Oddsbodikins: weird and wonderful

Goblin mode engaged

It seemed appropriate that the Oxford Dictionary revealed its Word of the Year for 2022 – goblin mode – earlier this week on the eve of St Nicholas’ feast day or, as we goblins like to call it, Krampusnacht.

I thought that, after a lengthy hiatus, how better to return to these bloggish halls than with a word for Wednesday and a quick etymological romp with some ghoulies and ghosties and European folkloric beasties.

Firstly, goblins. The Oxford Dictionary linguists and lexicographers put the choice of Word of the Year to the public for the first time and were deluged with resounding support for ‘Goblin Mode’. Their president acknowledged that it “resonates with all of us who are feeling a little overwhelmed at this point.” So what, exactly, is goblin mode? They define it as a slang term for ‘a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.’

Because … goblins lounge about on sofas, in their pyjamas, binge-watching Netflix, and eating whole packets of Tim Tams. Probably while doing their best Edith Piaf impersonation… Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

Actually, while they are commonly found scattered through fictional fantasy realms and role-playing games, goblins are quite elusive on the etymological front. The Online Etymology Dictionary says that the word may originally stem from a Medieval Latin reference to ‘Gobelinus’ – a spirit haunting the Evreux region of France. Given that the city of Evreux was repeated sacked and burnt down in the Middle Ages, during the wars between Normandy and France, it’s not surprising that the spirit may have been responsible for spawning the Norman French word ‘gobelin’ which was first recorded in the early 14th Century as meaning “a devil, incubus, mischievous and ugly fairy.”

Goblin has come to be a catch-all term for mostly malicious creatures and there’s a lot of line blurring between folkloric tricksters and Hellish minions. Goblins, kobolds, knockers, trow, hobgoblins, phooka, bogey, sprites, brownies, gremlins … oh, there’s a whole parcel full of these delightful things that we must unpack one day. But, for now, what about the Krampus?

The banner image above is cropped from a lovely portrait of this beastie by Gerold Pattis, whose work can be found on Pixabay. The figure of the Krampus has become a pop culture icon, particularly since the 2015 release of the eponymous US horror film. In European Alpine and Germanic traditions, St Nick gives presents to good children and Krampus gives the bad children coal or puts them in his sack and beats them with a birch rod or throws them in an icy river or drags them off to Hell.

Seems legit.

There are plenty of regional variations on Krampus including the Bavarian Klaubauf (who prefers to bake children in pies), Knecht Ruprecht (who hits them with a bag of ashes), and Zwarte Piet from the Low Countries who puts children in his sack and, inexplicably, takes them to Spain rather than Hell.

We’ve also got some gender balancing with tales of the iron-beaked Christmas witch, Perchta, showing it’s not just hairy, horned, man-monsters that get to make the holiday season gory and bright. Perchta or Bertha or Frau Holle or Hulda is sometimes described as a goddess or a shapeshifter, with one large foot that shows her nature as both a swan maiden and a spinner whose foot is enlarged from too much hard-core treadling.

Perchta gets out and about in December and early January on her annual domestic workplace inspections which she takes very seriously indeed. If you haven’t spun all your flax, before the Christmas holidays, she shows up and tramples the unspun flax to punish you. If you’re also a messy housekeeper, she will slit your belly open with the knife she hides in her ragged skirts, pull out your guts, and stuff the hole with straw and stones. Or maybe just beat you with stinging nettles, if you’re lucky.

Here’s a delightful summary of Frau Perchta including the description of her creeping “through the house like a mad Martha Stewart crossed with the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.” Perchta also has an entourage – the Perchten – that is part Wild Hunt and part horde of Krampuses doing her bidding as she goes around on Twelfth Night, looking for slovenly spinners to punish. It’s kind of cool that St Nicholas has one chained Krampus to mete out punishments and Perchta has an army of them.

When facing down the looming festive season I have to admit that I’ve never been that keen on Santa’s list being all or nothing “naughty or nice” and I think the Elf on the Shelf is a creepy little nark. I’m definitely not about to start handing out coal or judging anyone for their commitment to spinning flax and doing domestic chores. In fact, after another weird year, I am 100% behind the notion of seizing the opportunity over the holidays to go into goblin mode.

Just remember, if you feel the same, that you don’t need anyone’s approval. You goblin mode best when you’re unapologetic about rejecting social norms.

No regrets, fellow goblins, no regrets.

Spring crafting and summer canning

Seasons turn, planets (obscurely) align and here we are post-summer solstice, at least in these southerly climes, and zipping towards the finish line in 2020. Even though clouds and rain stopped me from seeing Jupiter and Saturn putting on the bling, it still seems a propitious time to look back at the year and… *shudders*

OK, maybe not. I can report, though, that I had a productive spring. Not in the traditional way of springtime being time for spring cleaning. But who can get excited about that? Woo! – my cupboard is neat. Yah! – the skirting boards have been dusted. Clean all the things and then, before you know it, it’s time to clean again. Bah humbug, I say.

But I was productive in regards to crafting…

Craft stuff. It’s so satisfying. Fun to do and lovely to have an actual thing that I’ve made at the end of it, which I can keep or give away. And while, as usual I have more plans for lovely things that I could do, I’ve actually finished some projects which I’m happy with.

I stitched up a patchwork bed runner for a friend’s early spring birthday…

I repair glued and painted a mini globe with black and gold nail polish. I really should have taken a ‘before’ shot on this one, which was not only damaged and hence a clearance item, but that awful old orange-pink map colour…

I sewed some cute, up-cycled bags from old jeans which will be used as Christmas gift bags and I drew portraits of Medusa and the Sphinx – neither of whom look exactly thrilled to be involved, but you can’t have everything…

I sewed tentacular tie-backs for my library curtains (Ia! Ia! Curtains fhtagn!) because they are ridiculous and they make me laugh every time I use them…

And it’s not like I’ve only been doing craft. I’ve been writing and reading and baking and, as I said at the start of the season, gardening.

Super, super productive.

And WAY more fun than cleaning.

And now it’s summer and I’ve segued neatly into a frenzy of making jam and sauce. The lovely productive garden had, er, produced. Mostly cherry plums, which I’ve canned as jam and as BBQ plum sauce and a delicious plum and beetroot chutney. I’ve also made a peach and vanilla jam, nectarine jam, and a lovely spiced limoncello peach jam, which is looking likely to make the acquaintance of my Christmas ham, when time comes for a bit of friendly glazing.

My 2020 seasonal gifts will be jars of jam in up-cycled bags, and I figure that’s a fine way to end out a weird year – by spreading some good will and sweetness in the world.

Meet the wife

Wife is one of those words which we think we understand, but it can surprise us.

Hmmm, perhaps I’ll leave that alone and move on…

At its root, wife just means ‘woman’ rather than ‘female spouse’ which solves my childhood puzzlement over how a housewife could be married to a house. It also makes sense of midwife, once you realise the ‘mid’ is the Middle English word for with, so it’s a woman who was with the mother during labour.

Likewise, there was no marriage required for Medieval jobs like alewife and fishwife to apply. The Old English name for a mermaid was merewif – a woman of the sea. I can’t help but feel that making them maids – young and innocent – rather than wives, diminished them somewhat.

One of my favourite ‘wife’ roles is the henwife. Objectively, she’s a woman who keeps domestic fowl. In folklore and fiction, she is more likely a witch or wise woman. I recommend author Terri Windling’s post on Hen Wives, Spinsters and Lolly Willowes.

I recently reread Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes, which Windling quotes in her post. It’s an extraordinarily subversive book for its time (1926) and, I think, still resonant now.

All of which is a very long explanation of where my inspiration came from for my entry in this month’s AWC’s Furious Fiction writing challenge.

It had to be a <500 word story, written in 55 hours which:

included someone/something being caught.
included the words OBJECT, WOUND, BAND, ELABORATE (plurals allowed).
had as the final two words THE MOON.

And I thought… if you can have a henwife, why not…

The Eggwife

“You keep day-dreaming,” my father said, “you’ll get caught by the eggwife.”

“Not me.” I grinned which made Pa scowl.

“Caught and kept. It’s not like you could run.”

My smile froze, lips stretched across my teeth, tight as the jagged skin around my leg where flesh and muscle had been torn and devoured.

Pa told me every day how lucky I was to have survived.

“Why would she want me?” I whispered, but he heard and wheezed a bitter laugh.

“She’s not fussy,” he said.

Could she be so easily pleased to want me? No-one else did.

Not the girls who played their elaborate skip rope games in the square, side glances scorching me as they clapped and sang:

Hoppity skit, hoppity skit,

The eggwife is coming, lickety spit.

Hooked by a song or caught by a smell,

The eggwife will trap you inside of her shell.

Not their mothers who clenched their hands into the sign against evil as I passed by.

Not even Pa, who couldn’t forgive that I had lived when Ma had been eaten by the wolf.

Small wonder, then, that I went looking for the eggwife.

I waited until Pa had sloped off to the pub before I took my stick and left the house. I wasn’t sure which would be worse; if he did object to my going, or if he did not.

With every step, a tighter band of pain wrapped my leg. I shivered as the full moon rose, glowing like the bright eye of a great and hungry beast. The night was thick with scurrying claws and the rush of dark wings and the moaning of the wind in the trees. Tears blinded me when I finally reached the crossroads.

“Eggwife!” I cried. “Will you take me, eggwife?”

A figure stepped into the moonlight, cloaked in dark feathers, with a black chicken held close to her side. I could not see her face, only the shadows beneath her hood.

“Why should I, child?” she said.

I wanted to sink to the ground, but I forced myself to clutch my stick and answer her.

“They say you can catch us with a scent or a song, can tuck us inside one of your eggs, and I thought…”

She nodded and stroked the chicken’s feathery breast with one bony finger.

“I thought there would be no pain inside an egg.”

“No child,” she said, “should bear such pain.”

She bent and grabbed my old wound, above the knee where the lancing agony was worst. I opened my mouth to scream and gasped instead as the pain vanished.

She straightened and held out a yellowed wolf’s fang.

“A gift,” she said.

As I took it a shudder passed over me, like a wave of warm water, like the scent of wild honey. I grew fur and fangs and four legs that were straight and strong.

I raised by head and sang to the moon.

Banner image is cropped from a photo by Алина Осипова from Pixabay.

That very verdant vernal verdure

Ah, springtime! It’s very vert.

Yea, verily!

And since it’s Wednesday and words are our favourite Wednesday jam, let’s enjoy a wallow in the etymology of ver, which is Latin for spring, or the springtime. From it we get the word vernal – pertaining to spring – which doesn’t get much of an outing these days other than in reference to the equinox.

Ver – it’s very straightforward…

But not so fast!

That verdant verdure – or fresh green pasture – which is synonymous with this time of year derives not from ver, but from vert. This Old French word for green comes from the Latin viridis – green, blooming – which derived from virere – to be green.

Viridis also gives us viridian, the name for the colour between green and teal on a colour wheel. The process of making chromium green oxide was discovered in Paris in 1838 by Pannetier, who kept his methods secret. In 1859 another Parisian chemist, Guignet, synthesised a hydrated form of chromium oxide which created the viridian pigment.

Vert also gives us verdigris – that lovely green patina that forms on copper when it is exposed to the air. Verdigris comes from verte de Grece in Old French, which literally means ‘green of Greece’.

So ver beginnings in words are easy because they’re all about spring and green?

No. As Kermit told us, it isn’t easy being green.

Without doubt you could have a verdant verge – in the sense of a lushly green border of, for example, grass by the side of the road. But verge does not share etymological roots with verdant. It comes originally from the Latin virga, meaning a shoot or rod. Leaving aside its 13th century English application to the male member, verge still has a really interesting history.

garden ornament of a fantasy dwarf

It was used in English, to quote the Online Etymology Dictionary, in the phrase “within the verge (c. 1500, also as Anglo-French dedeinz la verge), i.e. “subject to the Lord High Steward’s authority” (as symbolized by the rod of office), originally a 12-mile radius round the king’s court.” But the meaning of the word back-flipped, for reasons that are unclear, and changed to “the outermost edge of an expanse or area”.

In other words, verge went from being inside the area of authority to right at the edge of it, if not actually beyond the pale. (The ‘pale’, of course, being the wooden stakes which marked the outer boundary of a jurisdiction, as in the area around Dublin where English law was enforced in Ireland between the late 12th and 16th centuries.)

And what about our truthful ver words, like verify, verisimilitude, and verily? They’ve got nothing to do with spring, being green, or a rod, right?

Right. They have yet another Latin source – veritatem, which means truth. The maxim In vino veritas – in wine there is truth – is a concept that’s been around for as long as there’s been wine. I could say it’s very true… but I’d just be repeating myself. The word ‘very’ is simply asserting the truth or genuineness of a thing – so it’s the same as saying something is truly true. Unnecessary and bound to make people think you are protesting too much.

spring blossoms cherry tree blue sky

Vera and Verity are virtue names meaning truth, but since people don’t chat in Latin so much anymore, they’re kind of stealth virtue names, like Amity, Benedict and Fidal, rather than the slap-you-in-the-face virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity (which are still an improvement on the beat-you-over-the-head-with-a-stick Puritan grace names like Abstinence, Humility and Resolve or the hortatory masterpiece of If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-for-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebones).

But, as usual, I digress…

Chasing down all the versions of ver (that’s another one from the Latin vertere, to turn) would take more time that I have for this post because spring has sprung and I have gardening to do. All the photos in the post are from my garden – which makes me happy, but kind of overwhelmed. I grew up in the sub-tropics and having a spring garden is kind of weird.

So, any tips on what garden tasks I should be doing would be very welcome.

Avocado alligators are a snap

Language is weird. Beautiful and weird and I can’t resist it. Plus, it’s been too long since I indulged in a delicious Word for Wednesday*. So let’s go on another adventure in etymology – this time to the Avocado Jungle of DEATH…. **

Or at least to look at the word AVOCADO.

You can enjoy this tropical fruit with its distinctive nutty flavour smashed on toast, mashed into guacamole, cut through a salad or, my personal fave, on vegemite toasties. But have you ever wondered about the origin story of the humble avocado?

Wonder no more.

I found “avocado” trending on the Online Etymology dictionary the other day and was fascinated to discover that the word is basically a humorous homophone – which is a word that sounds like another word – e.g. humorous and humerus, which is why your funny bone is called that, even though you don’t laugh when you whack the end of it.

Ahuakatl was the Nahuatl word for both an avocado and a testicle, because… well it’s the shape, yeah? It’s like orchids, which derive their name from the Latin orchis, from the Greek orkhis, literally ‘testicle’ because of the shape of their root. Remember that, next time you’re buying your mum a nice potted dendrobium from Woolies for Mother’s Day.

So, back to the jolly green fruit.

The Aztec ahuakatl became, over time, aguacate which sounded amusingly similar to the Spanish word for lawyer – avocado. The appeal of lawyer jokes transcends time, culture and language, and the opportunity to call a testicle-shaped fruit a lawyer could not be denied.

And that’s how a tropical fruit rose from humble beginnings to, etymologically speaking, become an advocate (which derives from the Latin advocatus, for one who pleads on another’s behalf). In English, legal advocates are called barristers, after the railing – the bar – which separated the areas of the Inns of Court.

If you hang out in cafes, scoffing coffee and smashed avo on sourdough, you probably know a barista or two. Etymologically, barrister and barista have the English word bar in common. In the case of barrister it’s bar as a barrier in court, and in barista it’s bar as a tavern. Apparently, that meaning of bar wandered into Italian and came back with a coffee – barista simply means bartender in a coffee shop. Strangely similar words, but with a different amount of bragging rights when your mum is telling her friends you’re now working as one.

But, to meander back over to variations on a theme of avocadoes.

The Spanish word avocado became, in Mexican Spanish, alvacata and, since that sounded like alligato and the fruit have that fabulous green or greeny-black skin, avocadoes were called alligator pears in English from 1763.

Now, alligator simply means “the lizard” from the Spanish el lagarto, and they are not generally considered particularly humorous, being ginormous beasties of reptilian devouring. But the word always reminds me of the tale of an alderman who, when accused of corruption, indignantly declaimed that “allegations have been made and I know who the alligators are.”

A handy thing to know, I think. Almost as handy as knowing that the fruit you’re putting on your toast is, in a wordy way, a reptilian lawyer’s testicle.

Enjoy!

*It all started with polydactylus…

**remember Cannibal Women of the Avocado Jungle of Death? A 1989 B movie spoof of Heart of Darkness? No? It was funny at the time…

Crepuscular lifestyle choices

B18Sunset

Forget decluttering, self-care and elevation training: the hot trend in lifestyle choices is being crepuscular.

Really, it’s more fun than it sounds.

It’s an ugly word*, which is a shame, because when I say it’s a hot trend I mean that, literally. With temperatures across large swathes of Australia breaking records for hellishness (day after day above 40 degrees Celsius / 104 Fahrenheit) official health advice to a wilting populace is to stay out of the sun and the worst heat in the middle of the day, if possible.

So the smart move is to become a crepuscular creature – one that is most active at dawn and dusk.

Crepuscular comes from the Latin word crepusculum, meaning twilight or dusk and the word can be used in a derogatory sense to imply dim understanding or an ‘imperfect enlightenment’. In zoology, though, it’s one of the words used to describe the behaviour of different species according to when they are most active.

Most people are familiar with the idea that animals are diurnal or nocturnal – active in the day or the night, respectively. Again, these words have Latin roots – dies means day and nox means night and urnus is a suffix denoting time. But we should reject this simplistic reduction of choice to one thing or the other – either diurnal or nocturnal – because reality is more diverse and linguistically interesting.

Many animals, including wombats, deer, ocelots, hyenas and mice, are crepuscular.

Some are matutinal, or matinal (if you want them to sound less like mutants). It just means they are most active at dawn.

Vespertine beasts – like some bats and owls – are most active at dusk and vespertine flowers are those that bloom in the evening.

They’re all derived from Latin words – Matuta was the Roman goddess of the dawn and the canonical hour of Matins takes its name from matutinus vigilias meaning ‘morning watches’. Hesperos, the Greek god of the evening star, became Hesperus in Latin, which became vesper when referring to the evening, the star and west. Vespers, also a canonical hour, is called evensong in English.

Interestingly, Vespa – the brand name for an Italian motor scooter – is the Latin word for wasp, but wasps are diurnal. WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) are unlikely to be found at either matins or vespers, although you might find some high church Anglican varieties at evensong.

Anyway… back to crepuscular. I can’t imagine using it in a non-technical sentence without sounding entirely pompous. But I can imagine adopting the habits of a crepuscular beast – using that delightful time at dawn and dusk to be most active.

Imagine it? I’m living it.

So be crepuscular, stay cool, stay hydrated and remember – for the rest of the daylight hours there is, thankfully, air-conditioning.

*Word for Wednesday can get a little judgey, but even the Online Etymology Dictionary agrees the older adjective form ‘crepusculine’ sounded ‘lovelier’.

Curious stickybeaks and nosy Parkers

B_fowl

Wednesdays* are perfect for the heady joy of satisfying our etymological curiosity. And what better to consider than curiosity itself…

Curiosity comes from curious which evolved from the Latin cura to care. Lots of interesting developments have wound their way into the language from cura: cure and curate and curator and curio, just to name a few.

From around 1883, booksellers referred euphemistically to erotica and pornography as curious books or curiosa, deriving perhaps from the 18th century meaning that something curious was ‘exciting curiosity’.

The exclamation of “Curiouser and curiouser” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865 was attributed by Lewis Carroll to her being so surprised she forgot how to speak good English. Never fear. Like other contributions made to the language by Carroll (which include chortle, galumph, snark, vorpal and the concept of a portmanteau word) it is now commonly used and understood (according to the Oxford Dictionary) to mean ‘increasingly strange’.

It’s a well-known fact that curiosity is inimical to felines, so keep your cats off the keyboard as we delve a little deeper with the help of the Online Etymology Dictionary.**

Busy now means only being continually occupied, but it once also meant being anxiously careful and potentially prying or meddlesome and so a busybody was a person who snooped and pried into things that worried them, but were not really their business (or busyness, if you want to go old school).

‘Snoop’ is from 1832 American English, possibly from the Dutch snoepen ‘to pry’.

‘Pry’ is much older (c.1300) from prien ‘to peer into’.

The use of ‘nose’ as a verb, rather than a noun, in the sense of prying or searching something out, is first recorded in the 1640s, and being nosy meant having a prominent nose for centuries before it was used as an adjective to mean inquisitive in 1882.

To call a nose a beak has also been around for centuries and stickybeak is an Antipodean word to describe being inquisitive. You stick your beak into something in Australia or New Zealand and you are, ipso facto, a stickybeak. The act of sticking said beak can be referred to as stickybeaking or you can say, to justify your curiosity about something, ‘I just wanted a stickybeak.’

It doesn’t necessarily carry negative connotations, but dismissing someone as ‘an old stickybeak’ is like saying they’re a busybody – it’s pretty derogatory.

When I was a kid, with the surname of Parker, if someone showed an excess of curiosity, they were a stickybeak. You may imagine my horror, aged 8, when our substitute teacher told someone off in class for trying to eavesdrop by calling them ‘a nosy Parker’.

Not cool, man. Not cool.

After I lived down the shame (never more thankful that my nose is delightfully retrousse or I would NEVER have lived it down) I looked into what ancestral Parker had doomed us all to being thought stickybeaks.

The popular theory was it had been Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury at the time of Queen Elizabeth I, who was to blame. Or it may have been that parkers were park keepers and given to snooping when illicit couplings caused the shrubbery to rustle. It was an occupational hazard (or perk, depending on perspective) in the same way that people out ‘walking their dog’ engage in dogging.

But the first recorded use of nosy Parker isn’t until 1907, well after the heyday of the archbishop and of Parkers being necessarily associated with parks. So it remains unclear just which Parker was to blame for marking us all as nosy.

And now to digress from etymology and swerve into genealogy:
Despite the huge numbers of Parkers in England, the story in my family was that we were descended from the archbishop, and, since the family came from Cambridgeshire, also from the Parker after whom Parker’s Piece in Cambridge is named.

I was curious.

So, when I lived for six months in Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire, I took the opportunity to do a genealogy course and to trundle down to Cambridge to have a stickybeak in the shire records office. I found no link to the archbishop nor to the Trinity College cook who kept cows on Parker’s Piece.

But I did find that my 10 x great-grandfather was Thomas Hobson.

Hobson ran an inn in Cambridge which hired out horses, to students and academics especially. His practice was to rent out the next available horse – regardless of what horse was wanted – because then the fastest horses didn’t get overworked. The saying that you have ‘Hobson’s choice’ – take it or leave it – is said to have been popularised by the poet John Milton, who as a Cambridge University student, wrote mock epitaphs for Hobson.

So I can’t claim to be a ‘proper’ nosy Parker… but I can claim a remote genealogical link to having a cavalier approach to other people’s wishes.

Hobson’s daughter, Elizabeth, married a chap called Fookes or Fowkes or Fox (they were a little slapdash with the spelling back in the late 1500s) who, before he died, sold his property of Anglesey Abbey to Hobson. When Elizabeth married Thomas Parker, Hobson gave it to them as a wedding gift.

Somehow, despite Anglesey Abbey now being a National Trust property, I never managed to pay it a visit, although I did get to the little village of Bottisham nearby, where lots of Parkers lived and died in obscurity before, in three generations my ancestors moved back to Cambridge, then to London and then to north Queensland.

One day, though, I’ve promised myself I’ll also get back to Cambridgeshire and have a stickybeak at Anglesey Abbey.

* Wednesdays are perfect for words – honestly, it’s a thing.

** An invaluable resource for writers of historical fiction who don’t want anachronistic words in their book.

Scuttlebutt and scuppers

banner_pirate ship Word for Wednesday goes piratical for ITLAPD.

Ahoy me mateys! ’tis Wednesday again ‘n time t’ look at words ‘cos how can ye not be lovin’ yer etymology? Today’s words are ripe ‘n salty, ’cause today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Ye can call me a tailed imp’s elder, though that would set me fair to guttin’ ye like a rum-boggled sea bass, but ’tis no time fer violence, ‘cause we be heedin’ th’ call o’ the sea.

More’n half th’ problem wit’ natterin’ like pirates be that while ye might “yo ho ho” and “shiver me timbers” wit’ th’ best o’ them, ‘n sling about phrases like “salty ole seadog” ‘n “arr”, most pirate natter be peppered wit’ obscure nautical terms which slip out o’ one’s head quicker’n a greasy kraken.

Wha’ th’ Davy Jones’ locker be a topsail halyard ‘n how do ye hoist it?

Wha’s a bowsprit?

How do ye splice a mainbrace?

Can ye do so, ye freebootin’ powder monkey?

Aye, ’tis a sore puzzle t’ scurvy landlubbers wit’ dreams o’ corsairs in thar black-souled hearts.

Now, ye might be ready t’ teach yer barnacle-covered Nan t’ suck cackle-fruit, in which case heave ho, ye son of a biscuit-eater, ye’ve no further business here. But if ye’re three sheets t’ th’ wind on enough rum t’ float th’ Royal Navy, an’ th’ lingo’s no easier t’ ken, read on.

Because that’s the end of the pirating for now – fun though it is – it’s time to consider words.

First up, though, some resources.
One of my favourite spots on the interwebs is The Phrontistery – a thinking place and the home of the International House of Logorrhea. I can’t recommend it highly enough. They have a delightful list of nautical terms full of delicious words like futtock, bunt, cofferdam and windbound.

See the Sea has a very clear list of nautical terms with some brief and illuminating notes on the nautical origins of terms like “a couple of shakes” meaning a short time, hazing and being “at loose ends”. Worth a look, I think.

The Pirate Glossary is full of fun facts – famous pirates, the anatomy of a ship, weapons and flags – as well as insults and phrases. It’s clear, comprehensive and kind of fabulous.

So, with all of that at our disposal, we could talk pirate all day, but instead I want to spread a little scuttlebutt and look at scuttling and scuppers.

A scuttlebutt is the shipboard equivalent of the office water cooler and of the gossip that’s exchanged around it. Butt is one of those hard-working words which mean a lot of different things because they’ve all snuck in over the centuries from different sources – Frankish, Dutch, Old French, Norse, etc, etc. The relevant source for scuttlebutt is from Late Latin “buttis” meaning cask – which became “bot” for a barrel in Old French.

So we’ve got a barrel full of drinking water on deck, yo ho me hearties.

Now a scuttle is a hole or covered hatch in a ship – possibly derived from the Old French “éscoutille” to cut something to make it fit, or directly from the Spanish word “escotilla” for hatchway – and a scuttle can be used for scuttling, deliberately sinking, the ship. Of course, the water barrel would have had a hole cut in it to allow a cup or dipper to get in and scoop out some water. I think that the theory that the dipper had holes cut in it to stop sailors from lingering and gossiping over their water break sounds a bit stupid – you don’t want to go wasting fresh water on sea voyages.

Aye, drink yer Adam’s ale through a sieve, while we stand around and laugh.

Just as you can scuttle a ship to prevent enemy capture by cutting holes or opening the seacocks in the hull, you can deliberately ruin a plan by scuttling it. So far, so clear.

But what about if you scupper it?

Scuppers, as a noun, refers to the holes cut in the bulwarks of a ship to allow water on deck to drain off. It may derive from some more Old French – “escopir”, meaning to spit out – because as long as your scuppers are spitting out the water you’re less likely to sink. It may also refer to Margaret Wise Brown’s sailor dog, Scuppers, but only if you’ve had the pleasure of his Little Golden Book company.

scuppers

Of course, if you were to die on deck you might be washed into the scuppers, which may be where it got its negative meaning of to be killed or to ruin something.

But according to modern definitions, to scupper is to sink your own ship on purpose. No, wait – that’s to scuttle it! Well, it would appear that the two have become synonymous. Ah, the English language. A rich grab bag of mutable stuff – it’s unsinkable.

All of which means that you should feel free to scupper or scuttle or shiver yer timbers for ITLAPD – just remember to abandon ship for the first two.

What’s your poison?

Monkshood We were talking about poisons at a book launch* last week and one of my learned colleagues mentioned that the traditional witches’ brew garden plants just aren’t as deadly as you might think. Is that the fault of an exaggeration of the plants’ toxicities or, as another writerly polymath suggested, improved health levels making people more likely to survive poisoning? I don’t know the answer, but it did get me thinking about (da da daaa!) PLANTS THAT KILL!

Being Australian I’m used to the notion that, at any given time, approximately 36% of my immediate environment is actively trying to kill me, but that’s mostly creepies and crawlies and slithery things** rather than large carnivores and plants. Not that some of the plants aren’t up to the task – anyone who has tangled with a Gympie Gympie*** is familiar with its charming brand of ‘god let me die now so the pain will end’.

The Dendrocnide moroides is also known as the stinger or suicide plant and arguably has the most painful sting of anything in the world. The recommended treatment is to wash the area with diluted hydrochloric acid (1:10) because, I guess, acid is preferable to this monster. It’s related to the giant stinging tree but has a more potent neurotoxin. Apparently, the pain can last for years…

Some of our continent’s nastiest inhabitants, though, are ornamental imports brought by early colonists. Like many children around the world, I recall being warned away from Oleanders and Angels Trumpets. The latter, Brugsmansia, has pretty flowers, the perfume of which can cause respiratory irritation and nausea in some people. They are closely related to Datura – Devils Trumpets – but the Brugsmansia’s flowers are pendulous rather than erect. Both types of ‘trumpet’ belong to the nightshade family.

The alkaloids in Brugs (as fans of the plants call them) will mess you up. Some people, looking for a natural high, have contemplated their choices (lick a cane toad**** or drink some trumpet tea) and opted for the tea. I’m definitely not recommending the former, but nasty things happen when you ingest trumpets belonging to devils or angels. Bad, bad trips – the hallucinogenic effects have been described as terrifying rather than pleasurable and in one case the ‘acute psychotic condition’ led to self-amputation of the tea drinker’s penis and tongue.

So that’s a no.

Having grown up in the subtropics, it wasn’t until I went to the UK that I saw a lot of the deadly plants that my reading of fairytales, the classics, fantasy fiction and historical non-fiction like Nicholas Culpeper’s Herbal had led me to believe would just about leap out and attack me. You know, the sort of classic witches’ weeds of deadly nightshade, hemlock and henbane, mandrake and monkshood, wormwood and foxglove.

I found it a little confronting to discover that the gardens of Edinburgh were a veritable pharmacopeia of death – atropine, aconite, digoxin, taxine and cicutoxin, just to name a few. Those lovely monkshood in the banner pic? Photographed in Edinburgh, as was this snowy graveyard yew.

Yew in Edinburgh graveyard

But none of these plants, nasty as they are, can compete with (da,da,daaa!) the TREE of DEATH!

The manchineel (Hippomane mancinella) or manzanilla de la muerte, which means little apple of death, grows in and around the Caribbean. On some islands they put warning signs on the trees to let people know that the fruit, sap and leaves are highly toxic. (Check it out!) Just standing beneath one, when it rains, will cause skin blisters. I think Flaubert overstated the danger of the tree in Madame Bovary where he referred to its ‘poisonous shade’, but not by much.

Truth, as ever, is stranger than fiction. But it makes me think about how ludicrously nasty a fictional plant would have to be, just to compete with some of our world’s fabulous flora. And all of this really makes me want to get back to a short story I started writing about four months ago about malevolent apple trees. Not that I’ve gone all ‘hello, my pretty’ with poisoned fruit. Just those yellow and red stripes…that’s Nature’s warning, right? Like tigers and wasps.

Plus, I think doing some writing would be safer than a spot of gardening, all things considered.

*the book, City of Lies by Sam Hawke, features a family of poison tasters.

**and the sun, of course – mankind’s ancient enemy….

***much worse if you do this in Gympie, thereby cubing the level of your distress as well as running the additional risk of mercury poisoning.

****the Bufo marinus has hallucinogenic sweat. And is gross. You could not pay me enough to lick one.

A bonfire of my vanity

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Tonight, I’m off to a bonfire of my vanity, rather than a more generic bonfire of the vanities which would call for the righteous roasting of anything which might encourage sin.

Let me explain and, since it’s Wednesday and there’s always time for a little wordsmithery, before I set fire to the pyre I’m going to investigate some history and wordalicious etymology.

Back in the 1490s, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola was ruining his former patrons, the de Medicis, by preaching that luxury and ostentatious excess were sinful. (And, yeah, those Medicis knew a thing or two about ostentation.)

The good people of Florence, egged on by Savonarola, in the spirit of abstinence called for by the upcoming Lent, spent Shrove Tuesday 1497 chucking anything that might tempt them to sin – mirrors, cosmetics, musical scores and instruments, playing cards, paintings, books – onto a fire.

This wasn’t the first falò delle vanità, bonfire of the vanities, but it is the most well-remembered, at least in part because it was said that the great Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli consigned some of his own paintings to the pyre. Che cavolo!

Things didn’t end well for Savonarola – only fifteen months later, after being excommunicated and tortured, he was hanged and burned in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, along with two other friars. Their ashes were dumped in the Arno to prevent his followers from making relics of his bones.

And, yeah, that’s the Arno in Pisa – stop being picky. Its the same river and it brings us to the etymology of bonfire which is that it is a bone fire. That is a fire in which you’re burning bones.

Why, you might ask. Or even, what sort of monster are you?

Firstly, they don’t have to be human bones. Don’t go all wicker man on me, alright?

Secondly, burning bones is a great way to turn them into a nice, friable fertiliser. So, you bring the beasties in from their summer pastures after harvest, knowing there’s not enough feed for them all for the winter, and after the butchering and everything is done you’ve got a pile of carcasses which need burning to make fertiliser for the fields for the next year’s crop.

And, oh, is that the time? Somehow it’s the end of October and time for Samhain, so you build up bonfires – bonefires – and make a party of it. You drive the rest of the cattle between two of the bonfires and you pass through them too, as a cleansing ritual. The wall between the worlds is thin, so you make sure you appease the spirits of the fae and of the dead.

So the bonfires (with or without their bones) were being lit at that time of the year (preferably by a fire made by friction = force-fire, needs-fire or neatsfire, neat being an Old English word for cattle) long before the Catholic Church moved its celebration of All Hallows from the 13^th of May to the 1^st of November, and long before English justice saw Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators drawn, hung, mutilated and quartered for their conspiracy to blow up King James and the parliament on 5 November 1605. A ‘guy’ has been burnt in effigy on that date – Bonfire Night – ever since.

Because what’s a bonfire without at least a few (notional) bones?

And what’s it all got to do with my vanity?

Well, I’m off to have one of my manuscripts critiqued, tonight, by the CSFG novel critiquing group. If producing a book is like producing a child, which it really isn’t, this is like asking some other parents to tell you how ugly your kid is. No, honestly, tell me. I can take it.

Actually, it’s more like taking all the things you’re proud of in your work and watching while others throw them onto a bonfire.

Well, it will be cold tonight, here. About 4 decrees Celcius. Books, as Mr Bradbury told us, burn at 232 Celsius. And bones, as it happens, will become friable due to the breakdown of collagen at around that temperature too.

Still, even if all I’m left with is the charred remains, they’ll make a good fertiliser for the next version of my manuscript.