Humanyms

Etymologies

The one rule is: Things change. Erin McKean, Lexicographer has some wonderfilled words at TED Talks. She talks about reconceiving the design and purposes of dictionaries, instead of slapping the old form constraints into a new medium, a ham-butt issue (listen and see what that means). She gives a high energy talk about the material science of dictionaries.

She says, when you add searchability to the flat form of dictionary you remove the one advantage of paper — serendipity. “Serendipity is when you find things you weren’t looking for because finding what you are looking for is so damned difficult”, like her favorite word, Erinaceous: of the hedgehog, pertaining to the characteristics of a hedgehog.

More sound bytes? “Is the word real? Love it. That makes it real. Being in a dictionary doesn’t make it real.”

“Just by saying double dactyl I set the geek meter all the way into the red.”

Have you heard that the word date evolved from dactyl, meaning fingers, from the idea that the palm tree offers the fruit from its fingers. It’s true according to Charles Hodgson. Funny what you don’t know you don’t know.

I don’t know my achilles from my hamstrings. Or had thought they were the same thing until I got to his Carnal Knowledge: A Navel Gazer’s Dictionary of Anatomy, Etymology, and Trivia.

Ham was originally, or at least, 1000 years ago, the part behind the knee, the equivalent of the armpit for the leg. People came, in the 17th century, to associate the way of salting that pig thigh part with pork.

Other trivia. Man is historically inclusive. We know this, pounded into hours by well-meaning refusals to understand that historical isn’t presently accurate. Given one stimulus there’s always varied response.

Man used to mean non-gender-specific human and a millennium ago needed a prefix, were-man to indicate male human. (From this we still have the word werewolf.) In 725 AD, the word “wif” just meant what we mean by female today, not specific to marital status. Fishwife or alewife meant the worker who was female who sold fish or sold ale. (p. 238)

Words can do odd things when they cross the ocean from the U.K. For example, “Keep your pecker up” in America and among younger people in Canada never made the trip intact. The phrase means keep your nose up, be brave, keep going, It’s from the comparison between a bird bill pecking and a schnozz. (p. 184) But in the U.S. the word pecker began to connote as penis about a century ago. That cause such a hullaballoo that the name for the bird, woodpecker, became blushingly distracting. Some redubbed the bird as a woodchuck. Unfortunately that word was already taken by what we now call the groundhog. Or at least some of us call the rodent that now. The rest are just confused.

Ed. Note: I’m finally getting a wee bit caught up on comments if you want to check back.

Mini Glad Game: Ah, comparison shopping. It’s a pleasure when you find a difference due to the oddness of business, one feels inordinately clever. At alibris, it’s $48. Amazon.com charges $11.86 for Heather McHugh‘s Eyeshot but Amazon.com wants $29.95. Bat out of Hell III is $20 in the .com or $7 in .ca.

The Amazon books (not McHugh’s yet), had a prediction to receive set wide at Oct 5th, have already shipped 2 days ago. Which means they might arrive this week, or in a month. Ah, the vagaries of suspense.

Audio Link: Wayson Choy with his story of ghosts at the Writer’s Fest in spring is now online.

Quote: “Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble. – George Washington