The Heebie-Jeebies

The Heebie-Jeebies

There are some great words out there for those moments when one feels as though death is dragging its bony finger up one’s spine. Here are a few.

Comments like, “that man gives me the willies,” were favorites of my great grandmother, Sally Rather King. This usage of willies (unlike other forms which beg for another post) came about in 1896 (a decade or two after my great grandmother was born) & is believed to have come from another idiom, to give one the woolies, which was most likely a reference to the feeling of itchy wool on the skin.

The Middle English word chittern, to chitter or chatter, gave birth to the modern term the jitters, which is defined as extreme nervousness. This particular form of the word jitter didn’t enter English until 1925.

Whimwham (or wimwam) most likely came from the Old Norse term hvima, to let the eyes wander, or the related Norwegian word kvima, to flutter. In modern usage, whimwham means both a fanciful object & the jitters. The second meaning generally occurs within the phrase a case of the whimwhams.

Those of us who regularly experience the jitters, whimwhams and willies might be labeled lily-livered, a term born in 1625 in the play Macbeth, by the ultimate coiner of words, William Shakespeare.

Then, of course, there are the heebie-jeebies. Many modern speakers of English assume that beneath the heebie-jeebies lurks anti-Semitism. This assumption is unfounded. The term heebie-jeebies was coined in 1923 by Bill De Beck, cartoonist of the comic strip “Barney Google,” and when it comes to that particular prejudice, De Beck’s work seems squeaky clean.

So folks, do all these drag-a-finger-up-the-spine words give you the heebie-jeebies, or would you rather leave a comment noting experiences you’ve had which inspire a raging case of the whimwhams?

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik, The Word Detective, & Etymonline,

Boondocks

The Boondocks

Boondocks came to English in 1910 from the Tagalog word bundok, meaning mountain. American soldiers (who were occupying the Philippines at the time), brought it home to America, though in the process, the meaning morphed from mountain to any remote & wild place. By 1964, we had shortened boondocks to boonies.

Hinterland (or hinterlands) showed up in English in 1890 from German, -land meaning, well, land, & hinter- meaning behind (as in hind, behind, & hindmost). Interestingly, as far back as the 1300s, hinder had made its way into Middle English. One of the hinder-related words we’ve lost over time is the word hinderling, meaning a person who has fallen from moral or social respectability,

Though stick (in the form of stician) has been a part of the language since folks spoke Old English, the boondocks meaning of the sticks didn’t show up until 1905.

Those Old English speakers also used the word wildnis, which has changed over the centuries to wilderness. It was initially an adjective meaning wildness & savageness, though along the way it took on a nounly mantle.

Another modern synonym is the idiom the middle of nowhere. I’ve been unsuccessful at finding when this idiom entered the language, but along the way I learned that nowhere had some siblings who didn’t last as long. Nowhat made a stab at existing in the 1520s & nowhen fought for its life unsuccessfully in 1764.

As a kid I was flummoxed at the term desert island because it seemed to me it always meant something closer to deserted island. Mystery solved: the word desert entered English from French in the early 1200s, meaning wasteland or wilderness. It wasn’t until a century later that desert started meaning treeless, waterless region, which, arguably, could also be a wasteland, or the sticks, or the boondocks, or…

What other terms do you know that refer to distant, remote places? Or might you have something to say about all this? I hope you’ll leave a comment.

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik & Etymonline,

Chew

Chew

Last week’s post took a look at words that started out in various languages as the verb “to dance.” This week, we’ll consider another action – to chew.

Not surprisingly, our modern word chew (spelled ceowan) started out meaning to bite, gnaw or chew when it made its way from one of the Germanic languages into Old English.

Both chow (1500s) & chaw (1520) are variants of the word chew. It’s also very likely that jaw (1300s), jowl (1570) and cheek (825) were born of that Old English word ceowan.

The Proto-Indo-European word mendh- which became the Latin word mandele, meaning to chew, gave birth to mandible, munch, mastic, masticate, mustache, paper maché & mange (a tiny bit of mildly disturbing imagination will help connect those dots).

Ruminate entered English in the 1530s, from Latin, meaning to chew the cud or turn over in the mind.

Champ, which came to English in 1905, meaning to chew noisily, is probably onomatopoeic in origin.

English is rife with chew-inspired idioms, including:

Chew someone out

Chew the fat

Chew something over

Chew something up

Bite off more than one can chew

Chew away at something

Chew one’s cud

Chew one’s tobacco

Mad enough to chew nails (in my neighborhood, we spat nails in lieu of chewing them)

I hope this post has given you something on which to chew. If so, please let me know what you’re thinking in the comment section.

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Free Dictionary & Etymonline,

Carpets & Rugs

Carpets & Rugs

We walk on them all the time, but do we ever take the time to think of their etymologies?

The word carpet made its way into English in the 1200s, meaning coarse cloth, tablecloth or bedspread. It entered English from the Old French word carpite, which referred to heavy, decorated cloth. This came from the Medieval Latin word carpite, which began with the word carpere, to card or to pluck. This most likely had to do with the fact that wool, cotton, and other weaving materials required some sort of plucking before they could be wrassled into threads or yarn, and then woven into cloth.

It wasn’t until the 1400s that carpets clearly belonged on floors.

Oddly, rugs didn’t start on the floor either. The word rug entered English in the 1550s, from Norwegian rugga, meaning coarse fabric or coverlet. It took until the 1800s for rugs to land soundly on the floor.

Some rug & carpet tidbits:

Though nobody’s sure when the term roll out the red carpet became popular, the custom of rolling out a red carpet to celebrate royalty or popularity appears to have begun in ancient Greek myth when Clytaemnestra rolled one out for Agamemnon.

1769 to be snug as a bug in a rug

1823 to be called on the carpet

1940 theatre slang labeled a toupee a rug

1942 to cut a rug

1953 to sweep something under the carpet

1968 the word rugrat was born

So, good followers, what rug- or carpet-related thoughts do you have?

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik & Etymonline,

Inspire

Inspire

I’ll keep this post short, as I’m hoping you’ll all take the time to listen to this performance piece by fifteen year-old poet, Noah St, John. I ran into it on fellow SCBWI member, Lee Wind’s blog & found Noah to be an inspiration.

Inspire came to English in the 1350s in the form of enspiren & primarily meant to fill the mind or heart with grace. I hope you’re able to eke out six minutes to watch it. I also hope it fills your mind or heart with grace.

 

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Lee Wind’s Blog & Etymonline,

Minion

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Minion

For years now I’ve been laughingly referring to myself as a minion. Officially, I’m one of two San Luis Obispo co-coordinators for the Central-Coastal Region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. The tongue-tripping title has a causal relationship to my preference for the moniker, minion.

In my California baby-boomer upbringing, I understood that a minion was a devoted helper – usually of some nefarious villain. Nefarious villains aside, I’ve always had an affinity for the word. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that minion has a myriad of deliciously disparate meanings.

The OED devotes two thirds of a page to minion, which appeared first in English about the year 1500. Though most etymologists believe it came from the Old High German word minnja or minna, meaning love, others put its source in the Celtic combining form, min- or small, which was borrowed from Latin. The OED’s definitions (slightly abbreviated) for minion include:

a.    a beloved object, darling or favorite

b.    a lover, lady-love, mistress or paramour

c.     a dearest friend or favorite child, servant or animal

d.    one who owes everything to his patron’s favor & is ready to purchase its continuance by base compliances

e.    a form of address, meaning darling or dear one

f.      a hussy, jade, servile creature or slave

g.    a gallant, an exquisite

h.    an adjective meaning dainty, fine, elegant, pretty or neat

The last few OED meanings are really out there.

a.    a small kind of ordnance

b.    a type of peach

c.     a type of lettuce

d.    a typesetter’s term identifying a medium-size font

Some non-OED definitions compiled by the wonderful folks at Wordnik include:

a.    an obsequious follower or sycophant

b.    a pert or saucy girl or woman

c.     loyal servant of a powerful being

Good followers, I will keep my theories to myself in hopes that you will spout forth your own. How did this one simple word end up being its own antonym in multiple ways? And what’s up with the lettuce, anyway?

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik, Etymonline,

Spring

Spring

On my little part of the globe, spring has arrived. I can almost hear my mom saying, “Spring has sprung, the grass has ris. I Wonder where the flowers is.”

Our English word spring is somewhat unique when it comes to labeling the season between winter and summer. Two French terms and one Latin one referring to that same
season, printemps, primevère, & tempus primum, mean first time, or first season. The Danish word voraar and the Dutch word vorjar both mean fore-year. The German word Frühling, and Middle High German word vrueje both mean early. The Haitian Creole folks put a different spin on their equivalent, with sous, meaning source. All of these, however, have to do with firstness, earliness, beginnings.

The English word spring, which became popular in the 1540s, once springing time went out of vogue and long after the Old English springan had faded away, focuses on something entirely different. The season spring sprung forth from the verb spring, meaning to leap, burst forth or fly up. It came from Proto-Indo-European, sprengh, which meant rapid movement. Its Sanskrit & Greek equivalents, sprhayati  & sperkhesthai meant desires eagerly, & to hurry.

What do you suppose was up with those Englishfolk, breaking with linguistic tradition & associating the first, the early, the beginning season with active, radical concepts like leaping, bursting forth & flying up?

Then again, look at English spelling rules.

In this week’s comments section, I hope you’ll note some plans for your spring, or some thoughts about spring, or maybe even an English-inspired wacky way to spell spring…

My thanks go out to this week’s sources the OED, Wordnik,, Etymonline,