A Flair to Remember

I recently encountered this bit of vivid writing in a music review: “A pianist of flashy, almost rococo, technique, he executed the complicated cadenza with great flare.”  Hmmm. Among his spectacular qualities, he also seems to be a pyromaniac.

The flare with which he attacked all those black and white keys is “a fire or blaze of light used to signal or illuminate.”  The noun was first used around 1580, but its etymological origin is unknown.

As a verb flare has two meanings.  One is to “burst out in flame or violent emotion,” like a tea party member when Obamacare is mentioned.  The other is to “open and spread outward,” like the nostrils of a tea party member when Obamacare is mentioned.  In the latter sense it may spring from the Dutch word vlederen, to “flutter.”

What the reviewer probably meant was flair, meaning “style, or a uniquely attractive quality.”  A much more recent word in English, from around 1880, it derives from Old French flairier, which, rather surprisingly, means, “to give off an odor” and has its root in the Latin fragrare. 

Many critics urge that a flare be applied to every scrap of the Bard of Buffalo Bayou’s hen-scratchings, which, unfortunately, are not quite illegible enough to be ignored while they are still intact.

                                                I.
            A man hailed a taxi with flair,

            Said he had to get to the fair.
                        But the taxi broke down
                        On the way out of town,
            And the fare hailed a new cab with flare.
                            
                                                II.
            That cabbie called his wife to declare
            “I’ll be late home, ‘cause I have a fare.”
                        When he got home, she shot him,
                        Then explained why she got him:
            “I thought he said ‘an affair’.”

                                                  III.
            A tough guy who swaggered with flair
            Pinned a red rose in his hair.
                        Dressed in high heels and pearls
                        Just like one of the girls—
           Now his picture’s in Vanity Fair.

 

Tilting with Wend Mills

Before the 15^th century, you might “go” somewhere or you might just as easily “wend” there.  Both words mean to “move on a course, or to pass from one point to another.”  Nowadays, you hardly ever see “wend,” except in the phrase “wend your way.” 

Both words had German origins, “go” from gehen, which made its way into Middle English as gan, and “wend” from wenten (“turn or go”), which became wendan in Old English.   The past tense of “go” was gaed, and the past tense of “wend” was went.  Sometime in the 15^th century, “go” became the dominant verb, and “wend” passed into disuse—except for its past tense, went, which survived as a very irregular past tense for “go”—and in the phrase “wend one’s way,” that is “clear a path through a passage that is twisted or strewn with obstacles.”

The verb wend should not be confused with the noun Wend, which refers to a person of Slavic descent in Germanic areas. It comes from Old English Winedas, derived from German (Wenden), Swedish (Vendere), Polish (Wendowie), and Old Norse (Vindr). The largest settlement of Wends in the United States came in the 1850s and mostly wound up in Lee County, Texas, in an unincorporated town known as Serbin.  Also known as Sorbians, the Wends are Lutherans who are now affiliated with the Missouri Synod.

Some people say the Wends are the same as the Vends, but others maintain that Vends were a Latvian tribe with a Finnic language who moved into Wendish territory in the twelfth century and became absorbed into the Wends.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou has been wending his way through life for many decades, not always completely successfully.

            Vends

            Wended;

            Wends

            Reprehended.

                       

            Vends

            Descended;

            Wends

            Defended.

            Wends

            Contended

            Vends

            Misapprehended.

           

            Wends

            Befriended

            Vends

            And blended.

           

            Wends

            Ascended;

            Vends

            Ended.

Call the Cops!

Everyone probably knows that a British policeman is known as a bobby because the 1829 Metropolitan Police Act that created the police force was introduced by Home Secretary Robert Peel.  For the same reasons cops in Britain and Ireland were sometimes called peelers.

But why are they called cops?  The word is a shortened form of copper, dating from around 1704, which derives from a northern British dialect word cop, meaning “seize or catch,” from the French caper (“take or seize”), ultimately from the Latin capere (“take”). 

As logical as this etymology is, some people prefer a more exotic version of the origin of copper. They say it refers to the helmets, uniform buttons, badges, or truncheons used by police and made of copper.  Yet another specious explanation stems from the color of early police cars in the western United States, and still another from the acronym “Constable On Patrol.” 

To which one can only say “Cheese it”—a thieves’ slang phrase of unknown origin, dating to 1812 or earlier, meaning “depart quickly.”  It is mostly heard when the police arrive in a 1940s crime movie and someone in the act of committing an offense says, “Cheese it—the cops!”

Cheesy (especially the stinky kind) is undoubtedly the word that best describes the sour curds produced by the Bard of Buffalo Bayou—to wit:  

            Next time you’re in a jam and need crime-stoppers,

            And you don’t want to simply call the coppers,

            Expand and sharpen your vocabulary,

            Learn all the names of the constabulary:

            When you’re required to nab a crook or mobster,

            Then call a Flatfoot, Smokey Bear, or Lobster,

            The Fuzz, the Pigs, the Brass, the Doughnut Squad,

            Or Johnny Law, Town Clown, or Mister Plod.

            And when a crime’s committed by a baddie,

            Hail a Muldoon, Blue Meanie, or a Paddy,

            A Mork, an Asphalt Cowboy, or a Swine,

            An Ossifer, the Man, the Thin Blue Line,

            The Mounties, Brownies, Barneys, Boys in Blue,

            A Muppet, Rozzer, Bizzie, Bull, Gumshoe,

            A Stick Man, String Top, Roach, Bluecoat, or Dick—

            One of these is sure to do the trick.

            If not, there’s Scuffers, Five-Os, Ducks and Geese—

            Or maybe you could simply yell, “Police!” 

But Sirioiusly…

 If you use an iPhone, you are probably familiar with the irritating, know-it-all, robotic voice known as Siri, who purports to be a fount of infinite knowledge about locations, retail establishments, lodgings, biographical facts, historical events, and, well, pretty much anything you want to ask.  The last time I asked Siri something, she replied, “I am not accepting any questions at this time.” I guess even robots get holidays.

It turns out that Siri is not a robot at all, but a voice actor named Susan Bennett, who lives in Atlanta. She recorded many hours of text that included all conceivable combinations of words and sounds, which are then “sampled” by the tiny computer inside an iPhone to produce the desired response. 

Siri is a Norwegian name, which means “beautiful woman who leads you to victory.” (And I always thought that was Nike.)  It is supposedly the name that Siri’s inventor also intended for his first child.

In Britain, iPhone users hear a male guide called Daniel, who is voiced by an actor named Jon Briggs.  In Australia, there is another female, named Karen, who speaks “Strine,” and is voiced by Karen Jacobsen, an Australian-born New Yorker who also sings, entertains, writes songs, gives inspirational speeches, and, for all I know, may juggle plates. She’s a busy gal, also providing voices for several GPS devices.

Why Daniel was chosen as the British name isn’t obvious. It’s Hebrew and means “God is my judge.” Karen is a Danish name, short for Katherine, which was originally Greek and means “pure”—but the chances are, the name was picked because it happened to be the name of the voice actor.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou prefers to get the scanty facts he requires from old volumes with cracked bindings and yellowing pages that line the shelves of his decaying bookcase. 

            I’m weary of Siri, that smart-ass young oracle,

            I wish that she would sail off in a coracle,

            Instead of pronouncing her words allegorical

            In a voice that is pompous and too oratorical.

            As for Daniel, his name is clearly historical

            But maybe it’s just a bit metaphorical.

            Whom should I choose?  The question’s rhetorical—

            I’m going with Karen—and that’s categorical.

Nothing But the Tooth

Among the gifts beneath your Christmas tree there may have been (if you were very good or, barring that, very rich) an electronic Bluetooth device.  Bluetooth is the name of a wireless technology for exchanging data over short distances.  Its uses include connecting mobile phones to car stereo systems or to headsets, wireless operation by a computer of a mouse or a printer, and intercom systems. And you thought I didn’t know anything about electronics—ha!

Now what does a tooth that’s colored blue have to do with all this high-tech magic? It turns out that it’s named for the tenth-century Danish king Harald Bluetooth (Blåtand in Old Norse), who united ornery Danish and Norwegian tribes into a single kingdom.  The technology was invented in 1997 by an engineer who was reading a novel about Harald, and he thought “Bluetooth” was a good name for his invention since it united communications protocols into a single standard, just as the old Scandinavian king united warring factions. Sounds like a stretch to me, but OK.  The Bluetooth logo is a rune that includes Harald’s initials.

Why Harald was known by the epithet “Bluetooth” is not clear. People in the 10^th century had a bad habit of not writing down explanations.  Blue originally meant “dark,” not necessarily the specific color we associate with the word today, so possibly Harald had a rotten tooth that had turned dark in color.  Others say Harald loved blueberries and ate so many that they stained some of his teeth, or that he was always clad in blue garments, a traditional royal color.  Yet another theory is that “tooth” has nothing to do with oral hardware, but is a corruption of the English word thegn, meaning “chieftain,” and “bluetooth” meant that Harald was a dark-complexioned king.

In any event, Bluetooth should not be confused with “Blu-Ray,” which has no “e,” even though it derives from “blue-violet,” the spectrum of the laser ray used in an optical disc format to record high-definition video.  The “e” was omitted so the term “Blu-Ray” could be trademarked.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou always omits “e’s” when he uses his decrepit old L. C. Smith typewriter, which has a broken “e”-key that he is too indolent to have repaired.  See for yourself in the following “e”-less verse:

            Mary had a tiny lamb,
            Its wool was soft as snow,
            And if Mary should go out,
            That lamb would also go.

            Mary’s lamb to school did stray,
            Against all laws, alas!
            Boys and girls did laugh and play
            To find a lamb in class!  

Yule Never Know

Christmas is just around the corner, as are the Nativity, Noël, and Yule, which are all names for the same holiday. The etymological origins of Christmas, Nativity, and Noël are pretty straightforward—but Yule is another ball of tinsel.

Christmas is from the Old English Cristes mæsse (“Christ’s mass”), the religious service that is celebrated on the birthday of Jesus Christ.  A similar noun formation is seen in Michaelmas, the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, celebrated on September 29.  So this is the form to use if you want to keep the Christ in Christmas and the Michael in Michaelmas.

Nativity, meaning “birth,” is from the Latin nativus, from which the Spanish word for Christmas, Navidad, also springs. Noël, the French word for “Christmas,” which English has also adopted, is a variant from the same root, by way of Latin natalis (“birthday”) via Old French nael. This root is also seen in Natale, the common Italian word for “Christmas.”

Which brings us to Yule, and that is not so easily explained.  Now seen in English mostly in the term Yuletide or as the Yule log, the word came directly from the Middle English yoole, in use from around 1450, which in turn came from Old English ġéol or ġéohol sometime before 900.  All these terms refer to the holiday now called Christmas.

Before that the origin of Yule seems to be Old Norse Jól, which referred to a pagan winter festival.  Here the meaning and origin become murky. 

Some say Jól derived from hjól, the Old Norse word for “wheel,” referring to the season when the year’s “wheel” is at its low point, ready to rise again in the spring.  The cycle, or wheel, of life was an important concept for Norse pagans, and the English word jolly, meaning “festive,” also originates with Jól.

Other, no doubt equally learned linguists, say that Jól’s origin is the Norse god Odin, known as jólfaðr (“father of the Yule”). Another theory is that the word stems from Old Norse ýlir, meaning something similar to “magic.”

Yet another linguistic camp points to Julius Caesar, from whose name came the Old English giuli, referring to a two-month winter season corresponding to the Roman December-January, which was a time of major feasts.

The truth is no one really knows the origin of Yule, so all we can hope to do is join the merry Yuletide chorus, after decking the halls with boughs of holly.  Someone ought to deck the Bard of Buffalo Bayou, as well, in order to prevent such travesties as this:

                        As a general rule

                        You should celebrate Yule

                        On the twenty-fifth day of December.

                        But I’m afraid nowadays

                        Merchants find that it pays

                        To begin by the first of November.

                        There’s no doubt in my mind

                        That quite soon we will find

                        Christmas coming sometime in September.

Going Commando

 A recent clue in a New York Times crossword puzzle was “Not cover one’s butt?”  The answer, which I guessed (but just barely), is GO COMMANDO, which means “not wearing underwear.”

The origin of the phrase “go commando”—like so much else in this tempestuous world—is uncertain.  It has been traced to usage on college campuses in the 1970s (an inevitable result of panty raids), and it is inferred that it sprang from the Viet Nam war, where soldiers often went without underwear for comfort and dryness. Another theory of its etymology is that the absence of undergarments leaves certain parts of the body “without support”—like a commando unit in battle.  It’s also speculated that the phrase derives from “going regimental,” a Scottish military term used in World War I to describe the customary practice of omitting underwear beneath a regimental kilt.  And some say that it merely refers to a characteristic of commando forces who are “ready for action” at all times.

A commando in military parlance is a member of a raiding unit used to conduct hit-and-run operations behind enemy lines.  The word derives from Afrikaans and originally meant any military unit under a commander.  During the Boer Wars, from 1880 to 1902, the Boers used commandos as raiding parties against more conventionally arrayed British troops, and the word took on its current meaning.  In 1940 British commandos were organized as shock troops to repel any German invasion of England. 

Command, meaning to “direct in an authoritative manner,” derives from the Latin commendare, which means “to entrust” and hence to “direct those whose charge has been entrusted to one.”

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou takes a dim view of going commando for reasons that may be discerned in the following scurrilous verses. 

            An aspiring film stud from Orlando 
            Aimed for stardom by going commando. 
                        He thought tight-fitting jeans 
                        Worn in all of his scenes 
            Made him look like a young Marlon Brando. 

            But his friends said he’d best think again, 
            For no giant was he among men, 
                        His hopes were all hollow, 
                        And instead of Apollo, 
            He looked much more like Barbie’s friend Ken.

Hello, Godot!

The New York Times recently considered, inconclusively, the vital question of how to pronounce Godot, the absent title character in Samuel Beckett’s tragicomedy Waiting for Godot.  Originally written in French and translated into English by the author, the play conveys the bleak, existential angst of two tramps repeatedly awaiting the arrival of a mysterious figure known as Godot, who never appears.

The usual American pronunciation of Godot  is “guh-DOE,” with an accent on the second syllable.  British actors typically say “GOD-oh,” transferring the accent to the first syllable.  The French pronunciation would be “GOD-OH,” with equal accents on each syllable.  (Anyone who pronounces the “t” at the end of the word need not apply.)

The Beckett estate suggested that the playwright himself pronounced the name in the French manner, but no standardized pronunciation is now prescribed.

Who Godot is and what he may represent are the subject of much speculation.  An obvious reading is that Godot is a stand-in for God, and the two tramps are twentieth-century humanity, searching in vain for religious faith.  Some commentators say this interpretation is too obvious and simplistic, and they object to the pronunciation that emphasizes the syllable “God” as being an easy way out.  But wait! This verbal symbolism would apply only to the English version anyway, and would be meaningless in the original French, in which the word for “God” is Dieu.

The current Broadway revival features two knights of the realm, Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart, who, being loyal Brits, say “GOD-oh.”  They also clown around a lot, winning easy laughs, emphasizing only the comedy and skipping lightly over the tragedy in the tragicomedy.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou has his own pronunciation problems, often being unable to remember how to say “Chardonnay.” 

         All that waiting for Godot

         Is too existential,

         My spare time is devoted

         To things more essential,

         Such as surfing on Facebook

         And making new friends,

         While burning my candles

         At both of their ends.

         And someday if Godot

         Does decide to appear,

         Just bring him to my place

         And we’ll have a cold beer.       

 

All Together Now

The Houston Chronicle recently had a Page One photograph of a flock of birds, which it called a “murmuration.”  Murmuration, usually referring to a group of starlings, is one of the more exotic “nouns of assembly” that are traditionally applied to specific kinds of animals when gathered in large numbers.  Some of the most common are pride of lions, herd of cattle, school of fish, and gaggle of geese. 

These terms originated in the traditions of French and English venery, or hunting of animals, in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Using such terms was regarded as fashionable, showing that one was in the know.  The specific terms might spring from observation of an animal’s behavior or from a whimsical play on words based on some perceived characteristic of the animal.   

Most of these terms are now obsolete, but some of the most colorful ones are surely worth preserving.  I’d hate to lose references not only to a murmuration, but also to an exaltation of larks, charm of goldfinches, murder of crows, shrewdness of apes, piteousness of doves, busyness of ferrets, mischief of mice, pandemonium of parrots, unkindness of ravens, skulk of foxes, whoop of gorillas, scurry of squirrels, ambush of tigers, and lamentation of swans.

Incidentally, the word venery is interesting in itself.  From the 14^th century, it meant “hunting” or “animals that are hunted,” derived from the Latin venari (“hunt” or “pursue”), from which the word venison also stems.  In the 15^th century another unrelated venery, meaning “pursuit of sexual pleasure,” developed from the Latin prefix vener-, which came from Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Try not to confuse the two.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou belongs to a very selective group of versifiers that are known as an abomination of poets.             
          
            A hunter whose style was imperial 

            Told his wife he’d had exploits venereal.
                        She said, “I’ll teach you to trifle,” 
                        Then she picked up his rifle— 
            And I fear things are now quite funereal.

Fancy That!

The other day, with Thanksgiving feasting just around the corner, I bought some dried apricots that were described in large letters on the label as “Fancy.”  I wondered if these were elaborately ornamental apricots, or perhaps very swanky and exclusive apricots, or maybe especially whimsical apricots.  What could it be that made these particular apricots “fancy,” instead of the plain old apricots I had been used to in my drab former life?

The adjective fancy is a contraction of fantasy, and its original meaning as a noun in the mid-fifteenth century was a “whim or desire, based on imagination or illusion.”  Its origin was Old French fantaisie (“vision, imagination”), from the Latin and Greek phantasia (“appearance, image, perception”), ultimately from the Greek phainesthai (“appear”) and phainem (to “show or bring light”).

Its adjectival use dates from the eighteenth century, and over the years it has assumed many meanings, among them “whimsical,” “ornamental,” “swanky,” “of particular excellence, the highest grade,” “impressive,” “bred especially for bizarre or ornamental purposes without regard to utility,” “extravagant,” “executed with exceptional skill or dexterity,” “multi-colored,” “overly elegant or refined,”  “flamboyant,” and “morally lax.”  Which of these applied to my apricots?

It turns out that “fancy” is a technical term used by the United States Department of Agriculture to grade certain fruits, vegetables, and prepared products, based on their color, size, shape, maturity, flavor, texture, appearance, and the absence of any defects. There’s one grade higher than “fancy,” which is “extra fancy,” but it’s a rare occurrence to find a product that measures up to that level.

The USDA doesn’t mess around when setting these standards. Nothing is left to guesswork. Take apples, for instance.  Here’s the official definition of a “fancy” apple:

“U.S. Fancy” consists of apples which are mature but not overripe, clean, fairly well formed, and free from decay, internal browning, internal breakdown, soft scald, freezing injury, visible water core, and broken skins. The apples are also free from damage caused by bruises, brown surface discoloration, russeting, sunburn or sprayburn, limb rubs, hail, drought spots, scars, stem or calyx cracks, disease, insects, bitter pit, Jonathan spot, or damage by other means, or invisible water core after January 31st of the year following the year of production, except for the Fuji variety of apples. Invisible water core shall not be scored against the Fuji variety of apples under any circumstances. Each apple of this grade has the amount of color specified for the variety.”

Now that’s a pretty fancy apple! I’m not sure why Fuji apples get a pass on “invisible water core,” whatever that is, but after all it’s invisible, so who cares?

Now, back to those apricots. The rules are just as stringent.  In order to be classified as “fancy,” they must “possess a practically uniform, bright typical color, characteristic of well-matured apricots. The fruit may possess pale yellow areas around the stem end that do not exceed an area equivalent to one-eighth of the outer surface side of the unit. Not more than a total tolerance of 10 percent, by weight, may be slabs, immature, or may possess pits or pieces of pits; may be damaged by discoloration, sunburn, hail marks, scab, disease, insect injury, or other similar defects; or may be affected by mold, decay, insect infestation (no live insects are permitted), imbedded dirt, or other foreign material: Provided, that, not more than two-fifths of the total tolerance, or 4 percent, by weight, may be affected by mold, decay, insect infestation (no live insects are permitted), imbedded dirt, or other foreign material: And further provided, that, not more than one-tenth of the total tolerance, or 1 percent, by weight, may be affected by decay.”

I sleep a little easier every night knowing that these standards are being maintained for fancy fruits.

It’s not widely known that the plain old Bard of Buffalo Bayou is something of a fancy-Dan himself when he dons his fancy pants and shows that he’s fancy-free (and full of fun). 

            There was a young fellow named Clancy, 
            And when young women tickled his fancy, 
                        He’d drive his Mercedes 
                        To thrill all those ladies— 
            Beyond that, his prospects were chancy. 

            Clancy met a young woman named Nancy, 
            And the two became rather romancy, 
                        But she said, “Take your Mercedes 
                        And drive it to Hades, 
            You’re no more than a quick passing fancy.”

           

Bungee Binge

One of the customers wonders about the word bungee, as in bungee cords, the cloth-covered rubber cords that are used for bungee jumping. One end of these “elastic ropes” is attached to a high jumping-off point and the other end to the ankles of a thrill-seeking idiot who then jumps, hoping the elasticity of the cord will enable the jumper to bounce up and down without touching the ground.

Nobody wants to say for sure where the word comes from.  The Oxford English Dictionary has a citation of bungee by Oliver Goldsmith in 1760, but that refers to a kind of silk cloth and probably was a confusion with the word pongee. 

Bungie is a nineteenth-century West Country English dialect word meaning “short, thick, and squat,” a meaning that gave rise to bungey, meaning a “milk cart.” In the nineteenth century bungie also meant a “rubber eraser.” According to the late word-pundit William Safire, this usage stems from india-bungey, an Anglo-Indian slang term for “india rubber.”

Another claim to the word’s origin is in the Anglo-Indian lexicon known as Hobson Jobson, in which the word bangy, rooted in the Sanskrit vihangama, is defined as "a shoulder-yoke for carrying loads, the yoke or bangy resting on the shoulder, while the load is apportioned at either end in two equal weights, and generally hung by cords."

The earliest known use of bungee as an elastic rope is in 1930. The OED cites its usage in 1938 as a cord used to launch gliders. The Online Etymological Dictionary surmises that it might be a portmanteau word composed of “bouncy” and “spongy.”

The first known modern bungee-jumping was on April Fool’s Day in 1979, when members of the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club rigged themselves with elastic strands extracted from woven nylon and jumped from the 245-foot-high Clifton Bridge in Bristol, England.  “Quite pleasurable, really,” remarked one member after the jump.

Legend has it that similar jumps—using jungle vines instead of elastic cords—have been a coming-of-age ritual on some South Pacific islands for centuries.

A. J. Hackett, who opened the world’s first commercial bungee jumping establishment in New Zealand, claims bungee (or bungy) is Kiwi slang for “elastic strap.”

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou loves to bungee-jump, but so far he’s only managed to fall from the height of a barstool to the floor (and he always forgets to wear a cord). 

            A man who was feeling quite grungy 
            Decided to jump with a bungee. 
            But he measured it wrong, 
            And the cord was too long— 
            And now he’s not grungy, he’s spongy. 

                       

Daylight Raving Time

The world recently made its annual conversion from daylight savings time to standard time. An occasional reader of this blog complains that even from such a fortress of pristine usage as NPR he hears “Daylight Savings Time,” instead of the correct “Daylight Saving Time” (without the added “s”).  He is quite right that “saving” is technically the proper form.  But the question then arises: is “saving” a present participle used in an adjectival sense, as in running water (“water that runs”) or is it a gerund, used as an adjectival noun, as in hunting season (a season for hunting).

Grammar guru Bryan Garner thinks that “savings” came into usage to avoid such confusion. As he explains: ““The rise of daylight savings time appears to have resulted from the avoidance of a miscue: when saving is used, readers might puzzle momentarily over whether saving is a gerund (the saving of daylight) or a participle (the time for saving). Using savings as the adjective—as in savings account or savings bond—makes perfect sense.  More than that, it ought to be accepted as the better form.”  Whichever form you prefer, says Garner, you can prevent most miscues by hyphenating the phrasal adjective: either daylight-savings time or daylight-saving time. 

Brits avoid all this—but in the process create their own ambiguity—by calling it “summer time.”  That might be taken to mean any time when the livin’ is easy.

Benjamin Franklin thought up daylight-savings time, in order to save money on candles (You know, “early to bed, early to rise, etc.”). During World War I, a number of countries adopted the plan in order to burn less coal.  The idea was revived again in World War II and then caught on almost universally because it was thought to save on electrical consumption. But some studies show it results in higher usage of electricity, as well as sleep deprivation, increased pollution, and greater frequency of heart attacks.

Today more than seventy countries (including every U. S. state except Arizona and Hawaii) adopt daylight savings time from March to November.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou doesn’t care what time it is since he’s been off the clock for decades. 

            The time has come, the walrus said, 
            To talk of many things, 
            Of why there’s daylight savings time 
            And Paul McCartney’s Wings, 
            And whether Justin Timberlake 
            Or Miley Cyrus sings.

Moist on Its Own Petard

Word aversion, the subject of much linguistic study, is a phobic reaction to the sound of certain words. The seemingly innocuous moist is one of the words that people find most unpleasant.  A survey at Mississippi State University found that moist was second only to vomit among detested words, ahead of such other nasties as phlegm, ooze, mucus, puke, scab, and pus. There is even a moist-hating Facebook page with nearly 8,000 “friends.”  

Reasons given for hating moist relate to words and ideas that it evokes.  Some people say it makes them think of “squishy” and “slimy.”  Others say it elicits thoughts of soiled underwear, sweaty palms, or other body parts dampened by various secretions.  Some say it conjures up unpalatable food. In urban slang moist can be a synonym for “embarrassing,” “unpleasant,” or “sexually aroused.”

This aversion might be explained by competing theories of the etymology of moist.  A fourteenth-century word meaning “slightly wet,” it derives from the Old French moiste, meaning “damp, wet, or soaked.”  One school says its Latin root is musteum, meaning “fresh, green, or new.”  But another linguistic camp thinks it stems from the Latin mucidus, which means “slimy, moldy, or musty.”

As for me, I am a great fan of moist—especially in a slice of rich, moist chocolate cake or in an ice-cold, straight-up dry martini with beads of lovely moisture condensing on the outside of the glass.

As for the Bard of Buffalo Bayou, he is all wet.

            Water, water, everywhere,

            It’s all I have to drink.

            A taste of plain vin-ordinaire

            Would put me in the pink.

            I wish I had a mug of beer—

            I hear the glasses clink,

            But my beverage is pure and clear,

            Straight from the kitchen sink.

            A shot of bourbon, scotch, or gin

            Would iron out every kink,

            I’ll even bet a Mickey Finn

            Would taste real good (wink, wink),

            There’s not a drop of Chardonnay

            Or cognac here to drink—           

            I wonder if ‘twould be okay

            If I tried a glass of ink?

Well, Make A Wish

Everyone likes to have well-wishers around. Well-wishers are those who wish you well, right?  But in doing so, do they offer you, as people often say, “well wishes”—or should it be “good wishes”? 

Well is an irregular adverbial form of good. It derives from the Anglo-Saxon wel, meaning “according to one’s will.” When you do well, you accomplish something in a satisfactory or advantageous manner.  When you do good, you perform a virtuous deed.  When it’s an adjective, well most often means “healthy or cured of some illness.”

Believe it nor not, the reliable Second Edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary admits the noun well-wish with its built-in adjectival well as “a good and kindly wish.”

So go ahead and let your well-wishers, wish you well with their well-wishes if you wish. See if I care.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou does not care either. He is carefree, not to mention meter-free, rhyme-free, and sense-free in most of his work. 

            Well, I saw an old well-wisher fall,
            And I noticed as he fell,
            This well-wisher didn’t mind at all--
            For he fell into a wishing-well. 

            Well, the well was full of soapy water, 
            Which the well-wisher thought was swell, 
            For when the water in the well got hotter, 
            He could do his washing well.