Grace Tierney's Blog, page 6

The Harvest History of Aftermath

Hello,

Having gathered in my tomato harvest last weekend, before night frosts arrive here on Ireland’s East coast, I couldn’t resist sharing a harvest related word with you this week.

Fields of gold, just before harvest

I came across this word in “Humble Pie and Cold Turkey” by Caroline Taggart.

From Anglo-Saxon times up to the early 1900s a math was the act of mowing or the part of a crop which had been mowed. Hence the aftermath was a second growth of the same crop (usually grass or grains), which grew after the original math. Math in this case had nothing to do with mathematics. It came from the Old English word maed (a mowing of grass) and originally from a root word me (to cut down grass).

Other words for the aftermath were aftercrop (1500s), aftergrass (1600s), and lattermath. French had a similar idea with the word regain which is formed from re (again) and gain or gaain (grass which grows in mown meadows). All thrifty farmers, and gardeners, love to get a second flush of a crop or flower by harvesting or dead-heading the first flush.

The concept of something following on from an earlier event is what gives us the more modern idea of aftermath, but it dates to the 1600s so it’s not exactly recent. Now you might say that in the aftermath of the book launch the author was hungover, for example.

Speaking of book launches, all the details for “Words Christmas Gave Us” are now on my books page, including reviews and how to order a signed copy and I’m looking forward to my bookshop launch on the 24th of October 2024 at Academy Books in Drogheda. Hopefully there will only be a good aftermath from that one.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

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.

“Words Christmas Gave Us” Released

Hello,

With my Santa hat on, I am pleased to announce that my latest book in the Words Series, “Words Christmas Gave Us” is out now in paperback and ebook. All the ways to buy it are listed here.

From advent to yule and grinch to scurryfunge, it takes a look at centuries of festive history around the world and as usual I found plenty of unusual stories along the way. You definitely won’t be short of tales to tell over your Christmas dinner this year. I’ve already shared a few extracts from the book here on the blog – reindeer and jingle bells. Frankincense, gingerbread, and festoons are available on the download page along with festive recipes and a crochet pattern.

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter this evening (19:30 Irish time) I’ll be reading from the book and playing some games – you’re cordially invited. Normal word blogging will resume here next week, I hope you enjoy the downloads and dip into the book too.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

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.

The Energetic History of Swashbuckling

Hello,

I have a weakness for swords and fencing, as previously discussed when I explored the history of foible, but this time I’m buckling my swash like a certain (not left-handed) Inigo Montoya from “The Princess Bride”. If you don’t get that reference then seriously consider reading the book by William Goldman or viewing the movie – both are total classics.

Let’s start with the building blocks of this word. Swash dates to the 1500s as a way to describe the fall of a blow (this is obsolete now) or the sound of clashing swords. It wouldn’t be the sound of competitive fencers with their lighter swords, but it definitely would describe the clash of heavy broadswords in battle, so that makes sense.

A buckler, as you may know, was a shield, typically a small round one used from the 1300s to defend a sword fighter during combat and sometimes also as an attacking weapon.

As Graeme Donald pointed out in “Sticklers, Sideburns, and Bikinis”, his book about war words and etymology, swashbuckling was the rhythmic slash and bang of sword and shield. He reckons the most energetic fighter usually won such bouts.

By the 1550s a swashbuckler was a blustering, swaggering fighting man. He might also be seen as one who made menacing noises by striking his shield. The swashbuckler had become a noisy opponent who intimidated with sound as well as swordplay. By the late 1600s you could also use swash-buckling as an adjective and of course by the Errol Flynn movies of the 1900s we all knew a swash-buckling hero when we saw him, even if he wasn’t using a shield in his daring sword fights.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. My first paperbacks of “Words Christmas Gave Us” arrived today. It was like all my Christmases came at once! I’ll be running a launch evening at 19:30 (Irish time) on the 23rd of September on my facebook and twitter accounts and you’re all invited for some wordy fun and games. I’ll probably post some bits on here too, but I don’t want to swamp subscribers.

p.p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder. There will be a new issue later this week.

Flying Reindeer, Oh My!

Hello,

As the online launch of “Words Christmas Gave Us” (19:30 IST 23rd of September 2024 on my Facebook page and Twitter feed) draws near, it feels like time to share an extract from the book. Here’s the story of the word reindeer, from the Santa and Friends chapter. Rudolph gets his own entry later in the chapter, because he’s everybody’s favourite. I hope you enjoy it.

Reindeer

{extract from “Words Christmas Gave Us” by Grace Tierney, copyright 2024}

It is impossible to discuss Santa, and his friends, without mentioning his beloved reindeer. Reindeer is a word the Vikings gave us. Reindeer entered English around 1400 from Old Norse hreindyri which is a compound word from hreinn (reindeer) and dyr (animal) – a case of “so good they named it twice”. The words are probably connected to a root term krei for horn or head and possibly to Lapp or Finnish further back in time.

The earliest written mention of Santa’s reindeer dates to 1821 when a printer in New York published “A New Year’s Present to the Little Ones from Five to Twelve” by an anonymous author. It included the line “Old Sante Claus with much delight his reindeer drives this frosty night. Over chimney tops and tracks of snow, to bring his yearly gifts to you.” The publisher refused to identify the author but claimed the writer’s mother was a native of the Arctic lands who knew of the flying reindeer.

Two years later we get the full list of Santa’s flying helpers from “Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Clement C. Moore, but two are spelled a little differently – Dunder and Blixem. These two are Dutch words which translate as thunder and lighting, excellent names for airborne reindeer. Later editions replaced the Dutch with German terms Donder and Blitzen for the same concepts. Donner gradually replaced Donder, perhaps as it’s easier to say for English speakers.

As for the idea of flying reindeer in the first place, remember that Dutch and German immigrants to America brought many Santa Claus stories with them and they had been influenced by the Norse and Germanic mythology of their homelands. Thor, the Norse god of thunder and lightening (a connection to Donner and Blitzen perhaps?) rides through the sky in a chariot pulled by two magical horned goats which may have influenced the sleigh pulled by horned reindeer.

Once you realise Donner and Blitzen refer to sky weather, the rest of the names make sense. Comets fly through the air. Cupid flies with his bow to create romance. Dancing, dashing, and prancing all imply energetic movement too. Perhaps the odd one out is Vixen, a female fox, although she does help the poet to rhyme with Blitzen.

During the 1890s, reindeer were introduced to Alaska, along with their skilled Sami herders from Lapland to help Inuit who were starving due to the over-fishing of whales. When the herd flourished a businessman called Carl Lomen spotted the potential to sell reindeer meat and fur.

In 1926, Loman worked with Macy’s department store to run a Christmas parade featuring Santa in a sleigh pulled by reindeer and accompanied by Sami herders in their colourful traditional dress. The parades spread, thanks to fake children’s letters begging for them, sent to newspapers by Loman himself.

The Santa and reindeer connection was forged, but Lomen’s Reindeer Company, which owned a quarter of a million reindeer, hit a snag when laws about reindeer ownership changed, and he was forced out of business. It’s easy to see he had been placed on the Naughty List.

Did you know that Santa’s reindeer are all females? We could claim this is because they’re hardworking and happy to stop for directions, but actually it’s all down to science. The only reindeer with antlers at Christmas are female.

Most deer species have antlers only on the males, but reindeer and caribou are the exception. Reindeer are the domesticated cousins of wild caribou. The male reindeer use their antlers to impress the females. Once they’ve snagged a girlfriend during the autumn, they shed the antlers, growing new ones in the spring.

The female reindeer, however, keep their antlers until they have their calves in the spring. The antlers help them to find and protect scarce food resources over the winter and hence deliver healthy calves.

{end of extract}

Don’t forget, if you can’t wait for a paperback or hardback copy, the Kindle edition of “Words Christmas Gave Us” is already live worldwide. I hope to see you at the book launch online on the 23rd of September.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

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.

Don’t Get Wet While You’re Eavesdropping

Hello,

Did you know we’re all spelling eaves incorrectly? I stumbled across that fact in “Humble Pie and Cold Turkey” by Caroline Taggart this summer. The eaves (the sticky-out bit of the roof would be my very technical definition on this one) had an s in Old English (yfesdrype, in case you’re curious) and the word was singular. As the word moved into Middle English it retained the s and everybody assumed that meant eaves were plural, but if you really think about it, you have one roof on your home and it only has one eave. Mind you, I wouldn’t fancy trying to convince an English teacher of that so maybe let’s stick with eaves in everyday conversation.

The spot under the eaves, outside the building, where rainwater was liable to drip on you from the roof became known as the eavesdrip, which is pretty logical. With time that mutated into eavesdrop (well, raindrops do drop as well as a drip). It was established by the mid 1400s. A person standing there would be well placed to overhear interior conversations and by the time Shakespeare wrote “Richard III” he had the king “play the eaves-dropper” to check on the loyalty of his troops before battle.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. My latest book “Words Christmas Gave Us” is out now on Kindle. The paperback and hardback editions are coming later in September – watch this space for details of the online book launch on the 23rd of September – you’re all invited.

The Italian Word Roots of Fracas

Hello,

Fracas is a favourite word of mine. I most often see it in court reports now. A judge will be told that the accused took part in a fracas on the main street of the town after midnight on a certain date. It conjures up such an old-fashioned scene – insults hurled, gauntlets thrown, and perhaps some light scuffling.

Of course the fight may have been considerably more violent but for me a fracas is always akin to that wonderful scene in the “Bridget Jones’s Diary” movie when Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fight in a garden fountain in a completely ineffective manner. It’s brilliant physical comedy. It’s on You Tube, check it out.

But where do we get fracas from? Given that we don’t pronounce the final s it was no surprise to discover the French were involved but actually the roots lie in Italy.

The word fracas is a direct import from French to English in the early 1700s when it described a crash, sudden noise, tumult (another great word!), or fuss. It came from Italian fracasso in the 1400s to describe an uproar, crashing, and breaking into pieces and was formed by merging fra and cassare. Fra is a shortening of the Latin word infra (below) and the Italian word cassare (to break) which actually comes from Latin quassare originally – the verb to shake.

All of that leads me to wonder if the idea of something shaking below could possibly be related to earthquakes, which are common in Italy, but I don’t have any proof of that notion.

Infra is an interesting word in its own right. It’s related to inferno (because of the idea that hell is beneath us) and gives us the old-fashioned slang term infra-dig (beneath or unworthy of attention).

Quassare and cassare are also interesting and linked to the word quash which I may investigate another day.

To me it feels like fracas had very violent origins with all this noise, fuss, and crashing whereas now it feels milder, even when used in court reports. Either way I hope you can avoid any fracas in your life this week.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. My latest ebook “Words Christmas Gave Us” is available to pre-order now on your local Amazon store (will download to your Kindle on 9th September 2024). The paperback and hardback editions are coming later in September. If you review books and would like an ARC please comment below or use my contacts listed on the About Page.

The Wild History of Jingle Bells

Hello,

I’m delighted to announce that pre-ordering of the ebook edition of “Words Christmas Gave Us” is now available. Ordering now will allow a lovely digital edition to drop onto your Kindle on the 9th of September. “Words Christmas Gave Us” is book three in the Wordfoolery series – I’ve already done Viking and Nautical words and yes, there will be a paperback and hardback edition later in September so don’t panic if you prefer paper copies. But if you simply can’t wait, or prefer ebooks, the option is there for you.

In honour of the pre-order I thought I’d share the wild history of “Jingle Bells” and a little about the book this week.

Christmas is a special time of year and with a history stretching back for two millennia, it’s not short of unique words, customs, and stories to fill the book. Christmas traditions, however, are not all religious and often have ancient roots. The next time somebody bemoans the season starting early you could point out that Advent used to begin far sooner.

If they move on to complain about the increasingly secular festivities you could always throw in the Roman’s Saturnalia (which also involved gifts and feasting), Thor’s flying sleigh, or the Greeks eating goose.

As for the influence of celebrities and movies, do you know about Queen Victoria popularising Christmas trees and baubles, and her ancestor King Henry VIII played his part with carol singing, tinsel, and mince pies? That’s before we get to how one financially stressed author churned out a Christmas story in a hurry which gave us everything from bah humbug and charitable giving, to turkeys and scrooges, thanks to misreading a tombstone in an Edinburgh graveyard.

If you really want to finish off the grinch in your life then simply explain that Xmas has been an abbreviation since the 1100s and has roots in the early Christian church.

Other fun stories I uncovered – the influence of the Brothers Grimm on gingerbread, how a typo in a newspaper forced a grumpy air defence commander to provide Santa tracking since 1948, and that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a nativity play while a prisoner of war. “Words Christmas Gave Us” is jammed with all these stories and more.

“Jingle Bells”

{abridged extract from “Words Christmas Gave Us” by Grace Tierney copyright 2024}

The Christmas carol even the youngest singer knows is “Jingle Bells” but surprisingly it was originally a song for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. In fact the lyrics don’t mention either event.

It was originally titled “One Horse Open Sleigh” when it was published in America in 1857 but became associated with Christmas because of its snowy lyrics. James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) wrote it and the original version had slightly different words and tune than those sung today.

Only the first verse and chorus are commonly sung now, probably because later verses describe dating, drag-racing your sleigh on the snow, and a high-speed crash. Not exactly standard Christmas fare.

The carol was first recorded in 1889. “Jingle Bells” was also the first song to be broadcast from space in December 1965 when the astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra said they had spotted an unknown object in space. After a few tense moments when nobody knew if this object was a friendly sighting or dangerous to the crew, they then took out a harmonica and sleigh bells which they had smuggled onto the Gemini 6 spaceship and proceeded to perform the song for mission control, asserting that the UFO must have been a flying sleigh.

Jingle has been with us since the late 1300s. Originally spelled as gingeln, jingle is believed to have formed as an imitative word, one that sounds like the sound it is trying to describe. There are similar words in Dutch (jengelen) and German (klingeln) for example.

Around 1600 you might call a coin a jingle-boy, presumably from the noise loose coins made in your pocket. In the 1700s a jingle-brains was slang for a wild, thoughtless fellow. A jingle was also the nickname given to a Bianconi long car thanks to the sound it made. Bianconi was an Italo-Irish entrepreneur whose network of horse-drawn coaches became Ireland’s first public transport in the late 1800s.

The composer, James Lord Pierpont, was the son of a fiercely abolitionist Unitarian minister. From an early age, he longed for adventure. At 14 he ran away from boarding school and joined the crew of a whaling ship, spending nearly a decade at sea. During the California Gold Rush in 1849, he left his wife and children behind in Massachusetts to seek his fortune, returning home no richer several years later.

Although his father and brother massively opposed slavery, Pierpont supported the Confederacy and composed several confederate army anthems. Meanwhile his father served on the opposing side as a chaplain to the Massachusetts Infantry. Despite writing a popular Christmas song, it’s hard to imagine the conversation being friendly around the family’s Christmas dinner table.

{end of extract}

If you enjoyed that snippet, don’t forget that the “Words Christmas Gave Us” ebook is available to pre-order now on your local Amazon store (or here for the US store). The paperback and hardback editions are coming later in September.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

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 for this year’s words.

The Boozy Word History of Hijinks

Hello,

I wonder do you know the feeling? You arrange a date to meet up with old friends and with many schedules to satisfy you don’t pay any heed to that fact that’s it’s a Sunday. The gathering is a wonderful success and perhaps a little too much strong grape juice is consumed, and suddenly you recall that tomorrow is Monday and you’ll have a blog post to write.

Yes, that happened. Twice. It was a housewarming visit to a cousin followed by a housewarming visit to old school friends. We didn’t get up to any hijinks but let’s just say that Wordfoolery is a little tired today.

Hijinks is the sort of messing around I needed to nip in the bud when hosting hordes of bouncy children at play-dates and birthday parties earlier in my parenting life, but it’s a surprisingly old word and began with rowdy adults rather than energetic youngsters.

It reached its current meaning in the 1800s but dates back to the 1600s. Etymologists aren’t totally sure of its roots but do point out that to jink is a Scots verb meaning to move to and fro, or to dodge pursuit. Hence a jink is a sudden movement, such as prey might take to avoid a hunter. This provided a few linked ideas. To jink school was to play truant and to give the jink was to avoid somebody. The hi (or high) part of the word is less certain although there is a Scots word hy which means speed.

Whatever the exact origins of hijinks the term was originally used in the 1600s to describe adults playing drinking games, nearly always with dice, where the loser would have to pay a forfeit – taking a drink or paying for the next round of drinks for the other players.

By the 1800s the dice and booze games which hijinks described fell in popularity and the word found its modern meaning as any form of boisterous fun and games, even those played by children.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder. There will be a new issue later this week.

The Word History of an Explosive Performance

Hello,

I’ve previously written about how fiasco is a word originally in the theatre, but I never thought I’d have something similar to say about explosions.

Explosive – a disarmed sea mine from the Irish National Maritime Museum

Explode originally joined English in the 1500s from the Latin verb explodere which meant to drive out by clapping, hissing, or hooting. It wasn’t a dangerous wild animal that the Romans were driving away, it was an unfortunate actor who had failed to reach audience expectations. Apparently Greek audiences behaved in a similar way.

You can catch a glimpse of this meaning when we speak about exploding a theory. We’re not blowing it up, we’re rejecting it.

The word can also be broken down into ex (out) and plaudere (to clap the hands). Plaudere gives us other words like applause, plausible, and plaudits. More on these later.

With time the English meaning of explode changed somewhat. By the 1700s, the idea of the loud noise was retained but became associated with something disintegrating in a loud fashion. By the 1800s you might speak of an explosion of activity or the types of explosions we know today (gas, bombs, gunpowder etc.), and by the 1950s of a population explosion, which presumably wasn’t so audible.

But how does plausible fit in? It literally means that an idea is worthy of applause. Presumably if your theory was implausible you’d be hissed off the stage. As for plaudit, those ancient Roman actors would shout plaudite! at the end of their show to ask for applause from the audience. This association led to plaudits being associated with praise for a performer, a meaning we recognise today.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

The Legal Word History of Ambidextrous

Hello,

I’m sure I’ve already spoken about the sinister history of being left-handed (pun intended) but today I’m thinking about my old French teacher, who was ambidextrous. Apart from imparting her passion for the language and dragging my introverted teen self into speaking the language aloud, she was also a great teacher.

Words my French Teacher Gave Us

But back then, we had three reasons we liked her. She encouraged us to read basic French by lending us her French copies of Asterix comics. She taught us how to navigate the Paris metro system (a very handy skill), and most importantly she was never in front of the board when we needed to take down notes.

Yes, I’m old enough to remember blackboards and we spent a lot of time writing down notes by hand. Inevitably the person chalking up the notes blocked some of the text. Not with her. She would write the first half of the sentence with her right hand while standing to the left of the board. Then change to the other side and the other hand, leaving the notes in clear view. The first time I saw this I nearly fell off my chair.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was also a quality Mathematics teacher – giving her a useful left & right-brained approach to life. I’m not ambidextrous myself but as somebody who loves (and has worked in) both STEM and the Arts, I like to think there are more Renaissance people in our world than we might assume. Certainly the last time I sat down with two novelist friends I wasn’t surprised to discover they both had multiple degrees in Chemistry too.

My French teacher would have liked James A. Garfield, the American President who liked to write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other, at the same time, as a party trick. The literal meaning of ambidextrous is right-handed on both sides but when it arrived in English during the early 1500s it meant deceitful or double-dealing. An ambidexter was a crooked lawyer of juror who would take money from both sides (using each of their right hands presumably) during a legal case. The word comes from Latin roots – ambi meaning on both sides and dexter meaning right-handed. Sinister means left-handed, of course.

By the late 1500s an additional meaning emerged of using both hands equally skillfully. Both co-existed until the 1800s when we settled on the manual dexterity idea. It may be rare in the population (1% and more common in males) but it’s a skill to be cherished.

Famous ambidextrous people from History include Da Vinci, Tesla, Einstein, Ben Franklin, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. – where would we be without that bunch?

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.