Four hundred years ago today (August 25), Galileo Galilei (Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei) demonstrated the use of a telescope to the Venetian senate. His telescope, a simple leather tube with lenses at either end (it magnified objects by 9x) was not the first, a Dutchman named Hans Lipperhey had filed a patent the previous year (1608) and earlier in the summer of 1609 a Brit, Thomas Harriot, had made telescopic observations of the moon. Galileo Galilei, however, was the first to popularize the scientific instrument.

Over the course of his life, Galileo showed that the moon was pocked with craters and peaks, discovered the moons of Jupiter, revealed thousands of stars in the Milky Way, and catalogued sunspots on the Sun (among so many other accomplishments). Most famously, his data supported the Copernican view of the universe which stated that the Sun, not Earth, was the center of the universe. Declared a heretic by the Catholic Church in 1632, Galileo died under house arrest in the city of Arcetri in 1642.

Galileo is considered the father of modern astronomy, a scientific discipline as old as humanity itself. Derived from the Greek words astron (ἄστρον), “star”, and nomos (νόμος), law, astronomy literally means “law of the stars. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, astronomy is defined as “The science which treats of the constitution, relative positions, and motions of the heavenly bodies; that is, of all the bodies in the material universe outside of the earth, as well as of the earth itself in its relations to them.” Although early civilizations mapped and charted stars and astronomical phenomena visible to the naked eye, modern astronomy was not established until the rise of the telescope.

Although the modern astronomer tends to abhor the concept and practice of astrology, the two disciplines share a common background. Also from the Greek root astron, (ἄστρον) “star,” and logia, (-λογία )“logic,” astrology was originally divided into two categories: Natural and Judicial. Natural astrology was the “calculation and foretelling of natural phenomena, as the measurement of time, fixing of Easter, prediction of tides and eclipses; also of meteorological phenomena.” This discipline was rendered obsolete in the 17th century when the study of the regular physical phenomena of the universe (outside of the Earth) was transferred to astronomy. Judicial astrology, on the other hand, is “the art of judging of the reputed occult and non-physical influences of the stars and planets upon human affairs; star-divination, astromancy” and is the only working definition of astrology today.

Without Galileo who knows how long it would have taken for Copernicus’ layout of the universe to be accepted or for modern astronomy to have discovered the hundreds of extra-solar planets that we have today? The distinction between astronomy and astrology might have been even more confusing for school children (I had a hard enough time with it, but imagine if astrology stood for both and astronomy didn’t exist) and our logic concerning the stars might have been as illogical as it was back in the 15th century.

Over the past few days I managed to pack up all of my belongings into cardboard boxes, meticulously arrange them in a U-Haul truck, drive almost five hundred miles north, unload the truck, and then unpack everything. If nothing else, the ordeal made me think about process: the in between, the in-motion, the on going.

In my study I have a Nicki McClure print of a person pitting cherries. The hands hover between three bowls—one full of cherries waiting to be pitted, a small one filled with pits, and a medium one with pitted cherries sitting inside. A cherry is in the process of being pitted, the pit falling to the small bowl, the hands moving it toward the medium bowl, and in the top right hand corner of the print it says, simply, process. Some people have motivational prints about teamwork or looking toward the horizon of life, but I prefer this simple black and white reminder of the movement of life.

Process, as a noun and as a verb, originated in the Anglo-Norman and Middle French procés in the twelfth century as a term for a legal contract as well as advance, progress, course, development. General use of pruches, i.e., pruches de tans, course in time, was common in the thirteenth century, and the legal context of the word became common in the late thirteenth century in Anglo-Norman. As a narrative or an account of events, the Old French procés also originated in the late thirteenth century. The Anglo-Norman and the French, of course, stem from Latin, prõcessus, to advance, progress, the course or development of an action. It also meant a protuberance, an outgrowth.

One of the more interesting tidbits about the word is that in the Middle English, early Modern English, and Older Scots, process held a variable stress. Various 17th and 18th century poets like Milton often stressed the final syllable, process (as opposed to process) in order to more easily rhyme it with other words. I was unable to find any good examples of this variable stress, but I’ll take the OED’s word for it.

The etymology of any word is, of course, in process, which makes this exercise even more intriguing. Finding myself in the process of writing this post, trying to decide where it will end up, what I’ve learned about the word, I feel it is most apt to simply stop, to finish. After all, everything is always in process.

David Barnett posted a lovely etymology of the word “hack” in today’s UK Guardian Book Blog. In it he chronicles the rise and fall of the word, with all its connotations from a horse to a paltry writer to a loud and proud reporter.

Derived from the “hackney,” a horse-drawn carriage, “hack” came to mean a writer who churned out oodles of books, articles, and, generally, intellectually worthless material. These writers wrote only for the money, and thus, the writer-turned-hack was a sham. In journalism, however, “hack” has been reclaimed as a positive term, “possibly thanks to Private Eye’s constant use of ‘hack’ and ‘hackette’ to describe male and female newspaper writers.” Further, Barnett claims with much enthusiasm: “We in newspapers rarely admit to literary pretensions in our day-to-day work – today’s newspaper is indeed tomorrow’s chip wrapper (or tomorrow’s cached archived data, to modernise the phrase somewhat).”

“We in newspapers rarely admit to literary pretensions”—ouch, that’s a little rough for the writers out there. Barnett’s point is that no writer writes truly for the love of writing,—“And which among our leading literary lights today writes purely for the love of it” (again, debatable because I’d bet my paycheck that Salman Rushdie and Seamus Heaney write because they love it)—there’s always a monetary element, and, somehow, journalism trumps the pretension of art by announcing forthright that it is a career, a vocation that actually pays.

This pretension is mixed up in the idea of “mass market literature,” which is, as any writer would agree, a slippery slope to judge a book on, for what exactly is the mass market novel or the mass market readership? Under Barnett’s definition, a hack is a “prolific, inventive [writer], writing for a populist mass-market readership [who] nurs[es] a glimmer of hope that someone might bung [him] a few quid for it.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, however, a hack is much worse, “a literary drudge, who hires himself out to do any and every kind of literary work; hence, a poor writer, a mere scribbler.”

How exactly did the mass market come into play? If a hack is a writer who hires himself out, how does that automatically imply the largest readership out there—the folks who read Nora Roberts’ romance novels and Stephen King’s horror stories (I’m not debating the literary quality of both of these writers, I’m just admitting that they line the mass market paperback shelves of your local bookstore). Does writing, as Barnett claims to have done, “two novels, a couple of short stories, a radio sitcom and a comic book script” make him a hack (and how is that different than any other writer out there, simply the amount of material)? How many people have read his short stories or his novels, and, really, how much did he make off them? Most writers will agree, you don’t get paid much from royalties (unless you are the aforementioned Nora Roberts or Stephen King). Furthermore, what separates his novels and short stories from the literary pretensions of non-hack writers?

I see nothing wrong with Barnett wanting to shout from the rooftops “My name is David Barnett, and I’m a hack,” but I would love to sit down with him over a cup of coffee and ask him to explain his personal definition of a hack. After all, I’m a writer who writes because I love to write, but hey, if someone wants to pay me for it I’m not going to say no! (Wait, does that make me a hack?)

Here’s to Friday, and to making it on the Lexiophile’s list of the Top 100 Language Blogs of 2009! Thanks to everyone who voted. Since it’s customary to raise a glass and toast in celebration, here is a language lovers list of the origins of common cocktails and spirits:

Cocktail

Cocktail is an interesting word with an obscure origin. The first recorded use was in 1803’s The Farmers Cabinet, and the first definition appeared in print in May of 1806 in a New York newspaper. The word is of American origin, and there are several competing theories about it’s etymology. Here are just a few of the interesting ones:

In the 18th century, it was a common practice for bartenders to drain the dregs of all the barrels and mix them together, serving the result (the equivalent of a bar-mat’s end of night remnants) at a reduced price. “Cock” was another name for spigot, and “tailings” is the last bit of alcohol, so this drink was called “cock-tailings,” shortened to “cocktail.”

Another story places the word’s origin squarely in 18th century New Orleans, where an apothecary named Peychaud (of bitters fame) served his guests a mix of brandy, sugar, water and bitters in an egg-cup. The drink eventually acquired the name of the egg-cup–”cocquetier” in French–which his guests shortened to “cocktay” and then “cocktail.” The French word “Coquetel” may also have had something to do with “cocktail”; it was the name of a mixed drink from Bordeaux served to French officers during the American Revolution.

What we know for sure is that cocktails are made from mixing liquor with some kind of juice or bitters, and that when mixed properly with great ingredients, they are delicious. So, here are the etymologies of the common spirits used in cocktails, followed by the story of some of our most popular mixes:

Read the rest of this entry »

During summer, I can’t say no to a scoop or two of ice cream. So when Mark Dow’s latest Happy Days blog post, No Choice about the Terminology: On pleasure, perception and the language of ice cream came to my attention, I knew it was time to analyze the quintessential all-American summer treat: the ice cream sundae.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines an ice cream sundae as “A confection of ice-cream topped or mixed with crushed fruit, nuts, syrup, whipped cream, etc.” Mark Dow’s Celebrity Pizza manager defined it simply: “As soon as you add a topping, it’s a sundae. You got no choice about the terminology.” It seems like everyone concurs: a sundae is ice cream topped with something.

Things get a little trickier when you delve into the etymology, however. The OED states that the origin of sundae is uncertain due to a number of differing accounts on “both the invention of the dish and of the coinage of its name.” However, “the name is generally explained as an alteration of Sunday, either because the dish originally included leftover ice-cream sold cheaply on Monday, or because it was at first sold only on Sunday, having, according to some accounts, been devised to circumvent Sunday legislation. The alteration of the spelling is sometimes said to be out of deference to religious people’s feelings about the word Sunday.”

According to “The Official Website of the Ice Cream Sundae” (who knew the Ice Cream Sundae could have its own website??!) the first sundae was created in 1882 in Ithaca, New York. On some Sunday that year, Chester Platt of Platt & Colt Pharmacy served the Reverend John M. Scott a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a champagne saucer topped with a cherry and cherry syrup. Apparently Scott, the Unitarian minister, named the concoction a Sunday, but the towns of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Buffalo, New York, Plainfield, Illinois, and Norfolk, Virginia all claim to be home to the first ice cream sundae. Concerning the switch from Sunday to sundae, Norfolk, Virginia, claims that its city ordinance prohibited the creation of the “Sunday Soda Menace” along with alcohol, so an ingenious soda fountain owner began making ice cream sodas sans soda—ice cream, berries, and syrup in a glass. This “dry” soda was thus coined a sundae. Peter Bird’s book The First Food Empire, (2000, Philimore, Chichester, England) states that the name ’sundae’ for ice cream with toppings was adopted from Illinois state’s early prohibition of ice cream consumption on Sundays, but ice cream with a topping that obscured the main product was not deemed to be ice cream.

According to Michael Turback, the creator of IceCreamSundae.com and author of A Month of Sundaes and The Banana Split Book, Ithaca can provide the first documented claim to the Sunday/sundae, an advertisement placed by Chester Platt in the Ithaca Daily Journal on April 5, 1892 for the “10 cent Ice Cream Specialty,” the Cherry Sunday, and the switch from Sunday to sundae is most likely due to legislation like Norfolk’s. The exact location and date of the creation of the sundae, however, is likely to remain obscure.

“Certain things should never be taken for granted, among them your spouse, your mother, the United States Constitution, and the precise meaning of words that are at the heart of your profession,” Natalie Angier writes at the beginning of her article “When ‘What Animals Do’ Doesn’t Seem to Cover It” in the July 20 edition of the New York Times. The article goes on to explore the definition of behavior in regards to science, especially that of animal behavior. What exactly defines behavior and how do we categorize it?

Daniel Levitis, a doctoral candidate at University of California, Berkeley, is the man asking this linguistic question, and he’s not even a linguist—he’s a zoologist. While working as a teaching assistant for an animal behavior class, Levitis first heard the term “behavior” defined as “what animals do.” After consulting the textbook and several professors, Levitis realized that no one could offer a final, comprehensive definition of behavior—it’s definition was always assumed. Embarking on a full-out linguistic project, Levitis designed an online questionnaire that asked scientists thirteen “potentially diagnostic” statements about behavior and asked the survey takers to decide if a particular statement was behavior or not (one such question asked if “behavior always involves movement”). The second half of the survey asked participants to decide if a certain natural phenomena was behavior (i.e. “a sponge pumps water to gather food”).

After tallying the surveys, Levitis was left with a few surprises. Over half of the questioned scientists contradicted themselves and no single item on the survey had a 100% consensus. Even without overarching agreement, Levitis attempted a working definition: “the internally coordinated response that an individual or a group makes to a stimulus.” A response, of course, can be inaction or action, this stimulus from within the individual or from without. But does this definition match the etymology of the word?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word behavior (n.) comes from the verb, behave: to bear, comport, or conduct oneself or to conduct oneself in regard to. Behave appeared in the 15th century as a combination of be and have, a way to express a qualified sense of have. This form equals the modern German sich behaben. Interestingly, the Old English behabban is comparable to the Old High German bihabên (be + habben, to hold or to have, in the sense of encompassing containing, detaining — which sheds some light on the saying please, contain yourself.). However, there is no historical connexion between behabban and behave.

Behavior was thus formed by the combination of behave with the havour: “the fact of having; possession; a possession, property; estate, substance, wealth.” Havour is originally from the French aveir which means “having, possession, property, estate, wealth, etc.,” now commonly avoir, “to have.” First used in English as the Norman aveyr, the word havour was introduced as a variant to have and having in the 14th and 15th centuries. In the 16th century havour took along with its definition of possession that of behavour. Subsequently both words substituted –iour for –eour and the original sense of possession became obsolete and haviour became synonymous with behaviour, and it is now often used as a shortened version of the word.

The entire OED entry for behaviour gives quite a spread of definitions to the word. Behaviour is “the manner of conducting oneself in the external relations of life; demeanour, deportment, bearing, manners,” as well as “conduct, general practice, course of life; course of action towards or to others, treatment of others.” In the case of Levitis’ study, the sixth definition proves a bit more useful, “the manner in which a thing acts under specified conditions or circumstances, or in relation to other things,” but this is actually a transferred meaning from havour. It seems as if even the Oxford English Dictionary can’t agree on a definition, and that behavior does, indeed, carry many shades of meaning.

The OED does show a consensus of sorts, however. It seems that in order to behave or exhibit behaviour, there must be an action (or inaction) conducted in relation to some other individual or thing. Behaviour can be good manners at the dinner table or, as Thomas Huxley wrote in 1878, “the behaviour of the water which drains off a flat coast of mud.” This latter example, of course, is exactly what Levitis finds problematic in the scientific world. Can water behave? According to Levitis’ working definition—maybe?

To read Angier’s full article or to take the survey Levitis used in his study, go here.

How does a country foster solidarity during a recession? With food. You may remember the post from a few months ago that explored the etymology of companion — from the Latin for breaking bread together. Well, every culture has distinct customs regarding food.

If the country in question is Britain, it sponsors a “Big Lunch” festival, of course! This past weekend hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of Britons hit the streets to bond over lunch with their neighbors thanks to the planning and creative initiative of the Eden Project, an environmental organization based in southwest England. Some parties were small, intimate gatherings while others were neighborhood block parties. Lunch, of course, was the central feature. In response to the recession and the general fracturing of society, “people have really come out and said ’sod it’ to all the bad news that’s going on and decided just to have a nice lunch with their neighbors,” the spokesperson, Rhonda Hurcombe explained.

All this talk of lunch, of course, has me wondering where the word comes from. As ubiquitous as it is, I really had no idea of its origin, other than as a shortened version of luncheon. As a description of the midday meal, also referred to as “dinner” in English speaking countries, the Online Etymological Dictionary states that luncheon/lunch is derived from nonechenche, a “light midday meal (none=noon, schench=drink). The form luncheon is probably derived from the Spanish lonja, a slice, a loin. Luncheon, therefore, originally meant “a thick piece” or a “hunk.” The German lunchentach most likely influenced the shortened form, lunch, which came into use in the 19th century. Although this shortened form was originally considered vulgar and inappropriate, it is now the more commonly used form.

The shortened form unsurprisingly coincides with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. More and more workers needed a light, portable meal to take with them to work—something satisfying but light, quick, and easy to eat. Over time this meal, once carried in a tin, can, or tiffin, evolved, in America, into the brown bag lunch, and globally, the cafeteria.

Now that we’ve sated our etymological appetites, if you find yourself stranded somewhere other than Britain or America and in need of a substantial midday meal or a light snack, then this list might come in handy:

In France, the midday meal is déjeuner and is taken between noon and 2 p.m. Canadians French Canadians are a bit different, however, and call lunch diner—a light meal eaten when standing and not necessarily at noon. The modern German word for lunch is mittag, literally meaning “midday,” and again, German lunch hours correspond with the midday, or noon to 2 p.m. In Arabic one can use the word ghathaa’, a derivative of ghithaa‘, meaning, generally, “food.” This meal is eaten between 2 and 4 p.m. Finally, in Portuguese almoço means lunch, and, rightly so in my opinion, features a soup, a meat or fish course, and dessert—a full hot meal to keep one going through the long work day.

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Photo, “Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper” depicts workers eating their lunch hundreds of feet up during the construction of the Rockefellar Centre in New York, 1932. By Charles C. Ebbets. Via Wiki.

Following up with our look at the origins of words related to food and spirits, here is a brief history of the language of beer:

One of the world’s oldest and certainly most well-loved beverages has a history that dates back thousands of years BC. Spread through Europe by Germanic and Celtic tribes, beer’s basic ingredients have not changed drastically from its Neolithic roots.

Along with a starch source such as barley and an ingredient to aid fermentation, such as yeast, beer contains a plethora of flavoring agents like fruits, honey, plants, spices, and most typically, hops. To help us gain a deeper enjoyment of this thirst-quenching beverage, we can examine the etymology of its components and the various kinds of beers that exist today.

The word “beer” most likely stems from a 6th-cenury Germanic loan from Latin. Monks – who were the first Europeans to brew beer – borrowed from the Latin bibere, meaning “to drink.” We can see traces of this usage in the English verb “imbibe.” Another version links beer with the Proto-Germanic word beuwo, meaning “barley.”

The two primary types of beer are lagers and ales. Ales are fermented and brewed at higher temperatures than lagers (a difference of about 20 degrees Fahrenheit) and use a different type of yeast. Ales are far more prevalent than lagers, and are characterized by a full-bodied flavor. The term “ale” stems from the Proto-Germanic aluth, meaning beer, and perhaps prior to that from the Proto-Indo-European alum, a word having connections to sorcery and magic. Lagers derive their name from the German Lager, meaning “storehouse.” Until the early 15th century, only the term “ale” was used to refer to beer of any sort.

Stouts, porters, and wheat beers are types of ales. Stouts, for their robust flavor, derive their name from the adjective designating something proud, valiant, and strong. Porter also derives its name from its strength, acquiring this title in the early 18th century due to being high in alcohol content and cheap – a favorite amongst laborers.

In honor of Bastille Day, I’ve decided to dally a bit in the history of one of my favorite French exports: French bread. Just a refresher, Bastille Day is a French national holiday celebrated every July 14 (quatorze juillet) to commemorate the Fête de la Fédération held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, a fortress-prison in Paris, on July 14, 1789. The fall of the Bastille was a turning point in the French Revolution and subsequently became an icon of the new French Republic. Today, like every other July 14th in France, a large military parade will march the streets of Paris and, traditionally, the President pardons offenders (typically petty offenders) and gives a “state of the nation” type address, but President Sarkozky has declined to do both since 2007.

For those in the know, the term “French bread” actually refers to la baguette. The baguette is a specific shape of bread — the diameter of the baguette can be 5-6 cm, but the length of the bread may be up to a meter in length. Parisian baguettes typically weigh 250 grams. The recipe and baking style (in a steam oven) was imported from Austria in the 19th century, but a French law which dictated that bakers could not begin work before 4 a.m. led to the creation of the distinctly elongated loaf. The longer, thinner loaf allowed bakers to complete their task before breakfast time. Thus the baguette was born.

A “baguette de tradition française” is composed of flour, water, yeast, and salt. No additives are permitted. While many recipes use baker’s yeast, artisan-style loaves are made with a poolish, a fermentation starter. The poolish (also known as a sponger, a starter, or the mother dough) contains water, flour, and yeast. The ingredients are mixed in a container and stored at room temperature for up to 72 hours before being added to the dough. This method was imported to France from Poland in the 1920s.

The word baguette literally means “little rod”, from the Latin baculum, a stick or staff.

Although la baguette is not entirely French in origin—it is today synonymous with France. Every English or American pop culture reference to France includes someone walking or riding their bicycle with a baguette peeping out of a bag or basket; the baguette is a symbol of modern France. I’m not going to quibble with the paternity of the bread.

Source:
Jim Chavellier, The Origin of the Baguette.