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Monthly Archives: October 2013

Stones, Transmutations, Blood and Other Liquids

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by annfw in Etymology, Morphology

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Tags

alchemy, ambrosia, annex, Arabic, chemist, connect, elixir, ichor, nectar

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Dragon from The Ripley Scrolls from the 1570 version housed by Yale University.

I often meet with individuals or small groups of students, neophyte word nerds, who have further questions or wonderings about words, orthography or even handwriting (everything begins with script, but that’s a story for another post!). Nikki had a question about the spelling of ‘connection’ and from there we found ourselves splashing in various liquidy sidepaths that led us back to mythology.

 

As so often happens when focusing on one word, we touched on so much: briefly the phonology of the letter <c>, Nikki, in passing, explained why <-ion> is the suffix rather than <*-tion>,  an all too fleeting examination of assimilated prefixes com- and its allomorphs: con-, co-, col-,cor-, and con- . The latter will be explored in more depth later with the class. Nikki also discovered a new prefix <inter->. We discovered too that this bound base from Latin nectere to tie or bind. When establishing related words to this base, we discovered nectar which we couldn’t link in terms of meaning to connect as there was no literal or figurative sense of tying or binding.

 

Below the matrix this inquiry brought forth:

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The <nex> matrix above proved interesting as British English accepts ‘annexe’ so for a while our dilemma was whether the base should be <nex>  or <nexe> as vowel suffixes can be attached, in which case the final non- syllabic <e> is removed. Yet the role of the final <e> in a base is several:

  • it can be one of the ways to represent a long vowel phoneme; however, not in this case.
  • it can prevent a base appearing as a plural as in ‘curse – curs ‘ or ‘please -pleas’: but again not so in this case as there is no chance of plural confusion (the final grapheme being <x> not<s>.
  • it can also prevent the need to double a single final consonant preceded by a single vowel letter.

It appears that the British form of annexe breaks the convention that  the grapheme <x> never doubles, already two phones are represented /ks/ in the grapheme, consider: <box+ed>. Despite the fact that annexe is nominal, leaving ‘annex’ to represent the verb, we decided that  ‘annexe’ from French with its base of <nexe> seemed unnecessary. The OED notes that the tendency is to drop the final ‘e’ and ‘treat the verb as English.’

The next time we met after school we decided to revisit nectar and ambrosia. I recorded this conversation between two students:

 

Nectar- more than the juice of apricots and peaches!

‘Nectar’ is from Latin nectar and according to  Latdict nectar means :’anything sweet or pleasant to drink’ or ‘the drink of the gods’.  Nikki, a walking encyclopaedia of Greek mythical information, knew that this drink prevented death. Latin ‘nectar’ is itself formed from a Greek compound:Greek nektar, name of the drink of the gods, which is said to be a compound of Gk.nek- “death  and the element ‘tar’ meaning “overcoming,” from PIE *tere- “to cross over, pass through, overcome.” So interesting, read further on Online Etymology Dictionary!

This is what we found about elixir:

Online Etymolgy Dictionary tells us that the word ‘elixir’ is attested in English ‘from mid-13c., from Medieval Latin elixir “philosopher’s stone,” believed by alchemists to transmute baser metals into gold and/or to cure diseases and prolong life.’ This evolved from from Arabic al-iksir, probably from a late Greek word  xerion “powder for drying wounds,” which came from the Greek etymon xeros “dry” (see xerasia). ‘General sense of “strong tonic” is 1590s; used for quack medicines from at least 1630s’ .

Philosopher’s Stone:

The term ‘Philosophy’ also was used in reference to alchemy in Middle Ages. Therefore the ‘Philosophers’ stone’ (late 14c., is a translation of Medieval Latin lapis philosophorum, early 12c.), This was reputed to be a ‘solid substance that medieval alchemists thought would  transmute baser metals into gold or silver’; This ‘also identified with the elixir and thus given the attribute of prolonging life indefinitely and curing wounds and disease. (French pierre philosophale, German der Stein der Weisen).’ (Online Etymology Dictionary, read both elixir and philosopher)

Ichor:

Listen to Nikki’s explanation of ichor:

 

But of course my swift dismal of “That’s all we can find out about ichor” was far from the full story! I later went to the OED to discover that ichor Greek ἰχώρ, was the ethereal fluid supposed to flow like blood in the veins of gods:

The OED cites T. Hobbes tr. Homer Iliad (1677)    From the wound out sprang the blood divine; Not such as men have in their veins, but ichor.

Yet this was not the only sense, it became more general in that it referred to ‘Blood; a fluid, real or imaginary, likened to the blood of animals’.(OED)

OED cites J. Bryant New Syst. I. 343 who mentions:  ‘The dog stained his mouth with the ichor of the fish.’

The third sense is a medical meaning ‘A watery acrid discharge issuing from certain wounds and sores.’ So that in 1897 a T. C. Allbutt and others wrote in Syst. Med. III. 158 : ‘Occasionally they [chalk stones] push through the cutaneous covering and form indolent ulcers..and discharge a purulent ichor.’

Of course, at this point if you are like me, you will want to make a brief foray to purulent to discover the connection to pus and putrification  and unearth the Proto-Indo European root *pu- meaning rotting and stinking!

The fourth sense the OED indicates is geological: ‘A fluid or ‘emanation’ from a magma which is held to cause granitization of rock.’

Alchemy:

Once we’d investigated the ethereal fluid of gods, it’s merely a ‘jump to the left’ to alchemy.  Who would have thought  connect would lead to alchemy?  We had discussed the phoneme /k/ and the various graphemes that represented this: <ch> being the digraph to represent the phoneme /k/, a sure sign that the word was of Greek origin. Yet ‘alchemy’ has the Arabic definite article ‘al’ so not a prefix but a base!

Watch our investigation here:

 

 

Hitchings writes of how ‘Alchemy was popular in the ancient world, and the language of alchemy can be seen in written works of the fourteenth century, reflecting the achievements in the field of figures like Roger Bacon and Nicholas Flamel… the distinction between science and magic was not always made sharply. Words that now belong to science once belonged alchemy.‘

So chemist came to English via French chimiste in 1560’s , this from Latin chimista from alchimista. Back to ‘alchemy’ again. ‘Alchemy’ is as we saw from Arabic adopted into Latin but before that from Greek khymatos meaning that which is poured, from Greek khein to pour. So alchemy had been in English longer than ‘chemist’ .’Chemistry’  followed chemist’ in1640s.

Roger and Linda Flavell discuss the alternate, but unlikely  theory, that alchemy may have been first practised in Egypt with the claim that the root is from the ancient Greek word for Egypt, Khemia. The Flavells note that the art: ‘attracted the Arabs who took it to Spain in the Middle Ages and from there ‘alchemy’ spread throughout Europe’.

Why  al- is retained in some words of Arabic origin and dropped in others is  somewhat obscure. Flavells assert that the growing etymological awareness of  al– representing the definite article could have influenced  the dropping from words such as magazine, mattress and cotton but this was ‘patchy’ as it stays firmly in place in words such ‘algebra’, alcove, algorithm and alcohol. Apparently out of the several hundred words migrating into English from Arabic only a small percent retain the al-. Such a treasure trove of words to investigate from the Middle East!

Hitchings recognizes that Arabic learning was formidable and that this genius impressed English visitors to Spain in the Middle Ages who witnessed Muslim ingenuity in canal and irrigation construction, aqueduct building, orchard planting and garden design as well as logic, geometry,anatomy, music, and medicine. So many words representing the technological aspects of this learning as well as foods and just the sheer romance of the exotic.

Our investigation into alchemy and chemist left us with a several compounds: biochemical, chemotherapy and petrochemical. This involved revision of the concept of connecting vowel letters (see Real Spelling Album: Connecting Vowel Letters.) In the end we decided to treat the al- as a base as we wanted to acknowledge the chemist, chemical connections and our understanding that it was not of the same origins as the O.E prefix al-. Initially, we constructed a matrix around the base <chem>. Today, which was several days after this inquiry, we finally recognized that this base could not be correct. If we were to add vowel suffixes such as <-ist> or <-ic>, orthographic conventions would force the <m> to double hence our reinserting of the single , final non-syllabic <e>! (See Real Spelling:The Phonological Final Non-Syllabic <e>)

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The suffix<-ist>

 

The <-ist> suffix corresponds to French -iste , Latin -ista , Greek -ιστής. This forms agent nouns from verbs in -ίζειν (see -ize). This is cognate to the suffix -ισμός,-ism suffix.

OED states that in English <-ist> is used widely not just as the agent noun of verbs in -ize (besides -izer), as in plagiarize, plagiarist , and with nouns of action or function in -ism , as in altruism , altruist.  However, <-ist> is also ‘on the analogy of these’, applied to many words without a corresponding -ize suffix or -ism to indicate the followers of some leader or school, or principle, or the practisers of some art. There are subtle differences between the form in -ist and the native agent noun in -er , cf. conformer, conformist; copier , copyist ; cycler , cyclist ; philologer , philologist . The -ist suffix has connotations of a higher degree of professionalism.

We’ve added this suffix <-ist> to the chart we are keeping for derivational suffixes on the classroom wall. Here we note the word class, parts of speech, the final suffix indicates in whatever word is under examination. Below are our discoveries so far. We also have a more extensive google doc ,Suffixes 2013-14, a list of suffixes that students have complied over the years and uncovered through their word inquiries.This list is updated regularly and lives under the glass topped tables so students can become familiar with  suffixes and prefixes. This often provides a starting point for students when they first begin morphological analysis giving them confidence. However, with every assertion of a suffix, students need to confirm this by generating other words with the same suffix. Just because it’s on the chart doesn’t mean that’s it! For a while several years back we had believed <fy> to be a suffix. We had noted it’s regular appearance but not considered that it is a base element, one of the many that develop from Latin ‘facere’ to do or make! So the list represents our best thinking so far and it is an exciting moment when we add a suffix hitherto uncharted!

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Ripley Scrolls

And so finally to the dragon. The image above is from the Ripley Scrolls ( click here Scroll to see it in it’s entirety) named after 15th  British century alchemist, George Ripley. There are now 23 known scrolls, 18th century copies of a lost 15th century original, all referred to as the Ripley scrolls. The latest was found last year by a curator in the London Science Museum who preparing for a new exhibition Signs, Symbols Secrets: an illustrated guide to alchemy, discovered the scroll in their archives!. The scrolls  vary in size, but the recent find is over six metres long. The scrolls show hand painted images, which are “thought to symbolise the various stages of the creation of the philosopher’s stone — an alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals such as lead into gold or silver — the basis of Western alchemy”. The image of the dragon biting he crescent moons encodes chemistry information- the idea that silver could be dissolved by a powerful mineral acid represented by the dragon and the blood or elixir from this dissolving is what results. This elixir therefore is transformative, it has the power to heal. The London Science Museum states:

‘Alchemy refers to a set of practices found in ancient Greece, Egypt and China, and which became particularly influential in Christian, Islamic and Hindu traditions during the Middle Ages. The practitioners taught that earthly substances were controlled by supernatural powers, and attempted to create new metallic and natural compounds by mixing existing elements together. They often did so in order to try and create valuable substances such as gold or silver, but also attempted to develop medicines.’

Recently academics have re-evaluated  alchemy to examine its many contributions to science, medicine, and intellectual life from the Middle Ages onward. Rather than branding alchemists as ignorant frauds, there is recognition that ‘many medieval and early modern practitioners of alchemy were engaged in serious scientific exploration that has significantly shaped the development of various strands of natural science.'(George Ripley’s Alchemy)

Below some sections from the scroll:

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Ripley:

George Ripley the Canon of Bridlington in Yorkshire lived from about 1415 to 1495. He is renowned as an alchemist and author of alchemical works in rhyme, and his verses are used on the scrolls. Some of the scrolls were produced in the 16th century, in Lubeck, probably at the request of John Dee the Elizabethan polymath. Ripley travelled through Europe remaining for 20 years in Rome. When Ripley returned to England in 1477 rumour had it that he knew the secret of transmutation! ”Some believed that the sizeable donations given by Ripley to help the Knights of Malta in their war against the Turks came from his having produced gold out of base metals. This can only have enhanced his reputation and emerging fame.” (BibliOdyssey)

If this brief exposure to alchemy has whetted your appetite for more of its fascinating history, go to BBC In Our Times where Melvyn Bragg and guests,’ Peter Forshaw, Lecturer in Renaissance Philosophies at Birkbeck, University of London, Lauren Kassell, Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, Stephen Pumfrey, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science at the University of Lancaster, discuss the history of Alchemy.’ They  most famous alchemical text is the Emerald Tablet, written around 500BC and attributed to the mythical Egyptian figure of Hermes Trismegistus. Among its twelve lines are the essential words – “as above, so below”. They capture the essence of alchemy, that the heavens mirror the earth and that all things correspond to one another. Listen to this here: In Our Time: Science Alchemy ( broadcast first in 2005)

Also here for specific information on the scroll itself by Cambridge researcher Jenny Rampling on BBC Radio 4 Material World

What I find exhilarating is that all this art, mythological, biographical, etymological detail and medieval scientific information came from one word which led to another and another to reveal George Ripley himself. Hitchings writes in The Secret Life of Words:

‘Studying language enables an archeology of human experience:words contain the fossils of past dreams and traumas..an assortment of inherited values and cultural traditions, for our language contains traces of the histories of those who have spoken and written it before us’. 

And now for a far more irreverent look at alchemy watch this clip from series two ofElizabethan Blackadder:

 

Read more about Ripley and the scroll:

The Ripley Scroll

 Orthographic principles and conventions:

For information to develop knowledge of orthographic principles and and conventions go to Real Spelling to see:

The Single Final Non-Syllabic <e> and Suffixes

Consonant Doubling

The Suffix Constructor

Will You Join the Saltation?

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by annfw in Etymology, Morphology

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resilience, salire, saltation

Agile circus performers leaping and bounding in saltations and somersaults. Adam Forepaugh, a rival of Barnum, born into poverty showed remarkable resilience soaring to become a leading American circus entrepreneur during the 1860’s until his death from the flu epidemic in 1890.

This inquiry bounded along as we leapt from word to word connected with the Latin root salire. We had begun our inquiry with resilience sometime ago when we considered adjectives that could be applied to Odysseus, the ultimate rebounder who springs back from every adversity placed before him. We wondered about the difference between persistence and resilience. On Friday we examined resilience once again reviewing the morphemes and thought about the Latin root salire to leap to bound. We then leapt into an inquiry to uncover all the other base elements that sallied forth from this productive root.

 

 

 

 

We took a slight digression from our ‘salire‘ investigation to inquire into the possibility of <*-tion> as a suffix, posited by one student. We examined action and interruption as part of this evidence. The students, despite my misspelling of interruption (!), discovered a new prefix <inter->.

 

We wondered about sally:

 

We, could have capered further searching for proof of <inter-> and while this would have been another interesting digression, we kept the focus on uncovering the other bases from ‘salire’.

Saltation was interesting.  The OED notes four senses; ‘leaping and bounding’ as in the entertaining example from The Pall Mall Gazette of, September, 1883: ‘It is not every flea… that is gifted with the power of saltation’ . ‘Saltation’ also has a sense of ‘abrupt movement or change’ and the OED cites Emerson, 1854 : ‘The number of successive saltations the nimble thought can make‘ . The word too has a geological meaning of leaping and bouncing as in particles of sand forming sand dunes (watch saltating gravel and sand here ) even the sense of the ‘pulsating, spurting forth of blood‘ .

Saltation: the quirky quadrille

However, it’s the specialized application to dance in general and one dance in particular, that I love. From here I would like to caper to a poem celebrating saltations and in particular the quirky quadrille, in Lewis Carroll’s Lobster Quadrille from Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass. Read the poem below:

The Lobster Quadrille.The Mock Turtle and the Gryphon demonstrate the intricacies of The Lobster Quadrille  to Alice. Illustration from John Tenniel, published in 1865.

“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail.
“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle–will you come and join the dance?

 
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

 
“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”
But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance–
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

 
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

 
“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied.
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France–
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

 

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?”‘

 

Below. enjoy the gambolling seaside cavort from one of the best film adaptations of Carroll’s classic. This version was directed by Jonathan Miller, polymath extraordianaire: a satirist, film, theatre and opera director, medical consultant, sculptor and writer. He was a shining star in Beyond the Fringe, along with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett, ‘the seminal show’ that sparked the satire boom of the 1960’s and ‘breathed fresh life’ into British comedy. This 1966 version of Alice in Wonderland shot in black and white avoids all animal creations, they are merely hinted at in the movements made by the actors. Miller’s film was controversial in that it was not directed at children, but rather at readers who knew the text well. The cast is made up of some of Britain’s most esteemed actors:  Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, John Bird, Peter Sellers, John Gielgud and Michael Redgrave,  Leo McKern, Michael Gough, Wilfred Lawson, Wilfrid Brambell – and the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge. The dialogue is recorded in voice overs emphasizing a dream like quality and ‘distancing effect’. The music played by Ravi Shankar alludes to the British colonialism of the period. Watch the whimsical rendition of The Lobster Quadrille below:

 

In a recent BBC interview in regard to his direction of Rutherford and Son, Miller spoke about acting in plays: “It’s no accident that the name of the game is ‘play’ and it has that sort of pretending people that you’re not. ‘Play’, pretending to be people that you’re not and yet who turn out to be people who might be”.( BBC News Interview on directing at 79). This is precisely what Miller achieved in his Alice interpretation.

Resilience

I was delighted on Saturday when working with a groups of students at the Global Issues Network conference across town, that the understanding and application of resilience came again to the fore. One student when asked to discuss what traits made up a global citizen insisted on the word resilience:

 

These students had read Linda Sue Park’s novel A Long Walk to Water and were deeply moved by this and the documentary God Grew Tired of Us about the thousands of young boys, ‘The Lost Boys’ forced to flee across South Sudan.

Salva Dut

Salva Dut, the inspirational protagonist of Park’s biography embodies resilience.  Salva at 11-years old, while in school was told to run when his teacher heard the sounds of guns. He and other students were told to hide and under no circumstances to return to their village. He became one of thousands of other young boys fleeing. We reflected on the word refugee, from Latin fugere to flee and saw just what this fleeing meant for young Sudanese. Salva reached the comparative safety of an Ethiopian refugee camp. However later, ‘as a teenager, was forced to flee once again. He led 1500 “Lost Boys” hundreds of miles through the Southern Sudan desert to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. In 1966 Salva was relocated to the United States. Today he considers himself fortunate and wants to bring this sense of good fortune to the people of South Sudan. He now leads Water for South Sudan, Inc., the non-profit organization he founded in 2003. Drilling wells transforms lives and provides for the first time access to clean water. Once wells are drilled, schools follow and this transforms the lives of many, especially girls who no longer have to walk daily to find and carry water.

Read what Salva wrote as a message to our grade 7 students when two went up to him and asked him what he would like us to remember:

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So what have the students learned from this inquiry so far?

  • A root can produce more than one base element in present day English, and from that base element a host of other words
  • The root meaning  echoes through current words- we could all see how saute connects to leaping
  • Words come into English at different times, some directly from Latin others via a more circuitous root, some newer entries into English such as saute remain as yet unchanged.
  • Bases canbe homographic- that is have the same spelling but different roots, such as the free base element <salt> and the bound base element <salt> as we’ve seen in saltation.
  • Knowing the root and seeing the connection with current base elements and the resulting words flowing from this helps students to make conceptual connections between different areas of knowledge. In this brief inquiry we have discovered connections between  physical education ( somersault- interesting combination of Provencal sobre and Latin salire) geology, dancing and medicine (saltation), cooking (saute) and psychology (resilience).  Still more to discover- we shall dance on!

So that’s it today from this Whiting, while not a graceful performer of saltations, is nevertheless always asking others to “Walk a little faster”!

Further Frolicking Diversions

Read more about Miller’s Alice in Wonderland.

Scroll down the entry on Topsy the Elephant to find two entertaining posters of the resilient, self promoting Forepaugh and his rival P.T.Barnum.

Listen to the group Franz Ferdinand perform The Lobster Quadrille and Carly Simon with her sister Lucy singing Lobster Quadrille

Of Dogs,Their Tails and Cowardice

06 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by annfw in Etymology, Morphology

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

babbiliard, bayard, blinkard, boinard, bugiard, buzzard, coward, crusard, dizzard, dog, dogeared, dogged, doggerel, hangdog, lapdog, Lombard, Spaniard, tail, underdog

Medieval illumination of a dog, 14th century, from a Codex in the Czech Republic. Note the tail, ‘no coward soul’ is this dog.

We are currently exploring the binary opposition in The Odyssey and other hero myths. This is part of the structuralist theory of meaning whereby we understand more through exploring the difference between the word and its opposite meaning, so exploring a relationship between things rather than fixed solitary meaning. Usually one side of the pair of elements is more culturally ‘privileged’  or valued than the other. These oppositions, challenge the way we read texts and open up our thinking as the valued element of the pair is identified. Students have identified several binary oppositions in The Odyssey which they are exploring in connection to the other hero myths they are reading. We see: heroes and monsters, greed – selflessness, male – female, loyalty- betrayal, exclusion- inclusion, courage-cowardice, retribution-forgiveness. We have begun to notice as we consider the binary opposition of the masculine and feminine in The Odyssey and the myths of Theseus and Perseus, that the females are either passive, loyal, patient and enduring – the ideal woman, or monsters and temptresses. This suggests that women who break the constraints of passivity are treacherous and dangerous, malevolent beguilers and deceivers.

To understand ‘courage’, it’s clarifying to note the difference of its opposite concept of ‘cowardice’. So determining the morphemes, identifying the root and its meaning add a  nuanced understanding of the word rather than just regurgitating the dictionary denotation. Here students are examining the word cowardice. Listen and watch here:

 

 

 

You’ll note my excitement and total misreading of the dates the words ‘coward’ and ‘cowardice’ entered English. I was somewhat intrigued, erroneously, in thinking that ‘cowardice’ had occurred before the appearance in English of the word ‘coward’ and shared his with students to discover that I had rushed in, blundering enthusiastically around in the etymological waters.  It’s important to read carefully and thoughtfully! Always a good lesson for impetuous me as well as the students!

The denotation of coward:

“A reproachful designation for one who displays ignoble fear or want of courage in the face of danger, pain, or difficulty; an ignobly faint-hearted or pusillanimous person.”

The word ‘coward’ comes from the Latin root cauda meaning tail.Read the etymology here.

Intriguingly, according to OED, ‘coward’ was also applied to animals:

Ԡa. An old appellation of the hare

†b. A cock which will not fight. Obs.

c. a horse without spirit in a race.

2. Heraldry. Said of a lion or other beast borne as a charge: Having the tail drawn in between the legs’

This investigation, as seen in the video clips, raises the thorny issue of how far to analyze. I am an overly enthusiastic pruner of a word’s morphemes and spot suffixes everywhere. However, in terms of finding related words in present day English (PDE), words that share the same base element and thus ultimately the same root , any other related words add suffixes onto the stem ‘coward’: cowardly, cowardness, cowardy, cowardliness.I have not, as yet, found ways of building onto this without the suffix <-ard.>

And while I could create a link in meaning between ‘to cow‘(v) as in ‘To depress with fear’ (Johnson); to dispirit, overawe, intimidate.'(OED)… that was me in excited folk etymologizing mode as I visualized the tail between legs of a cowering dog. So in in order to emphasize the separateness of the roots, perhaps it is better to suggest that the ‘cow’ element is no longer productive.

And yet the suffix <-ard> is fascinating and I have to say I love seeing it in the matrix in its own compartment as it draws attention to itself and asserts that it too has a story, a fascinating etymology and interesting associations and cohorts.

The suffix <-ard>

Often this suffix <-ard> is negative. In Dutch and Middle High German it was pejorative and this negative aspect is seen in many words in English, drunkard, blaffard, bastard, dullard, sluggard, dottard. According to OED the suffix <-ard>:

‘ appeared in Middle English in words from Old French, asbastard, coward, mallard, wizard, also in names of things, as placard, standard (flag); and became at length a living formative of English derivatives, as in buzzard, drunkard, laggard, sluggard, with sense of ‘one who does to excess, or who does what is discreditable.’ In some words it has taken the place of an earlier -ar, -er of the simple agent, as in bragger, braggar, braggard,stander, standard (tree). In some it is now written -art, asbraggart; in cockade, orig. cockard, corrupted to -ade suffix.’

The OED notes that this suffix was ‘used in French as masculine formative, intensive, augmentative, and often pejorative, compare bastard, couard,canard, mallard, mouchard, vieillard.’

In an entertaining article by Casselman, he notes that ‘In Old French this usually negative suffix –ard was extremely productive’ .

Look at the etymology behind the following words.

buzzard: from O.Fr. , the <-art > changing in English to <-ard> with denotation of inferiority: buzzard being a ‘harrier or inferior hawk’.!

 bayard: a mock heroic name for a horse

boinard: an Obselete word meaning: ‘A fool, simpleton; rogue, scoundrel.’

What about blinkard: a ‘mocking term for someone with poor eyesight’ or the obsolete crusard or croissiard, a pejorative term for crusaders and then there’s bugiard a liar!!

Go to Casselman’s site to discover wonderful words such as dizzard, and babbilard. Most interesting of all the idea that ‘Spaniard’ and ‘Lombard’ too were once coined as insults.

I therefore, despite conversations with my students to the contrary, now propose the matrix below to represent ‘coward’ in order to recognize the nuances brought to the word through the humble but frequently negative suffix<-ard>:

Screen Shot 2013-10-06 at 5.31.12 PM

And while this is a modest collection of related words to the bound base ‘cow’, the negativity is intensified when when combined with the suffix<-ard> and its etymology explored. Perhaps now the reference to dogs in the image will begin to take on more meaning.

Tales of tails and dogs

Edward Reed 1860-1933) was a Punch Magazine contributor from 1889 until his death, despite retiring as parliamentary caricaturist in 1912. Go to Tails with a Twist” where you can read the poems.

There are  several tail expressions that indicate cowardice or depression: to turn tail an image from the 16th century. Cresswell suggests this comes from the way many ‘prey animals used their raised their tails as warning signals when in flight’. Someone who appears dejected or depressed has their ‘tail between their legs’  which has been in use since the Middle ages. However, when in the opposite emotional state, people are described ‘with their tail up’ to indicate their buoyancy and confidence. Cresswell also notes the expression ‘the tail is wagging the dog’ which came from the verbal sense in the early 16th century to fasten to the back of something and ultimately leading to the 20th century sense of to follow closely.

Latin ‘cauda’ too led to other base elements: check coda, caudal, and queue.

And what of dogs, the image that sparked tails between legs and cowardice? This too, like every word, is fascinating. Read how dog from rare late OE word docga  referred specifically to a powerful breed of canines pushing the older hound OE hund  to narrow in meaning to a dog for hunting.

Then there are so many negative expressions connected with dogs. OED lexicographer Christine A. Lindberg informs us that: ‘the word dog all by itself has generated a number of negative figurative uses, at least six times more than the lowly rat!’ I discovered:

lapdog,

dogeared

dogged

doggerel: bad poetry

dog’s life

in the dog house

dog to refer to an ugly woman

hangdog

bitch: As early as the 1400’s this was a contemptuous term for a woman and used verbally as in to bungle and spoil from 1823.

underdog

dog and pony show

dog eat dog : indicates fierce competition and reverses the 16th century proverb of ‘dog does not eat dog’ and earlier Latin’ canis caninam non est’: a dog does not eat dog’s flesh. (Cresswell,Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins)

dog in the manger: from Aesop’s fable

throw someone to the dogs,and not a dog’s chance

a dog’s dinner: for a poor piece of work or a mess

sick as a dog

According to Cresswell, the positive change in status for dog expressions is seen in the phrase from the Victorian era  “man’s best friend” and later expression”love me, love my dog”. I know you have been wondering … what do dogs, hogs, pigs and  earwigs have in common? Read this interesting and informative post on all things dog here by Bernadette Paton of the OED from The Oxford Word Blog.

 Mythological tail waggers:

Some of the students know of the dogs of Norse mythology, none of them cowardly, none ever seen with tails between their legs! Fenrir,monstrous child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda bound by a magical chain that will be broken on the day of Ragnarok where he will ‘join the giants in their battle against the gods … seek out Odin and devour him.Vidar, Odin’s son, will avenge his father by killing the wolf’. Some know too of four eyed Garm, with blood drenched, guardian of Helheim, the Norse realm of the dead.

We too have come across Garm’s Greek counterpart Cerebus , three headed, serpent tailed guardian of Hades, know of Aura (Breeze) Atlanta’s dog and of Actaeon’s hounds. Unfortunate Actaeon, hunter, stumbling across naked Artemis bathing in a stream, was transformed into a stag so that the hunter became the hunted and was torn to pieces by his thirty- six dogs. Thanks to Ovid we know the names of of his dogs: some being Tigris, Laelaps (Storm), Aello (Whirlwind), and Arcas (Bear). Read more of the naming of the Ancient Greek conventions of naming dogs in Adrienne Mayor’s  informative article Names of Dogs in Ancient Greece.

The Smithsonian curators tell us of popular medieval dog names such as ‘Sturdy, Whitefoot, Hardy, Jakke, Bo, Terri, Troy, Nosewise, Amiable, Nameles, Clenche, Bragge, Ringwood and Holdfast.’ Read more here at Smithsonian.

No more mad ramblings and no, despite the tropical climes I inhabit, I have not been wandering in the midday sun … yes, a heavy handed segue to the great Coward himself, Noel, singing Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

 

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