A hairy situation

Hair can say a lot about a person, and in return we say a lot about hair. The word ‘hair’ itself comes from the Old English hær and the Old English form is related to the Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, Old High German and Old Norse forms – we’ve obviously been talking about hair to each other for a very long time.

Hair can be a great source of hilarity and at least two light-hearted definitions in The Chambers Dictionary poke a little fun. While mullet-supporters may describe their style as ‘business at the front, party at the back’, Chambers defines a mullet as ‘a hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all round’. Some men may attempt to hide their bald patches with a combover, but they can’t hide from our editors, who define combover as ‘a vain attempt to make the most of one’s dwindling resources of hair’.

A handful of hairy stereotypes can be found in a new Chambers book, Women Can’t Park, Men Can’t Pack by Geoff Rolls. Geoff is a psychology lecturer, and he uses his knowhow to examine the psychological truths behind common stereotypes: is it true that blondes are dumb yet gentlemen prefer them? Are redheads passionate? Do stressed-out people go grey early?

The origin of the passionate redhead stereotype is hard to pin down, but is not surprising given how we think of the colour red in our society and, by extension, language. Red is a colour associated with hot things, like fire, lava and blood – in fact, one definition of red in The Chambers Dictionary is ‘the colour of blood’. Moreover, there are a lot of idioms in the English language that use heat, redness and blood to get across the feeling of extreme anger: spitting blood, seeing red, red mist, hot-tempered, fuming (no smoke without fire), your blood boiling and the phrase like a red rag to a bull (when bullfighters use a red cape, it is for the stimulating effect of the colour on the watching humans – not the colour-blind bull). So it is not surprising that these associations carry over to people with red hair – indeed, so pervasive is this stereotype of the hot-tempered redhead that another meaning of ‘redheaded’ is ‘angrily excited’.

Of course, once a stereotype sticks, it can be hard to shake it off, and in many ways it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Geoff speaks of a red-headed friend who is normally the most placid, laid back woman on the planet … until someone brings up her hair, when she unwittingly snaps into the stereotype with her furious reaction.

The funny thing about stereotypes is that some are actually based in fact and some seem to have come out of nowhere. I’m not going to tell you which are which of the others though and leave you with the old tease: you’ll have to read the book to find out.

Naomi Farmer

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Not everything from Mexico is bad

If you are feeling well enough to read this, you are presumably not yet suffering from the H1N1 strain of influenza – although if reports are to be believed, many of us soon will be. Most reports about this virus use the name of ‘swine flu’, although some refer to it as ‘Mexican swine flu’, and the Israeli government even debated removing ‘swine’ altogether (on account of cultural sensibilities over pork) and calling it ‘Mexican flu’.

Needless to say, Mexico cried foul at this suggestion. Who wants their country's name to be enshrined in language as the purveyor of a pandemic? (However, one only to needs to think of Dutch elm disease and German measles to realize that other countries have suffered similar indignities.)

Before the arrival of swine flu, Mexico could claim a reasonable track record for projecting a favourable image through language. The Mexican wave (a rippling effect created by different sections of spectators at a sporting event standing up in turn) is associated with celebration, while Mexican orange blossom conjures up sensations of warmth and fragrance. Even the American phrase Mexican standoff (referring to an impasse or stalemate) is by definition a neutral term.

Words that Mexico has contributed to English through the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs generally refer to exotic animals (axolotl, ocelot, quetzal) or nice things to eat (avocado, chilli, chocolate), and words that have come into English more recently from the Mexican variety of Spanish also reflect the enthusiasm of the English-speaking world for spicy Mexican cuisine (enchilada, fajitas, jalapeño, taco).

No less than three districts of Mexico have given their names to well-known objects: the state of Tabasco to a hot pepper sauce, Tequila to an alcoholic drink associated with riotous partying, and Chihuahua to a small breed of dog with big eyes and pointing-up ears.

Finally, two notable Mexican people have given their names to English words: the revolutionary leader Zapata to a kind of droopy moustache, and the Aztec emperor Montezuma II to Montezuma’s revenge (also known as the Aztec two-step), which is a stomach disorder that you might get from eating too much of the above-mentioned spicy food.

This last term was probably as bad as it got as far as Mexico’s linguistic associations were concerned – until now.

Ian Brookes

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Textual Intercourse

The advent of the mobile phone has had an unquestionable impact on how we communicate. For starters, many new phone-related words have found their way into The Chambers Dictionary in recent years. Obviously there's the definition of mobile phone itself, along with variations like flip phone, clamshell phone, camera phone and smart phone. Other terms that have become familiar include pay as you go, SIM card and even happy slapping. And after many years happily existing purely as a noun, text now acts as a verb as well; "to send a text message".

New words, however, are only the beginning – mobiles have started a whole new style of communication, rife with acronyms, abbreviations and (mostly) intentional misspelling. Twenty years ago you might have been considered mad if you'd written someone a note consisting of "lol. gr8, c u 2nite", but now this is an acceptable part of our new fast and efficient discourse. There has been much conversation about the effect of this language shift and the merits of text speak or textese. Jonathon Green, author behind the Chambers Slang Dictionary, contributes to the discussion concluding "It's just another form of the Queen's English – not better, not worse". Thousands of school teachers across the country disagree, and the debate continues.

Recently I encountered another interesting linguistic contribution from the world of mobile telephony - the "textonym". Two words are textonyms of each other if they are entered using the same combination of keys in predictive text. I'm sure many of us will have sent or received a nonsensical message caused by this phenomenon. I wrote a program to find textonyms within The Chambers Dictionary, hoping to uncover some interesting associations. Some of the these are happily serendipitous, others potentially disastrous, and some yield connections that would probably never otherwise be made.

Employers, be careful if you choose to text your candidates the outcome of their interviews - selection and rejection may be semantically distant, but they are perilously close together in the world of predictive text (keys 735328466). A night out can quickly turn from merriness to messiness, but thankfully it's easy to adjust your message accordingly (637746377). And although there aren't really any words that rhyme with purple, it need be lonely no longer - its textonym supple (787753) is just a key press away. A few other favourites are kiss and lips (5477), satay and saucy (72829), toffee and unfeed (853333) and libido and lichen (542436).

The most prolific combination for textonyms is 7663, yielding twelve words including some, roof, pond, Rome and several other more obscure words. 4663 gets you these slightly more useful eight textonyms: gone, good, goof, home, hond, hone, hood and hoof. The longest textonym in The Chambers Dictionary is 638765378262543742, offering a choice between neuroleptanalgesia and neuroleptanalgesic, though I wouldn't expect to find that in too many mobile phone dictionaries - occasions that call for conversation about "the administration of a tranquillizer and an analgesic at the same time to induce a sleeplike state" are few and far between.

The latest must-have gadgets seem to be favouring a traditional QWERTY keyboard for text input, so the days of predictive text may be numbered (no pun intended!). But although textonyms could be a short-lived phenomenon, the need to say more with less is still very pertinent, and so it looks as though other mobile influences, like textese, will b here 4 a while yet.


David Wark


Thanks to @jimmysixbellies and @Narrenschiff for bringing this to my attention on Twitter.

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The emergence of Gambit

Not too long ago I wrote about some of the imaginative and not so imaginative superhero names to have appeared in comic books, graphic novels and blockbuster movies recently. Not to get obsessive, but this subject is yet again relevant, with the release of X-Men Origins: Wolverine this week.

While a number of the X-Men heroes were discussed in my previous blog, one of the better-known characters had yet to be depicted on the big screen. Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, is a comic-fan favourite and will be debuting in Wolverine this week. Gambit has the ability to manipulate the kinetic energy of objects, exhibits a hypnotic charm, possesses superhuman agility and dexterity, and carries a pack of playing cards as his weapon of choice. He also has a great name.

The word gambit can be used generally to refer to trickery or stratagem (another fantastic word), and is clearly fitting to describe a superhero who carries playing cards wherever he goes. Specifically, the word is applied to chess to describe a move in which a player sacrifices one piece early in their game in order to gain an overall advantage. Such a risky move may seem to be quite a gamble, and it would be logical to imagine that with this semantic similarity and initial 'gamb' in common, gambit and gamble may be etymologically related. Yet while gamble is a form of game, deriving from the Danish gammen, gambit can be traced back to Italian gambetto, meaning a tripping up, from gamba, leg. Of course, exactly who is tripping who depends on the strength and cunning of the gambit itself.

A similar etymology to gambit can be found in the rather jolly gambol, meaning to jump around playfully, which also derived from the Italian gamba, and suggests exactly how I will be frolicking to the cinema this weekend.

Deborah Smith

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Filth

Lexicography is one of the few professions in which it is not merely permissible to use obscene words, but it is actually compulsory. Words that you would not use in conversation with your bank manager or your mother-in-law turn up as part of the work: they are found in the language and there is no avoiding them. Of course, whether this state of affairs is a penance or a privilege really depends on the individual.

Few people of working age are seriously embarrassed or offended by many of the words to which the dictionary attaches its cautionary labels of ‘taboo’ or ‘offensive’. Indeed there is often a certain relish attached to such words, especially when they are used in a way which is neither gratuitous nor offensive. When Michael Caine snorts ‘You’re only supposed in the blow the bloody doors off!’ in The Italian Job, or Audrey Hepburn urges ‘Come on, Dover, move your blooming arse!’ in My Fair Lady, the swearing is integral to the situation and appropriate to the characters, and we are naturally amused.

For most people there is a dividing line between tolerable obscenity and unacceptably foul and abusive language. Yet it can be difficult to judge which words fall on which side of the divide. In a recent conversation I was censured for using the word pee. I had thought I was choosing a harmless euphemism, but something about the word made it quite unpalatable to my interlocutor.

So it appears that each individual may respond differently to a word. Some words may develop unpleasant associations for us from the contexts in which we have heard them. Others may contain sound combinations which are somehow objectionable to our ears. Much also depends on the culture in which the person grew up. Americans, for example, appear to be quite unabashed about using the word crap (although it is not one I would use in front of my local vicar, rabbi, imam or guru), and yet they react with horror when Brits use the word toilet.

On the whole, however, words relating to religion, sex and bodily functions have lost much of their power to shock in recent decades – probably because their subjects are no longer taboo. I can type words such as crap, bloody and arse without experiencing any serious concern that I might be offending anybody. And yet these words have not entirely lost their vestigial power as obscenities - I still wouldn’t use them in front of my bank manager.

Ian Brookes

Those who are not easily shocked will have fun browsing Smut, a collection of the most down-and-dirty of slang words.

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A forgotten oubliette

Discovering useful words for useful things is always an intriguing aspect of lexicography, as Ian Brookes recently mused on in this blog. Yet sometimes it's even nicer to rediscover obscure words that will rarely serve any use at all. This was the case recently when I flicked through Foyle's Philavery and stumbled across the word oubliette, the name for a secret dungeon beneath a trap door.

Oubliette is hardly a word that a person needs to use everyday, unless perhaps you're trapped in a dungeon or live in a castle. But as a child obsessed with Labyrinth - in which David Bowie in tight lycra was almost as scary as the magical creatures and mythical monsters - an oubliette seemed a logical thing to be aware of. Where else would you trap hapless wanderers within the sprawling maze, never to return again?

In this sense oubliette acts in the truest sense of the word, for not only is the dungeon designed to trap its victims, but to remove them from memory entirely, revealed by the word's origins in the French oublier, to forget. With no way out but the trapdoor through which they fell, prisoners relied on their captors' mercy, or some other outside assistance, to get out. And those that didn't were simply forgotten. Which is quite ironic, since the word itself is likely to be one I'll forget again and again, only to be reminded of it by the occasional nostalgic film viewing. And while oubliettes are still occasionally discovered in this country, I'll just keep hoping I never find myself trapped in one.


Deborah Smith

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Words fail me

There are few things more satisfying for a dictionary editor than a definition that neatly explains a difficult word in simple terms. That, after all, is the apparent function of a dictionary.

Yet common words can sometimes defy lucid explanation in this way. What if a concept is so fundamental that it cannot be simplified but can only be explained by increasing the level of complexity? On such occasions a dictionary is apt to struggle. For example, The Chambers Dictionary defines the verb laugh as ‘to express, by explosive inarticulate sounds of the voice, amusement, joy, scorn, etc, or a reaction to tickling, etc’. And the definition of north is even more convoluted: ‘the point of the horizon or that pole of the earth or sky which at equinox is opposite the sun at noon in Europe or elsewhere on the same side of the equator, or towards the sun in the other hemisphere’. These definitions may be accurate, but one wonders if any user will come away thinking, ‘Ah, so now I know what that word means.’

You might even argue that everybody knows what words such as laugh and north mean, and so there is really no need to define them in a dictionary. However, there are good reasons for hesitating before deciding that a dictionary should deal only in hard words.

For it is possible and even necessary to give useful information about common terms: the entry for north explains the difference between true north and magnetic north; the entry for monkey explains the technical distinction between monkey and ape, and so on.

Furthermore, especially when viewed in its electronic form, a dictionary can be used as a resource from which to view the entire language. It is possible to use Chambers Reference Online to find all of the dictionary’s New Zealand words, all of the Shakespearean words, all of the words ending in -thon, and much more besides. The results of such searches would be compromised if editors started to discard words that they felt people would never need to look up.

So the definition of north stays in – although suggestions for a simpler and neater version would still be welcome.

Ian Brookes

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