VOL19_2.txt

   
      
         
            Frailty, Thy Name Is Bevilacqua!



            Consider America .  Christopher Columbus had
been island-hopping in the Caribbean since
1492 and had touched foot on the New World mainland
in 1498.  But he had set out for Asia, and nothing
would convince him that Asia was not where he
had landed.  Amerigo Vespucci, meanwhile, also
looking for new routes to Asia, ran ashore in Brazil
in 1499 and realized that something was not right.
Returning to Brazil in 1502, he convinced himself
that Columbus and he had in fact stumbled onto
some continent--a New World he called it--
completely unknown to Europeans.  He apparently
invented a 1497 voyage to make sure he and not
Columbus got the credit and started writing letters
announcing his discovery.  Columbus died in 1506
still adamant he had been to Asia.  But Vespucci's
letters hugely impressed others, including German
cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, who in 1507
published the first map to label a depiction of Vespucci's
New World America in his honor.

            Historians have argued for generations about
whether Vespucci's 1497 trip was a fib.  But they do
not seem to have spent much time arguing about
whether people should have followed Waldseemuller's
lead in dubbing the new continent America .
That may be simply because the name stuck and
there did not seem to be much point.  But I think it
is also because America sounds so nice, because the
pure music of Amerigo Vespucci makes up for any
lies he might have told.  People were lulled by that
music into neglecting to notice that in Italian Amerigo
is simply Henry in English.

            Think of the power of that peculiarly Italian euphony!
How much patriotism could we instill by requiring
our schoolchildren to chant I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the United States of Henry?
Would Walt Whitman have made the canon if he had
written I hear Henry singing?  And how much
worse would our trade deficit be if General Motors
tried to attach the Japanese with a slogan like It's
the heartbeat of Henry, it's today's Chevrolet?
Still, we should be grateful that Waldseemuller
opted for Vespucci's first name, for disguising the
dull Henry in the voluptuous Amerigo is nothing
compared to what Italians have done over the
centuries when giving each other surnames.

            Like other Europeans, Italians made do with
first names alone until well into the Middle Ages.  In
the Venetian Republic by the end of the 10th century,
some people were using fixed secondary names
to distinguish themselves, and at least some of these
names were passed from parents to children.  But
outside Venice, Italians did not begin to adopt hereditary
surnames until the 14th and 15th centuries,
a bit later than most of the rest of Europe, according
to Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges, authors of the
addictive A Dictionary of Surnames (Oxford University
Press, 1988).  As in other European countries,
what probably sparked the spread of surnames was
the emergence of larger states that began to centralize
tax collecting and other authority.

            New bureaucratic functionaries now had to
keep track of individuals they might never meet, and
they (and other name-givers, such as priests and
other local worthies) followed a few simple rules for
distinguishing one Giovanni from another.  They indicated
where he lived or where he came from: Giovanni
Montagna , lived on the mountain, while Giovanni
Valle lived in the valley; Giovanni Lombardo
had his roots in Lombardy while Giovanni Genovesi
had his in Genoa.  They sorted him by his hair: Giovanni
Bruno was brunette, Giovanni Biondi blonde,
and Giovanni Rossi red-headed, while Giovanni
Rizzo had curly hair.  They pointed out his general
aspect: Giovanni Piccolo was short, Giovanni Macri
tall, Giovanni Magro thin, Giovanni Grasso fat.  They
noted his job: Giovanni Ferraro made things, Giovanni
Vaccaro herded cows.  Or they tacked on the
first name of his father or grandfather, who himself,
reflecting Italy's tangled history, tended to be called
by some version of a Latin, ancient Germanic,
saint's, or Old Testament name: Giovanni Fabrizio
derived his surname from Fabricius, Giovanni Alighieri
from Aldiger, Giovanni Ciccarelli from Francis ,
and Giovanni Giacobazzi from Jacob .  Whether any
name, through local preference, finally came to end
in the masculine -o , the feminine -a , or the plurals -i
or -e , the root meaning of the name remained the
same.

            Other Europeans followed the same rules as
the Italians: Bruno is essentially the same name as
Braun or Brown, Piccolo as Klein, Magro as Meagher
and Maigret, Grasso as Gross , and Ferraro as Smith .
But, to the inherent music of their language (would
Rigoletto sound the same if we knew Giuseppe Verdi
as Joseph Green?), the Italians added something
more--a game of phonetic theme and variation
seemingly unmatched in other countries, a game
whose wild rules allow Francesco to become Frances-chielli
or Francescuzzi, Cesco or Schetti, Cicco or
Zotti, Cicconetti or Ciccarelli .  Hanks and Hodges list
no fewer than 90 Italian surname forms of Giacobo
(Jacob) , for instance, and a further 76 variations of
Giacomo (James) , itself a New Testament derivative
of Giacobo .  A partial list of Giacomo diminutives--
pet names that translate essentially as little
Jimmy--is as liquid and intoxicating as Sambuca:
Giacomello, Giammelli, Iacomelli, Comello, Comellini,
Mello, Giacometti, Giametti, Giamitti, Iacometti,
Iamitti, Cometto, Giacomini, Iacomini, Cominello,
Comini, Cominetti, Cominotti, Cominoli, Giacomucci,
Giacomuzzi, Giamuzzi, Giamusso, Comucci,
Comuzzo, Comusso, Mucci, Mucilo, Muccino, Muzzi,
Muzzini, Muzzillo, Muzzolo, Muzzullo, Musso, Mussetti,
Mussettini, Muselli, Mussili, Mussotti, Mussolini,
Giacomozzo, Camosso, Mozzi, Mozzini, Mozzetti,
Comolli, Camolli, Comoletti, Camoletto, Commizzoli,
Mizzi, Motto, Mottini , and Mottinelli .

            One can easily see from this list that it is the
suffixes -ello, -ino, -etto, -ucci, -uzzi, -olo, -ozzo , and
their variants that allowed Italians to cut James down
to size, and they have the same effect on any other
name.  Inflating him was as simple as tacking the
augmentative suffixes -one or -oni --as in Giacomoni --to
the root name or its variation to get big
James.

            And, when another approach seemed called for,
some of Jameses' neighbors or overlords started
sticking on the pejorative suffixes -azzo, -accio,
-asso , and their variants, as in Mazzo and Giacomasso .
One cannot easily translate these pejorative
suffixes into English: they are a malignly ingenious
way of turning an otherwise perfectly inoffensive
name into an inherently insulting one, of saying
James , for instance, in such a sneering way that no
add-on adjectives are needed to convey your obvious
but unspecified disdain.  There were times, however,
when Italians felt a need to be less subtle.  At
such times, they turned with a vengeance to nicknames.

            Emidio de Felice, the maestro of Italian anthroponymy
and author of I Cognomi Italiani (Bologna: Il
mulino, 1981) and Dizionario dei Cognomi Italiani
(Milano: A. Mondadori, 1978), has estimated that no
fewer than 15 per cent of all Italian surnames have
their origin in nicknames.  Not all these nicknames
are bad.  If one is fortunate enough to carry one of
those Italian names beginning with Bon- or Buon(buono
good), for example, one's value is announced
to all the world: the parents of Michelangelo
Buonarroti (arrota `gain,' from arrogare `to acquire';
the compound, say Hanks and Hodges, was
originally bestowed when parents welcomed the
birth of a child) probably were not surprised that he
turned out so well, although they might have had
even higher hopes for his little brother, Buonarroto
Buonarroti .  Names beginning with Bel- or Bello(bello
beautiful) are also historical gifts: someone
called Bellofatto (fatto made, put together), probably
has ancestors that were a good-looking lot.  Likewise,
the original Onestis were usually honest and
Bevilacquas (bevi drink, acqua water) usually sober,
while Amantis (amante lover) usually exhibited
a form of spiritual love that made them seem saintly,
and Santillis (santo sainted), Salvos (salvare to
save), Carideos (cari dear,' deo god), and Donadios
(dona given, dio god) usually had special relationships
with their maker.

            But notice that I say usually.  Hanks and
Hodges and de Felice say that most of these nicknames
could also be bestowed ironically.  Some
Bevilacquas drank even less water than their wineloving
neighbors ( Bevivinos may have been even
more intemperate); the spiritual love of some Amantis
was directed toward women other than their
wives and the patronymic form D'Amanti given to
the children of such unions; some Santillis and Salvos
were notably profane; and some Carideos and
Donadios were assumed to be dear to or given by
God because no one else stepped forward to explain
how they came to be left on the steps of convents or
monasteries.

            There is a whole class of Italian surnames that
were given to foundlings, including variations of
Trovato (trovato past participle of trovare to find;
trovatello foundling), Proietto (proietto ejected or
rejected), Innocenti , and Nocenti (given to all children
taken into Florence's Spedale degli Innocenti
orphanage; the name was also given to those who
were innocent of evil, or simple-minded), Ignoto
( ignoto unknown), and Esposito or Sposito (esposto
exposed), which de Felice has found to be the most
common name in Naples.

            No sense of irony is needed to appreciate the
name Malfatto (male badly, fatto made, put together),
however, or the names Gobbi ( gobbo hunchback), Porcelli (piglets), Boccioni (bocca
mouth plus the augmentative suffix, yielding big
mouth), Capostagno (capo head, stagno tin), Sozzi
(from the Sicilian sozzu filthy), or Moccio (snot or
slime).  Not all of these surnames are terribly common,
but they are all real, appearing in telephone
books in the U.S., England, and Italy.  Some insults
are more common than others.  According to de Felice's
extensive studies of phone books and other records
(much of his research is financed by SEAT ,
Italy's telephone service), the most common of all
surnames in Calabria is Rotundo , which means
obese.  (Whether the food in 15th-century Calabria
was especially filling or its well-fed citizens tended
to be more prolific than their thinner neighbors is
not clear.)

            Although insulting nicknames form a small fraction
of the Italian surname pool, chances are that
anyone who knows any Italians has participated in
this ancient slanging-match.  I myself have known
people named Busa , which in Salvatore Battaglia's
Grande Dizionario Della Lingua Italiana (the Italian
equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary) is defined
as il sterco bovino, literally, cow dung.  I
went to high school--a small school with only a minority
of Italians--with a girl named Pochintesta
( poco little, in in, testa head), another named
Zucchi (a plural form of zucca squash, or, colloquially,
head; Hanks and Hodges say this name was
often given to a person of scarce intelligence, as
in pumpkinhead), one boy named Chiappa (buttock),
and another named Chiappinelli (which may
be either an extended diminutive of Chiappa or the
diminutive of chiappino , which Battaglia defines as a
type of ape).

            Even my own family has not escaped.  My
grandmother's family, the Gannuscios , have long
known that some distant relatives spell the name
Cannuscio (the softening of hard c to hard g being
very common as words move across Italy's myriad
dialects).  What no one ever told me is that Cannuscio
is very possibly the same word as cannuccio , (the
softening of cci (pronounced chee) to sci (pronounced
shee) being also common.  Battaglia's
definition for cannuccio?  Membro genitale.  You
can translate it yourself.

            Insulting surnames generally fall into a few
broad categories.  One of the largest describes physical
and mental defects.  Someone with a limp was
likely to be called some variation of Zoppo (lame),
Torti , or Storti (torto twisted), Gamba or Gambaccini
(gamba leg), or Ciampa (ciampare to stumble).
One who stammered or had some other
speech defect, might be Tartaglia (tartagliare to
stutter), Cianciulli (cianciugliare to mutter), Sannella
(sanna is an archaic form of zanna tusk), or
Mezzalingua ( mezza half, lingua tongue).  If one
was hard of hearing or refused good advice, the
name Sordo or La Sorda (sordo deaf) might be applied;
a person with neuromuscular disorders might
be called Tremitiedi ( tremito bodily trembling).
The person perennially under the weather or perhaps
just lazy might be Fiacco (feeble) or Stanchi
(stanco tired), while mental impairment earned the
name Imbrogno (imbrogliare to confuse), Moscaincervello
( mosca fly, in in, cervello brain), or
Infante, Fantazzi , or Fanciullo (infante infant or
someone of childish intellect).  One who squinted or
was missing an eye was called Berlusco (dialect for a
person with a squint) or some variation of Occhi
(occhio eye).  And, demonstrating that in the realm
of insults some things never change, one who wore
glasses became Quattrocchi (four-eyes).

            The animal kingdom provided a rich source:
Gallos (gallo cock or rooster) either sang well or
had active sexual lives, Gazzas and Gazzanis (gazza
magpie) and Malpighis ( male bad, piga a dialect
word for magpie) made a habit of gossiping or collecting
things, and many Calendris and Calandrinos
( calandra lark) were so named because people believed
larks to be remarkably witless.  Quaglieris
( quaglia quail) were quail hunters.  But Quaglias
and Quaglinos were either easily frightened, lecherous,
or fat, characteristics that reminded people of
the bird.  Some Tassos ( tasso yew tree, anvil, or
badger) made their homes near an arboreal landmark
or were ironworkers, but others tended to
sneak around at night like certain members of the
weasel family.  Volpes ( volpe fox) were cunning,
Orsinos ( orso bear) lumbering, Manzos ( manzo
bullock) taciturn, Botolinos ( botolo snapping cur)
irascible, Cagnas ( cagna bitch) surly, and Buffas
( buffa Sicilian dialect for toad) detestable.  And you
could always tell when a Caprino or Caprini was
present ( caprino goatlike or goat dung).  Nor were
insects ignored: the habitually irritating were either
Zampaglione (the Calabrian word for mosquito), or
Mosca (fly), Moscone (blue-bottle fly), or some variant
(including Mussolini , which, as we have seen,
could be a diminutive of Giacomo ).

            Another group of names--a group Hanks and
Hodges call imperative surnames, or names formed
by the joining of a verb-stem and a noun--displays
an especially playful method of Italian scurrility.
One lacking in imagination could use Povero (poor)
or Scarso (scarce) to name a pauper or a miser.  But
someone with more linguistic flair could use the imperative
to bestow the name Mangiacotti ( mangiare
to eat, cotti bricks).  Baro or Barro ( baro cheat)
was the boring option for christening thieves; more
interesting choices included Mangiavacchi vacchi a
plural of vacca cow), Mangiagalli ( gallo rooster),
or Fumagalli ( fumare to smoke; de Felice says that
such thieves would smoke the chickenkeeper out to
get his charges).  Indelicato (indelicate, unscrupulous)
or Inganni ( inganno deceit) would do if one
was not to be trusted, but Tagliavini ( tagliare to
cut, vino `wine; in other words, one who would
stoop to adulterating wine) had a certain extra
punch.  For those who made ends meet by sponging
meals, Mangiapane ( pane bread) filled the bill.

            Another group of names falls into the either-or
category, in which a well-researched onomastic
history could consign a family to either comforting
averageness or ignominy.  In the case of Licciardo
and such variants as Licciardello , for instance, the
family's honor depends on whether its origins are
Northern or Southern.  Northern Italian Licciardos
can feel at home with all the other Rizzardos, Riccardinis ,
and Ciardos --they are just Ricciardos
(Richard') whose initial R has been transformed by
dialect to L. Southern Licciardos , however, have to
make do with the company of Rotundos, Grassos ,
and Faucis ( fauci gullet): their surname comes from
the French dialect word lichard glutton.

            
               Fazio , another case of either-or, can be a shortening
of the first name Bonifazio , which means good
fate' and which has been popular in Italy owing both
to its meaning and to the fact that it was borne by a
number of saints and popes.  Yet, fazio also means
simpleton.  The explanation for this coincidence
may lie in the Italian expression esser Fra Fazio to
be Brother (or Friar) Fazio, a colloquialism for to
give away money.  This probably alludes either to
the generosity of some Saint Bonifazio or to the
profligacy of Pope Boniface VI.  In any case, it is
hard not to make the connection that a Fazio and his
money were soon parted.

            While it seems likely that fazio the noun as well
as Fazio the name descend from an otherwise benign,
even auspicious name, the history of other
names is not so easy to untangle.  Schettino , for instance,
can be a diminutive of Francesco ; but it also
translates as careless.  Likewise, Pazzo may have
originally been hacked off the end of Giacopazzo , a
pejorative form of Jacob ; but it also means lunatic.
And although the ancestors of some Puzzos might
have lived near a well ( puzza dialect for pozzo well
or fountain), the forebears of others may have
smelled like a sewer ( puzzo stench).  It is not clear
whether the two possible connotations for Schettino,
Pazzo , or Puzzo are related, as in the case of Fazio , or
entirely accidental.  But it does provoke the question,
Do Italians actually think stench when they
meet a Puzzo or pumpkinhead when they meet a
Zucchi?  Did Oriana Fallaci's first editors question
the veracity of her reporting?  ( Fallace fallacious.)
Did the actors in the young Federico Fellini's films
wonder if he would honor their contracts?  ( Fellini
comes from fello wicked or rascally.)  And is the
wholesome image of Annette Funicello spoiled for
Italian mouseketeers who know about the tormento
dei funicelli , or torture of the packthreads, in
which 15th-century Neopolitans painfully lashed together
the wrists and forearms of their prisoners?

            Or do they too, like non-Italians, succumb to
the music of these names and neglect to register
their meaning?  That is my guess.  Italians are not the
only ones to live with the burden of insulting surnames,
of course.  But it seems likely that the melodic
rise and fall of, say, Licciardello can deceive
the ear in a way that--just for an example--its German
equivalent Schlick (Middle High German to
gulp) simply cannot.  Schneck (snail, slow worker)
sounds like an insult; Zoccadelli (nickname for a
stumpy, slow worker) does not.

            Which brings me back to Martin Waldseemuller
and Amerigo Vespucci and why we should give
thanks that the German fell under the spell of the
Italian's first name rather than his last.  Where does
Vespucci come from?  It is the diminutive form of
vespa wasp, and was a nickname given to particularly
ill-tempered individuals.  My fellow Henryans
does not sound so bad after all.
         
         
            
While he was alive, Jack Benny entertained millions.
[From Entertainment Tonight , TV program, .  Submitted by ]
         
         
            
...[S]wamp fever, a sometimes fatal viral infection
spread by biting insects. [From the Philadelphia Inquirer ,
.  Submitted by 
]
         
         
            Easy Does It?



            Anyone who embarks on a foreign language,
whether by syllabus in school or by choice
rather later, soon becomes aware that there are
some special hazards on the fairway; to wit, the handling
of proverbs.

            Like many sports, it can be both entertaining
and frustrating at the same time.  English speakers
command the necessary vocabulary and grammar to
translate the words of a proverb, but they cannot be
sure that the end product will be meaningful in the
target language.  For example, how does one say A
bird in the hand is worth two in the bush in French?
A literal translation would be Un oiseau dans la
main vaut deux dans le buisson.  But the French
equivalent, or near equivalent, is actually Un oiseau
dans la main vaut deux dans la haie , A bird in the
hand is worth two in the hedge.  More to the point,
to express this particular truism the French are more
likely to say something quite different: Un tiens
vaut mieux que deux tu l'auras: One here-you-are
is worth more than two you'll-get-it's. 

            How about German?  There the equivalent is:
Besser ein Spatz in der Hand als eine Taube auf dem
Dach , Better a sparrow in the hand than a dove on
the roof.  A finer distinction: not just one bird for
two, but a lowly bird instead of a lofty one.

            Ornithological differences exist elsewhere, too.
Here is the Russian: He \?\ ,
otherwise Don't promise a crane in
the sky, give me a tit in the hand.  A similar little/
great, low/high distinction--that is, birds that are
not exactly of a feather.

            Spanish?  Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando ,
Better a bird in the hand than a hundred flying.
Again, not quite the same as the English.

            So, appreciating that differences exist, from the
slight to the complete, let us look at some more proverbial
equivalents and see if any generalizations
can be drawn regarding their formation or the home
truths they express.  To save space, the following abbreviations
are used for languages quoted: F = French, G = German, R = Russian,
S = Spanish.  Other languages are spelled out.

            
               Better late than never (F) Mieux vaut tard que
jamais ; (G) Besser spat als nie ; (R) \?\;
(S) Más vale tarde que nunca .  All exactly
the same!  So it can be done, thank goodness!

            
               Birds of a feather flock together Better proceed
with caution here, could be tricky.  (F) Qui se ressemble,
s'assemble Those who resemble one another,
gather together: (G) Gleich und gleich gesellt
sich gern Like and like keep ready company; (R)
\?\ A fisherman sees a fisherman from afar; (S)
Cada oveja con su pareja
Each sheep with its pair.  Here we have a difference
every time, and a range from the French and
German generality to the various birds and beasts of
the other languages.  But at least almost all the proverbs
incorporate a pleasant rhyme (making them
more memorable), while the German nicely alliterates.
The Russian, too, suggests an English alternative:
it takes one to know one .

            
               Don't count your chickens before they are
hatched (F) 
               Il ne faut pas vendre la peau de l'ours
avant de l'avoir tué You should not sell the skin of
the bear before you have killed him; (G) Man soll
die Haut nicht verkaufen, ehe man den Bären
gefangen hat You should not sell the skin before you
have caught the bear; (R) He \?\
Not having killed the bear, do not sell
the skin; (S) No vendas la piel del oso antes de
matarlo Don't sell the skin of the bear before you
have killed him.  The conclusion to be drawn here is
something of a zoological or at any rate ethnic nature:
the bear is far more familiar in continental Europe
than in insular Britain.  Indeed, he is still found
there.  (We are talking about the brown bear, Ursus
arctos , not the black bear of North America,
Euarctos americanus , although that animal is seldom
encountered in much of the United States.)  Moreover,
to Germans and Russians at least, the bear is
both a valuable beast (for his hide and meat) and a
symbolic one (standing for strength and power).  But
the bear has long ceased to be a wild denizen of
Britain, so the British prefer to express the platitude
that one should not promise something one may not
be able to come up with.

            On some beasts, however, the five languages
can more or less agree: Don't look a gift horse in the
mouth (F) À cheval donné on ne regarde pax aux
dents : (G) Einem geschenkten Gaul sieht man nicht
in's Maul; (R) \?\ (S) A caballo regalado, no se
le mira el diente .  The
German once again has the agreeable rhyme.

            Encouraged, we proceed to a change of subject:
A new broom sweeps clean (F) Il n'est rien de tel que
balai neuf There is nothing like a new broom, or Un
balai neuf nettoie toujours bien A new broom always
cleans well; (G) Neue Besen kehren gut New brooms
sweep well; (R) \?\ A new broom sweeps cleanly; (S)
Escoba nueva barre bien A new broom sweeps
well.  Again, unity and concord.

            But there is a hazard coming up: It is no use
crying over spilt milk (F) Ce qui est fait est fait What
is done is done; (G) Was geschehen ist, ist geschehen
What has happened, has happened; (R) \?\
What has been written with the pen cannot be hacked out
with an axe; (S) A lo hecho, pecho To what has been
done, courage [literally breast].  Here we have the
philosophical generality of the French and Germans
with the stoical stance of the Spanish and the more
colorful imagery of the Russians.  English speakers,
too, have an equally vivid turn of phrase, although,
come to think of it, who is likely to shed real tears
over an overturned milkjug?  (Yes, that is the image I
have, too.  But the source of the English proverb lies
not in tea-parties but in teats: it is the cow who has
kicked the bucket, and the poor dairymaid who
weeps over her lost labor.)

            A pattern is already emerging of varying traditions
and differing national identities: the English
maid mourns the milk, but the Russian woodman
cannot alter the written word, hack and hew he
never so well.  On the other hand, many lands see
the world with a single eye: a new broom does
sweep better than one with worn-out bristles.

            Sometimes one needs to name the right names
in the search for an equivalent proverb:

            
               Rome was not built in a day (F) Paris n'est pas
fait en un jour ; (G) Rom is nicht an einem Tage
erbaut ; (R) \?\ (S) No se
ganó Zamora en una hora .  German agrees with English
here, but other countries choose their own cities.
The Spanish pick not their capital, however, but
ancient Zamora, famous for its stand against the invading
Moors in the 10th century.  (The actual sense
is Zamora was not conquered in an hour).  It is fair
to say, though, that a Spaniard might equally side
with the Germans and English speakers, and more
generally add: ni Roma se fundó luego toda nor
Rome built in one go.  And although a Pole might
patriotically declare Nie od razu Kraków zbudowano
(not Warsaw, you notice), he too could well prefer to
throw in his lot with the Romans: Nie Jednego Rzym
zbudowano roku .

            Talking of Romans, one should bear in mind that
almost all proverbs, however modern, however nationalistic,
will have had a Latin original or prototype.
The eight English proverbs cited above thus
have respective equivalents as follows: Plus valet
manibus passer quam sub dubio grus It is better to
have a sparrow in the hand than a crane in doubt;
Sero quam nunquam melius Better late than never,
literally Late than never better; Sic fuit, est et erit:
similis similem sibi quaerit Thus it was, is and will
be; like seeks like for itself: notice the rhyme; Currens
per prata non est lepus esca parata A hare running
through the meadows is not a ready meal: a
nice variation on the bear and his skin; Donati non
sunt ora inspicienda caballi Gift horses do not need
their mouths looking into: Scopae recentiores semper
meliores New brooms are always best; Factum
infectum fieri nequit A deed not done cannot happen:
a negative equivalent to the English positive
What is done cannot be undone as an alternative
to the spilt milk; Roma non fuit una die condita (but
of course, of course).

            So when seeking a foreign proverbial parallel,
proceed with care.  You might get away with an exact
word-for-word equivalent, but more than likely
you might not.  As the Romans had it, Festina lente!
            
         
         
            
In physics, where other forms of misconduct are relatively
rare, I have seen serious breeches of ethics committed
under the cloak of anonymity by referees of journal
articles and research proposals.  [From The American
Scholar , , p. 513.  (Author not supplied.)
Submitted by ]
         
         
            Leaping quantums!


            There is a weekly television program with the
general title Quantum Leap.  When I hear or read
that term--or quantum jump , as it is also put--I cannot
keep from imagining enchanting little quantums
(or quanta) having fun leaping over walls and madly
jumping up and down.  The Concise Oxford Dictionary
defines quantum as a discrete quantity of energy
proportional in magnitude to the frequency of
radiation it represents. Ah, yes.  And it has this for
quantum jump (or leap ): an abrupt transition in an
atom or molecule from one quantum state to another.
Of course.

            For many years quantum leap (or jump ) belonged
exclusively to the physicists, but during the
past quarter-century or so it has come to be used
metaphorically by speakers and writers who like to
flaunt that sort of thing.  It now designates a sudden,
spectacular, extensive change in a program or policy
or process--a major breakthrough, or something
along that line.  But long before the physicists got
hold of quantum it was used by ordinary writers.
The OED reports that quantum (from the Latin
quantus: how much, how great) has been used in
English since early in the 17th century.

            In 1786 Robert Burns used it in his poem,
Epistle to a Young Friend, in which he, interestingly,
warned against casual sexual indulgence: I
waive the quantum o' the sin, / The hazard of concealing;
/ But, och! it hardens a' within, / And petrifies
the feeling.  The OED does not give Burns's use
of the word as an example, but other Scots may have
been influenced by it.  Thomas Carlyle in 1857,
wrote of Some smaller quantum of earthly enjoyment.
Edward Caird, theologian and philosopher,
in 1877 offered this observation: All phenomena,
as perceived, are extensive quanta.  (I must memorize
that: it could useful as a conversation muddler.)
The OED Supplement devotes nearly seven columns
to quantum and compounds in which it is used.

            Critics point out that in physics a quantum leap
is actually a very small change, but nevertheless a
significant one.  Despite the illogical element in the
popular, metaphorical use of the phrase, it does
seem to have become firmly imbedded in current
discourse.  But perhaps it has already become what
Fowler called a battered ornament.

            While reading about quantum in the OED Supplement ,
I noticed the preceding word, quantophrenia ,
which is defined as A term used for an obsession
with and exaggerated reliance upon mathematical
methods or results, especially in research connected
with the social sciences.  It also gives quantophrenic .
Useful words, clinically.
         
         
            Lexicographic Quirks and Whimsy



            
               
                  lexicographer ...A writer of dictionaries; a
harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing
the original, and detailing the signification of
words.

               --Johnson's Dictionary
               
            

            Whether mainstream lexicographers are harmless
is very much open to doubt, but
drudges they certainly are.  Dr. Johnson's definition,
curiously, marks one of those rare occasions when
the drudge rebels against his drudgery and defiantly
indulges in a moment's humor or whimsy.  The lexicographic
mind, Ambrose Bierce observed in one
of his newspaper columns, is a merely human affair
and will occasionally cut its capers.

            Such humor or whimsy tends, in Johnson's work
at any rate, to be of a fairly cynical turn--in keeping
both with his general opinionatedness and with his
specific feelings of demoralization while compiling
the dictionary in the run-up to its publication in
1755.  Hence those various other acid chestnuts of
his:


oats... A grain, which in England is generally
given to horses, but in Scotland supports the
people.

patron... One who countenances, supports or
protects.  Commonly a wretch who supports
with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

pension... An allowance made to any one without
an equivalent.  In England it is generally
understood to mean pay given to a state hireling
for treason to his country.

            

            (The Cynical Definition went on to become a kind of
literary genre, thanks especially to Ambrose Bierce.)

            Johnson's opposite number in North America,
Noah Webster, was hardly a wit of the same order,
but he too seems to have occasionally injected a
(somewhat plodding) cynical humor into the definitions
in his dictionary of 1828:


viceregent... A lieutenant; a vicar; an officer
who is deputed by a superior or by proper authority
to exercise the powers of another.
Kings are sometimes called God's viceregents.
It is to be wished they would always deserve
the appellation.
            

            It is possible that much of the supposed humor
in Webster's dictionary is unintentional--a 20th
century response to his earnestly homiletic approach
to lexicography.  Certainly some of his definitions--really,
short moral tracts--cannot fail to
arouse a condescending smile today, so quaint do
they seem across a distance of 165 years.  The entry
at vice , for instance, ends with these helpful words:


Vice is rarely a solitary invader; it usually brings
with it a frightful train of followers.
            

            The monumental Oxford English Dictionary
[ OED ], now in its second edition and filling 20 vast
volumes, contains many extremely quaint definitions
that were written a hundred years ago or more and
remain unrevised:


amœba... A microscopic animalcule (class
Protozoa) consisting of a single cell of gelatinous
sarcode, the outer layer of which is highly
extensile and contractile, and the inner fluid
and mobile, so that the shape of the animal is
perpetually changing.
            

            And this from an edition published in 1989 and purportedly
up to date!

            Unintended humor in dictionaries would usually
originate elsewhere.  First, simply, in a severe
error within the definition.  One American dictionary,
which I cannot identify, apparently defines the
British slang term pooftah as a lady's man (possibly
a misfire for an effeminate man, a secondary
sense nowadays, after a male homosexual).  It is
difficult to explain to a non-Brit just how funny this
misdefinition is--almost as funny as Webster's attempt
at defining wicket-keeper : the player in
cricket who stands with a bat to protect the wicket
from the ball.  (One might expect bilingual dictionaries
to abound in such confusions, yet I have no
record of any: simple mistakes, yes, but nothing in
the least risible).

            Early dictionaries are obviously riddled with bizarre
errors of fact.  In what is probably the very first
English dictionary, published in about 1623, Henry
Cockeram unskeptically defines animals according
to current folklore: the ignarus singeth six kinds of
notes, one after another, as, la-sol-me-fa-me-re-ut
(there is no arguing when the details are so specific);
the barble is a Fish that will not meddle with the
baite untill with her taile she have unhooked it from
the hooke.  Nathan Bailey, whose dictionary of
1721 was to guide-Johnson's own work, happily defined
the Loriot or Golden Oriole as a bird that,
being looked upon by one who has the yellow jaundice,
cures the person and dies himself.

            Errors may be typographical rather than lexicographical.
One gremlin has a Nazi streak, I notice.
Here are a couple of his pranks:


Oświecim... it lies near the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
extermination camp, where, between
1942 and 1945, some 4,000 people,
mostly German and east European Jews, were
systematically put to death by the Nazis.
[Great Illustrated Dictionary, first printing,
Reader's Digest, London, 1984; subsequently
corrected to read 4,000,000 people.]

parev/parve referring to foods prepared with
meat or milk products and therefore suitable
for any meal.  [Reader's Digest Reverse Dictionary,
first printing, London, 1989; subsequently
corrected to read prepared without meat or
milk products.]
            

            Next, the wackiness of the concept or word itself,
whose dutiful definition cannot fail to provoke a
gasp of comic disbelief--wackiness often being in
direct proportion to rudeness.  Bilingual dictionaries
are the major source:


raphanidoo thrust a radish up the fundament, a
punishment of adulterers in Athens.  [Liddell
and Scott's Greek English Lexicon, OUP]

            

            These call for special treatment.

            
               Defenestration the act of throwing someone out
of a window is probably too familiar to attract notice
of how wacky it is, but what about the following?:


sooterkin... Dutch woman's afterbirth allegedly
produced by sitting over stove.  [Concise OED,
seventh edition; omitted in the current, eighth
edition.]

mephistopheles... A beard consisting solely of
the hairs between the lower lip and the chin,
often waxed and shaped in an upward curve.
[Reader's Digest Dictionary]

merkin... an artificial hairpiece for the pudendum;
a public wig.  [Collins English Dictionary,
third edition.]

koro a mental state...in which the subject experiences
the sensation that his penis is shriveling
or is being drawn into the abdomen.  [Stedman's
Medical Dictionary, Baltimore]

mallemaroking... carousing of seamen in icebound
ships.  [Chambers English Dictionary,
1988]
            

            
               OED2e avoids spelling out the definition of merkin
in this way, but does add the following mind-spinning
citation:


Variant reporters interviewed a French public wig
maker, the head of one of the world's most important
firms making merkins and other intimate
wigs.
            

            The implications here are stupendous--not just that
there are types of intimate wig other than merkins,
but also that there are several other merkin-factories
round the world vying for the honor of
most important firm, and a great many more such
factories that are of lesser importance.

            Next, a comic disproportion between the simplicity
of the word being defined and the earnestly
detailed complexity of the definition:


network... Any thing reticulated or decussated,
at equal distances, with interstices between the
intersections. [Dr. Johnson again.]

acorn... the nut of the oak usu. seated in or surrounded
by a hard woody cupule of indurated
bracts.  [Merriam-Webster III.]
            

            Two of Merriam-Webster III's weirdest definitions
are the famously convoluted wordings at the main
senses of door and hotel .

            Then, the monumentally unsuccessful definition,
with a bizarre failure to elucidate-- ignotum
per ignotius , explaining the unknown by means of
the incomprehensible:


cactolith... A quasi-horizontal chonolith composed
of anastomising ductoliths, whose distal
ends curl like a harpolith, thin like a sphenolith,
or bulge discordantly like an akmolith or
ethmolith.  [Glossary of Geology and Related
Sciences, American Geological Institute, 1957.]

kophobelemnonidae... A family of stelechotokean
anthozoons, belonging to the alcyonarians,
with a rachis longer than peduncle, cylindrical
and with pararachides provided with
retractile autozooids in indefinite rows.  [Funk
& Wagnalls New Standard]
            

            Serious dictionaries are likely to let down their
hair more often in the examples they choose or construct
to illustrate a meaning than in the wording of
the definitions themselves.  To illustrate the expletive
use of the word damn , for instance, H.C. Wyld's
Universal Dictionary of the English Language
[George Routledge and Sons, 1932] prints the
phrase damn this dictionary .  To illustrate the sense
and syntax of partial `having a particular liking for a
different Universal Dictionary [Reader's Digest
1987] offers the example very partial to fat Turkish
cigarettes and strawberries .

            The recently published Oxford Thesaurus , by
Laurence Urdang, contains thousands of example
sentences to illustrate usage, including a sprinkling
of quirky specimens, all from the American Edition;
these were excised from the British Edition on the
grounds that they were distracting

jump...10...My horse cleared the jump easily,
but I didn't quite make it.

retrieve...1...1...Simon trained his dog to retrieve
his slippers--Simon's, that is.

take...26...They asked me to take the part of
Yorick in the next production of Hamlet.

traumatic...Surviving a plane crash may be a
traumatic experience, but it can't compare with
being killed.
            

            The zaniest example I know of occurs in a bilingual
dictionary published in 1966, the Ensk-Islensk
Ordabók [English-Icelandic Dictionary] of Sigurour
Orn Bogason.  The headword toad is duly glossed, as
padda, karta , and then--quite needlessly--illustrated,
with this remarkably elucidating sentence:
the toad was delighted to see his mother again .
(Bogason's dictionary is notable for another curious
feature: the entry for the word disappear was somehow
omitted, or perhaps it simply disappeared.  Was
it a deliberate joke, comparable to the omission,
from the spellcheck subroutine of WordPerfect 5.0,
of lost?)
            

            To return to whimsical definitions.  The mainstream
lexicographic minds that cut far and away the
most capers to relieve the drudgery are those that
have compiled Chambers English Dictionary over
the decades [Edinburgh; latest edition, 1988].  (Previous
contributions to VERBATIM have noted some of
these: see XV , 1, p. 5; XV, 3, p. 18.)  The game began
nearly a century ago with the 1898 edition, under
its second editor Rev.  Thomas Davidson (any relation
of J.A. Davidson, who wrote the article in XV ,
1).  Through the dictionary's various editions and
changes of name, the whimsical definitions waxed
and waned, until the 1972 edition purged almost all
of them from the text.  Following a great deal of outraged
protest from traditionalist readers, most of the
famous definitions were rehabilitated in the 1983
edition and can still be found in the current edition.
Let them now speak for themselves.  Here is a selection
of the best (those marked with an asterisk are
not in the current edition, never having been reinstated
after an earlier expulsion).


Agapemone,... a religious community of men
and women whose spiritual marriages were in
some cases not strictly spiritual, founded in
1849 at Spaxton...

bump,... a protuberance on the head confidently
associated by phrenologists with qualities
or propensities of mind

charity begins at home, usually an excuse for
not allowing it to get abroad

double-locked,... locked by two turns of the
key, as in some locks and many novels

éclair,... a cake, long in shape but short in duration,
with cream filling and chocolate or
other icing

fish,... v.i. to catch or try to catch or obtain fish,
or anything that may be likened to a fish (as
seals, sponges, coral, compliments, information,
husbands...)

*ghost-word, a word that has originated in the
blunder of a scribe or printer--common in dictionaries

*hagweed, the common broom-plant--a broomstick
being a witch's usual aircraft

*havana...a fine quality of cigar, named from
Havana, the capital of Cuba, fondly supposed
to be made there

he-man, a man of exaggerated or extreme virility,
or what some women take to be virility

jay-walker, a careless pedestrian whom motorists
are expected to avoid running down

*Land o' the Leal, the home of the blessed after
death--Paradise, not Scotland

*lunch...a restaurateur's name for an ordinary
man's dinner

man-eater, a cannibal: a tiger or other animal
that has acquired the habit of eating men: a
woman given to chasing, catching and devouring
men (coll.)

middle-aged...between youth and old age, variously
reckoned to suit the reckoner

nice...agreeable, delightful, respectable (often
used in vague commendation by those who are
not nice...)

noose...a snare or bond generally, esp. hanging
or marriage

*ozone...an imagined constituent in the air of
any place that one wishes to commend

perpetrate...to execute or commit (esp. an offence,
a poem, or a pun)

petting party, (coll.) a gathering for the purpose
of amorous caressing as an organised sport

Pict,... in Scottish folklore, one of a dwarfish
race of underground dwellers, to whom (with
the Romans, the Druids and Cromwell) ancient
monuments are generally attributed

picture-restorer, one who cleans and restores
and sometimes ruins old pictures

restoration...renovations and reconstruction
(sometimes little differing from destruction) of
a building, painting, etc.

sea-serpent, an enormous marine animal of serpent-like
form, frequently seen and described
by credulous sailors, imaginative landsmen, and
common liars

*temperance hotel, one which professes to supply
no alcoholic liquors; temperance movement,
a political and not always temperate agitation
for the restriction or abolition of the use
of alcoholic liquors

*vamp, a featherless bird of prey
            
         
         

            Further to the comment in the review of the
20th Century Brewer [ XVIII,4 ]: Hashbury is a derivation
from the names of two intersecting San Francisco
streets: Haight and Ashbury .  The neighborhood,
often known as The Haight or The Haight-Ashbury
was, in the 1960s, a center of the hippie/
flower child movement.  It is certainly true that the
main drug used was grass, but there was widespread
drug experimentation, with so much familiarity with
hash that the play on the three words hash, Haight ,
and Ashbury was inevitable.

            Perhaps the new Brewer does mention this
background, and my comments are redundant.



         
         
            John A. Fust suggests [ XVIII, 1 ] that I list to a
Canutian position in an effort to drag the populace
from such aberrations as It's me.  Fust labels my
view, Canutian... more gracious than the
jargonal, Knutty.  The sage from Chatauqua asks,
rhetorically.


Could anyone imagine Hemingway... sitting in
the grandstand at Yankee Stadium, hot dog (with
mustard) in hand, asking, Whom are you rooting
for?
            

            Such a gaffe would have been mind-boggling from
the author of Who the Bells Tolled For ...



         
         
            More Texas Prison Slang



            Slang collected in the Texas prison at Huntsville
is that used by prisoners, not by the prison's
employees.  Some of the expressions originated during
riots, or thrill killings, or both.  Prisons are ugly;
so are the prisoners; so is the slang.

            Before prison reforms of the early 1980s, the
prisons were run mostly by prisoners who were
strictly accountable to strategically scattered guards,
comparatively few in number.  Many of the disciplinary
measures then used by state employees and
supervising prisoners are now illegal.  With or without
the knowledge of state employees, torture to the
point of death was not uncommon, and some of the
words in the following list refer to torture.  It is evident
that the torturers had several different motives:
to humiliate, crush, or punish the victim; to force
him to cooperate; to learn the location of valuables
outside; to assert one prison gang's dominance
over another; to give the torturer a macho trip.

            Even after the reforms, prison is far more dangerous
than most non-prison environments.  But reforms
led to more direct state supervision, more
prison units were built, and the prison became less
like a huge collection of hellish sardine cans.  Although
the long overdue reforms came, the slang
lingers on.

            Some of the following expressions, like writ
room, must have had their beginnings in states of
tranquillity.  Not so with words like skill and singarette .
The spellings of a few of the words, like
singarette and worman, are attempts at reflecting
their pronounciation, for they have no spelled tradition.

            
               A-1 Sauce 1.  the blood of a prisoner-victim killed
in a cell on the Wynne Units A-1 block.  2.  any
blood spilled anywhere.

            
               air-raid See singarette.
            

            
               all-night popcorn marvellous; great: When things
are going your way, it's like all-night popcorn .

            
               autocrats car thieves.

            
               banker a prisoner who runs The United Stakes of
America or the property pooling system, on a
cell block or in a tank.
            

            
               big I the F.B.I.
            

            
               bombs 1.  the manual dismemberment of a victim in
order to make identification more difficult. 2. the
nickname given to prisoners who dismember their
victims.

            
               building tender (before reform) a prisoner designated
to maintain order on a cell block; the methods
used and building tenders themselves are no
longer legal.

            
               catch the chain to be transferred to another prison
unit.

            
               cell warrior a prisoner who talks tough when he is
safely in his cell but who is meek when out of it.

            
               cho-cho ice cream.

            
               chocolate mocha the name given by a prisoner of
Latin-American origin to a concoction of feces and
warm water that he offered to a sick gringo
prisoner.

            
               Chuck Taylors tennis shoes.

            
               collector one who extorts money from other prisoners.

            
               cure a folk remedy sold and administered by Mexican-American
maestros to sick gringo prisoners
(which always makes them sicker).

            
               Cyclops a prisoner with a glass eye.

            
               daughter a pimp's prostitute.

            
               dims sadness; depression; melancholy: an attack of
the dims .

            
               dine to eat with cannibals.

            
               director, the a pimp who “directs” prostitutes.

            
               Elmers, the nickname for homicidal maniacs similar
to the well-publicized one named Elmer .

            
               fram to frame a person for an act he did not commit.

            
               free world the world beyond prison walls.

            
               gill kill.

            
               Grinch nickname for a collector.
            

            
               guacamole feces.

            
               huffable any substance capable of causing a high
when sniffed.

            
               Johnnies sack lunches for prisoners unable to avoid
missing a meal in the dining room.  They are sometimes
served during lulls in riots.

            
               klondyke, klon derogatory nickname for any female
prison employee.  [Play on dyke lesbian.]

            
               lockdown the confinement of all prisoners to their
cells, as during a riot.

            
               maestro Tex-Mex lingo for practitioners of Latin-American-style
folk medicine, which they both
sell and administer.

            
               Maxicans the most influential and presumably
powerful of the Mexican-American prisoners.

            
               metamorphosis the butchery of a prisoner, e.g., by
the castration of males, removal of the breasts of
females; a term used by some Latin-American
prisoners.

            
               nobodies prisoners.

            
               notspitals any of the prison system's medical facilities
that supposedly provide in-patient care and
are loosely described as hospitals.

            
               other side, on the dead.  [From Cuban Spanish En
el otro lado .]

            
               PBS, on the generally circulated details of a person's
life.  [From the initials of the old Public
Broadcasting System.]

            
               out there in the free world.
            

            
               piddler a prisoner who participates in the prison's
crafts programs.

            
               piddling room a craft shop for prisoner recreation,
supervised by prison employees.

            
               pistols leather riding gloves sold in the prison commissary,
sometime worn during prison fist fights in
order to scar an opponent's face.

            
               porcupine beef a meat patty rolled in rice and
chopped onion before cooking.  [Not literally from
porcupine.]

            
               pretzel the position of a prisoner immobilized by
being handcuffed behind and, with his knees bent,
having his crossed ankles shackled; used in subduing
particularly unruly prisoners.

            
               proteen a teenaged professional criminal.

            
               rock and roll 1.  a drug mixture. 2. to fight.

            
               Rockefellers a gang of prisoners who specialize in
rape in the free world.  [The rocks referred to are
the gang members' testicles.]

            
               rots (formerly) as in He's got the rots, refers to having
been placed in an isolation cell deprived of
food, water, and medical care.

            
               run a walkway on a cell block.

            
               set off postpone; usually used in reference to a set
off parole .

            
               shakedown a search of a prisoner or his cell.

            
               shot a spoonful of dry instant coffee.

            
               singarette one of a number of lit cigarettes used in
torturing a prisoner to make him confess (that is,
sing ); dozens of cigarettes so used constitute an air
raid.
            

            
               skill 1.  to kill. 2. the conditioning by torture of a
victim over an extended period to make him obedient.

            
               slay ride a punning reference to ride in a vehicle in
which the victim is slain.

            
               somebodies prison employees.

            
               spoked (of a prisoner-victim) forced to use a
wheelchair (with spoked wheels) because his legs
have been broken.

            
               Spokes nickname of a prisoner who has been
spoked.
            

            
               square a cigarette from a pack.

            
               stinger an electric water heater sold by the prison
commissary for making coffee, tea, or soup.

            
               stoon 1. to decorate a human victim with cigarette
burns as a means of torture. 2. the corpse of a
victim murdered in this way.  [From festoon .]

            
               stuck out 1.  left out. 2. locked out. 3. overlooked.

            
               tag, on restricted to one's cell, said of a prisoner in
the psychiatric treatment center.

            
               tank a large cell that can accommodate many prisoners.

            
               tank boss (formerly, before reform) a prisoner-supervisor
of a tank.
            

            
               Tex-Mex the lingo spoken by many bilingual Texans
who combine English and Spanish in the same
sentences.

            
               That the carnage that occurred during a riot: No
one wants to go through That again!
            

            
               T. Jones black slang for mother .

            
               trainee See trainer.
            

            
               trainer an enforcer who specializes in prolonged
torture to elicit certain conditioned responses
from his victims, or trainees, who become highly
obedient.

            
               training physical obedience training.

            
               transmogrify to maim and kill.

            
               turnkey (formerly, before reform) a prisoner-supervisor
who locked and unlocked hallway
doors.

            
               Vampire, the a laboratory technician in an infirmary
who takes blood samples.

            
               vulcanize to inflict severe burns on a victim, causing
him to become a stoon.
            

            
               wampus 1.  a female used as a medium of exchange.
2. white slavery.  [From wampum .]

            
               wham a cookie.  [From a trade name?]

            
               worman a decomposing corpse of a woman infested
with maggots.

            
               writ room the law library used by prisoners.

            
               writ writer 1.  a prison attorney; a barrackroom
lawyer.  2.  a litigious prisoner.

            
               zoom 1.  anything that causes a high.  2. the
high itself.  3.  to get high.

            
               zu-zu a cookie.  [From the trade name.]
         
         
            Old...What?


            Some areas of the world are particularly rich in
strange names, and my own--the Banff and Buchan
district in Grampian, Scotland--must be one of the
best.

            Fancy a plod up Plodhill Wood?  Or a toddle up
Toddlehills?  Or would you rather go to pot at Mill of
Pot?  And how would you like to live in Lightnot,
Whigabuts, Rashypans, Waggle Hill, Clattering-briggs,
or Crawheat?
            

            You could have a very gay time on Happyhillock
or Merryhillock, a rotten time on Rottenhill, a gruesome
time at Gallowhills, and it is up to you what
you do on Ballhill !  How would a trip to Spital grab
you?  Is Dumpstown really a dump?  If you really
want a holiday with a difference, how about Mill of
Kinmuck, Scoghill, Rumblingpots, Swineden, or
Boghouse?  If the pressures of life get the better of
you, there's North Bedlam, Hardbedlam, or even
Myre of Bedlam!  And if your memory fails, there is
even an Oldwhat.
            

            When all is said and done, you can take off to
Waterloo, Farewell, or Worldsend.
            
         
         

            Although Freud, so far as I know, did not discuss
Spoonerisms on his classic analysis of slips-of-the-tongue,
his theories as to the psychoanalytic implications
of transposed sounds, such as those attributed
to Rev. Spooner, could have been usefully added to
Learn To Spike Lunars [ XVIII , 4] by Robert Archibald
Ford.  Let me suggest two examples:

            Spooner's most widely quoted slip was his firm
announcement to a student, You have hissed my
mystery lecture.  The conventional response to this
amusing transposition is A funny jab at a recalcitrant
pupil.  However, Freud, I am sure, would
have stressed how the slip reveals anxieties that all
lecturers, including Rev. Spooner, harbor about addressing
an audience.  For example, hissed...my
lecture clearly reflects a reality that few professors
are willing to voice: that their gems of wisdom are
not universally praised--in fact, are sometimes denounced,
usually in private, as platitudinous and
simplistic.  In like fashion, my mystery lecture exposes
the unconscious fear of obfuscation, turgidity,
and other obstacles to clarity on the part of the
speaker.  In both of these instances, Freud would argue
that Spooner merely voiced what has long been
repressed in Academe.

            Another case: Television reporter, Roger Mudd,
in his early days as a radio announcer, was called
upon to present an update on the ill health of the
Pope.  The announcement came out as, The condition
of Pipe Pois grows steadily worse.  Mudd, roaring
with laughter, immediately blanked out the
sound.  Back in control, he meant to say, The
Pope's doctor has summoned to the Vatican a Swiss
specialist, but this, to Mudd's chagrin, came out as
The Pope's doctor has summoned to the Vatican a
Swish specialist.

            If Freud had had his say on the significance of
this Spoonerism he would probably have assumed
that Mudd unconsciously voiced not only his unspoken
disrespect for the Pope but also gave vent to the
universally repressed notion that it is conceivable
that a Pope could be a homosexual.

            I am not suggesting that all the fun should be
taken out of Spoonerisms; but, when transposed
sounds reveal profound universal anxieties, then
perhaps we should go beyond merely enjoying a
good laugh.



         
         

            I enjoyed Robert Archibald Ford's article on
spoonerisms, Learn to Spike Lunars [ XVIII , 4].  He
and your readers, if they appreciate the French language,
will realize that slips of the tongue in the
English language are laughably unfunny to the
French who speak the only language in the world
that lends itself so beautifully to what they call a
contrèpeterie .

            For the French, in all walks of life, to render
one sound for another is not a slip but an art, practised
equally studiously in bistros as well as in the
salons of nobles, academicians, and beautiful people.
When translated into English the words and
thoughts that are spirituel [in the sense of witty] or
cochon [in the sense of licentious] become crude
locker-room obscenities.  Many translations into
English of the nouns le con and la queue, for example,
grate.  They shock with sound, and not always
with image.  But these, and like words, when formed
in the mouth and on the lips of the French are soft,
inviting, amusing.  The f-verb in French is the same
as for kiss: baiser .  Calling a man a con is not insulting
until you change your mind and add that he has
ni la douceur, ni la profondeur of that lovable object.
For the most part, what is irreverent, scatological, or
pornographic in French sounds benign, and is, of
course, plein d'esprit .

            (It is not within the province of this letter to
delve into the principal female and male sexual organs
and ponder why they have reversed genders.
For the French, it just fits.)

            I have never come across a contrepèterie that
was not off-color or irreverent, or touched on sex.
That is Gallic, I guess.  Let us start with irreverence:

Femme folle à la messe
vs.
Femme molle à la fesse
--Rabelais
La joyeuse population du Cap
not
La joyeuse copulation du Pape
            

            (A high-school French-English dictionary will
handle most of these.  For the vulgar meanings of a
couple of the words in the last contrepèteries, something
like Le Petit Robert: Dictionnaire de la Langue
Francaise will be needed.  I cringe at having to put
those innocuous words into feelthy English.)

            Grounds Maintenance and Home Economics
(including sex in the kitchen):

Il ne faut pas glisser dans la piscine
do not say
Il ne faut pas pisser dans la glycine
            

            is the genus Wisteria in the plant kingdom.

Le linge qui séche
but not
Le singe qui léche
Madame: votre mouton bouille
not
Madame: votre bouton mouille
            

            Sex in the drawing room:

La duchesse braquait sa lorgnette sur le jeune homme
qui descendait en ballon
vs.
La duchesse lorgnait la braquette du jeune homme
qui débandait dans le salon
            

            To prove by exception, I bring this to an end
with a contrepèterie employing a word that sounds
shitty even in French:

La philanthropie de l'ouvrier charpentier
not
La tripe en folie de l'ouvrier partant chier
            

            I would like to thank all my French friends who
have furthered my contrepeteric education.  Although
there are many volumes of collections of contrepèterie,
I would be delighted to learn of fresh and
new ones--even clean ones.

            Afterthoughts: Speaking of/in French, I am surprised
that no reader has yet commented on the Colonial
American English 
               alamode ( v .), [ XVIII, 3].  It
might have been a very over here in 1796, but for
the French, then as now, it is adjectival.  À la mode in
the fashion [of]' is generally followed by a place
name: tripes à la mode de Caen .  The abbreviated
boeuf à la mode --no geography necessary for this
national plat du jour --is, of course, and as correctly
described in Amelia Simmons's American Cookery,
a round of Beef cooked with spices and
vegetables.



         
         

            Philip Weinberg's EPISTOLA [ XVIII, 2] regarding
the Russian word for railroad station in Bryson's
English Know-How, No Problem [ XVIII, 4] deserves
a comment: While loan words often undergo
vast changes in meaning when introduced into a new
language, the change from the whole to one of at
least two of its parts (assuming there would have
been a First Class waiting room for a Volksaal [ sic ] to
make sense) in this case seemed too far-fetched.
And phonetically, Volk ... which has an initial f-sound
seemed too removed from vag ... to apply.
Indeed, Langenscheidt's Russian-German Pocket Dictionary
has the entry fol'klor which reflects the
sound correctly (the letter l has a soft sign after it),
meaning Volkskunst or folklore.  The dictionary
also gives vokzal, stressed on the second syllable, as
Bahnhof or railroad station.  It turns out, then,
that Bryson's rendering of the word in his article,
vagzal, is the phonetic spelling rather than the transcription
of the word.

            Although zal is Russian for Saal large room,
the Volk ... part is very implausible.  On the other
hand, the V, au -sound, and x in Vauxhall are satisfactorily
represented by the VOKS sequence so that the
etymology given by Bryson appears to be preferable.



         
         

            Further to voksal --Russian for railway station--although
not to its etymology.  In the early
1950s, before overflight and satellite programs had
been developed, the CIA included amongst its collection
programs one of briefing selected travelers
to the Soviet Union and debriefing them on their
return.  These were not recruited agents, simply
assets.

            There were numbers of factories and other installations
to which no access was possible, which
were encapsulated in small triangles (or sometimes
rectangles) formed by the nearest roads and railroads.
By carefully briefing an observer who was to
travel that road or rail line as to the beginning and
end of the bounding segment and having him make a
count a count of electrical, water, or gas lines crossing
the stretch and of side roads, rail spurs, and the
like, it was possible, after all three legs had been
traversed by observers, for analysts to make surprisingly
accurate estimates of the size and significance--even
the nature--of the targeted installation.

            One mysterious factory was enclosed by two
public roads and a rail line, little used by foreigners,
on which the only scheduled train passed the required
checkpoints in the dead of night.  The roads
were no problem, but it took a year to find an American
businessman with an excuse to travel that rail
line--and he spoke no Russian.  He was, however,
taught the Cyrillic alphabet and could transcribe
signs.

            On his return, he reported phenomenal luck.
There had been a lengthy unscheduled stop at a
small station at 2 a.m., thanks to a hot box, and
the passengers had been allowed off the train to
stretch their legs.  He had wandered several hundred
yards up the line where he had found, crossing it, a
large cluster of transmission lines, an oil line, assorted
piping, and a bridge with, even at that hour,
heavy truck traffic.  He was not quite sure all this
was within the specified stretch of track, as it was
pitch black and the best we had been able to give
him was an estimate of the times the train would
enter and leave the segment.  But he made a careful
count of everything and copied down the name of
the town from the sign on the station platform.

            What was it?  we asked eagerly.

            Voksal, he proudly replied.




         
         

            In my upcoming Greek Tragedies, I often refer
to the Chorus.  The problem is whether or not to
consider the noun singular.  That depends.  In some
contexts, the Chorus is thought of as a unit (as it is in
this very sentence).  We would not say, The Chorus
are thought of as a unit.  But there are times when
the noun seems to cry out for a plural verb:


The Chorus enter shortly after, almost in panic at
the threatened attack by Polyneices.

            

            The word panic, at least to me, suggests individual
reactions.  Members panic.  Collective nouns do not.
Sometimes the distinction is almost metaphysical.

            The following classic pair of sentences makes
the point more unequivocally:


My family is going to California this summer.
Don's family are taking separate vacations.

            

            I wish my Chorus contexts were as easy to decide.



         
         

            The review of the new Random House Webster
Dictionary [ XVIII, 1] gave space to the matter of inconsistent
hyphenation, which I appreciated, and I
also agreed with the reviewer's comments regarding
the admittance of so-called naughty bits into the
dictionary.  But I was surprised, upon reading Time's
review of this dictionary [June 24, 1991], to realize
that there were issues raised there that were not
touched upon in VERBATIM.  I wish attention had
been given to these rather than some of those to
which space was devoted, ones I consider of less
consequence, such as the use of the name Webster,
the dating of words such as ordinals, and the cost of
the dictionary in per-word terms--and the cost of
college dictionaries in general.  While each of these
subjects is of interest, they pale in comparison to the
central issued raised in the Time review, namely of
whether a dictionary is better simply because it has
more words in it, words which are included if only to
mirror the language of the moment, e.g. womyn
( pl .), herstory, waitron, and Mirandize .

            In short, just because a new word has been
coined does not mandate its publication in dictionaries
in the frequency to which we have become victim
over the past thirty-odd years.  I have no statistics
to back me up, but it is my impression that, as
the rate of publication of English dictionaries has increased
over the past few decades, the fabrication of
new words has similarly increased.  A kind of Parkinson's
Law may be in effect here: words will increase
in number to occupy the pages publishers are willing
to print.  Meanwhile, can we not say that accurate
use of the language has declined, both in the
meaning of words and in their syntax?  Or, put another
way, have we not become too lazy to look
things up in the dictionary and too prone instead to
make up another word in place of the one we have
forgotten or never learned in the first place?

            I would like to think that a college dictionary is
best which is easy to use because it answers basic
questions about commonly used vocabulary: spelling,
pronounciation, meaning, part of speech, synonym,
and antonym.  Perhaps, because it probably
serves most students as the single source for such
matters, it should also include those addenda which,
in Webster's 9th, consume 188 pages, e.g. a list of
abbreviations, a gazetteer, etc.  However, let it become
cluttered with etymologies, essays, and vocabulary
that, I think, belong in more encyclopedic
tomes and published at less frequent intervals, and
the result is a cumbersome volume that I, for one,
would not be inclined to use as the handy reference
a college dictionary implies.

            Would a lexicographer agree?



         
         

            I have been entertained by the discussions of
computerized hyphenation [ XVI, 4; XVII, 3].  There
is no one alive who is more enthusiastic about computers
than I.  For one thing, I make my living by
manipulating words on them.  Whether it is right to
abandon any part of the creative process to them,
however, is another.

            And creativity is indeed involved in hyphenation--not
in recognizing rules and conventions and
exceptions, but rather in deciding whether (and
how) to apply those rules, conventions, and exceptions.

            The decision is often aesthetic, which is where
computers are useless.  One may hyphenate, but
should one?  No hyphenation algorithm has been invented
to control rivers of white space, nor to distinguish
between pro-ject (verb) and proj-ect (noun,
unless one is Canadian).

            Someday, however, even that may change.  After
all, it has been 15 years, since the early days of computerized
typesetting, that I've seen anything to compare
with the single article about sexual dysfunction
in a newspaper in Virginia that contained these two
algorithm-driven hyphenations: the-rapist and
mole-ster.



         
         

            In OBITER DICTA [ XVIII, 4, 15], you remark that
older has come to mean, in certain contexts at least,
less old than old.  I have another example, well established
although not part of the vernacular, of a
comparative gone into reverse.  Real-estate firms
and agents around here routinely use newer on written
house descriptions to mean recent but not new.
For fear of litigation the companies use new only if
the roof, carpet, or whatever was replaced at the
time of listing.  Even recent is avoided because it is
thought to imply something newer than newer,
whereas a furnace up to two years old can safely be
described as newer .  Customers sometimes inquire
about the word and laugh when it is translated; it is
confined to print and may be considered an encapsulated
piece of real-estate trade jargon without the
currency of your older .



         
         

            As an adjunct to your article on PC [“Politically
Correct Nomenclature, XVIII, 4], I submit the following
output of my PC (Personal Computer).

            The NHL is planning an expansion franchise in a
Florida city.  The mascot is to be the Lightnings.
Since I am a degreed electrical engineer, I must do a
lot of soul-searching to determine if any of my
brother engineers and electricians should be offended.
I mean that, if some Native Americans (and
the usual liberal protesters) are being offended by
such mascots as the Chiefs , the Redskins, and the Indians,
maybe the NHL ought to consider the feelings
of us Nerds .  After all, I can visualize such headlines
as Coach fails to spark Lightnings, Lightnings
strike twice in Toronto, Bruins singed by Lightnings,
etc.  How can anybody conceive of such insensitivity
on the part of the NHL?
            



         
         
            Name Withheld



            Over the years and especially recently, in connection
with the publication of the vast Omni Gazetteer
of the United States of America (Omnigraphics,
1991) [ XVIII , 2], contributors have commented on
the curious and funny names one can find in almost
any listing of place names.  I have seen no criticism,
however, of the total lack of imagination evident in
the naming of many roads, avenues, boulevards,
streets, etc.  On a recent expedition by car, I noted a
large number of roads with names like P Avenue, Q
Avenue, and the like, and everyone is familiar with
the street names in Washington, DC , that reflect the
same sort of thing.

            One can easily understand the desire of the
committees responsible for such things to number
streets, then designate house numbers in such a way
that strangers can readily get the idea that 65-42
83rd Street is on 83rd Street near 65th Avenue,
and I can find nothing to quarrel with in that practice.
Also, the simple system used in New York City
for numbering streets and (most) avenues above
Washington Square makes sense, as anyone who has
been to Paris, London, or any other old European
city might agree.

            But surely there are more interesting ways in
which streets can be named.  For example, they
could be named after American (or foreign) cities,
American states, constellations, foreign countries,
American and foreign statesmen, famous operas, opera
singers, composers, works of fiction, music, and
art, novelists, poets, and other writers, artists, characters
in fiction or mythology, trees, flowers, animals,
etc. --the supply is almost inexhaustible.
Moreover, if it is deemed advisable to have the
names in alphabetical order to make it easy to find a
given street, it would be a simple matter to put Karachi
Street between Istanbul and Lisbon Streets,
Bach Boulevard between Jerusalem and Copland
Boulevards followed by Debussy .  If the inhabitants
are predominantly of a particularly ethnic stock,
they might like to commemorate Italian painters,
Spanish poets, or Greek playwrights; if they are of a
classical bent, they can find names of important
works of Latin and Greek literature; on the other
hand, if they like modern music, they can name their
streets after rock groups or stars.  The procedure
would require a little research in the library, but
that would not be onerous.

            One of the problems with existing names is that
they can be misleading or ambiguous: Sound View
Drive, for instance, has not afforded a view of the
Sound since all those houses were built in the 1920s.
Was Bank Street named after someone named Bank,
because it was near the bank of a river (which has
now been moved three blocks away because the
land was filled in), because the town bank was once
on it, or because it was where they used to bank
fires?  How many Sunrise Highways and Sunset Boulevards
are there?  It is not suggested that well-established,
traditional names be changed, only that
boring names be replaced by interesting ones.  One
would expect that a certain amount of common
sense be exercised: Palm Drive and Bougainvillea
Boulevard would be as out of place in Massachusetts
as Yucca Lane; with the devastation wrought by
Dutch elm disease, one might consider renaming all
the streets in America named Elm Street to describe
a hardier species.  An office with which I have occasion
to do business is at 123 Elm Street, Old
Saybrook, Connecticut, and I cannot help feeling
that Freddie lurks there, ready to strike down the
unwary.  But then, although I formerly owned a
house (in Essex, Connecticut) where the film, Let's
Scare Jessica to Death was made, I have survived that
peril.  In this vein, I do not advocate naming a street
Bubo Boulevard or Plague Place .  In Bridgeport, Connecticut,
I have seen a Lesbia Street , which arouses all
sorts of untoward speculation.

            Obviously, one must be careful: few people
would want to have to say that they live on Hyena
Highway or Anteater Avenue or Vulture Drive; but
Coyote Canyon Drive offers some alliteration, Chipmunk
Way sounds cute, and who could object to
Raccoon Road?  The road leading to Laurel Heights
(where the editorial offices of VERBATIM are situated
and which is, believe it or not, somewhat elevated
from the surrounding land, a laurel or two can actually
be found there, too) is named Boggy Hole Road,
an apt name till a year ago or so, when the town of
Old Lyme rebuilt it, widened it, paved it, and provided
it with drainage; it is now in such good condition
that I have suggested that the name be changed
to Boggy Hole Boulevard, an idea that has not found
much favor at the town hall.  Boggy Hole Road it will
probably remain, even though the name is proving
expensive to maintain owing to the frequency with
which its (one) identifying sign is filched by
onomophilic souvenir hunters.
         
         
            ... EXTERMINATING: We are trained to kill all
pets... [From san ad in TV Hi-Lites (Flushing, New
York), .  Submitted by ]
         
         
            Instead of their usual Friday collections on December
25 and January 1, Friday customers will be picked up
on Saturday, December 26, and Saturday, January 2.
[Holiday garbage schedules in the San Francisco Examiner ,
.  Submitted by ]
         
         
            An investigation found the employee occasionally
slept on duty for almost five years.  [From the York (Pennsylvania)
Daily Record, .  Submitted by
]
         
         
            The Names of Some North American Indian Tribes



            The names tribes gave themselves are not always
known, sometimes because both tribe and language
are extinct, attested to only by the name assigned
to them by others.  Some names ( Beaver,
Blackfoot, Crow, Dog-Rib, Hare, Stone ) are English
translations of Indian ones.  Others have entered
English through French ( Bois Brûlé, Coeur d'Alêne,
Gros Ventre, Huron, Loucheux, Nez Percé, Pend
d'Oreille ) and Spanish (Guapo, Laguna, Manso,
Orejón, Seminole, Tonto) .  Still others were given by
neighboring tribes and, sometimes, even when the
literal sense is known the connotations are unclear:
for example, the Dakota name for the Iowa (Ayuhwa)
Sleepy Ones; the Blackfoot name for the Kainah , a
division of the Blackfoot, (Ah-kai-nah) Many
Chiefs.  Can we be sure no insult, no irony was intended?

            Some names seem to have been caught in English
by a stranger's question: Who are you?  I am
a man, a human being, or, We are people, the
people who live here.  Hence, perhaps, come the
names by which are known the Déné, Etchemin (archaic
name of the Passamaquoddy ), Illinois, Inuit,
Klamath, Kutchin, Maidu, Miwok, Patwin, Pomo, Tu - nica,
Wintun, Yahi, Yana, Yokuts, and Yuit : all mean
person or people.  Other peoples gave more specific
answers describing their being distinctly different
from neighboring tribes.  The Clallam said they
were strong people.  The Caddo called themselves
kädohädächo real chiefs; the Kiowa , at least to
themselves, were kâ-i-gwŭ the chief or principal
people; the Iroquois were superior men.  By contrast,
the Hopi said, We are Hopituh people of
peace.  Was it after the same fashion that the
Cahita answered?  Or was their name, which means
nothing in Cahita, the answer to a quite different
question?

            The question, Who are those people?  must
often have been asked--and answered.  The Choctaw
said, Apalachi helpers, allies; the Blackfoot, Atsina
Good people the Nootka, also, inadvertently
named the Wakash, saying, “Good = waukash good
just as the Sheepscot named the Wannoak by saying
they were nopesawenoak warriors; the Pomo said of
their southwestern cousins, the Kashaya, that they
were kashaya nimble, quick, by way of praise,
blame, or mere description.

            Often a tribe's fear or fearful experience is revealed
in a name: [The name following > is that
yielded by the italicized word.]


Ojibwa ab-boin-ug roasters > Abanic
Zuñi apachú enemy > Apache
Choctaw hatak-apa man-eaters, cannibal > Atakapa
Mohican maquia cannibal > Mohawk
Abnaki mayquay cannibal > Mohawk
Ojibwa nadoweoisiw little snake > Sioux
Pima opata hostile people > Opata
Narragansett paquatanog destroyer > Pequot
Blackfoot sa arsi not good > Sarcee
Blackfoot shoshoni snake > Shoshoni
Wintun yuki stranger, enemy > Yuki

            

            Strangers were not only likely to be hostile,
they also spoke strangely.  The Malecite or Maliseet
were maliseet broken talkers to the Micmac and
talkers of gibberish males to the Abnaki.  To the
Dakota, the Cheyenne were shaiyena people of unintelligible
speech; to the Creek, the Cherokee
were tciloki people of a different speech; and the
Tul'bush, to the Wailaki, were babblers, foreigners
tul'bush.
            

            The Wabanaki (or Lenni Lenape) called the
Mohicans amahiganiak wolves, referring either to
their predatory habits or (less probably) to their totemic
animal, as the Dakota name for the Absaroka
bird- or crow-people seems to have done.

            Many names point to the appearance, customs,
staple diet, occupation, possessions or stamping
ground of a tribe, as in the following:


Achomawi achomawi river people > Achomawi
Huron adirondack men of the trees > Adirondack
Mohawk adirondack (hatiróntak) bark-eaters (they eat trees) > Adirondack
Acoma akomé people of the white rock > Acoma
Skidi Pawnee arikara horns (from their hairstyle); Arikara
Ojibwa atâwe to trade > Ottawa
Cree atâweu trader > Ottawa
Choctaw bashokla, paskokla bread people > Pascagoula; báyuk-ókla bayou people > Bayogoula
Caddo bidai brushwood people > Bidai
Chehalis chehalis sand > Chehalis
Chetco cheti close to the mouth of the stream > Chetco
Apache chiricahue great mountain > Chiricahua
Choctaw chutimasha they have cooking pots > Chitimasha
Walapai havasúpai people of the blue water > Havasupai
Kalispel kalispel camas > Kalispel
Karok káruk upstream > Karok
Choctaw katápa separated > Catawba
Pomo kato lake > Kato
Coos kūūs south > Coos
Cree mashkek, Fox maskyägi grassy bog, muskeg > Muskogee
Delaware minassiniu people of the stony country > Minsi
Sioux miniconjou they who plant by the water > Miniconjou
Mandan minitari they crossed the water > Minnetaree (=Hidatsa)
Hopi móchi awl people > Móchi
Nanticook naitaquok tidewater people > Nanticook
Hopi ngölapki the crook of longevity > Walpi
Wintu or Nomlaki nomlaki west speech > Nomlaki
Choctaw panshiokla hair-people > Pensacola
Cree pegonow muddy-water people > Piegan
Nez Percé peluse something sticking up out of the water > Palouse, Appaloosa
Shawnee shaawanawa, shawan south > Shawnee
Shoshoni shoshoko walker > Shoshoko
Sioux sihasapa black foot > Sihasapa > Siksika
Keresan sĩni middle > Zuni
Kalapooia tfalati river people > Atfalati
Shoshoni tübatulabal pine-nut eaters > Tübatulabal
Quapaw ugákhpa down-stream people > Quapaw or Kwapa ( > Acánsa > Arkansas)
Delaware umalachtigo tidewater people > Unalachtigo, W'nalachtigo
Ojibwa ŭsini-ŭpwäwa one who cooks by use of stones > Assiniboin
Wintan wailaka northern language > Wailaki
Wanapum wanapum river-people > Wanapum
Wasco wasq'o cup, small bowl > Wasco
Osage wazha'zhe water (a clan name) > Osage
Yuman xawálapáiya pine-tree people > Walapai
Karok yúruk a considerable distance downstream > Yurok

            

            There are names with more than one possible
etymology.  The Arapaho called themselves `trader
(s) arapaho; the Crow called them aa-raxpé-ahu
having much skin (i.e., tattooed), and it is the
Crow word that has found its way into the etymological
information in Webster's Third New International
Dictionary .  The Micmac called themselves
megumawaach perfect men and migmac allies; the
Maliseet called them micmac porcupine people and
mi k'am in Maliseet meant both Micmac and
wood spirit.  In various Algonquian languages, the
Ojibwa were the greatest ( ochibe, ochippe,
ochipwe, ojibwa, otchipwe) but ojib-ubway mocassins
with a puckered seam (a style characteristic of
Ojibwa footwear), literally, to roast till puckered
up is the origin cited in Webster's.
            

            No etymology is provided for Papago and Pima;
both might be Hopi for, respectively, mark on the
forehead and reed grass, plausible origins since all
three peoples have inhabited parts of what is now
known as Arizona.

            A few names are neither English translations
nor mispronounciations and approximations of Indian
words.  Flat-Head , for example, refers to several
tribes (Catawba, Chinook, Choctaw, Waxshaw,
et al.) that once practised head-flattening; and the
Yellowknife , an Algonquian people living east of
Great Slave Lake, Canada, were so named from their
use of copper implements: pedestrian names, these,
in which inventiveness played no part.  But, for that
matter, it seems that inventiveness never has played
a part in producing the names of tribes.  Their multiplicity
merely reflects the rich diversity of those
who have inhabited North America since before the
arrival of the white man --whenever that might
have been.
         
         
            
               How D.A.R.E. You?
            

            
               Katie Bar the Door
            

            This old exclamation, probably dating centuries
back, had a sudden vogue in the late eighties and
early nineties when the sports fraternity latched on
to it and spread it everywhere through radio and
television.  The best translation I have heard is,
Watch out!  Hell's about to break loose!  It will suit
a lot of occasions, domestic, political, military and of
course those critical moments in sports.  It means
threat and tension; beyond that nobody seems to
care.  Katie, bar the door!  But where does it come
from?  Like many long-ago happenings, nobody
thought to make a permanent record.  Those who
knew the story--in this case a heroic one--had no
way to keep it in memory except by folk tales and
songs.  But these may not get written down, and the
tellers and singers may have no successors.  So, great
deeds of the past are ultimately forgotten, the remnants
distorted or no longer understood.  Who was
Katie?  When, why, how did she bar the door?  The
following tale is pieced together from obscure and
scanty sources, with some logical surmise.

            King James I of Scotland, a strong man who
drew a number of chieftains together under him,
strengthening the kingdom,  naturally aroused rivalry
and enmity, which led at last to his assassination
in 1437.  This was accomplished in an outbuilding
to which the King had retired with members of
his court for recreation.  The assassination had been
carefully planned: the bar had been removed from
the door, and when the murderers attacked, it could
not be found.  One of the guests, by legend Lady
Katherine Douglas, thrust her arm through the
staples where the bar should have been, and temporarily
kept the door shut.  The King took refuge in a
lower room, but ironically, the outer door had been
recently sealed by his order.  The Lady's arm was
broken, the murderers rushed in; the King defended
himself but was outnumbered and killed.  But the
lady's heroic deed was told and sung: she became
Kate Barlass--the lass who barred the door.  That
is the legend, but I have found no written record of
the song nor anyone who can sing it.  Katie bar the
door must have been a refrain or a line of verse.
We may guess that as the King's company realized
they were under attack, the men looked to their
swords, and one of the other ladies shouted to Katie,
who finding that the bar was not there, did the best
she could think to do.  A noble woman and a noble
deed.  And the shout became a dire warning of imminent
danger.

            The last part of the tale?  Katie and her story
must surely have been brought to America and sung
in some of the Scottish settlements in Appalachia,
made mostly in the 18th century.  Many of these old
ballads have survived to the present; this one, as we
put it together, must at least have made current the
warning Katie, bar the door!  And out of the hills
some hill-born singer coming north introduced it
there, perhaps directly into the world of sports and
sportscasting.  But nobody has written down the
facts, or if written, they lie hidden in obscure places.
And historians of language, lexicographers, need records
too.  Is it now too late to track our surmises
back to facts, to recover the missing pieces of Katie's
story?  The Dictionary of American Regional English
is now editing the letter K. Lady Katherine deserves
to be honored in memory once again, as all good
folk agree.

            Information would be welcomed by the Chief
Editor at 6125 Helen White Hall, 600 N. Park St.,
Madison, WI 53706.

            Frederic B. Cassidy
         
         
            You'll have the specific facts you need to analize
your markets.  [From a direct mail piece of Commodity
Research, .  Submitted by 
]