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

Yellow Journalism

Yellow Journalism - Journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers.

Sounds familiar??

Blame it on my jaunt to Key West that's only 90 miles away from Cuba, but suddenly I am fascinated to dig more on Spanish-American War of 1898. And luckily for moi, etymology and history lessons go hand-in-hand :)

In 1890's Jospeh Pulitzer (of Pulitzer Prize fame) owned New York World and his major rival was New York Journal's owner William Randolph Hearst. The World had a popular comic strip running called "Hogan's Alley" which featured a yellow-dressed character named the "the yellow kid." William Randolph Hearst copied Pulitzer's sensationalist style and even hired "Hogan's Alley" artist R.F. Outcault away from the World. In response, Pulitzer commissioned another cartoonist to create a second yellow kid. Soon, the sensationalist press of the 1890s became a competition between the "yellow kids," and the journalistic style was coined "yellow journalism."

The question arises, what's it's connection with Cuba and Spanish-American War of 1898?

The story goes that, William Randolph Hearst understood that a war with Cuba would not only sell his papers, but also move him into a position of national prominence. Cuba was a colony of Spain and was fighting a guerrilla war with Spain to achieve independence. From Cuba, Hearst's star reporters wrote stories designed to tug at the heartstrings of Americans. The message was simple: Cuba was helpless and the U.S. must intervene. Sounds familiar again????

Trivia: The trivia here is what they call yellow journalism's "finest" moment.At 9:40pm on February 15, 1898, the American battleship Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, killing 268 men. Hearst, especially, seized on this tragedy to accuse Spain of sinking the ship, without any proof whatsoever.(Recent research suggests it may have been an accident.) War ensued, and, some say, this was the first press-driven war.

Sources : www.answers.com, http://www.pbs.org/crucible/frames/_journalism.html

Pic : http://www.answers.com/

Grapevine

Grapevine - Informal/Unofficial path of verbal communication (by means of gossip and rumor)

Some wise man claimed, "Gossip is nature's telephone." ....and we'll soon discover, how!!! :)
The term comes from the expression, "grapevine telegraph", and was supposedly invented in US during the early 1850's, after the invention of telegraph in 1840's. Samuel Morse's first line was opened between Washington and Baltimore on 24th May 1844 and was an immediate success. The straight copper wires of electric telegraph were supposed to carry truthful information. The term "grapevine telegraph" came into being to accentuate the idea of distorted information that travels by word of mouth and drew its inspiration from the twisted stems of the grapevine (but like real telegraph is capable of transmitting vital messages quickly over long distances).

The first recorded usage, according to John Lighter in The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, was in a political dictionary of 1852, which included the sentence "By the Grape Vine Telegraph Line .......we have received the following ". There are various early references that suggest that it was associated with clandestine communication among Southern blacks, especially the slaves and gained high popularity and acceptance during the American Civil War period.

Trivia: It was widely acknowledged that the blacks' communications network was extremely useful to the Union cause, as John G. Nicolay and John Hay reported in "Abraham Lincoln: A History" in 1888, calling it "one of the most important and reliable sources of knowledge to the Union commanders in the various fields, which later in the war came to be jocosely designated as the 'grape-vine telegraph'".

Sources: www.answers.com, http://www.phrases.org.uk/
Pic : Neighborly gossips in the Altstadt in Sindelfingen, Germany (Sourced form : http://en.wikipedia.org/)