Why you "stave off" a cold

From the Language Corner of the Columbia Journalism Review:

Nowadays, “stave off” means to keep at bay, fight off, or defend against. But in its original, noun form, around 1400, the Oxford English Dictionary says, a “stave” was a thin strip of wood that was curved to make a cask or barrel...

“Staves” was originally the plural of “staff,” a long rod or walking stick. So by extension, many kinds of sticks or rods, including the staffs of a lance or other weapon, were known as “staves.”

By the 1600s, “stave” meant “to drive off or beat with a staff or stave; esp. in to stave off, to beat off,” the OED says. While the original use was meant literally, as in to “stave off” an attack on the castle, possibly using lances or other weapons with “staves,” the common uses today are figurative, as in “staving off” a cold.

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There's a huge difference between "masticophilia" and "mastigophilia"

I learned from reading Collector's Weekly that there are people who collect chewing gum.

In the U.S., there are about half a dozen serious collectors of gum, and more than one serious enough to pay $350 for a stick of Colgan’s Taffy Tolu Chewing Gum, dating from 1900 to 1910...

“A fellow collector and I got a lead on a National Colgan’s Taffy Tolu gum vendor from a Chicago dealer who had found it in an old barn. We decided rather than try to outbid each
other, we would make a fair bid and purchase the machine together. Pleased with our $2,000 purchase, I took it home and opened it up and cleaned it. I was pleasantly surprised to find seventeen sticks of Colgan’s Taffy Tolu Chewing Gum inside... In the end, my partner and I sold thirteen sticks of the gum for $300 to $350 each, making a $4,000 profit without even selling the machine!”

I tried without success to find a word for "lover of gum."  The appropriate match for the Greek "-phile" would seem to be "mastic", which is also the word for a Mediterranean evergreen shrub which produces a resin ("mastic tears" at right) used to make varnish and chewing gum.  So it should be "masticophile."

But I wouldn't use the word to describe someone in public, because it would sound too much like "mastigophile" -

Mastigophilia: Paraphilic sexuoeroticism that hinges on punishment and humiliation.

A new word for me, but one that I suppose is going to pop up more frequently in the popular press and cyberspace now.

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This skull was extensively trepanned. For scruples.

Explained at io9:

Researchers at the University of Pisa, Italy, have solved a longstanding mystery around the honeycombed skull of one of the Italian martyrs beheaded by 15th century Ottoman Turk invaders when they refused to give up their Christian faith...

The skull was later drilled, most likely to obtain bone powder to treat diseases such as paralysis, stroke, and epilepsy, which were believed to arise from magical or demonic influences...

"The perfectly cupped shape of the incomplete perforations leads(us) to hypothesize the use of a particular type of trepan, with semi-lunar shaped blade or rounded bit; a tool of this type could not produce bone discs, but only bone powder," Fornaciari said...

This would make the Otranto skull a unique piece of evidence supporting historical accounts on the use of skull bone powder as an ingredient in pharmacological preparations...

Indeed, in his Pharmacopée universelle, a comprehensive work on pharmaceutical composition, French chemist Nicolas Lémery (1645 –1715) detailed how powdered human skull drunk in water was effective to treat "paralysis, stroke, epilepsy and other illness of the brain."

"The dose is from half scruple up to two scruples," Lémery wrote.

"The skull of a person who died of violent and sudden death is better than that of a man who died of a long illness or who had been taken from a cemetery: the former has held almost all of his spirits, which in the latter they have been consumed, either by illness or by the earth," he added.

Yes, I had to look it up too:

Scruple: a unit of apothecary weight, with symbol ℈. It is a twenty-fourth part of an ounce, or 20 grains, or approximately 1.3 grams. More generally, any small quantity might be called a scruple.  

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A modern day "parsley massacre"

I had not heard of the Parsley Massacre until I read about it in The Atlantic:

In October 1937, the president of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, devised a simple way to identify the Haitian immigrants living along the border of his country. Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley—perejil in Spanish—and ask people to identify it. Those who spoke Spanish would pronounce the word's central "r" with that language's characteristic trill; the Haitians, on the other hand, would bury the "r" sound in the throaty way of the French. To be on the receiving end of the parsley test would be to seal, either way, one's fate: The Spanish-speaking Dominicans were left to live, and the Haitians were slaughtered. It was a state-sponsored genocide that would be remembered, in one of history's greatest understatements, as the Parsley Massacre.

The modern-day equivalent is to sort out true intellectuals from fake ones by their knowledge (or lack thereof) of how certain names are pronounced.

Paul Klee (clay)
Michel Foucault (foo-coe)

Here are some of the other names:

Walter Benjamin
Paulo Coelho
John Maynard Keynes
Joan Miró
Anaïs Nin
Chuck Palahniuk

Many more at The Atlantic.  Brush up before that next cocktail party.  You can argue all you want that language is flexible and fluid, but the same principle doesn't apply to specific people's names.

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Some "shower thoughts" about language

Anyone notice the irony behind "hyphenated" and "non-hyphenated"?

If a word describes itself, it is homological. If a word does not describe itself, it is heterological. So is heterological homological or heterological?

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words.

Monosyllabic isn't.

One word in the English language is always spelled incorrectly.

Via the Shower Thoughts subreddit.

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Word for the day: virga

Our local weatherman used the term "virga" several evenings ago when he pointed out that snow seen on the radar was not reaching the ground:

In meteorology, virga is an observable streak or shaft of precipitation that falls from a cloud but evaporates or sublimes before reaching the ground. At high altitudes the precipitation falls mainly as ice crystals before melting and finally evaporating; this is often due to compressional heating, because the air pressure increases closer to the ground. It is very common in the desert and in temperate climates. In North America, it is commonly seen in the Western United States and the Canadian Prairies. It is also very common in the Middle East, Australia and North Africa.

The word virga is derived from Latin meaning "twig" or "branch".

I've seen this phenomenon all my life (especially when monitoring clouds while hiking or fishing) but didn't know the term.  And now I also realize that for decades I've been incorrectly using "sublimate" as a verb ("A lot of the snow sublimated this weekend") when I should have said "sublimed."  You learn something every day.  

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An ancient rebus involving a Jew's harp

Solving the rebus at the top of this illustration in a 17th-century book requires understanding the meaning of the key-like item after the word "dames."

It actually most closely resembles a jaw harp, a small instrument played with the mouth that produces a distinctive twanging sound. The possibility that this is the intended meaning of the symbol at first seems untenable, as it does not appear to fit the phrase in any logical way. Inserting the common French term for the instrument, guimbarde, gives us nothing, as does the German term maultrommel. However, discovering earlier French names for it, jeu-trompe and trompe de Béarn, suddenly supplies the image with a double entendre. If the word “trompe” is inserted in the phrase, an unexpectedly negative phrase emerges: “Le coeur de dames trompe le monde”, or “The hearts of women deceive the world”. There is little doubt that this is the correct interpretation, as it is a known proverb. The phrase in fact appeared on the Queen of Hearts in a playing card ca. 1500. Yet while this mystery is solved, the question of how it relates to, and informs the image above, is just as cryptic.

More information here:

The Jew's harp, also known as the jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump, or juice harp, is a lamellophone instrument, which is in the category of plucked idiophones: it consists of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed attached to a frame. The tongue/reed is placed in the performer's mouth and plucked with the finger to produce a note. This instrument is considered to be one of the oldest musical instruments in the world; a musician apparently playing it can be seen in a Chinese drawing from the 4th century BC.

Despite its common English name, and the sometimes used Jew's trump, it has no particular connection with Jews or Judaism...

The instrument is known in many different cultures by many different names. The common English name "Jew's harp" is sometimes considered controversial or potentially misleading, and is thus avoided by a few speakers or manufacturers... Other speakers believe the avoidance of the term to be offensive and deliberately use the term so as not to cause offense. Another name used to identify the instrument, especially in scholarly literature, is the older English trump, while guimbarde, the French word for the instrument, can be found in unabridged dictionaries and is featured in recent revival efforts.

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A 12th-century rebus

It reads “Well fare, mi lady Cateryne”.  Details explained* in a post at Erik Kwakkel's always-interesting blog.

* the explication there says that "cater" was the term used for a die - but I think "cater" refers just to the 4-spot on a die ("the terms ace, deuce, trey, cater, cinque and sice have been made obsolete by one to six...")  Anyone know for sure?  Never mind - I found it:

The full set of numbers for the six sides of a die are ace, deuce, trey, cater, cinque, sice. They are from Old French (cf un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six of modern French). Ace is originally from the Latin for 'unit'.

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"Sex in northern Sweden must sound like an asthma attack"

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.  Title via a commenter at Reddit.

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"Jawed balls"

Yes, "jawed balls" is the name for this, and yes, it happens often enough that there are official rules to handle jawed balls in billiards.  Typically, the rule is to see if the balls are more over the pocket or more over the table. Over the pocket counts as pocketing the ball; over the table sees the ball in question put back on the table. Here, looks like a scratch with the five-ball pocketed as well.

Via the "Mildly Interesting" subreddit (image cropped for size), where I also found the link to this video:

YouTube link.

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"Glasgow smile" and "sardonic smile" explained

First, the Glasgow smile:

A Glasgow smile (also known as a Chelsea smile, or a Glasgow, Chelsea, or Cheshire grin) is a wound caused by making small cuts on the corners of a victim's mouth, then beating or stabbing him or her until the muscles in the face contract, causing the cuts to extend up the cheeks to the victim's ears. This leaves a scar in the shape of a smile, hence the name. The act is usually performed with a utility knife or a piece of broken glass, leaving a scar which causes the victim to appear to be smiling broadly.. The practice is said to have originated in Glasgow, Scotland,[citation needed] but became popular with English street gangs (especially among the Chelsea Headhunters, a London-based hooligan firm, where it is known as a "Chelsea grin" or "Chelsea smile")...

The Glasgow smile has been inflicted on characters in multiple films and television programs, including Green Street, House of Tolerance, The Krays, Sons of Anarchy, Pan's Labyrinth, and 2008's The Dark Knight, in which Heath Ledger as The Joker both has the scar and carves it on numerous victims. 

Then, the more traditional "sardonic" one:

A sardonic action is one that is "disdainfully or skeptically humorous" or "derisively mocking." Also, when referring to laughter or a smile, it is "bitter, scornful, mocking." Hence, when referring to a person or a personal attribute, it is "[c]haracterized by or exhibiting bitterness, scorn or mockery."

The etymology of sardonicism as both a word and concept is uncertain, but it appears to stem from the name for the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The Byzantine Greek Suda traces its earliest roots to the notion of grinning (Greek: sairō) in the face of danger, or curling one's lips back at evil...

Risus sardonicus is an apparent smile on the face of those who are convulsing because of tetanus, or strychnine poisoning... This facial expression has also been observed among patients with tetanus. Risus sardonicus causes a patient's eyebrows to rise, eyes to bulge, and mouth to retract dramatically, resulting in what has been described as an evil-looking grin...

In 2009 scientists at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Italy claimed to have identified hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) as the plant responsible for producing the sardonic grin. This plant is the candidate for the "sardonic herb," which was a neurotoxic plant used for the ritual killing of elderly people in pre-Roman Sardinia. When these people were unable to support themselves, they were intoxicated with this herb and then dropped from a high rock or beaten to death...

First I've heard of the dropwort.  You learn something every day.

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"Stan" explained

YouTube link.

Via Neatorama.

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Impressive anagram

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott 

is an anagram of

A novel by a Scottish writer.

Credit to Suze, who found this in a cryptic crossword and posted it in a Sooper Seekrit location.  Anagrams are not difficult per se, but ones that are logically consistent are uncommon.  This one is awesome.

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"Buddy" vs. "Bro"

Posted not for the information per se, but rather to illustrate that linguistic maps can now be generated from analysis of Twitter data.

To generate the maps, Grieve first searched for occurrences of these words in the dataset. Once he identified word uses and their locations, he used hot-spot testing, a common technique in spatial analysis. It uncovers geographic trends in data by clustering together nearby areas with similar results.

Tweets are first adjusted by the population of the counties from which they were sent. Then, the frequency of tweets for a given county is compared to nearby counties...

For the distribution of "dude" and for some caveats on the methodology, see the source article at Quartz.

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Referring to "the 50's" or "the 60's" is grammatically incorrect

Contractions for numbers follow the same rules as contractions for words. As a apostrophe goes where the letters are dropped in a contracted word (e.g. you are into you're) the same applies to numbers (e.g. 1950s into '50s)... By putting an apostrophe between the numbers and the "s" (e.g. 50's), you are making the "s" possessive. 

I see this type of mistake ("music of the 60's") frequently while browsing the web - and sometimes in the comments here.  I think I sometimes refer to groups of years as "the 90s" without an apostrophe at all - not sure if that's acceptable.

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A "hundred" used to mean 120

A reminder that the English language evolved at a time when the counting system involved a "long hundred" equal to 120.

The long hundred, a unit of count = 120, appears to have arisen out of an ancient Germanic way of counting, one which is echoed in modern English. The “teen” suffix, as in four-teen, six-teen, etc, is not applied to one plus ten or two plus ten (they aren't one-teen and two-teen). Eleven and twelve are treated the same way as the first ten numerals; the break is after twelve, not ten... Note that this is not a duodecimal numeric system.

The use of the word in this manner lingered for a long time in England:

This reckoning of one hundred as six score still holds good (or did to my knowledge ten years ago) in Leighton Buzzard, Beds. If one ordered there 100 plants, for example, one received, and also had to pay for, 120: a hundred being always reckoned as six twenties. If one required simply 100, it was necessary to order five score.

So also here in Cardigan and around, taking eggs, for example, the dealer picking up three eggs in each hand, reckons that twenty times this makes one hundred.

Emily M. Pritchard (writing on 21 July 1906).
Archaeologia Cambrensis. 6th series, vol. 6, page 352.

Learned from a recent podcast of No Such Thing As A Fish (thank you, elves).

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"Sociolect" distinguished from "dialect"

From this month's Atlantic:

...sociolect: a language variety that’s spoken within a social group, like Valley Girl–influenced ValTalk or African American Vernacular English. (The word dialect, by contrast, commonly refers to a variety spoken by a geographic group—think Appalachian or Lumbee.) Over the past 20 years, online sociolects have been springing up around the world, from Jejenese in the Philippines to Ali G Language, a British lingo inspired by the Sacha Baron Cohen character.

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What's another word for "drone" ?

The Wall Street Journal reports that some manufacturers of drones are uncomfortable using that word for marketing purposes and are seeking alternative terminology.

As the drone industry takes off, many people in it say it needs a different name. They say “drone” suggests the devices are dumb, it is technically inaccurate and now has a militaristic reputation. Unmanned-aircraft advocates scold reporters and even congressmen who use the term. But they have another problem: Few of them agree on what the devices should be called...

The alternatives are an alphabet soup. There is “UAV” (unmanned aerial vehicle), “RPA” (remotely piloted aircraft), and “UAS” (unmanned aircraft system). Some prefer the more digestible “unmanned aircraft,” or just “robot,” while European Union officials opt for the bulkier “RPAS,” or remotely piloted aircraft systems... the [FAA] and Congress have settled on a name: they use UAS in legislation and official documents...

But it isn’t hard to find advocates who drone on about why they don’t like the term UAS and its “unmanned” cousins. “I hate the word unmanned,” said Don Wirthlin, a drone-pilot instructor in Douglas, Ariz. “Last time I checked, I was a human flying a UAV.”...

Popular Science writer Kelsey Atherton, who writes weekly roundups of unmanned-aircraft news called “Keeping up with the droneses,” said opponents of the term should give up. “The battle is over and drone won,” he said.

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Ambiguity

Requires strong teeth.

It's not actually incorrect, but I would have been happier had the signmaker put an "s" on the "edible" to clarify that the word is being used as a noun, not as an adjective.

(I wanted to put "something else" into the pit toilet)

Both signs photographed at the University of Minnesota's Landscape Arboretum this past week.

On the subject of ambiguity I'll also mention that several discussions of the current scandals involving the National Football League have included comments by "Domestic Abuse Advocates," who presumably would not refer to themselves in that fashion...

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A walkway in Jerez

Apparently those are grapevines, not trees.

“Jerez” is the hispanicized version of “Sherish” which was its Moorish name when the town was under Islamic rule. The English speaking world modified the Arabic into “Sherry,” Jerez being the origin of Sherry wines.

Credit to Sue's Sevilla Sabattical, via The World Geography and Reddit.

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