Hasty Angels and the Word History of Precipitation

Hello,

It’s a wet Monday here. The forecast is for rain all day long. The puddles are forming in my garden and my walking shoes are glaring at me, daring me to test their water-proof-ness.

Instead of sloshing through puddles, I’ll take a look at the word history of precipitation. My first association with the word is as an alternative term for rain, but of course it covers all types of atmospheric moisture deposited on the earth’s surface including snow, dew, frost, hail, etc.

This idea of precipitation being a form of water falling from the sky dates to the 1600s but the word itself is older. It joined English in the late 1400s and was originally spelled as precipitacioun. I love those old spellings, don’t you?

It arrived with two meanings. One was the casting down of rebellious angels from heaven. Lucifer was precipitated from heaven, for example. The other was used in alchemy where precipitation was the separation of a solid from a solution. My eldest is now studying chemistry at university and he would know all about that. I hope he does this in a slow careful manner rather than with undue haste.

Precipitation was borrowed into English from Old French and before that came from Latin praecipitationem (falling headlong or being hasty) from praeceps (steep, headlong, headfirst). Praeceps is formed by joining prae (before) with caput (head). Put the two together and you definitely get the idea of going head-first with some degree of speed, as an angel might when falling from a great height.

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.

Guinness – a Word Dublin Gave to the Dictionary

Hello,

As a word geek from Dublin I always have one eye looking for words the Irish gave to the dictionary. There aren’t as many as you’d think, although I managed to create a chapter of some in my first book “How To Get Your Name in the Dictionary” featuring boycott, the Beaufort scale, burke, garryowen, Ireland, hooligan, limerick, murphy’s law, and the wellington boot.

One which featured there was Guinness but since publication I’ve gathered a few more facts about this word and so here’s an expanded history of perhaps Dublin’s most famous export (apologies to U2).

Guinness is an Irish dry stout named for its first brewer, Arthur Guinness (1725-1803). Arthur established his brewery at St. James’ Gate, Dublin in 1759, signing a 9,000 year lease at £45 per year. His signature is still copied onto every bottle of Guinness sold.

Ten years later Arthur shipped his first casks of stout and the now Diageo-owned brewery is one of the largest worldwide. The brewery tour is always a popular stop on tourist itineraries.

The brewery took the Irish harp as its logo in 1876. It is based on the antique Brian Boru harp which is now in the Trinity College Dublin library, along with the famous Book of Kells. In the Guinness emblem the harp’s curved edge is to the right. When the Irish state was founded and they wanted to use the harp emblem on our coinage (where it remains to this day), the harp had to curve to the left instead because Guinness had the prior claim.

Arthur and his wife Olivia had 21 children, of whom ten survived to adulthood. Their descendants include missionaries, “It girls”, and politicians. During the 1798 United Irishman rebellion in Ireland, Arthur was accused of spying for the British. His nickname in Dublin is Uncle Arthur.

The Guinness family, thanks to stout sales, didn’t lack funds and were famously generous employers. Their many country estates around Ireland have, in some cases, returned to state ownership over time. Examples include Iveagh Gardens, St. Anne’s Park (where I explored as a child and teen), Luggala estate (now part of Wicklow Mountains National Park), and Ashford Castle hotel (not owned by the state!).

“The Guinness Book of World Records” is published annually, since 1955, to list the many and often strange records established worldwide. It began as an idea by Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the Guinness Brewery to resolve disputes over trivia questions amongst bar patrons. He’d encountered a debate over which was the fastest game bird in Europe during a shooting party and it gave him the notion of the reference book which is still published today and has inspired countless record-breaking efforts around the world.

According to “Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” the favourite drink of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), the Iron Chancellor, was a Black Velvet which is equal parts champagne and Guinness. Perhaps it helped him achieve German unification?

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.

The History of Philtrums and Love Philtres

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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.

The Winding Road to the History of Crank

Hello,

I was chatting today about an eccentric somebody, who shall remain nameless, who I consider to be a crank. It occurred to me that I’ve no idea why we use crank that way. Does it date back to early motorists cranking up the engine with a handle?

Thankfully my dictionaries and sources came to my rescue on this one but to meet my eccentric person we’ll have to travel back in time, along a cranky trail.

A twist in the path at Glendalough, Wicklow, Ireland

Crank entered Old English spelled as cranc in relation to weaving. A crancstaef was a weaving tool and a crencestre was a female weaver or spinner of yarn. It is related to crincan (to bend or yield) so I’m assuming the tool was flexible, twisted, or hooked in some fashion. I had a brief look at modern weaving tools but none seem directly linked to this ancient tool. Cranc may be linked to the Proto-Germanic word krank (bend or curl). German speakers will be familiar with modern use of krank (sick or ill), it’s been around since Middle High German.

It appears that Germanic languages of German and Dutch retained a sense of crank being sick, weak, or small but English evolved its use in a different way.

In the mid 1500s there was a slang phrase – counterfeit crank (somebody who pretends to be ill to get charity) which shows the illness idea was present in English too. This may have been via Scottish influences as in 1825 the Jamieson’s Scottish dictionary lists crank as “infirm, weak”.

By the end of the 1500s crank had gained new meanings –

1. “twist or turn of speech, grotesquery in words”
2. “to zig-zag, run in a winding course”

The story of crank then goes quiet for a couple of centuries until it cranks up again the late 1700s (pun intended).

1793 – to bend into a crank shape

1800s – crank was also used in Middle English to mean merry or lively but there’s little information about it apart from the fact that it lingered somehow until the early 1800s in Northern English dialects and in American English. I’d be curious to hear form American readers if they use crank with this sense?

1833 – the first mention of a crank being an eccentric person, especially one who is irrationally fixated. Some sources suggest this is because of the crank of a barrel organ, which repeats a tune over and over while others say it comes from a crank having a mental “twist”. I can’t help wondering if this is related to the twisty hand motion sometimes used beside a forehead to indicate somebody is a crank?

1834 – to attach a crank to

1848 – an absurd act, perhaps caused by twisted judgement

1908 – to turn a crank, for example that bent handle for car engines

1989 – methamphetamine

So cranks aren’t named for the handle used to wind up early care engines, but they may be connected to the handle used by the organ-grinder to produce early “ear-worm” tunes on the streets of Victorian London. I can understand eccentric behaviour being started by that form of cranking up. I am amazed that meth users are linked through history to early English weavers. Crank’s word history is truly a twisted tale.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

We Know Vikings Weren’t Lawless, Thanks to the Dictionary

Hello,

I have my Viking hat on at the moment, as I prepare to launch “Words the Vikings Gave Us” on 14th September 2021, so I’ve chosen another Viking word to play with this week. I hope you enjoy it.

Law {extract from “Words the Vikings Gave Us”, copyright Grace Tierney 2021}

Law was spelled as lagu in Old English and was defined as a rule, regulation, or right. It came into the English language from the Old Norse word lagu (laws plural). Lagu wasn’t used much in Old English where the alternative word ae was more common, however over time it became the dominant word and we’re still using law instead of ae today.

Laws govern a wide variety of rules and rights in society and the sciences. For example you have the laws of physics since the 1660s, laying down the law (in this case biblical law pronounced from the pulpit) from the 1750s, and law and order have been linked from the late 1700s.

As the systems of politics and the courts grew there were laws to cover everything from the poor laws (to provide for paupers from the pockets of wealthy landowners), bylaws (another Viking donation to the English language), corn laws, traffic laws, tax laws, and many more but it all started with the Vikings, despite being rebuked by the native English as being lawless.

{end of extract}

Yes, Vikings gave us the word law. In fact, they gave us so many words in the area of power and politics that I dedicated a chapter to the topic. Writing the book provided many surprises like that. The Vikings are a misunderstood group.

If you’re interested in Viking history you may enjoy my new download “Nine Things You Never Knew About Vikings”. To access that just click on the Downloads tab on the menu or through this link.

Want a copy of the book? Pre-order on Kindle or Kobo and it will download automatically to your ebook reader on the 14th. Paperbacks will go live on the same date and signed copies will be available directly from me soon (I’ll post the link).

If you are a book blogger/reviewer/podcaster (or know one, please share!) then get in touch via Twitter or my About page for a digital ARC or interview requests etc. I’m always happy to talk about the history of words, and Vikings.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

The Windy Word History of the Mistral

Hello,

I love that certain winds have special names. In various countries you will be blown about by a zephyr, sirocco, chinook, or mistral. Mistral was the first one I came across, in a TV series when I was young and I was very taken by the idea.

The mistral is a strong, cold north-westerly wind that blows through the Rhône valley and southern France into the Mediterranean, mainly in winter. It’s such a strong wind that church bell towers in the Provence region of France are built in an open fashion to allow the wind to pass through rather than potentially cause damage to the structures. Provence inhabitants love to name their winds. You’ll find a full list here, but the ones you’ll recognise are the mistral and the sirocco.

The mistral typically blows for a couple of days or up to a week, often when the seasons are changing. It can cause sea storms and with wind-speeds of up to 185kph or 115mph it is treated with respect in the region.

The mistral entered the English language around 1600s from French but the name itself really comes from the Provençal language where it translates as “the dominant wind” with thanks to a little Latin. In Latin the word magistralis means dominant and comes from magister (master). The mistral knows it is in charge and it’s not a wind to mess with if it’s blowing towards you.

Clear sky – is the mistral blowing?

The summer mistral can sometimes spread forest fires but usually is associated with clear skies and the type of light beloved by the many artists who flocked to Provence through the centuries.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Follow Roman Footprints to the History of Investigation

Hello,

Regular readers of the blog will know I love to read. I’m looking forward to #CosyReadingNight this Saturday (26th of June 2021) although I haven’t decided yet which book I’ll be reading – I’ve got five on the go at the moment, probably a tad over ambitous. One of the genres I enjoy is detective fiction – anything from Golden Age locked room murders to police procedurals and thrillers. When I stumbled upon the history of the word investigation I knew I had to share it here.

Detective Wordfoolery on the case!

Investigation entered the English language in the early 1400s, long before Sir Robert Peel’s “peelers”, the Bow Street Runners, or even little Miss Marple. It came from the Old French word investigacion and originally from Latin. Latin had the word investigationem (a searching for or into). This was compounded from in (same meaning in English) and vestigare (the verb to track).

Vestigare is where it gets interesting in my opinion. Vestigare comes from vestigium which means a track or a footprint. This means that the word investigation tracks back (pun intended) to following the footprints of the culprit.

The word vestige, which usually refers to the last trace of something which is disappearing (such as a species going extinct or a body part being out-evolved) also comes from the same roots. Although in that case those footprints of evolution are being traced by scientists rather than detectives.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. I’ll be taking part in CampNaNoWriMo next month, working on new episodes for my serialised novel “The Librarian’s Secret Diary”. Anybody else joining the challenge?

A Man Called Freelove and the Fuel Bowser

Hello,

This week’s word is an eponym, bowser. Regular wordfools will know I wrote “How To Get Your Name In The Dictionary” to capture the stories of people whose names entered the English language as words – heroes and heroines (and a fair few villains) whose lives were extraordinary. Since publication I’ve stumbled across a few more. Perhaps there will be a second edition one day. Bowser is one of these and I must thank the QI Elves on the “No Such Thing as a Fish” podcast for putting me on the trail of this one.

First to meaning. What is a bowser? There are two definitions available. Bowser can be a noun for a dog. It was used in the early 1800s and probably comes from the old bow-wow idea for how a dog barks. I don’t think this is in common use anymore, but perhaps readers know otherwise?

The main meaning of a bowser now is that of a truck or pump for delivering liquids – most commonly water or aviation fuel. Water bowsers are deployed in England, for example, when there are water shortages. Fuel bowsers take on various jobs – refueling aircraft at the airport, bringing it to construction vehicles, and you can even have bowser boats to fuel larger ships.

Bowsers get their names from an American inventor called Sylvanus Freelove Bowser (1854-1938). Yes, that really was his name, isn’t it great? He is best know for the invention of the fuel pump for filling motor cars. With the arrival of motoring the world found a need to dispense set amounts of petrol or diesel into them but it wasn’t a liquid you could sell in a bottle or carton like milk or water as you needed large quantities. They needed a way to measure it as you drew it down, so you could be charged, but you couldn’t see it pouring, and because it’s a tad flammable you needed the system to be closed.

He began with a kerosene pump, patented in 1885, as kerosene was important for lighting and heating at the time. He dedicated twenty years of work to the finished concept and finished with the “self-measuring gasoline storage pump” in 1905. The pumps you use to fill your car in New Zealand and Australia are still called bowsers to this day. The same technology is still used, so you can think of him the next time you fill up your car (unless it’s an EV, of course).

Fuel up that car with a bowser

Bowser’s pump invention also enabled the creation of the petrol station. For the first twenty years of motoring early drivers had to buy their fuel in two gallon cans from their nearest hardware shop, hotel, or garage.

The first petrol station in Britain opened in 1919 in Berkshire. Motorists were greeted by a uniformed staff member and a single hand-operated pump. The station was operated by the Automobile Association (AA) who, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution (1917) were promoting UK produced benzole fuel (a by-product of burning coal) instead of Russian benzole. By 1923 there were 7,000 pumps across the UK and Ireland as a result of this initiative. With the addition of a canopy to keep you dry while you pump gas and a shop to sell sundries they became the type we use today, all thanks to Bowser’s fuel pump invention.

Irish readers should note that a bowser is unrelated to a bowsie which “The Dictionary of Hiberno-English” tells me is a disreputable drunkard or lout, unless they’re drinking from a fuel pump?

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

Interested in eponyms like bowser? I’ve written a book about nearly 300 of them and the lives of the fascinating people who gave their name to English. “How To Get Your Name In The Dictionary” is out now in Amazon paperback (USA and UK), and ebook for Kindle, iBooks, and on Kobo.

Note: If you order through the affiliate links in this post, a tiny fee is paid towards supporting this blog.

Bibacious and Keck – drinking words

Hello,

The festive season can be a somewhat drink-sodden celebration and with New Year’s Eve approaching it’s time for some boozy words. The pair I’ve chosen I found in the “QI Second Book of General Ignorance”. I love QI, the BBC comedy show about unusual facts. The spin-off podcast created by the QI Elves (a.k.a. researchers) “No Such Thing as a Fish” is a wonderfully witty and entertaining listen if you’re looking for something fun to cheer up January 2020.

The first of the words is bibacious, a gem of a word, which QI found in Doctor Johnson’s Dictionary (sadly his famous dictionary appears to be out of print, but if any of you find a copy, please let me know). Bibacious describes somebody who is a binge-drinker or simply fond of drinking so you can decide yourself how insulting it is although Webster’s dictionary reckons it means you are addicted to drinking. It comes from the Latin verb bibere (to drink) and dates to the 1600s.

A bibacious cocktail menu

The second Dr. Johnson word is keck (pronunciation here) which is to heave the stomach as if about to vomit. Collins English Dictionary tells me this one has three meanings – 1) to retch or feel nauseous, 2) to feel/express disgust, or 3) an alternate name for cow parsley. The noun and verb forms are sadly disconnected so I can’t speculate about how much cow parsley you would eat before you retched. Keck dates to the late 1500s and its roots lie in its sound resembling that of a person being unwell.

I hope that if you have a bibacious New Year’s Eve, it doesn’t result in any kecking.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. this post contains affiliate links which make a small payment to the blog if you choose to purchase through them. #CommissionsEarned. Alternatively, you can use my digital tip jar.