No 3608 Set by Tony Black
We asked for some patently implausible etymologies.
Report by Ms de Meaner
I gave you 200 words max, so some sent in just one long definition, others two or more of middling length; but the mass of you sent in loads of shorties. Much the safest bet. £20 to Anne Du Croz and Nick MacKinnon (as it's Christmas); £10 to the rest. Oh, and hon menshes to Margaret Rogers and M E Ault. The bottle goes to Nick MacKinnon.
Memento mori: from spin-doctor's warning to wayward politicians: "remember the polls in the Sunday papers"; hence reminder of death, political or otherwise.
Dysphasia: (West Indian dialect) "This is likely to baffle you"; hence speech difficulties.
Asphyxia: (1960s East End argot attributed to Ronnie Kray) exclamation of satisfaction on hearing gangland rival had breathed his last; hence suffocation.
Pro bono publico: supporting famous rock star's charity concert; for the public good.
Extempore: originally person fired for incompetence by secretarial agency; surly new employee with eccentric spelling; offhand; without preparation.
Sabbatical: (from Hebrew) delusion of the devout, who believe every day is the Sabbath; common modern English usage: senior employee gone off his rocker and on permanent paid leave from work.
Anne Du Croz
Polymath: parroting learning, especially sums and formulae, in a voracious and undiscriminating manner; hence someone who knows everything and nothing.
Faction: originally a preoccupation with the truth; hence a group of persons united in their desire to pick fights with those they deem to be in error.
Cynthia Hall
Soccer: originally referred to 19th-century footballers' violent treatment of their wives; meaning still firmly rooted in the modern game.
Helmet: a type of head protector worn by German miners - in German "Kohl Helmut", but words often reversed.
John Somers
Aspirate: originally an angry snake; hence to hiss.
Casanova: from the Italian meaning a new house; hence a man always searching for a new place to sleep.
Puberty: the period when illegal frequenting of inns is most attractive; hence adolescence.
Eminent: having the characteristics of the work of Tracy Emin; hence conspicuous.
Pre-eminent: characteristics of artists flourishing before Tracy Emin (cf, pre-Raphaelite); hence especially eminent.
Ballcock: innuendo used by plumbers while servicing housewives in mid-1970s situation comedies; hence a piece of incomprehensible toilet equipment.
Patriot: originally Irish civil disorder; hence one who defends his country.
Nick MacKinnon
Hon Mensh: one of the lost tribes of Israel. They appeared in Italy in 216BC as camp followers of Hannibal, collecting the rubbish, and played a minor part in the victory over Rome, prompting Hannibal's great drunken quote "lezz include the Alzo Rans". The term Hannibal Mensh (Russ. Menshinstvo - minority) corrupted to Hon Mensh, was applied to them, and thereafter to those, who, while not on the victory podium were allowed to share in the celebrations.
Jerry Ring
Peccadillo: originally a pecker dildo, a sex toy/aid frowned on by conventional society in earlier times; hence a minor fault.
Peerage: a threatening cry of certain animals while urinating and marking territory, designed to assert authority over lesser breeds; hence a body of men of superior rank.
Watson Weeks
Adultery: originally a short-lived game of pretence played by children in imitation of their parents; hence a short-lived game of pretence by adults.
Lullaby: originally a soft but cheerful tune hummed during an inactive period (a lull) during a cricket match; latterly, a song inducing sleep.
Will Bellenger
Billionaire: so-called after a Glaswegian, Bill Walker, who, in the 1930s, flamboyantly spent a fortune left by his father, the distiller Johnnie Walker. He was widely referred to as "Bill, yon heir". The word developed its current form by analogy with millionaire.
Cannabis: reflects the early drug culture in the slums of Edinburgh where disaffected smokers of marijuana were known as "cannabees" from their habitual response to life: "Ah canna be bothered." The Latinised ending is undoubtedly due to academic belief that drug use is of foreign origin.
Alanna Blake
No 3611 Set by George Cowley
In the NS of 6 December you read that "Andrew Roberts said that the desire to be a leader is nearly always a sign of psychological disturbance." Could we have an excerpt from In the Psychiatrist's Chair with a well-known leader of your choice revealing worrying signs of a hitherto unsuspected mental illness. Max 200 words and in by 13 January.
E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
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