Grace Tierney's Blog, page 11

The Wintery Roots of Riding Rough-shod

Hello,

Apologies to any horse-loving readers this week who will shake their head over the (to them) obvious origins of riding rough-shod, but sadly my finances don’t stretch to stables so I was surprised to find the origin tale this week. Additionally I’ve found phrases to be very tricky to research and this one isn’t disputed and hence needs to be included here.

To ride rough-shod (or roughshod) over somebody is to act without consideration for the victim’s feelings or interests. This is a common life experience, unfortunately. But how did it get started?

The answer lies in a time period when riding a horse, or carriage, was the best means of transport, other than your own two feet.

Bring me my steed!

Rough-shod entered English in the late 1400s to describe being shod with shoes armed with points. This was seen as being shod in a rough manner and was originally used about horses whose horse-shoes had nail-heads deliberately left protruding in order to give them more grip on icy and muddy roads.

It was a simple technique deployed by the blacksmith to ensure safety in poor winter weather, a bit like putting on snow tyres (tires in the U.S.A.) or chains on your car in more recent times.

Naturally the horses using these shoes would make a mess of any surface they crossed and with time the comparison was drawn to a person who figuratively walked over others in a similar fashion, causing damage without a care in the world. By the 1860s riding rough-shod had gained that meaning and despite the scarcity of horse-riding on our modern streets the expression has survived to this day.

Note: this is one of the phrases which is sometimes misheard. You may also find running rough shot or ruck shot – but the correct one is rough-shod.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”.

p.s. I’m hosting my region’s NaNoWriMo Kick Off event later today. Yes, I’m taking part again (aiming for 60,000 words of my serial story “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”). If you’re novel-writing this month – good luck!

The Religious Roots of Propaganda

Hello,

Until very recently if you had challenged me to provide the roots of the word propaganda I would have guessed it came from some war, possibly earlier than you might think, maybe in the 1600s. Military words are often older than you’d expect as sadly human beings have been fighting each other for a very, very long time indeed.

If you’d then smiled and said, “Guess again, the Pope”, I would have been shocked. Yet, that’s exactly the source of propaganda.

[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://wordfoolery.files.wordpress.c..." data-large-file="https://wordfoolery.files.wordpress.c..." src="https://wordfoolery.files.wordpress.c..." alt="" class="wp-image-4297" style="width:329px;height:auto" />Vatican from Above – Photo by Aliona & Pasha on Pexels.com

A committee of cardinals was formed in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV for spreading or propagating, the Catholic faith worldwide. It was called the Congregation of the Propaganda of Faith (Congretatio de Propaganda Fide, in Italian).

The word joined English in 1718 to describe this cardinal grouping, who concentrated their efforts on Catholic missionary work around the world. Its linguistic roots lie with the Latin verb propagare – to extend, spread, or increase. You can see this root also in the term propagation as used by gardeners about growing seeds or taking soft or hardwood cuttings from plants to grow new plants. I’ve softwood lavender cuttings in pots on my windowsill right now as I’m hoping to propagate new plants from them.

By the late 1700s propaganda was any movement to propagate a practice or idea. By World War I the term was used, in a positive sense, to describe the spreading of information to promote a political viewpoint. Since that time it has gained the additional idea of the information being potentially biased or misleading.

Nowadays the term is used for any association, publication, or scheme for influencing public opinion in religious, social, and political matters.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”.

Rivals at the River – a Word History

Hello,

There is a huge temptation in exploring the history of words to assume that words which are similar in spelling must be related. This is sometimes true, and sometimes not. Sometimes they have some overlap, word acquaintances if you will, but are not actual cousins. Two such words are river and rival.

The word river comes from the Latin word ripa which means bank or shore. Rival does not come from ripa, but does have a river-based story.

Rival entered English in the 1570s to describe somebody who is in pursuit of the same object as another. It came from the Latin word rivalis (river-man, rival, adversary in love, neighbour). This was originally used for somebody from the same brook, thanks to the Latin word rivus (brook) and the Proto Indo European root word rei (to run or to flow).

This leaves us with river from ripa (bank, shore) and rival from rivus (brook). You must admit those are different roots, but certainly with some overlap.

Perhaps adding stepping stones, like these in Glendalough, would stop rivalry?

The idea of the rival being a river-man or neighbour is the original concept. The idea is that you have two neighbours using the same stream, perhaps from opposite banks. They both need the same resources for their families and livestock. That can lead to conflict. Now think about how rivers have often been boundaries down through the centuries. We’re unlikely to squabble badly with our county neighbours in my local village (except perhaps over Gaelic football) but sure enough the boundary between Dublin and Meath in these parts is a small river. It’s a natural divide and handy for cartographers.

Rivalry over rivers evolved quickly in English (and French) to become romantic rivalry. By the early 1600s Shakespeare was using it in this sense and of course we have “The Rivals” by 1775, the excellent romantic comedy play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Rival also developed a later variation of meaning – an equal or peer – for example “a chef without rival“.

Hopefully you won’t encounter any rivals today, but if you do perhaps the Romans would advise you to shove them in the river?

As previously mentioned I’ve finally taken the plunge and created my own newsletter. “Wordfoolery Whispers” will be launching this month (one email per month because anything more is frankly annoying to me and you). It will give you the inside scoop on all of my writing, reading, and history adventures. Sneak peaks of new books, contests, quizzes, and more. You can subscribe now at subscribepage.io/wordfoolerywhispers. I hope some of you will join me there for a roundup of all my writing (which is much more than just this blog), but don’t worry the Wordfoolery Blog is going to continue as it is – my weekly exploration of the stories behind English words.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”.

The Zigzag Path to Prevarication

Hello,

This week I’m looking askance at prevaricators in dictionaries. Don’t worry, the lexicographers aren’t lying to us but the history of prevarication is a crooked tale.

Pirate Captain Grace often prevaricated about her share of the booty

Prevarication arrived in English in the late 1300s, although presumably we had liars long before that date. It was originally spelled prevaricacioun and it described any divergence from the right course, any breaking of a law or commandment which, in the scale of things, appears worse than a little fib.

Prevarication was borrowed by English from Old French prevaricacion (breaking God’s laws) and before that from Latin praevaricationem (duplicity, not following duty or good behaviour). It’s Latin roots are fascinating. It comes from praevaricari (to make a false accusation or literally to walk crookedly) and in Church Latin it was used as a verb meaning to transgress.

The Latin word is compounded from prae (before) which is a prefix used in words like, for example, prefix. This is joined to varicare (to straddle) which is connected to varus (bowlegged) which gives the word its crooked sense. This brings a whole new level to the use of crooked or crook to describe somebody as being untrustworthy.

Prevarication, while it may have started in transgressions against church rules, by the 1600s was describing any form of evasion, quibbling, or dishonesty, just as it does today.

“Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” adds a little more to the story of prevarication. He repeats that the Latin roots relate to straddling and going crooked or zigzag but explains that Pliny (Roman author, naturalist, and naval commander whose descriptions of mythical beasts are a little embellished to say the least) claimed the Latin term was originally applied to farmers who ploughed a crooked ridge in their fields. Then later prevarication was used to describe the actions of men who gave crooked answers in the law courts or lied and deviated from the straight line of the truth.

It’s amazing to me that 2,000 years later we still ask people to be straight with us, accuse them of prevarication, or simply of being crooked, all thanks to Roman farmers.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Sycophants and Figs – a Word History

Hello,

I realised the other day that I’d never delved into the history of sycophants and with a Greek-sounding word there was bound to be a story in there somewhere. Now here I am, with fond memories of a trip to the Greek island of Skyros where I ate breakfast each morning under a fig tree.

Why am I rambling about figs? Turns out figs are at the heart of sycophancy. The word sycophant reached English in the 1530s, when it was spelled in the Latin fashion – sycophanta – and its meaning was informer, slanderer, or bearer of tales. Back then a sycophant was a gossip rather than a flatterer, or let’s be honest, a total suck-up.

Sycophanta, like many Latin origin words in English came via French where it was sycophante. Again like many Latin words in English, it can be traced past Latin and into Greek. I’m not saying the Roman “borrowed” mountains of vocabulary from the Greeks, but – no wait, that’s exactly what I’m saying. In Greek it was sykophantes. There it meant a false accuser or slanderer and the formation of the Greek word is where the figs enter our story.

Sykophantes is formed from sykon (fig) and phainein (to show or to shine). This translates literally as one who shows the fig. Who would this be? A fruit seller? A gardener? Why were they known as slanderers?

Showing the fig, in those days, was a rude hand gesture. Yes, there’s nothing new under the sun, humans have been at this forever. I’m sure you won’t want to repeat the gesture but how you do it is to stick your thumb between two fingers. The fig was seen as a symbol of the vagina (sykon also means vulva in Greek apparently although Google Translate is only giving me fig). If you’ve ever seen the inside of a cut fig you might agree with this symbolism.

The theory is Greek politicians of the time would never make such a rude gesture but had no problem with their supporters taunting the opposition with it. As a female I have to point out that using a female symbol to throw shade at a male is nothing new and still continues today (big girl’s blouse or fights like a girl, for example) and is disrespectful to women.

There is an alternative theory, discounted as unsubstantiated by the Oxford English Dictionary, that the original sycophant was an informer against the illegal export of figs. Fun story though.

I definitely believe the idea of the hand gesture though. On my trip to Skyros we were treated to daily Greek lessons after breakfast and our teacher explained many basic phrases didn’t even require words because the islanders were fond of body language and hand signals. Even if we couldn’t manage the pronunciations, we could communicate in that way. Thankfully he didn’t teach us to show the fig but I do recall one for “you’re full of it”.

As for the modern use of sycophant, it reached English in the late 1500s and has been with us ever since, without figs.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Why Draconian Means Strict

Hello,

Despite writing about the history of words for 15 years, I still fall into the trap of assuming roots for words based purely on similarity of spelling. An example is this week’s word – draconian. I was convinced it was related to dragons. There is a tiny link, but no, we don’t get it from dragons.

This is Bashful the Dragon. He’s very gentle, hardly ever starts fires, and love pearls.

Draconian is used to describe rules, or laws, which are particularly harsh and we have the ancient Greeks to thank for this one. The Draconian Code was a set of laws created by Draco, an Athenian of the 7th century B.C. and they were noted for their severity. In a time when punishment didn’t exactly include community service or reduced sentences for good behaviour, they stood out. Nearly every violation of Draco’s code was a capital crime. Demades, the orator, said at the time that Draco’s code was written in blood.

It is possible that Draco wasn’t a real person and we have few biographical details, but he was the first person to provide Athens with written laws instead of the blood feuds in use prior to his efforts. Perhaps his draconian laws were kinder than what they replaced. One story recounts his tragic death. The tradition was to throw hats or cloaks onto the stage in approval. Apparently he was so approved that he suffocated beneath all the garments in a theatre in Aegina.

Regular readers of the blog will spot that draconian is hence an eponymous adjective, another one for edition two of “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary” (my book about words borrowed from people’s names and placenames).

Draconian, despite coming from ancient times, wasn’t adopted into English until the 1700. Although they did have draconic from the 1600s with the same meaning. Draco is the Latinised form for the Greek name Drakon. Drakon’s name translated literally as sharp-sighted and this is where we get that small link to the dragons.

Dragon, originally spelled dragoun, arrived in English in the mid 1200s from Old French dragon and Latin draconem (huge serpent, dragon) from Greek drakon (serpent, giant seafish). Draco who composed those laws was basically called Dragon, a pretty scary name to have, unless it was a reference to his acute vision.

The source of drakon in Greek was drak (to see clearly) and ultimately a Proto Indo European root derk (to see) which provides related words in Sanskrit, Old Irish (adcondarc – I have seen), Gothic, Old High German, and Albanian.

This would seem to imply that dragons had particularly good eyesight. The young of dragons were called dragonets (c. 1300) and there was a female form – dragoness (1630s). Sometimes they were called drakes from the same roots. Despite our more recent concept of a dragon being airborn and breathing fire the word itself is closely linked to sea monsters. I hope never to find out the truth of the matter via practical experience!

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. this post contains affiliate links which make a small payment to the blog if you choose to purchase through them. #CommissionsEarned. Alternatively, you can use my digital tip jar to say thanks for my work.

Why Do We Say They Came Plum Last?

Hello,

I was watching the Singapore F1 race highlights yesterday when David Coulthard (former race winner and now commentator) used the expression plum last and then immediately wondered aloud why we say that.

Challenge accepted, David!

My usual phrase origin sources failed me on this one, but a combination of English StackExchange and Etymology Online came to my rescue.

First, let’s define the phrase. If somebody comes plum last it means they came last. Typically it means they came last in a definitive fashion, like the poor runner who arrives at the finish line of a marathon three days after the race started. But what has this to do with a delicious fruit? I’ve a damson plum tree in my garden and it’s far from the last item to be harvested. That honour usually goes to my hazelnuts or the eating apples I pick around Halloween time.

Hedgerow jam – damson & blackberry

The confusion stems from similar spellings. Plum is a fruit but plumb is related to the metal lead. If we’re being totally accurate the unfortunate marathon runner came plumb last. However most dictionaries list plum last as correct also.

In case you’re curious, plum (the name of the fruit) has been with us since ploume in Middle English and plume in Old English. These arrived via Old High German pfluma, Latin prunum, Greek prounon, and possibly before that from Antaloia (now Turkey) which is also the origin of the tree itself. We use plum to mean the “best bit” of something since the 1700s – a plum role for actor or plum seats at a play. As plum-eating fan, I totally agree with this use.

If plumb last is the real expression then what does a metal have to do with coming last? Is our marathon runner wearing lead boots?

Plumb entered the English language in the early 1300s to describe a piece of lead hung on a string to show the vertical line. This is important in various construction jobs and although modern builders will sometimes use a laser level tool instead, but you can still buy plumb lines from major DIY shops (I checked).

The word plumb came from Old French plombe. A plombe was a sounding lead – used by mariners to determine the depth of water beneath their ship and hence avoid running aground. This is what gives us the phrase swinging the lead. Plombe came to French directly from Latin plumbum (lead). Plumbum is why lead is presented as Pb on the Periodic Table of Elements. Often such Latin words have roots in Greek but not this time. There are theories around extinct languages and loan words but honestly, we’re not sure.

To get from lead to last takes one more step. Plumb can be used as an adjective in English from the mid 1400s to describe something as being vertical according to the plumb line. You can imagine a Tudor builder being happy that his new wall is plumb. It was already an adverb in a similar fashion by this time. This idea of exact measurement led the language by the late 1700s to use plumb (or plump, plum, or even plunk) to describe something as completely. Hence you were totally, undeniably last in the race if you finished plumb last, or plunk last I guess.

A related use of plumb as an adjective intensifier is the American English expression for somebody being plumb crazy which appears there during the 1800s and is less used in British English. I’m fairly sure I’ve never heard it used in Ireland outside of American TV shows, but I’m open to correction.

One fun contribution on Stack Exchange wondered if perhaps the contrast was between a person being level-headed (sane) versus plumb crazy (not straight or level like a plumb line). There’s no way to prove this, but it’s a fun notion. In the meantime I’m off to enjoy this year’s plum jam.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Be Careful When you Sneeze

Hello,

I came across a charming rhyme this week about what happens when you sneeze on different days of the week. It got me thinking about the word itself. We don’t have many English words with a z (particularly in British English because we use -ise rather than -ize) and sneeze has an excess of the letter e, so where did it come from?

Firstly, sneeze didn’t always have a letter z in it. The word entered English in the late 1400s as snesen. Of course people had been sneezing in the centuries beforehand so it won’t surprise you to learn that it replaced (or evolved from) an earlier word – fnesen whose roots lie in the Old English term for snorting or sneezing – fneosan. I was a bit surprised to discover sneeze was originally spelled with a leading f!

Fneosan came from the Proto Germanic root word fneusanan which is also a source for sneezing/snorting words in Dutch (fniezen), Old Norse (fnysa), Swedish (nysa), Old High German (niosan). I guess all the people of Northern Europe needed a word for sneezing during the cold winters.

The Proto Germanic root word (fneusanan) is believed to come from an imitative origin i.e. it sounds a bit like a sneeze. Although if you’ve ever really listened, most people sneeze in slightly different ways.

It’s not fully certain how we moved from fnesen to snesen during the Middle English period. It could have been a mis-reading or Norse influence but the Oxford English Dictionary reckons fnesen had shortened to nesen by the 1400s and then snesen arose as “a strengthened form”. Something very similar happened to snorting. The addition of the z isn’t elaborated upon.

To “sneeze at” means to show contempt for and dates to the early 1800s. One sneezing phrase which has died out is “to teach you how the cat sneezes” means to dominate or bully you. I’m glad we’ve seen the last of that.

The sneezing rhyme I found in “Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” (1981) goes as follows –

If you sneeze on Monday, you sneeze for danger;

Sneeze on Tuesday, kiss a stranger;

Sneeze on Wednesday, sneeze for a letter;

Sneeze on Thursday, something better;

Sneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow;

Sneeze on Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow.

There’s no entry for Sunday – perhaps it was forbidden to sneeze on the Lord’s Day or to disrupt a church service? The next time I sneeze I’ll have to check the list and see if I’m in for “something better” or need to beware of danger.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. I’m currently creating a Wordfoolery newsletter. I’ll share the details here when I have it all ready to go. It will be called The Wordfoolery Whisper and come out monthly.

The Word History of Social with Help from the Romans

Social is such an everyday word. We use it to describe people as being friendly and open to mixing with others. We use it as a noun to identify group events. It describes a variety of activities. Its roots, however, were less than friendly which is something I only stumbled across recently.

The adjective social entered English in the early 1400s to describe somebody or something as being connected to home life, so originally in English it was more about staying at home rather than going out and being a party animal. By the 1560s it acquired the idea of living with others, as an import from the French use of the word. This was probably closer to its roots as it came from Latin socialis (of companionship, allies, marriage, living with others).

Socialis came from socius, also in Latin, which means companion or ally, from a root word sekw (to folllow). This links to Old English secg and Old Norse seggr (companion).

With the passage of time social gained more uses, many of which are still active today. Social club arrived in the late 1700s – “persons coming together for friendly intercourse” (no sniggering down the back please). Social drinking was from the 1800s, as was a social butterfly (flitting from one event to another). In the 1900s we added social network and in 2008 we got social media.

There are more serious uses of social too – the social contract (1763 from Rousseau), social science (1785), and many uses around specific political theories. Ones which stuck out for me were social climbers trying to advance socially (1893), social security (state support for needy citizens in the USA since 1935), and you might recall social distancing as a virus transmission reduction concept during the recent pandemic but it started in 1924 with an entirely different meaning around psychological distance within societies.

None of this gives us much of a clue about the origin of the word social, however, except for the Latin word socius meaning companion or ally.

Social originates with a war. A war between socii (allies) to be precise. It took place from 90 to 87 B.C. between the Roman Republic and several of its allies and is known as the Social War. You can get the basics on Wikipedia, or a good Roman history textbook. As far as I can tell the allied states wanted to gain Roman citizenship and rights and the main body of Romans were not keen to share. The allies lost.

There is something contrary about a war being fought between allies and there’s something even more contrary about a word we use now for the joining together of people getting started by people fighting each other. There’s probably a sarcastic comment available here about social media, but I’ll let you find it yourself.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Barbicans – an International Word History

Hello,

Earlier this month I enjoyed the annual Heritage Week – a week-long festival of Irish history and culture. It’s one of my favourite events and takes place in mid/late August every year. Pretty much all historic sites and museums stage free events, extra tours, interactive experiences, and workshops. Over the the years I’ve printed my own Wanted poster with the Print Museum at Athenry, seen blacksmiths, made ink from plants via Zoom, explored Cork forts and Meath castles, been inspired by Viking Dublin artefacts, and much more.

This year I tried plein air sketching at Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda (great fun and we even got a goodie bag of art supplies) and attended a guided walk of Drogheda’s town walls with their affable heritage officer. We began at St. Laurence’s Gate.

St. Laurence’s Gate, a barbican, Drogheda, Co.Louth

It’s a barbican, built in the 1200s to defend medieval Drogheda. It stood directly outside the original town gate, which no longer exists. Our guide mentioned the origins of barbican lie in Arabic and of course that roused my interest. I had no idea a barbican wasn’t part of the walls, but instead defended the gate by being in front of it. Basically it was a tower the defenders could use to shoot down at attackers. In fact this one was raised in height at one point, which is visible on the round towers (look carefully for a pale rectangle marking the original battlements/crenelations). There are only two barbicans in Ireland apparently. The other is in Trim, Co.Meath.

But what about the word history? Is barbican Arabian?

The word barbican joined English in the mid 1200s (when our local one was being constructed) to describe the outer fortification of a city or castle. It arrived from the Old French word barbacane (exterior fortification). This is believed to be ultimately from Arabic or possibly Persian (which has bab-khanah as the word for gate house). There’s also an Old Iranian compound word pari-varaka where pari means forward or in front of and varaka comes from a Proto Indo European root word for covering. So basically it’s a type of front covering – a fortification of a gate to protect it from the front.

Given the time period and countries involved it’s pretty likely crusading Europeans acquired the concept of barbicans, and the word, during their Middle Eastern wars. They brought it back and applied it to castles and towns across Europe as the new idea in defensive architecture.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. As previously mentioned, I’m trying out Bluesky, the new social media app. I’m at @wordfoolery.bsky.social . If you’re not on Bluesky yet, and you’d like an invite code – get in touch via the comments or DM me on Twitter (a.k.a. X). Yes, I’m still on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.