April 03, 2006
Yiddish in Australian?
While Googling to read about Yiddish, I found this article in The Australian about Yiddish in Australia, which includes this fact:
Yiddish has left its mark on colloquial Australian, too, with words such as cobber, motser and shickered.
Huh? Yiddish words that are obscure in the USA have entered the very day vocabulary of Australia? Funny how, when the same languages (English+Yiddish) mix in different locations, the result is different!
So what do these words mean? A quick Google search reveals that cobber means pal/buddy; shickered means drunk; and the most interesting is, motser (also spelled, "motza"), which means, "Motza is an Aussie slang term meaning a large amount of money or more specifically a large gambling win .. it can also refer to a 'certainty' that would ensure such a win" (according to this). Note the etymology: it is from matzoh, so it is literally "bread money" - note the connection between bread and money.
Posted by Morgan at 12:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
January 28, 2006
Handbook & Manual
Yes, I should have realized it before but it never clicked: "Handbook" and "Manual" (in the sense of, an instruction book) have parallel etymologies: manual coming from the Latin root for hand (think of the Spanish "mano" for hand).
Posted by Morgan at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 20, 2005
Secretary
"Secretary" implies two seemingly opposite sorts of jobs: the low-end one, who sits at a desk and organizes her boss's work; and the high-end one, who is the big boss himself (the Secretary of Defense). How did this one word come to mean he who gives the orders and he who takes it?
Dictionary.com helps with the answer by summarizing the etymology of the word:
[Middle English secretarie, from Medieval Latin secretarius, confidential officer, clerk, from Latin secertus, secret. See secret.]
Secretary--in other words--comes from secret (put that into the class of things so obvious that I never realized it). The secretary, high or low, is the person in whom the other members of the team have complete confidence. And you need to have complete confidence in both the people high up and those down low.
This implies another interesting etymology as well: confidence. Note how I played a bit of a word game in the above paragraph, using two definitions of confidence: the confidential officers is one who keeps a secret (keeping a secret is one type of confidence) but then there's having confidence in members of your team (trusting them to get something done, which is a different type of confidence). What's the similarity? Well, let's look up its etymology: Confidence is from confide, which - thinking about the word in adjective form - is pretty obvious, "with faith" (fide=faith, think of "fidelity"). What all of these different definitions have in common then, is that a secretary or confidant is someone you believe in.
Therefore, those who don't believe in belief or faith, probably have difficulty trusting or believing in people, too. The agnostics, in other words, will probably be socialist.
Posted by Morgan at 01:42 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
August 27, 2005
Etymology of "Dog Days"
[Included, as a surprise bonus, is an etymological comment on Sirius--no, not the radio station!]
dog days
pl.n.
1. The hot, sultry period of summer between early July and early September.
2. A period of stagnation.
[Translation of Late Latin dies caniculares, Dog Star days (so called because the Dog Star (Sirius) rises and sets with the sun during this time) : Latin dies, pl. of dies, day + Late Latin canculares, pl. of cancularis, of the Dog Star.]
From Dictionary.com
Posted by Morgan at 02:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 12, 2005
Leaders, Smart Talk, and the LIberal Cultural Elite
People who talk frequently are more likely to be judged by others as influential and important--they're considered leaders.That is Photon Courier quoting Why Great Leaders Don't Take "Yes" for an Answer, by Michael Roberto of Harvard Business School. He continues to quote:
At first glance, that finding may not alarm you. Leaders do need the ability to articulate their ideas in a concise and persuasive way in public settings. However, Pferrer and Sutton have also discovered that "smart-talk" tends to be overly negative and complex. When people strive to impress others in meetings, they tend to explain how and why a proposal will not work rather than describing why it might succeed. (Based on their research) Pfeffer and Sutton argue that an individual is more likely to bolster others' perceptions of his intelligence by offering critiques rather than positive pronouncements about proposals and ideas under consideration. They find that many organizations encourage "the tendency to tear an idea down without offering anything to put in its place." Smart talk becomes an impediment to open, constructive dialogue and an obstacle that prevents firms from moving from analysis to action.
To me this sounds a lot like academic and cultural elites positioning themselves to be critical of the US and its leadership. It makes them sound impressive without getting anything done. I was thinking about this concept while reading Ginny's review of Class: A Guide Through the American Class System over at Chicago Boyz. She quotes Fussel's description of Xers as follows:
What kind of people are Xs? The old-fashioned term bohemian gives some idea; so does the term talented. Some Xs are intellectuals, but a lot are not: they are actors, musicians, artists, sports stars, “celebrities,” well-to-do former hippies, confirmed residents abroad, and the more gifted journalists, those whose by-lines intelligent readers recognize with pleasant anticipation. X people can be described (to use C. Wright Mills’s term) “self-cultivated.”
[....]
They adore the work they do, and they do it until they are finally carried out, retirement being a concept meaningful only to hired personnel or wage slaves who despise their work. Being an X person is like having much of the freedom and some of the power of a top-out-of-sight or upper-class person, but without the money. X category is a sort of unmonied aristocracy.
[...]
They occupy the one social place in the U.S.A. where the ethic of buying and selling is not all-powerful. Impelled by insolence, intelligence, irony, and spirit, X people have escaped out the back doors of those theaters of class which enclose others. (186)
In other words, they have positioned themselves to engage in smart talk critical of the establishment without having to do anything of consequence to change things. Here is Ginny saying much the same thing without the benefit of the smarttalk research:
“Occupational class depends very largely on doing work for which the consequences of error or failure are distant or remote, or better, invisible, rather than immediately apparent to a superior and thus instantly humiliating to the performer” (48). A reputation for intelligence and irony are best achieved by those with the ability to critique others without being critiqued. That is, of course, practically a role description for the media; it can be the role of State Department bureaucrats, and this has become more and more (with the theories of post-modernism and post-colonialism) the role in which academics see themselves.
But here are some other flashes of brilliance from Ginny:
To become a critic often means other commitments, various other ways of belonging, are sloughed off.Politics are chosen. But what is sloughed off? Well, family. Fussell notes that Xers flee family and forbears. The deep ties of ethnicity he sees as prole – and of course, such socializing within the family is often blue-collar and more often true of communities in which the tribal still has some power.
[...]
Religion, in Fussell’s discussion, is “embarrassing.” In a revealing approach, he begins a paragraph discussing the Xer’s creativity: “they adopt toward cultural objects the attitude of makers, and of course critics.” As the paragraph continues, we find such people “[a]lthough they know a great deal about European ecclesiastical architecture and even about the niceties of fifteen centuries of liturgical usage, X people never go to church, except for the odd wedding or funeral. Furthermore, they don’t know anyone who does go, and the whole idea would strike them as embarrassing” (185).
Nope. Can't have a stake in anything real. Only in made up shibboleths.
Fussell mocks those who think themselves sophisticated, but he believes a worldly and ironic sophistication characterizes the Xers. But they are (perhaps always were) deeply conventional--their conventions are merely different. To be an Xer requires disburdening oneself of all the passions that drive us and give our lives meaning, all duty-bound commitments. This empties a man no less than does wearing a gray flannel suit to an office on Madison Avenue.
And that folks, is the postmodern condition that they always talk about. The repetition of traditional forms without belief in their referents. It positions one as being smart without having to invest anything or actually to be smart. To be ironic is, in effect, to be lazy and/or weak. Ginny concludes:
To the Xer this is marked not by the depth of understanding - of evolution, of foreign policy, of the tax system – but rather by the ability to wield irony against others’ arguments. The cynic’s task is to diss – and he relishes it.[...]
for to worry abut status, as to worry abut money, is to confuse the means with the end. We need respect for who we are and what we do – not for a cynicism accompanied by disencumbrances that threaten our integrity. A society that encourages cynicism is not likely to get productivity, a society that discourages passion will not be able to revive itself.
And that so perfectly captures the fecklessness of both much of Europe and the American blue state elite (and explains their failure to have children) that there is little I can add here except to say Read the Whole Thing.
Posted by Alex at 11:04 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
July 09, 2005
Jobby
While we were having a conversation today about the polo match/fundraiser we had just attended, a friend today used the word "Jobby." He posted a suggested definition of the word to his blog, Not Funny:
Job·by, (jb) n. pl. job·bies --An activity that is performed, either in exchange for payment or on a non-profit capacity, in lieu of a regular occupation and approached vicariously, without serious consideration of profit or success. [Conjunction of job and hobby] Commonly held by members of upper-class families, jobbies are activities that have all the trappings of a real job including a stated objective (making profit, fundraising, lobbying, etc.), a certain routine and schedule, and responsibilities towards others, without the emotional stake that a real job involves. In opposition to real employment, jobby-holders truly care neither for the money they make nor their level of success. They know they need to be employed, in order to be accepted amongst their peers and in order to hold on to that trust fund, but they either haven't really found what they really want to do, don't want to risk it all doing it, are too lazy to try or have tried and failed. So they take on a jobby -- a real job that they approach as if it were a hobby. Getting fired is either not a concern or not an option (Dad owns the company?). Jobby-holders frequently chide others in the organization for their anal adherence to deadlines, their constant anxiety over the organization's success, their concern when the paycheck comes in a few days late and their lack of ability to relax. When they have subordinates, they frequently prefer to engage them as their friend rather than their boss. They put most of their efforts into creating a fun, stress-free work environment for their peers and employees. They like being liked. Jobby-holders measure their success by how many smiles they put on people's faces every day. Jobby-holders are fun people to know.
Posted by Lonne at 10:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (6)
Video Tape
In BaitCar: Only in Canada, Morgan says:(Language note: I just realized that the phrase "video tape" will probably soon vanish, since "video tape" is now in the process of vanishing.)
It may actually take some time for "Video Tape" or "Tape" to leave the vernacular as a verb, since it is so widely used and there is not an ideal substitute. We still universally call mobile phones "cell phones" even though they stopped using cellular technology years ago and there was even an attempt by the industry to differentiate "cellular" from "digital" (TDMA) technology. I know many people who, when recording a show on their DVR, say that they are "taping" it, even though there is no tape involved. This will likley last for a while.
Posted by Lonne at 10:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (2)
July 05, 2005
My New Favorite Word: Pilpul
Pilpul: The Yiddish word describing Rabbis debating a fine point the Bible and Talmud, going back and forth and changing their minds and splitting hairs over the meaning of every single word, with the ultimate goal of discovering the truth of the issue in question.
Every Jew knows the stereotype of the Rabbis arguing like this, and of our secular Jewish habit of applying it to the world outside of the Yeshiva. But now I know the word for it.
A good link on the word & method: Pilpul. An excerpt:
A method of Talmudic study. The word is derived from the verb "pilpel" (lit. "to spice," "to season," and in a metaphorical sense, "to dispute violently" [Tosef., B. B. vii. 5] or "cleverly" [Shab. 31a; B. M. 85b]). Since by such disputation the subject is in a way spiced and seasoned, the word has come to mean penetrating investigation, disputation, and drawing of conclusions, and is used especially to designate a method of studying the Law (Ab. vi. 5; Baraita; B. B. 145b; Tem. 16a; Ket. 103b; Yer. Ter. iv. 42d). For another explanation of the word, as derived from the Hebrew "pillel," see J. B. Lewinsohn, "Bet Yehudah," ii. 47, Warsaw. 1878.Description of Method.
The essential characteristic of pilpul is that it leads to a clear comprehension of the subject under discussion by penetrating into its essence and by adopting clear distinctions and a strict differentiation of the concepts. By this method a sentence or maxim is carefully studied, the various concepts which it includes are exactly determined, and all the possible consequences to be deduced from it are carefully investigated. The sentence is then examined in its relation to some other sentence harmonizing with it, the investigation being directed toward determining whether the agreement appearing on a superficial contemplation of them continues to be manifest when all the possible consequences and deductions are drawn from each one of them; for if contradictory deductions follow from the two apparently agreeing sentences, then this apparent agreement is not an agreement in fact. Again, if two sentences apparently contradict each other, the pilpulistic method seeks to ascertain whether this seeming contradiction may not be removed by a more careful definition and a more exact limitation of the concepts connected with the respective sentences. If two contiguous sentences or maxims apparently imply the same thing, this method endeavors to decide whether the second sentence is really a repetition of the first and could have been omitted, or whether by a more subtle differentiation of the concepts a different shade of meaning may be discovered between them. Similarly if a regulation is mentioned in connection with two parallel cases, this methoddetermines whether it might not have been concluded from the similarity of the cases itself that the regulation applying to the one applied to the other also, and why it was necessary to repeat explicitly the same regulation.
The pilpulistic method, however, is not satisfied with merely attaining the object of its investigation. After having reached the desired result in one way, it inquires whether the same result might not have been attained in another, so that, if the first method of procedure should be eventually refuted, another method and another proof for the result attained may be forthcoming. This method is followed in most of the Talmudic discussions on regulations referring to the Law, and in the explanations of sentences of the Mishnah, of which an example may be given here.
Posted by Morgan at 07:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 01, 2005
Hookups
There was an article, "Casual Relationships, Yes. Casual Sex, Not Really," which, while you now need to pay to read, you can get for free in the Taipai Times' article "To 'Sex and the City' and beyond."
The article attempts to define the word "hookup" as "anything from making out to doing the nasty, generally with no commitment or plans for said commitment." Another person claims that it matters less what actually happens than that "the meeting is unplanned and even unexpected."
The word clearly has different meanings in different circumstances. Hookup can mean:
1. To meet up at a certain point in time ("Let's hookup later and see a movie")
2. To kiss, but not to do anything else
3. To be more intimate than kissing but specifically to not have sex
4. To have sex
Usage varies by age, context, culture, and geography. Sometimes the word is used because a person is trying to articulate exactly what happened and to differentiate what happened from other possible meanings of hookup. For example, someone might use hookup in the sentence, "we hooked up last night" with the intent to articulate that #2 happened but not #3 or #4. Someone else in a different context could easily use the word to mean that #3 happened but not #2 or #4. Other times it is used to be intentionally ambiguous about what happened, as a way of not giving out too much information.
However, regardless of which of the above meanings is used, it would seem that it can apply equally to an encounter that is planned in advance as one that is impromptu, and can apply as much to an encounter involving commitment as one that does not.
Posted by Lonne at 02:51 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
June 30, 2005
The Vulgar and the Common
I may start another blog to post interesting etymologies I find, a descendant of my former RT newsletter (a note to my fellow Spareinkers: maybe we should create categories on the blog & then I can just have a category for these here?). Funny, as a side comment, how creating a traditional web page (such as my etymology page) just doesn't cut it anymore for me: no one will know if/when I update it and if I do put the updates on the top, then it's really a blog. Until I create another blog for this, if I do, I will post them here:
The English "vulgar" comes from the Latin "vulgus," meaning "common" -- the common descending into the vulgar is a great example of the pattern that words degrade over time.
Now, thinking more politically, I will add that this descent is also a linguistic recognition of Aristotle's political point that, that which is cared for by all (that which is common) is indeed cared for by none (it devolves into the vulgar).
Tonight I was looking for other contemporary English words that come from the same root, vulgus. The most interesting one I found is divulge. Here's what dictionary.com has to say on it:
[Middle English divulgen, from Old French divulguer, from Latin divulgare, to publish : di-, dis-, among; see dis- + vulgare, to spread among the multitude (from vulgus, common people).]
Next time you divulge something (that is: publish something), remember that it's the commoners that you're telling it to!
Posted by Morgan at 12:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
