Grace Tierney's Blog, page 19

Which Came First – Festival or Feast?

Hello,

This week’s word is another thanks to Academy of Books’ Teen Book Club members – festival. I love a good festival myself so was delighted to see this word on their list, even more so when I discovered I could also pull in the word feast. Anybody who knows me knows feasting is a hobby of mine.

Festival is actually an abbreviation, something which was news to me when I began rummaging around on this one, but let’s start at the beginning. Feast (see below) comes from the word festum in Latin for a feast or holiday. This transferred into Medieval Latin as festivalis (a church holiday, such as Christmas or a saint’s day). This moved into Old French as festival – an adjective to describe something as being joyful, happy, solemn, or suitable for a feast. It’s interesting to see solemn and joyful in the same adjective but it does fit the two sides to a church festival – the intention is joy and yet it’s a solemn event.

By the 1300s you had a festival day in English, again in this adjective sense but by the 1580s you would have a festal day, the day in the calendar for this festival activity and that was shortened from festival day to festival meaning the day itself and the activities on that day. Of course festivals can also last longer than a day, an example being the festival of Easter or music festivals. It is fascinating to see how an adjective word moved to become a noun.

You can’t have a feast without a little tipple, or two

Feast’s history is tightly entwined with festival, as explained above, so it seems only fair to describe it here too. Feast pre-dates festival in English as it arrived around 1200 when it described a secular celebration, often held on a church holiday. Church feast days could often be pretty rowdy affairs as they were the few days the common folk had to party. The invention of the weekend was many, many centuries away. Feast was often seen as the opposite of fasting. Fasting often preceded important feasts – something still observed with Lent and Advent for Easter and Christmas.

The roots of feast again lie in Latin, via French. The Latin noun festa was for feasts, holidays, and banquets. It also gives festa to Italian and fiesta to Spanish, so clearly the Romans knew how to party when they spread out over Europe. It transferred directly into Old French where it gained extra meanings for noise, jesting, and fun and you can see its grandchild in the Modern French word fête (party), which has also entered English as a borrowed word, often used to describe an outdoor fundraising event for church or community funds.

By the 1200s a feast was in English as a secular event (see above) and by 1300 it was usually a religious anniversary which didn’t involve fasting. By the late 1300s a feast was a large meal, in public or private, and could describe any enjoyable event. While religious feasts and festivals continue to this day, you can also enjoy a feast purely for the fun of it, neatly bringing us back to the original solemn and joyful definition. Feasts and festivals can be both, or either.

The next word on the teen’s list was January, one which I’ve already covered in my book “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary” and in this blog post.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. I’m still writing away in CampNaNo’s April 2022 challenge. 25,017 words and counting.

p.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.

Roman Words – Literature

Hello,

This week, with thanks to the Teen Book Club, I’m exploring the word history of literature. Not all literature (that would take more than one blog post!), just the word literature.

Literature joined the English dictionary in the early 1400s with a different meaning to the one we deploy today. Back then it meant book-learning. It was a direct borrowing from Latin’s literatura (learning, a piece of writing, grammar). The same Latin word gives us the word for literature in Spanish, Italian, and German.

Literatura originally meant “writing formed with letters” because litera meant a letter in the alphabet or a document, epistle, or book.

Before the arrival of letter (an alphabetic character) around 1200, the Old English word for a letter was bocstaef which translates as book staff, but has nothing to do with the staff in a bookshop, sadly.

The concept of literature being the profession of a literary writer didn’t arise until 1779 in Dr. Johnson’s “Lives of the English Poets”. By the early 1800s you might also say that literature was a body of writings from a specific people or time period, which is closer to the modern definition. By the mid 1800s literature was being used to describe printed matter in general or writing on a particular subject, e.g. French literature, scientific literature etc.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. I’m still working away on my CampNaNo challenge, by the way. I’ve written 17,069 words of “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”, my ongoing serial story available to subscribers at https://channillo.com/series/the-librarian-s-secret-diary/ with new episodes released every Wednesday. The serial follows the life of Nina, the new librarian at a small Irish public library whose senior librarian hates books, and work. It also features Bob the Library Bear who was meant to be a minor character but has insisted on more.

Wordfoolery on The Endless Knot

Hello,

A lovely benefit of writing an etymology blog is interacting with other word geeks here on the blog, and elsewhere. I had the great experience recently of chatting to two total language enthusiasts – Aven and Mark over at The Endless Knot. They create entertaining and educational videos & podcasts about etymology, language, literature, history, science, and connections in the world around us. They really know their stuff and invest huge amounts of time into their passion for language and history. Their video about Christmas Stockings is a real gem, for example.

They were kind enough to have me on their podcast this week to chat about “Words the Vikings Gave Us”. We had such fun recording this and I hope you’ll enjoy listening. Even if you don’t want to listen to my rambling about how Norse culture influenced the early years of English evolution or how a rotten-toothed Viking king gives us a modern word like bluetooth then check them out, you won’t regret it.

You can pick up the podcast (episode 104) on Apple, Google, Stitcher, or listen here.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Exploring the Word History of Love

Hello,

As explained last time, I’m currently working through the list of words donated to me by the Academy Books Teen Book Club. This week’s word is the shortest on the list but definitely worthy of investigation – love.

I’ve dabbled in these waters before as I ended up with an entire chapter devoted to Norse Romance in my book “Words the Vikings Gave Us”, but sadly this one can’t be tracked back to the Vikings.

In Old English if you were talking about love you would have used the word lufu. I’m relieved the spelling has changed since then. Lufu described a wide variety of loves – romantic attraction, lust, affection, love of God, and love as an abstract concept. Lufu came to Old English from a ProtoGermanic root word – lubo and ultimately from an earlier root word leubh (to care, love, or desire). Lubo also gave cousin words to Old High German (liubi for joy), German (Liebe), Old Norse (Vikings always ready for some romance!), Old Norse, Dutch, Saxon, Frisian etc. Clearly Northern Europeans were a loving lot.

Love has given us a variety of phrases over the centuries which isn’t surprising as it’s so fundamental to the human experience. Calling somebody your love dates back to the early 1200s. By the early 1400s you could “fall in love” with somebody or “be in love with” them. By the late 1500s you might say “for love or money” and if you were “making love” you were flirting with them (nothing stronger for that one until the 1950s apparently).

The phrase “no love lost” is one of those ones with two opposing meanings. There are examples of it being used in the 1600s to mean two people who hate each other and also two people who love each other. Perhaps the whole love-hate relationships trope goes back further than you might think?

One which always bemused me as a tennis-loving teen was the scoring in tennis games where love means you haven’t scored any points yet. That dates back to the late 1600s and the widely accepted theory is that somebody with no score was playing for the love of the game but I find that hard to believe. Anybody have any other ideas?

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

The History of Mystery

Hello,

Last Friday I had the privilege of attending my first ever book club meeting. Despite being a bookworm since the age of nine, I’ve never tried one before and I think I was lucky with my first attempt. The lovely Irene at Academy Books in Drogheda asked me to chat to her teen book club about writing but they let me sit in for their chat about classic books first. Plus Tara makes a mighty fine hot chocolate, a double win for me.

As somebody who devoured the classic shelves during my own teens I was delighted to find them reading “Mansfield Park”, “Crime and Punishment”, “Sherlock Holmes”, and “The Odyssey” – great choices all round! I asked them to jot down some words they love and promised to blog about them here over the next few weeks and they gave me some real gems. I’m starting at the top of the list and working my way down, it seemed the most democratic approach. The first word suggested was mystery.

Christie published her first Hercule Poirot mystery in 1920. My battered copy dates to 1957, hence the price in shillings

Mystery didn’t start life as anything to do with Mr. Holmes, instead it has religious roots. It entered the English dictionary in the early 1300s spelled as misterie (although don’t expect your English teacher to accept that spelling in your exams). It was needed to describe a religious truth revealed by the divine, mystical truths, that sort of thing and came to English from Old French mistere (secret, hidden meaning) which borrowed from Latin’s mysterium (a secret rite or thing). The Romans had borrowed from the Greeks and their mysterion or mysteria (plural) was a secret rite known only to the initiated which might include sacrificial offerings, chants, processions etc.

The mysteria in Greek came from mystes – one who had been initiated and ultimately from myein (to close or shut, which is related to mute in English), perhaps indicating that they had to close their lips in secrecy or that only they could see certain rites with their open eyes.

Religious uses of mystery in English include the medieval mystery plays or the mysteries of the rosary in Roman Catholic doctrine. In more recent times you’re more likely to encounter mystery when speaking about detective stories (first used in 1908, just before Hercule Poirot’s arrival in 1920) and from 1949 you might fear mystery meat, the indigestible food served in military messes and school canteens.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. They say not to judge a book by its cover but I need you to do just that. If you liked the cover of my book, Words the Vikings Gave Us, please vote for it in the Cover of the Month contest on AllAuthor.com by clicking here. There are a few rounds of voting during April, but the first cut-off is Friday 7th, so please vote today. Many thanks!

The Wayward History of the Word Gallivant

Hello,

I was out gallivanting at the weekend and it reminded me to check the history of the word. It was a long overdue meeting of close friends who traveled to a central meeting point. It ran late into the night, as every good gallivant should, in my opinion.

Appropriately enough my transport card features a gallivanting frog

The Cambridge Dictionary tells me that to gallivant is to “visit a lot of different places, enjoying yourself and not worrying about other things you should be doing”. Yes, that’s definitely what we were at. All attendees have numerous responsibilities and long task lists, but sometimes it’s important to throw those things aside and have fun.

Gallivanting didn’t always relate to carefree roaming pleasure. When it entered the English language in the early 1800s is was about spending time seeking pleasure with somebody of the opposite sex, to gad about, to be frivolous. An early print use was in 1824 in “Wine and Walnuts” by W.H. Pyne. I checked and this book is still in print today. Apparently, despite the intriguing title, it’s a collection of legal wisdom in an after dinner style (hence the title) by various experts.

Gallivant is one of those words whose true origin is unknown. Educated guesses from various dictionaries suggest it’s a playful twist on gallant (i.e. to play the gallant with a young lady, for example). There’s a French dialect word, galvauder, which may have played its part in gallivant’s transfer to English, but the reality is that nobody is sure where we got gallivanting.

This didn’t stop it becoming a very popular word during the 1800s, thanks to the British writer William Makepeace Thackery, who used it for any gadding about or flirting activity. As Thackery enjoyed travel writing as well as novel-writing I suspect he enjoyed gallivanting too.

The flirting meaning is less used now, but traveling in pursuit of pleasure is still a popular pursuit.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

The History of Blazing a Trail

Hello,

I don’t usually delve into the history of phrases, preferring the simplicity of word history, but this one caught my imagination and I thought I’d share it with you.

Trailblazers and blazing a trail are popular expressions lately and I had assumed they related to burning a path through a forest but I was wrong. Blaze, as in a fire or flame, comes to Old English as blaese from a Germanic root word blas (shining, white) and an earlier root word bhel for shining or burning.

Nowadays I follow the arrows in the forest rather than the blazes

Blaze, as in a light-coloured mark on the face of a horse or cow, arrived in English in the early 1600s via northern English dialect based on the Old Norse Viking word blesi for a white spot on a horse’s forehead – from the same root words mentioned earlier.

Early settlers in North America, from the late 1600s onwards, would mark out a trail in the thick forests by cutting a blaze mark into the bark on the trunks of trees to show the way to those behind them as the lighter inner wood would show brightly against the dark bark. Modern trail blazers are following in their footsteps.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Beware the Yule Cat

Hello,

I usually only post Christmas words in December but I wrote up the last word in my “Words Christmas Gave Us” book last Friday and I wanted to celebrate the milestone so here, despite the fact that it’s March, is the story of yule and the yule cat.

Extracts from “Words Christmas Gave Us” Copyright Grace Tierney, 2022

Yule isn’t a word used often in English but as the calendar creeps around to December you may stumble upon it describing the season as yuletide and wonder why. The answer lies with the Vikings.

Yule was originally an Old English word geol for Christmas Day or Christmastide. Tide was a synonym for time in the past. In a world with fewer clocks, a sailor waiting for the tide to float their boat was one way to measure time.

Yule, or geol, came from the Old Norse pagan festival of jol which was seized upon by Christianity and turned into Christmas, in much the same way that early Christians appropriated the festival of Eostre and associated with it Easter. Eostre was a Germanic pagan fertility goddess whose symbol was a rabbit. You can see the link to the Easter bunny easily.

Yule or jol was celebrated in mid January by the Vikings as a feast to drive away the darkness at that time of year. It wasn’t associated with any specific Viking god.

After conversion to Christianity the twelve day period from the 25th of December became the feast of the nativity. This gives us the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song, as you might expect, and the idea of Twelfth Night. That period of Christmas festivity was known as yule or yuletide until around 1100 when Christmas became the more used term. Yule persisted as the name for Christmas in northern areas of England where Danish settlers were more numerous.

Yule lay dormant until the 1800s when it was revived by writers to describe a particularly festive view of how to celebrate an English Christmas.

In Iceland from the 12th of December, 13 prank-loving troll-like characters come out to play. They are the Yule Lads (jólasveinarnir in Icelandic) and they visit children across the country every night until Christmas Day.

The Yule Lads date back to folktales written down in the 1600s, but if you’re visiting Iceland this December to spot them please beware of their fierce pet, the Yule Cat, who apparently lurks in the snowy countryside waiting to devour anybody who didn’t get new clothes to wear on Christmas Eve.

End of Extracts

The yule cat is just one example of the stories which have surprised me during research for the book. I already knew a fair bit about the history behind Christmas customs and words before putting pen to paper, but I’ve discovered some wonderful tales along the way which were completely new to me. I’m looking forward to sharing them when the book is ready.

Despite the milestone of finishing writing up my word list (151 words, in case you’re wondering – from Advent to Yule Cat), the book is far from finished. There will be multiple rounds of editing, work with my cover designer, proof copies, advance promotional work, and much more to be done before it’s ready to be seen by anybody. I’m hoping to release it later this year in paperback, ebook, and hardback editions. Hardback will be a new publishing adventure for me.

With the first draft behind me, I’m heading to the Wicklow hills for a few days as a break but until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Moral Turpitude – Laws, Horses, and Word History

Hello,

This week’s word is turpitude, with thanks to last night’s episode of “Peaky Blinders” on the BBC which featured a conversation about the phrase moral turpitude. The lead character, Tommy Shelby, is asked by an enemy if he knows what it means and he says he does and it would make a great name for a racehorse, but I bet I wasn’t the only one watching who wasn’t sure of the definition.

Turpitude is defined as evil or depravity and is often linked with the word moral but can be, and is, used independently too. I wasn’t able to find any listing of it being used as a name for a horse, but I hope some enterprising stable uses it soon. Racehorse names are so varied and Tommy is right, I’d love to cheer on Moral Turpitude as he raced towards the post.

Turpitude was borrowed directly from Old French into English in the late 1400s and has its appropriately murky roots in Latin where turpitudinem means baseness and turpis describes anything vile, base, or unsightly which gives us the figurative use for something which is morally ugly or shameful. There are also theories which link it to Latin trepit (he turns) and the idea of it being something one turns away from, but they are far from certain.

What is certain is that Tommy would definitely have known the phrase moral turpitude, not just because despite his working class background he has educated himself over the years, but because he has recently been mixing with the criminal classes in North America.

Moral turpitude is a legal concept in the US (and prior to 1976 in Canada) where it refers to an act or behaviour which violates the accepted community standards. It first appeared in immigration laws from the 1800s and can be used to impeach a witness, to revoke licenses for specific professions, and to refuse immigration clearance. As far as I can tell it’s never been part of British or Irish law and I can’t help thinking that Tommy wouldn’t have passed any moral turpitude test in the world with his history of murder, violence, smuggling, and more.

As for moral, it joined English to describe right behaviour and principles in the mid 1300s, again as a direct borrowing from Old French. The French had inherited it from Latin moralis (proper behaviour in society). It was apparently coined by Cicero to translate the idea of ethikos (ethics) in Greek.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

The Double Meaning of Virago

Hello,

This week’s word is one whose meaning changes completely depending on user and context so please deploy with care. A virago is defined as both a “loud over-bearing woman” and a “woman of great stature, strength, and courage”. A dive into its history may help clarify matters, although I suspect female readers are merely lifting an eyebrow at the use of words to subdue strong women.

Virago entered English in the late 1300s for a heroic women of extraordinary strength and courage. It came from the same word in Latin where it was used to describe a female warrior or heroine with the vir part meaning man (as you might guess that’s the same root for virile). Before that time, in very early English versions of the Bible virago was the name Adam gave to Eve, which I think is brilliant.

Unfortunately strong women weren’t always praised and as time passed the meaning of virago was twisted to the negative side and applied to any woman of power who was viewed with disapproval. Early examples include – Kate in “The Taming of the Shrew” and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine who was imprisoned by her husband, King Henry II of England, when she helped her sons to rebel against him.

Although the negative definition is the first listed, and hence primary, definition in modern dictionaries, attempts have been made to revive the original, more positive, meaning. My favourite one of these quests is that of Virago, the publishing press founded by Carmen Callil in 1973 to celebrate and encourage female writers.

As they explain in their About Page, the dictionary has both the heroic sense and “a name for a particular kind of woman: biddy, bitch, dragon, fire-eater, fury, harpy, harridan, hussy, muckraker, scold, she-devil, siren, spitfire, termagant, tigress, vituperator, vixen, wench”. Interesting how many negative terms there are for women who have the courage to challenge the status-quo.

Nearly 50 years later Virago press is still promoting female writers and changing our perception of the word itself. Hopefully this little trip into its word history will help you to use it correctly too.

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

Grace (@Wordfoolery)