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World Records RSS Feeds598-1: Feedback, notes and comments - Errors, schmerrors It was appropriate, following an issue in which I listed laws relating to the perils of correcting others, that the first message I should receive last Saturday consisted of the pithy text, “Blind man’s buff? Muphry’s Law? Just two after a quick scan Do you need a copyeditor?” Blind man’s buff is the older and still usual British term for what is often called blind man’s bluff in the US (buff is short for buffet, a blow — the game was once much rougher than it is nowadays). And Muphry was, of course, correct, as a quick Google will show. The misspelling was the deliberate act of the creator of the “law”, not me. Several more messages in similar vein followed. Then Michael Grounds commented from Australia that I’d written “a e-mail”, querying gently whether this might be a typo or else “some subtle modern usage I hav...Feed Source: www.worldwidewords.org 598-2: Weird Words: Truepenny - An honest or trustworthy person.
Though it appeared earlier, this word is best remembered because it features in Hamlet, in the scene in which his father’s ghost tells Hamlet of his murder and asks him to avenge it. When Marcellus and Horatio enter, the ghost cries from the cellar below for them to swear that they will never divulge what Hamlet is about to tell them. Hamlet shouts to his father, “Art thou there, truepenny?”.
It was a term of affection, comparing a man to a genuine coin. This may strike us today as not being important, when pennies are mere tokens made of base metal, but in Shakespeare’s day, pennies were silver and were comparatively valuable. Counterfeiting was rife.
The word has never been common. Sometimes it appears as a direct quote of Hamlet’s words, as a humorous way of asking “who’s there?” (as in Colin Wilson’s Ritual in the Dark of 1976: “He ... 598-3: Recently noted - Nuked the fridge Several newspapers columns that monitor changes in the language have reported on this phrase in the past month, the first being the Guardian’s media blog, MediaMonkey, on 13 June and the most recent the New York Times last Monday. This piece was under the headline Indiana Jones and the Temple of Absurdly Implausible Excess, which gives those who haven’t seen the latest film in the Indiana Jones franchise — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — the clue to its origin. I haven’t seen the film either, but I’m told there’s a scene near the start in which the hero avoids being killed by a nuclear explosion by hiding inside a kitchen refrigerator, which is hurled several miles through the air. This is so ridiculously incredible that you can’t suspend your disbelief for the rest of the film. The New York Times says that nuk... 598-4: Questions and Answers: Tom -
[Q] From Mike Kennedy: “Very often, while watching British TV crime series on TV, one hears the word tom used to refer to a (female) prostitute. Why should this be. A tom-cat, after all, is male. Is it rhyming slang?”
[A] It seems not to be.
Tom, the usual short form for the given name Thomas, has since late Middle English been a generic name for a male, as in tomfool, tomboy (a girl who behaves more like a boy), peeping tom, and Tom, Dick, and Harry. The clue to how it became connected with a woman may lie in an old bit of Australian slang, tom-tart, recorded since 1882. This had no implication of vice at the time, being merely one of the many mildly dismissive male terms that have been ar... 598-5: Questions and Answers: Waddle -
[Q] From Phil Young: “What is the origin of the word waddle? I’ve recently read about the famous Confederate captain, James Waddell, who commanded the CSS Shenandoah and apparently had only one leg and weighed around 200lbs. This made me wonder if it was a corruption of his name referring to his gait, although I doubt it.”
[A] It’s a neat guess but you’re right to doubt this as the origin. There’s no connection at all and the verb waddle is known from about three centuries before Captain Wadddell’s time.
The first known user is our old friend William Shakespeare, in his play Romeo and Juliet of 1592, in a speech which Juliet’s nurse is trying to explain in an outpouring of muddled exposi... 598-6: Sic! - • Richard Glasson quotes from an article that appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on 25 July about the run-down state of the commuter railway system: “Despite being earmarked for replacement years ago, early morning commuters are forced to ride on old L-set, K-set and S-set carriages.” Obsolete commuters, the curse of any rail system.
• Phil Young found a headline on the Web site of Australia’s Channel 9 News that suggests technology has already outsmarted us: “Solar panel to hear means test objection”. It also appeared on the site of the Brisbane Times, but both have since changed to the anodyne “Union slams solar panel means test”.
• “The building in which my physiotherapists have their premises,” e-mailed Richard Levy last Saturday, “is being refurbished. They have therefore put up a notice outside:... 598-7: Copyright and contact details - World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2008. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed publications or on Web sites or blogs requires prior permission, for which you should contact the editor.
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