terror / terrorism / terrorist

26 September 2019

Terrorism is not simply a modern phenomenon; it’s existed since time immemorial. But it wasn’t until the French Revolution that it was given its name.

Its root, terror, dates to the fifteenth century and is a borrowing from the Anglo-Norman terrour and the Latin terror. Its first citation in English in the OED is from a life of St. George written c. 1480:

for he wes anerly þat ane
þat of criste þe treutht had tan,
þat but rednes ore terroure
of goddis son wes confessoure.

(For he was only that one that the truth of Christ had taken, that for shame and terror of God’s son he was a confessor.)

So, for several centuries terror had the basic meaning that we know today, fear.

The political use of the term came with the post-revolutionary Jacobins, whose rule of France in 1793–94 is known as The Terror. This label appears in English by 1798 in the writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, who equated the depredations of the Jacobins with the English who were oppressing Ireland:

The system of police (if police is what it can be called) is far more atrocious than ever it was in France, in the height of the Terror.

So, terror became associated with violent actions of a state in the oppression of its people. For instance, the magazine Encounter said this in July 1978:

Anyone who cannot see and appreciate the true difference between Russia today and Russia at the height of the Stalinist terror has a very poor idea of one or other of these phenomena.

This sense continues to this day.

But terrorism has always been used in a related, but different sense. It’s the use of violence by a non-state actor to achieve a political end. Sometimes terrorism is sanctioned by a government and carried out by paramilitary forces. Again, this a borrowing from French, although modern French this time: terrorisme. The first use of terrorism in English is by Thomas J. Mathias in his 1796 satirical poem The Pursuits of Literature:

John Thelwall [...] pointed out the defects of all the ancient governments of Greece, Rome, Old France, &c.; and the causes of rebellion, insurrection, regeneration of governments, terrorism, massacres, or revolutionary murders.

Unfortunately in its division of senses, the OED does not distinguish between state and non-state actors. So its unclear in this citation which is being referred to.

Roger Graef in his 1989 Talking Blue: The Police in Their Own Words uses the word to refer to the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, then the paramilitary police force in Northern Ireland. In this case, Graef is associating terrorism with the Provisional IRA, a non-state actor:

In Northern Ireland two decades of terrorism have produced battle fatigue in the RUC.

The New York Times also uses it in this way in a 2009 article:

Terrorism has no place in Islamic doctrine.

Terrorist follows a similar trajectory. It first appears as a synonym for the Jacobins and their supporters. From the Courier and Evening Gazette of 10 November 1794:

The Section Lepelletier, formerly the firmest in support of the Jacobin Society, declared eternal war against the terrorists and intriguers.

By 1806 terrorist was being used to apply to non-state actors. From Francis Plowman’s Historical Review of the State of Ireland of that year:

But the affected zeal for the constitution, the artful misrepresentation of facts, and the undaunted fierceness of those terrorists, had too long usurped the power of the viceroy, and abused the confidence of the British cabinet.

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Source:

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, Sep. 2011, s. v. terror, n., terrorism, n., terrorist, n.

terrific

17 February 2014

If you look at terrific, the origin is rather obvious. The form, or morphology, of the word gives it away, although from its meaning you would never guess where it comes from. Terrific is from the Latin terrificus, meaning frightening. Despite it coming from classical Latin, terrific doesn’t enter English use until the early modern era. The first writer known to use it is John Milton in his 1667 Paradise Lost. Milton uses it in the sense of frightening as he describes the creation and lists many of the animals that God has created:

The Serpent suttl’st Beast of all the field,
Of huge extent somtimes, with brazen Eyes
And hairie Main terrific, though to thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call. (7.495–98)

A serpent with a hairy mane? One would think that Milton wasn’t a very good zoologist, but this line is probably an allusion to Virgil and the Aeneid, the epic poem about the founding of Rome, which describes the two serpents which devour the priest Laocoön and his two sons as having iubaeque sanguineae superant undas (and blood-red crests that top the waves, 2.206–07). We don’t see this “frightening” sense of terrific much anymore; the modern sense has scared it away.

The modern sense of terrific meaning great or marvelous is a much more recent development. In the mid-eighteenth century the word began to be used to mean large or excessive. In a 1743 translation of Horace’s odes, Matthew Tower described the giant Porphryion as “of terrific size,” which could be interpreted as meaning terrifying and awe-inspiring and also as of great size. And within a few decades in his 1798 satirical poem The Literary Census, Thomas Dutton could mean only of great size when he writes of pamphleteer William Cobbett, “I am struck with admiration at the terrific sublimity of his genius.”

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, this sense of great size had come to mean simply great or excellent. An 1871 advertisement in the Athenaeum magazine could say:

The last lines of the first ballad are simply terrific,—something entirely different to what any English author would dream of, much less put on paper.

And by the next century Denis Mackail’s 1930 novel The Young Livingstones could contain this exchange:

“Thanks awfully,” said Rex. “That’ll be ripping.”
“Fine!” said Derek Yardley. “Great! Terrific!”

In the space of three-hundred years, terrific had moved from a Latinate description of awe-inspiring terror with allusions to Virgil to become a rippingly informal word.

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Sources:

“terrific, adj. and n.,” Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2011.

tawdry

13 February 2014

Something that is tawdry is cheap and gaudy. The word dates to the seventeenth century, and was also a noun, meaning “cheap, showy finery,” although only the adjective is much used today. In his 1676 play The Plain Dealer, William Wycherley writes of

taudry affected Rogues, well drest.

And in another Restoration comedy from the same year, The Man of Mode, George Etherege writes,

A Woman that Can doat on a senseless Caper, a Tawdry French Riband, and a Formal Cravat.

Tawdry comes to us from tawdry lace, an alteration of St. Audrey’s lace, a silk neckerchief popular with women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The term tawdry lace is about a century older than the adjective, appearing in the mid-sixteenth century. In his Shepheardes Calendar of 1579, Edmund Spenser says,

Binde your fillets faste, And gird in your waste, For more finesse, with a tawdrie lace.

The name comes from the story of Æþelðryþ or Ethelreda, also known as Audrey, a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon princess, the daughter of Anna, king of East Anglia. Audrey’s tale is recounted by Bede in his eighth-century Ecclesiastical History and by Ælfric in his late tenth-century Lives of Saints. It is said that Audrey took a vow of perpetual virginity and managed to get through two marriages without sleeping with either husband. Her first husband died before he could get her into the marital bed, and the second marriage was eventually annulled, much to the relief of the very frustrated young man, who had gone so far as attempting to bribe the local bishop to release her from her vow and who, when she fled his advances, had chased after her across England. After the annulment, Audrey took holy orders and went on to found an abbey in the town of Ely in East Anglia. Audrey died of a large tumor on her neck, which she attributed to punishment for having worn many expensive jeweled necklaces in her younger years.

After Audrey’s canonization, it became fashionable for medieval English women to wear silk scarves around their necks in tribute to her. Such scarves, and other articles, were sold at the fair held each year on her feast day. The merchandise at this fair was the type of stuff that you would find at any tourist trap, cheap and gaudy, hence the association with finery of inferior quality. St. Audrey’s lace may have been tawdry, but the woman was not.

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Sources:

“tawdry, n. and adj.,” “tawdry lace, n.” Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 1989.

take me to your leader

18 May 2016

The phrase take me to your leader is a science fiction cliché, so much so that in the 2007 “Voyage of the Damned” episode of Doctor Who the time-traveling, title character said, “Take me to your leader! I’ve always wanted to say that!” (Another phrase in that episode that the good doctor always wanted to say was “Allons-y Alonso!”)

Cartoon by Alex Graham depicting a flying saucer and two aliens addressing a horse, saying, “Kindly take us to your President!” From the 21 March 1953 issue of the New Yorker.

The current popularity of the phrase dates to the 1950s, but the phrase itself may be considerably older. The first known application of the phrase to first contact with extraterrestrials dates to 21 March 1953 and a cartoon by Alex Graham that appeared in the New Yorker. The cartoon depicts a flying saucer that has landed in a field and two aliens talking to a horse, saying, “Kindly take us to your President!”

By 1957 the phrase was firmly established in the public consciousness. In October of that year the Chicago Daily Tribune reported on a teen party that featured a “crazy hat” contest. One of the winning entries was called “Take Me to Your Leader.” While we can’t tell with absolute certainty that this is a reference to extraterrestrials, it’s a pretty safe bet that it is. And a few weeks later the same paper had an unambiguous use of the phrase in an alien context:

“Help! help! said the noises. “Take me to you leader!” “The men from Mars are here!” “We’re being invaded!"—these were some of the screams persons reported.

But before the extraterrestrial invasion of our popular culture, the phrase appears quite often in adventure fiction dating back to the nineteenth century. But it’s hard to tell from our twenty-first century perspective whether it was a catchphrase or simply a natural collocation of words. In other words, we can’t tell if take me to your leader was a well-known meme repeated for effect or just an ordinary way to say that you want to meet the head honcho.

Some early non-extraterrestrial examples are:

Mitford, Edward L., The Arab’s Pledge: A Tale of Marocco in 1830, London: Hatchard and Co., 1867, 63:

“You come alone; have you no token?”
“I have,” said he, “but it is as my life; take me to your leader.”

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Merry England: or, Nobles and Serfs. vol. 2. Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz. 1874. 207:

“’Tis true, nevertheless,” rejoined Chaucer. “Take us to your leader.”
“Not till we have further questioned you,” cried the man.

Dowie, John Alexander. Leaves of Healing, vol. 3, Zion Publishing House, 1897, 581:

Some of the band seized upon him not knowing who he was, and carried him off to rob him. He said: “Take me to you leader; take me to your leader at once; I have come into the mountains for that purpose.”

Hayans, Herbert, Clevely Sahib: A Tale of the Khyber Pass, Nelson, 1897, 114:

Rising unsteadily to my feet, I repeated the call for help, and was speedily surrounded by a body of soldiers.
“Take me to your leader quickly,” I gasped—“do not delay a second; it is a matter of life and death.”

Le Queux, William, Whoso Findeth a Wife, Rand McNally, 1898, 258:

“I’ll pay you nothing, not even a rouble, na vódkou, until you take me to your leader,” I answered defiantly.

Orczy, Emma, Leatherface: A Tale of Old Flanders, New York: George H. Doran, 1916, 288:

“Let me get to him ... take me to your leader ... I must speak with him at once!”

Streeter, B. H. and A. J. Appasamy, The Message of Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Study in Mysticism on Practical Religion, New York: Macmillan, 1922, 51:

On the way he fell into the hands of dacoits, who robbed him of the money and valuables, and mortally wounded him. He said to them, “I don’t mind your seizing all I have; only take me to your leader,” which they did.

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Sources:

“A Boy’s Queer Noises Curdle Lots of Blood.” Chicago Daily Tribune. 18 Nov 1957. 4.

“Dig Those Hats (Crazy) Made At Teen Dance.” Chicago Daily Tribune. 13 Oct 1957. w5.

Graham, Alex. Cartoon. New Yorker, 21 Mar 1953.

Partridge, Eric. Dictionary of Catchphrases. Ed. Paul Beale. Scarborough House. 1992.

Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. Yale University Press. 2006.

tabby

7 July 2019

Most of us know a tabby cat is either a female house cat or one with a striped or brindled coat regardless of its sex. But where does the word tabby come from? It has an unusual etymology, coming ultimately from Arabic and the history of Islam, and over the years it has been applied to things other than house cats, such as being used to refer to older, unmarried women.

The English word comes from the French tabis, in Old French atabis. This in turn comes from the medieval Latin attabi, which was taken from the Arabic ‘attābī, which is a reference to al-’Attābīya, a neighborhood of Baghdad. This quarter of the city is named for Attab ibn Asid, the first governor of Mecca following its conquest by Muhammad. Tabby, and its ancestors in these other languages, originally referred to silk taffeta, which was woven in the Baghdad neighborhood. The cloth was originally striped, but later came to be used for cloth of a single color that was waved or watered.

Tabby appears in English as early as 1638 referring to the cloth. It appears in an inventory of the possessions of Thomas Verney:

Now for some necessaries concerning myself. As first, for one good cloth sute, and one taby or good stuff sute.

The connection to cats is in place by 1665, where it appears in Thomas Herbert’s Some Years Travels Into Divers Parts of Africa and Asia the Great:

Cats be in more request with them than dogs; very large they are and tabby-coloured, streakt like those of Cyprus.

By 1695, the unmodified tabby was being applied to cats. From William Congreve’s play Love for Love of that year:

Look to it, nurse; I can bring witness that you have a great unnatural teat under your left arm, and he another; and that you suckle a young devil, in the shape of a tabby cat, by turns; I can.

The sense of a female cat was in place by 1826. From James Townley’s play High Life Below Stairs of that year:

Why, Mrs. Kitty, your cat has kittened—two Toms and two Tabbies!

It’s clear from this citation that the sense of tabby as a female cat developed in contrast to the male tomcat. It probably is a conflation of the name Tabitha, the word’s association with cats, and its sense of a spinster.

The word’s first association with human females is in Samuel Richardson’s 1748 novel Clarissa:

With horrible grave faces was I received. The two Antiques only bowed their tabby heads; making longer faces than ordinary.

Here tabby is referring to various shades of gray hair on the two spinster’s heads. But within a few years, the word was directly referring to elderly spinsters. From George Colman’s 1761 play The Jealous Wife:

‘Pon honour, I am not sorry for the coming-in of these old tabbies, and am much obliged to her ladyship for leaving us such an agreeable tête-à-tête.

This sense of a spinster, as the quote from Richardson indicates, got its start from gray hair, but the association of old women with cats, from the stereotype of spinsters keeping cats as pets and disparagingly in comparing their disposition to the animals’, certainly influenced the development of this sense.

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Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2019, s. v. tabby.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s. v. tabby, n. and adj.