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Countries RSS Feeds600-1: Feedback, notes and comments - Small cry of joy Another milestone passed, as you may see from a look at the header — this newsletter has reached issue 600. On to issue 1000: it’s only another eight years, after all. (I wonder who will be hosting the Olympics that year? The shortlist is Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.) Cleft A message from L John Martin was typical of many, following my piece on cleft stick last week: “‘Cleft’ may not be commonly used on weekdays, but we sing it very frequently on Sundays in the hymn ‘Rock of Ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.’” The link is with Exodus chapter 33, in which God puts Moses in a cleft of the rock so that he will not be destroyed by His glory. Though the noun and adjective forms of cleft are obviously related, the noun is from a Germanic word that meant a chink or crevice and was often spelled clift (as...Feed Source: www.worldwidewords.org 600-2: Weird Words: Fescennine - Licentious, obscene, scurrilous.
Investigation of this useful, albeit extremely rare, adjective was provoked by a message from Curt Weil, pointing out that it appeared in Jim Meddick’s Monty comic strip on 8 July 2008. Monty criticises a man for seemingly talking to a dolphin, which Monty calls a fish. The dolphin responds and his interlocutor translates it: “He said, firstly: Dolphins are not fish. They are mammals. Then he said something rather unflattering and fescennine about primates.”
The word is a toponym, named after the ancient Etruscan town of Fescennia, on the River Tiber in modern Tuscany. Like many rural communities, it had a tradition of ribald and scurrilous songs that were performed at festivals such as harvest-home and weddings. These could be in the form of extempore verses that were aimed at another member of the company, who was expected to respond in kind. The Romans took over the idea, applying it particu... 600-3: Recently noted - Pop goes the language An article in the Observer newspaper last Sunday discussed the tendency for some British cinema chains to discontinue the selling of popcorn, on the grounds that it was smelly and lower-class. I was delighted to find a new word: “Daniel Broch, owner of the Everyman cinema in London’s Hampstead, recently bought 17 more venues, including London’s Screen on the Hill and the Screen on the Green. ‘I will de-popcorn every new venue I acquire,’ he said.”
But it turns out that, as often happens, there’s nothing new under the English-language sun. Julane Marx, who weekly applies her common-sense yardstick to these writings to prevent me going even further off the rails than I do, tells me of textured ceilings that were popular in the US in the 1950s and 1960s, which were often called cottage cheese or popcorn ceilings. Removing these is often a non-trivial challeng... 600-4: Questions and Answers: Skinny -
[Q] From Lilajane Frascarelli: “Where, how and why did the skinny come to mean the inside information, particularly unsavoury gossip?”
[A] To recycle an old etymologist’s joke (more precisely, a joke made by this old etymologist), you want the skinny on skinny? I wish I could help. Many people have asked the experts about this strange word for the inside dope, the lowdown, or the inside knowledge, but none of them has been able to say for sure where it comes from.
What we do know is that as a popular word it’s surprisingly recent. The first example given in the Oxford English Dictionary is from an article in the journal American Speech by Lalia Phipps Boone dated May 1959, discussing slang of the Unive... 600-5: Sic! - • David Coe forwarded an alarming headline from his local newspaper, the Herald-Tribune, Sarasota, Florida: “Simms to get shot tonight”. It referred to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ quarterback Chris Simms, set to play for the first time in a year following an injury.
• Following up the item last week on the advertisement offering an unused and delusted wedding gown, Paul Witheridge remarked, “This brings to mind the advert: ‘Parachute for sale. Never opened. Used once. Small stain.’” A not dissimilar advertisement was spotted by Padmavyuha on the North Devon Freecycle site: “Bag of cat litter. Used once.” They’re frugal in North Devon.
• Laurie Camion saw this in the Lancashire Evening Post of 12 August: “The man, who wore a Keffiyah type Arab headdress concealing his identity, pulled a 12 inch ... 600-6: Copyright and contact details - World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2008. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed publications or on Web sites or blogs requires prior permission, for which you should contact the editor.
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