Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Spur of the moment

 

With California's largest wildfire just over the hill about 10 miles south, we've made our list, checked it twice, and have our go bags and bins ready to load up, if we find we need to leave on the spur of the moment.

Taking a pause from compulsively refreshing Cal Fire's page on the SCU Lightning Complex (20% contained) to wonder about on the spur of the moment. Does this have to do with cavalry and spurring horses to gallop faster or what?

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Word Histories has a nice entry about on the spur of the moment and a variant, on the spur of the occasion. The earliest appearance of the first is July 24, 1784, in Jackson’s Oxford Journal and has to do with a proposal to tax... (wait for it)... watches. As in, timepieces. And the origin does harken to "the use of spurs to urge a horse forward."

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer concurs. 

The Online Etymology Dictionary adds that the expression, which they nudge forward to 1801 for first use, "preserves [the] archaic phrase on the spur 'in great haste'" from the1520s. 

And that's all I've got for now!

Don't wait until the spur of the moment to pack your go bag!
By Anonymous - Official Guide and Catalogue of the International Fire Exhibition, Earl’s Court, 1903 (https://archive.org/details/internationalfir00earl/page/n37), Public Domain, Link

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Twitterpated/Shatterpated

Ooooh I'd love to use twitterpated in my historical mystery circa 1882, but nope nope nope...
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According to The Online Etymological Dictionary, twitterpated only came into being in 1942. (It sounds so much older, right?) What's more, it was Disney Studios that apparently coined it:

twitterpated: [F]irst attested in the Walt Disney movie "Bambi"... a past-participle adjective formed from twitter in the "tremulous excitement" noun sense (1670s) + pate (n.2) "head".  

Thumper: Why are they acting that way? 

Friend Owl: Why, don't you know? They're twitterpated. 

Flower, Bambi, Thumper: Twitterpated? 

Friend Owl: Yes. Nearly everybody gets twitterpated in the springtime. For example: You're walking along, minding your own business. You're looking neither to the left, nor to the right, when all of a sudden you run smack into a pretty face. Woo-woo! You begin to get weak in the knees. Your head's in a whirl. And then you feel light as a feather, and before you know it, you're walking on air. And then you know what? You're knocked for a loop, and you completely lose your head!

However, the word shatterpated is another story. This is what I found in the online 1828 Webster's Dictionary:

1. Disordered or wandering in intellect.
2. Heedless wild; not consistent.

Shatterpated also shows up in A Dictionary of the English LanguageIn which the Words are Deduced from Their Originals; and Illustrated in Their Different Significations, by Examples from the Best Writers: Together with a History of the Language, and an English Grammar, Volume 4 by Samuel Johnson and Henry John Todd, from 1818. The definition: inattentive; not consistent.

So, I'd better not include twitterpated characters in my fictional world of the 1880s, lest I be accused of being shatterpated.

This twitterpation must stop! (Or at least be moved to a different century.)
Les Amants dans la campagne by Gustave Courbet, 1844

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Kick up your heels at a shindig

How many of you plan to go to a shindig on July 4th and kick up your heels?

There's a lot of unintentional legwork in that question. Let's tackle both the word shindig and the phrase kick up your heels, and see if we can't wrestle them to the ground, slang-o-rama style.
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Shindig, meaning "dance, party, lively gathering," gets a nod from the Online Etymological Dictionary, which notes it first appeared in 1871. According to OED, this word probably evolved from shindy "a spree, merrymaking" (1821)—which also refers to "a game like hockey"—or perhaps from shinty, which is the name of a Scottish game akin to hockey (1771). Merriam-Webster says shindig first danced onto the scene in 1842.

Hmmmm. I sense some uncertainty as to when shindig first arrived on the scene.

I checked Google Ngram Viewer for early appearances, did a little digging, and found it in Across the Atlantic: Letters from France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and England by Charles H. Haeseler, dated 1868. The following passage appears in a passage describing a snowball fight in the Alps:

As for kick up one's heels, nowadays we pretty much use it in the sense defined by Merriam-Webster: to show sudden delight or have a lively time. However, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer, its original meaning was much less... ah... lively:

kick up one's heels: Enjoy oneself... This expression originated about 1600 with a totally different meaning, "to be killed."

Ee-ow!! Although, perhaps in these days (and nights) of COVID-19, kicking up one's heels at a big ol' shindig where folks are all jammed together might result in a condition that is closer to the original meaning of the phrase.

So, whatever you do to celebrate the 4th, please stay safe and err on the side of caution. As for me, I'm going to see if I have a red-white-and-blue mask to wear that day if I should venture out in public.... 

If you attend a shindig on the 4th, please add a little distance while you kick up your heels...
WikiArt - 4th of July 1819 in Philadelphia by John Lewis Krimmel

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Tin ear

A character in my work-in-progress claims to have a tin ear. I dutifully recorded it... and stopped.

And how did "tin" get all wrapped up with ears? And how old is that idiom, anyway? My books are set in the 1880s, long before author L. Frank Baum introduced the Tin Man in his 1900 book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

So, I proceeded down my virtual version of the Yellow Brick Road to figure out the when, where, and why of the phrase tin ear.

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According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, tin ear, meaning "lack of musical discernment," has been around since 1909.

The Stack Exchange has a lively discussion on this phrase and throws out several theories on its origin, including:

• Ear trumpets made of tin 
• Tin (plate) as cheap and nasty
• Tin instruments or dropped items made of tin sounding horrible
• A tale of using a piece of tin on a morse buzzer to amplify the sound
• Tinnitus

One intrepid Stack Exchange responder noted:

The earliest record I can track of the use in print is in the novel Titan:A Romance, by Jean Paul Richter, published in translation from the German in 1863 and in the original language between 1800 and 1803. 

In that early 19th century novel, tin ear is synonymous with an ear trumpet. Alas, not the meaning I had in mind at all for my character who is in San Francisco in 1882.

Changes were required.

Now, the poor fellow no longer has a tin ear but is tone deaf (which I found in an 1876 tome and an 1880 magazine... good enough for my purposes!).

Not the tin ear I was hoping for, but pretty cool, nonetheless.
A collapsible Victorian ear trumpet made of tin made by Atkinson, Union Court, Holborn, London
See page for author / CC BY

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Saber-rattling

In these fraught times it seems there is a lot of saber-rattling going on. Which, of course, has me wondering about the when and why of this phrase. According to Merriam-Webster saber-rattling is "overtly and often exaggeratedly threatening actions or statements (such as verbal threats or ostentatious displays of military power) that are meant to intimidate an enemy by suggesting possible use of force."

Sabers have been around for a loooong time, so you might think this term dates back to when folks actually used these sharp-edged weapons to cause very real damage to their enemies.

At least, that's what I thought.
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The Online Etymology Dictionary notes that "saber-rattling 'militarism' is attested from 1922." An M-W post, The History of 'Saber-rattling,' is a little fuzzy on the first use as well as the origin of the phrase:

Some think that it comes from the practice of 18th-century Hungarian cavalry units had of brandishing their sabers at opponents prior to charging. Others have said that it comes from the habit that military officers had in the early 20th century of ominously shaking their scabbard when issuing orders to subordinates. Our records indicate that the two words began seeing use in fixed fashion around 1880, making it unlikely that it was directly related to either of the causes given above.

Whether 19th century or 20th century, it's clearly a term that still is relevant to today...

Those sabers look pretty serious to me.
Image by Gerhard Gellinger from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Zounderkite

Here is an vintage word that is perfect for our times: zounderkite.

Any ideas as to what it means?

Go ahead, guess! (No fair peeking on Google.) And then, keep reading to see if you are right...

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According to the Dictionary.com article Insults We Should Bring Back, zounderkite is a Victorian word meaning "idiot." It shows up in many lists of vintage curse words, including 22 Incredible Forgotten Curse Words from Way Back in the Day (which expands on the simple one-word definition with: "a complete idiot who constantly makes clumsy and awkward mistakes"), and BBC America's 10 Victorian Swears from the Real "Ripper Street" (which goes whole hog: "the kind of bumbling idiot that will end up making a disastrous mistake of the sort that beggars belief").

BBC America provided a source, which was a good thing, because this word did not appear in any of my hard copy dictionaries, including Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. However, their source—1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue—does not contain zounderkite.

What do they take me for, an idiot? That I would not check the source?

I turned to N-gram, thinking surely it would show up there. Nope. Nothing.

Determined, I delved a little further into Google Books, hoping to find a 19th century mention. I finally found it, I'm proud to say, in the 1876 A Glossary of Surrey Words (A Supplement to No. 12.) by Granville William Gresham Leveson Gower, in the Mid-Yorkshire section, where it appears between zookerins! and zounds! 

There it is! Proof, at last!

I think the scarcity of zounderkite in books in general might mean it was a word more spoken than written, at least in the past.

My thrashing about also turned up a Zounderkite family of fonts.
One just never knows what will turn up during Slang-o-rama research.

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Sail close to the wind

Those of you who are nautically inclined will no doubt know the origins and meaning of the phrase sail close to the wind, and why it has an air of danger about its definition. However, I do not, and since I'm mucking around with bits of maritime history as I trudge along drafting book #8 of the Silver Rush series, it seemed time to look this one up...
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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer summarizes as follows:

sail close to the wind: Be on the verge of doing something illegal or improper, as in "She was sailing pretty close to the wind when she called him a liar." This term alludes to the danger incurred when literally sailing too close to (that is, in the direction of) the wind. Its figurative use dates from the first half of the 1800s.

Well, that's pretty cool! And I rather like the sample sentence. There are all kinds of folks my protagonist Inez could accuse of sailing close to the wind in my current work-in-progess. In fact, she could be probably be accused of the same.

There is a little more back'n forth about the phrase over at The Phrase Finder, to wit:

This is a true sailing expression. Sail boats have different characteristics, but all need wind. Some can harvest the wind better than others. If you sail close to the edge of direction that the wind is coming from you may well lose the wind altogether, but you may be able to make better progress than a boat that can't sail as well in such a difficult situation. Thus, if you can 'sail close to the wind' then you can benefit, but you enter a risky area and may lose all!

I looked around a bit more, but that was about all I could find that shed light on this particular phrase. At least, the timing gives me license to let my characters sail close to the wind—in some cases, with disastrous results.

Sailed too close to the wind? Or a reef?...
Shipwreck by Ivan Aivazovsky, 1854

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Pish-posh

Now here's a great expression I used in A DYING NOTE and that I'm itching to use again: pish-posh. Or, if you prefer: pish-tosh.

Nice eh? Of course, the expression isn't nice or complimentary.
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According to my copy of Green's Dictionary of Slang, pish-posh is an interjection that confers the same expression of disdain as saying (contemptuously), "Rubbish!" or "Nonsense!"

The Word Detective has a nice post about this alliterative exclamation, noting:

“Pish posh” actually appears to have two sources. “Pish” by itself has been used as an interjection of impatience or contempt since the 16th century, and, like “pshaw” and “pah,” it arose as an imitation of the sound of disgusted surprise (“‘Pish!’ I growled. ‘Someone has fooled you,'” 1894). The “posh” part of “pish posh” is what linguists call “reduplication,” the repetition of a word with slight variation as a means of emphasis or elaboration (as in “hoity-toity”).

I gulped a little seeing the date 1894. Surely pish-posh was used before then?

Down the rabbit hole I go...

Pish-posh. Don't pay him any mind.
Our time will come.
Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay

Votes for women? Pish-posh, that's what I say.
Image by Jo-B from Pixabay 

I found the phrase pish! posh! and pshaw! in a novel from 1862 titled Spurs and Skirts by Allet (a pseudonym). From the title, I thought this might be an adventure set in the American West. However the book opens in Edinburgh, Scotland, so I guess not!

In any case, pish-posh has a nice ring to it, and I'm sure I'll find the proper place for it to reappear in my current endeavor.

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Out of kilter

Now here's a phrase for these crazy days: out of kilter.

How perfect, right?

I think of it as a feeling of coming apart at the seams in a messy way, very much like the YouTube video of a washing machine going to pieces at the end of this post. (You really need to watch this video.)

However, I have no idea what a kilter is, and how this phrase came about.

Do you?
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If you're as clueless as I am, keep reading.

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer provides a definition, an alternate phrase, and a shrug:

out of kilter. Also, out of whack. No properly adjusted, not working well, out of order. The first term, also spelled kelter, dates from the early 1600s and its origin is not known. The precise allusion of the variant, a colloquial term dating from the late 1800s, is also unclear. Possibly it relates to a whack, or blow, throwing something off, or some suggest, to wacky, that is, "crazy."

At least the Online Etymological Dictionary provides a definition of kelter to help us along:

"order, good condition," in out of kilter (1620s), apparently a variant of English dialectal kelter (c. 1600) "good condition, order," a word of unknown origin.

The Phrase Finder agrees that it is a variant of an older English dialect word kelter, meaning good health; good condition. He then adds:

In 1643, the English Protestant theologian Roger Williams travelled to America and made a study of Native American languages, especially Narragansett, an Algonquian language. He subsequently published A Key Into the Language of America, which was a glossary of the language he had heard, which included this comment: "Their Gunnes they [native Americans] often sell many a score to the English, when they are a little out of frame or Kelter."

... This is seriously out of kilter.

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Six ways to Sunday

Six ways to Sunday.

I can recall the first time I gave serious thought to this particular phrase. In What Gold Buys, the fifth book in my Silver Rush mystery series, a character (who shall remain nameless, to avoid any spoilers), says, "Mrs. Stannert, since I’ve come back I’ve explained myself six ways to Sunday."

I wrote this bit of dialogue, stopped and stared at it, and thought that although it certainly sounded "period" (i.e., 19th century), I wasn't entirely positive when it first came into common use. And thus began the journey....
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According to The Free Dictionary (and other such compendiums) six ways to Sunday is defined as "thoroughly or completely; in every possible way; from every conceivable angle."

The Grammarist takes us on a little journey through the various iterations, starting with six ways from Sunday:

Six ways from Sunday seems to have its origins in the middle eighteenth century as the phrases both ways from Sunday and two ways from Sunday. These earlier phrases referred to the eye condition known as strabismus, where someone’s eyes do not focus in unison, giving the appearance of looking in two different directions. From there, the terms both ways from Sunday and two ways from Sunday gained the figurative meaning of looking at something askew. By the mid-1800s the terms two ways from Sunday and nine ways from Sunday appeared, and the meaning evolved to mean to be at a loss. The phrase evolved once again in the late 1800s in America to mean every way possible. One still finds many varieties of the phrase, the number in question might be six, seven, nine or a thousand, the preposition might be from, to or for, but the day referred to in the idiom is always Sunday and the idiom carries the same meaning...

World Wide Words weighs in on this phrase as well. When a poster wonders if the idiom might refer to patterns of activity during a week, from one Sunday to the next, WWW responds:

You’re not alone in feeling unsure of the origin; you are in the company of almost everybody who has looked at it. Others have made this suggestion for its origin. One specific and quite certainly false tale lists punishments that were once meted out on the six days following a Sunday to a person who failed to attend church....

As to its origin, WWW points to the definition of squint-a-pipes (now there's an intriguing bit of argot!), which appears in the 1785 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose:

SQUINT-A-PIPES. A squinting man or woman; said to be born in the middle of the week, and looking both ways for Sunday; or born in a hackney coach, and looking out of both windows; fit for a cook, one eye in the pot, and the other up the chimney; looking nine ways at once.

WWW adds that Sunday was presumably chosen because it would have been regarded as the most significant day of the week.

I would never have guessed that six ways to Sunday owed its beginnings to crossed eyes! I wonder if squint-a-pipes was still in use in the 1880s...

Which way to Sunday?
Image by 272447 from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Mosey

These days when I go out for a walk, I perambulate through my neighborhood and mostly just mosey around, musing about... well... all kinds of things, including the where, when and why of the word mosey.

Mosey has a nice ring to it. Kind of casual and slow.
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According to Americanisms, Old and New by John Stephen Farmer, to mosey means to depart suddenly and involuntarily; to sneak away. Farmer continues:

This, with some degree of plausibility, is supposed to be a corruption of the Spanish vamose, an elision of the first syllable having occurred and the final vowel being sounded. To mosey is also often used in the primary simple sense of "to go," and to mosey along with any one is also employed idiomatically in the sense of to agree with.

All of this is rather fascinating, although I have to say I've never equated mosey with "sudden (involuntary) departure." The Online Etymological Dictionary puts first use at about 1829 and defines mosey as American English slang meaning "move off or away, get out." 

Even though it states mosey is of unknown origin, the OED can't help but offer a theory or two:

...perhaps related to British dialectal mose about "go around in a dull, stupid way." Or perhaps from some abbreviation of Spanish vamos (see vamoose). Related: Moseyed; moseying.

Well, at least I know that my Silver Rush characters can safely mosey through the 1880s without fear of anachronism. 

For a change of scenery, let's mosey with Seurat for a bit.
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884) by Georges Seurat - twGyqq52R-lYpA at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22319969

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Draw through the water with a cat (April Fools'!)

How fortuitous that Slang-o-rama falls on April 1st, a good day to draw a fellow through a pond with a cat.

Say what????
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I stumbled upon this bizarre bit of slang while perusing Slang and Its Analogues, Past and Present (Vol. 2) by John Stephen Farmer, from 1891. According to the dictionary, to draw through the water with a cat or alternatively, to whip the cat (yikes!) means to indulge in practical jokes.

Apparently this phrase dates from about 1785. Its origin is explained as follows:

A trick often practised on ignorant country fellows, vain of their strength; by laying a wager with them, that they may be PULLED THROUGH A POND BY A CAT; the bet being made, a rope is fixed round the waist of the party to be catted, and the end thrown across the pond, to which the cat is also fastened by a pack-thread, and three or four sturdy fellows are appointed to lead and whip the cat; these, on a signal given, seize the end of the cord, and pretending to whip the cat, haul the astonished booby through the water.

 Of course, I—an appreciator and admirer of four-footed household felines—had to quickly check what a "pack-thread" was. It is simply thick thread for sewing or tying up packages. Thus, it sounds like no harm befalls the cat involved and the only injury is to the victim's dignity.

Wishing you all a safe and healthy April Fool's Day, and if you have pet cats, don't let them catch you reading this... 

From the Diva Miss Mia, who keeps careful watch over me as I type this post:
"Whip the cat? Don't even think about it."

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Stultiloquy

Let's go archaic this week and bring back a word that may actually be relevant to today's world: Stultiloquy

What, you are probably asking, does stultiloquy mean? Well, I could go on and on and on at great and tedious length...

Which is, more or less, the point.
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Webster's 1913 dictionary defines the noun stultiloquy as foolish talk; silly discourse; babbling. 

But O! Let us not stop here, for there's much more to learn about this wonderful word.

Dr. Goodword from Alphadictionary.com has an entry on stultiloquy that is full of explanations and examples (and even a little "Hear it!" button so you can hear how it is pronounced). He notes that the word is based on an obsolete adjective stulty, which means "foolish, stupid." Stulty is also the basis for the word stultify, which is defined as "to make stupid, render useless." Marching right alongside stultiloquy is the equally polysyllabic adjective stultiloquent and an alternative noun, stultiloquence.

World Wide Words notes that stultiloquy is from the Latin stultiloquus, speaking foolishly, which come in turn from stultus, foolish, plus loquus, that speaks.

Both Alphadictionary.com and World Wide Words make snarky comments about how this is the perfect word to apply to certain, unnamed political figures.

It does seem a pity it has fallen out of use. In a quest to discover when it was popular, I turned to Google's Ngram. Here are the results:

Stultiloquy appears to have peaked sometime around 1820, and was not very popular even then. I think this would be a most excellent word to reintroduce into the English language, don't you agree?

This pretty much says it all for stultiloquy.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: An arm and a leg

Hello all! I hope you are all staying healthy in these uncertain times. And what kind of a crazy place is this where toilet paper (of all things) has become a commodity as scarce as hen's teeth, and when one does find a pack of the precious paper, it costs an arm and a leg??

And when did things that fetch a pretty penny come to demand various appendages in payment in addition to the coin of the realm?
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The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer says that the idiom arm and a leg became widely known from the 1930s on, and probably had its origins in the 19th-century American criminal slang phrase if it takes a leg (that is, even at the cost of a leg), to express desperate determination.

Phrase Finder offers a more detailed theory:

'It cost and arm and a leg' is one of those phrases that rank high in the 'I know where that comes from' stories told at the local pub.... It is in fact an American phrase, coined sometime after WWII. The earliest citation I can find is from The Long Beach Independent, December 1949:

Food Editor Beulah Karney has more than 10 ideas for the homemaker who wants to say "Merry Christmas" and not have it cost her an arm and a leg.

'Arm' and 'leg' are used as examples of items that no one would consider selling other than at an enormous price. It is a grim reality that, around that time, there were many US newspaper reports of servicemen who had lost an arm and a leg in the recent war. It is possible that the phrase originated in reference to the high cost paid by those who suffered such amputations. A more likely explanation is that the expression derived from two earlier phrases: 'I would give my right arm for...' and '[Even] if it takes a leg', which were both coined in the 19th century. The earliest example that I can find of the former in print is from an 1849 edition of Sharpe's London Journal:

He felt as if he could gladly give his right arm to be cut off if it would make him, at once, old enough to go and earn money instead of Lizzy.

The second phrase is American and an early example of it is given in this heartfelt story from the Iowa newspaper the Burlington Daily Hawk-Eye, July 1875:

A man who owes five years subscription to the Gazette is trying to stop his paper without paying up, and the editor is going to grab that back pay if it takes a leg.

Interesting!

In any case, I hope that, if you are on the search for toilet paper, buying such does not involve losing limbs or handing over great amounts of capital.

Stay healthy, stay sane, and share with others less fortunate and/or more desperate, if you can.

It does seem a bit like this lately...
Image by bbasilico0 from Pixabay

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Snookered!

Yes, I know I promised an arm and a leg for this week, but I've been snookered by a virus (not THIS virus, thank goodness. Just some run-of-the-mill seasonal virus). As a result, I had to bow out of attending one of my favorite mystery conventions, Left Coast Crime. And I am saaaaaad. 😢

So, while the ibuprofen is at maximum strength, let's take a look at the word snookered. Could my 19th century protagonist Inez cry out in anger that she'd been snookered and stomp around in a fury? I'd like to think so—at least, I can certainly envision it—but I've been wrong before... 
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My copy of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition,  notes that the noun snooker (dating from 1889 and of unknown origin) is a variation of pool played with 15 red balls and 6 variously colored balls. It took until 1925, apparently, for it to gain traction as a verb meaning to make a dupe of or hoodwink.

Huh!

I'm not seeing how the noun and verb are even related. But then, I've never played snooker! Let's dig a little deeper.

The Online Etymological Dictionary offers a possible explanation of how the game came to be called such, and then gets right down to it, defining snooker as "to cheat" and providing this connection, straight from the rules of the game:

One of the great amusements of this game is, by accuracy in strength, to place the white ball so close behind a pool ball that the next player cannot hit a pyramid ball, he being "snookered" from all of them. If he fail to strike a pyramid ball, this failure counts one to the adversary. If, however, in attempting to strike a pyramid ball off a cushion, he strike a pool ball, his adversary is credited with as many points as the pool ball that is struck would count if pocketed by rule. [Maj.-Gen. A.W. Drayson, The Art of Practical Billiards for Amateurs, 1889]

Still, this sneaky setup isn't "cheating," per se. It just sounds like very skilled playing. So, I'm still not seeing the connection. Luckily, there's a very nice discussion on Stack Exchange about this very thing, and I invite you to check it out... you'll learn a lot more about snooker—the game and the possible connection to "cheating," than I can tell you here. 

My takeaway: I can be snookered, but Inez can't (at least, not in 1882!).

And just when you least expect it, snookered! (I could definitely see Inez doing this...)
From The Galaxy, An Illustrated Magazine of Entertaining Reading, Vol. VI), July 1868
Wood engraving, Winslow Homer

Addendum: In her comment below, Liz V mentioned the movie "The Hustler" starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason. I found a clip and just have to share. Thank you, Liz!

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: A pretty penny

If something costs a pretty penny, you can bet that you'll be paying more than just one shiny copper coin.

So, why (and when) did a pretty penny come to mean a large sum of money? A regular Slang-o-rama reader asked me about this phrase, and as I'm always happy to jump in on special requests and see what I can find, let's hop to it.
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Hop!

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer provides the expected definition—"a considerable sum of money"—and dates it to early 1700s. The Phrase Finder gives us a little more background:

'A pretty penny' used to have the variants 'a fine penny', 'a fair penny' etc, but these have fallen by the wayside. All the forms of the expression came into the language in the 18th century and an early example is from a play by the popular playwright Susanna Centlivre, The Man's Bewitch'd, 1710: "Why here may be a pretty Penny towards, if the Devil don't cross it."

Intriguing, but I was hoping for an explanation as to why a "pretty" penny. Shiny or worn, a penny is worth the same, right? The Online Etymology Dictionary reminded me that, since the late 15th century, pretty has also been used to mean "not a few, considerable." Yes, I could see where that definition might (Dare I say it? Yes, I dare!) make sense(cents) in this context.

However, I think I will give the final word to the Wordwizard site, where this theory was posited:

The origin of this phrase is uncertain but it is often attributed to the special gold pennies, worth 20 silver pennies, that Henry III had coined in 1257. Since they were more valuable than the silver pennies, they became known as pretty pennies. (Picturesque Expressions by Urdang, American Heritage Dictionary, Facts on File Dictionary of Clichés)

So, there you go, inquiring reader. Pretty as in considerable or pretty as in gold? You choose! However, no matter how you look at it, if something costs a pretty penny, it'll probably also cost an arm and a leg. (More about that next week.)

More than one pretty penny in that pile...
Image by makingmilly from Pixabay

*Cents, because I cannot resist the possible pun...

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: From fiddle-faddle to fiddlesticks

Now here is an interjection that sounds like something my protagonist Inez Stannert might say (when she's trying to avoid saying something profane): Fiddle-faddle!

The term also has a bit of a musical air about it, and the "fiddle" has me thinking of old-time fiddle playing. So, just how old is this expression, and how did it evolve?

Let's find out!
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According to my copy of American Slang, 2nd Edition, edited by Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D., fiddle-faddle, which means nonsense or foolishness appeared as a noun by 1577 (!!) and by 1671 was being used as an exclamation of irritation, disapproval, or dismissal.

The Online Etymological Dictionary goes along with the 1570s origin date, adding that it is apparently a reduplication of the obsolete word faddle, which means "to trifle," or of fiddle in its contemptuous sense.

In a post titled 10 Interjections Your Vocabulary Has Been Missing, Merriam-Webster suggests the term evolved from fiddlesticks:

The word fiddle-faddle comes from a long tradition of words playfully coined by the process of reduplication: in this case, the word fiddlesticks got cut down and doubled with a vowel change.

Well, I couldn't leave it at that, so onward to fiddle, faddle, and fiddlesticks. The Online Etymological Dictionary has a fairly lengthy exploration of the origins of the word fiddle, noting that it seems to have morphed over time to the point where it carries a slightly contemptuous "air." For faddle, the Online Etymological Dictionary simply states:

faddle (v.) "to make much of a child," 1680s.

As for how/why fiddlesticks came to mean nonsense, World Wide Words comes to the rescue with this explanation:

At some point in Shakespeare’s lifetime, it seems fiddlestick began to be used for something insignificant or trivial. This may have been because a violin bow was regarded as inconsequential or perhaps simply because the word sounds intrinsically silly. It took on a humorous slant as a word one could use to replace another in a contemptuous response to a remark. George Farquhar used it in this way in his play Sir Henry Wildair of 1701: “Golden pleasures! golden fiddlesticks!”. From here it was a short step to using the word as a disparaging comment to mean that something just said was nonsense.

Whew. You are probably now thinking (as I am) "Fiddlesticks! Enough of this fiddle-faddle!"

Don't mind me, I'm just fiddling around with words...
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Addendum: Liz V. mentioned in her comment below the expression fiddle-de-dee, which certainly belongs to this lineup! According to The Online Etymology Dictionary, the contemptuous nonsense word fiddle-de-dee dates from 1784. However, it will always make me think of Gone With the Wind and Scarlett O'Hara (see snippet below, at about 12 seconds):

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Close, but no cigar

Here's a phrase that one hears on occasion, particularly when someone has just missed the mark:

Close, but no cigar.

It sounds pretty old-timey, right? Maybe even used in the 19th century? After all, cigars have been around for a looooong time.
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As it turns out, close, but no cigar is a relative newcomer, and of U.S. origin to boot... At least, according to The Phrase Finder, which says:

The phrase, and its variant 'nice try, but no cigar', are of US origin and date from the mid-20th century. Fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there's no definitive evidence to prove that.

It is very much an American expression and is little used elsewhere in the English-speaking world. The first recorded use of 'close but no cigar' in print is in Sayre and Twist's publishing of the script of the 1935 film version of Annie Oakley: "Close, Colonel, but no cigar!"

Mid-20th century??

I don't believe it. It's got to be older than that.

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms places it in early 1900s, which pushes it back some. After some digging, I found the phrase in a 1929 issue of Princeton Alumni Weekly:

And another mention in a 1925 issue of The New Yorker:

This post by Barry Popik (a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Yale Book of Quotations and Dictionary of Modern Proverbs) has some fascinating detail about the origin of the phrase. Popik notes that carnival games featuring cigars for prizes dates to late 1800s, early 1900s. Still, even assuming the phrase was in use in speech before it finally appeared in print, I'd better not have the words fly out of my 1880s characters' mouths (or intrude on their thoughts). That would DEFINITELY be a "no cigar" situation.

Good try, lads, but I don't think she's interested. (Close, but no cigar.)
By Peter Baumgartner - Palais Dorotheum, Wien, 12. April 2011, lot 67, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16052963

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: For a song

When you can obtain something for a song, you expect to get it inexpensively, right? In fact, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer defines the phrase as meaning "very cheaply, for little money, especially for less than something is worth" and gives an example straight out of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well:

I know a man... sold a goodly manor for a song.

So how long has this idiom been around, and why would it refer to buying on the cheap?

Any guesses?
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Ammer places its first appearance in the late 1500s (well, Shakespeare, after all) and notes:
"This idiom alludes to the pennies given to street singers or to the small cost of sheet music." The Free Dictionary says pretty much the same: "The ultimate origin of this phrase is probably the practice, in former times, of selling written copies of ballads very cheaply at fairs." According to this entry, the expression was in common use by the mid-17th century.

TheIdioms.com goes with a first appearance in the 1500s and agrees that the phrase probably refers to street singers, adding, "They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefore, you would not be paid much for it."

Singing... not a large accomplishment???

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

The idiom is probably related to street singers. They would stand on the side of the street and people would give them pennies. Singing was not seen as a large accomplishment as it could be done by everyone. Therefor, you would not be paid much for it. You would also have to pay for sheet music (1500s.) (Theidioms.com)

Theia Carrington Drake, my fictional prima donna who takes center stage in my newest Silver Rush historical mystery, MORTAL MUSIC, would vehemently disagree.

You won't get this kind of singing for a song.
By Thomas Rowlandson - JwFP_imNhhV_iw at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, Link