quid pro quo

10 November 2019

Quid pro quo literally means “this for that” in Latin, but when did it appear and what does it mean in English?

The catchphrase arose in post-classical Latin in the fourth century C. E. It first appears in English around the year 1535 in a translations of Erasmus’s Lytle Treatise Maner & Forme of Confession in the sense of substituting one medicine for another:

Poticaries and phisions do more greuously offende, than do these persones now rehersed, which haue a prouerbe amonge them, quid pro quo, one thynge for another.

This sentence was inserted by the translator and does not appear in Erasmus’s Latin original. The sense of quid pro quo meaning a substitution is now rare.

Quid pro quo meaning a thing given in return for something else appears a few decades later, around 1560, in the Hereford Municipal Manuscripts:

Only in equitie and concyence considinge that yor orator hath not quid p quo.

And the sense meaning the action of giving something for a return consideration appears in James Howell’s 1640 Dendrologia:

That alleageance is an act of reciprocation; as it bindes the King to protect, so it ties the subject to contribute, and by this correspondence there is a quid pro quo.

In American jurisprudence, at least, there is the concept of quid pro quo sexual harassment, in which employment, promotion, or some other preferment at work is conditioned on the employee performing sexual acts for the supervisor. This is contrasted with hostile-environment sexual harassment, in which an employee is subject to severe or pervasive, unwelcome sexual words or behavior. The term quid pro quo sexual harassment dates to at least 1982.

But a quid pro quo is not, in and of itself, illegal or unethical. We all perform them routinely. Most business transactions, for example, are quid pro quos—a purchase in a store where the shopper receives a product in return for giving the merchant money. But a quid pro quo is an essential element of many corrupt acts. Let us suppose, to take a hypothetical example, that an official conditions the delivery of authorized and appropriated foreign aid to another country upon receiving opposition research on a political opponent in return—a quid pro quo—then that would be bribery.

---

Sources:

Black’s Law Dictionary, eleventh edition, 2019, s. v. quid pro quo; sexual harassment.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2007, s. v. quid pro quo, phr. and n.

prorogation / prorogue

22 September 2019

In September 2019, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked the queen to prorogue parliament, that is to discontinue its meetings without formal dissolution, in the run-up to the UK’s Brexit from the European community. The queen granted the request. Prorogation is a commonly used but little noticed parliamentary tool, and in the UK its traditionally used in a pro forma manner in the few days leading up to a new session or just prior to parliament’s dissolution and a new election. But Johnson used it to end debate on Brexit and prevent backbenchers from taking action on Brexit contrary to what he wanted. This particular instance of prorogation is of dubious constitutionality, and, as of this writing, is under review by the UK courts. [24 September: The UK Supreme Court ruled this prorogation of parliament unconstitutional, and parliament will return to session on 25 September as if it had never happened.] But where did the word come from?

The noun prorogation and the verb to prorogue are borrowings from Anglo-Norman French and ultimately from Latin. The Latin verb prorogare means to prolong, defer, extend in office.

Prorogation appears in English at the beginning of the fifteenth century with the now obsolete sense of prolongation or extension. From a Scottish text written c. 1400:

If hit likes the kyng of Skotlond to swere to the prorogacioun of this trewes.

By the middle of that century, the word was being used to mean to postpone or defer. From the Rolls of Parliament for 1453:

The Kyng [...] woll and grauntith to forbere and proroge and to putte in suspence, th’execution of leviyng of the fyndyng of the seid [...] men Archers [...] for the space of ii yeres.

And by 1455 it was being used in the sense of suspending parliament for a brief period:

For asmoche as the holy Fest of Cristemas approchith so nygh..it myght like the said Lieutenaunt and all the Lordes, this present Parliament to proroge, adjorne, or dissolve.

---

Sources:

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2007, s. v. prorogation, n. and prorogate, v.

poutine / pudding

14 April 2016

Poutine is a contender for the Canadian national dish, although whether or not it can unseat Kraft Dinner (i.e., Kraft macaroni and cheese) in overall popularity is questionable. But the origins of both the dish and its name are shrouded in mystery, and its pedigree is not that long.

Image of poutine

Poutine is a dish of French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds. Well-made poutine is both delicious and artery-hardening. Originating in Quebec, it is widely available across Canada, even being served in fast food restaurants like McDonalds and Burger King—although many would argue that what is served in these chain restaurants does not qualify as poutine.

It has been claimed that a dish named poutine and consisting of fries and cheese curds, sans gravy, was first served in Warwick, Quebec by Fernand Lachance in 1957. Lachance allegedly added gravy to the mix in 1964. But evidence for this claim, as well as for the numerous other origin stories, is lacking. The earliest documentary evidence for the dish and its name is from 1978 in Canadian French and 1982 in English. Similar mixes of fries, gravy, and cheese have popped up from time to time in various locations, but the key differentiator in the Canadian dish is the use of cheese curds, not ordinary cheese.

The word poutine in reference to other dishes is older, though, and like the dish itself, the origin is a bit mysterious. There are two leading contenders, and one probably apocryphal origin. Quebecois have been using the word to refer to various desserts, or puddings, since at least 1810.

As a result, one line of thinking is that it is either a variant of the French pouding or a direct borrowing and alteration into Canadian French from the English pudding. The standard French pouding is itself a borrowing from pudding, which in turn is a borrowing from the Norman French bodeyn or bodin, meaning entrails or sausage. (The sausage sense is preserved in English in such dishes as blood pudding.) A direct borrowing from English, however, seems less likely as there is no explanation for a shift from the d to the t.

A second possibility is that poutine is a Quebecois term, originally meaning a mess, and then shifting in meaning as a result of its similarity to pouding or pudding. This explanation ties in with the story of its inventor being Lachance, who allegedly replied when a customer asked for fries and cheese curds, “ça va faire une maudite poutine” ("it will make a damned mess"). The problem with this explanation is there is no evidence of such a Quebecois usage meaning mess.

---

Sources:

The Anglo-Norman Dictionary Online Edition, 2000–06, s. v. bodins, bodeins.

Oxford English Dictionary Online, third edition, December 2006, s. v. poutine, n.

Oxford English Dictionary Online, third edition, September 2007, s. v. pudding, n.

Wikipedia, 11 April 2016, s. v. Poutine.

Oregon

13 August 2007

The name Oregon is of uncertain origin. Other than being of Native American origin and being first applied to the Oregon River, now known as the Columbia River, little is certain.

The name first appears in a 1765 petition to King George III by Robert Rogers, a colonial military officer. Rogers refers to the Ouragon River, saying it is an Indian name for the famed, but yet-to-be-seen-by-Europeans river of the west that would come to be known as the Columbia River. The name could be from the Connecticut-English pidgin word wauregan, meaning beautiful.

The name Oregon appears in print in Jonathan Carver’s 1778 Travels through the Interior Part of North America and William Cullen Bryant uses the name in his 1817 poem Thanatopsis:

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there!

Bryant’s poem made the name famous and indirectly led to the naming of the territory and eventually the state.

An alternative hypothesis for the origin appears in a 1944 article in American Speech where it is postulated that the name comes from ouraconsint. The name appears on a French map from sometime before 1709 and the name is split into two lines, with -sint appearing below, giving the impression to a casual reader that the river’s name is ouracon. The river in question is the Wisconsin River, commonly called the Ouisconsing by the French. According to this hypothesis English explorers like Rogers confused the name with a river further to the west.

---

Sources:

Oxford English Dictionary, Oregon, n., 3rd Edition, June 2008.

William Cullen Bryant, “Thanatopsis,” in Songs of Three Centuries, ed. John Greenleaf Whittier (New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1817), 188.

George R. Stewart, “The Source of the Name Oregon,” American Speech 19, no. 2 (Apr 1944): 115-17.

OK Boomer

16 November 2019

The meme is sweeping the internet, but where did it originate?

Ok Boomer is a dismissive reply by a young person directed at a Baby Boomer. It is rather disrespectful of their elders, but after years of being blamed for not getting “real” jobs when the only available ones are at Starbucks or driving for Uber, being blamed for not buying houses while being saddled with crippling, student-loan debt, being blamed for the demise of various and sundry industries because they spend what little money they have on avocado toast, for being selfish and self-absorbed while dying on foreign battlefields in the longest wars in America’s history, which were, incidentally, started by Baby Boomers, can one really fault Millennials for being dismissive? In two words, OK Boomer sums up the sentiment that Boomers have been a privileged and coddled generation who never faced tough times like today’s younger generations are facing and are thus out of touch and not worth listening to.

(Full disclosure: I’m a Boomer. But having been born in 1963, at the tail-end of the generation, I identify more with Gen Xers.)

Like most such memes and slang, finding the exact origin is impossible. The earliest usage I’ve been able to find, however, is from 5 Sep 2019 on a gaming discussion board:

“Ok Boomer”

Whatever you say :D

*Next time though, there’s a “Reply” button in the bottom right corner on a forum post, for example, this one. Use it so we know for sure who you’re talking to! (Unless for some reason you can’t click on a simple button but act so big on a forum post)*

Undoubtedly, someone used OK Boomer before this date, but we’ll never know who or exactly when.

---

Sources:

Davies, Mark. Corpus of News on the Web (NOW), 2019.

Sammymom. ”Woop Woop.” Hypixel, 5 September 2019.

Urban Dictionary, 17 September 2019.