What About Bob?

A few weeks ago this blog dealt with various meanings of the word jack.  If, for some unaccountable reason, you missed “You Don’t Know Jack,” you’ll find it by clicking: http://wordsgoingwild.blogspot.com/search?q=jack.

Now comes bob, claiming to be an equally versatile word, and demanding equal space.  Actually I have already dealt with a couple of bobs—bobsled and the British phrase Bob’s your uncle—in an earlier blog.  If you missed that, too, try: 
http://wordsgoingwild.blogspot.com/2010/02/and-bobs-your-uncle.html 

But that only scrapes the top of the bob-barrel.  There are many more bob-words that cry out for explanations.

As a noun and a verb, bob has a number of meanings, most of them derived from the 14^th-century Middle English word bobbe, meaning a “bunch or a cluster” of something.  From that usage, by the 1570s bob came to mean a horse’s tail cut short, into a knot. It developed into a verb meaning “to cut short” and hence the “bobbed” short-hair style popular with women in the 1920s.  From that hairstyle came bobby pin, which was used to keep the bobbed hair in place.

It wasn’t long until bobby socks, a new style of hosiery that came to just above the ankles, were named because they were “bobbed,” or shortened, when compared to knee socks. First usage of bobby socks is attested in 1927, and bobby-soxer, meaning a teen-age girl (probably swooning over Frankie Sinatra) in 1944.

From the meaning of “cut short,” we have also derived bobtail, meaning an animal (or vehicle) with its tail shortened either naturally or artificially.  A bobcat is one such animal with a stubby tail.

Other bob usages have nothing to do with that meaning.

The British policeman is known as a bobby owing to the introduction of the Metropolitan Police Act in 1829 by Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel.  For the same reason British cops were also known as peelers. First appearance of bobby in the constabulary sense is traced to 1844.

The Brits also used bob to refer to a shilling (or several of them), before they got all uppity and adopted decimal currency, doing away with the shilling altogether.  This usage dates to the late 1700s and probably from the word bawbee, which was 17^th-century slang for a half-penny.  That word stemmed from the French bas billon, meaning debased copper money. In the 18th century a “bobstick” was a shilling’s worth of gin.

Finally, Yessirreebob, is an American expression meaning “Sure!” or, if you’re Sarah Palin, “You betcha!”  Yessirree, in which the “ree” is added as an intensifer to “Yes, sir,” has been used at least since 1846. The earliest known example of the exclamation Yessirreebob was in 1876, and the bob is probably a euphemism for “God,” similar to “gosh” in phrases such as “Oh my gosh!”

Just in case you’re wondering, I have excluded from consideration that fencing material made of twisted metal strands with sharp points that is known in some parts of the country as bobwar. 

The Bob of Buffalo Bayou has known a number of Bobs in his lifetime, which has been an inexplicably long one, given his profusion of deleterious habits.  He honors a few of these Bobs in these deathless lines:
            
            Dylan is willin’
            And Crosby was crowin’.
            Crane was insane,
            And Cummings was goin’.

            Marley was gnarly,
            And Newhart a true heart.
            Feller was stellar,
            But Lemon was too tart.

            Fosse was bossy,
            And Hoskins too hesitant.
            Schieffer is briefer,
            And Dole ran for President.

            Guccione was phony,
            Geldof economical,
            Hope was no dope,
            Like Elliot, quite comical.

            Costas loves pastas,
            And Kane gave us Batman.
            Wills gave us thrills,
            And Denver? You know that man.

            Linder won’t hinder
            Great music from Gaudio.
            Barker seems starker, 
            And Burns needs no audio.

            Weinstein’s no Einstein,
            And Keeshan was moody.
            Woodward’s are good words,
            As for Smith: “Howdy Doody!”

Braintasers

Everyone knows, I expect, that the word laser is an acronym of “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.”  I had always thought that taser—you know, the supposedly non-lethal electric device police use to subdue obstreperous little old ladies—was formed from something similar.

But no!  It turns out taser has nothing to do with laser, except that it rhymes with it. Taser is actually a trademarked name for a device that fires electrified darts that will incapacitate rowdy human targets long enough for them to be handcuffed and trundled off to wherever it is they trundle trouble-makers off to.

The taser was invented by Jack Cover, a NASA researcher, and he named it after a favorite adventure novel called Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle, by Victor Appleton (a pseudonym for several writers in the Stratemeyer Syndicate), published in 1911.  Cover added a gratuitous middle initial to come up with the acronym Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle, or taser. 

Those of you who had the decency to fork over $22.95 for my book Words Gone Wild (now available at amazon.com for as little as $2.63) will know all about Tom Swift and the resulting Tom Swifty—wordplay derived from the (not quite accurate) observation that Tom’s statements were always qualified by adverbs, as in “I wouldn’t call a constable,” Tom said quietly.

The idea of a Tom Swifty (and its relative, the croaker, which uses verbs instead of adverbs) is to make the most outlandish pun possible.  A few notorious examples, some, but not all, of which can be found in the aforementioned book, are:

“Your honor, you’re crazy,” Tom said judgmentally.

“I haven’t had any tooth decay yet,” Tom said precariously.

“I love Brazilian dances,” Tom said somberly.

“I also like Cuban dances,” Tom rumbled.

“I love the French Riviera,” Tom said nicely.

“I especially like the film festival on the Riviera,” Tom said cannily.

“The umpire called me out,” Tom said baselessly.

“Elvis is dead,” Tom said expressly.

“My radio works perfectly now,” Tom said ecstatically.

“I work in the prison cocktail bar,” Tom contended.

Well, enough of that.  Let’s move on now to more sublime topics, for which we can always count (but not much) on the Bard of Buffalo Bayou: 

                       There once was a guy named Tom Swift,

                        Whose 9-to-5 shift got short shrift.

                        By noon he would lift

                        Several pints—get my drift?—

                        To show he was Swift getting squiffed.

Name That President!

Could the names of Presidential candidates hold any clues as to their suitability for office?  Probably not.

For example, the Bush family name is Anglo-Saxon and refers simply to a person who lives by a bush, probably meaning a wine merchant, since the image of a bush adorned the customary sign for a vintner. Clinton is Old English for a “fenced settlement,” derived from the town of Glympton in Oxfordshire.  And Reagan is Irish, meaning son of Riag (“king”), or “little king.”

Nonetheless, it’s interesting to probe the onomastics of current Presidential politics.

Take Romney.  Please.  I mean take the name “Romney.” Its origin is a bit obscure. Some sources say it’s Norman and first showed up in the 11^th century in a village in Kent over which Robert de Romenel presided. Others say it’s of Welsh origin and means “a winding river.”  And yet another learned scholar opines that it’s Anglo-Saxon, derived from rum, meaning “spacious” and ea, “river”—i.e. “Big River.”

Santorum is from the Latin word sanctus, meaning “saint,” of which sanctorum is the plural genitive, which would mean “of the saints.” Other Italian names like Santorini and Santorello stem from the same root.

Paul, as in Ron, derives from the Roman family name Paulus, which means "small" or "humble" in Latin; an English cognate is the word few.

As for Gingrich, it’s of Swiss Mennonite provenance, originally Günderich, meaning “power battle,” or words to that effect. Gunderic was also a 5^th century Vandal chieftain.

At the back of the GOP heap, Perry has several possible origins.  It could be a derivative of the Latin peregrine, meaning “wanderer,” “traveler,” or “stranger.”  It might also originate in the Anglo-Saxon pyrige, or “pear tree,” meaning a person who lived near such a tree. Perry may also have sprung from the Welsh ap Herry, meaning “son of Harry or Henry.” And yet another possibility is the Norman French perrieur, or “quarryman.”  You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Bachmann could be German, Catalan, Polish, Hebrew, or English in origin and what it means depends on the language.  In German it would be either “baker” or “person who lives by a stream.” The latter is also its English meaning. In Catalan, it would mean “a dark or shady person.” In Hebrew it derives from ben chayim, or “son of life.” And in Polish it’s somebody who comes from Sebaste, a town in Turkey.

Finally, Huntsman is more or less what it sounds like—an English name meaning either a man who hunts, or the servant of such a hunter.  The candidate will probably opt for the former.

Oh—and what about our sitting President?  Obama is derived from the Dohluo language spoken by the Luo ethnic group in Kenya.  Bam means “bent” or “slightly curved” or “crooked,” and O- means “he.”  Many Kenyan names begin with O- (just like in Ireland).  The best guess of most linguists is that the name Obama originated with one of the President’s ancestors who was bow-legged.

Bow-legged or not, the Bard of Buffalo Bayou hobbles lickety-split down Dactyl Drive to Anapest Avenue, laying waste to sundry poetic monuments in his path.

            Will long-running Romney

            Be the GOP nom’nee?

            Or will it be Gingrich,

            That guy who is bling-rich?

            Maybe Santorum

            Will find folks are for ‘im.

            Or possibly Paul

            Will win it all.

            I do believe Perry

            Is unlikely—very.

            It sure won’t be Huntsman,

            Although he’s no dunce, man.

            And as for Bachmann,

            Ach! Mann!

            Oh, yes—poor old Cain

            Found running was vain,

            The same as Pawlenty

            Who quite early had plenty.

           

            Best stick with Obama,

            Or the Dalai Lama.

Just for Laughs

Last year I posted a blog about the funniest words in the English language—you remember: absquatulate, callipygian, gazump, gongoozle, snollygoster, and a few more.  I’m going to start the New Year with another list, which I suppose you’d have to call the second funniest words in English, since they didn’t make the first cut.

I like abibliophobia, which comes from the Greek words for “without,” “books,” and “fear.”  And it means just what you might think: a dread of running out of reading material.  Frankly, I think anyone who suffers from that is engaging in batrachomyomachy, which is Greek again and means a battle between frogs and mice, in reference to an ancient Greek parody of The Iliad.   If you used the word today (which is highly unlikely) it would probably mean something like making a molehill out of a mountain.  And speaking of frogs, if you’re ranivorous, you like to eat them. 

Crapulence does not stem from the rude word you might think it does—but it might be related nonetheless.  It stems from the Latin crapulus (“intoxicated”) and it means discomfort caused by too much drinking or eating.  That’s an ailment unlikely to beset a gaberlunzie, which is a wandering beggar, as if you didn’t already know, and, like so many weird words, is Scottish. Another word that isn’t what it sounds like is turdiform, which means having the shape of a lark—not a word you can find many uses for in this larkadaiscal age.

To round out our funnies for today, there’s gobemouche a French word (literally a “fly-swallower’) for a highly gullible person; slangwhanger, a user of abusive slang words; and wabbit, which besides being Elmer Fudd’s word for that wascally Bugs, also means exhausted, and, naturally, originated with those widiculous Scots.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou has reached out for some funny words—and when he reaches, it’s really a stretch, as you can see.

            A snollygoster with a snickersnee

            Was lollygagging and gongoozling.

            A cockalorum with a bumbershoot

            Thought the snool was just bamboozling.

            The panjandrum whacked him on the sinciput,

            Which gave him eructating collywobbles,

            And made the jackanapes remugient,

            Prolonging all their sudorific squabbles.

Wildest Words

WARNING! Some material in this blog may not be suitable for younger or more sensitive readers.  Reader discretion is advised.

The Oxford English Dictionary is pretty much the gold standard for word usage, and when it admits new words to its hallowed lists, we’d better pay attention.  Three especially useful words for the flâneur’s vocabulary cropped up during the past year in an addendum to the OED, and just in case you’re not familiar with them, I’m here to call them to your attention and, what is more, explain them.

In alphabetical order, the first is bahookie. This is defined as “informal” for a person’s buttocks, Bahookie is Scottish in origin, first appeared in the 1930s, and is derived from blending behind and hough. Hough is an alternate spelling of hock (Old English hōh (“heel”), which can mean a part of the body extending from the tarsal joint some distance up the leg.  One hopes, of course, that one’s bahookie is callipygian.

Next is crunk, a type of hip-hop music characterized by shouted catchphrases and electronic dance music elements, such as prominent bass sounds. It can also refer adjectivally to a person who is full of energy, synonymous with “pumped up.”  Crunk originated in the 1990s and speculation varies as to its origin.  It may be an alternate past participle of crank, describing a condition that is “cranked up.” Or perhaps it is a portmanteau blend of crazy (or chronic or crack or coke) and drunk. One source says the word originated when comedians Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter devised an all-purpose swear word that could get past TV censors.

Finally, kiddies, let us consider twonk, another newbie in the OED.  It is “British informal” for a “stupid or foolish person.”  Scholars believe it is a combination of the words twit or twat and plonk.  Twit has been used since 1528 (long before Twitter was ever dreamt of).  It means a foolish person and stems from Old English ætwītan, meaning “to reproach.”  Twat, as you doubtless know, is extremely vulgar slang for female privy parts.  It is of obscure origin, the OED says primly, and was first noted in the seventeenth century. Plonk is British slang for cheap wine (probably a corruption of the French blanc).

An interesting literary sidelight about the word twat is that Robert Browning used it (by mistake) in his otherwise decorous Pippa Passes:

                        Then owls and bats,

                        Cowls and twats,

                        Monks and nuns, in a cloister’s moods,

                        Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!           

Browning thought the word meant a nun’s headdress, based on his misunderstanding of an anonymous bawdy satirical poem of 1660 called “Vanity of Vanities,” in which these lines appear:

                        They talk’t of his having a Cardinall’s Hat,

                        They’d send him as soon as an Old Nun’s Twat…

It is also notable that both Browning and his misinterpreted source pronounce twat to rhyme with bat and hat, although the customary modern pronunciation rhymes it with hot.

That old twonk, the Bard of Buffalo Bayou, is well known for sitting on his bahookie and cranking out crunk clerihews like the following observations about Victorian poets:

            Robert Browning

            Was always frowning,

            Looking for his glasses,

            So he could see if Pippa Passes.

           

            Alfred Lord Tennyson

            Loved the taste of venison,

            And he often had a hunch

            That there’d be a haunch for lunch.           

            To use a loaded word like carnal ’d

            Be a stretch for Matthew Arnold.

            But he learned to overreach

            On Dover Beach.

            William Ernest Henley

            Wanted to be frien’ly,

            But his friends said, “You tricked us

            Into reading that Invictus.”           

            Gerard Manley Hopkins

            Always said “nopkins”

            And pronounced “napery”

            To rhyme with “foppery.”

           

            Algernon Charles Swinburne

            Loved to feel the gin burn

            His throat as it warmed him—

            But it never reformed him.

            Dante Gabriel Rossetti

            Liked to eat spaghetti,

            Because when he was little, he

            Learned his family came from Italy.

Merry Little Christmas Rewrites

Lyricists have to work hard, especially when it comes to Christmas. A favorite song this time of year is Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” with its heart-warming lyrics that cheered up cute little Margaret O’Brien when Judy Garland sang them in Meet Me in St. Louis.  The original lyrics by Martin, however, were not all that heart-warming.  In fact, Garland and director Vincente Minnelli objected that they were downright depressing.  The original lyrics were:

             Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

             It may be your last,
            Next year we may all be living in the past.
           

            Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

            Pop that champagne cork,
            Next year we will all be living in New York.

            No good times like the olden days,

            Happy golden days of yore,
            Faithful friends who were dear to us

            Will be near to us no more.

            But at least we all will be together,

            If the Lord allows,
            From now on we'll have to muddle through somehow,
            So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

Martin at first refused to change the lyric, but at last he was persuaded to make the song more upbeat.  The Hollywood moguls also thought invoking the Lord was too overtly religious, so Martin’s new lyric was:

 

            Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
            Let your heart be light,
            From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.

            Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
            Make the Yuletide gay,
            From now on, our troubles will be miles away.

            Here we are as in olden days,
            Happy golden days of yore.
            Faithful friends who are dear to us           
            Gather near to us once more.

            Through the years we all will be together,
            If the Fates allow,
            Until then we’ll have to muddle through   

                    somehow,           

            So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.  

In 1957, Frank Sinatra asked Martin to “jolly up” the line "Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow" for his album "A Jolly Christmas." Martin's new line—"Hang a shining star upon the highest bough"—is now more widely known than the original.

Yet another lyrical change was in store.  In 2001, Martin, a devout Seventh Day Adventist, wrote a religious version of the song:

            Have yourself a blessed little Christmas,

            Christ the King is born,

            Let your voices ring upon this happy morn.  

           

            Have yourself a blessed little Christmas,

            Serenade the Earth,

            Tell the world we celebrate the Savior's birth. 

            Let us gather to sing to Him
            And to bring to Him our praise, 
            Son of God and a Friend of all, 
            To the end of all our days. 

            Sing hosannas, hymns, and hallelujahs, 
            As to Him we bow, 
            Make the music mighty as the heav'ns allow, 
           And have yourself a blessed little Christmas now.

         

So take your choice—depressing, uplifting, or religious—but since Martin died in March of this year, at the age of 96, there probably won’t be any more versions.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou, who is not yet 96 but hopes to be, spins out new versions of his stuff with alacrity, hoping someday to get it right.  So far, he hasn’t.

            I’m a songwriting miracle

            Whenever I wax lyrical--

            A versifying Merlin,

            To rival Irving Berlin,

            When I wave my wand, I’m

            Up there with Stephen Sondheim.

            Oh, yes, I find my art

            Compares to Lorenz Hart,

            And songs spun from my web

            Are like those of Fred Ebb,

            And snappier and shorter

            Than ditties by Cole Porter.

            And, sure, my grammar’s fine,

            Just like Oscar Hammerstein.

            You see—I’m in my prime!

            There’s no name I can’t rhyme!

            For example: Ira Gershwin….

            Well… maybe I’d better not give up my day job.

Subordinate Claws

An earlier effusion from the Bard of Buffalo Bayou dealt with an amorous oyster and a scallop that was playing hard to get, so now it’s time to examine two louche and lustful lobsters—Lobster Newburg and Lobster Thermidor, to name names.

The two dishes are pretty similar, consisting usually of butter, cream, cognac, sherry, eggs, paprika, and Cayenne pepper—and, oh yes, a little lobster meat, if you’re lucky.

Lobster Newburg (or Newberg) was created in 1876 when a sea captain named Ben Wenberg asked Charles Ranhofer, the chef at Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York, to recreate a dish he had enjoyed in South Africa. After adding a few culinary touches of his own, Ranhofer put it on the menu as “Lobster à la Wenberg.”

But one night Wenberg got into a drunken brawl at the restaurant. Owner Charles Delmonico banished him from the premises and removed the dish named for him from the menu.  Patrons complained so loudly, however, that Delmonico restored the lobster dish—but rearranged the letters in Wenberg to read “Newberg” on the menu.

Lobster Thermidor, which adds Gruyère cheese and mustard to the Newburg ingredients, was devised Chez Marie, a Paris restaurant, in 1894.  It honored the opening of Victorien Sardou’s play Thermidor, which took its name from the eleventh month of the French Revolutionary calendar. Corresponding to July-August in the Gregorian calendar, Thermidor means “gift of heat” in Greek.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou does not regard heat as a gift, especially when the heat is on, as it is in this little ditty:

            A tough New Jersey mobster,
            Said, “I want some lobster, 
            Lightly steamed wit butter--
            It makes my tummy flutter
            Just thinkin’ of my favorite food in all da woild.”       

            But he found it wasn’t tender,            
            And he said, “Retoin to sender—          
            You may think dat I am selfish,     
            But I gotta teach dis shellfish            
            Dat I’m de only one who gets to be hard-boiled.”

Getting Your Kicks

Thirty-six synchronized Rockettes are kicking up a storm four or five times a day in the current Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular.  With all that kicking, you’d think they might have been named the Kickettes—but thereby hangs a tale.

The Rockettes originated when a Broadway dancer named Russell Markert saw the John Tiller Girls in the 1922 Ziegfeld Follies. Markert is said to have said: “If I ever got a chance to get a group of American girls who would be taller and have longer legs and could do really complicated tap routines and eye-high kicks... they'd knock your socks off!" He got his chance in St. Louis in 1925 when he put together a tall, long-legged, tap-dancing, high-kicking, socks-knocking-off group of precision dancers he called the Missouri Rockets.

They danced all over the Midwest and in 1930 came to the attention of New York producer and theatre owner Samuel Lionel Rothafel.  Rothafel was known as “Roxy”—a nickname he acquired when he played on a Pennsylvania baseball team, and as he ran on an iffy double, a little boy yelled “Slide, Roxy!”  When Roxy opened a snazzy Broadway theatre in 1927, he modestly called it the Roxy.

Rothafel installed the 50 Missouri Rockets in the Roxy’s vaudeville show—and renamed them—what else?—the “Roxyettes.”

In 1932, Rothafel opened the new Radio City Music Hall, and moved his dancers there, once again renaming them, this time as the “Rockettes.” Markert remained their choreographer until he retired in 1971. The number of dancers eventually stabilized at 36, and a legend was born.

The legendary Bard of Buffalo Bayou was not born, but sprang full-grown from the brow of Edgar Guest.  As hommage to his mentor, the Bard makes this poetic offering:

            Foxy Roxy,

            Full of moxie,

            Was a Broadway pro.

            His Rockettes

            Turned pirouettes

            And put on quite a show.

           

            Thirty-six

            Sky-high kicks

            Made fans all shout “Bravo!”

            But Roxy cried,

            “Not satisfied!

            Those kicks are much too low!

            Now I require

            That you kick higher,

            And please don’t tell me ‘no’!”

            The girls complied,

            And they all tried,

            As high as they could go.

           

            “Now don’t get bitchy,”

            Declared the itchy

            Impresario.

            “I won’t relent,

            Or be content,

            Until my fortunes grow!”

            Up to the sky,

            The girls kicked high,

            But they brought Roxy woe—

            The Rockettes’ magic

            Turned sadly tragic

            When they got vertigo. 

          

                       

Humbugaboo

It’s time for the Scrooges among us to begin the annual litany of “Bah! Humbugs!” that make this season of joy palatable. 

“Humbug” is a strange word, apparently having nothing to do with an insect that can carry a tune.  It means “a hoax, something intended to deceive,” or just “nonsense.” It was first used in student slang around 1750 in England, and wouldn’t you know that neither the Oxford English Dictionary nor any of the various Websters I consulted has a clue about its etymology. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, the word’s origin was a subject of much whimsical speculation even as early as the 1750s.

One blogger I found thinks that humbug may be derived from the Old Norse words hum, meaning “night” or “shadow” or “dark air,” and bugges, a variant of bogey, meaning “apparition” or "ghost."  In the absence of any better theories to the contrary, I’m willing to go with that.

In England, humbugs are hard candies with soft centers, usually peppermint flavored. They have been around since about 1825. They are especially popular around Christmas, so maybe Scrooge was really offering his visitors a piece of candy when he said “Humbug!”

If you’re looking for a gift for the person who has everything, you could hardly do better than a device called the “Baa Humbug,” which is available on amazon.com for $11.75.  It’s a plastic sheep that poops humbug candies.  Mmmmm. 

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is full of humbugs, of all varieties, but soldiers on despite this infirmity.           

            Hey, you smart bugs and you dumb bugs,

            Don your homburgs, all you humbugs!

            In Christmas spirit we’re immersed.

           

            For Christmas comes but once a year,

            Spreading lots of mirth and cheer,

            With joy our hearts swell up and burst.

           

            Santa with his eight reindeer

            And bags of presents will appear,           

            With nuts and candies interspersed.

           

            A little eggnog or some beer

            Will help us to forget the fear

            Of how much money we’ve disbursed.

           

            Wait! Christmas really isn’t near,

            It’s weeks before it will be here—

            Somehow I find it rather queer

            It starts around November first.

Turkey Lurkey

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a holiday that honors turkey farmers and cranberry growers.  Although the occasion is not generally observed in Istanbul, there is a connection between the land of the Turks and the gobbler that graces our tables. 

The name of the country Turkey stems from Türkiyei in the Turkish language and is formed from the components Türk—derived from Tu-kin, a name of unknown meaning that the Chinese applied in the second century B. C. to people living south of the Altai Mountains—and the suffix –iyei, which means “land of.” 

In the early sixteenth century Europeans began to import guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) from Africa via a route that came through Turkey. As a result they were sometimes called “Turkey birds.” A similar, but much larger fowl, Meleagris gallopavo, native to the Americas, had been domesticated by the Aztecs and was introduced to Spain in 1523 by the conquistadores.  From there this bird spread to others parts of Europe.

The word turkey was first applied to the bigger bird in the 1550s because the English mistakenly assumed it was a version of the same guinea fowl they got via Turkey.  By 1575, turkey was the usual main course at an English Christmas dinner.  The Pilgrims in Massachusetts possibly served wild turkey for their Thanksgiving feast, and to this very day many Americans enjoy Wild Turkey on Thanksgiving--and eat roast turkey as well.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou, widely known as a turkey himself, provides ample reason for that appellation with gobbled…er, garbled…verses such as the following:

            Some think a pheasant

            For dinner is pleasant,

            And others prefer a fat goose.

            Some pulses quicken

            At hot roasted chicken

            Bursting with flavorful juice.

            Some hunters’ cartridges

            Bag lots of plump partridges

            To grace their holiday table,

            And others munch duck

            For a tasty pot-luck           

            Just as long as their jaws remain able.

            Some like a smidgen

            Of quail or of pigeon,

            If they can’t get their teeth round a squab.

            Or perhaps they’ll espouse

            A morsel of grouse

            That’s skewered and served as kabob.

            But when I want to howl

            With a fine-feathered fowl

            That makes me feel peppy and perky,

            You can have all those birds,

            I refuse to mince words,

            For I much prefer to talk turkey.

You Don’t Know Jack

A previous dissertation on “Jack-o’-lantern” kindled memories of a charming poem by the late John Updike in a collection called “A Cheerful Alphabet of Pleasant Objects,” in which various meanings of the word jack were celebrated.  It went: 

                                          JACK 

                               A card, a toy, a hoist,

                               a flag, a stay, a fruit,

                               a sailor, John, a pot,

                               a rabbit, knife, and boot;

                               o’-lantern, in-the-box

                               or -pulpit, Ketch, a daw,

                               a-dandy, of-all-trades,

                               anapes, an ass, a straw.

           

                                                            From The Carpentered Hen © 1958 by John Updike

Less poetic, but more exhaustive, is the Oxford English Dictionary, which devotes ten-and-a-half minutely printed columns to multiple definitions of jack, and also tells us of its etymology:           

“The actual origin is disputed.  It has been generally assumed to be the same word as French Jacques…also a familiar name for a peasant, a man of the lower orders (cf. Jacquerie).  But it has been used in English from its earliest appearance [which the OED places in 1302] as a by-name for John.  The Scotch equivalent form of the name is Jock but this has not the transferred senses of Jack.”  

Among those transferred senses, in addition to the ones Updike rhymed, are a serving-man, an attendant, a laborer, a machine for turning the spit in roasting meat, a contrivance for pulling off boots, part of a harpsichord or spinet, a small amount, a quarter of a pint, a small brick, a ladies’ man, a close-fitting garment, and a joint of mutton.  And those are just the tip of jack’s iceberg!  What a guy!

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is no Jack Updike, but he has his own litany of Jacks:

        

Albertson, Armstrong, Benny, and Carson, Cassidy, Dempsey, and Black,

Nicholson, Weston, Worthing, and Heifner, Macgowran, LaLanne, Kerouac,                             

Richardson, Robinson, Carter, and Daniel, Douglas, and Elam, and Bailey,

Kennedy, Klugman, London, and Frost, Kevorkian, Leonard, and Haley,                               

Ruby, and Oakie, and Nicklaus, and Lord, and Gelber, and Sparrow, and Warner,                  

Johnson, and Jones, and Lemmon, and Lang, and Palance, and Garner, and Horner,  

Lescoulie and Handy, McBrayer, and White, and Abramoff, Yates, and Hightower, 

Higgins, and Kemp, Webb, Wagner, and Smith, and Flash, and Valenti, and Bauer,            

Russell and Trussel, Teagarden and Warden, Welch, Soo, Paar, and O'Brien,                         

And that leaves but one, to finish the rhyme, and that would be Tom Clancy's Ryan.             

These are all the Jacks whose names have come to my attention,

But there may be many others I have failed to mention.                               

 

Out of the Friaring Pan

In an episode of Inspector Lewis, the spin-off of the Inspector Morse detective series on TV, the highly secular Lewis refers to a group of robed clerics as “monks.”  His theologically-minded partner, Sergeant Hathaway, corrects him: “Not monks—friars, actually.”

So what’s the difference?

Well, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, a friar (derived from the Latin fratres and French frère, meaning “brother”) was originally any member of a religious order who had taken vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Some may have been confined to cloisters, where they led lives of eremitic contemplation; others participated in various public ministries. By the thirteenth century, however, friar was generally restricted to mean a member of one of the mendicant orders who had no fixed revenues and depended on voluntary offerings to support various services to the community.

Today, in the Roman Catholic Church, there are four principal orders of friars: the Dominicans (known as “Black Friars,” from the color of the mantle worn over their white robes); Franciscans (“Grey Friars” or “Brown Friars,” from the color of their robes), Carmelites (“White Friars”), and Augustinians, who wear black robes—but sorry, guys, you lost out to the Dominicans in claiming the nickname.

A monk, from the Greek word monos (“single, alone”) refers to a member of a religious order, usually Benedictine, who lives either in complete solitude (an eremite) or in a cloistered community, under a regimen consisting of prayer, contemplation, and worship, with no public ministry (unless you count producing tasty beverages like the eponymous Benedictine liqueur, yellow and green Chartreuse made by Carthusian monks, and Chimay beer brewed by the Trappists—all of which were invented to revive weary monks after a hard day’s comtemplation).

A monk is not to be confused, in most cases, at least, with a monkey, a small primate mammal with a tail, no liqueur, and a completely different etymology. Monkey originated as the name Moneke, the son of Martin the Ape in the German version of Reynard the Fox, a fable published in 1580.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou leads a semi-eremitic life, filled with monkey business, among which is the scratching of his thoughts upon tree bark. An example follows:

            A young, monastic oyster,

            Too boisterous for his cloister,

            Was smitten by a plump and shapely scallop.

            As the oyster grew much moister,

            He had an urge to hoist her

            On his shell and take off at a gallop.

            Through murky shoals he sped

            Straight for an oyster bed,

            To frolic with the luscious bivalve girl.

            “If you and I were wed,”

            The lusty oyster said,

            “We’d shuck these shells and make a little pearl.”

            The scallop was quite shocked,

            And said, “You’d be defrocked

            If you should try to take me in a tussle.
            You shouldn’t run amok,

            I’m no coquille St.-Jacques— 

            My boyfriend is a big and brawny mussel!”

            “You needn’t take that tone,”

            The oyster said. “Don’t moan—

            If you don’t want to play, then I’ll just scram.”

            So he left her all alone,

            Then he found a cherrystone

            And did a little necking with the clam.