"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 12/03/18 (milkshake duck)

We've been talking about animals a lot over the last few days with Liz. And, of course, we used animals for metaphores in English all the time. We pig out on something. We duck to aviod the ball. We're looking foxy, perhaps. Or toadying up, which we've had today, toadying. But bird feature quite a lot as well. I've talked before on Countdown about how pedigree goes back to the pie de grue in French, the foot of crane, because the lines of descent of family trees look a little bit like a crane's foot. One of my favourite ethymologies, that one. But there was one very unexpected one last year, and it seems to be staying the course. I'm not sure you'll be familiar with it, Nick, but it's milkshake duck. It was s result of social media, and it was a tweet by the tweeter Pixelated Boat. And it was, "The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck", this is how it went, "a lovely duck that drinks milkshake". So, really nice, happy image. And then, "Oh, apologies, we regrad to inform you that the duck is racist". And the gist of the joke, essentially, is that people can become incredibly famous very, very quickly on the internet, which we've all witnessed, and wildly popular, but then very often they are exposed for being, could be homofobic, could be racist - for rather unpleasant attributes. And milkshake ducks are exactlt that. They are internet stars, if you like, who quickly fall out of favour because of their offensive actions. 2017 saw very many of those. People who absolutely went viral and then people startred to look into their past. What was happening was people were going through endless years of social media posts etc, trying to find, trying to catch someone out, if you like. So a lot of people saw it as a real sign of schadenfreude. But who knew that a molkshake-drinking duck would join all that words together like pedigree and cranberry, etc? And maybe one day will also go into the English dictionary. 

"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 09/03/18 (newfangled)

I have a tweet form Jake Isham who wondered where newfangled comes from. What's the "fangled" in newfangled, and what is it all about? It's a good question. Its source its a really, really old verb, fang, which meant... And this is in the ninth century, so going back a long way. In fact, you can still find it in some dialects today. It meant to grasp, or to seize, or to catch, and it comes from a Germanic word, fangen, to catch. So newfangled really emerged... First of all, it was newfangle, I have to say, as something that was newly seized, if you like. So it was something that was novelty, so it was kind of cought on to, or latched on to, because it seemed new and exiting, and we all know all about that. So you'll find lots and lots of proverb warning people away from looking at newfanglers, cos they were sort of  fripperies, or trumperies, as they used to be called as well. The first citation of newfangled, the adjective with an -ed, is from A Disputation of Purgatory, and that was a polemic written in 1531 by English Protestant writer who was called John Frith. And he said, "Let us see and examine more of this newfangled philosophy". He came unstuck because he was quiestioning the belief in purgatory and ended up being burned at the stake for it. But newfangled clearly wasn't taken particularly well when he was talken about purgatory. Just to say, that fang, that fangen, that fang word meaning to capture or sieze also, of course, gave us fang, meaning a sharp tooth. It went on a long journey from something that was caught, it was applied to prey, and then to the teeth that did that catching and did that eating of the prey. So, strangely, strange to think that newfangled and teeth and canines of the animals comes together, but they do in that single word. 

"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 08/03/18 (the whole nine yards)

I have a big ethymological mystery. It's a phrase or expression, that's attracted more conjecture, possibly, than almost any other - apart from "cloud nine" - any other idiom that I can find. And that's "the whole nine yards". So many theories abound for this one. I thought I would whizz through a few of them, and then maybe point to one that could be the best explanation of it, although we're still not completely sure. One is that the whole nine yardswas a rubbush required to fill a whole dustbin lorry, or that it was the standard amount of cloth needed.  Now, cloth certainly was made originally in multiples of three. So the whole nine yards was said to be a standard measurement, perhaps to make a three-piece suit. So that is sounds quite plausible. The volume or size required for a rich man's grave, which is quite an interesting one. There are some records showing that, if you were wealthy, you might be able to afford nine yards of earth around you, or at least of space around you, which is a little bit morbid. So many. One of the most plausibe ones, actually, is because it came about pretty much in print after World War II, is that, during World War II, the 50-calibre machinegun ammunition belts could be let our exactly nine yards. So it's said that each soldiers would say to each other, "Give them a full nine yards," for the enemy. So that one is definitely close to the top of plausible ones. But, intriguingly, fairly recently, some new evidence has come to light, and that's about some jargon in the space programme in the 1960s. And there was the article "How To Talk Rocket". So it was a glossary of, as I say, jargon that was spoken by astronauts, and its defined the whole nine yards as an item-by-item report on a new project. And the conjecture is that that the report would have been written on folded stacks of perforated printer paper that could be let out the whole nine yards. But who knows? Perhaps it did originated with NASA. Only time will tell. I won't say, "Watch this space", and use a very bad pun. But that could be the origin of it. 

"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 02/03/18 (talk of the devil)

I have a look behind the phrase "talk of the devil, which we bandy aroung these days. Talk of the devil is said when someone arrives at a scene just as they are being spoken of. Nothing sinister about it, as I say, we tend to use it fairly playfully these days. And, yet, if you look back over its history you will see that it wasn't used light-heartedly at all. The full form, ans you are probably familiar with this too, was "speak of the devil and he will appear". And it originated in England. You will find it not just in Old English texts but in Latin texts as well. The firsr record that we have were in around the 1666, which is quite appropriate. The English say, "talk of the devil and he is presently at your elbow", and a book of proverbs from the same time was, "talk of the devil and see his horns". Now, around this time you could still refer to the devil. Shakespeare did it lots, for example. So, in The Comedy Of  Errors you will find, "Marry, he must have a long spoon, that must eat with the devil". But, for the most part, there was an incredibly strong superstitious belief that it was really dangerous to mention the devil by name. And, even the clergy got in on the act too. The Dean of Westminster, 1856, a man called Richard Trench, wrote, "talk of the devil and he is bound to appear containts a very needful warning about curiosity of evil". So lots and lots of warnings there. And it was rather like mentioning God in public. You did everything you could to avoid it, which is why we have so many minced oaths which I often talk about on the programme. Things like gadzooks for God's hooks, the hails of crucifix, Gordon Bennet, cor blimey, Jiminy Cricket for Jesus Christ, etc. We have a lot of those. We also brought in quite a lot of euphenisms for the devil too, so "what the dickens" has nothing to do with Charles Dickens and everything to do with the devil. It goes back to the 16th century, probably the play on a popular surename of the times, Dickens, but it was used as a substitute for the devil. We have The Prince of Darkness, of course. We have the horned one and we have old Nick. And old Nick, there are two theories about this. One is that it goes back to the word "iniquity", and it is a shortening of that, inequity meaning evil. Or, that it comes from the first name of Machiavelli, Niccolo. Machiavelli, of course, wrote The Prince in which he said that some, in order to gain power some unethical methods were just about all right but people exaggerated this claim and saw it as justification for evil. So it's possible that Old Nick comes from that too. Yes, when you say talk of the devil these days, just have a think about how serious it was many, many centuries ago when you did absolutely everything you could, not just to avoid the devil but also his name. 

"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 01/03/18 (People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones)

I am going to look at the strange story behind a proverb, and that proverb is, "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". In other words, beware of criticing someone if you youself to exactly the same criticism. It makes transparent sense, if you excuse the pun, but there is actually an interesting story behind it. First of all, it started off as something a little bit different. It warned against throwing stones atan enemy whose head was made of glass. That's how in was in Chaucer's day, and then it crossed over to houses, when the use of glass in domestic architecture was really increasing. This is around the 17th century, when it is really came to the fore, when the rich were afforded the luxury of fully glazed houses and windows. The poor still had to make do with no windows at all or wooden shutters, etc. But it was a real indicator of wealth if you could afford glass. Thomas More in his Utopia wrote of a land where windows are made of glass to allow light in an the wind with it. Worth remembering that "window" goes back to "vindauga", which is a very old word, meaning the eye of the wind, which I always think is quite beautiful. Anyway, in Elizabethan England, glass window were still a luxury, so much so if you look at the wills of the time, you'll find  that windows were bequeathed to heirs, cos glass was seen as being so valuable. That gives you a little background to the story, to the proverb, but it doesn't tell you the whole story. The reason why its began to involve glass houses may lie in the exploits of the Duke of Buckingham. He was a favourite and possible lover of James I, and James I call hin Steenie, after St Stephen, who had the face of an angel, so he was very enamoured of him, and when the Scottish-born king acceded to the throne in Britain... in England in 1603, it's said that London was flooded with Scotsmen, and at this time, JAmes I didn't have a very good relationship whith the Scotich nobility. He thought they were always trying to do him down, and he wanted to ingratiate himself with the English nobility. So the Duke of Buckingham, on his behalf, really, mounted a campaign of harassment against all these Scots who'd arriver in the capital city, and that included hiring mobs to go and throw objects at their windows at night, causing a complete havoc. Unsurprisingly, the Scots retaliated and it was completely chaos, but they went to the duke's house, which was known as the Glass House cos it had so many windows, and they did exactly the same thing. They threw stones, anything they coulf find, at the windows and smashed them in the process, and it's said that ehen Buckingham then complaine to the king, His Majesty is said to have uttered the lines, "Steenie, Steenie, those lived in glass houses, should be careful how they fling stones". 

"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 28/02/18 (literally, enormity, mediocre)

I'm going to talk about words which have almost completely lost their original meaning. So pedants would say, and I use pedant in a neutral sense, possibly, would say that we're using them in the wrong way but English, as we know, moves very quickly. So we can't always have what we want. "Literally" - our floor manager was saying how much he hates the use of literally to mean figuratively, so the complete opposite. Unfortunately, that version is now in the dictionary, much to a lot of people's disgust. not the primary meaning but one that is  used in informal speach. Enormity is another one that we use in a wrong way. I say it wrong in inverted commas. Enormity first meant something that was really wicked or vicious in some way. That's because a norma was a carpenter's square. So anything that was normal confirmed to absolutely perfect angles. It was correct, it was stright and it followed convention, if you like. Enormous then started to mean something that was abnormal and because it was abnormal, as I say, it was wicked and completely wrong. It's only much, much later that it began to mean something that was large in size but enormity has kept that bad meaning. So, strictly speaking, we should talk about enormousness if we are talking about the greatness of size of something. But the one I was going to concentrate on was mediocre. Because, mediocre, if we talk about the quiality of something being mediocre at best, it's never going to be very good. It's become byword for shoddy. But actually simply meant originally something that was of moderate quality. So it was neither all the way p, hor all the way down. It was borrowed from Latin, it came over with the Norman conquerors. It meant at a middle height. The "medi" meant medium and "ocris" meant actually ragged mountain, which means, in fact, that mediocre is linked ethymologically to a whole host of English words. We've got Acacia tree with its sharp thorns. Acerbic acid. Acme, the summit of something. Acne - spots which look perhaps like a little mountains on the skin. Acrobat, acropolis, acronym. Aglet, the tip of a shoelace. But if we were to stay true to the heart with mediocre, we would be using that for something that's OK. It's just your standerd quality - neinter good, nor bad. 

"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 27/02/18 (flower names: anemone, hyacinth, cowslip, foxglove, iris, marigold-calendula, pansy)

I'm going round some flowers today and it was prompted by Charlotte Littlefair from Newcastle upon Tyne. She says she's a keen gardener and she says, "Please, could you shed some lights on the origin of common flower nemes? I once stumbled across the French for dandelion, "pissenlit" and was reminded of the old wives' tale that they make people wet the bed". And it's true, they are diuretics. She says, "Dandelion sounds like "dans le lit", in the bed. Is there a connection?" Um, sadly, not. It comes from "dent de lion", a lion's tooth,because the leaves of the dandeloin a shaped a little bit like a lion's tooth - at least that's what they thought in the Middle Ages. Um, flowers themselves, an antology was originally a bouquet of flowers. I'm going to give you a little bit of anthology of names of flowers, very quickly. Adonis was a Greek youth who was so handsome that even Aphrodite, who was the goddes of love, fell madly in love with him. And he was kiled in a boar hunt. She was so stricken with grief that the gods of the lower world allowed him to come up and share part of the year, each year with her. And from his blood, from Adonis' blood, sprang an anemone which is Greek for wind, which is a very beautiful story. I think I told before the story of Hayacinthus, who was loved by Apollo but killed accidentally by a discus, and from his blood Apollo caused a hyacinth to spring each yaer. So, two beautiful myths that lie buhind two flower names. The other extreme, the cowslip, Old English this time, very unromantic. It means cow slime or dung because the cowslip grows especially well in pastures. Apologies for that one. The foxglove is quite nice one, used for heart disease. But the blossomes look a little like the empty fingers of a glove, and the "fox" might be a refference to folk, fairy folk, because it was believed that these were the gloves of fairies, which is quite sweet. Iris - named after the Greek goddes of the rainbow. Marigold - named after Virgin Mary and the colour gold. And the botanical name of marygold, I should just say, is calendula. That comes from the Roman kalends, the first of the month. So named because like a little calendar, they bloom each month, which is quite pretty. And, finally, pansy, which Charlotte also mentioned in her e-mail, which is very pretty. A poetic mind once fancied that the dainty flowers had a thoughtful, pensive face. It gies back to the French pensee, meaning thought. And Ophelia, of course, famously said, that. She said, "Rosemary for rememberance, pancies for thought". So, beautiful, beautiful stories lies behind so many things in our garden. There are hundreds and hundreds more, but I hope I've satisfied some of Charlotte questions.