Dr. Goodword’s Language Blog

A old verb is currently being tossed about the networks, to turf. It seems to mean “throw or kick someone forcibly out of some organization or office”. In these days of artificial turf, how did this noun turn up as a verb meaning this?

The verb derived from the noun was first recorded in 1598. It meant “to place or lay under the turf; to cover with turf”. By the 18th century it had metaphorized to “bury”, which is a kind of cover-up with turf.

It was only in the late 19th century that to turf turned up with the meaning it has today. What happened between the 18th and 20th centuries?

In the late 19th century the phrase on the turf came to mean “on the street(s)” in the sense prostitutes are “on the street”. So this sense of turf influenced the meaning of the verb, which became “to put out on the street”.

Now, since we use the verbal particles out when we say kick out, it was natural to use turf out as a slang replacement.

D.D.D. Schulek-Miller raised a question today of which, I would think, many readers of this blog are unaware. Doug wrote:

“I grew up thinking, gosh only knows from where, probably a good grammar teacher in elementary school, that the abbreviation for Saint does not take a period after it. I suppose this helps us differentiate between street and Saint, but there is probably more to it.”

“Has that changed or am I utterly at sea on this without a grammatical St Christopher medal for help?”

They don’t place periods after abbreviations that contain the last letter of the word in the UK (and elsewhere): St Christopher, Dr Dolittle, Mr Smythe-Jones, Mrs O’Grady. In the States, we do: St. Christopher, Dr. Dolittle, Mr. Smythe-Jones, Mrs. O’Grady.

Speakers of English all over the world do place periods after abbreviations that do not end on the last letter of the word, e.g., abbr., n., v., adj., adv.

Doug, of course, is from the UK.

My old friend Richard Brockhaus long ago asked this question. Thank heaven he didn’t ask me his favorite question, the one he submitted to Saturday Night Live where it was read on a show: “What was Captain Hook’s name before he lost his hand?” That would have placed me in a pickle.

“We’re in a real pickle now” Sam says to Frodo. In my youth, being in a (baseball) rundown was called “being caught in a pickle”. Where does this come from?

In Fayetteville, NC, in the 1950′s to be or get into a pickle simple meant to be or get into a problematic situation. The girls used it more than boys, as I recall. The reason I seldom used it is that I was an interloper from red-neck country, where “step in s–t” was the preferred expression for the same meaning.

All of this, of course, is beside the point. According to most etymologists, the origin of the phrase “to be in a (pretty) pickle” is the Dutch language, where “in de pekel zitten,” “iemand in de pekel laten zitten” has been around for at least 400 years. The word pekel in Dutch can refer to the pickle or the brine that makes pickles. So the lost image is someone sitting in the brine waiting to become a pickle, probably a frightening thing when pickles were first being produced. This usage goes back to 1573, maybe 1562.

An interesting sidelight not unrelated to the meaning of the phrase: In the same century our British forebears used the phrase “in pickle” inside another phrase: “a rod in pickle”. This harkens back to the time when beating children with a rod no thicker than the thumb just didn’t do the job, so the rod used was left standing in salt brine to move the pain up a notch or two.

Brad Stafford from Down Under raised this question ages ago:

“Any chance of finding out where the phrase short shrift derives from?“

Indeed, that is no great secret. Shrift means “confession, penitence”. Shrifts usually require long penances, sometimes up to a year or even a life-time. Short shrift was a brief penance given to a person condemned to death so that absolution could be granted before execution. Presumably, any shrift would be too, too short in that situation.

The verb that this noun is derived from is shrive, shrove, shriven “to listen to confession and render absolution”. It comes from Latin scribere “to write” and shrift from Latin scriptus “writing”.

Brett Davis has written in with the following question:

“Someone just called me a twerp and, while I know what it means, I’d like
to know more about just what makes it tick.“

We only know what J. R. R. Tolkien tells us in a letter written to a friend in 1944 (published in 1981): “He lived in O[xford] at the time when we lived in Pusey Street (rooming with Walton, the composer, and going about with T. W. Earp, the original twerp).” He was referring to the poet T. W. Earp then at Exeter College, Oxford.

I heard someone say this morning, “Alls I want is a standing order.” This misspeak is spreading like grass fire. I began hearing it in the 80s, too, but the instances were few and far between. It was mostly the locals on staff but I heard a few students say it, too. I quickly corrected them in a threatening voice.

We can’t be sure if it is alls (plural) or all’s (contraction). I can’t think of a grammatical function word that ends on an S that is so frequently used with all that it would form a contraction with it. All that and all are are frequently heard together, but a contraction with these words would produce all’t and all’re, respectively.

So we are forced back to my first hypothese—unless there is a third one. All are is a plural construction but most words occurring before are end on an S. So, for consistency, an S is added to all.

Do you have a better idea?

It has become quite popular to teach babies to speak in American sign before they can speak orally. I’ve looked at several website promoting this activity, and none of them explain one thing. The process of teaching sign language to children is to repeat the word while showing the baby how to shape the sign with their hands.

The question naturally arises, if babies do not know a word, how can they recognize it and associate it with a sign?

Early in his distinguished career, Noam Chomsky wrote that comprehension is just the reverse of speaking. He never went into detail, probably because he soon discovered it isn’t true.

Comprehension far outpaces speech production. Even in adults, we recognize far more words than we can use in speech. Babies learn to comprehend far sooner than they can train the musculature of their speech tracts. The problem with tot speak is that they are unable to pronounce the large store of vocabulary that they can recognize.

I’m reminded of a funny story told by a famous semanticist. Her husband was sitting in the living room reading the paper when their 2-year-old daughter came in and said, “I want tootie”. Her father replied, “When I finish reading the paper, I will get you a ‘tootie’”. The child angrily retorted, “No! No want ‘tootie’. Want tootie!” She got her father’s attention, for he asked, “Do you want a cookie or not?” To which the child replied, “Yes. Tootie. I want tootie.”

The point of this story is that the little girl could perfectly well understand the word cookie and thought she was pronouncing it correctly. She could even tell her father was mispronouncing . But her vocal organs lagged behind her ears in development and she didn’t realize that she was mispronouncing it.

Here is a mystery. I received a message from Stefani O’daniel today that contained this complaint:

“Please tell me if I am right or wrong. I hate didn’t pronounced [diddent], not [didnt], wouldn’t pronounced [wooddent] not [woodnt], and couldn’t pronounced [kooddent] not [koodnt]. Which is right?”

“I’ve heard these words pronounced this way for the past 30 years now and iits irritating. I was told the words are pronounced this way because that is the correct pronunciation.”

I became aware of my students using these pronunciations in the 80s. Where it came from, I cannot say but I’m very suspicious of California, Valley Speak, so to speak.

N in the English language now can be pronounced as a vowel when occurring between consonants. The schwa (UH or on this website [ê]) has disappeared from the language before N between consonants. The tongue does not move between the D and the N in these words.

The T [t] is disappearing, too, in rapid speech. So the pronunciation of these words are reduced in fast speech to didn, wouldn, couldn. Now, we approaching the point where there is very little to distinguish did from didn’t, etc.

I suspect the pronunciation that so irritates you is spreading because it more clearly distinguishes the negative forms of these words from the positive. Also, it is possible that some young speakers of English don’t realize that these words are contractions involvingi not.

There is no right or wrong about this; it is normal cross-generational language change. It annoys me, too, but even more annoying is the misspelling it encourages: didn’t spelled diddent occurs 150,000 times on the Web.

John Brantley just sent me a note in connection with my treatment of glamour:

“I have also seen glamour used as type of magic spell, particularly one that affect the perception of appearance.  For example, “Marcie cast a glamour on herself to enhance her beauty.”  or “Marcie uses cosmetics as a glamour to enhance her beauty.”  Admittedly, this meaning is mostly limited to Fantasy literature, but it is reasonably widely used there.  It also clearly fits in with the word history that you describe.”

I’m not surprised that it would still be used in the world of magic. That is the world in which the two meanings parted company for most speakers of English. However, I was unaware that the usage persists even there and though you all might be interested.