Word of the Week – Hands Down

Word of the Week – Hands Down

by | Jun 5, 2023 | Word of the Week

“It’s the best, hands down.”

“He won hands down.”

“This is hands down the most delicious mac and cheese recipe out there.”

I daresay we all know the phrase…but do you know where it comes from? I hadn’t. But it turns out hands down, which dates from 1855, is actually a term coined in horse racing.

The first recorded use was in The Sportsman in 1840, describing a jockey who was so far ahead of his competitors that he crossed the finish line “with his hands down,” meaning that he let up on the reins and let the horse just cruise to a win, he had so much lead on the others.

That was the report that sparked the phrase. In a mere decade-and-a-half, it became part of everyday speech, applied to other easy wins or times when something was so ahead of the competition that they didn’t even have to try to beat them.

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Word of the Week – Lullaby

Word of the Week – Lullaby

by | May 29, 2023 | Word of the Week

When we think about a lullaby, we immediately remember soft, soothing music meant to encourage rest and sleep. But…why that word?

My husband and I were wondering about this at bedtime one night, and as I pondered it, I said, “Surely it’s related to lull.” But was I right?

As a matter of fact, I was. 😉 Lull dates from the early 1300s, from the previous form of lullen, which means “to calm or hush to sleep.” It’s thought to be a bit of an onomatopoeia word, based on the wordless lu-lu-lu (or as we spell it now, la-la-la) song that a parent would sing or hum to their child to soothe and calm and put to sleep. Swedish, Dutch, German, and Sanskrit all have similar words!

Lullaby had developed as a noun to describe this singing by around 1580, a combination of lullen + by. But…where did that “by” come in? That’s a little less certain. Some etymologists suggest it might be borrowed from goodbye, but others think it’s just a meaningless extension, tacked on because it sounded good.

As I was musing on the word at bedtime, I observed that rock-a-bye sounds very similar as is a lullaby. This is from the 1800s and combines the act of rocking a baby to sleep with that -by ending of lullaby.

Anyone else ready for a nap??

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Word of the Week – Tawdry

Word of the Week – Tawdry

by | May 22, 2023 | Word of the Week

Tawdry.

It isn’t a word we use all that often these days, but if we’re familiar with it all, it’s evocative. It brings to mind images of risque women, perhaps, or what we today might call “trashy.” And that isn’t all that far off.

The definition of tawdry has been, since the 1670s, “a cheap imitation of something elegant, worn as if it were costly.” Costume jewelry, costumes themselves could often be called tawdry.

But the fascinating bit here is the history of the word!

Tawdry is a shortening of Tawdry Lace—a silk necktie or ribbon for women, usually sold at an annual fair celebrating St. Audrey, a queen of Northumbria (now part of England) who died in 679. That’s in fact where the were word comes from. Audrey’s Lace became Tawdry Lace.

But why is this queen famous for it?

In her youth, Queen Audrey was famous for her extravagant and trend-setting fashions. She reputedly wore necklace upon necklace. Flashy, gold, ostentatious—that was Audrey!

In her later years, she became a Christian and became much more reserved in her dress. When she contracted a throat tumor that eventually killed her, she said it was a gift from God to absolve her of the sin of frivolity in her youth—that since once she bore the vain weight of necklaces, now she bears the weight of a tumor to remind her not to focus on those passing things. She bound her neck with a silk bandage until she eventually died.

Her people carried on the tradition of that silk necktie—something to wear instead of riches or decoration—to honor her memory.

And so, St. Audrey’s Lace, Tawdry Lace, tawdry became something worn in place of costly adornments…and then something worn as if a costly adornment when it wasn’t.

Funny how the reminder to avoid vanity turned into a kind of cheapened vanity! Just goes to show how deep vanity is instilled in humanity!

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Word of the Week – Bad

Word of the Week – Bad

by | May 15, 2023 | Word of the Week

Sometimes it’s just so fun to look up the history of the most common words. The etymology of bad is one of those that has a few surprising twists and turns in it…and a bit of mystery, too.

Bad has been used in English forever, pretty much. It dates to around 1300 with the meaning of “inadequate, worthless.” By the 1400s, it could mean “evil, wicked, vicious.” Interestingly, though, it wasn’t a very common word. More often, people in fact used evil when they wanted that meaning, and that was considered the opposite of good. It wasn’t until the 1700s, in fact, that bad became the common opposite of good!

So…where did it come from? This one’s a little murky. Etymologists aren’t entirely certain, but their best guess is that it has its roots in the Old English baeddel…which was the word used for “effeminate man, hermaphrodite.”

It’s worth noting that a word that sounds the same and means the same in Persian evolved completely independently–and that Persian also has a word that sounds the same and means the same as better, but that one’s independent too! Always so fascinating when there’s an entirely coincidental cognate!

Okay, so the history of the definition is out of the way…now let’s look at some idiomatic uses. I was actually quite surprised to realize that bad has been used ironically as a word of approval since the 1890s! Historians think that likely evolved from racial tensions, actually. That White people would refer to “troublemaking” Black people as “bad”…but those same people were more like heroes standing up for their people to their people, so they used the same words but with approval.

It’s meant “uncomfortable, sorry” since 1839, not bad has been in use since 1771, and food etc has been going bad since the 1880s. (Okay, so the putrification still happened before that, it just wasn’t called “going bad,” LOL.)

Also noteworthy: badder and baddest were perfectly acceptable words all the way up into the 17th century! Shakespeare prefered worse and worst though, so I daresay we can credit him with those becoming “correct.”

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Word of the Week – Thing

Word of the Week – Thing

by | May 8, 2023 | Word of the Week

Thing.

It may be one of the most used (and overused) words in the English language. It’s so common a word that I’ve had teachers and editors mark it as something to be avoided. These days, and since the 1600s actually, it’s a word used to mean “things the speaker can’t name at the moment.” (Rather hilarious that the very definition has to use the word!) Random objects…unnamable items…vague ideas. It’s even been used pityingly or dismissively of people from the late 1200s!

But did you know that the word began with a very particular meaning? Thing dates back to Old English and was used to mean “meeting, assembly, council, discussion.”

Wait…what?

Yep. We can still this meaning preserved in the Icelandic Althing, their general assembly, though the meaning vanished in English when Old English gave way to Middle. In our tongue, it went from meaning that assembly to the “entity, being, or matter” discussed by the assembly, and from there it was simply applying to, well, anything.

By the 1300s, it was used to indicate personal possessions. In the 1740s, people called something “the thing” to indicate it was stylish and in mode. A rather funny one is the phrase “do your thing.” We think of that as incredibly modern, but in fact there are written records of it being used as early as 1841!

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Word of the Week – Mortgage

Word of the Week – Mortgage

by | May 1, 2023 | Word of the Week

We all know what a mortgage is. Or at least, the general idea. I admit that I tend to think of it as the loan on my house…but in actual fact, I have that a little off. The mortgage is actually the agreement that says my house is collateral for the loan.

But what I had never stopped to think about is the root of the word. As soon as someone points out that it’s from the French, I can see that root though…and at first glance, it’s startling. Because mort means…DEATH.

Um…this is beginning to sound a little frightening, right? What kind of collateral agreement did I get into??? 😉

No need to fear though. Mort does indeed mean “death,” but that gage part is from the French gaige, which means “pledge” or “deal.” Which DOESN’T mean “a deal of death,” but rather, “the death of the deal.” Which is to say, this agreement would be in effect until it was “dead” from being paid off or when payment failed. (Miss a payment, loan rescinded, all is due at that time.)

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty glad no mafiosi are involved. 😉

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