WORLD WIDE WORDS ISSUE 469 Saturday 26 November 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent each Saturday to at least 25,000 subscribers by e-mail and RSS Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK ISSN 1470-1448 http://www.worldwidewords.org US advisory editor: Julane Marx ------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Feedback, notes and comments. 2. Turns of Phrase: Mociology. 3. Weird Words: Ninnyhammer. 4. Q&A: "An" before words starting with "h". 5. Sic! A. E-mail contact addresses. B. Subscription information. C. Ways to support World Wide Words. 1. Feedback, notes and comments ------------------------------------------------------------------- STOOZING Grant Barrett, who runs the Double-Tongued Word Wrester site and who is also project editor for the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, tells me that this word I featured last week is known to have been created in the discussion forums of the Motley Fool financial Web site, where a user with the nickname "Stooz" advocated such actions in early 2004. Thanks to Chris Sunderland and Clariman for the same information. CORRESPONDENCE I've had my head down for the past week, finishing the first draft of my next book. It's done, but it has left me with a head full of cotton wool and a very long list of other important jobs left undone. One result is an overflowing mail inbox. Sorry about that - I'll try to catch up next week sometime! 2. Turns of Phrase: Mociology ------------------------------------------------------------------- This word has gained some public attention following its use in the title of a conference in London on 7 November 2005 organised by the Royal Society of Arts: "Mobile technology and culture change: how mociology is changing the way we live". The introduction to the conference described it in some detail. It seems that mociology is the study of the innovative ways people use their mobile phones or wireless systems in daily life. Examples given including buying concert tickets by phone or having medical information about your diabetic condition sent to you the same way. It has been described as the sociology of the mobile lifestyle, which seems to be the genesis of the word ("mobile" + "sociology"), though the coinage is unprepossessing (the blending suggests that the "c" is pronounced as an "s"). It is said to have been invented by Ralph Simon of the Mobilium Group of Los Angeles and London, whose fertile mind has also created "mocio-economics", described as "the underlying economics that drives the fast emergence of mobile entertainment revenues and economics". The same text described mociology as a "new and emerging science", which seems to be a PR overstatement of a particularly egregious sort. It is notable that the word has so far appeared in only one newspaper that I can trace, though bloggers have reported on it. It will be interesting to see if it catches on. 3. Weird Words: Ninnyhammer ------------------------------------------------------------------- A fool or simpleton. It's long since vanished except in works that consciously seek to evoke a bygone age through antique language. The most likely place to encounter it is in Volume Three of J R R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: "You're nowt but a ninnyhammer, Sam Gamgee: that's what the Gaffer said to me often enough, it being a word of his." At one time, it was an excellent addition to one's armoury of invective, as here in John Arbuthnot's satirical pamphlet of 1712, The Law is a Bottomless Pit: "Have you no more manners than to rail at Hocus, that has saved that clod-pated, numskull'd ninnyhammer of yours from ruin, and all his family?" "Ninnyhammer" is first recorded from the late sixteenth century. Its origin isn't altogether clear. The first part, "ninny", looks like the word we still know today, which is thought to come from a shortened and modified version of "an innocent", because "innocent" at this time could mean a person lacking in intelligence or sense, who was silly, half-witted, or imbecilic. However, it's far from certain from the dates when they were first used whether "ninny" comes from "ninnyhammer" or the other way around. The second part is less obvious, but might be from "hammer-headed", which could also then refer to a person who was dull-witted or stupid. 4. Q&A ------------------------------------------------------------------- Q. I was interested in your use of "an" before "heraldic" in a recent issue because I've never known the "rule" for using "an" with words beginning with "h". The famous example of course is "an hotel". Though I admit it's just an affectation, I also use "an" with "hilarious" and several other words. But I wouldn't think of doing it with "homily" though I have no idea why. And I always pronounce the "h" in these examples. What rules do you follow? [Tym King; related questions came from many other subscribers] A. The number of comments and queries that arrived after that issue demonstrates that my usage here is open to debate. The fact is, as happens often in real English, the rules are more complicated than the ones we learned in school. And there's some difference between spoken and written English. The school rule is that "an" must be used before words beginning with "h" in which the "h" is silent, such as "honourable". That's correct, but many people - often without knowing it - follow an extended rule: that in speech "an" appears before a word beginning with "h" if the first syllable of that word is unstressed, whether or not the "h" is silent. If you listen carefully you can tell in such cases that the "h" is also partially or wholly elided away; that's because it's quite hard in rapid speech to articulate an unstressed "a" before an unstressed "h" without putting some other sound in between and losing the full strength of the "h". But it's common to write "a". But not always. In the Independent of 14 November 2005, a story included the line, "being housed in an historic building with very particular architectural features". The Newcastle Evening Chronicle for 15 November 2005 had "Today they addressed Tories at an hotel near Newcastle". It would be possible to find thousands of other examples in recent decades, to which could be added copious cases of "an hypothesis", "an heroic", "an horrific", and others. All these reflect the actual spoken usage. The situation is complicated by a shift that has been taking place in the pronunciation of words with initial "h" over the past couple of centuries. At one time, many more were said with the "h" silent. This explains the appearance of "an" in old texts where we would now use "a"; the classic case is that of the King James Bible, where - to take the first example out of dozens - in Genesis the text reads "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years". A good example is that of "herb", which Americans today continue to say the way their English forefathers did, without the initial "h". British English has moved on, and it is now thought uneducated for British speakers to say "erb". But British and American speakers mostly put the initial "h" on such words. To complicate the matter, usage is shifting. Younger people prefer "a" more often in such cases in speech as well as writing. Forms like "an hotel" are heard from, and written by, older people in the main. I use "an hotel" consistently in both speech and writing, and count myself old-fashioned as a result. The form "an heraldic" you mention is by no means unknown, though it is less common than the others, but that may just be because we have less cause to use the phrase than ones like "an hotel". 5. Sic! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony Massey has been keeping his usual keen eye on the vagaries of British human resources jargon: "They're opening a new branch of Woolworths in Putney High Street, near where I live, and they're looking for staff. Not that you would know from the advert outside the shop. 'Colleague Roles Available', it proclaims. What? Since when has a job been a 'colleague role'? But a close reading of the notice reveals that it is indeed a recruitment ad. Application forms, it says, are available from the local Job Centre. At least we can assume that no one is ever fired by Woolworths. Staff - sorry, colleagues - would simply find that Former Colleague Roles are compulsorily available." "Yob" is British slang for a rude, noisy, and aggressive young man, whose name is backslang, from "boy". Chris Church found a headline featuring it in the Burnley Express this week: "Police boss's plea to stone yobs" and commented that "zero tolerance meets community action". But, under the dreadful headlinese, it turned out that it was the yobs who were actually throwing the stones - 169 incidents in the last month alone. A. E-mail contact addresses ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want to respond to something in a newsletter, ask a question for the Q&A section, or otherwise contact Michael Quinion, please send it to one of the following addresses: * Comments on newsletter mailings are always welcome. They should be sent to wordseditor@worldwidewords.org * Questions intended to be answered in the Q&A section should be addressed to wordsquestions@worldwidewords.org (please don't use this to respond to published answers to questions - e-mail the comment address instead) * Problems with subscriptions that cannot be handled by the list server should be addressed to wordssubs@worldwidewords.org Please do not send attachments with messages. B. Subscription information ------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the list, change your subscription address, or subscribe, please visit http://www.worldwidewords.org/maillist/index.htm . You can also maintain your subscription by e-mail. For a full list of commands, send a message containing the following two lines to listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org: INFO WORLDWIDEWORDS END The "END" ensures that the list server doesn't get confused by your signature or other text added to the outgoing message. This newsletter is also available as an RSS feed. The address is http://www.worldwidewords.org/rss/newsletter.xml . Recent back issues are archived at http://www.worldwidewords.org/backissues/ C. Ways to support World Wide Words ------------------------------------------------------------------- The World Wide Words newsletter and Web site are free, but if you would like to help with their costs, here are some ways to do so. If you order any goods from any of these online stores (not just new books), you can use one of these links, which gets World Wide Words a small commission at no extra cost to you: Amazon USA: http://quinion.com?QA Amazon UK: http://quinion.com?JZ Amazon Canada: http://quinion.com?MG Amazon Germany: http://quinion.com?DX If you would like to contribute a sum to the upkeep of World Wide Words through PayPal, enter this link into your browser: http://quinion.com?PP You could also buy one of my books, of course. See http://www.worldwidewords.org/posh.htm and http://www.worldwidewords.org/ologies.htm . ------------------------------------------------------------------- World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2005. All rights reserved. The Words Web site is at http://www.worldwidewords.org . ------------------------------------------------------------------- You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or part in free online newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists provided that you include this note and the copyright notice above. Reproduction in printed publications or on Web sites requires prior permission, for which you should contact wordseditor@worldwidewords.org . -------------------------------------------------------------------