Wednesday's Random Slang-o-Rama: Lurgy

 The dreaded lurgy has its grip on our household. And if you don't know what lurgy is, read on...

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According to the Oxford English Dictionary (which I can access online, thanks to the San Francisco Public Library... Three cheers for libraries! 💕💕💕), lurgy has three definitions:

1. (from 1769–present) noun - Idleness, laziness, esp. regarded humorously or ironically as a medical condition.

2. (1828–1902, now obsolete) adjective - Idle, lazy. 

3. (1947–present) noun - A non-specific disease; (in later use) any familiar illness. Frequently with "the." Often in the dreaded lurgy.

So, yes, I'm talking about definition number 3. 

We are all sick here. 

Except for the cats.

No dreaded lurgy at work. Just a restorative catnap.
Photo: Ann Parker

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-Rama: Under the weather

 March 26 already? Left Coast Crime in Denver has come and gone (and what a wonderful mystery conference it was!) and March is nearly over, with only one lone Slang-o-rama entry from early in the month posted.

But I have an excuse: I've been under the weather.

Which means, I now have an idiom to explore with you...

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Under the weather, which means ailing or ill (and also can mean suffering from a hangover or being drunk), dates from the early 1800s, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. The expression, notes Ammer, presumably alludes to the influence of weather on one's health.

Farmers Almanac online suggests this phrase has a nautical origin:

...On the high seas when the wind would start to blow hard and the water became rough, crewmen and travelers would go below deck and down to their cabins in order to ride out the storm and avoid becoming seasick. In this way they literally retreat to a location “under the weather.”... According to Salty Dog Talk: The Nautical Origins of Everyday Expressions, by Bill Beavis and Richard G. McCloskey, the term in its entirety is “under the weather bow;” they tell us the weather bow is “the side [of the ship] upon which all the rotten weather is blowing.”

For me, it isn't the weather that is the culprit but some unknown virus that is racketing about my respiratory system and making me miserable. I believe I will follow the general nautical advice to retreat and hunker down, until the (internal) storm subsides...

Incoming virus storm!
Image by Monoar Rahman Rony from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-Rama: Buckle down

 Hello all, 

It's time (past time, really) for me to buckle down and revive Slang-o-Rama and restart some writing. So, I'm starting off easy with... (yep, no secret here!)... buckle down.

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According to the Phrase Finder (which I'm glad to see is still available, although riddled with ads)  buckle down, which means to apply oneself to hard work, originated in the U.S., but may be  related to the 16th-century British phrase "buckle to." Deseret News has a nice article on buckle down and its possible derivation from knuckle down and its connection to buckle to, with the figurative buckle  referring to the buckling of a suit of armor. In any case, this article claims buckle down first appeared in print in a magazine in 1865, in the sentence: "If he would only buckle down to serious study." This sentence appears in the March 1865 issue of "The Atlantic Monthly." You can read it for yourself right here.

There are buckles there somewhere, I'm sure.
Image by Bernd from Pixabay 

A Dear Friend Completes Life's Journey: Rest in Peace, Camille Minichino

Camille Minichino, my dear friend of nearly 46 years, died Monday, May 6, 2024. She was companion, colleague, mentor, teacher, ally, and more to me and many many others. By any measure, she was an amazing person, one in a million, and will be sorely missed. It's hard to put thoughts into words at this point, so instead, I'll share a letter that was sent to those on her snail-mail "Christmas list." Below the letter, I'll add links to tributes, obituaries, etc., as I find them. If you come across any postings/articles, feel free to contact me and I will add them.

To receive updates about services in honor of Camille, please click on this link and provide your email address. Your email will only be used to provide information about such events.

 https://form.jotform.com/241314790968162

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Camille Minichino, Ph.D.
June 3, 1937 – May 6, 2024

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues of Camille Minichino, 

It is with sorrow we are informing you that Camille passed away on Monday, May 6, 2024, after a brief illness. What follows is an overview of her life, which in no way captures the amazing totality of a life "well and truly lived."

Born in Revere, Massachusetts, in June 1937, to Joseph and Helen Avallone Minichino, Camille was the first of two daughters; sister Arlene Minichino Polinene predeceased her. Camille often related how her father, a laborer, introduced her first to the joys of mathematics by showing her how to measure, multiply, and divide. After graduating from Revere High School, her love of mathematics and physics grew at Emmanuel College where several sisters took her under their wings and nurtured and encouraged her intellect and scientific curiosity. At the urging of these role models, Camille graduated with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1958. She then joined the Sisters of Notre Dame, where she remained for 18 years, and attended Fordham University, New York City, where she carried out experimental physics research in spectroscopy and obtained a Ph.D. in Physics in 1968, one of three women in a department of nearly 80 students. After leaving the order, she moved to California, and during her 30-year career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory worked in high-temperature, high-pressure physics, provided technical support to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in pre- and post-Three Mile Island, and consulted at commercial reactors throughout the country. She also worked on problems of nuclear waste management and co-authored a book on the subject in 1982 (Nuclear Waste Management Abstracts, with Richard Heckman). 

As an educator and professor, Camille developed and taught physics, mathematics, philosophy, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary courses at all levels. She served on numerous academic faculties: Golden Gate University, San Francisco; Emmanuel College, Boston; St. John’s College, Boston; Dominican University, San Rafael, California; and John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California. She also developed and taught writing classes and workshops at community colleges and through various writers’ organizations, including Emeritus College (Diablo Valley College), California Writers Club, and Sisters in Crime (an organization for mystery readers and writers). Which brings us to the third part of her professional journey…

 

Camille is the author of nearly 30 published mystery novels, plus numerous short stories and articles in both technical and popular magazines and websites. Her mystery series included The Periodic Table Mysteries, The Miniature Mysteries, the Professor Sophie Knowles Mysteries, The Postmistress Mysteries, The Alaskan Diner Mysteries, and the Sister Francesca Mystery.

She loved See's Candies, a well-crafted, bone dry, whole milk decaf cappuccino, Amici's margherita pizza (hold the sauce!), designing and creating "miniature" scenes and dollhouses, watching movies (especially The Godfather), throwing parties (including gatherings to celebrate the Academy Awards, Fourth of July, New Year's Eve, and birthdays), reading across the spectrum of fiction and nonfiction, and supporting her artistic friends by buying their jewelry, knit items, and crafts. She also was there to raise a hand when the call went out for volunteers for all the myriad organizations she belonged to, or when a friend, family member, or student needed a hand or a listening ear or just wanted to grab an ice cream cone and a chat at the nearby Loard's Ice Cream Parlor. Although she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 50 years, she still considered herself a "New Yorker," and regular trips to the Big Apple, with its museums and bookstores, helped feed her city-soul.

On her blog site, The Real Me, Camille described herself as follows: "I've been a factory worker, a translator, a teacher, an experimental physicist, a nuclear safeguards engineer, a writer, a waitress, a miniaturist, a paralegal, a nun, a minister, a short order cook, a ticket taker, an editor, a crafter, and a cotton candy twirler... plus a wife."

No overview of Camille's life is complete without acknowledging the deep devotion she shared with her husband, Richard (Dick) Rufer. Camille and Dick met at "The Lab" and married in 1977. Dick was, without question, the great love of her life. They watched movies together, conspired on solving crossword, acrostic, and jigsaw puzzles and creating cryptoquotes. Camille often fondly referred to Dick as her "24/7 tech support" and/or "The Cable Guy." He was the inspiration for her book How to Live with an Engineer. Over their nearly half-century of marriage, they exchanged nightly love-notes. Dick was always there for her, and she for him. Dick predeceased Camille by two months, shattering her world. Although her death certificate states a medical cause of death, all who knew Camille and supported her for those months after Dick's death know that she really died of a broken heart.

Camille is survived by a number of cousins and second cousins, and by legions of friends, colleagues, and students.

Yours in shared joy at having had Camille in our lives,

A small committee of Camille's friends

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LINKS AND OTHER TRIBUTES

• Mystery Fanfare: Camille Minichino, R.I.P.
• Camille Minichino obituary in:
• The East Bay Times
• The Independent
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's In Memoriam

Thank you, mystery author Gabriel Valjan, for creating the lovely visual tribute below that captures all of Camille's mystery titles...

Credit: Gabriel Valjan

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-Rama: On the lam (oh yes, I am!)

When this post pops up, I will officially be on the lam. But not in the criminal sense...

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On the lam has a few definitions, according to Green's Dictionary of Slang. Starting in 1911, on the lam meant "quickly, at a run, at top speed." Then, in 1929, it took on the sense of "on the run from prison or the police, thus fig. on the loose." In 1939, on the lam also evolved to mean "elsewhere." 

Mental Floss has a nice article about the origin of on the lam right here, as well as some fascinating background on the origin of lam (which is the "mystery word" in this phrase, to my way of thinking):

...As a verb in its own right, however, lam dates back as far as the late 16th century. The Oxford English Dictionary has unearthed it in a dictionary compiled in the mid-1590s (alongside a long-lost equivalent form, belam), but back then the word’s meaning was considerably different: in 16th century English, to lam meant “to beat” or “to thrash someone harshly.”...

Lam survived in this original sense until the 19th century when, having steadily fallen out of everyday use, it began to crop up in the schoolyard slang of British (and later American) schoolchildren. By the mid-1800s, lamming out or lamming into someone was being widely used in reference to schoolyard fights and scuffles, and it’s perhaps through association with schoolboys running away before they were caught fighting by their teachers (or else, with the hapless victim running away before the first blow was thrown) that lamming finally came to be used to mean “to escape” or “to abscond.”

In this sense, lam first appeared in print on its own in 1886, in Allan Pinkerton’s memoir Thirty Years A Detective. In it, Pinkerton—the Scotland-born founder of Chicago’s renowned Pinkerton National Detective Agency—describes in detail the precise operations of a pickpocketing gang..."

You can read Pinkerton's chapter on how pickpockets worked their trade in the 19th century right here, courtesy of Internet Archive.  If you just want to go to the passage that mentions lam, here's the link. 

Meanwhile, I'm off and running. Running where? The photo below is a no-so-subtle hint.... 

Not a bad place to be on the lam...
Image by Jean-Philippe Fourier from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: On the Q.T.

 The minute I typed on the Q.T. my mind turned to Slang-o-rama. This phrase sounded sort of World War II vintage to me, or maybe the Roaring '20s (the 1920s, that is).

Was I right, or was I wrong?

I was...

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... WRONG! 

Turns out, on the Q.T. has a lifeline stretching back into the19th century.

According to The Phrase Finder, on the Q.T. (meaning "on the quiet" or "secretly") is of British origin. Here's what the entry says:

The slang term 'qt' is a shortened form of 'quiet'. There's no definitive source for the phrase 'on the q.t.', although it appears to be of 19th century British origin - not, as is often supposed, American.

The longer phrase 'on the quiet' is also not especially old, but is first recorded somewhat before 'on the qt', in Otago: Goldfields & Resources, 1862: "Unless men can work [the gold] on 'the quiet', they are not likely to make 'piles' so rapidly as Messrs. Hartley and Riley."

As to on the q.t., in The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, Robert Hendrickson states: "A British broadside ballad (1870) contained the line 'Whatever I tell you is on the Q.T.'" It would be good to know the name of the ballad in order to follow up this assertion. Unfortunately, the author doesn't give it, from which we can only suppose he didn't know it himself. That first record is from new Zealand, but is soon followed by citations from the United Kingdom and the USA....

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer notes that on the Q.T. was first recorded in 1884.

That means I could probably have a character in one of my Silver Rush books mutter, "This is all on the Q.T., if you please." (But would readers think the phrase anachronistic? Hmmm...)

Shhh... It's on the Q.T.
 Image by Sammy-Sander from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Go with the flow

 I have to say, the phrase go with the flow has a very late-'60s (as in: 1960s) vibe to me, as in: "Hey man, be cool, go with the flow." But I figured I'd better take a look around and see when it first came into use, idiomatically speaking...

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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer provides the definition to "move along with the prevailing forces, accept the prevailing trend," and adds this for its origin:

...[F]low in [this] colloquial term, which dates from the late 1900s, alludes to the ebb and flow of the tides and probably gained currency because of its appealing rhyme.

The Idioms website reaches waaaay back in history for the phrase's origin, noting:

This expression was first recorded to be used by the Roman Emperor, Marcus Arelius, in his writings “The Meditations”. He penned a lot about the flow of happiness and thoughts and he surmised that most things flow naturally and in his opinion it was better to go with the flow than to try and change society. Then sometime in 1960s America, this expression was ascribed to the hippies, who liked outdoor activities but also espoused a philosophy of taking life easy, not getting worked up, not struggling or fighting. These people drew an analogy from the way they kayaked and rafted on white water to the way life should be led, by going with the flow.

Green's Dictionary of Slang (which is an awesome reference work, by the way) also points to a more recent idiomatic "first use":

go with the flow (v.) [a mass popularization of the more complex dictum of US psychologist Carl Rogers (1902–87), who saw life as ‘floating with a complex streaming of experience’] to accept a situation and make no attempt to alter it, to act passively.

Green's also offers up a quote from the 1968 book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe as an "early" (possibly "first use?") quote: 

No one was to rise up negative about anything, one was to go positive with everything — go with the flow — everyone's cool was to be tested...

Curious, I checked Google books to see if go with the flow appears in italics in Wolfe's book, and it does! So, I'd be willing to bet this was indeed a very early appearance of this phrase, slang-wise.

Hey. I'm cool with that.

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay