Spring cleaning for the odd-words drawer
A gaze out my window this morning tells me we鈥檙e up for another dreary, gray day 鈥� what a local radio host is calling 鈥渕ore San Francisco weather.鈥�
San Francisco should sue for slander.聽
Maybe I could help precipitate spring by doing some spring cleaning. Maybe I should start by going through the odd-words drawer.聽
This is the equivalent, in the house of vocabulary, of that space in a real home 鈥� often a kitchen drawer 鈥� where odd items accumulate: You don鈥檛 just want to chuck them out but aren鈥檛 quite sure what to do with them, either. Maybe use them for repairs? Such items prompt the question, 鈥淒o we still even have the thing this goes to?鈥�
To which the answer is, surprisingly often, yes, we do.聽
is a linguist鈥檚 term for a word that is generally obsolete but lives on as part of a fixed idiom. The Mental Floss website had an entertaining list of a dozen of these a while back. It included the eke of 鈥渆ke out,鈥� the fro of 鈥渢o and fro,鈥� the shrift of 鈥渟hort shrift,鈥� and the dint of 鈥渂y dint of,鈥� with its high-energy back story: Dint comes from for a sword blow.聽
These fossil idioms are often misspelled, perhaps because they seem to lack context.聽
The hue of 鈥渉ue and cry,鈥� for instance, is spelled, coincidentally, like the hue that means color, not the hew that means to cut (something) or to hold (to a position). And the hue of 鈥渉ue and cry鈥� seems to come from a hunting cry.聽
There鈥檚 the bated of 鈥渂ated breath.鈥� There鈥檚 no 鈥渋鈥� because 鈥渂ated鈥� means 鈥渁bated,鈥� or held. To wait with bated breath means to hold your breath as you wait.聽
It doesn鈥檛 mean holding a mint under your tongue as you wait for your sweetie to appear. That might be 鈥溾�� breath.聽
Then there鈥檚 hale, meaning 鈥渢o compel,鈥� as in the idiom 鈥渢o hale into court,鈥� well established though rarely used. Many people spell it 鈥渉ail鈥� 鈥� perhaps thinking it refers to issuing greetings rather than invoking the force of law. Or they mishear and so misspell it, and we get 鈥渉auled into court.鈥澛�
As an adjective, hale pairs with hearty as a set phrase for (invariably) an active older person in good health. (See spry.)
Even when their spellings don鈥檛 cause trouble, the etymologies of these fossil words are often not what you鈥檇 think. Take the 鈥渓urch鈥� you鈥檙e left in 鈥� to go back to the Mental Floss list.聽
I鈥檇 imagined that if my plumber鈥檚 schedule lurches backward or forward and he finds himself unable to make it to my house that day, I would be left in the lurch.聽
But it turns out the verb lurch comes from a nautical term, a 鈥渟udden pitch to one side.鈥� The 鈥渓urch鈥� you can get left in seems to come from the name of a French game (鈥渁kin to backgammon,鈥� according to ) played in the 14th century.聽
I know that being confused about the roots of an expression isn鈥檛 the same as spelling it wrong. But for those of us who want to know where our idioms come from, this matters.聽
