Word of the Week – Sit, Twiddle, and Twirl

Word of the Week – Sit, Twiddle, and Twirl

by | May 25, 2020 | Word of the Week

Today I’m going to examine the origin of a particular phrase rather than a particular word. 😉 Back in the day when I originally examined this, as I was working on Whispers from the Shadows, my hero was exclaiming something about how it was time to take action himself, since those who ought to be continued to…
Sit on their hands?
Twiddle their thumbs?
Do nothing, but that was far too boring an option for his current state of mind. So Roseanna headed to www.etymonline.com. 😀

I was somewhat surprised to find sit on one’s hands in the
listing, because, well, I figured “sit” would have about a thousand
idioms associated with it and didn’t know if that would make the cut.
But in fact, it was one of the few they included. And it certainly wasn’t around in 1814, when Whispers takes place. No, to sit on one’s hands comes from the notion of doing so to withhold applause and originated in 1926. Not until the ’50s did it get extended to “do nothing; be
idle.”

So Thad certainly couldn’t be accusing the politicians of sitting on their hands. What, then?
The next phrase to leap into mind was twiddling their thumbs. Here I got closer. Twiddle is from the 1540s, when it meant “to trifle.” But the notion of twiddling one’s thumbs, i.e., having nothing to do, didn’t emerge until the 1840s. Closer, closer. But not quite there.

But in the entry for twiddle was the earlier phrase that twiddle one’s thumbs replaced–to twirl one’s thumbs. Ah! Fun. Enough of a variation to sound old-fashioned to us, but still recognizable. And from . . . 1816.

At first sight, argh. Because that’s two years past my date. But then I remembered that etymonline.com uses the first written appearance (because what else could they possibly go on?) and in those days, a phrase usually appeared in writing several years after it had entered the common spoken vernacular. So I decided that was close enough, and my up-to-the-minute hero could well be using a newfangled, 
popular phrase that his father would be less likely to try out. 😉

And so a few key politicians in Washington City are twirling their thumbs. And Thad has decided it’s time to do himself what they refuse
to…

Happy Memorial Day, all! Enjoy some idle time today. Sit on your hands for a
while, guilt-free. Or better still, pick up a good book. 😀

Word of the Week – Nauseous

Word of the Week – Nauseous

by | May 18, 2020 | Word of the Week


Originally published 10/15/2012


Okay, y’all, I originally posted this seven and a half years ago, and my call for actual evidence to support the claim below netted me nothing but others who were curious, LOL. So I’m trying again–because this claim has since even appeared on Big Bang Theory, touted by Sheldon. So, seriously, people. Someone defend the claim, or I shall be forced to call Sheldon a liar. 😂
So here’s the deal. I’ve heard from quite a few sources that we moderns are misusing the word nauseous. That it ought not to mean “to feel sick or queasy” but that it rather means “to cause a feeling of nausea.”
Now, I’ve heard this from sources I trust, but they never quote their sources, and I’m now on a quest to figure out why in the world this is touted as grammatical fact and, more, as a “modern mistake” when every dictionary I look it up in says that nauseous has carried both meanings (“to feel sick” and “to make sick”) since 1600-1610.
One dictionary I found says “careful writers will use nauseated for the feeling of queasiness and reserve nauseous for ‘sickening to contemplate.'” I’m okay with being careful, really I am, but I’m still unsure why grammarians are saying that using its original meaning is “a mistake of the moderns.” It is, in fact, the first definition of the word in the OED.
So. Calling all grammarians! 😉 If you learned it this way and could point me to a source (not just an expert like the wonderful Grammar Girl, mind you) that states this as fact, I would be very grateful. I don’t mind changing my ways to be a “careful” writer–but I’m a Johnnie. I don’t ever accept an expert’s opinion without checking out their sources. 😉
Word of the Week – Mean

Word of the Week – Mean

by | May 11, 2020 | Word of the Week





Originally posted 8/20/12
 

Mean is one of those words that I knew well would have been around forever, but I looked it up to see about some of the particular uses. And as usual, found a few surprises. =)
As a verb, mean has meant “intend, have in mind” even back in the days of Old English. No surprise there. It shares a root with similar
words in Dutch and German and various other languages, perhaps from men,
which means “think.” But the unexpected part–the question “Know what I
mean?” is only from 1834! Of course, that’s as a conversational question, a saying. I daresay the words were uttered as a particular question before that. Know what I mean? 😉
As an adjective, it began life as “low-quality.” Like “a mean hovel”
that the poor dude lived in. But it also carried a meaning, rather
related, actually, of “shared by all, common, public.” And presumably, if something were shared by all, it wasn’t really high in quality, eh? So
“inferior, second-rate” was also a natural progression for the word and came about in the 14th century.
I knew this definition would be the oldest but, when I looked it up, was more interested in when the most common meaning if mean
(meaning of mean–ha . . . ha . . . ha…) came into play. It acquired the “stingy, nasty” implication in the 1660s, and was then pretty strong. We Americans had to come along to give it a softer side
of “disobliging, pettily offensive,” so that didn’t come about until
1839–again, there’s the surprise!
And
an interesting note on it too. The inverted sense of “remarkably good,”
(think “wow, he plays a mean piano!”) is from 1900, most likely from a
simple dropping of a negative, like “he is no mean piano player,” (mean here being either “inferior” or its other meaning of “average.”)
Have no mean Monday, all! 😉

Word of the Week – Zone

Word of the Week – Zone

by | May 4, 2020 | Word of the Week



Originally posted on 8/13/12

Once upon a time, I was looking up “war zone,” and in so doing came across some interesting tidbits on zone. =)
The noun dates to the late fourteenth century, coming directly from the Latin zona, which means “a geographical belt, celestial zone.” The Latin, in turn, comes from the Greek zone,
which was the word for “belt.” Originally this was used solely to talk
of the five great divisions on the surface of the earth–the torrid,
temperate, and frigid areas, separated by the tropics of Cancer and
Capricorn and the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
It wasn’t until 1822 that zone was applied to any set region–so I
could be pretty sure “war zone” wasn’t around yet in 1814, LOL. It was applied to sports in 1927.
Then we have the verb sense coming into play. “Zoning” land for a purpose dates from 1912.
Not to be confused with the oh-so-modern sense of “zone out.” This verb is from the 1980s, a back-formation of the adjective “zoned” that’s related to drug use, taken from the word ozone. I guess it implies that someone’s really high, which I’d never paused to consider.
That use is from the 1960s. (Surprise, surprise, LOL.)
So there you go. Some really ancient uses, and some incredibly modern ones. =)

Word of the Week – Mayday

Word of the Week – Mayday

by | Apr 27, 2020 | Word of the Week

This is a very appropriate revisit from 2012, I thought since we’re only a few days away from May 1. As in, May Day. Ha…ha…ha…😉

Anyway!

Mayday, according to “The Wireless Age” from June 1923, is an aviator distress call. It was agreed that just saying the letters SOS
wouldn’t do–that was the agreed upon message for telegraph, but it
didn’t translate so well to spoken words. The powers that be also
decided a simple “Help!” wouldn’t do. So they chose “May Day,” thinking
it particularly fitting because it sounds so similar to the French m’aidez (help me).
It has since translated to any radio communication of help, be it in airplanes or boats or whatever.

Word of the Week – Wow

Word of the Week – Wow

by | Apr 20, 2020 | Word of the Week

Originally posted August 27, 2012
Though a revisit, this remains one of my favorite word discoveries! 
I always thought of wow as a modern word. So when I looked it up, I was shocked to see that it’s from 1510!
Wow is a Scottish interjection, one of those that arise from a
natural sound we make when surprised by something. Much like whoa, ow,
ouch, huh, and the like.
It became a verb in more modern days, though–we only started wowing people in the 1920s, originating in America. 😉
But in my defense, it’s a word that waxed and waned in popularity. It
apparently took on new life in the early 1900s after being not so in use
prior, and then had another surge in the 1960s. Which has carried
through to now.
And of course, had led to one of my son’s favorite sayings when he was about 4:
Wowwy-zowwy-coppa-bowwy! (Or however one would spell that…) (Sadly, eight years later he doesn’t say it anymore, though I still do on occasion, LOL.)
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