Murgs, mistletoe and stolen bulls |
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MOST POPULAR THIS WEEK MURG OF THE DAY On Monday the Scots dialect word murg popped up on HH defined both as “a heavy fall of snow”, and as a verb meaning “to labour perseveringly through a pile of unpleasant work”. And as it ended the week as our most popular tweet, here’s a bit more about it. That definition comes from the Scottish National Dictionary, which not only pinpoints the word specifically to the dialect of the Shetland Islands, but adds that that “pile of unpleasant work” could include the likes of “cleaning fish, potatoes, etc.” Probably best to choose the et cetera out of those. The SND also gives a more general meaning for murg, namely “a mass or conglomeration ... of dirty or messy material”—and it’s that definition that points us to its origins. Like a lot of words from the far north of Scotland, murg has its roots in Scandinavia and likely derives from an old Norwegian dialect word, morke, meaning “a mass or clump”. From there, it’s easy to see how the word might have come to refer to a heavy fall of snow, with the sense of unpleasant work perhaps alluding to the act of trudging laboriously through a snowfield. ’Tis the season, after all. Elsewhere this week we found out that: - to cumble is to become numbed with cold, and snowbrash is water from melting snow
- a sarcastic sense of humour was known as pike sauce in Tudor-period English
- for International Mountain Day, mediocre literally means “halfway up a mountain”
- someone who is calophantic acts or believes themselves to be better than they are
- should you need it in time for Christmas, spending time in bad company is eggtaggle
- “to be like gowk and titling”—literally “cuckoo and pipit”—is to be inseparable friends
- a frost-hag is a freezing cold mist, while anything stirious resembles an icicle
- someone who is sapiosexual is finds intelligence attractive or alluring
- dormice were once known as seven-sleepers because they spend so long in hibernation
- key-beer is drink so good that it needs to be kept under lock and key
- and if “the old woman is plucking her goose”, then it’s snowing outside.
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FROM THE ARCHIVES MIXT UP If you’re following HH on Instagram now, or have kept up with our Advent calendar posts over on Twitter, you’ll have spotted some mistletoe earlier this week—alongside the fact that mistletoe literally means “poop-twig”. This is an etymology we’ve dealt with before on HH, but here’s a not-so-Christmassy seasonal recap. In Old English, “mistletoe” was misteltan. That ending, –tan, just means “twig” or “branch”, while mistel was the Old English word for bird lime, a thick adhesive paste made from mashing up mistletoe berries that was smeared onto branches to trap birds. Mistel in turn is thought to derive from an earlier Old English word, mix or meox—which essentially meant “poop” in Old English. So what’s the connection here? Well, as any gardeners or horticulturalists among you will know, mistletoe is basically a parasite: it doesn’t have true roots of its own, but rather attaches itself to a tree or a plant that’s already growing, forces its way through the bark or the stem, and leeches all the nutrients it needs directly from its host. And because it doesn’t rely on a system of roots pushed deep underground, mistletoe can often be found growing high up in the tops of trees, nowhere near the soil—and there’s really only one way that it can get up there. Ironically, as well as being used to make birdlime, mistletoe berries are something of a delicacy for thrushes and similar birds. The seeds the berries contain, however, aren’t as digestible as the fleshy pulp around them. So when the birds poop them out—often while perched in the tops of the trees—they’re not only deposited unscathed and still able to germinate, but coated in a nice helpful layer of guano. And for that reason, you might find yourself kissing under a poop twig in the days to come. |
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POPULAR THIS WEEK A LOAD OF BULL Earlier this week HH tweeted that a Bloxwich bull is an instance in which someone’s plans or grand hopes and expectations are thwarted at the last moment. There wasn’t room to tell the full story behind his expression over on Twitter, so here’s a bit more about it. Bloxwich is a town in the West Midlands in central England, just north of Birmingham. Back when blood sports enjoyed a grim popularity much more widespread than they do today, Bloxwich was home to a bull ring; the highlight of the week for the locals in the town was the spectacle of a local prize bull being exercised in the ring and then slaughtered. One fateful week, however, something unexpected happened—and at this point, we can hand over to the Victorian folklorist and antiquarian John Timbs to explain: On another occasion, at Bloxwich, some wag stole the bull at midnight, and when the excited crowd assembled on the morrow, from all parts of the district, they were doomed to a disappointment. The circumstances gave rise to a local proverb still in use. When great expectations are baffled, the circumstance is instinctively likened to “the Bloxwich bull”. The remembrance of this barbarous pastime is perpetuated in the topographical nomenclature of the district, where, following the examples of Birmingham, almost every town and village his its Bull Ring. Nooks and Corners of English Life, John Timbs (1867) |
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WORD OF THE WEEK AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON For no reason whatsoever of course, the word abequitate popped up on HH earlier this week, defined as “to ride away on a horse”. And for no reason whatsoever, we’re going to make it Word of the Week. No prizes for guessing that at the centre of this is the Latin word for “horse”, equus, which is likewise found at the root of a clutch of more familiar words like equine and equestrianism. In abequitate, equus has been rejigged alongside the Latin-origin prefix ab–, which is used to form words bearing some sense of “off” or “away from”. So to abdicate is to renounce a claim to the throne (derived from dicare, a Latin word meaning “proclaim”). Something that is aberrant is different or separate from the norm (and derives from the Latin for “to wander off”). In aborigine, ab– appears alongside the Latin origo, meaning “beginning” (and so the word literally describes one who has inhabited a region since time immemorial). And in abequitate, we have a word literally meaning “to ride off”. This isn’t the only specific horse-riding term in the dictionary, incidentally. As well as abequitate, “to ride off”, there’s adequitate, “to ride beside someone”; interequitate, “to ride into or between something or somewhere”; obequitate, which simply means “to ride about”; and coequitate, “to ride alongside another”. All of these words date back to around the seventeenth century in English, and many of them made their debuts in the language the lexicographer Henry Cockeram’s 1623 English Dictionarie. And really any one of them could have made an apt Word of the Week. For no reason at all, of course... |
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ANAGRAMS No. 18 Four more tricky anagrams to finish things off this week: the letters of each of these words can be rearranged to spell another dictionary word. What are they? FLESHER FLEMISH FAMELESS SHIRTSLEEVE Last week’s solution: WORKMATE, WOODLARK, WORKSPACE, STEELWORKER |
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