Take (please!) this electronic explanation of a common meterological phrase: “Houses had thatched roofs. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the pets -- dogs, cats, mice, rats and bugs -- lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, ‘It's raining cats and dogs.’"
Dubious. The literal explanation is that during heavy rains in not so Merry Olde England some city streets became raging rivers of filth carrying many dead cats and dogs. But there is also strong evidence that the phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs” may not be literal.
In the dark Ages, people believed that animals, including cats and dogs, had magical powers. Cats were associated with storms, especially the black cats of witches, while dogs were frequently associated with winds. The Norse storm god Odin was frequently shown surrounded by dogs and wolves. So when a particularly violent storm came along, people would say “It’s raining cats and dogs,” with the cats symbolizing the rain and the dogs representing the wind and storm. This folkloric explanation is supported by such expressions as “it’s raining dogs and polecats” and “it’s raining pitchforks.”
The e-message continues, “The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying ‘dirt poor.’ The wealthy had slate floors which would get slippery in the winter when wet. So they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door, you would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed at the entry way, hence a ‘thresh hold.’"
Nonsense. “Threshold,” first recorded in A.D. 1000, descends from an Old English compound “threscold,” “doorsill, point of entry.” The “hold” has nothing to do with keeping one’s footing. The original meaning of “thresh” was “to tread, to trample.” Farmers originally threshed wheat, separated the grain from the chaff, by treading on piles of it. The treading seemed similar to wiping one’s feet at the doorway of a house, and that entrance took the name “threshold” from such threshing, or treading.
The e-drivel continues flowing: “Sometimes they could obtain pork and would feel really special when that happened. When company came over, they would bring out some bacon and hang it to show it off. It was a sign of wealth and that a man ‘could really bring home the bacon.’ They would cut off a little share with guests and would all sit and ‘chew the fat.’
Ridiculous. Here the bacon refers to the greased pig that once figured so prominently in American county fairs. The slippery swine was awarded to whoever caught it, and the winner could take (bring) it home.
”Chew the fat” is unknown before the American Civil War. One theory contends that sailors working their jaws on the tough salt pork rationed out when supplies ran low constantly grumbled about their poor fare while literally chewing the fat. What seems clear is that chewing the fat, like shooting the breeze, provides little sustenance for the amount of mastication involved.
Which is just what happens with jerry-built, jury-rigged etymologies.
The Greek “etymon” means “true, original,” and the Greek root “-logia” means “science or study.” Thus, etymology is supposed to be the science or study of true and original word meanings.
But I have learned that the proud house of etymology is populated by all manner of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties miscreated by spook etymologists. (“Spook” reaches back to the Dutch “spooc,” “ghost, specter.”) These sham scholars would rather invent a word origin after the fact than trace it to its true source. Spooks prefer drama and romance to accuracy and truth.
A dramatic example of spook etymology is dragging its chains around the Internet even as I write. “Life in the 1500s” purports to explain all sorts of words and phrases on the basis of life 500 years ago. Alas, almost all the etymologies in “Life in the 1500s” are spookily haunted. Some of the most bogus explanations pertain to death:
“Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey,” proclaims the Internet message. “The combination would sometimes knock people out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a ‘wake.’
Folderol! “Wake” descends from the Middle English “wakien,” “to be awake,” and is cognate with the Latin “vigil.” “Wake” simply means, traditionally at least, that someone stays awake all night at the side of the casket on the night before the funeral.
Now for the tour de farce of the spook etymologies that clank throughout this e-message: “England is old and small, and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and re-use the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
“Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the ‘graveyard shift’ they would know that someone was ‘saved by the bell’ or he was a ‘dead ringer.’
Complete balderdash!. In factories that work around the clock, employees report for work at 8 a.m. for the “regular” or “day” shift; at 4 p.m. for the “swing” or “night” shift; and at midnight for the “graveyard” shift, lasting until 8 a.m. According to Harold Wentworth and Stuart Berg Flexner’s Dictionary of American Slang, the name “graveyard shift” refers to “the ghostlike hour of employment” -- and nothing more.
Now the plot deepens, and our subject turns grave: ”Dead ringers” actually originated at the race track. To take advantage of the long odds against an inferior horse’s winning a race, unscrupulous gamblers would substitute a horse of superior ability and similar appearance. Nowadays, “dead ringer” means any close look-alike.
Why “ringer”? Probably because “ringer” was once a slang term for a counterfeiter who represented brass rings for gold ones at county fairs. And “dead” here means “absolute, exact,” as in “dead heat” and “you’re dead right.”
Should I even dignify the above explanation of “saved by the bell” with a logical explanation. Oh well, here ‘tis, and it’s just what you thought in the first place. “Saved by the bell” is nothing more than the obvious -- a reference to the bell signaling the end of a round of boxing. No matter what condition a fighter is in during a boxing contest, even if he is being counted out, he is saved by the bell and gains a reprieve once that bell rings. I do hope that we all gain a reprieve from these idiotic spook etymologies that clank around the Internet and haunt the proud house of our English language.
© Richard Lederer
The luminous and rollicking Shakespeare in Love has been dazzling movie audiences and garnering seven Academy Awards. Part of the subtext of the film is that the characters, although not fully aware, witness the birth of romantic love as a dramatic subject. "Romeo and Juliet," for the first time in literature, celebrates passion between real flesh-and-blood-and-hair-and-bone human beings, rather than stylized courtship between figures on stained-glass windows and altar pieces. Four centuries ("Romeo and Juliet" was written in 1594-95) have proved the truth of what Shakespeare's contemporary, Ben Jonson, said of him: "He was not of an age, but for all time."
This month we celebrate both the birthday and the deathday (April 23) of William Shakespeare. An often neglected aspect of Shakespeare's genius is that his words, as well as his works, were not just of an age, but for all time. From the majestic majestic (Julius Caesar) to the visceral puke (As You Like It), he was, quite simply, the most prolific wordmaker ever to set quill to parchment. What would we do without such basic words as generous (first used in Love’s Labour’s Lost), lonely (Coriolanus), and hurry (The Comedy of Errors), and such hifalutin terms as unmitigated (Much Ado About Nothing), equivocal (All’s Well That Ends Well), and deracinate (Henry V)? 
Where would modern business be without employer (Much Ado About Nothing) and marketable (As You Like It and The Tempest)? Scholarship and culture would be tongue-tied without the likes of pedant (Taming of the Shrew) and critic (Love’s Labour’s Lost). I, critical pedant that I am, would be at a loss for words, unable to derive my linguistic radiance (All’s Well That Ends Well) from our radio audience.
Even posthumously Shakespeare has enlarged the language, as people have freely coined words about him and his work. George Bernard Shaw invented three words for worship of Shakespeare: bardolatry, bardolater, and bardolatrous. Various Shakespearean characters, both famous and obscure, have inspired neologisms. The faithful Romeo has degenerated into the randy Romeo, “a habitual pursuer of women” (OED). Puck, the mischievous sprite in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is at the root of puckish. And from a minor character in three plays, Bardolph, notable for his prominent red nose, has come the bombastic—but useful—Bardolphian.
The etymologist Ernest Weekly said of William Shakespeare, "His contribution to our phraseology is ten times greater than that of any other writer to any other language in the history of the world." The critic Walter Pater exclaimed, "What a garden of words!" If Shakespeare had not lived and written with such a loving ear to our language, our English tongue would be immeasurably the poorer. No day goes by that we do not speak and hear and read and write his legacy.
© Richard Lederer & Charles Harrington Elster
Here's another excerpt from my current book, The Word Circus. It's from the first chapter, "The Bandwagon."
The Bandwagon So let's hop on the bandwagon and face the music!
Now the tent grows dark, and the crowd grows hush.
Then the spotlight shines, and the space grows lush
With the cymbals' clash and the tinkled heat,
The triangle's ting and the snare drum's beat,
As our hungry hearts and the empty air
Fill to the brim with a brassy blare.
Our jaws a-droop and our eyes a-light
And our cheeks ablaze at the gorgeous sight:
All golden and crimson and purple and blue --
A calliope dream that we never knew:
With the chest-deep pulse of the kettle drums,
Into the ring the bandwagon comes.
Then the wha-wha-wha of the slide trombone,
And the pitter-boink-boink of the xylophone,
And the umpa umpa umpa umps
Of tubas kissed by men with mumps,
And the twang and the wang and the whacka whacka whack
Of banjo wheels on a circus track.
Ah, the rattle and rhyme of the music's time
Brim our hungry hearts with a song sublime!
Let's start with letter-perfect words. Grammagrams are RT words that, when they are pronounced, consist entirely of letter sounds. Words such as emcee, deejay,and veejay that are actually formed from letter sounds are initialisms, not grammagrams. Listen now to the FX of the most popular two-syllable grammagrammatical attractions:
| any (NE) | decay (DK) | essay (SA) | ivy (IV) |
| beady (BD) | easy (EZ) | excel (XL) | Kewpie (QP) |
| cagey (KG) | empty (MT) | excess (XS) | seedy (CD) |
| cutey (QT) | envy (NV) | icy (IC) | tepee (TP) |
Next, a surprising array of three-syllable grammagrams:
| devious (DVS) | enemy (NME) | escapee (SKP) | opium (OPM) |
| effendi (FND) | envious (NVS) | odious (ODS) | tedious (TDS) |
Now four syllables:
| anemone (NMNE) | arcadian (RKDN) | excellency (XLNC) |
Letter artists have come up with a number of variations beyond the grammagrammatical sounding out of individual words. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and other fantasies, played upon the sounds of letters in composing a letter to Annie Rodgers:
My dear Annie,
I send you
A picture, which I hope willA classic dialogue is this string of letters that don't exactly match but that approximate words. The scene is a restaurant, and the characters are a breakfast diner and a server:
B one that you will like to
C. If your Mamma should
D sire one like it, I could
E sily get her one.
Diner (to server): F U N E X?Now hear the music of some letter-perfect verse. Keep in mind that the same letter twice in a row sounds like a plural. For example, II means "eyes."
Server: Y S V F X.
Diner: F U N E M?
Server: Y S V F M.
Diner: O K L F M N X.
YURYY (Why you are wise)
Is EZ to C (Is easy to see.)
U should B called (You should be called)
"XLNC." ("Excellency.")
U XEd NE (You exceed any)
MT TT. (Empty tease.)
I NV how U (I envy how you)
XL with EE. (Excel with ease.)
Here's an almost century-old example of letter play, by H.C. Dodge, that appeared in the July 1903 Woman's Home Companion. ICQ out so that I can CU have fun translating the sound FX of this poem:
The farmer leads no EZ life.© Richard Lederer
The CD sows will rot;
And when at EV rests from strife,
His bones will AK lot.In DD has to struggle hard
To EK living out;
If IC frosts do not retard
His crops, there'll BA drought.The hired LP has to pay
Are awful AZ, too;
They CK rest when he's away,
Nor NE work will do.Both NZ cannot make to meet,
And then for AD takes
Some boarders, who so RT eat,
And E no money makes.Of little UC finds his life;
Sick in old AG lies;
The debts he OZ leaves his wife,
And then in PC dies.
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