Wordwatch: bish

“When work’s subject to error, see supervisor” (6 letters). Answer: Bishop! The clue comes from a fairly recent Times crossword, and depends on the word bish meaning “error”.

The OED claims not to know the etymology of the word in this usage, but I fear the worst… In the sense of “mistake, blunder” it is first recorded in Partridge’s famous Dictionary of Slang of 1937:

Bish,..a mistake: Seaford Preparatory School: from ca. 1925. and then 1955 F. SWINNERTON Sumner Intrigue xx. 198 He’s always making bishes like this! 1956 B. GOOLDEN At Foot of Hills x. 236 She..suddenly realised she’d made an [sic] complete bish.

Oz and Kiwi slang used the word as a verb to mean “throw” – so Ngaio Marsh (a Kiwi of course) has in Surfeit of Lampreys

They’d just sort of bished them into the cupboard.

and the word is used as both a noun and a verb as a jocular abbreviation of “bishop”, the OED quotes being worth rehearsing in full:

1875 A. PORSON Quaint Words 20 To be bish’d..confirmed. 1927 WODEHOUSE Meet Mr. Mulliner iii. 88 He turned appealingly from one to the other. ‘Vicar! Bish!’ 1930 Outlook & Independent 29 Oct. 328/3 Some one..asked in amazement, ‘When does the Bishop bish?’ 1958 I. MURDOCH Bell 247, I suppose I’d better leave the way clear for the bish’s Rolls Royce.

I’ll just go and ask my man to warm up the Rolls ready for this evening’s confirmation …

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Wordwatch: proven

Have you noticed that claims about medicines these says are never “proved” but always “proven”? Proven is the Scots version of this past participle, but it didn’t come directly to across the border. Instead it seems to have taken the long ways round via North America, where is also became established as the normal p.p. – and now is becoming widespread here. My impression though, although the OED says “It is now also more frequent than PROVED in British English,” is that is most heard when the speaker is trying to convince us that something is “scientifically proven”, proved by experiment and test, and so worth splashing out your money on. (The OED also instances, “a proven profitable track record as a manager” which takes the accumulated evidence of results as a basis for proof in another way.)

I’m still playing Humpty Dumpty and preferring myself to avoid this one.

`When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master — that’s all.’ but words mean what their community of users want them to mean, so I’ll have to put up with this

 

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Wordwatch: Turning the Tables

How are you spending New Year’s Eve? If you’re playing a board game, you might be in a position to “turn the tables” on your opponent. A “pair of tables” were the medieval board on which a backgammon-like game was played (1415 Bedfordshire Wills A paire of tablis) and “tables” was the game itself (1325  Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig. A. 11) l. 3965 Thee knightes atyled hom..to prouy hor bachelerye, Some with launce & some with suerd withoute vileynie, With pleynde atte tables other atte chekere).

Nowadays the phrase means to gain the advantage by exchanging position. The earliest printed example of the phrase in print gives a more moralising sense: "Whosoever thou art that dost another wrong, do but turn the tables: imagine thy neighbour were now playing thy game, and thou his." (Robert Sanderson’s XII sermons, 1634).

Playing pieces or “tablemen” grace many of our museums. There are some fine examples in the new British Museum Room 40, and this one is a 12th century example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It shows Hercules feeding Diomedes to his own horses: one schema for the tablemen was to have a set of pieces showing Hercules in action versus a set showing Samson!

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Ely 900 Christmas Crossword

Winding down on Boxing Day as a very special 900th anniversary year comes to an end, I discovered some crossword-compiling software that you can download for free (in a demo version) from the web. A few minutes later (so the clueing is not very good) here is our very own Ely 900 Christmas Crossword to help bring the festivities to the end. Let me know if you solve it: I’ll pop the names in the mitre and come up with a winner…

Across

1 Row about form of service sounds correct. (4)

3 International budget but no money. (8)

9 Could be Abraham, father of 14. (7)

10 Ghostly writer was back in Lode village. (5)

11 Muddled: try the health giving name of 14′s foundress. (12)

14 City largely without leaders. (3)

16 Pharisee? He’s gone and turned himself into an Indian 6d. (5)

17 I’m in the gods. (3)

18 Boat moored alongside chap by Wisbech bank is taking a risk. (12)

21 Figure of just one wise man? (5)

22 See 20 Down.

23 Disturbing mine site leads to hostilities. (8)

24 Yet another garden party to go to: sounds like your destiny. (4)

Down

1 Let out (again). (8)

2 Article of faith that’s the same whichever way you look at it. (5)

4 One holy lady two down in shape but heard not at all. (3)

5 The German is engaged in unfastening foundations. (12)

6 Old magician encircles cross for his follower. (7)

7 This valley is where you get lead astray. (4)

8 Pen pal loses a letter but becomes rather more. (2-10)

12 The sound of the drum at beginning and end. (5)

13 Fellow red priest? (8)

15 Shipping terminal is off my radar. (7)

19 Tintin’s creator gains victory without force to become first bishop of Ely. (5)

20/22A He’d run in end to make 14′s great score. (4,7)

22 Garden worker cut off end of footwear. (3)

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Wordwatch: Pressie

It looks like Mitford, it sounds like Mitford, and by golly it was first used by Nancy Mitford in 1933: “I don’t expect we shall be married much before November which gives you plenty of time to save up for a deevy presey.” Closely followed by Edward VIII  “The rest of the time will be spent shopping (buying presees for Wallis)” I hope you’ve got some good ones too, and a Very Merry Christmas to all my readers.

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Wordwatch: Na’vi

If it’s possible that you’ve missed it, Na’vi is the new Klingon – by which I mean that is the whole new invented langauge commissioned for the film Avatar.

It was created by Paul Frommer, a professor at the Marshall School of Business with a doctorate in linguistics. It is supposed to be based on Esperanto, kinglon and elf. As of 2009, Na’vi has a vocabulary of a thousand words (and is growing), but the only person who understands its grammar is its creator.

Wikipedia carries a fairly full account of its pecularities. For instance, there are different words for "we" depending on whether I’m including you or not. There are also special forms for "the two of us" (with or without you), "the three of us", etc. They do not inflect for gender; although it’s possible to distinguish "he" from "she", the distinction is optional. Nouns show greater number distinctions than human languages: besides singular and plural, they not only have special dual forms for two of an item (eyes, hands, lovers, etc.), which are not uncommon in human language (English has a remnant in "both"), but also trial forms for three of an item, which on Earth are only found with pronouns. However, gender is only occasionally (and optionally) marked. Verbs are conjugated for tense but not for person. That is, they record distinctions like "I am, I was, I would", but not like "I am, we are, s/he is". Conjugation relies exclusively on infixes, which are like suffixes but go inside the verb. "To hunt", for example, is taron, but "hunted" is t‹ol›aron, with the infix ‹ol›. Oh, and by the way, as the Na’vi have four digits per hand, they have a base-eight number system.

If you’d like practice making their striking ejective consonants try following these links: [pʼ] [tʼ] [kʼ]. The basic trick is make a glottal stop to build up some air pressure that spits the consonant out without you adding voice to it.

A few choice phrases:

Oe-ri ontu teya l‹äng›u "My nose is full (of his distasteful smell),"
irayo "thank you"
kìyeváme "see you soon"
skxawng! "moron!"
Tsun oe nga-hu nì-Na’vi pivängkxo a fì-’u oe-ru prrte’ lu" It’s a pleasure to be able to chat with you in Na’vi"

Filed under: Words

Wordwatch: Covenant

The final text of the proposed Anglican Covenant has just been published: what’s this covenant word?

It enters English from the Old French covenant (12-15th cents) which goes back to Latin conveniens meaning ‘agreeing’/conventum ‘agreement’ and is first recorded in the Cursor Mundi of c.1300’Sir King, he said, hald me couenand’ or (easier to follow) in Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale later in the century ‘Haue I nat holden couenant vnto thee’. The sense is that of a mutual agreement between two or more persons to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It only survives in modern usage where there is some theological or legal connotation. Theological ones have included God’s covenants with man, the ten commandments, the Old and New Testaments, the dispensations they represent, the commitments made at baptism, the Scots National Covenant and subsequent church agreements such as that establishing the Congregational  Church in the US, and local ecumenical agreements in this country. And now the Anglican Covenant.

How did covenant and testament get muddled up together? In the Hebrew scriptures the underlying word is berith which is the ordinary term for a contract or agreement, but it was translated diatheke in the Septuagint, using a word that was also used for wills and testaments, which is why in the Old Latin version testamentum is used throughout. Jerome preferred foedus or pactum but testamentum survived in the more conservative (because recited) arena of the Psalter. English versions have often kept testament in the New Testament -   it still survives in the RV at Hebs 9 where the idea of a will is part of the argument.

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Wordwatch: Bouncebackability

Bounce-back-ability is the new motto of my old patch in Cockermouth. Lapel badges have just been ordered, and I hope someone may send me one so I can fly the flag for them.

It’s quite an interesting word – a new noun, derived from a phrasal verb (bounce back) which seems to have filled a gap in our lexicon for describing the ability to succeed again after a period of things going wrong. There have been online petitions for its inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary and even a website called bouncebackability.biz, where you can buy a T-shirt!

It started as a football term, coined by ex-footballer Iain Dowie, later manager of Crystal Palace football club, who said that “Crystal Palace have shown great bouncebackability against their opponents to really be back in this game,” It made it into national politics in 2004 when ‘As a former Cabinet member of Major’s government, Michael Howard has an even harder job ahead of him. He has to show he has enough bouncebackability to get him into Number Ten.’ The Scotsman  8th October 2004. You can read an analysis of the phenomenon in football in the Fink Report and I came across a book about it too (right).

Most of all though, I hope it comes true for Cockermouth.

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Wordwatch: Sillabub

We were out to dinner earlier this week and enjoyed the delights of Mrs Jones’ Rhubarb Rosé Syllabub. The recipe of course is a closely guarded secret. I’ve put links to couple of similar dishes at the end of this post, but they are much heavier.

You’re probably wanting to spell the word syllabub. That’s not how it began, so I won’t, but represents the pull of the unrelated word syllable. The first recorded use in 1537 where it is spelled solybubble. In 1628 we find sulli-bibs and in 1668 they must..have the Sullabubs and Tarts brought into the Coach to ‘em. Sillibou is in there too, and the conclusion must be that neither I not the OED nor probably you know what the origin of the word is, but it looks like it spread by word of mouth as much as writing and was spelled ad lib.

The OED defines it by the way as “A drink or dish made of milk (freq. as drawn from the cow) or cream, curdled by the admixture of wine, cider, or other acid, and often sweetened and flavoured.”  From 1706 it is recorded being used metaphorically to mena, “Something unsubstantial and frothy; esp. floridly vapid discourse or writing,” and there is a nice quote of  1849 attributed to Charlotte Bronte: When did I whip up syllabub sonnets, or string stanzas fragile as fragments of glass? Thackeray memorably said that, “Aunt Lambert..was one great syllabub of human kindness.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/rosyrhubarbsyllabub_67229.shtml

http://www.squid-ink.biz/html/recipes/desert3.html

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Wordwatch Special: OED Word of the Day

Though it’s not my source for these occasional Wordwatch blogs, if you’re into words and blogs you might like to note that the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Day feature is now available by RSS feed as well online and by email. Have a look here. You don’t need to register, part with cash or anything horrible!

If you have library ticket (Cambridgeshire Public Libraries will do) you should find that you can access the OED in full on-line through their portal, by the way, along with a lot of other reference material.

Filed under: Words