’, which means ‘to lull’, and ‘by’ which means, well, ‘by’ or ‘near’. So it literally translates as ‘to lull near’. We’ve been using the word ‘lullaby’ in English since at least the 16th century.

So far, so straightforward. But, there’s another, more sinister explanation. Before I get into it, I should preface this by saying this is ‘folk etymology’ which is when we change or reinterpret the origin of a word over time, usually due to a popular or widely held (wrong) belief about its meaning (see ‘penthouse’ for an example). So everything after this point is probably bollocks. But let’s just go with it, because it’s much more interesting.

Lilith and snake pal (not the name of the painting) by John Collier

In this explanation, the word ‘lullaby’ comes from ‘Lilith abi’ which means ‘Lilith, begone’ in Hebrew. In some Jewish mythology, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, before Eve (PLOT TWIST). Unlike Eve, who was made from Adam’s rib, Lilith was created from the same clay as he was, which made them equal. Because of this she got a bit uppity – literally – and refused to lie underneath him when they were getting jiggy with it, or have his children. You go, girl.

Because of all this bloody feminism (I bet she wanted equal pay and dresses with pockets too), Lilith was either banished from the Garden of Eden or left of her own accord (I hope it was the second one). In the wilderness around the garden she became a demon who preyed on newborn infants and seduced men in their sleep (using reverse cowgirl, presumably – no missionary for our Lilith). She’s often shown as having wings, or as a snake.

Lilith appears in various Jewish texts, including the Talmud and the Zohar. And depending on who you talk to she’s either a symbol of female empowerment and resistance against the patriarchy, or a dangerous and evil woman who threatens the very order of creation. I think you can probably guess which side I come down on.

Anyway, back to lullabies. For whatever reason, Lilith has got a reputation for stealing babies. One belief is that this is because she was jealous of the attention Adam and Eve gave their children, while another says she could only have demon babies, so she stole human ones to make up for it. Either way, singing ‘Lilith abi’, or a lullaby, was a way to ward off Lilith and protect your babbie from her evil/feminist clutches.

I told you it was better than the real answer.

tchotchke

Tchotchke, which is pronounced chahch-ke, is a Yiddish word that refers to small decorative items, trinkets or knick-knacks. So that’s things that look pretty or are sentimental, but are basically useless (AKA things my flat is full of). Tchotchkes are also often quite cheap and perhaps a little bit tacky, like souvenir keyrings or fridge magnets (I also have loads of those), for example. The term can also be used to describe a collection of these types of items.

As I mentioned, tchotchke is from Yiddish, the Jewish language that developed in central and eastern Europe. It comes from the Slavic word ‘čačka’ or ‘čača’, which simply means a small object or toy (and I don’t think is anything to do with poop). It’s actually a fairly well-known word in the States (I came across it in an article about recruitment while doing some research for, well, an article about recruitment). It probably made its way there via Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century and has since become more widely used in American English over time.

There are lots of other, thankfully easier to spell, words in English that we also get from Yiddish. Like:

• chutzpah: an adjective (describing word) for someone who’s got lots of confidence (possibly too much) – ‘she’s got a lot of chutzpah considering how many tchotchkes she has in her flat’

• klutz – a noun (person, place or thing) for a clumsy or awkward person – ‘she’s such a klutz, she fell over all her tchotchkes’

• schlep – a verb (doing word) meaning to carry or haul something (or yourself) with difficulty – ‘she schlepped those tchotchkes all the way from London’

• schmooze – a verb meaning to suck up to someone: ‘she was schmoozing the tchotchke sellers to try to get some freebies’

• schmutz – dirt or filth: ‘her tchotchkes are covered in schmutz’

• shmaltz – an adjective for something that’s excessively sentimental or metaphorically cheesy (also, rendered chicken or goose fat): ‘her tchotchkes are so shmaltzy’.

grist

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘to add grist to the mill’, meaning to use something to your advantage e.g. ‘his utter stupidity really added grist to the mill’. But what exactly is grist? And why are you adding it to your mill? Well, it turns out that it’s a pretty literal metaphor – grist is simply grain that’s ground into flour and a mill is, well, you know what a mill is.

A mill, obviously

The earliest known use of the phrase in the metaphorical sense is in a work by an English theologian and reformer called John Foxe, who wrote in 1570: ‘All these are as grist to the mill to the papists.’ You might be able to guess from this that Foxe was a protestant, having converted from Catholicism. If I were a cynic, I might think that some of the reason for this was because he was due to take Catholic holy orders after his academic career ended, which of course meant giving up all action in the trouser department. He went on to have six kids, so it was lucky for them he did convert. Although Wikipedia describes him as ‘so bookish that he ruined his health by his persistent study’, so I’m very impressed he found the time. He also wrote an enormous (1,800 pages no less) history of Christian martyrs and their persecution and suffering, which became a popular and influential work during the Protestant Reformation, so maybe it wasn’t all about the winkie.

Anyway, back to ‘grist’. It comes from the Old English word, ahem, ‘grīst’, which also means ‘ground grain’. Not much of an etymological leap there then. That comes from the Old High German word ‘grist’ (again), the Middle Low German word ‘grêst’ (we’re mixing it up now) and the Old Norse word ‘grysta’ (woop woop), all of which mean, you’ve guessed it, ‘ground grain’. ‘Grist’ is also where we get ‘grind’ from. (Are you still awake?)

We’ve been using the word ‘grist’ in English since at least the 9th century to refer to both the grain brought to a mill for grinding, and the ground flour itself (which seems confusing to me, so lucky I’m not a miller).

cakewalk

I was watching an American show the other day (‘Alaska Daily’, if you’re interested – well worth a watch) and someone described something as ‘a cakewalk’. Which got me thinking – where does the term come from?

Just in case you’re not sure what a cakewalk is (as I think it’s a fairly American term), it’s used to refer to something that’s easy to do, like ‘that exam was a cakewalk’ (a statement I’ve never said, ever). The more British alternative is probably ‘a walk in the park’.

After a bit of research, it turns out ‘cakewalk’ has some murky origins, which may well make it a problematic term today. In the 19th century, African-American slaves used to perform a dance on Southern plantations which mocked the stiff waltz-style dance moves of their white enslavers. Slave owners saw this and, apparently missing the point entirely, went on to hold dance competitions at so-called ‘plantation parties’. Slaves would wear their smartest clothes and perform these dances with the best being rewarded with cakes as prizes. Yuck. Over time, the dance itself became known as the ‘cakewalk’.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the cakewalk moves – linked arms and high kicks – were adopted by a wider audience in the US and Europe, where they were often performed in vaudeville shows. It was also in the early 20th century that the term came to be used as a metaphor for any task or situation seen as easy or effortless. That wasn’t because winning a cakewalk was easy – it was because the dance steps were fluid and graceful, and the dancers’ hard work made it look like it was simple to do. This use was popularised by soldiers in World War I who used the term to describe battles or campaigns they won relatively easily.

condolence

You’ve probably offered someone your condolences at some point in your life. It’s a common enough word that we use when someone’s suffered a bereavement. But have you ever wondered what your condolences actually are, and why you’re offering them? (I’ll try to keep it light.)

‘Condolences’ comes from the Latin word ‘condolere’, which means ‘to suffer with’. It’s made up of the prefix ‘con-’ which means ‘with’ or ‘together’ (as in ‘connect’ and ‘congregate’) and ‘dolere’, meaning ‘to grieve’ or ‘to feel pain’. So when you offer someone your condolences you’re actually saying that you share their grief or pain. Nice, right?

We’ve been offering our condolences in English since the late 16th century. And you can also use it as a verb. So you can ‘condole’ with someone – but they might think you’re a bit weird if you say you’re going to do that.

Time to put the fun in to funeral (sorry), with some facts. Alexander the Great’s funeral, which was held in Babylon in 323 BCE, is up there as one of the most elaborate ever held. According to historical accounts, the funeral procession included over 20,000 soldiers and a 100-foot-high funeral pyre, covered in gold and surrounded by treasures and offerings.

The prize for the most bizarre (and also, most awesome) funeral goes to the American author and journalist Hunter S Thompson, who died in 2005. Called (by himself) his ‘blast-off ceremony’, it featured a 153-foot-tall cannon shaped like a double-thumbed fist, a symbol that Thompson often used in his writing, clutching a peyote button (a small cactus containing psychoactive alkaloids, including mescaline). The cannon was emblazoned with the words ‘Faster, Higher’ and blasted Thompson’s ashes into the air during the funeral, accompanied by a 10-minute fireworks display. It was watched by celebs including Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Bill Murray and Jack Nicholson. That’s one helluva way to go.

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.

berserk

If you go berserk, you go absolutely flipping mental, which I’m currently trying not to do while dealing with a 2,790-page PDF which crashes every two seconds.

‘Berserk’ actually has very old roots – turns out people have been getting furiously angry with PDFs (or the equivalent) for a very long time. It comes from ‘berserker’, the name of a type of Norse warrior who fought with superhuman, savage strength while in a sort of frenzied trance. They dressed in animal skins, usually bear. And that’s where the name comes from – in Old Norse, ber- meant ‘bear’ and serkr- meant ‘shirt’ or ‘skin’. The excellently named Snorri Sturluson, a 13th-century historian, interpreted the meaning as ‘bare-shirt’, speculating that berserkers went into battle in the nuddy (or at least topless). But sadly this has been largely discredited. (Snorri obviously had the same problem as lots of other English speakers who ask others to ‘bare with me’ which has made me angry many, many times.)

The earliest surviving reference to the word ‘berserker’ is in Haraldskvæði, a skaldic poem (one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry) composed by another excellently named individual, Thórbiörn Hornklofi, in the late ninth century. Here’s a little snippet for you:

I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood,
Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,
Those who wade out into battle?
Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle
They bear bloody shields.
Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.

No mention of them being topless, sorry Snorri.

When I googled ‘famous berserkers’, one of the ones who came up was Ivar the Boneless. Sadly no one’s completely sure where the name comes from. It’s been suggested that he might have had a condition like osteogenesis imperfecta (also known as brittle bone disease), which makes the fact that he invaded both England and Ireland extra impressive. Another source says it refers to the fact that he couldn’t get it up, which is less so.

Also, he had a brother called Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye who sounds super fun.

This one’s for you, Snorri

botuliform

Shaped like a sausage. That’s what it means. Because the Latin word for ‘sausage’ is ‘botulus’. I can’t believe it’s not more popular. Now, you might be thinking that’s because it sounds like ‘botulism’, a rare but serious illness that attacks the body's nerves and causes difficulty breathing and muscle paralysis until your heart stops and you die. And you would be right.

SAUSAGE

Botulism was first identified in 1822 by someone called Justinus Kerner, a German poet and doctor. His doctoring was apparently better than his poetrying (the only one I can find is about a saw – yes, the things you chop wood with), and when lots of his patients started dying of a horrible illness that paralysed every part of their bodies, he realised they’d all been chowing down on cheap sausages. So he decided to call this new illness botulism, or ‘sausage disease’. He also rightly worked out that these sausages must contain a toxin which he called ‘botulinum’.

Fast forward to 1895 and a funeral in Belgium. Three of the guests at the wake drop dead from food poisioning (which cut out the middleman funeral-wise), and the culprit was found to be some ham they’d all eaten. The ham was sent to the University of Ghent where someone put it under a microscope and identified the bacteria whodunnit. And in a strange case of medical serendipity, it turns out the little bastards were sausage-shaped.

Turn that frown upside down with some biological warfare

Now called ‘clostridium botulinum’, this bacteria is so bloody lethal that it’s up there with anthrax as one hell of a biological weapon, causing almost instant death by paralysis. So surely it must be banned, right? Wrong. Because a little bit of instant paralysis can actually be a very good thing, at least if you’re a woman (or man – but mainly woman) of a certain age or a Kardashian. Because sausage poison has since been rebranded as, you’ve guessed it, botox. The world is a funny place, isn’t it?

PS: If you’ve ever wondered why sausages are sometimes called hotdogs, it’s because in 19th-century America many people believed sausages were made of, you’ve guessed it, dog meat. So they called them hotdogs. Simple, but gross. And hopefully not true today.

amok

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘to run amok’, meaning to run about in an uncontrollable or violent way, much like my dog does when he’s got the zoomies, or got hold of one of my very expensive bras. But have you ever wondered why it’s called ‘amok’? Well, turns out it has pretty bloody origins (which are my favourite kind).

‘Amok’ comes from a Malay word, ‘mengamok’, which means to make a furious and desperate charge. Typically, the person affected by amok (usually a man #everydaysexism) attacked bystanders in a frenzy, killing everyone in sight until he collapsed or was killed himself. I told you it wasn’t very nice.

Amok attacks had around ten victims on average. And according to Malay mythology, these murderous rampages were caused by the ‘hantu belian’, an evil tiger spirit that would enter someone’s body and make them behave violently without knowing what they were doing.

We can thank Captain Cook for first recording instances of amok in Malay tribesmen in 1770 while he was sailing round the world, the big show-off. The word itself first appeared in English earlier than this though, in a translation of a 16th-century Portugese book called ‘The Book of Duarte Barbosa’ by, you’ve guessed it, Duarte Barbosa. Barbosa’s sister was married to Ferdinand Magellan, another big show-off who led the first expedition to sail all the way around the world (although he didn’t actually make it – and apparently his name wasn’t even Magellan). Barbosa accompanied him on this, and both were killed in the Phillipines after trying to convert the wrong guys to Christianity.

Captain Cook also met a sticky end, this time at the hands of a group of Hawaiians. He was clonked on the head with a club by a chief named Kalaimanokahoʻowaha (wow) and then stabbed by one of his servants. It’s a tough game, circumnavigation.

myrmecophilous

If you’re described as ‘myrmecophilous’, then you’re associated with, benefited by or fond of (hopefully not in a weird way) ants. It’s a scientific term that describes the positive relationships ants have with other species like butterflies, crickets, beetles and mites, all of which help them be good at staying alive (that’s the science). For example, butterflies belonging to the family Lycaenidae (which is almost 6,000 species worldwide), are myrmecophiles. In return for protection from predators, some caterpillars have developed dew patches, small button-like spots on their backs, that ooze a thick sugary fluid that the ants go nuts for, while others have a nectar gland that pumps out the same sweet goodness (sounds gross, I know). So the ants get their fix, and the caterpillars get bodyguards (even if they are all hopped up on sugar).

The word myrmecophilous has Greek roots. ‘Myrmec’ means ‘ant’, while the ‘phile’ ending comes from ‘philos’, which means to love. Like extremophile, galanthophile and lots of other nasty words we won’t mention here.

Okay, ant facts.

• There are over 12,000 ant species worldwide.

• The bullet ant is said to have the most painful sting in the world – it feels like being hit by a hammer. Just kidding, it feels like a bullet, obviously.

• A single ant can carry 50 times its own bodyweight. And they even work together to move stuff they can’t manage on their own.

• Ants can be found on every single continent except Antarctica, which is mental considering it’s the only continent that literally starts with ‘ant’.

• The biggest ants’ nest ever found is over 3,700 miles wide. Yep, you did read that right. Called the ‘Argentine Ant Supercolony’ (good name for a band), it goes from northern Italy through the south of France, and out to the western coast of Spain. Many ant experts think it’s actually much much bigger than this and stretches across the globe – that’s because Argentine ants from opposite sides of the world recognise each other (which I think basically means they don’t try to kill each other), leading them to think they all live in one utterly ginormous colony. Here’s hoping they don’t rise up and take over the world… actually maybe that would be better.

• I ate a stir-fry in a restaurant in Cambodia that had ants in it (as an ingredient – it wasn’t a really dirty restaurant) – although I didn’t realise until I was about halfway through. I thought they were saffron or something like that. It was very nice, but once I did realise, I couldn’t finish it.

Krampus

This one’s a bit of a cheat, because it’s a proper noun (but still a word). As it’s nearly Christmas, I’m hoping you’ll let me get away with it. Because tis the season for nightmarish shadowy figures who’ll, at best, whip you with a birch rod, and at worst, drag you to hell. Merry Christmas!

Krampus in action – LOOK AT HIS TONGUE (source)

In central and eastern Europe, Krampus is a horned hairy figure, usually brown or black, with cloven hoofs and a lolling tongue. He’s basically Santa Claus’s evil twin – the anti-Santa. According to myth, Krampus accompanies Old Saint Nick to doll out punishment to kiddies who’ve found themselves in the naughty section of that checked-it-twice list. He does that by whipping them with a bunch of birch rods, presumably on the bum, or some rusty chains. Ouch. Some stories say he then pops them in a basket, and drags the naughty children to hell.

Krampus’s name either comes from the Bavarian word ‘krampn’ meaning ‘dead’ or ‘rotten’, or from the German words ‘kramp’ or ‘krampen’ meaning ‘claw’. His origins are a bit murky, although he’s thought to have appeared around the 6th or 7th century CE – some clever anthropology bods think he actually pre-dates Christianity. He’s even got his own feast day, on 5 December, called Krampusnacht, which is the day before St Nicholas’ Day. People dress up as Krampus, drink too much, then run about trying to scare each other in something called the ‘Krampuslauf’ or ‘Krampus Run’. These events still go on annually in a lot of Alpine towns, and have even made their way to some American towns and cities, including Portland and San Francisco. There are also Christmas cards with him on, called Krampuskarten, which is fun to say out loud.

A genuinely scary Krampusnacht costume (source)

Krampus has recently made his way into popular culture, particularly in North American horror films. One of my favourites is, well, ‘Krampus’ starring Toni Collette and Adam Scott, which involves some excellent killer toys (including a particularly nasty child-eating clown) alongside some anti-commercialism messaging. And if you’re a fan of Inside No. 9 (which you absolutely should be), you’ll remember him from the exceedingly disturbing Christmas special ‘The Devil of Christmas’ (still available on BBC iplayer). Honourable mention also goes to the anthology horror film ‘A Christmas Horror Story’ where (a surprisingly ripped) Krampus has a full-on fight with Santa Claus himself. It also stars William Shatner – what more could you ask for?

All that’s left for me to say is ‘Grüß Vom Krampus’… or Greetings from Krampus. See you in 2023 for lots more word-related shenanigans.

quiddity

The most popular sport in the wizarding world, it’s played on broomsticks, and involves each team… I jest, of course. Quiddity is a philosophical concept that describes the thing that makes something what it is – its essence. So you could write: ‘Emma’s weekly posts capture the quiddity of complicated words in straightfoward prose.’ Oh really? How kind of you to say, thank you so much.

It’s nothing to do with HP. But there are no good pictures for ‘essence’.

Now, my two major word-of-the-week sources (which are Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster), disagree on the meaning of quiddity. The one above is Merriam-Webster’s definition, which is the one I’m going with because it’s easiest to understand. But according to Wikipedia, quiddity is a bit more complicated, and describes the properties that a particular thing shares with others of its kind. This makes it the opposite of something called ‘haecceity’ or ‘thisness’ (which apparently is an actual word) i.e. a positive characteristic of an individual that causes it to be this individual, and no other. See why I’m going with the first one?

Quiddity comes from a Latin word, ‘quidditas’. That’s a translation of a Greek phrase ‘to ti en einai’ , meaning ‘the what it was to be’, which sounds like something a drunk person would say.

Quiddity can also refer to a small and usually trivial criticism or complaint, or to a quirk or eccentricity in someone's behaviour or personality. Hamlet uses it in this way in, well, ‘Hamlet’ in his graveside speech, referring to a lawyer: ‘Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures.’

That’s not a very fun note to end on, so here’s a quidditch joke:

Why should you never have sex with a wizard?

Because you might catch Hogwarts, and they never stop quidditching.

(I didn’t say it was a good joke.)

psychomanteum

I’ve been listening to a podcast on BBC Sounds called ‘The Witch Farm’ about Heol Fanog in Wales, a real-life haunted house (I highly recommend it – the podcast, not the house – and the previous one called ‘The Battersea Poltergeist’; unless you scare easy, in which case maybe don’t listen to either of them). In a recent episode, the presenter, Danny Robins (whose response to anything scary is always ‘Bloody hell’) set up a psychomanteum. This involved him watching several scary films while depriving himself of sleep for 36 hours. He then sat and gazed into a mirror, then nearly shit his pants when he saw a shadowy figure in it. The point of this was to prove how easy it is to trick the human brain into thinking it’s seen a ghost.

The word psychomanteum was invented by a guy called Raymond Moody. After a near-death experience he built one in Alabama, called the Dr John Dee Theater of the Mind (named after Queen Elizabeth I’s astronomer and famous occultist). Here he carries out (he’s still going) experiments where he gets people to summon visions of ghosts by staring into a mirror in a dimly lit room.

Despite the newness of the word, psychomanteums and mirror divination (called catoptromancy, fact-fans) have actually been around for yonks. A psychomanteum (although it’s not called that) is mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey (written in the 8th century BCE) when Odysseus gazes into a pit filled with the blood of sacrificed sheep and eventually sees his dead mum presumably berating him for killing a bunch of innocent barnyard animals. And in the 1950s, a psychomanteum was excavated at Ephyra in the western Greek province of Epiros. It was a subterranean complex containing fragments of a giant bronze cauldron which was probably gazed in by ancient Greeks looking to contact long-dead relatives. Spooky, right?

zugunruhe

You can be forgiven for never having come across this word before – it cropped up in a book I’ve just finished reading about how different animals perceive the world (‘An Immense World’ by Ed Yong – well worth a read). Zugunruhe is a German word that means ‘migratory restlessness’. It’s a thing that happens to birds as they start getting anxious when the time for them to start their migration draws near. The symptoms include fluttering wings, sleeplessness and general disruption to the birds’ normal activities. Birds in captivity are affected by it as well – caged birds will launch themselve at the walls in the direction they want to travel in. Sad, right?

As I said, this is a German word, which is made up of ‘Zug’ meaning ‘move’ or ‘migration’, and ‘unruhe’ for ‘anxiety’ or ‘restlessness’. It first appeared in 1707, and is now well recognised in ornithology.

Around one in five of all the world’s bird species migrate. And just before setting off, some have been found to atrophy organs that they don’t need while they’re flying (like their digestive organs), while beefing up those that they need for power (like pectoral muscles and hearts). Amazing.

Here are some more awesome migration facts.

• Bar-headed geese travel from their breeding areas in Mongolia, the Tibetan Plateau and northern China to India. They cross over the Himalayas using less than ten per cent of the oxygen available at sea level (I confess I don’t really understand what this means, but I guess it’s impressive…?), and reach altitudes of up to 23,000 ft (7,000 m). That. Is. Well. High.

• Great snipes put on a lot of weight before their winter migration. Despite this giving them a lack of aerodynamism, they’ve been recorded reaching speeds of up to 60mph (97kmph) over a distance of 4,225 miles (6,800 km). They don’t take any breaks while flying from Scandinavia to sub-Saharan Africa, and arrive much thinner than they started, losing half of their weight en route.

• Bar-tailed godwits (great name for a band) travel from Alaska to New Zealand, and hold the record for the longest non-stop flight of any bird. They fly for over 6,835 miles (11,000 km) without stopping.

• It’s not all about flying either. Adélie penguins trek around 8,077 miles (13,000 km) across ice every year.

• The Arctic tern has the longest migration known in the animal kingdom. It travels 55,923 miles (90,000 km) every year, going from pole to pole. Arctic terns can live for up to 30 years, which someone much cleverer than me has worked out means that a single tern’s migration distance is the equivalent of going to the moon and back more than three times.

Most of the birds on this list are endangered due to climate change and habitat loss. Have a look at BirdLife International or World Animal Protection if you’d like to find out more about ways to protect them and our other furry friends.

proprioception

If I asked you how many senses we have, you’d probably say ‘five’, right? Taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch. But there’s actually another sixth sense, which has nothing to do with ghosts or Bruce Willis. It’s called proprioception.

(Before I get into this, I’m no scientist. So if I’ve got any details wrong in this article, please forgive me. And don’t shout at me.)

Proprioception, also known as kinaesthesia, is the sense that lets your brain know where your body is in space. Which basically means it’s how you know where and what your legs, arms and other extremities (stop it) are doing. You don’t need to look down at your feet to know where they are. That’s proprioception, right there.

So how does it work? Well, we all have cells called proprioceptors in our muscles and joints that process sensory information when our bodies move. And when we stretch our muscles and change the position of our joints, these cells send feedback to our brains, telling them where our arms, legs and body are at any given moment.

Without this sense, we wouldn’t be able to do anything much really. For example, if I have a gin and tonic, I don’t have to look at the glass as I move it to my mouth. That’s because my proprioceptors are sending information to my brain about where my hand is. I also don’t smash the glass into my own face (unless it’s the fourth or fifth gin and tonic), which is again thanks to my proprioceptive sense making sure my hand moves smoothly and at the right speed to get to my mouth.

Another good example is walking. You don’t need to look at your feet to lift them up, move them forward and put them back down again. That’s because proprioceptors send constant sensory information to your brain about where your hips, knees, ankles and toes are, and make sure you don’t fall over (most of the time). Proprioceptors are also constantly working in the background to make sure we use the right amount of force when we’re pulling or pushing something, and the right speed when we move our limbs. So we don’t end up breaking all the gin and tonics when we do a cheers, or punching people when we try to shake hands (unless we really don’t like them).

As a concept, proprioception has been around since 1557, where it was described by one Julius Caesar Scaliger (an Italian scholar and physician) as a ‘sense of locomotion’. In 1827, Charles Bell, a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist and philosophical theologian (and show-off, presumably), called it ‘muscle sense’. This was obviously deemed too easy to understand by the scientific community, and in 1906 the term ‘proprio-ception’ was coined by Charles Scott Sherrington, an English neurologist. This comes from the Latin word ‘proprius’, which means ‘one’s own’ or ‘individual’, and ‘capio’/‘capere’ meaning ‘to take’ or ‘grasp’. So it’s basically about grasping oneself in space. Which sounds like a sci-fi porn film, but you get the idea.

picayune

If something is picayune, it’s trivial or paltry. So you could say to someone ‘your opinions are picayune’ (if you’re mean and don’t want the person to realise). You can also use it as a noun, as in ‘our lives don't amount to a picayune in the grand scheme of things’. Which is depressing, sorry.

One silver Spanish real, from the reign of Peter I of Castile (1350–1369).

Picayune is a relatively modern word. In the 19th century, in Louisiana and other southern American states, a picayune was a small coin which wasn’t worth very much. Specifically, it was a Spanish half real – the real (meaning ‘royal’) was a Spanish unit of currency used for several hundred years after the mid-14th century. It was eventually replaced by the peseta in 1868.

The coin’s name comes from ‘picaioun’, a word that means ‘small coin’ in Occitan, a language spoken in French luxury cosmetic shops. I jest, of course (and apologise for the bad joke and product placement – although if anyone from L’Occitane is reading and would like to send me some free stuff, please do. I’m a particular fan of your hand cream) – it was spoken in Southern France. ‘Picaioun’ comes from the Occitan word ‘pica’, which means ‘to jingle’, as in the noise coins make when you have lots of them.

Just in case you don’t know what an aeroplane looks like (this might not be a Cessna though – no idea).

Further investigation into the word ‘pica’ led me to an eating disorder when people crave things that aren’t food. First described by Hippocrates way-back-when, in this context ‘pica’ actually has completely different etymology, and comes from the Latin word for ‘magpie’, a bird believed to eat anything.

This investigation then took me back to France (the internet is a wonderful thing) and one Michel Lotito, an entertainer who was famous for eating things that you shouldn’t. Known as Monsieur Mangetout (‘Mr Eat-All’), over the course of his 57-year lifetime, he ate 18 bicycles, 15 shopping carts, 7 TVs, 6 chandeliers, 2 beds, a pair of skis, a computer, a waterbed, 500 metres of steel chain, a coffin (with handles), 45 door hinges and even a bloody aeroplane (a Cessna 150, if you’re interested), which took him two years to get through. He was awarded a brass plaque by Guinness World Records to commemorate his abilities, and he ate that too. Lotito died in 2007 after a heart attack – and his death was apparently nothing to do with his ‘unusual’ diet.