Ginger

Ginger (pronounced jin-jer)

(1) Any of several zingiberaceous plants of the genus Zingiber (especially Zingiber officinale of the East Indies), native to South Asia but now cultivated in many tropical countries and noted for the pungent, spicy rhizome used in cooking and medicine (Ginger is one of the oldest known “anti-seasickness treatments).

(2) The underground stem of this plant, used fresh or powdered as a flavouring or crystallized as a sweetmeat.

(3) The rhizome of Zingiber officinale, ground, chopped etc, used as a flavoring.

(4) In informal use, piquancy; animation; liveliness; vigour.

(5) A reddish-brown or yellowish-brown colour

(6) A female given name, form of Virginia or Regina (also used of red-headed men as a nickname).

(7) In zoology, a given name for animals having ginger- or orange-coloured fur or feathers.

(8) Flavored or made with ginger, the spicy rhizome of the Zingiber officinale plant.

(9) In informal use, someone with “red” hair (a range which includes the various shades of ginger).

(10) In cockney rhyming slang, a bit of a homosexual (based on “ginger beer” (ie “queer”)).

(11) In slang, Ginger ale, or can or bottle of such (especially if dry).

(12) In colloquial use in Scotland (prevalent especially in Glasgow), any fizzy soft drink, or can or bottle of such (especially the famous Iron Brew).

(13) To treat or flavor with ginger, the spicy rhizome of the Zingiber officinale plant (to add ginger to).

(14) In informal use, to impart piquancy or spirit to; enliven (usually in the form “ginger up”).

(15) As a regionalism, very careful or cautious (also, delicate; sensitive).

Pre 1000: From the Middle English gingere, an alteration of gingivere, from the Old English ginȝifer & ginȝiber (gingifer & gingiber) (influenced by Old French gingivre & gingembre), from the Medieval Latin gingiber & zingiber (the Latin zingiberi from the late Ancient Greek ζιγγίβερις (zingíberis)), from the Prakrit (Middle Indic) singabera, from the Sauraseni Prakrit śr̄ngaveram, the construct being śr̄nga- (horn) + vera- (body), an allusion to the typical shape of the plant’s root when harvested which may be compared with the Old Tamil iñcivēr and the Tamil இஞ்சிவேர் (iñcivēr), the construct being இஞ்சி (iñci) (ginger) + வேர் (vēr) (root)).  Not all etymologists agree with the orthodox derivation of śr̄ngaveram, suggesting it may be Sanskrit folk etymology and the word may be from an ancient Dravidian word that also produced the modern name for the spice used in the Tamil.  The dissidents argue the Tamil iñci must at some point have had an initial “ś” and the Sanskrit śṛṅgabera was an imitation of the (supposititious) Tamil ciñcivēr with the European zingiber coming from the Tamil name.  Ginger is a noun, gingerness & gingerliness are nouns, gingering is a verb, gingered is a verb & adjective, gingerish, singersome, gingerlike & gingerish are adjectives, gingerly is an adjective & adverb and gingerliness is an adverb; the noun plural is gingers. The adjectives ginger-free & gingerless are non-standard but have appeared on menus and in the software in restaurant PoS (point-of-sale systems).  The adjectives gingerer & gingerest do exist but are now so rare as to be archaic.

It’s believed the word re-entered Middle English under the influence of twelfth century Old French gingibre (which in Modern French endures as gingembre).  As a reference to coloring, the first recorded use was of fighting cocks, dating from 1785, extended to persons exactly a century later (although of hair alone it was used thus in the 1850s).  The sense of “spirit, spunk, temper” was a creation of mid nineteenth century US English. Ginger-ale was first advertised in the early 1820s, the term adopted by manufacturers to distinguish their product from ginger beer (on sale since 1809 and the central exhibit in Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, a landmark case in tort law, heard before the House of Lords) which sometimes was fermented.  The ginger-snap was a hard cookie (biscuit in UK use) flavored with ginger, the product on sale by at least 1855.

Arnott’s Ginger Nuts.

In various forms and sold under several names (ginger-snap, ginger biscuit, ginger cookie, gingernut etc), ginger snaps are one of the planet’s most popular cookies (biscuits) and while ginger (usually powdered because it’s most suited to the industrial production of food) obviously is the common flavoring, other ingredients sometimes used include cinnamon, molasses and cloves.  The recipes vary although all tend to produce hard, brittle cookies and are much favoured by those who lie to dunk the things in their tea or coffee (softening it) which does seem to defeat the purpose but dunking really is a thing.  Between countries ginger-snaps differ greatly but even within markets there are culinary regionalisms: The Griffin’s Gingernut is New Zealand’s biggest selling biscuit and the whole country is supplied using the same recipe but in Australia, Arnott’s Ginger Nuts vary in size, color, hardness and taste between states and that was not a deliberate corporate decision but the product of M&A (mergers & acquisitions) activities beginning in the 1960s when the Arnott’s Group was created, a number of previously independent local bakeries absorbed; fearing a revolt, it was decided to retain the long-established recipes.  All Ginger Nut biscuits are sold in 250g packages but while WA (Western Australia), SA (South Australia) and the NT (Northern Territory) share a common “sweet” mixture, those living in Victoria and Tasmania enjoy an even sweeter flavour (closer to similar biscuits sold overseas which are both larger and softer in texture).  In NSW (New South Wales) and the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) a “thick and hard” Ginger Nut is sold and Queensland (always different) enjoys a unique “thin, sweet and dark” product.  Arnott’s also revealed as well as differences in the mix, the baking time varies between varieties, accounting for the color and hardness.  For those wishing to make comparisons, there’s a choice of comparatives: (“more ginger” or (the rare) “gingerer” and superlatives: “most ginger” or (the rare) “gingerest”.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1968) and her sister Ali (b 1993) making gingerbread houses on the Drew Barrymore (b 1975) Show (CBS Media Ventures), November, 2022.

The noun gingerbread was from the late thirteenth century gingerbrar (preserved ginger), from the Old French ginginbrat (ginger preserve), from the Medieval Latin gingimbratus (gingered,) from gingiber.  It was folk etymology which changed the ending to -brede (bread) and in that form the word was in use by the mid-1300s; by the fifteenth century it had come to mean “sweet cake spiced with ginger” although the still popular confection “gingerbread man” wasn’t known until circa 1850.  The figurative use (indicating anything thought fussy, showy or insubstantial) can be regarded a sort of proto-bling and emerged around the turn of the seventeenth century; in domestic architecture or interior decorating it was used as a critique by at least the late 1750s, use possibly influenced by the earlier “gingerbread-work” which was sailor’s slang for the often elaborately carved timberwork on ships.  Bling not then being in use, the term “gingerbread” often was used of the increasingly rococoesque detailing being applied to US cars by the late 1950s and it was revived as the interiors became “fitted out” in the 1970s although stylists (they weren’t yet “designers”) preferred “gorp”.  Decades before, as a noun, becoming Detroit styling studio slang, gorp was (as a verb) defined as meaning “greedily to eat” and it’s believed the alleged acronyms “good old raisins and peanuts” & “granola, oats, raisins, peanuts” are probably backronyms.  What the stylists were describing was the idea of “adding a bit of everything to the design”, the concept illustrated by creations such as the 1958 Buick, the design imperative of which was "combine as many as possible differently-shaped chrome bits & pieces".  Gorp intrinsically was "added on gingerbread" and shouldn't be confused with something like the 1958 Lincoln which was relative unadorned (ie un-gorped) and gained its distinctiveness from the design imperative "combine as many as possible shapes, curves, lines & scallops.  Of course, the two approaches can appear in unison, witness the 1961 Plymouths.

Some of Detroit's guesswork about public taste: 1958 Buick Limited (gingerbread, left), 1958 (Lincoln) Continental Mark III (shapes, right) and 1961 Plymouth Fury (everything, right).

The phrase “gin up” (enliven, make more exciting) is now often used as “gee-up” but the original was first recorded in 1887 (“ginning” (the act of removing seeds from cotton with a cotton gin) in use by at least 1825) and while it’s been speculated there may be some link with “gin” (in the sense of “engine”, the best known being the “cotton gin”) most etymologists think it improbable and think it more likely the origin lies in the characteristics if the root of the plant as used in food (spicy, pizzazz) and most compelling is the entry for feague (used in its equine sense): “...to put ginger up a horse's fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well; it is said, a forfeit is incurred by any horse-dealer's servant, who shall shew a horse without first feaguing him.”  The figurative use of feague (encouraging or spiriting one up) has faded but “gee up” remains common.”  So, for dressage or other equestrian competitions in which the judges liked to see a horse’s tail elegantly raised (al la the high ponytail perfected by the singer Ariana Grande (b 1993)), a stable-hand’s trick for achieving this was to insert an irritant (such as a piece of peeled raw ginger or a live eel) in its anus, an additional benefit being it “increased the liveliness of the beast”.  That means when modern young folk speak of “geeing up” or a “a gee up”, they’re referring (figuratively) to shoving some ginger up someone’s rectum; presumably, most are unaware of the linguistic tradition.

Ariana Grande and ponytail.

According to Ariana Grande, the “snatched high ponytail” she made her signature look was better described as a “high extension ponytail” because extensions were used for added length and volume.  It’s a dramatic look but the health and beauty site Self cautioned wearing the style is not risk-free and for some wearers pain may be unavoidable.  Interviewed, dermatologist Dr Samantha Conrad explained hair follicles are the “little pockets of skin that surround the root of a hair” while the “nerves and blood vessels in the scalp feed those roots”.  What happens when hair is pulled tightly back and elevated, it puts the hair “at a sharp angle”, placing “tension on the follicles”, causing “some strangulation of the unit”.  Because this tension is exerted on the nerve endings, there can be pain, something exacerbated if the hair is long and thick (or augmented with extensions) because the extent of the tension is so influenced by weight, physics dictating additional mass will induce greater “traction on the hair follicle”.  Pain obviously can be an issued but the consequences can be more serious, dermatologist Dr Joshua Zeichner explaining “chronic traction on the hair follicles can cause permanent thinning of the hair”, a phenomenon described as “traction alopecia”.

Ariana Grande, on stage, Coachella, November, 2018.

Ominous as all that sounds, the doctors say it’s not necessary entirely to abandon the high ponytail because the issue isn’t the style but the implementation, the critical factor being how tightly the hair is pulled from the scalp.  Tension alopecia can occur with any tightly-pulled ponytail, plait or braid so the trick is to avoid excessive tension, the recommended approach to create a “high pony” and then gradually loosen the area in front of the elastic.  Obviously, the greater the mass of the hair, physics  dictates it will be less inclined to retain a shape tending from the vertical at the scalp so those handling much volume will probably have to resort to some sort of at least semi-rigid tubular device through which the strands can pass to be supported.

Roland DG's 50 Shades of Ginger illustrates the extent to which the spectrum can spread (centre).  Natural redhead Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left) in 2012 illustrates a classic implementation of what most probably thing of as “ginger hair” while Jessica Gagen (b 1996; Miss England 2022, Miss World Europe 2023 & Miss United Kingdom 2024) appears (during heatwave, right) with what would be classified by many as a “light copper” rather than some hue of “ginger”.  Interestingly, reflecting the often disparaging use of the word (in the context of hair) “ginger” appears only infrequently on manufacturers' hair dye color charts.

Ginger can be used to describe those with “red” hair (a term which covers quite a range including shades of ginger in the conventional sense that is used of color) and such may be jocular, in disparagement or neutral.  In slang, a “ginger minger” was “an unattractive woman with ginger hair” and their “ginger minge” was their pubic hair; the male equivalent was a “ginger knob”.  In the hierarchy of vulgar slang, fire-crotch (a person who has red pubic hair) probably is worse but it should not be confused with “lightning crotch” (in obstetrics, the condition (suffered late in pregnancy), of having intense pain shoot through the vaginal area, induced especially by the baby's head lowering and bumping into the pelvis).  While a “normal symptom of pregnancy” and not typically a cause for medical intervention, it can be unpleasant; what is happening is the fetus is applying pressure on the cervix or the nerves surrounding the cervix (the cervix the lowest part of the uterus where a fetus develops).

One with a preference for ginger-haired souls could be said to be a gingerphile while one with an aversion would be a gingerphobe.  The matter of gingerphobia was explored by the US television cartoon show South Park (on Paramount+'s Comedy Central since 1997) in the episode Ginger Kids (season 9, episode 11, November 2005) in which was introduced the noun gingervitis (a portmenteau word, the construct being ginger +‎ (ging)ivitis); in pathology, the condition gingivitis is an inflammation of the gums or gingivae.  What South Park’s writers did was provide the gingerphobic with something of a rationale, gingervitis treating red headedness as if it were a disease or affliction.  Linguistically, it could have been worse: in German the synonym for gingivitis is the compound noun Zahnfleischentzündung and “zahnfleischentzündungvitis” sounds an even more distressing condition.  Neither gingerphobia nor gingervitis have ever appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM, in nine editions 1952-2022). 

In Cockney rhyming slang (a cant used by Cockneys in which a word or phrase is replaced by a rhyming word or phrase, this word or phrase then often being abbreviated to its first syllable or syllables, or its first word with the word chosen as the rhyme sometimes sharing attributes with the word it replaces) “ginger” meant “a bit of a homosexual” (based on the “beer” in “ginger beer” (ie “queer”)).  If that didn’t please, there was also (1) “Brighton Pier” (queer from “pier”), (2) “iron” (poof from “iron hoof”), (3) “perry” (homo from “Como) (this was purely phonetic, the popular singer Perry Coma (1912-2001) was not gay) and (4) “haricot” (queen from “haricot bean).  However, the guides caution “stoke” (bent from “Stoke-on-Trent”) references “bent” in the sense of both “gay” and “criminal” so it should be deployed with care.

The modest root of the plant (partially sliced, top left) and some of the packaged confectionery which are ginger-based.

For a variety of purposes (culinary, zoological, botanical, geological etc, dozens of derived forms have been created including: African ginger, aromatic ginger, baby ginger, black ginger, bleached ginger, blue ginger, butterfly ginger, Canada ginger, Chinese ginger, Cochin ginger, common ginger, dry ginger, Egyptian ginger, gingerade, ginger ale, ginger beer, gingerbread, ginger bug, ginger cordial, gingerette, ginger grass, ginger group, ginger-hackled, Ginger Island, gingerism, gingerlike, gingermint, ginger ninja, ginger nut, gingernut, gingerol, gingerous, gingerphobe, gingerphobia, ginger-pop, ginger root, gingersnap, gingersome, ginger wine, gingery, gingette, green ginger, Indian ginger, Jamaica ginger, Japanese ginger, kahili ginger, knock down ginger, knock-knock ginger, limed ginger, mango ginger, new ginger, pinecone ginger, pink ginger, race ginger, red ginger, sand ginger, sea ginger, shampoo ginger, shell ginger, Siamese ginger, spiral ginger, spring ginger, stem ginger, stone-ginger, Thai ginger, torch ginger, white ginger, wild ginger, yellow ginger & young ginger.

In De materia medica (On Medical Material), his five volume encyclopedic pharmacopeia on herbal medicine and related medicinal substances, the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides (circa 40-circa 90) included an entry for ζιγγίβερις (zingiberis) (ginger) as treatment for stomach and digestive ailments, in addition to its properties as “a warming spice”.  The historian Pliny the Elder (24-79) also discussed zingiber, noting its origin from Arabia and India and the use in medicine, especially for the stomach and digestion.  The use was picked up by physicians (officially recognized and not) in many places, both as a stimulant and acarminative (preventing the development of gas in the digestive tract) but despite the persistent myth, no document has ever been unearthed which suggests in Antiquity ginger was ever recommended as “sea-sickness medicine”.  Despite that, in the modern age, ginger is sometimes promoted as a cure (or at least an ameliorant) for nausea suffered at sea, in flight, while driving or motion-sickness in general and there appears to be some evidence to support the use.

Google ngram for Ginger group: Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

In another example of why English (in some ways simple and logical) must seem bafflingly inconsistent to those learning the tongue, while “ginger up” and “ginger group” are phrases related to “imparting piquancy or enlivening someone or something”, to speak of proceeding “gingerly” means “acting hesitantly; with great caution”.  The explanation is the divergence is not the result of a word shifting meaning in two directions but instead two different etymologies converging phonetically in modern English.  The figurative sense of “ginger up” (familiar to the young as “gee up”) meaning “add energy or enthusiasm) emerged in the nineteenth century and came from the equestrian practice of putting ginger (or so some other irritants) in or near a horse’s anus so it would be more “spirited” (performing with greater verve or liveliness) and appear with its tail held high.  From this (the expression rather than stuff shoved in the rectum) came “ginger group” which described a (usually) small and energetic faction within a larger organization which aimed to stimulate or invigorate change or action.  The first known use of the term was in 1920s British politics.

Confusingly “gingerly” is unrelated to “ginger” and has nothing to do with novel uses of spice in equine management.  Developing in parallel with but separately from Middle English, gingerly was from the Old French gensor & gencier (which endures in Modern French as gentil (delicate; dainty), from the Latin gentilis.  Appending the suffix -ly turned adjective into adverb and by the sixteenth century gingerly came to mean “delicately, with grace or refinement” and by the early 1900s the idea of a “refined or dainty manner” evolved into “cautiously; with care”.  Gingerly is thus a “false cognate” with ginger (the spice).  There the linguistic tangle should end but because of the development of modern slang, “ginger” has established an (informal) link with “gingerly” through “gingerness” which can be both (1) a synonym for “gingerliness” (a gingerly state, attitude or behaviour and (2) in informal (sometimes derogatory) use: redheadedness.

Etceterini

Etceterini (pronounced et-set-er-rhini)

One or all of the sports cars & racing cars produced in small volumes by a number of “boutique” Italian manufacturers during the quarter-century-odd following World War II (1939-1945).

1980s (though not attaining wide currency until publication in 1990): A portmanteau word, the construct being etcetera(a) + ini.  Etcetera was from the early fourteenth century Middle English et cetera (and other things; and so forth), from the Latin et cētera (and the other things; and the rest of the things), the construct being et (and) + cetera (the other things; the rest).  Et was from the Proto-Italic et, from the primitive Indo-European éti or heti and was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἔτι (éti), the Sanskrit अति (ati), the Gothic iþ (and, but, however, yet) and the Old English prefix ed- (re-).  Cētera was the plural of cēterum, accusative neuter singular of cēterus (the other, remainder, rest), from the Proto-Italic ke-eteros, the construct being ke (here) +‎ eteros (other).  The Latin suffix -īnī was an inflection of -īnus (feminine -īna, neuter -īnum), from the Proto-Italic -īnos, from the primitive Indo-European -iHnos and was cognate with the Ancient Greek -ινος (-inos) and the Proto-Germanic -īnaz.  The suffix was added to a noun base (particularly proper nouns) to form an adjective, usually in the sense of “of or pertaining to and could indicate a relationship of position, possession or origin”.  Because the cars referenced tended to be small (sometimes very small), some may assume the –ini element to be an Italian diminutive suffix but in Italian the diminutive suffixes are like -ino, -etto, -ello & -uccio but etceterini works because the Latin suffix conveys the idea of “something Italian”.  It was used substantively or adverbially.  Until the early twentieth century, the most common abbreviation was “&c.” but “etc.” (usually with a surely now superfluous period (full-stop)) has long been the standard form.   Etcetera is a noun; the noun plural is etceteras

The word “etcetera” (or “et cetera”) fully has been assimilated into English and (except when used in a way which makes a historic reference explicit) is for most purposes no longer regarded as “a foreign word” though the common use has long been to use the abbreviation (the standard now: “etc”).  If for whatever reason there’s a need for a “conspicuously foreign” form then the original Latin (et cētera (or even the Anglicized et cetera)) should be used.  There is no definitive date on which the assimilation can be said to have been completed (or at least generally accepted), rather it was a process.  From the 1400s, the Middle English et cetera was used and understood by educated speakers, due to Latin's prominence in law, science, religion and academia with it by the mid-eighteenth century being no longer viewed as a “foreignism” (except of course among the reactionary hold-outs with a fondness for popery and ecclesiastical Latin: for them, in churches and universities, even in English texts, et cētera or et cetera remained preferred).  Scholars of structural linguistics use an interesting test to track the process of assimilation as modern English became (more or less) standardized: italicization.  With “et cetera” & “etcetera”, by the mid-eighteenth century, the once de rigour italics had all but vanished.  That test may no longer be useful because words which remains classified as “foreign” (such as raison d'être or schadenfreude) often now appear without italics.

The so-called “pronunciation spellings” (ekcetera, ekcetra, excetera & exetera) were never common and the abbreviations followed the same assimilative path.  The acceptance of the abbreviated forms in printed English more widespread still during the 1600s because of the advantages it offered printers, typesetters much attracted by the convenience and economy.  By early in the eighteenth century it was an accepted element (usually as “&c” which soon supplanted “et cet”) in “respectable prose”, appearing in Nathan Bailey’s (circa 1690-1742) An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1721) and gaining the imprimatur of trend-setter Anglo-Irish author & satirist Jonathan Swift (1667–1745).  Dr Johnson (Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)) made much use of “&c” in his A Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and although Bailey’s dictionary was influential in the breadth of its comprehensiveness and remained, over 30 editions, in print until 1802, it’s Dr Johnson who is better remembered because he was became a “celebrity lexicographer” (a breed which today must sound improbable.)

One of the implications of linguistic assimilation is the effect on the convention applied when speaking from a written text.  Although wildly ignored (probably on the basis of being widely unknown), the convention is that foreign words in a text should be spoken in the original language only if that’s necessary for emphasis or meaning (such as Caudillo, Duce or Führer) or emphasis.  Where foreign terms are used in writing as a kind of verbal shorthand (such as inter alia (among other things)) in oral use they should be spoken in English.  However, the convention doesn’t extent to fields where the terms have become part of the technical jargon (which need not influence a path of assimilation), as in law where terms like inter alia and obiter (a clipping of obiter dictum (something said by a judge in passing and not a substantive part of the judgment)) are so entrenched in written and oral use that to translate them potentially might be misleading.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left), Britney Spears (b 1981, centre) & Paris Hilton (b 1981, right), close to dawn, Los Angeles, 29 November 2006; the car was Ms Hilton's Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199 (2003-2009)).  This paparazzo's image was from a cluster which included the one used for the front page on Rupert Murdoch's (b 1931) New York Post with the still infamous headline “BIMBO SUMMIT”.  Even by the standards of the Murdoch tabloids, it was nasty.

So, the text written as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears et al recommend that while a handbag always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, inter alia, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set & comb etc.” would be read aloud as: “Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and others recommend that while a handbag always should contain “touch-up & quick fix-up” items such as lipstick, lip gloss, and lip liner, the more conscientious should pack more including, among other things, mascara, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, concealer, a powder compact, a small brush set & comb etcetera.”  Despite the cautions from purists (including just about every grammar text-book and style guide on the planet), the “choice” between “etc” and “et al” does seem to becoming blurred with many using seemingly using the two interchangeably.  The rules are (1) “etc” (and other things) is used of things (and according to the style guides should always appear with a period (full-stop) even though such use is archaic and another of those “needless tributes to tradition”) and (2) “et al” (and others) is used of people (especially in citations and again, always with a period).  So, “et al” can’t be used for things; strictly, it’s for things; it’ll be interesting to see if these rules survive into the next century.  Really, it's a silly rule and because it's hardly difficult to distinguish between a text string of "people" and one of "things", if used interchangeably, the two abbreviations are unlikely to confuse.  Et al was the abbreviation of the Latin et aliī (and others).

A Unix /etc directory.

In computing, Unix-based operating systems (OS) feature a directory (the word “folder” thought effete by the Unix community, most of whom are at their happiest when typing arcane commands at the prompt) called “etc” (along with /root, /boot, dev, /bin, /opt etc) which is used as a repository for system-wide configuration files and shell scripts used to boot and initialize the system.  Although there are many variants of the OS, typically an /etc directory will contain (1) OS configuration files (/etc/passwd; /etc/fstab; /etc/hosts), (2) system startup scripts (/etc/init.d or /etc/systemd/, (3) network configuration, (4) user login & environment configuration files and (5) application configuration files.  Originally (sometime in 1969-1970), the “etc” name was adopted because it was “an et cetera” in the literal sense of “and so on”, a place to store files which were essential but didn’t obviously belong elsewhere, a single “general purpose” directory used to avoid needless proliferation in the structure.  Rapidly Unix grew in complexity and configurability so the once “place for the miscellaneous” became the canonical location for configuration files, the original sense displaced but the name retained.  It is pronounced et-see (definitely not ee-tee-see or et-set-er-uh).  Despite their reputation, the Unix guys do have a joke (and there are unconfirmed rumors of a second).  Because so many of the files in /etc can be modified with any text-editor, in some documents earnestly it’s revealed /etc is the acronym of “Editable Text Configuration” but that is fake news; it's a backronym.

The Etceterini: exquisite creations with names ending in vowels

1954 Stanguellini 750 Sport.

In the tradition of mock-Latin, the word etceterini was a late twentieth century coining created to refer to the ecosystem of the numerous small-volume Italian sports & racing cars built in the early post-war years.  A portmanteau word, the construct being etceter(a) + ini, the idea was a word which summoned the idea of “many, some obscure” with an Italianesque flavor.  Credit for the coining is claimed by both automotive historian John de Boer (who in 1990 published The Italian car registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini register) and reviewer & commentator Stu Schaller who asserts he’d used it previously.  Whoever first released it into the wild (and it seems to have been in circulation as least as early as the mid-1980s) can be content because it survived in its self-defined niche and the evocative term has become part of the lexicon used by aficionados of post-war Italian sports and racing cars.  Being language (and in this English is not unique), it is of course possible two experts, working in the same field, both coined the term independently, the timing merely a coincidence.  Etceterini seems not to have been acknowledged (even as a non-standard form) by the editors of any mainstream English dictionary and surprisingly, given how long its history of use now is, even jargon-heavy publications like those from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) haven’t yet added it to their lexicons.  It does though appear in specialist glossaries, car-model registry websites and niche discussion forums, especially those tied to classic Italian car culture (OSCA, Moretti, Stanguellini, Siata, Bandini, Ermini etc).  So, as a word it has sub-cultural & linguistic clarity but no status among the linguistic establishment.

1953 Siata 208S Barchetta.

John De Boer’s comprehensive The Italian car registry: Incorporating the registry of Italian oddities: (the etceterini register) was last updated in 1994 and remains the best-known publication on the many species of the genus etceterini and included in its 350-odd pages not only a wealth of photographs and cross-referenced details of specification but also lists chassis and engine numbers (priceless data for collectors and restoration houses in their quests for the often elusive quality of “originality”).  Nor are the personalities neglected, as well as some notable owners the designers and builders are discussed and there are sections devoted to coach-builders, a once vibrant industry driven almost extinct by regulators and the always intrusive realities of economics.  One thing which especially delights the collectors are the photographs of some of the obscure accessories of the period, some rendered obsolete by technology, some of which became essential standard-equipment and some seriously weird.  Mr De Boer’s book was from the pre-internet age when, except for a pampered handful in a few universities, “publication” meant paper and printing presses but such things are now virtualized and “weightless publication” is available instantly to all and there are small corners of the internet curated for devotees of the etceterini such as Cliff Reuter’s Etceteriniermini, a title which certainly takes some linguistic liberties.  Some trace the breed even to the late 1930s and such machines certainly existed then but as an identifiable cultural and economic phenomenon, they really were a post-war thing and although circumstances conspired to make their survival rare by the mid 1960s, a handful lingered into the next decade.

1957 Bandini 750 Sport Siluro.

That the ecosystem of the etceterini flourished in Italy in the 1950s was because the country was then a certain place and time and while the memorable scenes depicted in La Dolce Vita (1960) might have been illusory for most, the film did capture something from their dreams.  After the war, there was a sense of renewal, the idea of the “new” Italy as a young country in which “everybody” seemed young and for those who could, sports car and racing cars were compelling.  However, while there was a skilled labor force ready to build them and plenty of places in which they could be built, economics dictated they needed to be small and light-weight because the mechanical components upon which so many relied came from the Fiat parts bin and the most significant commonality among the etceterini were the small (often, by international standards, tiny) engines used otherwise to power the diminutive micro-cars & vans with which Fiat in the post-war years “put Italy on wheels”.  It was no coincidence so many of the small-volume manufacturers established their facilities near to Fiat’s factory in Torino, the closest thing the nation had to a Detroit.  In the early years, it wasn’t unknown for a donkey and cart carrying a few engines to make the short journey from the Fiat foundry to an etceterini’s factory (which was sometime little more than a big garage).  However, just because the things were small didn’t mean they couldn’t be beautiful and, being built by Italians, over the years there were some lovely shapes, some merely elegant but some truly sensuous.

1960 Stanguellini Formula Junior.

There was a high failure rate but many for years flourished and developed also lucrative “sideline” businesses producing lines of speed equipment or accessories for majors such as Fiat or Alfa Romeo and, as has happened in other industries, sometimes the success of these overtook the original concern, Nardi soon noticing their return on capital from selling thing popular custom steering wheels far exceeded what was being achieved from producing a handful of little sports cars, production of which quickly was abandoned with resources re-allocated to the accessory which had become a trans-Atlantic best-seller.  Whether things would have gone on indefinitely had the laissez-faire spirit of the time been allowed to continue can’t be known but by the 1960s, traffic volumes rapidly were increasing on the growing lengths of autostrade (the trend-setting Italian motorway system begun during the administration of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & Prime-Minister of Italy 1922-1943) with accident rates & the death toll both climbing.  Italy, like many jurisdictions began to impose safety regulations which before long made small-scale production runs unviable but by then rising prosperity meant people were able to purchase their own Fiat or Alfa-Romeo and the etceterini faded into fond memory.  It is of course unthinkable such a thing could again happen because the EU (European Union) is now staffed by divisions of Eurocrats who spend their days in Masonic-like plotting and scheming to devise new reasons to say no, non, nein, nee, nein, não etc.  Had these bloodless bureaucrats existed in the 1940s, not one etceterini would ever have reached the street.

Blazon

Blazon (pronounced bley-zuhn)

(1) In heraldry, an escutcheon or coat of arms or a banner depicting a coat of arms.

(2) In heraldry, a description (verbal or written or in an image) of a coat of arms.

(3) In heraldry, a formalized language for describing a coat of arms (the heraldic description of armorial bearings).

(4) An ostentatious display, verbal or otherwise.

(5) A description or recording (especially of the good qualities of a person or thing).

(6) In literature, verses which dwelt upon and described various parts of a woman's body (usually in admiration). 

(7) Conspicuously or publicly to set forth; display; proclaim.

(8) To adorn or embellish, especially brilliantly or showily.

(9) To depict (heraldic arms or the like) in proper form and color.

(10) To describe a coat of arms.

1275-1300: From the late thirteenth century Middle English blazon (armorial bearings, coat of arms), from the twelfth century Old French blason (shield, blazon (also “collar bone”).  Of the words in the Romance languages (the Spanish blason, Italian blasone, Portuguese brasao & Provençal blezo, the first two are said to be French loan-words and the origins of all remain uncertain.  According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), the suggestion by nineteenth century French etymologists of connections with Germanic words related to English blaze is dubious because of the sense disparities.  The verb blazon (to depict or paint (armorial bearings) dates from the mid sixteenth century and was either (or both) from the noun or the French blasonner (from the French noun).  In English, it had earlier in the 1500s been used to mean “descriptively to set forth; descriptively” especially (by at least the 1530s) specifically “to vaunt or boast” and in that sense it was probably at least influenced by the English blaze.  Blazon & blazoning are nouns & verbs, blazoner, blazonry & blazonment are nouns and blazoned & blazonable are adjectives; the noun plural is blazons.

A coat of arms, possibly of dubious provenance. 

The now more familiar verb emblazon (inscribe conspicuously) seems first to have been used around the 1590s in the sense of “extol” and the still common related forms (emblazoning; emblazoned) emerged almost simultaneously.  The construct of emblazon was en- +‎ blazon (from the Old French blason (in its primary sense of “shield”).  The en- prefix was from the Middle English en- (en-, in-), from the Old French en- (also an-), from the Latin in- (in, into).  It was also an alteration of in-, from the Middle English in-, from the Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in (in).  Both the Latin & Germanic forms were from the primitive Indo-European en (in, into).  The intensive use of the Old French en- & an- was due to confluence with Frankish intensive prefix an- which was related to the Old English intensive prefix -on.  It formed a transitive verb whose meaning is to make the attached adjective (1) in, into, (2) on, onto or (3) covered.  It was used also to denote “caused” or as an intensifier.  The prefix em- was (and still is) used before certain consonants, notably the labials “b” & “p”.

Google ngram: It shouldn’t be surprising there seems to have been a decline in the use of “blazon” while “emblazoned” has by comparison, in recent decades, flourished.  That would reflect matters of heraldry declining in significance, their appearance in printed materials correspondingly reduced in volume.  However, because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Self referential emblazoning: Lindsay Lohan's selfie of her modeling a sweater by Ashish, her visage emblazoned in sequins, London, November 2014.

Impressionistically though this assumption is, few would doubt “blazon” is now rare while “emblazoned” is far from uncommon.  While “emblazon” began with the meaning “that which the emblazoner does” (ie (1) to adorn with prominent, (2) to inscribe upon and (3) to draw a coat of arms) it evolved by the mid-nineteenth century with the familiar modern sense of “having left in the mind a vivid impression” (often in the form “emblazoned on one’s memory”).  In English, there’s nothing unusual in a derived or modified form of a word becoming common than its original root, even to the point the where the original is rendered rare, unfamiliar or even obsolete, a phenomenon due to changes in usage patterns, altered conventions in pronunciation or shifts in meaning that make the derived form more practical or culturally resonant.  That’s just how English evolves.

Other examples include (1) ruthless vs. ruth (ruth (pity; compassion) was once a common noun in Middle English but has long been extinct while ruthless, there being many who demand the description, remains popular), (2) unkempt vs kempt (kempt (neatly kept) would have been listed as extinct were it not for it finding a niche as a literary and poetic form and has also been used humorously or ironically), (3) disheveled vs sheveled (sheveled was from the Old French chevelé (having hair) and was part of mainstream vocabulary as late as the eighteenth century but, except in jocular use, is effectively non-existent in modern English) and (4) redolent vs dolent (redolent (evocative of; fragrant) was from dolent (sorrowful), from the Latin dolere (to feel pain)); redolent both outlived and enjoyed a meaning-shift from its root.

Etymologists think of these as part of the linguistic fossil record, noting there’s no single reason for the phenomenon beyond what survives being better adapted to cultural or conversational needs.  In that, these examples differ from the playful fork of back-formation which has produced (1) combobulate (a back-formation from discombobulate (to confuse or disconcert; to throw into a state of confusion) which was a humorous mock-Latin creation in mid-nineteenth century US English) (2) couth (a nineteenth century back-formation from uncouth and used as a humorous form meaning “refined”), (3) gruntled (a twentieth century back-formation meaning “happy or contented; satisfied”, the source being disgruntled (unhappy; malcontented) and most sources indicate it first appeared in print in 1926 but the most celebrated example comes from PG Wodehouse (1881–1975) who in The Code of the Woosters (1938) penned: “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”  Long a linguistic joke, some now take gruntled seriously but for the OED remains thus far unmoved and (4) ept (a back-formation from inept (not proficient; incompetent or not competent (there is a functional difference between those two)) which was from the Middle French inepte, from the Latin ineptus).

Literary use

In literary use, “blazon” was a technical term used by the Petrarchists (devotes of Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), a scholar & poet of the early Italian Renaissance renowned for his love poems & sonnets and regarded also as one of the earliest humanists).  Blazon in this context (a subset of what literary theorists call “catalogue verse”) was adopted because, like the structured and defined elements of heraldic symbolism, Petrarch’s poems contained what might be thought an “inventory” of verses which dwelt upon and detailed the various parts of a woman's body; a sort of catalogue of her physical attributes.  Petrarch’s approach wasn’t new because as a convention in lyric poetry it was well-known by the mid thirteenth century, most critics crediting the tradition to the writings of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, a figure about whom little is although it’s believed he was born in Normandy.  In England the Elizabethan sonneteers honed the technique as a devotional device, often, in imaginative ways, describing the bits of their mistresses they found most pleasing, a classic example a fragment from Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595), a wedding day ode by the English poet Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599) to his bride (Elizabeth Boyle) in 1594:

Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright.
Her forehead ivory white,
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,
Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,
Her paps like lilies budded,
Her snowy neck like to a marble tower,
And all her body like a palace fair.

Two bowls of cream uncrudded.

So objectification of the female form is nothing new and the poets saw little wrong with plagiarism, most of the imagery summoned salvaged from the works of Antiquity by elegiac Roman and Alexandrian Greek poets.  Most relied for their effect on brevity, almost always a single, punchy line and none seem ever to attempt the scale of the “epic simile”.  As can be imagined, the novelty of the revival didn’t last and the lines soon were treated by readers (some of whom were fellow poets) as clichés to be parodied (a class which came to be called “contrablazon”), the London-based courtier Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) borrowing from the Italian poet Francesco Berni (1497–1535) the trick of using terms in the style of Petrarch but “mixing them up”, thus creating an early form of body dysmorphia: Mopsa's forehead being “jacinth-like”, cheeks of “opal”, twinkling eyes “bedeckt with pearl” and lips of “sapphire blue”.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) however saw other possibilities in the blazon and in Sonnet 130 (1609) turned the idea on its head, listing the imperfections in her body parts and characteristics yet concluding, despite all that, he anyway adored her like no other (here rendered in a more accessible English):

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

Cutthroat

Cutthroat (pronounced kuht-throht)

(1) Slang for a murderer (regardless of chosen method) or one thought capable of murder (based on the notion of "cutting the throat" being a classic, ancient method of murder (done properly, being quick, rapid and almost silent)).

(2) Ruthless in competition.

(3) In games of cards where the rules permit each of three or more persons to act and score as an individual.

(4) In billiards, a three person game where the object is to be the last player with at least one ball still on the table.

(5) As cutthroat eel, a family, Synaphobranchidae, of eels found worldwide in temperate and tropical seas.

(6) As cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii), a species of freshwater fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes.

(7) As cutthroat finch, a common species of estrildid finch found in Africa.

(8) As cutthroat razor, a reusable knife blade used for shaving hair.

(9) In linguistics, as an ellipsis of cutthroat compound (an agentive-instrumental verb-noun compound word).

1525–1535: A compound word, the construct bing cut + throat.  the early twelfth century cut was from the Middle English cutten, kitten, kytten & ketten (to cut), from the Old English cyttan (related to the Scots kut & kit (to cut)), probably of North Germanic origin, from the Old Norse kytja & kutta, from the Proto-Germanic kutjaną & kuttaną (to cut), of uncertain origin but possibly related to the Proto-Germanic kwetwą (meat, flesh).  It was akin to the Middle Swedish kotta (to cut or carve with a knife), the Swedish kuta & kytti (a knife)), the Norwegian kutte (to cut), the Icelandic kuta (to cut with a knife), the Old Norse kuti (small knife) and the Norwegian kyttel, kytel & kjutul (pointed slip of wood used to strip bark).  Descent from the Old French coutel (knife) is thought improbable and it displaced the native Middle English snithen (from Old English snīþan (related to the German schneiden)), which survives still in some dialects as snithe.  The pre-900 t was from the Middle English throte, from the Old English throtu, þrote, þrota & þrotu (throat), from the Proto-Germanic þrutō (throat), from the primitive Indo-European trud- (to swell, become stiff).  It was cognate with the Dutch strot (throat), the German drossel (throttle, gorge of game (wild animals)), the Icelandic þroti (swelling) and the Swedish trut.  The Old English throtu was related to the Old High German drozza (throat) and the Old Norse throti (swelling).  Words with a similar meaning in the figurative sense include ferocious, vicious, savage, barbarous, bloodthirsty, cruel, dog-eat-dog, merciless, pitiless & relentless and unprincipled.  The alternative form is cut-throat although dictionaries note the rare use of cut throat.  Cutthroat is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is cutthroats.

You're wrong.—He was the mildest manner'd man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat:
With such true breeding of a gentleman,
You never could divine his real thought;
No courtier could, and scarcely woman can
Gird more deceit within a petticoat;
Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
He was so great a loss to good society.

Don Juan (1819–24) canto III, stanza XLI, by Lord Byron (1788–1824)

A hover of cutthroat trout.

The cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) is of the family Salmonidae and is native to a number of North American cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean and Rocky Mountains.  The common name "cutthroat" is derived from the coloration on the underside of the lower jaw.  Despite the use of the name, not all cutthroat trout instantly are recognizable.  Coastal cutthroat trout occur as sea-run or freshwater-resident forms in streams and lakes in a coastal range from lower south-east Alaska to Prince William Sound and are the most common trout species in the region.  What was noted as early as the 1950s was a lack of a distinct red slash mark in some sea-run and lake-resident forms which meant easily they could be confused with rainbow trout and although a positive identification was possible because (unlike the rainbow) the cutthroat is marked by the by the presence of minute teeth between the gills behind the base of the tongue, that obviously demanded close inspection.  That cutthroat trout and rainbow trout often share the same habitats does lead to occasional hybridization (the mating producing fertile offspring) which can make identification challenging as the hybrid fish are intermediate in appearance.

HMS Dreadnought at anchor, 1908.

The “cutthroat compound” is one of the more recent additions to the jargon of structural linguistics, the term in 2015 coined by historical linguist Brianne Hughes to describe a compound word formed from a transitive verb followed by a noun that is the object of that verb and the form is self-referential because “cutthroat” is such a form.  According to Ms Hughes’ analysis, although her research revealed some 1350 have from time-to-time been created, in Modern English, fewer than three dozen remain in common use, the most frequently heard being “breakfast” (the meal that “breaks the fast” since dinner, supper, midnight snack or whatever was one’s last meal).  She listed some which have survived to appear occasionally (swashbuckler, sawbones, and skinflint) but, being a historical linguist it was the “fun” ones which caught her eye and these included “catch-fart” (a footboy or servant who follows too closely behind his master, “hugmoppet” (an overly-affectionate old woman), “lackbeard” (a young man) and the hopefully metaphorical “lickspittle” (a toady or yes-man, base on the imagery of “one who licks up the spittle of another”.  More familiar are “daredevil” (one who “dares” the devil (ie takes great risks, tempting the devil to “take them to Hell”), “scarecrow” (used to “scare away crows”, “spoilsport” (one who ruins the fun), “turncoat” (one who changes their allegiance), “breakwater” (something that diverts or breaks the force of water) and “pickpocket” (one who “picks pockets”).  At the margins, deconstruction can be challenging: Is a dreadnought (1) an individual with a dread of nothing or (2) an individual who does but dread?  As the Royal Navy knew, it was the former and Admiral of the Fleet Jackie Fisher (First Baron Fisher, 1841–1920; First Sea Lord 1904–1910 & 1914–1915), the figure most associated with the epoch-making HMS Dreadnought (1906), when raised to the peerage, choose as the motto on his coat of arms: “Fear God and dread nought”.  Much the old salt would much have preferred the punchy “cutthroat compound” to the academic textbook term in the linguistics literature: “agentive and instrumental exocentric verb-noun compounds”.

In the cutthroat position: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986, left) and Vanessa Lachey (née Minnillo, b 1980, right), staged shot, June, 2007.

There are also surnames which are cutthroat compounds (William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863); Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) & William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and the constructs appear also in other languages, the French amuse-bouche a small appetizer meant to “amuse one’s bouche (mouth)” (ie taste good).  As a device, the technique was in Romance languages a common way to form agent nouns but use was rare in Germanic languages (which use the suffix “-er” or its homologues).  The increase in the appearance of the pattern in English after the Norman Conquest (1066 and all that) was a consequence of French influence and linguistic anthropologists believe this reflected sociological factors: forming agent nouns in this way for despicable or derisible agents (such as cutthroat and turncoat) was apparently one way the English could mock both the French and those English folk who had become “affected”, speaking French and acting “more French than the French”.