An
eminent drama critic for one of the nation’s most distinguished daily
newspapers (well, perhaps I stretch a point or two) recently suggested that an
overblown touring production of that overwritten musical Jekyll & Hyde might have benefited from the “soft-peddling” of
certain lurid elements. It is
natural to assume that he meant “soft-pedaling,” the usual idiomatic phrase,
derived from the left-hand pedal on most pianos, which mutes the sound, meaning
to “underplay or de-emphasize.”
On
mature reflection, however, I am willing to admit that “soft-peddling” might be
equally apt, implying a “soft-sell” rather than a “hard-sell” approach.
Whichever
the critic intended, pedal and peddle are often confused in
contemporary usage. Just for
the record: pedal, from the Latin pedalis, is a “lever or treadle, usually
pressed by the foot, to activate a mechanism on a musical instrument or other
mechanical device (such as a bicycle).” The word first appeared in print in the
seventeenth century.
Peddle is an older word—fourteenth
or fifteenth century—and is a back-formation from peddler, which derives from the Middle English pedder, meaning a “person who travels about with wares to sell.” A ped is a “pack or basket.”
Piddle, meaning either to “act in a
trifling way, dawdle, dally, or toy” or, informally, to “urinate,” probably is a corruption of peddle, dating from the eighteenth
century.
The
Bard of Buffalo Bayou is a piddler of great renown, and one can view the
results of his piddling hereinbelow:
Never
piddle in a puddle,
Or
try to treadle while astraddle,
And
don’t coddle as you cuddle
And
canoodle in your saddle.
In
a huddle never doodle
With
a poodle who can waddle,
Do
not diddle with a noodle.
And
don’t dawdle as you toddle.
In
the middle of a muddle
Please
don’t meddle with a paddle,
Never
addle as you fuddle—
Just
hit the pedal and skedaddle!
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