Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Galluptious

I have galluptious news to share with you! The news being...

.... Well, let's define galluptious first.

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
According to Merriam-Webster Online, galluptious (or less commonly spelled galoptious or galuptious) means "wonderful, delightful, delicious." Take your pick. I think I'll go with "wonderful" this time around. I don't see a whole lot more about this word, so will proceed directly to the news:

The Secret in the Wall is a finalist for the Will Rogers Medallion Award in the Western Mystery category, which is galluptiously delightful indeed! I am honored beyond words...

More will be revealed at the Award Ceremony on October 21. You can view all the finalists in all the categories right here.

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: On cloud nine

I recently learned that THE SECRET IN THE WALL won the 2023 Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Traditional Novel** and is a Foreword INDIES Award finalist in the Mystery category***, and I am (yes, you guessed it from this post's title) ...

~~ on cloud nine! ~~

This being Slang-o-rama day and all, I started wondering: Why does this phrase, which means blissfully happy, reference the ninth cloud, and not the first or second or hundredth or...? And could my protagonist, Inez Stannert, say she was on cloud nine in the 1880s? 

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer notes this colloquial term appeared in the mid-1900s. As for why nine, it's pretty much a shrug: "The exact allusion of nine in this term is unclear, and different figures, especially seven (perhaps alluding to seventh heaven), are sometimes substituted."

The Times (UK) has an article from 2016 about the phrase's origin, but gosh darn it, the story is mostly behind a paywall, except for this opening paragraph:

An unlikely combination of a Victorian aristocrat and an international meteorology meeting 120 years ago led to a well known phrase describing a state of euphoria. In September, 1896, cumulonimbus, the greatest cloud in the world, was listed as Cloud 9 in a new cloud classification, and so to be on cloud nine became like floating on the tallest cloud on Earth.

Thank goodness The Phrase Finder comes to the rescue with an abundance of information about cloud nine, cloud seven, cloud ten, cloud thirty-nine (!!), and more. All in all, it looks like Inez won't ever be on cloud "pick-a-number", unless she manages to reach at least 80-years-plus in age:

...The early references all come from mid 20th century USA and the earliest ... is in Albin Pollock's directory of slang, The Underworld Speaks, 1935: "Cloud eight, befuddled on account of drinking too much liquor."

The Phrase Finder adds that on cloud nine only became popular much later, noting, "George Harrison adopted the term as the title of his 1987 album and, more notably, The Temptations' 'psychedelic soul' album of the same name, in 1969."

And with that, I shall blissfully float away for now...

Image by Ana_J from Pixabay

** Read about the 2023 Spur Award winners and finalists in this WWA news release.

*** See the list of all INDIES Award finalists here. Winners will be announced June 15.

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: High jinks

I missed a week of posting on slang-o-rama because I was getting up to high jinks in Colorado, culminating in being inducted into the Colorado Authors' Hall of Fame along with an amazing slate of Colorado-based writers. I was overwhelmed, to say the least, at this incredible honor. It was wonderful to attend the ceremony, meet the other inductees and the organizers, have a chance to thank folks, and... 

Hmmm. High jinks. What does that mean, exactly? Am I using it correctly? And where did the term come from?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Engaging in shadow-puppet high jinks at the induction ceremony? Or just trying to see past the light?
Photo by Devyn McConachie

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Merriam-Webster's Word History blog says:

High jinks, also spelled hi-jinks, is defined in our dictionary as "boisterous or rambunctious carryings-on" or "carefree antics or horseplay," and if it sounds a bit old-fashioned, that's because it is.

According to the M-W post, the earliest use of this term (slightly different spelling) appeared in a 1683 English translation of Erasmus:

And as to all those Shooing-horns of drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the throwing Hey-jinks, the filling of bumpers, the drinking two in a hand, the beginning of Mistresses healths; and then the roaring out of drunken catches, the calling in a Fidler, the leading out every one his Lady to dance, and such like riotous pastimes, ...
—Witt against wisdom, or, A panegyrick upon folly

M-W adds that hey-jinks (also spelled high jinks) was the name of a dice game of chance. It shows up in a 1699 dictionary of underworld slang, which notes: "Highjinks: A Play at Dice who Drinks." 

The Word Detective defines jinks as “playful, rowdy activity” or “disruptive pranks or unruly behavior," and adds more details about that dice game:

Apparently high jinks in the 16th century was a drinking game (at the time also known as “high pranks”) in which the loser in a throw of dice had to perform a silly task (or drink a certain quantity of alcohol).

Apparently, by the mid-19th century, high jinks had come to mean “lively merrymaking” and “boisterous pranks” in general.

Lively merrymaking sums up the event for me! To be recognized in this way is an honor that I'll cherish forever... 

No high jinks from me here, just a whole lot of happiness and gratitude to receive this award and be part of the wonderful evening!
Photo by Bill McConachie

NEWS FLASHes! and Wednesday's (Not So) Random Slang-o-rama: Knock me over with a feather

NOTE: I'm letting this post stand for two weeks, straddling the end/beginning of the year. New slang-o-rama appearing January 9. Wishing everyone a good start to 2019!)
-----------------
Well, this has been quite the month! When I heard that True West Magazine in their "Best of the West 2019" listed my sixth Silver Rush historical mystery, A Dying Note, as Best Mystery in the Best Fiction category, well, you could've knocked me over with a feather! And then, when I learned that A Dying Note is also long-listed for the Martin Cruz Smith Award in Suspense/Mystery by the NICBA (Northern California Independent Booksellers Association), you could've knocked me over again!... But that wasn't all. The latest "knock 'em over" news is that my publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, has been acquired (? correct verb ?) by SourceBooks. Poisoned Pen Press will now be an imprint of this much larger indie publisher.

Through my jubilation, gratitude, and surprise, the thought came sneaking: How long has the idiom knocked over with a feather been around? When was it first used?

It didn't take me long to find out...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
 

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer includes this phrase under the idiom knock for a loop, as follows:

knock for a loop. Also, throw for a loop; knock down or over with a feather; knock sideways—Overcome with surprise or astonishment... The first two of these hyperbolic colloquial usages, dating from the first half of the 1900s, allude to the comic-strip image of a person pushed hard enough to roll over in the shape of a loop. The third hyperbolic term, often put as You could have knocked me down with a feather, intimating that something so light as a feather could knock one down, dates from the early 1800s; the fourth was first recorded in 1925.

I guess my 1880s characters can be knocked down (or over) with a feather, but not knocked sideways or in a loop!

 

There's also a fascinating discussion of this very term in this StackExchange exchange. One of the responders found that the idiom dates back to 1796 (squeaking in as an 18th century expression) in William Cobbett's Porcupine's works: 

Fascinating, eh?

Here-Hear! (A bit of news)

Interrupting the usual slang-o-rama schedule to warble some exciting developments about the latest book in my series....

A DYING NOTE is now out in audio, thanks to Blackstone Publishing and narrator par excellence Kirsten Potter (who has narrated other books in the Silver Rush series). You can find it on Downpour as well as on Audible. If you like audio books, please check it out! (Speaking of checking things out, your library might even carry it. And if not, well, you can always put in a request that they obtain it for their audiobook collection.)

My second bit of warbling is that A DYING NOTE is a finalist for a CIPA/EVVY Award! (CIPA/EVVY = Colorado Independent Publishers Association; EVVY = CIPA's founder Evelyn Kaye.) Winners (and 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and Merit finalists) will be announced August 25th in Denver. I'm still trying to decide at this point whether I can reasonably spring for a quick trip to Colorado to attend the awards banquet. I'm verrrrry tempted.

 

Mercury's Rise wins Bruce Alexander Award...

Mercury's Rise, the fourth in my Silver Rush mystery series, received the Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award at Left Coast Crime in Sacramento, California, March 31, 2012. The award is for "the best historical (events prior to 1950) mystery published during the previous year."
Other winners in past years include Jacqueline Winspear, Rebecca Cantrell, Kelli Stanley, Tony Broadbent, Sharan Newman, and Rhys Bowen. Wonderful writers, all, and I'm honored to be among the recipients of the award.
So who, you might ask, is Bruce Alexander? You can read about him here in an interview with January Magazine, republished in an "In Memoriam" article.