The Word History of Skulls and Skullduggery

Hello,

This week’s post is with thanks to my garden weeding yesterday, because I found a skull. I must hasten to add that it wasn’t a human skull and we didn’t need to call in the police and forensics team.

I was clearing back the old foliage and stalks from my cutting garden, an annual chore before sowing new flower seeds, when I spotted a tiny bird’s skull tucked in beside the wall. It looked ancient and was light as a feather, but I know it wasn’t there last April and we didn’t have a bird’s nest in the climbing rose there last summer. I can only assume the cause of death was either the neighbour’s cats or old age. There were no other remains to lend me a clue.

Bird skull

Naturally this reminded me of the Viking origins of the word skull, which I discussed in “Words the Vikings Gave Us” and that led me to skullduggery and here we are.

In Old English the word for the skull was heafod-bolla, and in Middle English there was some use of the term braynpanne and brain pan is still used today to define the part of the skull which contains the brain.

With the arrival of the Vikings those earlier words were replaced by sculle which came from the Old Norse skalli (bald head or skull) and skull. There are related words in Swedish (skulle) and Norwegian (skult).

As for the mysterious bird skull, I checked with my friend, and cover artist, who has a fascination with such things for his art and he reckoned “A corvid – most likely a young crow or magpie based on the skull size – downturned beak looks like crow.” If the bird was young then cause of death wasn’t old age, probably a cat. If any of you have other suggestions – please leave them in the comments. I’m intrigued.

Now my second word of the week – skullduggery. Although it would be wonderful if the Vikings gave us skullduggery as well as skull but that’s not the case. Skullduggery (which may be spelled with one L or two) entered English usage in the mid 1800s for “underhanded dealings, roguish intrigue” 1856 so it’s much younger word than skull. The term originated in the earlier Scottish word sculdudrie (adultery) in the early 1700s.

By the 1820s it was sculduddery (obscenity, grossness, unchastity) and was probably brought into English usage thanks to the novels of Sir Walter Scott (1770-1832) whose historical novels featured plenty of derring-do and skullduggery. I must confess to not having read any of his work, but they’re on my list. His writing has faded in influence with time but his books and poetry were hugely popular in his day.

I had no idea that skullduggery was defined as adultery. Nowadays it’s a more general term for anything slightly immoral or illegal.

An Irish author brought the word Skullduggery to a new generation by naming his titular sharp-dressing skeleton detective Skullduggery Pleasant. Derek Landy’s books are well worth a read if you enjoy great fight scenes and twisty plots with plenty of magic. The series is technically for older children, but is beloved by adult readers too.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Sign up to avoid missing out! Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

The South American History of Demerara

Hello,

This week’s word history is a sweet one – demerara. The word joined English in 1848 but it’s come all the way from South America. It describes “a coarse light-brown raw sugar” (Merriam Webster) and is a regular item in my baking cupboard and recipes.

Demerara is a toponym becuase it’s named for a river and historical region on the north coast of South America, an area which is now part of the country of Guyana. It was colonised by the Dutch West India Company in the 1600s for trading purposes but by the 1700s the area was known for large scale sugar plantations. By 1762 a third of the plantations were owned by the British. Control of the area moved between the Dutch, British, French, and British again in the years thereafter.

The plantations were worked by slaves of African origin in dreadful conditions which led to a large scale revolt in 1823, suppression by troops, and eventual abolition of slavery in Britain’s colonies in 1833. Guyana gained its independence from British rule in 1966. They still produce demerara and rice. The discovery of oil off their coast in 2019 has helped their economy grow in recent years.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email, which might hide in your spam folder.

Eponyms – Names as Words

Hello,

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time a little girl was given a dictionary among her school books. Over the coming years she used that dictionary until it looked very shabby but it helped her to develop a love for reading and words which persists to this day. She was regularly accused of having “eaten the dictionary” by her classmates.

When, in 2009, she started a blog as a fun writing experiment, she decided on the history of unusual words as her topic. With time two themes emerged – nautical words and eponyms (dictionary words which originated as people’s names) and the idea of a book grew.

The first Wordfoolery book, “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary”, arrived in 2018 and tells the stories of 260 soldiers, inventors, style icons, and villains who gave their names to the English language. From atlas to zeppelin English is full of words named for Greek gods, heroes and heroines, explorers, scientists, and chefs throughout world history.

The chapters cover food, Irish history, calendars, hats, inventions, words named after places, Greek gods, military history, politics, astronomy, fashion, popular phrases, villains, science, and more but what each story has in common is that the person’s life was extraordinary. You don’t get into the dictionary by being dull.

Some other eponyms which have featured on the blog include – guillotine, braille, celsius, rugby, curie, martinet, dumdum, magenta, cardigan, bowler hat, ferris wheel. They were all people (or places) and their lives were fascinating – women who defied convention to make great strides, inventors trying to make the world a better place, soldiers in grave danger. Read the book and you’ll think of them when you use their words.

One of my favourite rascals from the book is Casanova. Here’s his story from the book (note copyright Grace Tierney 2018) –

A casanova is a womaniser noted for his romantic adventures, typically with many partners. The term comes from Italian adventurer and author Giovanni Jacopo Casanova (1725-1798) whose biography reads like a work of fiction.

He was born in Venice, the son of an actor and actress. He was expelled at the age of 16 from a seminary for monks for his immoral behaviour and later, something of a dandy already, studied at the University of Padua and graduated with a degree in law. He took “minor orders” to become a monk while still a student and an inveterate gambler.

His first patron, an elderly Venetian senator, taught him about food, wine, and how to behave in society but drove him out when he discovered Casanova had already seduced the actress he had his eye on.

His second patron, a cardinal, set him to writing love letters on his behalf and introduced him to the Pope before dismissing him for scandal.

He joined the army but by the age of 21 he had abandoned that career for professional gambling and then work as a violinist. This didn’t last long. He saved the life of a nobleman, thus acquiring his third patron until a prank of his involving a fresh corpse went badly wrong and he had to flee the city.

He want on to live in many European cities, making and losing friends and money along the way. He worked as a preacher, philosopher, diplomat, gambler, spy, violinist, and broke hearts everywhere. He wrote plays and other works including science fiction. He met many of the celebrities of the day – Catherine the Great, King George III of England, Benjamin Franklin, Madame de Pompadour, Rousseau, Mozart, Voltaire, and Goethe.

His romantic dalliances were like the plot of an opera. He once escaped prison in the Doge’s palace by digging his way out of the roof with a priest, climbing down a bed sheet rope, and convincing a guard they’d been locked in by mistake at the end of a function.

He finally settled down in his fifties as a librarian to Count von Waldstein in Bohemia and wrote his twelve volume memoirs which were published 1826-1838.

{end of extract}

If you enjoy stories like these then pick up a copy of “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary” by Grace Tierney in paperback or ebook from Amazon, or the many other stockists. All the places to buy it are listed on this page.

I’ll be talking about one of my books every day this week, so stay tuned for “Words the Sea Gave Us” tomorrow.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Three is due in mid-December. Don’t forget to click on the confirmation email.

p.p.s. I won NaNoWriMo 2023! My fifteenth win in a row with 60,129 words of “The Librarian’s Secret Diary” – my serialised story for Channillo, the reading platform.

Political Factions Come From Roman Chariot Races

Hello,

Nowadays if you look up the word faction in the dictionary (and yes, that’s faction, not fraction) you get “a small organized dissenting group within a larger one, especially in politics” but the its origins lie far from politics. Factions began in the arena, the chariot arena to be precise.

I wish I hadn’t misplaced my photos of a holiday we took in France many years ago. We visited a French theme park called Puy de Fou because it was literally the only place to visit in the region. The children were small and none of us had much interest in theme parks but it would be fine.

Readers, it was much more than fine. Besides the usual rides (most of which were too scary for our young children) they also had shows. There was the Viking ship which rose out of the water complete with live actors, an equestrian show which involved flooding the biggest stage I’ve ever seen, a Norman castle which moved around like a fortified Dalek shooting flames at the opposing army, and a full sized Roman hippodrome (arena for chariot races) with lions, ostriches, a flock of geese, and four teams of charioteers (each controlling four horses abreast) racing at full speed.

My French skills were pushed to their limits that day as all narration was in French only (as far as I could tell this theme park was France’s effort to push back against Disneyland Paris) but it was worth it. The children were stunned, and so were we.

I only wish I still had my snaps of the chariots, but if you click onto their website you’ll get video of the races. Since that day our family has visited several renowned theme parks and honestly nothing has come close to being as impressive.

What as all this to do with factions? Faction entered English around the year 1500 directly from French and before that from Latin factionem (a political party or group of people). The word itself comes from a root word relating to doing. However the word comes not from doing but from racing, chariot racing.

In Roman and Byzantine history the factiones were the companies into which the charioteers were divided, each factione having its special colour, originally white and red, to which green and blue were added when the number of chariots was increased. The colours helped spectators distinguish the team they wanted to support, much as soccer teams wear different colours on the pitch today.

The idea of a faction being a sub-group within a larger group was later adopted as a way to describe a sub-group of political opinion within a larger group and we quickly forgot the link to chariot racing. If we went back to those roots I suspect elections would be far more interesting.

I found today’s story, or the core of it, in “Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable”. It’s over 1200 pages in length and I’m still chipping away at it, but it contains some real gems.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. Want more Wordfoolery? Subscribe to the monthly newsletter “Wordfoolery Whispers”. Issue Two went out last week and offered readers a pre-publication peek at “Words Christmas Gave Us”.

p.p.s. It’s day 20 of NaNoWriMo 2023 today. I’m on 40,146 words and enjoying writing “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”.

Sycophants and Figs – a Word History

Hello,

I realised the other day that I’d never delved into the history of sycophants and with a Greek-sounding word there was bound to be a story in there somewhere. Now here I am, with fond memories of a trip to the Greek island of Skyros where I ate breakfast each morning under a fig tree.

Why am I rambling about figs? Turns out figs are at the heart of sycophancy. The word sycophant reached English in the 1530s, when it was spelled in the Latin fashion – sycophanta – and its meaning was informer, slanderer, or bearer of tales. Back then a sycophant was a gossip rather than a flatterer, or let’s be honest, a total suck-up.

Sycophanta, like many Latin origin words in English came via French where it was sycophante. Again like many Latin words in English, it can be traced past Latin and into Greek. I’m not saying the Roman “borrowed” mountains of vocabulary from the Greeks, but – no wait, that’s exactly what I’m saying. In Greek it was sykophantes. There it meant a false accuser or slanderer and the formation of the Greek word is where the figs enter our story.

Sykophantes is formed from sykon (fig) and phainein (to show or to shine). This translates literally as one who shows the fig. Who would this be? A fruit seller? A gardener? Why were they known as slanderers?

Showing the fig, in those days, was a rude hand gesture. Yes, there’s nothing new under the sun, humans have been at this forever. I’m sure you won’t want to repeat the gesture but how you do it is to stick your thumb between two fingers. The fig was seen as a symbol of the vagina (sykon also means vulva in Greek apparently although Google Translate is only giving me fig). If you’ve ever seen the inside of a cut fig you might agree with this symbolism.

The theory is Greek politicians of the time would never make such a rude gesture but had no problem with their supporters taunting the opposition with it. As a female I have to point out that using a female symbol to throw shade at a male is nothing new and still continues today (big girl’s blouse or fights like a girl, for example) and is disrespectful to women.

There is an alternative theory, discounted as unsubstantiated by the Oxford English Dictionary, that the original sycophant was an informer against the illegal export of figs. Fun story though.

I definitely believe the idea of the hand gesture though. On my trip to Skyros we were treated to daily Greek lessons after breakfast and our teacher explained many basic phrases didn’t even require words because the islanders were fond of body language and hand signals. Even if we couldn’t manage the pronunciations, we could communicate in that way. Thankfully he didn’t teach us to show the fig but I do recall one for “you’re full of it”.

As for the modern use of sycophant, it reached English in the late 1500s and has been with us ever since, without figs.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

The Fleshy History of Sarcasm and Sarcophagus

Hello,

This week’s post is with thanks to the wonderful QI Elves podcast “No Such Thing as a Fish”. It’s not specifically about words and etymology but sometimes they let slip a mention which sends me scurrying for the dictionaries, as was the case this week. This time it was the notion that sarcasm and sarcophagus have something linguistic in common – the idea of biting. Naturally I had to explore.

First let’s take a look at the word sarcasm. Sarcasm, tagged by Oscar Wilde as “the lowest form of wit but the highest form of intelligence”, is one of my favourite forms of humour. It has been with us as an English word since the 1570s when it was spelled sarcasmus and was defined as a biting taunt or satirical remark. Aha, our first mention of biting.

Sarcasmus was a borrowing from Latin and before that from Greek sarkasmos (sneer, taunt, mockery) so presumably the use of sarcasm even existed in Ancient Greece. Sarkasmos had its roots in the verb sarkazein (to speak bitterly or to sneer). It translates literally as “to strip off the flesh like a dog”. Sarx or sarkos (genitive form) translated as flesh or a piece of meat. This worries me. As a vegetarian do I need to stop using sarcasm?

Back in English the spelling evolved into sarcasm by the early 1600s and has been with us ever since although most people don’t think about dogs ripping meat with their teeth when they make a sarcastic remark nowadays.

But what about the sarcophagus? How do ancient Egyptian coffins get in on the act?

While you may find the whole dog-biting thing a tad grim on sarcasm, wait for the next level grimness of sarcophagus. The word enters English around the year 1600 to describe not the Egyptian coffins themselves but to name the type of stone used in them. It came from the same word in Latin and before that from Greek sarkophagos lithos (limestone used for coffins) where the sarkophagos adjective translates as – flesh-eating. Delightful.

The idea was that the particular type of limestone (which was from a quarry near Assos in Troas in what is now modern day Turkey) helped to quickly decompose bodies. Given all the effort the Egyptians put into preserving their dead, I’m surprised they favoured this stone.

The word itself is compounded from sarx (see above, same root in sarcasm) which meant flesh and phagein, the verb to eat.

For a hundred years the word sarcophagus in English was all about the stone. The idea of it being a stone coffin didn’t arise until 1705. The word was shortened in Latin to sarcus and gives us the word for coffin in French (cercueil), German (Sarg), and zerk the Dutch for tombstone.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. I’m trying out Bluesky, the new social media app. If you’re on there you’ll find me at @wordfoolery.bsky.social . Yes, I’m still on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram too, don’t worry.



The Worldwide History of Feather in Your Cap

Hello,

This week I’m taking a look at the phrase “a feather in your cap. As usual with phrases the exact origin is less than clear-cut but it’s one with plenty of history, all around the world.

Having a feather in your cap has been symbolic of achievement in the English language since at least the 1700s, and probably earlier as the idea was discussed in “Description of Hungary” by Richard Hansard in 1599. Hansard was an English travel writer who explained the Hungarian custom that you could only wear a feather in your cap if you had killed a Turk, their enemies at the time. They claimed one feather per kill. He also said this was an old custom even then (with thanks to The Phrase Finder website).

The famous Elephant Detective added a feather to her cap when she solved the case

Feather has been a word since Old English feder which had Proto Germanic roots (fethro) which yielded similar words in Old Saxon, Norse, Swedish, Dutch, German and more.

The Hungarians weren’t the only ones to mark a slain enemy with a feather. Native American warriors would add feathers to their head-dress to mark such things too. Other cultures also observed this idea. It is recorded of the ancient Lycians (a nation in what is now Turkey which existed from the 14th century B.C. to 500 B.C.), China (a peacock feather was given to General Gordon after he put down a rebellion there in the 1800s), and in hunting circles a feather from the first bird killed may be given to the successful hunter for their hat.

The feather in the cap idea is also part of the Yankee Doodle Dandy rhyme where he sticks a feather in his cap and calls it macaroni. It’s not the easiest lyric to understand, is it?

One explanation I found goes like this. Doodle was 1700s British English slang for a fool so calling the person a Yankee Doodle was calling them an American fool – which would make sense as the song was sung by British troops in the American War of Independence.

The word macaroni had nothing to do with the popular pasta shape but actually slang, again, this time for a dandy. The Macaroni Club in London was populated by young aesthetes who liked to show their stylishness by preferring foreign cuisine (including macaroni pasta, presumably). So if the American fool put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni they were trying too hard to be stylish and fashionable and hence were a person to be mocked.

You might need a time-travel machine to go back and see if that explanation makes any sense, but it does at least show that putting a feather in your cap can be done for many different reasons and won’t always make you look impressive.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace

p.s. Amelia over on the Politics Books and Me blog (about books, authors, and investing) was kind enough to interview me recently. You can check it out here.

Weather Words – Anemometer

Hello,

This week’s word, thanks to my current writing project (“Words the Weather Gave Us”), is a windy one – the anemometer. I hope you enjoy this early draft extract.

Extract from “Words the Weather Gave Us” by Grace Tierney, copyright 2022

An anemometer is a tool used to measure windspeed and direction. One is found in most weather recording stations. The earliest description of one is by the Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) in 1450 but many scientists and inventors have refined the device since then.

Rolling waves at my local beach on a very windy day

The basic form has three or four hemispherical cups on horizontal arms mounted on a vertical shaft. The wind flowing past the cups turns the shaft at a rate roughly in line with the windspeed so counting the revolutions of the shaft over a time interval provides an average windspeed. It needs to be adjusted for drag, torque, and positioned correctly (i.e. not sheltered by buildings) but that’s the general idea. They are vital kit for airports, wind turbines, and weather stations and come in a wide variety of forms.

The word anemometer arrived in English in the early 1700s. It’s compounded from anemo (wind) and meter (measuring device). Meter comes from the Greek word metron (measure). Anemo comes from the Greek word anemos (wind). Anemos arose from a Proto-Indo-European root word ane (to breathe).

Ane forms part of many English words such as anemone, animate, animal, animosity, and equanimity. It is believed to have provided the roots of words in many other languages too such as animus in Latin (soul, life, consciousness), anadl (breath) in Welsh, animn (soul) in Old Irish (in modern Irish soul is anam but name is ainm, which is curious), anda (to breathe) in Old Norse and many others related to breathing and soul.

We may not be able to measure our souls, but using an anemometer weather forecasters can record the breathing of the planet, the wind.

{end of extract}

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. It’s day seven of the 30 days NaNoWriMo 2022 writing challenge and I’m on 13,048 words.

p.p.s. My intention is to remain on Twitter but if you’re worried about missing my word history chatter there, your best bet is to subscribe to this blog. There’s a Sign Me Up button at the top of the sidebar if you’re on a laptop, or tap the Follow button at the bottom of your phone screen.

Antediluvian isn’t a Very Old Word

Hello,

This week’s word is antediluvian and it neatly ties together the research I’ve been doing this month. In either an ambitious or foolhardy (and hey, the name is Wordfoolery) move I’ve been working on two books at the same time this month. The first, “Modern Words with Old Roots”, is planned to be a short ebook and the second, “Words the Weather Gave Us”, will be book number five in my main Words Series. I was hoping to get the first finished before drafting the second during NaNoWriMo 2022 (starting in a mere eight days, yikes!) but I have a sneaking suspicion I shall have to work on both next month.

Antediluvian links both as it’s a word the weather gave us but also has old roots, at least in one sense.

What does it mean? It’s a way to describe a person or behaviour as being antiquated and old-fashioned. Literally it translates as “before Noah’s flood” and is formed by joining two Latin terms ante and diluvium. Ante which you may recall from ante-natal care (before birth medical care) comes from a root word relating to a forehead. Diluvium is related to deluge, a flood, and in particular the great world flood described in the Bible and avoided by Noah in his ark.

Did Noah wear wellies on the ark?

If somebody calls you antediluvian they’re saying you’re older than Noah, definitely ageist!

The word wasn’t a direct import from the Romans. It was coined by Sir Thomas Browne, an English physician, during the 1680s (when he was in his 70s) and has been used ever since to disparage in a witty way. So while this word is old, it’s not as old as Noah but it does relate to floods, and hence to weather. I don’t hear it being used very much anymore so I think it may be passing from mainstream use. Literature of the 1800s and 1900s was littered with biblical references but with an increasingly secular society I can’t help wondering if those references are missed by more modern readers? Antediluvian may suffer the same fate.

As for Sir Thomas Browne – he is described as a polymath (great word!) and his writings on various topics, including debunking commonly held myths of his time, are described as witty. Might be worth a browse if you’re at a loose end today, but I’m heading back to pre-NaNoWriMo work mode.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Ever Wonder Where Doomscrolling Came From?

Hello,

This week’s word is a modern one with old roots – doomscrolling. You may be immune to this online habit, if so here’s the definition – “the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing.” (Merriam Webster)

While the term is particularly associated with the compulsion to read all the Covid news while stuck at home, it was in use around social media from about 2015. Perhaps in earlier times our ancestors doom-read with printed newspapers as it certainly appears to be a natural inclination for humans.

As you might guess, doomscrolling is compounded from doom and scroll, both of which are words with old roots.

Doom entered Old English as dom (a law, judgement, etc.) from the ProtoGermanic root word domaz. The same root provides similar words to Old Saxon, Frisian, and Norse. A book of laws in Old English was a dombec. By Middle English, doom had acquired extra letters and was spelled doome.

The association of doom with fate or destruction began in the early 1300s and was widespread by the 1600s. Doom was, by then, associated with the term doomsday – the day of judgement in Christian faiths and the end of the world as we know it. The link between laws and judgement is pretty clear.

You may recall the Doomsday Book – commissioned by William the Conqueror, it was completed in 1086, is held in the UK National Archives and can be accessed online so if you really want to doomscroll you could try that as a source. In this case it’s not filled with bad news, or laws as it’s a listing of land and assets throughout England. Its contents were as undeniable as laws, hence the name, and it was useful to the king so he knew what he owned and what he was owed in taxes.

Scrolling to show part of the information on a computer/phone screen has been in use since the 1980s but originally that verb meant to write information down in a scroll, so just how old is scrolling?

Scroll the noun entered English around 1400 spelled as scroule or scrowell (a roll of parchment or paper) with links to the word rolle (roll) as the paper was rolled up for safe storage and transport. It arrived via Anglo-French from Old French escroe (roll of parchment), which came from Frankish, and ultimately from a ProtoGermanic root word.

The Dead Sea Scrolls (dating to the third century B.C.) are probably the most famous old scrolls but as parchment doesn’t always survive the centuries it’s hard to be sure of how far back in time scrolls go. Old roots indeed for doomscrolling.

Until next time, happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace (@Wordfoolery)