Category Archives: Words, phrases & expressions

(Nick)name the landmarks

Each of these extraordinary architectural landmarks has been bestowed at some point in its history — either before, during or after its design and construction — with an appropriately colorful nickname. Clues to most of the nicknames lie in the resemblance of the buildings to common household objects — but not in every case … Can you identify them all?

Answers (nickname, official building name or address, city, and origin of nickname if not immediately apparent) will be posted tomorrow at noon.

10.

11.

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Easter — sunrise in a name

The origin of the name Easter — one of the most important days in the Christian calendar when the resurrection of Christ is commemorated throughout the Western world — is not definitive, but it’s now generally understood that its pagan etymology dates back many centuries to the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre (also Estre, Estara, Eastre, Ostara, and other variations), the goddess of sunrise. Linguistically and spiritually she is thought to be related to Hausos, the Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess, and to Austron, the Proto-Germanic goddess of fertility and spring, whose feast was almost certainly celebrated on the spring equinox, a time recognized by many pagan cultures as the start of the year and marked with important celebrations. At the heart of the names of these fruitful morning goddesses is the word East — the direction of the sunrise.

The eighth-century Christian saint, scholar and linguist Bede argued in his book De temporum ratione (“The Reckoning of Time”) that the Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted not just the name of the goddess Eostre but also many of the celebratory practices of her spring feast day for their Mass of Christ’s resurrection.

That Easter is named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess isn’t a universally accepted truth, however. The historian Ronald Hutton argues with Bede in his book Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, suggesting that “the Anglo-Saxon Eostur-monath meant simply ‘the month of opening’ or ‘the month of beginnings'”, and his theory is borne out by the fact that many of the other Anglo-Saxon month names translate as seasonal events rather than the names of gods or goddesses.

The ubiquity of buzzwords and business speak

Update, Oct 2018: You can now check your own writing for jargon, using the “Jargon Grader” app. Sic. It really does exist. …

We’re all playing Bullshit Bingo most of the time — in our heads, if not in the board room. When loud cell-phone guy on the morning commute is maximizing symbiotic deliverables, or your colleague’s powerpoint presentation is all about e-enabling mission-critical synergies, the urge to punch a fist in the air and shout “BS Bingo” can be overwhelming. But we all hear and read it and even sometimes speak or write it on a regular basis. Corporate and marketing jargon is here to stay in our daily vocabularies — at least when it comes to the media and the workplace, where formal relationships are negotiated, proposals are pitched, deals are done, speeches are delivered, products and services are advertised, and opinions or beliefs are expressed — often publicly, persuasively, delicately. But why don’t we go home and innovate cross-platform systems or expedite transparent convergences when we snuggle with our sweeties on the sofa? This relentlessly unattractive terminology seems to be born of and lend itself well to several different possible motives, which often can’t be easily discerned; they include sheer pretentiousness, vain attempts at linguistic or intellectual prowess, deliberate and strategic ambiguity, projections of authority or objectiveness, or simply being fashionable and speaking the lingo of the corporate West. Continue reading →

Why is a ship a she?

Why are ships called she?

“A ship is called a she because there is always a great deal of bustle around her; there is usually a gang of men about; she has a waist and stays; it takes a lot of paint to keep her good-looking; it is not the initial expense that breaks you, it is the upkeep; she can be all decked out; it takes an experienced man to handle her correctly; and without a man at the helm, she is absolutely uncontrollable. She shows her topsides, hiders her bottom and, when coming into port, always heads for the buoys.”

Based on this prose posted in the wardrooms of most U.S. naval ships and printed on many a tacky tea-towel (take it as mildly cheeky or inexcusably offensive), this is the explanation most people will offer up. (See also the even more chauvinistic rendering by Rear Admiral Francis D. Foley below.)

But seriously: why are ships and countries (and sometimes cars and other vessels and vehicles) often referred to with the feminine pronoun? Continue reading →

49 shades of nonsense: a thesaurus of piffle

Art is Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box … Boris Johnson wants to take over from David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party … The History Channel’s Obama-Satan resemblance … The Real Housewives franchise … The new TSA rules … George Osborne on Cyprus … Manchester United’s manager snubs a pre-match handshake … The Dow Jones Index …

These momentous news items have each been described as a load of old codswallop and poppycock by commentators in the world’s media in recent weeks — but not necessarily using that particular language. We probably don’t realize just how lucky we are to be able to draw on such a wide, rich vocabulary of words — many of them slang, a few taboo or vulgar — to identify and dismiss baloney with emphasis and flair when nonsense simply won’t do, even with the word utter placed firmly in front of it. The etymological bios of these sassy characters are often as colorful as the words themselves.

applesauce: by 1739, American English Slang attested from 1921 and noted as vogue word early 1920s. Mencken credits it to cartoonist T.A. (“Tad”) Dorgan. DAS suggests the word was thus used because applesauce was cheap fare served in boardinghouses. (OnEtDic)
balderdash: 1590s, of unknown origin; originally a jumbled mix of liquors (milk and beer, beer and wine, etc.), transferred 1670s to “senseless jumble of words.” From dash; first element perhaps cognate with Dan. balder “noise, clatter” (cf. boulder*). 1611 CHAPMAN May-day III. Dram. Wks. “S’fut winesucker, what have you fild vs heere? baldre~dash?” 1629 B. JONSON New Inn “Beer or butter-milk, mingled together..It is against my free-hold..To drink such balder-dash.” (OED)
balls: slang for testicles
baloney (also boloney): 1915–20, Americanism; first known use 1922 (MW); Bologna sausage is commonly believed to be created from lowly scraps of meat cuts. It is assumed that this food, therefore, is the origin of the slang word baloney, meaning “nonsense” or “BS”. However, the origin of the word “Baloney” is a corruption, through the French, of the city of Bologna, Italy. As the university at Bologna was known for its legal education, the French, and later English, came to call legal clap-trap “Balogna,” or “Baloney.” (Wiki)
bilge: 1510s, “lowest internal part of a ship,” also used of the foulness which collects there (OnEtDic)
blah: (1940), probably imitative or echoic in origin (Wiki)
blarney: 1796, from Blarney Stone (which is said to make a persuasive flatterer of any who kiss it), in a castle near Cork, Ireland; reached wide currency through Lady Blarny, the smooth-talking flatterer in Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield” (1766). (OnEtDic)
blatherskite: c.1650, bletherskate, in Scottish song “Maggie Lauder,” which was popular with soldiers in the Continental Army in the American Revolution, hence the colloquial U.S. use for “talkative fellow, foolish talk,” especially in early 19c. From blather (v.) + dialectal skite “contemptible person.” (OnEtDic)
blather (also blither): 1787, from the verb: 1520s, Scottish, probably from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse blaðra “mutter, wag the tongue,” perhaps of imitative origin. (OnEtDic)
bollocks (also bollix) (Brit.): 13th c. Probably a derivative of Teutonic ball-, of which the Old English representative would be inferred as beall-u, -a, or -e“. One early reference is John Wycliffe bible (1382), Leviticus xxii, 24: “Al beeste, that … kitt and taken a wey the ballokes is, ye shulen not offre to the Lord…” (any beast that is cut and taken away the bollocks, you shall not offer to the Lord, i.e. castrated animals are not suitable as sacrifices). (OED) In British slang, as an ejaculation meaning “nonsense,” recorded from 1919. (OnEtDic)
bosh (Brit.): From Turkish bos (“empty, unoccupied”). Entered popular usage in English from novels of James Justinian Morier. (Wiki)
bull/bullshit: From Middle English bull (“falsehood”), of unknown origin. Possibly related to Old French boul or boule meaning fraud, deceit, trickery (Wiki) (and see cock and bull below)
bunk, bunkum or buncombe (chiefly U.S.): 1830s, from “speaking to Buncombe” (or “for Buncombe”). In 1820, Felix Walker, who represented Buncombe County, NC in U.S. House of Representatives, rose to address question of admitting Missouri as a free or slave state. This was his first attempt to speak on this subject after nearly a month of solid debate and right before the vote was to be called. Allegedly, to the exasperation of his colleagues, Walker insisted on delivering a long and wearisome “speech for Buncombe.”He was shouted down by his colleagues.His persistent effort made “buncombe” (later respelled “bunkum”) a synonym for meaningless political claptrap and later for any kind of nonsense.The term became a joke and metaphor in Washington, then entered common usage.
claptrap: c.1730, trick to ‘catch’ applause,” a stage term; from clap (v.) + trap (n.). Extended sense of “cheap, showy language” is from 1819 (OnEtDic)
cobblers (Brit.): mid 20th c; Cockney Rhyming Slang: originates from ‘cobblers’ awls’, the pointed hand-tools that cobblers use to pierce holes in leather; rhymes with ‘balls’, meaning testicles (see above). (PhraseFinder)
cock and bull/cock (chiefly Brit.): believed to have originated from stage coach travellers’ gossip and rumor exchanged between two coaching inns, The Cock and The Bull in Stony Stratford, England. These inns were a main stopping point on the turnpike road from London to Birmingham, Chester and North Wales (for Ireland). Other commentators suggest origin is in mythical or fictional conversations among animals; however, this seems to be based on supposition that the French expression coq-a-l’ane (“cock to donkey”) has been imported into English. This is not an unreasonable supposition, since the Scots word cockalayne appears to be a direct phonetic transfer from French. (Wiki). Often shortened to cock (Brit.) and bull (American – see above).
codswallop (Brit.): Unknown, attested from 1959 episode of UK TV series Hancock’s Half Hour; proposed etymologies from sense of cod meaning “scrotum” (as in codpiece) or “joke, imitation”+ wallop (slang for beer) hence cod + wallop = “imitation beer” (Wiki)
crap: “act of defecation” 1898; sense of “rubbish, nonsense” also first recorded 1898. (OnEtDic)
crock (of shit): based on the literal meaning of crock (container); used as an image of worthless rubbish since 19c., perhaps from the use of crockery as chamberpots (OnEtDic)
crud: 1940940, U.S. slang; originally 1920s army and college student slang for “venereal disease.” Said to be a metathesis variant of curd, which actually makes it an unconscious return to the original Middle English form of that word. (OnEtDic)
drivel: Middle English, from Old English dreflian; perhaps akin to Old Norse draf meaning malt dregs; first known use: before 12th century (MW); Old English dreflian, of uncertain origin; perhaps related to draff (OED)
fiddle/fiddle-faddle/fiddlesticks: 1570s (n.); 1630s (v.), apparently a reduplication of obsolete faddle “to trifle” (OnEtDic). “Do you suppose men so easily damage their natures? Fiddlestick!” (William Makepeace Thackeray, Miss Tickletoby ‘s Lecture, 1842)
flannel (Brit.): origin in sense of nonsense unknown
flapdoodle: origin uncertain. 1833, originally “the stuff they feed fools on” [Marryat]; an arbitrary formation (OnEtDic)
folderol (also falderal): a nonsense refrain in songs; first known use c1820 (MW)
fudge: perhaps an alteration of fadge “make suit, fit” (1570s), of unknown origin. As an interjection meaning “lies, nonsense” from 1766; the noun meaning “nonsense” is 1791. Farmer suggests provincial French fuche, feuche, “an exclamation of contempt from Low German futsch = begone.” The traditional English story traces fudge in this sense to a sailor’s retort to anything considered lies or nonsense, from Captain Fudge, “who always brought home his owners a good cargo of lies” [Isaac Disraeli, 1791, citing a pamphlet from 1700]. It seems there really was a late 17c. Captain Fudge, called “Lying Fudge,” and perhaps his name reinforced this form of fadge in the sense of “contrive without the necessary materials.” (OnEtDic)
gibberish: ca. 16th c. Either onomatopeic, imitating sound of chatter, probably influenced by jabber, or derived from root of Irish gob (“mouth”) (Wiki)
guff: 1888, from earlier sense of “puff of air” (1825), of imitative origin. (OnEtDic)
hogwash: mid-15c., “slops fed to pigs,” from hog (n.) + wash (n.). Extended to “cheap liquor” (1712) then to “inferior writing” (1773) (OnEtDic)
hokum (North American): probably blend of hocus-pocus and bunkum; first known use: 1908 (MW)
hooey: US slang 1920s, origin unknown (OED); ? Russian translit. of хуй slang for penis, synonymous with cock (Chambers Dict. Slang)
horsefeathers (also horse-hockey)(U.S.): said by J. E. Lighter’s Historical Dictionary of American Slang to be euphemism for horse-shit; coined by comic-strip artist and writer William Morgan “Billy” de Beck (American Speech, 1928). Made famous by Marx Brothers’ 1932 film Horse Feathers. (Phrase Finder)
malarkey (or malarky): 1924, American English, of unknown origin (OnEtDic). Found renewed fame when Joe Biden used it to describe his opponent’s remarks during 2012 VP debates.
moonshine: In figurative use, implying “appearance without substance,” from late 15c.; perhaps connected in that sense with notion of “moonshine in water” (cf. moonraker) (OnEtDic)
nerts: 1932, originally American English college slang, colloquial or euphemistic pronunciation of nuts as slang retort of defiance or dismissal (1931) (OnEtDic)
Niagra Falls: London Cockney rhyming rhyming slang (rhymes with balls: see above). (Probert)
palaver: sailors’ slang, from Portuguese palavra “word, speech, talk,” traders’ term for “negotiating with the natives” in West Africa, metathesis of Late Latin parabola “speech, discourse,” from Latin parabola “comparison”. Meaning “idle talk” first recorded 1748. (OnEtDic)
pap: see poppycock below
piffle: Unknown, 1847. Perhaps blend of piddle and trifle; possibly puff (onomatopoeia, puff of air”) + diminutive -le (Wiki)
poppycock: 1865, American English, probably from Dutch dialect pappekak, from Middle Dutch pappe “soft food” + kak “dung,” from Latin cacare “to excrete” (OnEtDic)
rhubarb (Brit.): repeated by actors to give the impression of murmurous hubbub or conversation. Hence allusively. (OED)
rot: From Middle English rotten, roten, from Old English rotian (“to rot, become corrupted, ulcerate, putrify”) (Wiki)
shmegegge (Yiddish): from the Yiddish sh- + megege meaning “dawdler, idler” (Encarter)
spinach: In 1930s colloquial American English, it had a sense of “nonsense, rubbish,” based on a famous New Yorker cartoon of Dec. 8, 1928. (OnEtDic)
tommyrot: 1884, from tommy in sense of “simpleton” (1829), diminutive of Tom (as in tomfool) + rot (see above) (OnEtDic)
tosh (chiefly Brit.): Origin unknown; possibly derived from tosheroon (“5 crowns”), therefore something of minimal worth. (Wiki)
tripe: from Middle English, from Old French tripe (“entrails”) (Wiki). Applied contemptuously to persons (1590s), then to anything considered worthless, foolish, or offensive (1892) (OnEtDic)
twaddle: variant of an older word, twattle (mainly dialectal and not recorded much in print) meaning to talk foolishly or idly or to chatter inanely. A twattle-basket was a chatterbox. It seems to have been itself a variation on tattle, as in tittle-tattle, another English reduplicated term, also written as twittle-twattle. OED notes that these, and other forms, are probably echoic in origin and are primarily colloquial (World Wide Words)
waffle: derived from waff, a 17th-century onomatopoeia for sound of dog barking, similar to modern woof. (Wiki)

Other common informal and vulgar synonyms for nonsense relate to refuse and excrement: eg. trash, garbage, rubbish, shit, crap, horse-shit (origins of sense of nonsense varied and unknown)

OED = Oxford English Dictionary
OnEtDic = Online Etymology Dictionary
MW = Merriam Webster
Wiki = Wikipedia, Wiktionary

Songs my childhood taught me 6: Songs my mother taught me

Today is Glossophilia’s second birthday, and to mark the occasion (and ending Glossophilia’s short series of posts about childhood rhymes, songs and words), I’m dedicating this post to my mum and my grandma, and the songs they taught and sang to me.

One of my favorites, which my mum often sang when she was tucking me into bed, was one she wrote herself when she was about 10 or 11 years old:

The moon shone red and animals stood on their heads when I kissed you last night.
The stars stood still to hear you say I will, when I kissed you last night.
Trees were walking and fishes flew
The sky was green and the grass was blue.
The whole darned world was topsy turvy coz of you
When I kissed you last night.

— Maureen (Jane) Cornwell

To calm me when I was upset, she would sing this little song that her own mum sang to her, probably dating from the Great Depression:

Don’t cry little girl, you can share your home with me.
Though we’ve got no table and we’ve got no chairs
We’ve got no windows and we’ve got no stairs
It’s just a humble doorstep, but you’re as welcome as can be.
So don’t cry little girl. Don’t you cry little girl.
You can share your home with me.

The songs my sister and I sang at the piano with our mum were many, but one of my favorites was “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes”, an old English song setting of an Elizabethan poem “Song To Cecilia” by Ben Johnson. Here’s a lovely version of it sung by Johnny Cash. Other childhood chestnuts were “Early One Morning”, an old English folk song (sung here by the New College Choir, Oxford), and “Cherry Ripe”, an early 19th-century English song (sung here by Salome Jiqia), as well as Creole ballads and spirituals from the songbook of Charity Bailey, whom the New York Times described as “a young woman with a sad, sweet and rather light voice”. And we especially loved “Brother, Come and Dance With Me” from Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel, which was almost certainly on the program in this short home cine film.

Here’s a song and a few sayings that were passed down from my beloved grandmother, a survivor — along with my mum and aunt — of the London Blitz who asked for just two pieces of music to be sung and played at her funeral: “We’ll Meet Again”, made famous by the war-time singer and “the forces’ sweetheart” Vera Lynn, and the theme tune from Match of the Day, one of the BBC’s long-running TV shows. That was my Grandma. (And this TV theme will always remind me of her too.) She taught my Mum this fun little ditty that we grew up with:

“Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey, A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?” This was a novelty song written in the early 40s by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston. Recorded by the Merry Macs on Decca, it became an unlikely pop song hit and reached Number 1 in March 1944. The words were a nonsensical reworking of this phrase “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy, a kid’ll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”, which in turn was apparently based on an English nursery rhyme brought home from school in undecipherable form by one of the songwriters’ young children.

Here are some other sayings that my Grandma passed down through my mum, that delighted our little ears and minds:

“There’s a terrible lot to do today that you today must do today and if today you do today what you today must do, you’ll find today and every today a better today for us.”

“Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you. For if you trouble trouble, you’ll only double trouble, and trouble others too …”

“How many beans make five? A bean and a half, a bean and a half, half a bean and a bean and a half.”

“The other day, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish to God he’d go away.”

We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,
don’t know when.
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.

Keep smiling through,
Just like you always do,
Till the blue skies drive those dark clouds, far away.

So will you please say hello,
To the folks that I know,
Tell them I won’t be long,
They’ll be happy to know
that as you saw me go
I was singing this song .

We’ll meet again,
don’t know where,
don’t know when,
But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.

— Ross Parker

Songs my childhood taught me 4: Ad slogans and jingles

You probably have to have spent a good chunk of your childhood in ’70s England to get the full effect of this Proustian post.

The real age of advertising was born and flourished in New York City in the 50s and 60s, when Don Draper and the Mad Men of Madison Avenue found ingenious ways to turn life’s most prosaic things into necessities using just a few simple words and pithy phrases. As Don himself explained: “Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.” British advertising enjoyed its heyday about a decade on from these heady, smokey, whiskey-hued days of the swinging sixties; the slick English admen of the 70s produced some of the stickiest slogans in the business. Just read these catchphrases and jingles from that time and place, and you’ll be humming the soundtrack of your youth and transported back to those innocent days of Turkish Delight, Walker’s Crisps and Opal Fruits before you can say “Cookability…”.

“And all because the lady loves …” “Made to make your mouth water” “Any time any place anywhere …” Bet you don’t have any trouble filling in the blanks, but if you do and Google fails you, don’t despair: I’ll fill them in next week.

(One of the following slogans was written by a lowly advertising copywriter who went on to become a very famous writer: Guess which one — and the author — in the comments section below …)

Easy peasy lemon —

Beanz meanz —

Up, up and away with —

— are a minty bit stronger

— … The growing up spread

Clunk click every trip

—- Made to make your mouth water

And all because the lady loves —

Happiness is a cigar called —

Anytime anyplace anywhere … —

Naughty but nice

Let your fingers do the walking

A —. a day helps you work rest and play

M’m! m’m! Good, M’m! m’m! Good, That’s why — is M’m! m’m! Good

— refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach

For mash get —

Just one —, give it to me, Italian ice-cream from Italy

A finger of fudge is just enough to give your kids a treat

Bet you can’t eat just one

Cookability, that’s the beauty of —

Is she or isn’t she?

Songs my childhood taught me 3: Tongue-twisters

Yeah yeah … We all know what sort of vegetable Peter Piper picked, what that clueless lady sold on the seashore, and what was on Bitty Batter’s shopping list. But why are these inane repetitive statements shared with such regularity and delight — especially amongst kids? Because they’re tongue-twisters: the floor exercises of lingual gymnastics, the fun and games of a challenging oral workout. They are phrases or short pieces of prose designed deliberately damned difficult to articulate, and their fun lies not in their poetry or meaning but purely in the sport of pronunciation. Unlike the Freudian slip, in which deepest darkest secrets spill out of minds and mouths on the wings of a subconscious urge to express oneself, these twisters are tongue catnip, messing only with our physiology and not with our ids or superegos; and when the forced errors inevitably occur, our prize is hilarity — sometimes of the vulgar kind. Tangle your tongues with these.

Peter Piper picked a pick of pickled peppers;
a peck of pickled peppers, Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.
The shells she sells are sea-shells, I’m sure.
For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Then I’m sure she sells sea-shore shells.

Bitty Batter bought some butter
“But,” said she, “this butter’s bitter.
If I put it in my batter,
It will make my batter bitter.”
So she bought some better butter,
And she put the better butter in the bitter batter,
And made the bitter batter better.

Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle-sifter,
While sifting a sieve-full of unsifted thistles,
Thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.
Now if Theophilus Thistle, while sifting a sieve-full of unsifted thistles,
Thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb,
See that thou, while sifting a sieve-full of unsifted thistles,
Thrust not three thousand thistles through the thick of thy thumb.
Success to the successful thistle-sifter!

Red Leather, Yellow Leather

Red lorry, yellow lorry

Cecily thought Sicily less thistly than Thessaly.

Eleven benevolent elephants

Unique New York

Black background, brown background

A skunk sat on a stump, The stump thunk the skunk stunk, The skunk thunk the stump stunk.

Six gray geese grazing gaily into Greece. “What eat ye, gray geese? Green grass, gray geese?”

Five brave maids, sitting on five broad beds, braiding broad braids. I said to those five brave maids, sitting on five broad beds, braiding broad braids, “Braid broad braids, brave maids.”

A cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee pot.

She sawed six slick, sleek, slim, slender saplings.

Cross crossings cautiously.

The seething sea ceaseth, and thus the seething sea sufficeth us.

Now, careful with these, please: not in front of the children …

I’m not the fig plucker,
Nor the fig pluckers’ son,
But I’ll pluck figs
Till the fig plucker comes.

Mrs Puggy Wuggy has a square cut punt.
Not a punt cut square,
Just a square cut punt.
It’s round in the stern and blunt in the front.
Mrs Puggy Wuggy has a square cut punt.

Mrs Hunt had a country cut front in the front of her country cut pettycoat.

Six stick shifts stuck shut.

Songs my childhood taught me 2: Mnemonic phrases

How would we be able to remember all the most essential information of the world — like the colors of the rainbow (in correct order), the planets of our solar system (in the order in which they radiate out from the sun), or what happened to each of Henry VIII’s wives (in chronological order) — without that magical thing called a mnemonic? (The word, whose initial m is silent, is derived from the ancient Greek mnemonikos, meaning “of memory”, and is related to Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory in Greek mythology; both words come from mneme — “remembrance” or memory”.) This strangely named device is created specifically to aid in the retention and memorization of information; it can come in different forms, but is usually verbal, ie. a short poem, an acronym (see Glossophilia’s earlier post on acronyms here), or a word or phrase made memorable by dint of its humor, absurdity or easy rhyme. Our childhoods and especially our classrooms stocked our minds with these memory aids that are more enduring and accessible than Google or any other encyclopedic resource. Who needs an app to remember how many days are in the current month, whether to spell it receive or recieve, and whether to set your clocks an hour later or earlier when we have our mnemonics permanently on tap?

Here’s a selection of those that have stuck around in my cerebellum for decades, bouncing forward like Beatles lyrics when their services are called upon, and then tucked away for safekeeping until the next time a list of England’s monarchs is needed.

Am I forgetting any? …

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain — colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet)

My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets — planets in the solar system (before Pluto was disqualified)

Spring forward, fall back — how to reset your clocks at the beginning and end of daylight savings time

Every Good Boy Deserves Fun — notes on the lines of the treble clef

FACE — notes in the spaces of the treble clef

Good Bikes Don’t Fall Apart — notes on the lines of the bass clef

All Cows Eat Grass — notes in the spaces of the bass clef

No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely — the royal houses of the English monarchy (Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover, Windsor)

Large Elephants Jump Slowly and Sink Rapidly — the seven articles of the US Constitution (legislative, executive, judicial, supremacy, amendment, statehood, ratification)

Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived — the respective fates of Henry VIII’s wives

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally — the order of operations in mathematics (parentheses, exponents, multiply, divide, add, subtract)

Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually — notes of standard-tuned guitar strings

I before E, except after C — a spelling reminder

When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking — another spelling aid

HOMES — North America’s great lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior)

Number of days in each month:

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Save February, with twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine each leap year.

English monarchs – in chronological order of reign:

Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry three;
One, two, three Neds, Richard two
Harrys four, five, six… then who?
Edwards four, five, Dick the bad,
Harrys twain VII VIII and Ned the Lad;
Mary, Bessie, James the Vain,
Charlie, Charlie, James again…
William and Mary, Anna Gloria,
Four Georges I II III IV, William and Victoria;
Edward seven next, and then
George the fifth in 1910;
Ned the eighth soon abdicated
Then George the sixth was coronated;
After which Elizabeth
And that’s the end until her death.

2012 update:
Now it’s Liz, then we’ll arrive . . .
At Charlie three, then William five.

Chaucer, mating birds, a fertility festival: Valentine’s Day

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
— Chaucer, Parlement of Foules, c.1381

Valentine is a name (usually masculine) derived from the Roman family name Valentinus, which in turn comes from the Latin word valens meaning “strong, vigorous and healthy”. Valentine was the name of several saints of the Roman Catholic Church. As an English Christian name, Valentine has been used occasionally since the 12th century; it was first recorded as a given name in Wiltshire’s Curia Rolls in 1198 — as Valentinus. The surname was first recorded in the mid 13th century.

How did St. Valentine’s Day (on February 14) come to be associated with romantic love? It certainly has nothing to do with the name Valentine itself. There was a Saint Valentine, a 3rd-century saint and martyr ,whose feast day fell on February 14 — a day before the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia that was observed on February 15. With the rise of Christianity in Europe, pagan holidays were often renamed for and even moved to the feast days of early Christian martyrs in order to boost participation and involvement in church occasions, so it’s possible that the fertility festival and Valentine’s feast day became one — and so assumed the notions of romantic love associated with mating and fertility.

As Chaucer wrote in his Parlement of Foules in the late 14th century, Valentines was the day in early spring on which birds would choose their mates; some argue that this was the reason for Valentine’s Day — named after the saint and his feast day — to be thought of as one of love.