Toothache

Toothache (pronounced tooth-eyk)

(1) In dentistry, a pain in or about a tooth.  Technical names are dentalgia or odontalgia.

(2) In informal diplomatic code, a term whereby a diplomatic snub may be conveyed as an expression of temporary displeasure and (usually) without serious consequence.

1400s: From the pre 1050 Middle English tothache, from the Old English tōthæce, tōthece, toðece & tōþeċe, the construct being toð or tōþ (tooth) +‎ eċe (ache).  Tooth was from the Old English toð or tōþ (plural teð), from the Proto-Germanic tanthu- (the source also of the Old Saxon, Danish, Swedish and Dutch tand, the Old Norse tönn, the Old Frisian toth, the Old High German zand, the German Zahn and the Gothic tunþus) from the primitive Indo-European root hdónts & dent- (tooth).  The plural form (teeth) is an example of i-mutation.  Ache was from the Middle English aken (verb), and ache (noun), from Old English acan (verb) (from Proto-Germanic akaną (to be bad, be evil)) and æċe (noun) (from the Proto-Germanic akiz), both from the Proto-Indo-European heg- (sin, crime) and represented also in Sanskrit and Greek and probably onomatopoeic: imitative of groaning.  It was cognate with the Low German aken, achen & äken (to hurt, to ache), the North Frisian akelig & æklig (terrible, miserable, sharp, intense), the West Frisian aaklik (nasty, horrible, dismal, dreary) and the Dutch akelig (nasty, horrible).  Historically the verb was spelled ake, and the noun ache and the pronunciation likewise varied until the turn of the eighteenth century under the influence of lexicographer Samuel Johnson who mistakenly assumed it derived from the Ancient Greek ἄχος (ákhos) (pain) due to the similarity in form and meaning of the two words.  The Greek was actually a distant relation of awe and ake was a rare alternative spelling which lasted until the 1800s.

Although it seems strange, the documentary evidence suggests it wasn’t until the 1520s tooth came to be applied to the tooth-like parts of devices like saws, the phrase “tooth and nail” appearing in the next decade.  Curiously contested is the origin of the mythical tooth fairy, some sources claiming it was unknown before 1964 or even 1977 but it's mentioned in a US newspaper in 1908 and in a way that suggests no novelty of use.  Going back more than a thousand years, to Medieval Europe, the tradition of giving something of value to children in exchange for baby teeth (particularly the first which attracted a tand-fé (tooth-fee) and sometimes the sixth) is documented in Viking tradition.  Baby teeth seem to have been a concern in many cultures, some wanting them buried out of fear a witch would find them and gain power over the child, others insisting they should be burned otherwise, after death, children would spend eternity searching for them.  It's thus a long tradition but the linkage with a fairy does seem more recent, the most popular antecedent being a mouse who visited children in their sleep, replacing the baby tooth with a coin under their pillow.  In Spain and Latin America, adopted by Colgate for advertising, the rodent is called El Ratoncito Pérez or Ratón Pérez (Perez the Mouse) and the French equivalent was La Petite Souris (the little mouse).

Diplomatic toothache

The concept of the diplomatic snub predates formal diplomacy, known probably in the earliest human interactions, but as diplomatic toothache, it entered the vocabulary of international relations during a 1959 official visit to Moscow by UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (1894–1986; UK prime-minister 1957-1963 (later the first Earl of Stockton, one of the few hereditary peerages created in the last few decades)).

Harold Macmillan and Nikita Khrushchev, on the tarmac at Moscow airport, February 1959.

Macmillan’s visit, the first to Russia by a British PM since Churchill’s wartime trips, started with him making what he hoped would be a friendly gesture by wearing a Russian white fur hat (ushanka) but this was soon swapped for a black one because a foreign office advisor suggested the white, dating from his last visit to Russia during the Russo-Finnish War might cause offence, the 1940 conflict not a happy memory in the Kremlin.  The foreign office were correct but (and this does happen with the FO) for the wrong reason, the white fur purely a fashion faux pas.  When Macmillan's predecessor (Anthony Eden, 1897–1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957), visited Moscow in 1941 while foreign secretary, the Soviet foreign minister (Vyacheslav Molotov, 1890–1986; USSR foreign minister 1939-1949 & 1953-1956), showing an untypical concern for the details of protocol, told Eden "Á Moscou, Excellence, on ne porte pas la casquette de fourrure blanche" (In Moscow, Your Excellency, you don't wear a white fur hat).   

Twenty-odd years on however, the Russians seemed either not to notice or be unconcerned, the white fur attracting no comment on arrival and the prime-minister’s sartorial flourishes continued, choosing practical plus fours for his tour of collective farm, and, in a nice touch, a Guards Regiment tie when visiting a nuclear facility.  Lavish banquets followed around tables laden with champagne, vodka, caviar, salmon and Cuban cigars and all went well although, regarding the vodka, perhaps a little too well, as Macmillan would later note.

While the prime-minister was touring a Moscow research institute, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971; Soviet leader 1953-1964) was in Berlin where he delivered a truculent speech intending use Macmillan’s visit to destabilize NATO.  The next day’s Anglo-Soviet discussions were “angry and fraught”, an atmosphere not helped by both delegations being “rather drunk”.  To express his displeasure with a snub, Khrushchev the next day issued a statement saying he was taking no part in that day’s activities because he had “toothache” and the Western press promptly, and gleefully, coined the phrase “diplomatic toothache”.  Just to add emphasis, despite being indisposed by his “toothache”, the Kremlin made it known Khrushchev had spent the day in meetings with a visiting delegation from Iraq.  

Macmillan rescued the situation with some typically cynical British diplomacy and Khrushchev quickly resumed his role of genial host, telling everyone his toothache had been cured “…by a British drill” and although achievements had been modest, both sides considered the visit a success.