MAQUETTE

[Dr. Goodword]

• maquette •

Pronunciation: mah-ket • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A scale model of a project, as a maquette of a shopping center.

Notes: There is a phenomenon in linguistics known at TOT: the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. You have probably had a word on the tip of your tongue without being able to remember it; it makes you visibly agitated. The reason is that you can often remember how many syllables are in the word, where the accent falls, maybe even the letter it begins with. I think that this happened to someone trying to think of maquette and they said the closest word they could think of, which was mockup. If so, this would explain why the two words resemble each other in sound and meaning even though mock seems marginally related at best. No proof; just good, clean speculation.

In Play: Today's Good Word is used most widely among property developers of various ilk: "Jessie Noff always kept 2-3 maquettes of other architects' projects in her office to impress her clients." But if you are tired of calling two-dimensional people homunculi, here is an alternative: "Sturgis proved that he is a mere maquette of a man when, at the party for those recently laid off, he proclaimed that it was a lot of fun and we should do it more often."

Word History: This is obviously a French English swallowed whole. The French picked it up from Italian macchietta "sketch", the diminutive of macchia, which itself came from Latin macula "spot". It is a pretty good guess that macula goes back to PIE *sme(i) "rub, smear, spread", since initial [s] followed by another consonant is notoriously loose in PIE and given to dropping off occasionally. In German schmieren and English smear, with the same meanings, it seems to have stuck.

[Slava]

This is also the word the Russians use for a mock-up, scale model, etc. For some reason it took me a while to get used to it.

[saparris]

I heard this word used today by Peter Jackson in a commentary on using models in Lord of the Rings.

When I worked for 12 years as a marketing director for a large engineering/architectural firm, I never heard it. Maquettes were called models (or 3-D renderings).

Of course, I was in corporate marketing, not corporate maquetting.

[Dr. Goodword]

I think mock-up is a word concocted by people who had maquette on the tip of their tongues but couldn't quite bring it up. There are a group of words that suggest this: harry for harass and picky for picayune are two others I've been thinking about for years. The meanings of these pairs are so similar and one always doesn't make logical or grammatical sense, leaving open the question, where do they come from? I think they are slips of the tongue, slips of the ear, or both.

[LukeJavan8]

I have a neighbor who uses "harry" for bothering
the dog, when scolding her kids.

[LukeJavan8]

I heard this word used today by Peter Jackson in a commentary on using models in Lord of the Rings.

When I worked for 12 years as a marketing director for a large engineering/architectural firm, I never heard it. Maquettes were called models (or 3-D renderings).

Of course, I was in corporate marketing, not corporate maquetting.

There is another model-maker on that disc who uses
the term as well, causing me to finally look it up. I ignored
it the first time when Jackson used it, but it finally got to
me.

[saparris]

I think mock-up is a word concocted by people who had maquette on the tip of their tongues but couldn't quite bring it up. There are a group of words that suggest this: harry for harass and picky for picayune are two others I've been thinking about for years. The meanings of these pairs are so similar and one always doesn't make logical or grammatical sense, leaving open the question, where do they come from? I think they are slips of the tongue, slips of the ear, or both.

A good supposition, for sure. But mock (as in mock turtle) has been around for more than 300 years, according to etymology.com. Likewise, picky dates back to the 1800's. Harry and harass have a closer connection, both having similar meanings.

Is it not just as reasonable to assume that English speakers created mock-up--not because of the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, but because of a closeness in sound and meaning between a known, simple term (mock) and an unfamiliar one (maquette)--so that the two terms became "accidental cousins" rather than one being confused with another.

This supposition would be similar to use of the phrase "soothe the savage beast" rather than "soothe the savage breast," in that people unfamiliar with the poem have replaced "beast" with "breast." The same is true with using "data is" rather than "data are" because of an unfamiliarity with Latin plurals.

[Stargzer]

mock·up also mock-up

NOUN:

1. A usually full-sized scale model of a structure, used for demonstration, study, or testing.

2. A layout of printed matter.

Hmmm. A "full-sized scale model?" Well, I guess full size is a 1:1 scale ...

The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say:

mockup
also mock-up, "model, simulation" 1920, from mock (v.). + up.

mock(v.)
mid-15c., from M.Fr. mocquer "deride, jeer," from O.Fr., perhaps from V.L. *muccare "to blow the nose" (as a derisive gesture), from L. mucus; or possibly from M.Du. mocken "to mumble" or M.L.G. mucken "grumble." Related: Mocked; mocking; mockingly. Replaced O.E. bysmerian. Sense of "imitating," as in mockingbird and mock turtle (1763), is from notion of derisive imitation. The adjective is 1540s, from the noun.

OK, we can get "model" in the senses of "imitate" or "imitation" from that definition.

up (adv.)
O.E. up, uppe, from P.Gmc. *upp- "up" (cf. O.Fris. up; O.N. upp; Dan., Du. op; O.H.G. uf, Ger. auf "up"; Goth. iup "up, upward," uf "on, upon, under;" OHG oba, Ger. ob "over, above, on, upon"), from PIE base *upo "up from below" (cf. Skt. upa "near, under, up to, on," Gk. hypo "under, below," L. sub "under;" see sub-). Meaning "exhilarated, happy" first attested 1815. Musical up tempo (adj.) is recorded from 1948. Up-and-coming "promising" is from 1848. Phrase on the up-(and-up) "honest, straightforward" first attested 1863, Amer.Eng. Up the river "in jail" first recorded 1891, originally in reference to Sing Sing, which is up the Hudson from New York City. To drive someone up the wall (1951) is from the notion of the behavior of lunatics or caged animals.

up (v.)
earliest recorded sense is "to drive and catch (swans)," 1560, from up (adv.). Meaning "to get up, rise to one's feet" (as in up and leave) is recorded from 1643. Sense of "to move upward" is recorded from 1737. Meaning "increase" (as in up the price of oil) is attested from 1915. Cf. O.E. verb uppian "to rise." Upping block is attested from 1796.

Well, maybe we can stretch "move upward" to mean "raise" as in "raise up a model" to come up with "mockup."

Any worthwhile comments?

[saparris]

No worthwhile comments, but here's a comment:

Things are upped in so many ways (eat up, screw up, become fed up, etc,), which is why I doubt that mock-up is an TOT variant of maquette. I think mock came from an earlier word (some of which you have quoted) and went up from there.

If we can have a full-sized scale model, anything is possible.

[LukeJavan8]

to say nothing of 'throw up', 'puke up', and 'give up'.

[saparris]

to say nothing of 'throw up', 'puke up', and 'give up'.

The last up being one that Churchill advised against.

[LukeJavan8]

But he gave up the Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
all of eastern Europe to the Soviets, and all the
so called republics of the USSR, until Lithuania broke loose
in 1991.

[saparris]

But he gave up the Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, all of eastern Europe to the Soviets, and all the so called republics of the USSR, until Lithuania broke loose
in 1991.

History buffs can always come up with counter-examples.

[LukeJavan8]

Right on, or Up.

[Stargzer]

But he gave up the Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia,
all of eastern Europe to the Soviets, and all the
so called republics of the USSR, until Lithuania broke loose
in 1991.

Well, actually, Austria was occupied by all four Allied Powers until 1955, when even the Soviets left. Of course, they already had Eastern Europe, handed over by a naive Roosevelt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-adm ... ed_Austria

The Sudetenland was part of Czechoslovakia; it just happend to speak German. The Germans were pushed out, back into Germany, at the end of the war.