Even more word-related etymologies
The
July 9 & July 16 posts took a look at word histories of words that somehow
deal with words. This week’s post is the third in the series.
When
someone (in particular a politician) can’t seem to make up his/her mind on an
important topic, s/he is said to be a waffler. Though it’s reasonable to
assume this has something to do with a waffle having two sides, the
can’t—make-up-one’s-mind sort of waffle & the
tasty-with-butter-&-syrup waffle have completely different
origins. The latter showed up in English in 1744 from German through Dutch,
with its grandmother Proto-Germanic word wabila meaning web or honeycomb. It’s related to the word weave. Political waffling, though, is probably
imitative of a dog’s bark & showed up in English in the 1600s, meaning to yelp or bark like a puppy. In time,
the term grew to mean to speak foolishly,
& in 1803 landed on today’s meaning, to
vacillate or equivocate.
Books,
plays, movies & speeches are all constructed of words, & on those sad
occasions when they don’t do well, such things are said to have laid
an egg. Etymologists are presently duking it out over two posited
sources for this one. Theory one: in cricket or other games, when a team scores
nothing, the zero resembles an egg, thus, the team that falls flat has laid
an egg. Theory two: when a hen lays an egg, she makes a big fuss,
clucking with pride at her accomplishment, but none of her compadres are impressed.
I’ll be sure to keep an eye on the battle & will report immediately with
breaking news on this front.
The
news
is delivered in words. An incorrect, though clever, folk etymology suggests
that the word news is an acronym standing for all the information from the north,
east,
south
& west. Actually, the word news came through French from the
Latin word nova, new, arriving
in English in the 1300s & meaning new
things.
A
person who is compelled to share his/her opinions is a kibitzer. This word
showed up in English in 1927 & came from German through Yiddish. The
Yiddish word, kibitsen, meant to offer
gratuitous advice as an outsider, while the German word meant to look on at cards. The German meaning
was inspired by folktales involving a small shorebird, the kiebitz, whose fictional
habit involved interfering in card games by sitting on a card player’s shoulder
& muttering unwanted instructions. The word kiebitz appears to be an
imitation of the call of the kiebitz, or lapwing.
I’m
hoping some of you might be willing to share some kibitzing regarding all
this. If so, please do so in the comments below.
Big thanks to this week’s sources: Wordnik, Etymonline, Hugh Rawson’s
Devious Derivations, Jordan
Almond’s Dictionary of Word Origins, & the OED.
Well...even though I have never heard it before, I want news to come from North, East, West and South. Because it makes wonderful, kind of whimsical sense.And waffling going from yelping to speaking foolishly to protecting ones ass, well, it all kind of sounds like the same thing to me. And we are in for a bunch of it!
ReplyDeleteChristine, you are so right that we are heading into SWS (Serious Waffling Season). Thanks for coming by.
ReplyDelete