812-1: Feedback, Notes and Comments

The next issue will be in 2013! Personal and family circumstances have led me reluctantly to decide not to create the issues of 8 and 15 December. As I had already decided not to publish during my usual Christmas break, the next scheduled issue is on Saturday 5 January 2013. Thank you for your support during 2012; every good wish to you for the holiday season and for the New Year. It is unlikely that I shall be able to reply in a timely fashion, or possibly even at all, to incoming e-mails during December.

Hot stuff Many readers pointed out torrefy (or torrify), which I mentioned last time, has close relatives in other languages. In Canada, where French and English mingle, Wendy Magnall noted that “the excellent French term torréfaction can be found on one side of coffee containers in place of the overworked English roast. As I write, I am enjoying a cup of torréfaction traditionelle.” From Germany, Reinhard Fey tells us, “In many Italian cities you will find shop signs torrefazione propria. These are shops roasting and selling their own coffee.”

Peter Rugg added another context: “This process is used to dry and slightly char biomass pellet fuels. It is called torrifaction or torrification. Like many technical words, in its many forms it confuses digital dictionaries. The one approving this note wants to change it to horrification.” Martin Spiller added a memory: “The lovely old Carwardines Tea and Coffee House in Corn Street, Bristol, had a sign painted on the side which fascinated me when I was young: ‘The Liquefaction of our Torrefaction Always Brings Satisfaction.’”

Big fella Cross-language connections support the idea I mentioned in the last issue that Rabelais named his character Gargantua (from which we get gargantuan) from a word for the throat. Jack Shakely wrote, “The Spanish for throat is garganta, which would make a pretty good moniker for a monster with a monstrous appetite.” Antonio Monteiro noted that Portuguese has the same word.

Locked and loaded “A thought on up the spout,” Kevin Eames wrote, “I think I remember my father, who served in the RAF Regiment during the Second World War, using the phrase one up the spout to mean having a round of ammunition already loaded into the bolt-action Lee Enfield rifle’s breech, ready to be fired. (I hope I’ve got the terminology right.)” Dick Bates added, “It was a heinous crime (and dangerous) if one was left up the spout in error, certain to result in a spell in the cooler!”

Succedaneum Professor Michael Belkin’s comment will stand for those of several others, “You will probably be notified by many physicians that caput succedaneum is a fluid collection in the scalp of a newborn caused by the pressure of the birth canal on the head during delivery. I do not know what the etymology is in this case, as the head of the newborn comes first during delivery.” (The OED glosses it as “substitute head”, presumably from the idea that the swelling resembles a baby’s head.) Dr Paul Vinall referred me to Wikipedia for more: this describes caput succedaneum as “a neonatal condition involving a serosanguinous, subcutaneous, extraperiosteal fluid collection.” Now I understand.

Professor Belkin added, “We were taught (and never used) succedaneum for replacement drugs, usually inferior ones.” The same idea occurs in yet another association with French, which came courtesy of Serge Astieres. “Succedaneum is used in French, meaning a replacement by a thing of lower value or quality. It was common during the Second World War when you could not get coffee and used a succedaneum made of chicory. In that sense it is identical to German ersatz.”