Sideburns

By now, you know for certain, that I love eponyms. And this one comes with a "twist" ;D

I would have liked to believe that Elvis Presley's facial hair style would have started the trend but you gotta see the sideburns of Ambrose Burnside to know why they were named after him :D

Ambrose Burnside was a general in theUnion Army in the American Civil War and the guy could have not attained such popularity with his military exploits as he did with his fashion statement. He was the commander of the Army of the Potomac but was relieved of his command after losing the battle of Fredericksburg. His way of wearing his side whiskers along with a moustache but clean shaven chin gave the style the name Burnside's which with time morphed into burnsides and then into sideburns as such a facial pattern was on the sides of a face.

Source: Google, Answers.com

Buckley's Chance

Buckley's Chance : No chance at all (or only a very slim chance). Also called "Buckley's and none" or "Buckley's hope".

The origin of the term isn't certain but the most popular story pins itto William Buckley (1780-1856), a British convict transported to Australia.There, he escaped and found refuge among the Aborigines for more than threedecades. When he was rediscovered he had forgotten how to speak English.Since survival in the outback was difficult it was said that anyone lostthere had Buckley's chance of making it.

Another possibility is a pun on the Melbourne department store Buckleyand Nunn, i.e. one has two chances: Buckley's or none

Source: www.wordsmith.org

Darby and Joan

Darby and Joan - An elderly married couple who live a placid, harmonious life together and are seldom seen apart.

In 1735 Henry Woodfall, a printer's apprentice, wrote a ballad titled "The joys of love never forgot: a song" about a happily married elderly couple. His inspiration for those characters was his own boss John Darby and his wife Joan:

"Old Darby, with Joan by his side,

You've often regarded with wonder:

He's dropsical, she is sore-eyed,

Yet they're never happy asunder ..."

He wrote this poem after Darby's death. This poem in turn became an inspiration for follow-up poems and eventually Darby and Joan became a metaphor. In the UK, clubs for old people are still called Darby and Joan clubs. Below is a pic of D&J figurines.

Source: www.answers.com, www.wordsmith.org, www.cartoonstock.com,

Quisling

Quisling - traitor

I seem to be in love with eponyms. There's something fascinating about people whose lives in fame (or infamy) help enrich a language. Today's word is a commonization of the last name of Vidkun Quisling (1887-1945), a Norwegian fascist politician who helped German Nazi forces to occupy Norway during World War II. Thereafter, he was made the head of the puppet government. After Germany's loss in the war, he was tried and convicted of high treason and executed.

The term quisling for traitors was coined by the British newspaper, The Times, in 1940 when they titled an article "Quislings everywhere". The word means traitor not only in English but in several European languages. Something like a modern-day Judas???

Trivia: In a wartime Norwegian cartoon, "Audience with Hitler, Quisling says: "I am Quisling", and Hitler replies: "And the name?".

Sources: www.yourdictionary.com, answers.com, Wikipedia

Images: Google: Quisling with Hitler

Maverick

Maverick- One that refuses to abide by the dictates of or resists adherence to a group; a dissenter

Remember the eccentric Thomas Hobson of "Hobson's choice" fame. Looks like he's got company. In South Texas, lived a lawyer Samuel Augustus Maverick in the mid-nineteenth century (1803-1870) who took up cattle ranching not because he was a rancher himself but 'coz a client gave him 400 hundred heads of cattle in lieu of cash. In Texas cattle grazed on the open range, without fences to keep one herd separate from another, and thus there was much opportunity for theft and disputes over ownership. To identify their cattle, ranchers branded them.

But Maverick due to reasons unknown (could be laziness or the cruelty of branding animals) would not brand his cattle and some stories say that he lost a few of his herd to his unscrupulous neighbors who would brand his cattle as their own while other claim that he was influential (being San Antonio's mayor) and hence was able instead to claim that any unbranded calf was his.

Thus, the name maverick started to be applied to all cattle without brands and writers who heard the story decided to take it beyond cattle. What better word to use for a politician who was "unbranded" by a party label, not "owned" by special interests? In the same vein, maverick began to be used for artists who were independent in their thinking and later for anyone who can be called a dissenter.

Did you know: Dude has its origin in the Wild West too??

Source: The Merriam Webster Book of Word Histories, www.answers.com
Pic: http://www.pilgrimjohnhowlandsociety.org/

Tawdry

Tawdry - Gaudy and cheap in nature or appearance

The word now pretty uncommon has a charming story to go with its origin. In the 7th century, Etheldreda, the queen of Northumbria, decided to renounce her husband and her royal position for the veil of a nun. She died of a throat tumor in 679. She blamed this growth on her love of wearing necklaces in her youth and claimed that it was sent as a punishment. After Ethelreda's death, she became a patron saint and her name was simplified to St Audrey . She was paid tribute to every year on the 17th October when a fair would be held in her name. In honour of Saint Audrey - and her fatal fondness for necklaces - ribbon and lace were sold at this fair to adorn the ladies' necks. These were called 'St Audrey's lace' which by the 17th century had become altered to 'tawdry lace' . Eventually tawdry came to be applied to all the cheap knickknacks, jewelery, and toys sold at the fair.

Sources: The Merriam-Webster Book of Word Histories
Pic: www.intimelyfashion.com

The Full Monty

One of the most peculiar things about languages is that over a period of time their grammar and semantics become surrogate to public opinion. Hence, it doesn't matter what your English teacher thought about that composition you wrote way back in the sixth standard. Chances are, if she revisits it today, she might award you a few more marks than she did last time.

Now changes can be orthogonal, in that a word or phrase may come to mean something completely unrelated to its original meaning. "Presently" being a case in point. When I was a young kid, it used to mean, "soon", or if you were into Wodehouse, "anon". Now it seems, it is generally accepted to mean "at present" or "currently". Then there are some whose meanings do a volte-face and become their own antonym. Which brings us to the topic under discussion, "the full Monty".

Popular opinion, courtesy of a movie of the same name, interprets this phrase to mean completely uncovered, or naked, or without embellishment. Here's the story behind its origin:

The most often-repeated derivation is from the tailoring business of Sir Montague Burton. A complete three-piece suit, i.e. one with a waistcoat, for a wedding etc, would be the Full Monty. There is plausible hearsay evidence from staff who worked in Burton's shops who confirm that customers were familiar with the term and often asked for 'the full monty' by name.

So, the next time you get invited to a formal do, you might want to go the full monty, without fear of being arrested on grounds of indecent exposure ;-).

Source: http://www.phrases.org.uk/ and my meandering experience.

Hobson's Choice

Hobson's Choice - An apparently free choice that actually offers no alternative or is no choice at all. In other words, the choice of taking what is offered or nothing at all.

How some people get immortalized by just being plain eccentric is proved by the origin of this phrase. Thomas Hobson (1544-1630) was the keeper of a livery stable who ran a thriving carrier and horse rental business in Cambridge, England and in order to rotate the use of his horses, allowed customers to take only the horse nearest the stable door. It's like, the horse nearest the stable door or none. Take it or leave it???

The first known written usage of this phrase is in Joseph Addison's paper "The Spectator" (1712) though it also appears in Thomas Ward's 1688 poem "England's Reformation", not published until after Ward's death (1708). Ward wrote,
"Where to elect there is but one,
'tis Hobson's choice—take that, or none."

Trivia: Henry Ford was said to have sold the Ford Model T with the famous Hobson's choice of "... any colour ... so long as it is black"

Sources: www.answers.com, http://www.phrases.org.uk/

Juggernaut

After Alwar, time again for some local lore which brings me to juggernaut . The term is used to describe any literal or metaphorical force regarded as unstoppable that will crush all in its path. In Britain, it is also used to refer to any large and heavy lorry.


The word is derived from the Sanskrit Jagannātha ("Lord of the universe") one of the many names of Lord Krishna . The connection between “lord of the universe” and an “unstoppable destructive force” is rather hard to discern. The story is centered around the ratha yatra(charriot procession) which takes place from the famous Jagannath Temple of Puri, Orissa.This event is an annual procession of chariots carrying the murtis/statues of Jagannâth (Krishna), Subhadra and Baladeva (Krishna's elder brother).


During the British colonial era, Christian missionaries promulgated a fallacy that Hindu devotees of Krishna were lunatic fanatics who threw themselves under the wheels of these chariots in order to attain salvation. Sigh. The religious mudslinging of the bygone era. Such a description was also be found in the popular fourteenth-century work "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville."


The actual fact is that devotees have sometimes been crushed accidentally in the past as the massive 45 foot tall, multi-ton chariot slipped out of control. Many have also been killed in the resulting stampedes. The sight led the Britons to use the word "Juggernaut" to refer to other instances of unstoppable, crushing forces.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Machiavellian

The inspiration for this post is drawn from 666's blog which had a small snippet on Lucrezia Borgia whose family was famed for their Machiavellian politics during the Renaissance papacy. She was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI which has me a little confused since I always thought celibacy was an important criteria for occuping the highest post of the Vatican. Her marriages were arranged to men of importance and duly terminated in a vicious manner once they ceased to be of any use to the Pope.

Coming back to the term which means someone characterized by subtle or unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency, or dishonesty. Machiavellianism is primarily the term some social and personality psychologists use to describe a person's tendency to deceive and manipulate others for personal gain.

The concept is named after Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe (The Prince), in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.

Sources : http://en.wikipedia.org, http://sixsixsixx.blogspot.com/

Silhouette

silhouette - \sil'-you-et\ noun

1: A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.
2: An outline that appears dark against a light background, outline

If you have seen the recently released movie "The Namesake" by Mira Nair, you'll remember the character, Ashoke Ganguli played by Irfan Khan repeating one of his grandfather's favorite quote, ".....that's what books are for, you can see the world without moving an inch". English as a language is a well-toured one. As, Allan Metcalf, in his book, "The world in so many words", writes "If you speak English, you know at least a bit of a hundred languages. Or more. It's true. You are a savant in French, a genius in Latin, a philosopher in Greek. If you made it through kindergarten, you have mastered a bit of German. If you have a yen to be a tycoon......you are speaking Chinese and Japanese. If you trek to paradise, you are going through Afrikaans and Persian."

That brings me to the word Silhouette...For someone who pursues photography in her spare time, this word holds a special meaning for moi. And you don't need a MOI to tell you that it migrated into English from French. You know it has French origins by the mere sound of it :)

What I found fascinating though was that it was coined after the name of a French gentleman (err....Monsieur) Étienne de Silhouette (1709–1767) who was a controller general of finances in France in the mid-eighteenth century. He was extremely niggardly with the state money as well as his own that for a time "a la Silhouette" came to mean "on the cheap". His parsimony was greeted with ridicule. Outline drawings were given his name (trust Frenchmen with an imagination like that!!!!!). He was forced out of office in less than a year, but an outline is still, in French and in English, a silhouette. :)

Sources: The Merriam-Webster Book of Word Histories
http://www.answers.com/

Pic: Moi

Update (05/04/07): by 666

I am not entirely certain but these are the caricatures which Moi is referring to. Further research proved fascinating and I hope to do a follow-up post on 'Silhouette' .. every dark cloud has a silver lining !