Grace Tierney's Blog, page 10

Perfectly Pernickety

Hello,

This week’s word is pernickety with thanks to Irene Gahan, bookshop owner extraordinaire from Academy Books in Drogheda. She very kindly stocks my books, but doesn’t stop there – I regularly open my messages to find little word suggestions for the blog.

Christmas 2023 at Academy Books. The bears are Fred and George.

Irene suggested pernickety because it’s a word she loves to use. We then had a chat about how to spell it. I was leaning towards a double t (and was wrong). American readers may claim the correct way is persnickety, more on that below.

Pernickety is defined as an adjective for a precise person who fusses about minor details. The earliest recorded use in English was in 1808 when it was spelled as pernicktie. The word entered English from Scots (as detailed in this Scots language dictionary entry, along with a huge number of spelling variations). It wasn’t until the late 1800s that persnickety came along as a spelling variant with the same meaning. As far as I can tell, persnickety is the prevalent American English version and pernickety rules in British English. Both are correct.

Before 1808 the etymology of pernickety is vague to the point of non-existent. It could be a child’s variation of particular (being particular has a similar meaning). The nick part could relate to knick-knack – a small toy or trinket i.e. a pernickety person focuses on small items. The Latin prefix per- (thoroughly) could be an intensifier at the start of the word.

The truth is – when it comes to pernickety, nobody knows. Which must drive pernickety people absolutely crazy.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due this week (which means I’ll probably send it next week). Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

Wordfoolery Books – Signed Copies and Coming Soon

Hello,

Thanks for sticking with me this week as I chatted about my books. Today’s all about how to lay your hands on them, signed copies, and my plans for future books.

Where can I get a copy? I’m lucky enough to have readers all around the world so the answer is always dependent on where they’re located and if they prefer paperback or ebook. The full stockist listing is here and includes Irish independent bookshops (shout out to Irene at Academy in Drogheda and Gwen at Company of Books in Dublin), ebook editions on various platforms, and online bookstores in the UK, Europe, North America, and further afield. If you’d like to stock the books please get in touch by commenting below. If you know me in real life, give me a shout and we’ll work out something.

As for signed copies you have two options currently. 1) pick one up at Academy Books, Drogheda or 2) read the details here and get in touch with me. I absolutely love sending off my books worldwide and am happy to inscribe them for friends and family. I use An Post (the Irish national postal system) for deliveries and strongly advise orders by 11th of December 2023 at the absolute latest if you want a copy within Ireland or UK for the 25th.

Also, did you know you can buy ebooks as gifts? You can buy kindle books for someone else – click on BUY FOR OTHERS and add the recipient’s email address and Amazon will send them the link together with any message you want to add. Perfect for last minute shoppers!

What’s Next for Wordfoolery Books?

I’ve been asked this often in the last few weeks. The best way to keep up with Wordfoolery is here on the blog and via my lovely new newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers” (subscribe here and remember to click on the confirmation email). One subscriber won a sneaky look at a chapter of “Words Christmas Gave Us” last month. You never know what little gem I’ll include.

My detailed planning for 2024 will take place over the Christmas-New Year break but the main plan is to complete and launch “Words Christmas Gave Us” in paperback, ebook, and hardback in 2024. It should have been out in 2022, but my mother’s ill-health was more important. This year will be my first Christmas without her.

2024 will also see my usual round of weekly blogs, weekly episodes of serial fiction on Channillo.com, the newsletter, my local newspaper column, monthly Wordfoolery Wednesdays on the radio, NaNoWriMo participation, research work over the summer, and as much writing as I can fit in. My youngest will also be sitting her state exams in June and hopefully moving on to university, so no stress there .

Those of you who’ve read the books will have seen my list of “Coming Soon” books at the back. I am usually working on about four books at a time (yes, I need my head examined) – some in publishing mode, some in drafting mode, and some in research mode where I gather candidate words from a zillion different sources. My research for a book takes years.

Currently, “Words Christmas Gave Us” is in publishing mode. “Words the Weather Gave Us” is in drafting mode. “Words Stories Gave Us” is in research mode and may skip ahead of Weather. Several topics are simmering in research mode with front-runners being Colours and French. Which topic would you love to see next? I always welcome word suggestions – pop it in a comment below. If I use a suggested word I thank the suggester in the acknowledgements of the book.

Thanks for joining me in chatting about my books this week. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Normal word blogging will resume next Monday.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

The Charisma of Modern Words

Hello,

It’s day four of Wordfoolery Book Week and time to celebrate modern words thanks to my digital-only book “Modern Words with Old Roots”, my fourth book, which I released in 2022. I particularly enjoy discovering modern words which have ancient origins. It’s easy to miss the history which is literally under our nose, plus it’s fun to surprise my teens with the roots of their supposedly cool “new” word.

The book reveals the astonishingly ancient history of a hand-picked selection of 50 modern words from avatar to zarf.

It’s time to login (inspired by an actual piece of wood), open your kindle (inspired by Vikings), forget about the latest world crisis (thanks to an ancient Greek doctor), skip the doomscrolling (with a nod to William the Conqueror), and set off in hot pursuit (from the Age of Sail) of some juicy language facts. You may be surprised by what you discover.

Words change constantly, acquiring new meanings, and finding fans in new generations. Let’s rejoice in their evolution. This one is good for word geeks and anyone who’s ever wondered about the roots of the latest trendy word.

One modern word you won’t find in the book, because it’s impossible to keep pace with teen slang, is rizz. It was named Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2023 this week so it seemed a good time to explore it.

Rizz and Charisma

If you don’t have a teen nearby you may be asking what rizz means. Oxford tell us that rizz is somebody’s ability to attract another person via style and charm. It formed as a shortening from the middle of the word charisma. Other words formed like this include fridge from refrigerator and flu from influenza. It’s worth noting that rizz up is a common use. This means to chat up or seduce somebody.

Of course now that the boring grown-ups have noticed rizz, it’s probably been redefined as old-fashioned. That seems to be the pattern with youthful slang in my house.

Where do the old roots come in? Two words – Greek gods.

Charisma joined Middle English around 1500 when it was spelled karisme and referred to a divine gift. This sense was retained when it became charism in the 1640s and charisma in the 1800s. By the 1930s the meaning focused on the gift of leadership with a little side influence from German and it became personal charm in the 1950s, and of course rizz in more recent times.

Where was charisma before Middle English? It was a Latinised form of a Greek word kharisma (divine gift) which came from kharis (grace, beauty, kindness). One of the three attendants of the Greek goddess Aphrodite was called Charis and presumably she was beautiful, kind, and graceful. Kharis is related to the verb khairein (to rejoice at) from a Proto IndoEuropean root word gher (to like, to want).

Being charismatic has been a gift from the very start and always associated with love, longing, and attractive traits. Some things never change, but I doubt too many will think of Aphrodite’s attendants when trying their rizz today.

If you enjoy stories like these then pick up a copy of “Modern Words with Old Roots” by Grace Tierney in ebook from Amazon. It’s a digital-only exclusive, a quick read to keep you going until “Words Christmas Gave Us” (launching in 2024).

I’ve been talking about my books every day this week, so stay tuned for how to order signed copies and my book plans for 2024 tomorrow. Normal word blogging will resume next Monday.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

Raise a Toast to Words The Vikings Gave Us

Hello,

It’s day three of Wordfoolery Book Week and time to raise a toast to “Words the Vikings Gave Us”, my third book, which grew naturally from my sea book when I noticed how many English words wouldn’t exist without the influence of Old Norse. We wouldn’t have egg, window, they, or thing, for example. We would struggle to create an everyday sentence without their help. Perhaps more surprisingly I found enough romantic words for an entire chapter. They were much more than warriors.

Launched in 2021, it’s perfect for history buffs and anybody who has ever longed to hurl an axe. The book explores the Viking history of more than 300 words and phrases like kiss, ombudsman, bluetooth, frisbee, thing, and hustings. I drew from ship life, Viking food, farming, norse romance, myths, politics, modern Vikings, anatomy, place names, daily life, and of course how to fight like a Viking.

The blog has also featured many Viking words such as – slang, hug, gift, ugly, and sky.

I grew up in Dublin, founded by Vikings, and while Ireland (and countries as far apart as Canada, Russia, and Italy) were settled by Vikings they haven’t left behind a built legacy in the way the Romans did (despite their maritime empire lasting far longer). The Christian monks who wrote their histories weren’t big fan either because of their monastery looting. Their lasting legacy, for me, is their influence on English, which isn’t that surprising considering they ruled parts of the United Kingdom for more than 700 years.

One Viking word which shows how little we respect Viking society when decrying them as mere raiders is thing {note extract is copyright Grace Tierney 2021}.

Thing

Thing is a massively useful word in English. It can stand in for almost any noun when the correct word escapes the mind for a moment and it has been joined with other common words to create a range of popular words including anything, nothing, everything, something, plaything, and thingamajig.

Thing’s roots lie in Viking power structures. Thing entered Old English spelled as ping from Old Norse and the term was initially for a meeting, assembly, or discussion. This political root can be traced in Viking history with ease and spotted in the second half of the word hustings.

Iceland’s national assembly is called the Althing. It’s the oldest parliament in the world, having been founded in 930, and it originally met in the thing fields outside Reykjavik.

Similarly the Thing Mote in Dublin, Ireland was a raised mound near the location of Dublin Castle today, where the Vikings met to agree laws to rule the city during centuries of Norse rule. It stood until the late 1600s.

A thing meeting could be attended by all free Viking men, there were no restrictions of status or property (it took another 1,000 years for that to be true of Westminster). The meetings were regular and organised by a law speaker (who could recite all laws previously agreed) and the local chieftain. Disputes were resolved and laws made. It was a cross between a parliament and court of law. Things could be small local affairs, city level like Dublin, or national like Iceland’s Althing. Things often lasted for a few days and attracted community activities like trade and weddings on the sidelines.

With time a thing became something which was discussed at a meeting, rather than the meeting itself. By the 1300s it indicated a person who was pitied or a personal possession. By the 1600s English had settled on thing to be the word for the object you can’t name at the moment and it joined with other words to provide words for everything and anything (pun intended).

{end of extract}

If you enjoy stories like these then pick up a copy of “Words The Vikings Gave Us” by Grace Tierney in paperback or ebook from Amazon, or the many other stockists. All the places to buy it are listed on this page.

I’ll be talking about one of my books every day this week, so stay tuned for “Modern Words with Old Roots” tomorrow. Normal word blogging will resume next Monday.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

Sail Away with Words The Sea Gave Us

Hello,

It’s day two of Wordfoolery Book Week and time to chart a course in “Words the Sea Gave Us”, my second book, inspired by my lifelong love of the sea. I wish I could say that having grown up within earshot of foghorns, ships, and curlews that I’m a keen sailor, but with the curse of motion sickness my sea-going is limited to filling my home with model lighthouses, nautical books, and visits to as many lighthouses, beaches, and harbours as I can manage.

Launched in 2020, it’s perfect for beachcombers, sailors, and wannabe pirates. It features more than 370 words and phrases from parts of the ship, sail names (some real beauties there), crew, surfer slang, marine monsters and fables, fashion, weather, navigation, flags, and most importantly how to talk like a scurvy pirate because one day Cap’n Jack will call and I’ll be ready.

Along the way I discovered how the sea has infiltrated English. The first worker’s strike came from sailing ships, the original skyscraper wasn’t a building, cyber started on boats, and so many phrases we use every day got their start on ships. Plus, how could I resist words like baggywinkle and gollywobbler?

Of course the blog has also featured many nautical words such as – heave ho, hot pursuit, making a pass, scuttlebutt, tonnage, binnacle, flotsam, doldrums, and buccaneer. I’ve been researching for this book since I was a teenager listening to the “Seascapes” programme on RTE radio and it was a total joy to feature there talking about my book. My first radio spot, but not my last as I now talk about word history every month on LMFM radio. You never know where writing a book will bring you. For snippets from various shows – check out my Listen Page.

One nautical story which was completely unknown to me previously was how we got the word strike for an industrial dispute (note copyright Grace Tierney 2020).

Strike

The original meaning of strike is to make level and smooth. The word arrived in Old English as striccan with influences from various German, Dutch, and Norse words with similar senses and spellings.

In a nautical context to strike the sails is to lower them and smooth them away until needed later. It’s that action which gives English the noun strike for an industrial dispute when workers down tools until their demands are met by their employer.

In 1768 London a docker’s dispute in the East End gave English the word strike, and cost seven men their lives. The industrial revolution was in full swing, with workers moving from the fields to the cities, and the East End of London was crammed with workers. King George III persisted in installing his personal favourites as Prime Minister causing political riots.

Coal fueled industry and came by canal barges to the East End where heavers, mostly Irish immigrants, worked long hours loading it onto ships. Their employers, called undertakers, also owned the bars where they drank. The undertakers charged well for the booze. Workers, who even had to rent their shovels from the bosses, sometimes ended up owing money at the end of the week to the undertakers. When new equipment reduced the number of men needed, anger flared amongst the workers.

The heavers boarded the coal ships, climbing the rigging, and struck the sails. They also removed the top masts confining most of the fleet of London to port, a disaster for the shipowners. Fights broke out between the sailors and heavers and several were killed. The army was sent in and seven of the heavers were hung as a lesson to the others.

1841 gave us the first use of strike in a baseball context. In 1942 strike took on another meaning – a sudden military attack.

{end of extract}

If you enjoy stories like these then pick up a copy of “Words The Sea Gave Us” by Grace Tierney in paperback or ebook from Amazon, or the many other stockists. All the places to buy it are listed on this page.

I’ll be talking about one of my books every day this week, so stay tuned for “Words the Vikings Gave Us” tomorrow. Normal word blogging will resume next Monday.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

Eponyms – Names as Words

Hello,

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time a little girl was given a dictionary among her school books. Over the coming years she used that dictionary until it looked very shabby but it helped her to develop a love for reading and words which persists to this day. She was regularly accused of having “eaten the dictionary” by her classmates.

When, in 2009, she started a blog as a fun writing experiment, she decided on the history of unusual words as her topic. With time two themes emerged – nautical words and eponyms (dictionary words which originated as people’s names) and the idea of a book grew.

The first Wordfoolery book, “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary”, arrived in 2018 and tells the stories of 260 soldiers, inventors, style icons, and villains who gave their names to the English language. From atlas to zeppelin English is full of words named for Greek gods, heroes and heroines, explorers, scientists, and chefs throughout world history.

The chapters cover food, Irish history, calendars, hats, inventions, words named after places, Greek gods, military history, politics, astronomy, fashion, popular phrases, villains, science, and more but what each story has in common is that the person’s life was extraordinary. You don’t get into the dictionary by being dull.

Some other eponyms which have featured on the blog include – guillotine, braille, celsius, rugby, curie, martinet, dumdum, magenta, cardigan, bowler hat, ferris wheel. They were all people (or places) and their lives were fascinating – women who defied convention to make great strides, inventors trying to make the world a better place, soldiers in grave danger. Read the book and you’ll think of them when you use their words.

One of my favourite rascals from the book is Casanova. Here’s his story from the book (note copyright Grace Tierney 2018) –

A casanova is a womaniser noted for his romantic adventures, typically with many partners. The term comes from Italian adventurer and author Giovanni Jacopo Casanova (1725-1798) whose biography reads like a work of fiction.

He was born in Venice, the son of an actor and actress. He was expelled at the age of 16 from a seminary for monks for his immoral behaviour and later, something of a dandy already, studied at the University of Padua and graduated with a degree in law. He took “minor orders” to become a monk while still a student and an inveterate gambler.

His first patron, an elderly Venetian senator, taught him about food, wine, and how to behave in society but drove him out when he discovered Casanova had already seduced the actress he had his eye on.

His second patron, a cardinal, set him to writing love letters on his behalf and introduced him to the Pope before dismissing him for scandal.

He joined the army but by the age of 21 he had abandoned that career for professional gambling and then work as a violinist. This didn’t last long. He saved the life of a nobleman, thus acquiring his third patron until a prank of his involving a fresh corpse went badly wrong and he had to flee the city.

He want on to live in many European cities, making and losing friends and money along the way. He worked as a preacher, philosopher, diplomat, gambler, spy, violinist, and broke hearts everywhere. He wrote plays and other works including science fiction. He met many of the celebrities of the day – Catherine the Great, King George III of England, Benjamin Franklin, Madame de Pompadour, Rousseau, Mozart, Voltaire, and Goethe.

His romantic dalliances were like the plot of an opera. He once escaped prison in the Doge’s palace by digging his way out of the roof with a priest, climbing down a bed sheet rope, and convincing a guard they’d been locked in by mistake at the end of a function.

He finally settled down in his fifties as a librarian to Count von Waldstein in Bohemia and wrote his twelve volume memoirs which were published 1826-1838.

{end of extract}

If you enjoy stories like these then pick up a copy of “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary” by Grace Tierney in paperback or ebook from Amazon, or the many other stockists. All the places to buy it are listed on this page.

I’ll be talking about one of my books every day this week, so stay tuned for “Words the Sea Gave Us” tomorrow.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

p.p.s. I won NaNoWriMo 2023! My fifteenth win in a row with 60,129 words of “The Librarian’s Secret Diary” – my serialised story for Channillo, the reading platform.

The Story of Highfalutin’ from Steam-boats to Flutes

Hello,

I love an unusually elaborate word as much as the next person, probably more so, but I equally enjoy the words used to take down those who use them in excess. The key is to use the right word for that moment and for your audience. There’s little to be gained by showing off with language. Its joy is in joining us together in communication and community rather than in showing you’re a class above others.

As a result of this language philosophy you may find me objecting to a person, word, or story for being too highfalutin’. What does it mean? It’s an adjective for something or somebody who is pretentious or artificially elevated in style. It was first used in the early 1800s. However its popularity has grown since then. Alternative words for highfalutin’ would be pretentious, pompous, or ostentatious but highfalutin’ has a tone of homespun reality about it that I love. As a put-down, it’s superb.

The closest I’ll come to a highfalutin’ automobile

Because highfalutin’ came from slang the spelling is debatable. I use it in speech but rarely in my writing as a result. Usually it drops the final g for that colloquial vibe. I thought, before checking, that it would be spelled highfalooting, make of that what you will.

I’ve found four possible roots for the word but sadly its etymology is as debated as its spelling.

An article in “The Christian Science Monitor” provides two of them –

It may come from a Yiddish word, hifelufelem, which means extravagant language or nonsense. That sounds plausible to me. The term originates in America and it does sound very similar.

Alternatively you might agree with the well-known British broadcaster Melvyn Bragg who believes it relates to class divisions on board 1800s American steam-boats saying “On board the bigger boats the richer travelers were called highfalutin because of the high fluted smokestacks that carried the soot and cinders well away from the passengers.”  I’m not entirely convinced by this but it’s a vivid image all the same.

Merriam Webster, the American dictionary, says the word could perhaps come from high compounded with fluting, but I’m not clear why a flute would have anything to do with highfalutin’. Is the flute seen as a pretentious instrument? Given its roots in simple whittled and hallowed sticks played by farm-workers I can’t see why.

Etymology Online, a regular source for this blog, keeps its entry short, naming it as American slang, “possibly from high-flying or high-flown, or even fluting.”

My own verdict? High-flying sounds likely with its graphic link to words soaring above our heads, and I wouldn’t rule out the Yiddish connection, but ultimately we don’t have enough evidence to make a clear decision on this one.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

p.p.s. It’s day 27 of NaNoWriMo 2023 today. I’m on 54,098 words and rushing towards my target of 60,000 words this month.

Political Factions Come From Roman Chariot Races

Hello,

Nowadays if you look up the word faction in the dictionary (and yes, that’s faction, not fraction) you get “a small organized dissenting group within a larger one, especially in politics” but the its origins lie far from politics. Factions began in the arena, the chariot arena to be precise.

I wish I hadn’t misplaced my photos of a holiday we took in France many years ago. We visited a French theme park called Puy de Fou because it was literally the only place to visit in the region. The children were small and none of us had much interest in theme parks but it would be fine.

Readers, it was much more than fine. Besides the usual rides (most of which were too scary for our young children) they also had shows. There was the Viking ship which rose out of the water complete with live actors, an equestrian show which involved flooding the biggest stage I’ve ever seen, a Norman castle which moved around like a fortified Dalek shooting flames at the opposing army, and a full sized Roman hippodrome (arena for chariot races) with lions, ostriches, a flock of geese, and four teams of charioteers (each controlling four horses abreast) racing at full speed.

My French skills were pushed to their limits that day as all narration was in French only (as far as I could tell this theme park was France’s effort to push back against Disneyland Paris) but it was worth it. The children were stunned, and so were we.

I only wish I still had my snaps of the chariots, but if you click onto their website you’ll get video of the races. Since that day our family has visited several renowned theme parks and honestly nothing has come close to being as impressive.

What as all this to do with factions? Faction entered English around the year 1500 directly from French and before that from Latin factionem (a political party or group of people). The word itself comes from a root word relating to doing. However the word comes not from doing but from racing, chariot racing.

In Roman and Byzantine history the factiones were the companies into which the charioteers were divided, each factione having its special colour, originally white and red, to which green and blue were added when the number of chariots was increased. The colours helped spectators distinguish the team they wanted to support, much as soccer teams wear different colours on the pitch today.

The idea of a faction being a sub-group within a larger group was later adopted as a way to describe a sub-group of political opinion within a larger group and we quickly forgot the link to chariot racing. If we went back to those roots I suspect elections would be far more interesting.

I found today’s story, or the core of it, in “Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable”. It’s over 1200 pages in length and I’m still chipping away at it, but it contains some real gems.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Two went out last week and offered readers a pre-publication peek at “Words Christmas Gave Us”.

p.p.s. It’s day 20 of NaNoWriMo 2023 today. I’m on 40,146 words and enjoying writing “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”.

The Equine Roots of Fipple

Hello,

I can’t recall where I heard the word fipple, a podcast perhaps, but I loved the sound of it and immediately jotted it down as an obscure word to use for the “Mystery Word” game on “Wordfoolery Wednesday” on the radio. I later thought better of that as our listeners might be too inclined to share definitions of an unsavoury nature due to its spelling. The show airs around noon so we try to keep matters polite for younger audience members.

However fipple is too good a word to skip. I’m pretty sure my blog readers are all adults, so here we go. Do you know what a fipple is? If you’re of a musical bent, you might know it.

Organ in music room of Carton House, Maynooth – former residence of the Duke of Leinster

Collins dictionary defines it as a wooden plug forming party of the mouthpiece of a recorder instrument or a similar device in an organ pipe used to produce a flute-like tone.

Several dictionaries list fipple as dating to the 1600s but being of unknown origin. I must point out that fipple does sound a little like the sound your mouth makes when blowing into a recorder so it could come from that, but I happened upon the suggestion that it could be related to the Icelandic word flipi (lip of a horse) and if you think about the way a horse can blow out its lips, that’s a little like those efforts to blow air into a recorder or organ.

We’ll probably never know the true origin of fipple, but it does present a strange mental image of a mare playing the organ in the music room of some grand country house. Very talented horses back in the 1600s, you know.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. The plan is to release the next issue on Friday 17th of November and to include an exclusive Christmas contest for subscribers, so don’t miss out.

p.s. It’s day 13 of NaNoWriMo 2023 today. I’m on 26,276 words and enjoying writing “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”.

The Explosive Origins of Pumpernickel

Hello,

I’m always intrigued by the sheer variety of different breads around the world, often influenced by the local climate and what grains do best in their region. Irish soda bread worked well in the past because you’d struggle to get yeast bread to rise in a draughty Irish cottage on a damp day, whereas Italian and French yeast breads like baguette and ciabatta had perfect conditions. Then you have quick non-risen breads like naan and flatbreads in other cultures.

my rosemary focaccia

My late cousin always claimed our family motto should have been “I never met a carbohydrate I didn’t like”, and I love making my own bread, but I do make one exception. Rye breads are not for me and that includes the wonderfully named pumpernickel.

Pumpernickel entered the English language in the 1700s to describe a coarse, dark rye bread. It was a direct import from Low German, the Westphalian dialect to be precise. The region of Westphalia is now part of modern Germany and includes the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf, but at the time it was independent and spoke its own language. Clearly they grew rye and loved loaves of pumpernickel.

The loaf’s name came from a slang name for a stupid person. The word compounded pumpern (to break wind) and Nickel (goblin, lout, or rascal) which was drawn from the name Niklaus (Nicholas in English). This means that if you called somebody a pumpernickel you were calling them a farting goblin.

I hope the bread doesn’t produce such explosive effects but it is suggestive that the original name for the bread was krankbrot which translates literally as sick bread. I hope that’s because patients liked to eat it when unwell, as opposed to eating it causing them to be unwell. Either way probably not a great brand name.

All this makes me wish some enterprising bakery will rename their pumpernickel bread as Farting Goblin. It sounds like a craft beer, doesn’t it? I wrote about German goblins before when I explored the etymology of cobalt – check it out.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

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p.s. It’s day 6 of NaNoWriMo 2023 today. I’m on 12,165 words and enjoying writing “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”.