807-1: Feedback, Notes and Comments

Lump it The most common query following last week’s piece concerned the word lumpen, as in lumpenproletariat. The term was coined by Karl Marx in 1850. In German, Lumpen is a rag, Lumpensammler is a rag-and-bone man, Lumpengesindel is the rabble or riff-raff, and Lump is an outdated term for a rogue. Marx meant by lumpenproletariat the lowest and most degraded section of working-class people. The word is related to the English lump, though the two languages diverged many centuries ago. Our lumpen was created in the 1940s from the German word to mean boorish and stupid, though in British English it can also mean lumpy and misshapen, ugly or ponderous, which came about by association with lumpish.

Others mentioned lumper, in the US a labourer hired to load trucks or a dockworker or longshoreman. Tom Halsted noted that lumpers in Gloucester, Massachusetts, unload the catch from fishing vessels. It is from lump, an undifferentiated mass, plus the agent suffix -er — the agent in this case being the worker who carries the lumps of cargo.

Red cent Richard Moloney commented: “An Irish phrase pingin rua (red or copper penny) has similar literal and figurative meanings. I have often wondered whether it was a translation of, or source for, the English phrase. Here is an example from the Irish Times, 18 August 2012 (béal bocht, by the way, means ‘poor mouth’ — to play up or overstate one’s poverty): ‘Broadly, the farmers’ organisations are doing the béal bocht; the poor farmers barely have the pingin rua — why shouldn’t their kids get the college grant?’”

Hebdomadal Many readers made the same point as David Pearson of Dow Jones Newswires in Paris: “Just outpointing, as we say in cablese, that French weekly publications are called la presse hebdomadaire and a magazine like Paris Match is referred to colloquially as un hebdo.” Jacquelyne Lord wrote, “Though hebdomadal seems to be fading out in English, its French counterpart, hebdomadaire is alive here in Québec, where we have les journaux hebdomadaires, in many regions. Our local paper, Le journal hebdomadaire de la côte sud, Le Placoteux, is on the table next to me as I write this. The word is used in other contexts as well, for meetings and the like. I had not realised there was an English version of the word or what its origins were, so thank you for the information.”

Others mentioned that the ancient post of hebdomadar still exists at St Andrews University in Scotland. The Dictionary of the Scottish Language explains, “A name formerly applied in Scottish Universities and Grammar Schools to the member of the staff whose weekly turn it was to supervise the behaviour of the students or pupils.” The CV (résumé) of one Scottish academic notes he had been the hebdomadar at St Andrews for seven years, responsible for student welfare and discipline, so we must presume that the role has expanded somewhat and that a link with a period of seven days has disappeared.

The term also survives in other forms, as Alan Harrison explained: “Hebdomadary is most likely to be found on the notice boards of Anglican cathedrals, indicating the name or title of the canon or minor canon on duty during the current week as the hebdomadary priest.” Michael Marett-Crosby added, “The shortened form hebdom, usually capitalised, is used in Benedictine monasteries for the monk who leads the prayers in rotation for a week and has duties in the choir and refectory. It’s a contraction of hebdomadalis, the word used by St Benedict, and features not only in speech but on printed lists of officials. It’s not in the dictionary, but is familiar to monks and those who visit them.”