A Compendium of Feedback on the Words in A.Word.A.Day
and Other Interesting Tidbits about Words and Languages
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From: Anu Garg (words wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the net
Inshallah:
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/au07/inshallah-murphy.html
Plain English Campaign's "Foot in Mouth" Award:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7138145.stm
Clause and Effect:
http://nytimes.com/2007/12/16/opinion/16freedman.html?ex=1355461200&en=d4bb37ec081198eb&ei=5090
http://tinyurl.com/3bf2c2
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From: Nikki Robbins (nikkir112 aol.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--busman's holiday
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/busmans_holiday.html
This word brought fond memories back. I remember when a group of my friends
wanted to go to tennis camp for a vacation. As a tennis coach who spent
eight to ten hours a day on the court, that was the last place I wanted to
go for a vacation. Alas I went and had a great time.
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From: Jen Taylor Pollard (flamingbagels yahoo.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--busman's holiday
How I needed this phrase nine months ago. As a Kansan living in London,
I constantly find my vocabulary challenged. Working at the Globe Theatre,
we have 600 volunteers who frequently come to shows when they are not
working them, and almost all of them proudly declare they're on a Busman's
Holiday.
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From: Doris McInnes (javathehutt.java gmail.com)
Subject: busman's holiday
I am a school bus driver, and I enjoy driving. There is a difference
between driving at work and driving on vacation. When I'm on vacation
I can drive in a straight line and go where I want to, all without any
students screaming behind me.
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From: Grant Barrett (gbarrett worldnewyork.org)
Subject: Postman's holiday
A later variant is "postman's holiday", which I define and trace back to at
least as early as the 1920s here:
http://dtww.org/index.php/dictionary/postmans_holiday/
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From: Katy Wehr (kwehr remembergroup.com)
Subject: busman's holiday
I first learned this term when I read Dorothy L. Sayers's book
"Busman's Honeymoon" in which her sleuths Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane
find themselves uncovering another murder and solving the case while on
their honeymoon.
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From: Janette K. Taylor (janette webaccess.net)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--Curate's egg
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/curates_egg.html
"Curate's egg" finally set my mind to rest regarding a comment in Dorothy
Sayers's "Busman's Honeymoon", one of my favorites. When the vicar asks Lord
Peter Wimsey how he had passed the night (which also happened to be Wimsey
and Harriet Vane's wedding night) he replied: "Parts of it were excellent."
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From: Jody Tresidder (jodytres juno.com)
Subject: Re: curate's egg - further thoughts
I recently got into a pickle trying to explain "curate's egg" to an American
teenager. He had casually said an idea was "good in parts" -- meaning it had
both good and lousy elements, but overall was somewhat dubious -- and I'd
replied brightly "Oh, like a curate's egg! [ho ho!]" and it went from there.
He hadn't heard of a curate's egg.
It struck me, while I was explaining (I knew about the wonderful Punch cartoon)
that the original import of the phrase was never the one actually popularly
picked up? (This is why I got into a pickle).
That is, a bad egg is never remotely "good in parts". So the phrase isn't
simply damning with faint praise. It's an example of desperately strained
and comically absurd praise from an inferior -- for fear of giving offence?
I haven't seen the original du Maurier cartoon for years and years, but
when you say the pictured egg was "stale", my memory suggests the egg was,
in fact, rotten and understood to be obviously whiffy at least to the curate.
(I think I can recall "smelly" lines above the curate's egg in its egg cup
and flared nostrils too in the illustration).
In short, and you can probably see why the chat with the American teenager
didn't progress too smoothly, "good in parts" was never meant to convey
both positive and negative qualities. But only the latter, but with an
odiously positive attempt at spin.
Nevertheless, the "mixed bag" meaning -- with an implicit understanding that
the negative qualities probably have the edge, is the one we all accept?
This makes sense to me. Possibly I am completely wrong here!
Anyway, I always enjoy wordsmith. Thank you.
Of course, the joke was there's no such thing as a partially rotten egg.
But now the term, far away from its origin, both in distance and time,
means someone having both good and bad parts.
-Anu Garg
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From: Frank Laird (flaird san.rr.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--widow's peak
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/widows_peak.html
Examples? Examples? You missed the best one of all:Eddie Munster!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Munster#Eddie_Munster
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From: George Dunlap (dunlapg umich.edu)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--shank's mare
In the military, we called our all-leather combat boots "Cadillacs":
black, shiny, and a mode of transportation. Also the dry irony that
Cadillac is a luxury mode of transportation, while hiking miles and
miles with a heavy pack isn't so much.
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From: Roger Trent (roger.trent cdph.ca.gov)
Subject: feedback: shank's mare
The expression shank's mare has a funny modern equivalent. My kids, when they
were in the U.S. Army, referred to their shoes as "leather personnel carriers".
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From: William Risk (risk almaden.ibm.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--shank's mare
Today's term reminded me of a similar phrase my father often used to
refer to walking: taking the ankle express.
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From: Christopher L. Cahill (cahill gwu.edu)
Subject: Shank's mare (pony)
Was so happy for this phrase today. A favorite musician of mine -- Richard
Thompson, has a song called "Walking the Long Miles Home". There is a line
in there that says: "When you ride Shank's pony, you don't have to pay.' I
figured this was a classic example of a misheard lyric. I have been saved!
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From: Senft Birgitt (birgitt.senft fja.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--shank's mare
Refer: http://wordsmith.org/words/shanks_mare.html
The translation into German also draws a picture "auf Schusters Rappen"
and refers to be going on the black horse of the shoemaker, which simply
means to go on foot.
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From: Yosef Bar-On (jobaron galon.org.il)
Subject: Medical eponyms
Today's AWAD mentions diseases and syndromes named after physicians, such as
Parkinson's Disease. This instantly reminded me of an incident of many years
ago, which you might find interesting;
Thomas Hodgkin is the eponym of Hodgkin's Disease and once, while
photographing ancient architectural sites near Tel Aviv, I discovered his
grave in a tiny neglected graveyard in Jaffa, Israel. The graveyard, which
included no more than half a dozen graves had two imposing tombstones, both
overgrown with weeds. The first, of a forgotten British general, the other
of Thomas Hodgkin.
I had to brush away the weeds to be able to decipher the inscription on
Hodgkin's stone. In part it read, "Here rests the body of Thomas Hodgkin M.D.
of Bedford Square, London. A man distinguished alike for scientific
attainments, medical skills, and self-sacrificing philanthropy."
The minute cemetery still exists, behind and between several shops and
residential houses. It is closed and forgotten and is surrounded by a
rusting wire fence which does not keep out the neighborhood kids and,
unfortunately, some drug addicts.
A further curious note is that while working and studying at Guy's Hospital
in London, Hodgkin was a colleague of Richard Bright (1789-1858) and Thomas
Addison (1793-1860). Both also had the dubious honor of having serious
illnesses named after them.
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For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.
-Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (b. 1944)
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