Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Warm the cockles of my heart

My first question about this phrase is: what the heck are cockles? My second: how did this reference to high-temperature heart cockles come about anyway?

Let's find out....

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A quick hop over to the Grammarist yields the following:

To warm the cockles of one’s heart means to bestow a feeling of contentment, to kindle warm feelings in a person, especially of happiness and felicity. The term warm the cockles of one’s heart dates back to the mid-1600s, a time when scientific texts were often written in Latin. The Latin term cochleae cordis means ventricles of the heart, and most probably, the word cochleae was corrupted as cockles. This may have been a mistake made by the less learned, or a deliberate joke. Add in the fact that the bivalve mollusk known as a cockle is shaped somewhat like a heart, and the idea of the phrase cockles of one’s heart being more or less a joke gains credence.

My copy of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer agrees with the Latin origin for cockles and when the phrase first came into use. World Wide Words has its own approach, starting its entry with:

Something that warms the cockles of one’s heart induces a glow of pleasure, sympathy, affection, or some such similar emotion. What gets warmed is the innermost part of one’s being. It’s not that surprising that it should be associated with the heart, that being the presumed seat of the emotions for most people. 

Awww. I like that! A very heart-warming observation. WWW then adds, "But what are the cockles? We’re not sure."

Uh-oh. "Not sure" is not what I wanted to read.

WWW offers the same possible explanations as Grammarist, with some additional fillips, including the fact that the earliest form of the saying was rejoice the cockles of one’s heart. The WWW exploration of the idiom concludes by noting that cochlea in Latin is the word for a snail and suggesting that perhaps we should really be speaking of warming the snails of one’s heart.

Snails?? Uh, no. Just... no.

A case of overheated cockles?
Image by 0fjd125gk87 from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Latibulate

For this week's Slang-o-rama offering, I yearned to highlight a really obscure word. The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard did not let me down.

Latibulate. 

Any guesses as to what it means? (No peeking! No Googling!)

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Allow me to enlighten you (or rather, we'll let Gillard do that): Latibulate is a 17th century English word that means "to hide in a corner." What a cool word, right?? 

I spot a little latibulation goin' on...
The Eavesdropper by Jean Carolus (1880) - Sotheby's New York, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29501650

I dug around online... and, wow, obscure I wanted, and obscure I got. Slang Define notes this is "among a group of words with the root latib, all used to describe the action or place of hiding." A group of words? I can't even think of one. So, I explored a little more. A Way with Words provides some insight with a post on latibulum that says:

The Latin word latibulum means a "refuge or hiding place of animals." It derives from the same root that gives us the English word latent, meaning "hidden." A 17th-century dictionary defines the now-rare English word latibulate as "privily to hide oneself in a corner."

A little more was revealed in this pandemic-lockdown era post from Writing Redux. This was about all I could find, EXCEPT there is a very short (and rather catchy) song by Scotland singer/songwriter Adam Donaldson titled "Latibulate" (!!) which you can hear (and watch) below. Maybe this word is getting ready to step out of obscurity, eh?

(Privily, I shall latibulate now.)

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Bugaboo

With tomorrow being Halloween, bugaboo is a word appropriate to the season because, well...
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Image by Mojca JJ from Pixabay

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Now, let's find out where this interesting word came from and how long it's been around...

According to the Online Etymological Dictionary bugaboo is "something to frighten a child, fancied object of terror." It dates from 1843 (nice to know!), perhaps evolving from the 1740 buggybow (now that's one I haven't heard of before).

The OED also notes that bugaboo is probably an alteration of bugbear (another word with a fascinating history... check out the link). The entry dives in a little further, saying that the Dictionary of American Slang by Robert L. Chapman links bugaboo to Bugibu, demon in the Old French poem "Aliscans" from 1141, "which is perhaps of Celtic origin (compare Cornish bucca-boo, from bucca 'bogle, goblin')."

So, there you have it, a little word history to chew over as you eye the chocolates and other sweets in your Halloween offerings for the little hobgoblins who come a-knocking on your door for treats. Enjoy the end-of-October festivities, and don't let the bugaboos get to you!

 Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: In one's cups

Good buddy Dani Greer directed my attention to the phrase in his cups, and once my focus settled there, it wouldn't go away... at least not without a little digging!

We all know what the term in his (or her or their) cups means, right? The definition is drunk or intoxicated.

Ah, but that's not all!

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According to the Word Detective, it can also mean to simply be imbibing. Only WD explains this much more engagingly:

There are actually two meanings to the phrase “in his cups” (which can be rendered, of course, just as well with “her,” “their,” or, in case one encounters a drunken robot, “its”). “In one’s cups” can mean inebriated (i.e., drunk as a skunk), but it can also mean merely to be engaged in drinking alcoholic beverages, an endeavor which will not necessarily culminate in drooling on parking meters. This sense appears a bit earlier than the “stinking drunk” sense.

The post also notes that the idiom first appeared in printed form in 1611, in the King James Version of the Bible (“And when they are in their cups, they forget their love both to friends and brethren”).

WD also mentions the book Drunk: The Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary by Paul Dickson (Hmmm.... Guess what book I plan to add to my library?? You guessed it!)

The Online Etymological Dictionary adds a little bit of additional etymological history:

To be in one's cups "intoxicated" is from 1610s (Middle English had cup-shoten "drunk, drunken," mid-14c.).

So, there you go! Feel free to raise a cup (or glass or some other container) of your favorite beverage along with me, even if it isn't alcoholic in nature, to celebrate knowing more about the phrase in one's cups.


via GIPHY
In one's cups? I think the more appropriate term for this illustration might be getting potted...

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Talking turkey

This Thursday is the day in the U.S. when we give thanks and overdose on pumpkin pie and stuffed poultry. Hey, I'm talkin' turkey here. Which brings up the question (in my mind, anyway)... Where did the phrase talking turkey come from? And why turkey, of all things/birds?

Research time!
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According to the 1889 Americanisms, Old and New by Stephen Farmer (which is one of my favorite 19th-century references for old-timey phrases):

To talk turkey—To indulge in grandiloquent periods; to use high-sounding words, when plain English would do equally well or better. An allusion to the manner in which the male bird spreads and plumes itself.

This puzzled me a bit, as I would've defined it more along the lines of what appears in the 1997 The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer:

talk turkey—Speak plainly, get to the point... This expression allegedly comes from a tale about an Indian and a white man who hunted together and divided the game. When the white man said, "I'll take the turkey and you the buzzard, or you take the buzzard and I the turkey," the Indian replied, "Talk turkey to me." Whether or not this tale had a true basis, the term was recorded in its present meaning by about 1840.

So, does this mean that talking turkey could refer to either plain- or fancy-speechifying in the 19th century?? How confusing is that! (Especially for me, since my Silver Rush series is set in the 1880s. What would my poor characters think if one were to say to the other, "Let's talk turkey.")

An exploration of this etymological conundrum appears in an interesting post on the origin of the phrase on the site World Wide Words. The blogger/author, UK's Michael Quinion, notes:

[The phrase is] first recorded in 1824, but is probably much older; one suggestion is that it goes back as far as colonial times. What the explanations have in common is real turkeys.

But the meaning of the phrase seems to have shifted down the years. To start with it meant to speak agreeably, or to say pleasant things; nowadays it usually refers to speaking frankly, discussing hard facts, or getting down to serious business. The change seems to have happened because to "talk turkey" was augmented at some point in the nineteenth century to "talk cold turkey", with the modern meaning. In the course of time it was abbreviated again, with the shorter form keeping the newer meaning. (The other meaning of "cold turkey" is unrelated.)

So, there you go! Now you can talk turkey about talking turkey when you are at the Thanksgiving table.

Talk first, gobble later.
From "A natural history of birds : illustrated with a hundred and one copper plates, curiously engraven from the life v.2." (1734) By Albin, Eleazar; Derham, W. [CC BY 2.0  (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons