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Issue 29 |
February 22, 1999 |
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Last week was an eventful week for many people: the weekend of February 13-14 was Carnival weekend; Tuesday, February 16, was Mardi Gras as well as Shrove Tuesday; and Wednesday, February 17, was Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. All of these events have liturgical connections, and some go back further to more worldly roots, as we shall see. For some Christians, especially Catholics, this time between Ash Wednesday and Easter is known as Lent. Before the end of the 14th century, it was known as lente, which was a shortened form of lenten "spring, lent" (about 1123). Lenten came from Old English (8th century) lencten "spring", which itself came from Proto-Germanic *langa-tinaz or *langgitinaz "spring". *Lang is the source of Old English lang "long" (cf. "Auld Lang Syne"), and tinaz or tina is the source of Gothic -teins "day". Hence *langa-tinaz/langgitinaz meant, literally "long day", a reference to the lengthening of days in spring, when the season of Lent occurs. There are Germanic cognates: Old Saxon and Middle Dutch lentin "spring" (modern Dutch lente); and Old High German lengizin/lenzin/lenzo "spring" (modern German Lenz). Only in English did the ecclesiastical meaning of Lent arise and prevail. Lent is an austere season of
repentance and sacrifice leading up to Easter (which we'll examine in a future issue), and
the practice of celebrating and feasting before Lent (similar to bingeing before starting
a weight-loss diet) arose in many Catholic The Tuesday before Lent is also known as Shrove Tuesday, a day for, instead of feasting, confessing one's sins. Shrove is related to shrive "hear confession of, impose penance on, and absolve". Shrove Tuesday was originally schrof Tuesday (15th century), and schrof (not to be confused with schroff; see Words to the Wise) came from the Old English form of shrive, which was scrifan "assign, decree, impose penance". You may be surprised to learn that scrifan is the borrowed form of Latin scribere "to write" which also gave us scribble. You may be further surprised to know that it was borrowed similarly by other Germanic languages: Old Frisian skriva "to shrive, to write", Old Saxon skriban "to write", Middle Low German schriven, Middle Dutch scriven (modern Dutch schrijven), Old High German scriban (modern German schreiben), and Old Icelandic skrifa "to draw, paint, or write". Shrift, the noun form of the verb shrove, exists today in the phrase short shrift. Short shrift was originally "a brief time prior to execution during which a criminal could confess his sins" (late 14th century). The meaning was extended figuratively to mean "little or no consideration or mercy" in the early 19th century. There is also the phrase give short shift, from about the same time, which meant "to delay dealing with a person or problem". Finally, there is a celebration which occurs during the weekend before Ash Wednesday: carnival. The term entered English in the 16th century and comes from Medieval Latin carnelevamen (carne "meat" + levamen, a derivative of levare "lift, raise"). Thus, carnival means, etymologically, the lifting out or removal of meat from the diet (for Lent). Some trace the roots of carnival to carne and vale, the latter being a derivative of a Latin word meaning "to leave", but this is incorrect.
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From Bradley:
As for fortnight, we discussed it in Issue 3. You probably had not gotten all the way back to Issue 3 yet!
From Ron Marchant :
If any of our readers were curious as to how to frame a query, just take a look at this one. Ron's subject is an obscure but genuine English word, he has already done some research and lavishes compliments upon us! How could we pass it up? Your Chinese friends are quite correct, Ron, this word is not from their language. Remarkably, it is originally from çarraf, Arabic for "banker" or "money-changer" and derives from the Arabic verb çaraf, "to exchange" and is related to the Hebrew çaraph, "to refine", "to assay" [gold or silver]. The Arabic word was borrowed by Persian as saraf and from thence entered 16th century Portuguese (those Portuguese traders got everywhere!) as xarrafo. English picked it up either from the Portuguese or, even more indirectly, from the 17th century French form: cherafe. At any rate, it entered the Anglo-Indian vocabulary as shroff some time in the late 17th century although occasional English travelers in the East had used related words, such as xaraffo, a century earlier. In the Far East, shroff acquired an additional meaning, that of "a native expert employed to detect bad coin". At the same time the verb to shroff, meaning "to screen coin for fakes", also came into being. The meaning of "cashier's booth" to which Ron refers, is obviously related to these other meanings of shroff but was probably coined (ouch!) fairly recently as we cannot find this meaning in any of our references. Perhaps it is a contraction of shroff-shop, a word which occurs in a Cantonese document dated 1882. What a shame that such a venerable and well-traveled word should be reduced to working in a Hong Kong car-park!
From Bert Quance :
Also, from Betty Stone :
While this word is one that is familiar to both of us, we have found only one formal definition:
This was quite a surprise to Mike, who had heard the term church-key applied to a kind of beer-can opener but never this kind. It would seem that the word has been inherited from an older device. The earlier church-key was a kind of bottle-opener which levered metal caps off (typically) beer bottles and was so-called because of its similarity to old-fashioned iron keys such as were used for church doors.
From Frank Lowman:
This word was invented by Oliver Goldsmith in his 1775 comedy "The Rivals". The main characters of this play were given names suggestive of their personalities. Thus, the soppy heroine was called Lydia Languish, an old lady who frequently used incorrect words to comic effect was called Mrs. Malaprop and the unsophisticated country oaf was Tony Lumpkin. By the way, the name of Mrs. Malaprop gave English the word malapropism. It is likely that Goldsmith intended a play on the word bumpkin, reasoning that if bumpkin means "little bump" (i.e. bump + -kin, a diminutive suffix) then lumpkin means "little lump" If so, then Mr. Goldsmith got it wrong. Bumpkin was originally bumkin (without the p) and meant a man with short, stumpy figure. The word is probably from the Dutch boomken, "little tree" but may possibly be from the Middle Dutch bommekijn, "little barrel". Although Goldsmith's play had been popular for centuries, it was not until around 1900 that the term lumpkin, meaning "an oafish country bumpkin", entered the English language.
From Jamie Bradley:
We have already covered this and you will find it in our database if you look hard enough (try under "O" for obscenities). It's very difficult for us to provide scholarly answers to such queries without offending someone, somewhere. Apart from that, we would like to hang on to our Cyber-Mom.com award. But, Jamie, if you really are curious about this word and want more information than we have room to provide here, do we have a book for you! The F Word has recently been published and may now be purchased from our book store.
From Quin Selman:
Ups and downs? Are you quite sure? Its meaning has remained remarkably stable for over a thousand years and etymologically its story is a bit of a yawn: the Latin miraculum, "an object of wonder", became miracle in Ecclesiastical Latin which became miracle Old French which entered Middle English (as miracle) some time before the middle of the 12th century. Miraculum comes from the Latin verb mirare, "to wonder", itself from Latin mirus, "wonderful". Ultimately, all three Latin words are thought to derive from the hypothetical Indo-European root *smei-, "to laugh", "to smile".
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