Stuff
#3
I’m
obviously having too much fun with words meaning stuff. First one post,
then a second, & now a third post all looking into words we use for our
belongings.
In
about 1942 the US Navy & Marines gave us the word gizmo, meaning any old thing you can’t put a name to.
Nobody can verify why that particular collection of letters adopted that
meaning, but such is life.
In
1824 the word thingamajig came to English, meaning an item one can’t recall the name of. It’s brethren thingy,
thingumabob, thingum & thingummy all provide the same
function though their dates of origin are tougher to corroborate.
Another
synonym for something one can’t recall
the name of is whatchamacallit, which appeared in that form in 1928, derived
from what
you may call it. Interestingly, the earliest word of that nature
appears to be what-call-ye-hym, the precursor to our modern whatshisname.
A
beautifully honest word that entered English in the 1600s meaning equipment that hinders or encumbers, is
the word impedimenta. It’s the plural form of the Latin word for luggage that gets in the way, impedimentum. Ah, says the
minimalist, how I would love to have the talent to identify the impedimenta
in my life.
The
word trappings,
meaning personal effects, arrived in
English in the 1400s from its 1300s form, trappe, meaning saddle blanket or ornamental cloth for a horse, which in turn came
from the French word drap, a word related to the English
word drape.
Ah, repeats the aforesaid minimalist, for the times when all our trappings
could be draped over the back of a horse (though then one would have to care
for the horse, a task that sounds most unpleasant to this minimalist).
So
readers, what is worthy of comment in all this stuff-talk?