Santa's wrong: it's naughty and nice

Howard Richler

He’s making a list
Checking it twice
He’s gonna find out
Who's naughty or nice
– “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” Haven Gillespie & J. Fred Coots, 1932

It is quite apparent that the duo of Gillespie and Coots had no etymological training or they’d have realized that etymologically there is no dichotomy between the states of naughtiness and niceness. The word “nice” emerged in the English language and originally meant “foolish” or “ignorant” (it derives from the Latin, nescius, “ignorant”) but before long it carried the connotation of wantonness or lasciviousness. In quotations from the 14th and 15th centuries it is associated with ribald and lustful behaviour. Observe the following from Chaucer’s Romance of the Rose written in 1366: “Nice she was, but she meant no harm or slight in her intent.” More than two centuries later Shakespeare uses the word in much the same manner in Love’s Labour Lost: “These are compliments, these are humours, that betray nice wenches that would be betrayed.”

The Shakespearean line reminds me of thesophomoric joke that made the rounds in the early 1960s that purported to explain the difference between a good girl and a nice girl in this manner: The good girl goes to a party, goes home and then goes to bed, whereas the nice girl goes to the party but goes to bed before going home.

In the 16th century “nice” went through a shift of meanings and came to mean such things as “delicate,” “elegant,” “cultured,” and “respectable” but it would not be until the 19th century that it became synonymous with the word “pleasant.”

While most readers are probably not cognizant of the original naughty sense of nice, I suspect few people are not aware of the change of meaning of a certain word that appears in the Christmas songs Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Deck the Halls. Observe the following lyrics from these two melodies: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Make the Yule-tide gay” and “Don we now our gay apparel, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la.” Nowadays, if someone were exposed to this latter lyric for the first time, he/she would be excused for believing that the theme involved cross-dressing.

Although today the word gay still possesses the sense of “merry,” the homosexual connotation is the dominant one. How did this transformation occur? “Gay” is first used with the homosexual connotation in the 1920s by American expatriates living in Paris and the word is first recorded with this sense in the OED in 1935.

“Gay” didn’t suddenly metamorphose in meaning from “merry” to “homosexual.” By the 15th century it referred to one “addicted to social pleasures and dissipations.” A “gay dog” referred to a man given to reveling or self-indulgence. In 1630, William Davenant in The Cruel Brother and Nicholas Rowe later in 1703 in The Fair Penitent unveiled libertine characters they dubbed “Lothario.” As a result, in the 18th century, the term “gay Lothario” was used to refer to such a character. In the 19th century, the word was sometimes applied to a woman deemed to lead an immoral life, such as a prostitute. Also, the term “gaycat” may have influenced the semantic change of the word “gay.” By the turn of the twentieth century, the word was used by hobos to refer to a tramp’s companion, usually a young boy, and often his catamite, which is defined by the OED as “a boy kept for unnatural purposes.”

Incidentally, the word “gay” is still evolving If a teen tells you that “a party was gay,” he/she is probably not describing the sexual preferences of the party-goers but rather is stating that it was not a good party.

A merry Christmas to all.

Howard Richler's latest book is Can I Have a Word With You? He can be reached at howard@theseniortimes.com.

Some surprising house origins

Howard Richler

In this Housing edition of The Senior Times we reveal the original meanings of your place of abode.

House and home are among the oldest words in the English language, both being in use before the year 1000. Similar words can also be found in virtually all other Germanic-based languages such as the Dutch huus, German haus and Swedish hus. Etymologically (if not in reality!) a husband is bonded with a house, as originally it meant “master of the household” and not “male spouse.” The word home comes from the Old English hām that referred to a place where one lives and the “ham” spelling lives on in place names such as Birmingham and Durham.

We also see longevity and Germanic origins in the basic ingredients of a house: room, wall, floor, door, and roof. Not quite as ancient in English is the word window that arrived in our language in the 13th century, replacing the Old English eyethurl that meant “eye-hole.” But isn’t window a far more poetic word, literally meaning the “eye of the wind?”

The word for the prettiest of homes, cottage, is first recorded in the 13th century and derives from the Old English word cote that referred to a humble dwelling. This spelling has survived the ages in the word dovecote. Until the 18th century the word cottage was restricted to the homes of the poor, and the OED states that it was only in the 19th century that “the name is divested of all associations with poverty.” Methinks this was a ploy foisted on us by Victorian realtors to increase the market value of hovels.

Likewise, mansion and manor had humble beginnings and etymologically both refer to a place one stays or dwells, deriving from the Latin manere, “remain or stay.” By the late 14th century, however, the word’s meaning ameliorated and its prime sense came to refer to the chief residence of a lord.

At the other end of the real estate scale, the key to understanding the etymology of apartment is in isolating “part,” as the word was first used in the 17th century to refer to the part of a house or building consisting of a suite or set of rooms, allotted to the use of a particular person or group. Only in 18th century North America did it acquire its present meaning of a single unit within a multi-unit residential building that is leased by an individual who occupies the space.

However, if you are male and pride yourself on your suave bachelor apartment, you might not want to relay to your urbane dates that the word bachelor derives from the Latin baccalaria and is related to the Latin word for cow, bacca. Also, a baccalarius referred to a person employed on a grazing farm, though it is unlikely that any academic degree was conferred as a result of a passing mark in sheep grazing.

A bungalow is of more recent and exotic vintage. In Hindustani, bangla means belonging to Bengal, and in the 17th century a bungalow referred to a lightly built house, usually with a thatched roof. Over time, the term became generalized for any single-storey house.

Bringing us up-to-date, the sense of condominium as an owned apartment unit only goes back to 1962, but the word’s first usage can be traced back to 1714, when the Danes believed that the Duke of Holstein’s construction of new forts “was contrary to the condominium, which that king and the duke have in that duchy” i.e. joint rule or sovereignty.

Many a contemporary feuding condo or townhouse owner will identify with this snippet of Danish/German real estate history.

Howard Richler's latest book is Can I Have a Word With You? He can be reached at howard@theseniortimes.com.

How to overcome SADD (Shakespearean Attention Deficit Disorder)

Howard Richler

Recently, I saw an excellent production of Hamlet at the Stratford Festival but was disheartened by the great number of empty seats.

While the musicals playing at the festival were well-attended – notwithstanding seat prices that were many times more expensive – a fine production of arguably the greatest play ever written was at least 40% vacant. Don’t blame the critics – this production has received universal rave reviews. Why then was this Hamlet so poorly attended?

I think that lack of comprehension of the language used by the Bard is a partial answer. Shakespeare’s comedies, with their myriad double entendres, are even more inaccessible, but the tragedies present many situations not really appreciated by a modern audience. For example, when Hamlet resolves to avenge his father’s murder he states, “Yea from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records.” Here “table” has the sense of “writing tablet” and “fond” means “frivolous.” When Hamlet’s mother, terrified by her son’s behaviour, is struck with “admiration,” she is struck with “astonishment” and not “approval.” When Horatio says to Hamlet that “one with moderate haste might tell a hundred” he is using “tell” in the now obsolete sense of “itemize.” Similarly, in Hamlet, Shakespeare employed the word “abuse” to mean “deception,” “accident” to mean “incident,” “coil” to mean “turmoil,” “conceit” to mean “understanding,” “dismal” to mean “sinister,” “flaw” to mean “squall” and “protest” to mean “proclaim.”

This brings up the obvious question: does anybody aside from a rarefied elite understand Shakespeare’s vocabulary? Take the following famous passage in Hamlet when Polonius provides fatherly advice to his son Laertes who is embarking on a journey:

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give the thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.

Here “character” means “to inscribe,” “thoughts” refers to “intention” or “plan,” and “act” means “execution.” Thus, Polonius is advising his son to mark his advice in his memory – not to show his hand, and not to act on his intentions until they are completely thought out. Later on in the passage Polonius advises his son to “bear’t” and to “take each man’s censure.” It would appear to the modern listener that he is telling his son “to cope” and to “turn the other cheek,” but this is not the intent of Polonius. “Bear’t” here means “make sure that” and “censure” means “to judge.” Thus Polonius is telling his son not to “grin and bear it” but to “strive for excellence” and not “to defer” but to view people with insight.

There are times when the context helps make the meaning evident. I suppose when Hamlet tells Horatio and Marcellus, “I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me,” many people will fathom that “let” here does not mean “permit” – in fact it means “hinder” or “prevent.” But one may be easily thrown off assuming that Shakespeare was employing it in the modern sense.

The meaning of words over the past 400 years has changed enough to render any comprehension of Shakespeare by a modern audience partial at best, and only the Shakespearean cognoscenti or a trained expert in Elizabethan English can get a full understanding. Ironically, the French can appreciate Shakespeare to a greater extent than we do, being able to enjoy it in a language they understand.

Clearly, English-speaking theatregoers are suffering from a case of SADD: Shakespearean Attention Deficit Disorder. Well-annotated programs explaining Shakespeare’s vocabulary would be very helpful in bringing back what the author intended – a thrilling and witty narrative understood by a large audience.

Howard Richler’s latest book is Can I Have a Word With You?

Linguistic chauvinism reigns supreme

Howard Richler

The French hate the Germans, The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch, And I don't like anybody very much!

–The Merry Minuet, Kingston Trio, circa 1960

One of the less attractive qualities of ethnic and linguistic identity is its association with intolerance towards outsiders. Many languages designate those who are mutually intelligible as "speakers" or "people" — Those who speak a language deemed incomprehensible are labeled as the "others," or "babblers."

A few examples are in order. The Ancient Greeks used the onomatopoeic term barbaroi ("babblers") to mock anyone whom they deemed incomprehensible, i.e. anyone who used a language other than Greek. This word came into Latin as barbarus, with the same meaning, and bequeathed to us the words "barbarous" and "barbarian." The Chinese bestowed on the Miao and Moso tribes of South China the name "southern barbarians" and "miserable ones" because they did not understand their speech. The Slavs conferred the name Nemet ("mute" or "dumb") on their German neighbours.

The view that one's own language is superior to others is widespread, and many reasons are supplied in defense of this chauvinistic hypothesis. A language might be viewed the oldest, the most logical, the most phonetic, or the language of the gods. Some of the claims have been particularly preposterous. Sixteenth-century German writer J.G. Becanus argued that German was superior because it was the language Adam spoke in Eden. Luckily, he claimed, it was not affected by the later Babel debacle because the early Germans (the Cimbrians) did not participate in the tower construction. Becanus informs us that the Almighty later caused the Old Testament to be translated from an original but now defunct German into Hebrew.

Languages are prone to attribute negative qualities to foreign influences. In the English language we refer to an unauthorized absence as taking "French leave." The French retaliate by taking "English leave," (filer à l'anglais). Norwegians and Italians join the French in also taking "English leave."

Foreign idioms referencing English provide a snapshot of attitudes towards those in the English-speaking world and it would appear that the honesty of anglophones is questionable. In French to "fleece somebody" is to anglaiser quelqu'un and both the French and the Italians refer to con games as the "American swindle." In Serbo-Croatian the expression praviti se Englez translates as "to act like an Englishman," i.e. to act as if nothing is wrong in the hope that a situation will sort itself out. One humourous French idiom that references the English is les Anglais ont debarqué which is used as a euphemism for "I have my period."

Outsiders are liable to be blamed for vice and immorality in our midst. No example better exemplifies this than the disease syphilis. The Italians attributed it to the French and called it Mal francesse. The French turned the tables and called it Mal de Naples. The Germans also targeted the French and labeled it Franzosen bšse Blattern ("French bad blisters"). The English called it "French pox," or the "French disease" and referred to the baldness that syphilis produced as a "French crown." To be "Frenchified" meant to have a venereal infection and a "French pig" was a venereal sore. The Russians blamed it on the Poles, who in turn called it the "German Disease." To the Dutch, it was Spaensche Pokken ("Spanish pox"). Once the disease was transmitted eastward to India, Japan and China, it emerged as the "Portuguese disease" and not surprisingly, Turks held Christians responsible. Finally, in the 16^th century it received the designation "syphilis" which seemed to have universal appeal. The name derives from the name of a fabled syphilitic shepherd in the poem Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus by Italian poet Girolamo Fracastoro. This fable relates the story of the shepherd Syphilis whose blasphemy so angered the Sun God that he saddled poor Syphilis with an eponymous new disease.

Linguistic chauvinism dictates that not only is one's mother tongue "infected" by foreign influences, but that the alien languages are even responsible for the infections.

Howard Richler's latest book is Can I Have a Word With You? He can be reached at howard@theseniortimes.com.

Your body language may be bawdy to some

Howard Richler

Linguist Edward Sapir defined non-verbal communication as the “elaborate and secret code that is written nowhere, known by none, and understood by all.” He could have added to the end of the sentence the clause “members of a particular culture.” For if you don’t understand the rudimentary gestures of a society, you’ll find it difficult to communicate effectively notwithstanding some fluency in the particular language.

I was reminded of how varied gestures can be while enjoying a café écremé at a Parisian café two years ago. Some English-speaking patrons were trying to get the attention of a waiter and were gesticulating wildly with their hands and fingers. This led to their waiter swearing under his breath because in French society such palpable pointing is considered rude, and one seeking the attention of a waiter would be better advised to tip the head back slightly and just say s’il vous plait.

Mind you, the French do gesticulate a lot with their hands and one can sometimes even discern details of a conversation from a distance without hearing a word. There are many other useful gesticulations that may be helpful to know while in France. For example, if you want someone to speak in a softer voice, raise your index finger in the air. In order to emphasize the importance of what you are about to say or to indicate that you are going to reprimand someone, wave your finger back and forth. On the other hand, if you want  someone to “shut up,” the ferme-la gesture gets the point across by holding your hand out in the shape of a C and then squeezing the fingers and thumb together.

Beware though that a gesture you are familiar with might mean something entirely different in France. The O.K. sign (thumb and forefinger forming a circle) is usually a Gallic way of expressing that something is worthless.

More serious still, while for us a sign made with the second and fifth fingers is a challenge towards the veracity of someone’s position, i.e. the “B.S.” sign, for University of Texas football fans, it is known as the “hook ’em horns” sign and is flashed as a signal of support for their team, the Longhorns. But in Italy, this sign can signify that a man is being cuckolded and hence it would not be prudent for two Texas alumni to flash their alma mater’s symbol in an Italian bar, notwithstanding that both gestures have their origin in livestock – the longhorn for Texans, and the goat for Italians.

When shopping in Rhodes this summer, I saw an American tourist extend his palm outward in an effort to stop the come-on of an aggressive street vendor. The vendor visibly recoiled, as in Greece this gesture is known as the moutza, and dates back to ancient Greece when fecal matter was thrown at war prisoners.

Even when traveling in a fellow English-speaking country, we must adapt our gestures. The “V for victory” sign, immortalized by Winston Churchill and adopted by peaceniks, is only valid in the palm-outward position. When the palm is in the inward position, one is literally giving someone “the finger.” Brits are, generally speaking, not aware that this dichotomy does not transcend the British Isles. Desmond Morris, in Manwatching, relates that “Englishmen when travelling abroad have often been nonplussed at the total failure of this sign (palm inward) when directed, say, towards an Italian driver.” Chances are that the Italian motorist will just wave and smile, leaving the Brit in an apoplectic state.

When travelling abroad it is wise to know when your body language could become bawdy language.

Howard Richler's latest book is Can I Have a Word With You?
He can be reached at howard@theseniortimes.com.

Whose word is it anyway?

Howard Richler

Who owns a word? Recently, three residents of the island of Lesbos laid claim to the word “lesbian,” filing suit against the organization Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece for using the word “lesbian” in its name. The litigants claim the organization’s name “insults the identity” of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians. One of the plaintiffs, Dimitris Lambrou, claims that the global dominance of the word “lesbian” in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders of Lesbos and causes them world-wide humiliation.

This case brings to mind a 1998 protest that occurred in England over the name Mecca Bingo for a bingo hall chain. Muslim protesters felt insulted that the name of their holiest city be associated with gambling and this led to some violent demonstrations, although to my knowledge no legal action was launched claiming a proprietary right to the word “Mecca.” It’s also interesting to note that as Mecca Bingo Ltd. was established in 1884, the protests about the use of the name were hardly immediate.

These actions prompt the question of who owns a word. While the first OED usage of lesbian in the 17th century refers to people living on the island of Lesbos, by the end of the 19th century the term lesbian referring to same-sex female couples entered the dictionary and was entrenched in the English language. Similarly, by the middle of the 19th century, the word “Mecca” was often used for a place which attracts people of a particular group or with a particular interest.

The aforementioned contentions are by no means the only litigious possibilities. So far, no protests have been heard from the residents of Bohemia over the usurping of the word “bohemian” by artsy-fartsy vagabonds who lead irregular lives. Nor have I heard any murmurs of dissent from the residents of Donnybrook, the former Irish suburb of Dublin, that the word donnybrook has come to refer to a riotous brawl.

And where will it all end? Shouldn’t Bulgarians take umbrage that the word “bugger” comes from Bulgarian? The OED relates that it was “a name given to a sect of heretics who came from Bulgaria in the 11th century, afterwards to other ‘heretics.’” Perhaps Slovenians will come to feel that the word “slovenly” casts aspersions on them, notwithstanding the word does not derive from Slovenia, but merely sounds as if it could?

Personally, I’ll be astonished if the courts in Greece rule in favour of the Lesbos litigants. An etymological close precedent, the word gay, has long been usurped by the homosexual community. Along with merry folks, people whose first name or surname is Gay could well be upset by puerile people who ask “are you Gay?” Also, who can listen to the lyrics “don we now our gay apparel” and not be prone to a vision of cross-dressers? The reality, however, is that “gay” to refer to a homosexual is now an entrenched meaning – like it or not, words do acquire new meanings.

On the other hand, some will argue that politically correct society has decided not to use certain terms like the verbs “to jew,” “to welsh” and “to gyp” as they attribute certain traits to the Jews, Welsh and Gypsies, respectively. Clearly, these are seen as a different situation from the “bohemian” and “donnybrook” usages because there is a consensus in society that stereotyping certain groups by supposed negative traits is offensive. The Lesbians’ strongest legal argument seems therefore to rest on the fact that they are being negatively tarred and this at a time when society is largely tolerant of sexual preference. Not a compelling argument.

So, given the entrenched and acceptable nature of “lesbian” to refer to same-sex female couples, I have a suggestion for the Greek litigants. Why don’t you demonstrate largesse, and compromise by adopting the word “Lesbonians” as an English term to refer to the inhabitants of Lesbos?

Howard Richler’s latest book is Can I Have a Word With You?
He can be reached at howard@theseniortimes.com.

One man’s veranda is another woman’s gallery...

Howard Richler

During a recent party at a friend’s summer home overlooking the St. Lawrence, I commented that the “veranda commanded a magnificent view of the river.”

This anodyne declaration drew the rebuke of another guest who insisted that we were standing on a “porch” not a “veranda.” The hostess then said rather firmly, “you’re both wrong. It’s a gallery.”

A spirited discussion then ensued. Some people were insistent that a veranda must be covered, while a porch need not be. To complicate matters even further, one person averred that since the said veranda/ porch was built well above the ground, why couldn’t it be referred to as a balcony or a deck? Here at last we reached some sort of consensus and most of the attendees felt a balcony was something quite different and a deck was at ground level, similar to a patio but built of wood. Another person declared that it depended on your origins and that while Ontarians tended to opt for the word porch, Quebec Anglos were prone to say gallery. Veranda was thought to be a word from India, thus the insistence on it being covered and possibly screened.

It was an interesting albeit incon­clusive conversation and I am happy to say it ended without too much rancour having been unleashed. Since I had started the controversy by my initial innocuous declaration of it being a veranda, and since I was the supposed “language expert,” I was given the burden of investigating this semantic debate.

Here are my findings:

I feel confident asserting that the assembled revellers were not revelling on a balcony. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (COD) describes balcony as a “usually balustraded platform on the outside of a building, with access from an upper-floor window or door” and the Encarta World English Dictionary describes it as “a platform projecting from the interior or exterior wall of a building, usually enclosed by a rail or a parapet.”

But after eliminating balcony, matters become fuzzy.

The Oxford Guide to Canadian Usage (OGCU) has this entry for porch, veranda, patio, deck: “A porch can be large or small, covered or uncovered. Thus the term porch can be applied to the structures that some people call either verandas or stoops. Veranda usually labels a structure that is quite grand, attached to a large, elegant house. Patio and deck are newer terms, describing more recent additions to domestic architecture. Unlike porches, they are generally attached to a back or side entrance; neither is normally roofed. A patio is usually stone or cement, while a deck is made of wood; both are large enough to allow several people to sit in a group.”

However, this entry does not address the regionality of these terms. The COD defines veranda from Hindi varanda, from Portuguese varanda, “railing,” as a “usually roofed porch or external gallery along one or more sides of a house, especially the front,” but it adds that in Australia and New Zealand it refers to “a roof over a sidewalk in front of a shop.” If that isn’t confusing enough, the COD’s first definition of “porch” is “a covered shelter for the entrance of a house,” but its second definition adds, “North America, a veranda.” Also, a porch originally only referred to a covered entrance affording protection, but in many North American locales the term would be widely used to refer to all but the largest verandas.

Excluded from the OCGU variety of porch was the term gallery. The COD states that in North America, particularly Quebec, Newfoundland and the Gulf States, this is “a veranda, especially one surrounding a building on all sides.”

In conclusion I will say that one man’s veranda is another woman’s gallery is another guy’s porch…

Howard Richler will be attending the Ruth Richler Memorial Lecture, Aging Gracefully and Gratefully, Sunday, June 8 at 8 pm at Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom. He can be reached at howard@theseniortimes.com.

What hath progress wrought?

Howard Richler

First proposed 27 years ago by Frank Mankiewicz, a onetime aide to American Senator Robert Kennedy, the word “retronym” has finally come of age. It auditioned in the hallowed pages of the Oxford English Dictionary in September 2006, and by 2007, it was the answer to the following clue in the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle: “acoustic guitar” or “push lawn mower.” The Oxford Companion to the English Language characterizes a retronym as a “phrase coined because an expression once used alone needs contrastive qualification; acoustic guitar because of the electric guitar... mono sound equipment because of stereo sound equipment.”

Technology and science are the most prolific providers of neologisms. Space exploration has necessitated new words such as “moonwalk” and “earthrise” to describe novel experiences.

But alas, the complexity that progress has wrought extends even to language. In bygone days, one could describe things only with nouns. Not only was a rose a rose, but a book was also just a book and coffee was merely coffee. Now we must specify whether we are talking about a hardcover or softcover book (not to mention electronic or paper) or which coffee of the seemingly endless varieties. Technological innovations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries spawned a plethora of new vocabulary: “telephone” came into the language in 1849; “typewriter” in 1868; “television” in 1907; and “movie” in 1912. Due to technological advances, the above singular inventions have turned into the following retronyms: “rotary phone,” “manual typewriter,” “black & white television” and “silent movie.” (For readers of the millennial generation, I should explain the anachronistic “typewriter.” It is a single font, mechanical system for applying ink to paper that handled only alphanumeric characters.)

Remember when people just received mail? Now it could be certified mail, priority mail, email, voicemail, or snail mail, not to mention blackmail or greenmail. Due to the advent of satellite radio, we may soon be referring to the old-fashioned variety as “terrestrial radio.” Likewise, “text messaging” already necessitates distinction from “voice messaging.”

Any change in society can spawn a retronym. A partner used to be somebody with whom you shared a business venture or some manly activity such as cattle herding. Now that the sense of sharing has been extended to the concepts of “life partner” and “same-sex partner,” it has become necessary for entrepreneurs to specify “business partner.” With the development of the synthetic oil “Olestra,” we now have a “fat-free fat.” So what was previously just called fat is now, retronymically speaking, “fat-fat.”

In the old days, your grocery list might read: chips, milk, peanut butter, beer, and gum. Now we must specify if the chips are potato, corn or tortilla; if the milk is skim or whole; whether the peanut butter is crunchy or creamy; the beer, light or full; the gum, sugarless or regular.

Retronyms need not be related to commerce or technology. “Jewish ghetto” is a case in point. The original “ghetto” was a Jewish quarter in Venice in 1516, which had previously been the site of a cannon foundry. Getto is the Italian word for “foundry.” Later, the word ghetto came to mean the Jewish quarter of any city. Near the end of the 19th century, the sense was extended to refer to any poor neighborhood populated by a minority racial or cultural group. Similarly, “Italian Mafia” was once a wholly redundant term. Increasingly, however, the term Mafia is used to apply to ethnic persuasions other than Italian.

What retronyms beckon in our ever-changing world? “Human chess champion” is a safe bet. With ever-increasing fears about sexually transmitted diseases, “physical sex” (as opposed to virtual) is another retronymic possibility. With the online variety of sex you may still contract a virus, but at least it will be your computer and not you that will be crashing.

Howard Richler’s latest book is Can I Have a Word With You? He can be reached at hrichler@canada.com.

Why people are dying to have a mortgage

Howard Richler

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, nothing is certain, except death, taxes and a mortgage.

This thought comes to me during the spring of our discontent — tax season, coinciding with the arrival of The Senior Times real estate issue. The etymologically minded will have noticed that at least two of the three blights itemized above involve the departed. “Mortgage” literally means “death pledge” as it marries the Old French mort (death) and gage (pledge). The depressing idea underlining this word is that if the mortgagor fails to repay the loan, the property pledged as security is lost or “dead” to him or her.

I’m sorry to be the bearer of such cause for angst to mortgage holders, but to mitigate the pain of the word “tax,” I thought I might be able to eviscerate its sting by an etymological deconstruction of terms connected to taxation.

During the Middle Ages in England, taxes were exacted from underlings by the upper echelons of society. Among these servile dues were the merchet — a fine paid for marriage, the heriot — seizure of a family's prime beast on the death of the tenant, and the compulsory use of the lord's mill for grinding the family corn.

Not surprisingly “tax” as a verb took on the sense of “to take to task” by the 16th century and “to burden or prosecute” in the following century. “Income tax” was first introduced as a war tax in England from 1709 and occasioned this naive comment some years later: “The existing income tax should not be retained a moment after it is dispensed with.” Yeah, right!

While working on your income tax return you will no doubt encounter the nefariously wee word “fee.” Originally, under feudal law, this word referred to an estate held on condition of homage and service to your lord, who retained full ownership of the land. So although we might not be happy to pay a tax on services, we can take heart that the essence of the word was transformed as we moved from feudalism to capitalism. Originally, “fee” only referred to something owed to a superior as an obligation, whereas in the post-feudal period the word is more associated with choices available in the marketplace.

If you are exuding saline sweat and tears to earn the salary income tax is based on, you are etymologically correct. In Roman times, salt was so highly valued that soldiers were allowed a sum of money to buy salt, since salt was not easy to obtain and served the purpose of maintaining as well enhancing the savour of food. Later this money, called salarium, came to refer to the stipend paid to the soldiers. Hence, if you are indeed earning your salary, you are “worth your salt.”

If you are working your heine off to increase your purchasing power and fill coffers with goods and services taxes, take note of the original rapacious and disorderly meaning of the word “purchase.” The “pur” part is a variant of the innocuous French pour (for), but the “chase” element relates to hunting or wresting by force — in other words, obtaining an object by whatever means necessary. In Old French, an enfant de porchas did not refer to an adopted or “purchased” child but to an illegitimate one.

So, I hope this etymological perspective serves as a reminder to file your return by April 30th, and you need not feel guilty if you have attempted to lower your tax burden. Economist John Maynard Keynes claimed “the avoidance of taxes is the only pursuit that still carries any reward.”

Howard Richler’s latest book is Can I Have a Word With You? He can be reached at hrichler@sympatico.ca.