Throughly Complex

There are always some words that one has known for years, but never uses. Two that lie unused in my lexical repertoire are the superficially similar parboil and purblind. The similarity lies in the first four letters of each: have they anything in common apart from the p-rb pattern ?

Well, yes, actually, but not at all what you might expect. The first is used today to mean ‘partly boil’, and the second ‘partly blind’. But neither the par- nor the pur- originally signified ‘partly’, but the opposite - that is, ‘fully’. Nor do those two syllables have the same origin.

In the word parboil the first syllable is derived from the Latin per-, meaning through, or thorough*. In the word purblind the first syllable is the French adjective pur-, meaning pure, whole. So the significance of both prefixes has, over centuries, been reversed; they used to indicate ‘completely’; today they indicate ‘partially’.

By the way, note that ‘through’ and ‘thorough’ are just two spellings of what is essentially the same word. “Thorough brake, thorough briar” (‘through rough undergrowth and brambles’) I seem to remember from some song - but the passage doesn’t appear, I am sorry to say, in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. In the King James Bible (Psalm 51.2) we find the prayer ‘Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin”**.

*  Pertinacity (based on Latin per-  = thoroughly + tenere = to hold) signifies 'holding on through thick and thin'.

 **  Various towns or villages in Britain are today named Brough. The name is the equivalent of our term ‘borough’, and cognate with the familar place-name element ‘-bury’.  These words derive from ancient Germanic burg = a castle or defended site.

Throughly Complex

A Metaphorical Litany ?

This blog has often warned of the dangers, especially to those who speak or write publicly, of misunderstanding 'long' words.

The same might be said of metaphors. Metaphors liven up our language wonderfully - so long as their original significance is recognised. 'Skating on thin ice' is obvious enough; but what about 'sailing close to the wind' ? If we want use this kind of 'specialist' metaphor, then it's best to know just what the original meaning was.

So when a journalist wrote a few months ago of the troubles experienced by those working on the improvement and development of the Hospital at Cromer, in Norfolk, that they had experienced 'a whole litany of setbacks', had he (or she) any idea what that metaphor implies ?

Our English term 'litany' literally means a formulaic religious prayer, one that was (or is) repeated word for word to ensure in particular that no sins are omitted from the list of offences for which one is asking for forgiveness. Rather than try to remember all one's sins in a home-made prayer, it seems best to add one's personal signature, as it were, to the official list.

The church's word 'litany' is derived from the old Greek word lite (two syllables pronounced 'lit-ee') meaning a prayer.

True, the term implied an official list: but to speak or write of 'a whole litany' of setbacks' is to miss the whole significance of the word - the journalist was just seeking a fancy way of indicating that there were a whole lot of setbacks. The metaphor was being stretched beyond any intelligent comparison: but imaginative and appropriate comparison is what metaphors should be about; otherwise they die.

A Metaphorical Litany ?

Riffs, raffs and rafts

Rafts of legislation ? Laws and regulations and proposals all seem to come in rafts nowadays. At least, they do in press comments and television reports, so that at first one might assume that this is just one of the latest examples of media jargon.

But the Encarta Dictionary (for example) tells us that the term has been used in this kind of context since the mid-nineteenth century.

Right then; let's guess that the usage is metaphorical, alluding to the enormous 'rafts' of floating logs that the lumberjacks steer down the broad rivers of Canada or wherever. But we are told that this sort of 'raft' is 'an alteration of an earlier 'raff''. But the only raff we are conversationally familiar with is the 'riff' raff'. Afficionados of traditional jazz will recognise a riff when they hear one, but that hardly helps us understand why riff-raff means what it does. But with a little lexicographical help we can learn that riff-raff derives from French idiom 'rif et raf'', meaning 'pieces of plunder of small value' (from Fr verbs rifler and raffler, meaning to steal and to snatch respectively).

Baffled, we return, then, to the plain raff. Here the Encarta dictionary can't help us. But the Shorter Oxford English one tries to. There are three entries for 'raff'; first, a noun originating in Middle English signifying 'a class of people or things' (not very helpful, though delicately hinting at the term riff-raff, perhaps); next another noun, perhaps derived from German Rafe and meaning 'foreign timber' (less helpful); and lastly a verb meaning 'to sweep together'. By straining the imagination very hard, we might be able to see a connection between the German timber, our raft of floating logs and the notion of 'sweeping together'.

So we turn to the SOED's interpretation of the word raft, and there we find (first) 'a piece of timber'; secondly, our floating logs; third, logs tied together to form the sort of raft that ship-wrecked mariners used to knock together; fourth, a 'foundation made of reinforced concrete' (obviously deriving from the mariners' raft); and lastly, 'a lot of' anything - this last usage being, it is suggested, a variation of the puzzling 'raff''. Cheap, rubbishy stuff swept together, may be: but 'rafts of legislation' ? - not a very flattering estimate of the laws and regulations we live under.

But I can't help feeling that some semantic connection may still be missing.

Riffs, raffs and rafts

News about Slews

We've looked at tranches, now it's the turn of slews. The word became an element in common English parlance within the past couple of decades, and is used just like the terms tranche and raft to mean a lot of somethings: a 'slew of complaints', cites one modern dictionary; a 'slew of awards' quotes another; and 'a slew of regulations' mentions a third. And you can have a 'slew' of people: which takes us back to the origin of the term - the Irish and Gaelic 'sluagh' meaning a crowd, a multitude, a host. Very likely Irish or Scottish emigrants carried the term across the Atlantic in the nineteenth century to the USA, where it morphed into a slew and entered the US lexicon. Like so many other Americanisms, it has found its way back to the British Isles, and has now joined the terms raft and tranche, available to us as useful alternatives for 'collection' or 'group' or 'host' or the metaphorical 'cartload'.

If you believe you don't know any Irish/Gaelic, think of the word 'slogan' - which has two elements, the first 'sluagh' meaning a host or army; and the second 'gairm' meaning a 'proclamation' or 'shout' - the two together becoming (in the 16th century) the English 'slogan' - the repetitious 'war cry' beloved of politicians, salespersons and pressure groups.

An etymologically challenged Robert Browning, trying to give local colour and period flavour to his poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came", wrote "Dauntless the slug-horn to my lip I set, and blew". He must have read somewhere*of the 'sounding of the slughorn' (slogan or war-cry) and been misled by the 'horn' into assuming it was some kind of bugle or trumpet.

* Probably the young eighteenth century forger of antique poetry, Thomas Chatterton, whose not very convincing ye-olde-tea-shoppe style neverthless hoodwinked a number of scholars who should have known better. A sample of his work is his Mynstrelles Songe: "O synge untoe mie roundelaie . . . . . Mie love ys dedde
. . . . under the wyllowe-tree."

News about Slews

Aubergine's Remote Ancestry

For me it has been a busy week or two, and practical pedantry has had largely to go by the board*. But a few days ago a relative who had travelled to UK from Malaysia was talking to me about fruits. "Have you another name for 'aubergine' ?", he asked. " I don't know", I replied. He said "How about 'egg-plant' ?" Oh yes, of course. The conversation turned to the origin of the word 'aubergine'. It sounds French, we both agreed. So I looked it up.

It turns out to be one of those words that have travelled the world as a sort of 'Chinese whisper'. The Sanskrit word for this fruit, perhaps ten thousand years ago, was apparently vatimgana. From this, the ancient Persians derived badingan. The Arabic language turned it into al-badinjan ('al' meaning 'the'), and the Catalans in turn called it alberginia. The later French version of this was aubergine, which we, in the eighteenth century, borrowed into English..

* 'By the board' ? By what board ? Is it the same board that straight dealing has to be above ? After all, in business a new proposition would have to be approved 'by the board': but that might not always be a matter of straight dealing, I suppose. (Actually, 'above board' means 'not under the card table', where you might be hiding your hand.)

Brewer's Phrase and Fable says that when in days gone by a ship's mast was broken in a storm and carried away by the sea, it was said to 'go by the board' - that is, it drifted past the wooden side of the vessel, never to be seen again. So my use of the metaphor in the first line above is a poor one, for the very existence of this blog post proves that pedantry was not lost for ever, but was capable of revival.

Aubergine's Remote Ancestry