The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language (36 page)

So are all bucks really deer? Almost.

Back to Howth Castle and Environs

So the humble buck-deer is the source of all things
buck
, with one exception.
Buckwheat
, which looks like it should be the wheat that bucks eat, has nothing whatsoever to do with deer.

The leaves of buckwheat look very similar to the leaves of a beech tree. The German for
beech
is
Buche
and so
buckwheat
is really
beechwheat
.

Beech trees were important to the ancient Germans. Beechwood is soft, so soft that it’s easy to carve things in it, and that’s exactly what the Germans used to do. Beech,
buche
or
bok
, as it was called in Old High German, was the standard material for writing on. Even when wood was finally overtaken by the newfangled invention of parchment, the Germans kept the name, and so did the English.
Bok
became
boc
became
book
.

This is a book. The glorious insanities of the English language mean that you can do all sorts of odd and demeaning things to a book. You can cook it. You can bring a criminal to it, or, if the criminal refuses to be brought, you can throw it at him. You may even take a leaf out of it, the price of lavatory paper being what it is. But there is one thing that you can never do to a book like this. Try as and how you might, you cannot turn up for it. Because a
turn-up for the books
[continued on page 1]

Quizzes

In Lewis Carroll’s book
Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There
(often erroneously referred to as
Alice Through the Looking Glass
), Humpty Dumpty tells Alice: ‘There’s glory for you.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”’

‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

However, as the greatest joy a human being can achieve in this sorrowful world is to get one up on his or her fellow man or woman by correcting their English, and as I have spent far too long consulting dictionaries, here’s a list of some common English words and what the dictionaries say they actually mean:

Burgeon
– To bud

Blueprint
– The absolutely final plans that are sent to the factory

Backlash
– The small period of inactivity when a system of cogs is reversed

Celibate
– Unmarried

Compendium
– Brief summary

Condone
– Forgive

Coruscate
– To glow intermittently

Decimate
– To reduce by 10 per cent

Enormity
– Crime

Effete
– Exhausted

Fulsome
– Over the top

Jejune
– Unsatisfying

Noisome
– Annoying

Nauseous
– Causing nausea

Pleasantry
– Joke

Pristine
– Unchanged

Refute
– To utterly disprove

Restive
– Refusing to move (obviously)

Scurrilous
– Obscene

Swathe
– The area of grass cut with one stroke of a scythe

As you will have learnt from the preceding stroll through the English language, it’s almost impossible to guess where a word has come from or where it’s going to go to. So here, just to puzzle you, are a series of quizzes in which you have to guess where a word has come from or where it’s going to go to.

We shall start with some names of famous people. Except that I haven’t given you the names, I’ve given you the etymological meaning. So, for example, if I were to write
God of war and man of peace
, the answer would be me, Mark Forsyth, because
Mark
comes from
Mars
, the Roman god of battles, and
Forsyth
is Gaelic for
man of peace
. Got that? Good. Let us begin. (Answers below.)

Politicians of the last hundred years

1. Blessed, handsome and crooked (US President)
   
2. Courageous cabbage (European politician)
   
3. Noble wolf who lives in a hut (Second World War)
   
4. God loved the ugly-face (US President)
   
5. Blessed one from Mosul (Second World War)
   

Music

1. God loves a mud-caked, travelling wolf (composer; clue:
   wolves
   )
   
2. My little French lady (female pop star; clue:
   my lady
   )
   
3. Loud war in the vegetable garden (composer; clue:
   he wouldn’t have heard it anyway
   )
   
4. Tattooed javelin-thrower (female pop star; clue:
   another word for javelins
   )
   
5. The dwarf in the priest’s garden (male rock star; clue:
   middle name Aaron
   )
   

Glamour

1. Victorious goatherd (actress; clue:
   baby goat
   )
   
2. Christmas councillor (actress; clue:
   odd name as she’s Israeli
   )
   
3. Cruel twin (actor; clue:
   a kind of missile
   )
   
4. The moon at the ford of blood (supermodel; clue:
   ----ford
   )
   
5. He who listens among the cows (TV; clue:
   cow---
   )
   

Writers

1. Little Richard’s husband (nineteenth-century novelist)
   
2. Good Christian (twentieth-century novelist)
   
3. Virile wonder (seventeenth-century poet)
   
4. Pants-maker in a peaceful land (fourteenth-century poet)
   
5. Tiny foreign snake (twentieth-century novelist)
   

And the answers are:

Politicians of the last hundred years

1. Blessed, handsome and crooked =
   Barack Hussein Obama
   Barack
   is Swahili for
   blessed
   .
   Hussein
   is Arabic for
   handsome
   .
   Obama
   is Dholuo for
   crooked
   .
   
2. Courageous cabbage =
   Helmut Kohl
   Nobody is quite sure what the
   hel
   means, but
   mut
   is definitely
   brave
   and
   kohl
   is
   cabbage
   .
   
3. Noble wolf who lives in a hut =
   Adolf Hitler
   Adolf
   is
   edel
   wolf
   , which means
   noble
   wolf
   , and so far as anyone can tell, a
   hitler
   is just somebody who lives in a
   hut
   .
   
4. God loved the ugly-face =
   JFK
   John
   comes from the Latin
   Johannes
   which comes from the Hebrew
   y’hohanan
   , which means
   Jahweh has favoured
   .
   Kennedy
   comes from the Irish
   O Cinnéide
   , which means
   ugly head
   .
   
5. Blessed one from Mosul =
   Benito Mussolini
   Benito
   means
   blessed
   and
   Mussolini
   means
   muslin
   , because his ancestor was probably a merchant who dealt in muslin. However,
   muslin
   –
   mussolina
   in Italian – gets its name from Mosul in Iraq, where it was believed to be made.
   

Music

1. God loves a mud-caked, travelling wolf =
   Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
   Wolf
   gang
   is German for a
   travelling
   wolf
   ,
   Amadeus
   is Latin for
   loved
   (
   ama
   ) by
   god
   (
   deus
   ), and
   Mozart
   comes from the Allemanic
   motzen
   meaning
   to roll about in the mud
   . It was originally an insulting term for somebody dirty.
   
2. My little French lady =
   Madonna Ciccone
   Ma
   donna
   is Italian for
   my
   lady
   .
   Ciccone
   is an augmentative of
   Cicco
   ; but
   Cicco
   is a diminutive of
   Francesco
   . So it means
   little
   Francis
   , and
   Francis
   means
   French
   .
   
3. Loud war in the vegetable garden =
   Ludwig van Beethoven
   Lud
   means
   loud
   ,
   wig
   means
   war
   , and a
   beet
   hoven
   is a
   garden
   that grows the vegetable
   beet
   .
   
4. Tattooed javelin-thrower =
   Britney Spears
   Britney
   was a surname meaning
   British
   .
   Britain
   comes from
   prittanoi
   , which means
   the tattooed people
   .
   Spears
   is a shortening of
   spearman
   .
   
5. The dwarf in the priest’s garden =
   Elvis Presley
   So far as anybody can tell,
   Elvis
   comes from
   Alvis
   , a dwarf in Viking mythology.
   Presley
   is a variant of
   Priestly
   and means
   one who lives in land belonging to a priest
   .
   

Glamour

1. Victorious goatherd =
   Nicole Kidman
   Nicole
   is the feminine of
   Nicholas
   .
   Nicholas
   is from the Greek
   nike
   laos
   .
   Nike
   means victory (as in the trainers) and
   laos
   means people. A
   kidman
   is a man who looks after the
   kid
   goats
   .
   
2. Christmas councillor =
   Natalie Portman
   Natalie
   is related to
   natal
   and comes from the day of Jesus’ birth, or
   dies natalis
   . A
   portmann
   in Old English was a townsman elected to administrate the affairs of a borough.
   
3. Cruel twin =
   Tom Cruise
   Thomas
   comes from the Semitic
   toma
   meaning
   twin
   , and
   Cruise
   comes from the Middle English
   crus
   meaning
   fierce
   or
   cruel
   .
   
4. The moon at the ford of blood =
   Cindy Crawford
   Cindy
   is a variant of
   Cynthia
   , which was an epithet of Artemis and meant
   moon
   .
   Craw
   or
   cru
   was Gaelic for
   blood
   , and
   ford
   is
   ford
   .
   
5. He who listens among the cows =
   Simon Cowell
   Simon
   is often and justifiably confused with the identical ancient Greek name
   Simon
   , which meant
   snub-nosed
   (as in
   simian
   ). However, our Christian
   Simon
   comes from a different root:
   Symeon
   . It’s from the Bible and the Hebrew
   shim’on
   , which means
   listening
   .
   Cowell
   is just
   cowfield
   .