RANDOM THOUGHTS #57
Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself about the strange origins of certain words.
1. BLACKGUARD, a low-class vicious criminal, was originally (and humorously) the black guard, the part of a noble's retinue that included the cooks and cleaning people, who were usually pretty dingy and very non-military.
2. BLACKMAIL, extortion demanded for keeping an embarrassing secret, was originally the Scottish term for "rent paid in agricultural products" as opposed to "rent paid with silver" which was white mail. (Mail was the Scottish word for rent.) Remote farms had to pay the local robber chieftain protection money, and paid it in animals or grain.
3. BLIZZARD, a major snowstorm, was originally an American word meaning a stunning blow with the fist. (Where that came from is anybody's guess.) An Iowa newspaper editor first used it to describe a snowstorm in 1870, and he used it frequently thereafter, while other newspapers picked it up. (It was common for newspaper editors to swap subscriptions back in the days before mass media.) A series of storms in 1880 affected much of the US and newspapers all over used the term blizzard to describe them.
4. BLURB, a short descriptive paragraph about a new product or event or other news, originated in 1907. It was the custom for publishers of a new book to throw a party for the press, and give each of them a free copy. It was the custom that these free copies had different dust jackets from the regular production books, including information a reviewer would need (what we now call a blurb). It was the custom for these special dust jackets to always have a picture of a girl (a girl who almost always had nothing to do with the book). One publisher named the girl on one of these covers (of the humorous book Are You a Bromide?) Miss Belinda Blurb (a name the author made up). The name "blurb" instantly became the term used for the descriptive information provided about a new product.
5. BOGUS, a crude word for counterfeit or sham, was first used in an Ohio newspaper in 1827 to describe a machine used to make counterfeit coins. The term quickly came to be used for all counterfeit coins and shortly thereafter for any counterfeit product.
6. BOMBAST, surplus language used to inflate the importance of something being described, comes from the Latin word for cotton: bombax. Cotton padding worn under armor was bombase (in French) and by the time of Henry VIII such cotton padding was used without the armor to make men look bigger, stronger, or more broad-shouldered. Something that had been padded was bombast (the French past-tense version of bombase).
7. BONFIRE, a large blaze created for a celebration, was originally bone-fire, the day in summer when all of the leftover bones from animals slaughtered all year by an English or Scottish village were gathered into a pile and burned just to get rid of them. The practice goes back a couple of thousand years, and had become an excuse for a big summer party (usually on the longest day of the year). In Christian times, it was moved to 24 June (the eve of Saint John's Day) to avoid Church criticism that it was a pagan event.
8. BOOK, a bound manuscript, comes from the old English work boc, which was the bark of the beech tree. That bark was used to make paper in olden times.
9. BOULEVARD, a wide street often with lots of retail stores, comes from the identical French word, which meant bulwark. At one point, the French decided that the ancient city walls were obsolete in modern warfare, and converted this wall (which was not a stone wall like a castle, but was made of packed soil and was wide and high) into a wide promenade-street lined with new shops and stores.
10. BOYCOTT, to shun and refuse to do business with, is the name of Captain Charles Boycott, who managed the Irish estates of the Earl of Erne. In 1879, years of bad crops had made it impossible for tenant farmers all over Ireland to pay years of back rent. The absentee landlords told their managers (including Captain Boycott) to evict the peasants and lease the land to those who could pay. Charles Parnell had formed a Land League to demand that Parliament prevent the evictions, and he suggested that everyone should refuse to do business with any landowner who evicted peasants or any peasant who took over such land. Captain Boycott had the historical misfortune to be the first target of such an action. Peasants stole his mail, broke down his fences, convinced his servants to resign, prevented vendors from delivering food to his home, and harassed him on the streets. Within a few weeks, the term boycott was used for the actions first taken against Captain Boycott.
1. BLACKGUARD, a low-class vicious criminal, was originally (and humorously) the black guard, the part of a noble's retinue that included the cooks and cleaning people, who were usually pretty dingy and very non-military.
2. BLACKMAIL, extortion demanded for keeping an embarrassing secret, was originally the Scottish term for "rent paid in agricultural products" as opposed to "rent paid with silver" which was white mail. (Mail was the Scottish word for rent.) Remote farms had to pay the local robber chieftain protection money, and paid it in animals or grain.
3. BLIZZARD, a major snowstorm, was originally an American word meaning a stunning blow with the fist. (Where that came from is anybody's guess.) An Iowa newspaper editor first used it to describe a snowstorm in 1870, and he used it frequently thereafter, while other newspapers picked it up. (It was common for newspaper editors to swap subscriptions back in the days before mass media.) A series of storms in 1880 affected much of the US and newspapers all over used the term blizzard to describe them.
4. BLURB, a short descriptive paragraph about a new product or event or other news, originated in 1907. It was the custom for publishers of a new book to throw a party for the press, and give each of them a free copy. It was the custom that these free copies had different dust jackets from the regular production books, including information a reviewer would need (what we now call a blurb). It was the custom for these special dust jackets to always have a picture of a girl (a girl who almost always had nothing to do with the book). One publisher named the girl on one of these covers (of the humorous book Are You a Bromide?) Miss Belinda Blurb (a name the author made up). The name "blurb" instantly became the term used for the descriptive information provided about a new product.
5. BOGUS, a crude word for counterfeit or sham, was first used in an Ohio newspaper in 1827 to describe a machine used to make counterfeit coins. The term quickly came to be used for all counterfeit coins and shortly thereafter for any counterfeit product.
6. BOMBAST, surplus language used to inflate the importance of something being described, comes from the Latin word for cotton: bombax. Cotton padding worn under armor was bombase (in French) and by the time of Henry VIII such cotton padding was used without the armor to make men look bigger, stronger, or more broad-shouldered. Something that had been padded was bombast (the French past-tense version of bombase).
7. BONFIRE, a large blaze created for a celebration, was originally bone-fire, the day in summer when all of the leftover bones from animals slaughtered all year by an English or Scottish village were gathered into a pile and burned just to get rid of them. The practice goes back a couple of thousand years, and had become an excuse for a big summer party (usually on the longest day of the year). In Christian times, it was moved to 24 June (the eve of Saint John's Day) to avoid Church criticism that it was a pagan event.
8. BOOK, a bound manuscript, comes from the old English work boc, which was the bark of the beech tree. That bark was used to make paper in olden times.
9. BOULEVARD, a wide street often with lots of retail stores, comes from the identical French word, which meant bulwark. At one point, the French decided that the ancient city walls were obsolete in modern warfare, and converted this wall (which was not a stone wall like a castle, but was made of packed soil and was wide and high) into a wide promenade-street lined with new shops and stores.
10. BOYCOTT, to shun and refuse to do business with, is the name of Captain Charles Boycott, who managed the Irish estates of the Earl of Erne. In 1879, years of bad crops had made it impossible for tenant farmers all over Ireland to pay years of back rent. The absentee landlords told their managers (including Captain Boycott) to evict the peasants and lease the land to those who could pay. Charles Parnell had formed a Land League to demand that Parliament prevent the evictions, and he suggested that everyone should refuse to do business with any landowner who evicted peasants or any peasant who took over such land. Captain Boycott had the historical misfortune to be the first target of such an action. Peasants stole his mail, broke down his fences, convinced his servants to resign, prevented vendors from delivering food to his home, and harassed him on the streets. Within a few weeks, the term boycott was used for the actions first taken against Captain Boycott.
posted by Federation Commander at 9:32 PM
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