hello

Thomas Edison on the telephone, using his “Telescribe” device to record telephone calls, c. 1915

Thomas Edison on the telephone, using his “Telescribe” device to record telephone calls, c. 1915

28 December 2020

The use of hello as a greeting is a relatively new use of the word, dating to the mid nineteenth century and only becoming popular with the advent of the telephone, but the word has precursors that date back centuries.

Holla or hola, a cry meaning to stop or to cease an action, can be found as far back as 1523, when it appears in a translation of Jean Froissart’s Cronycles:

Whan they were come in to the place / there speares were delyuered them / and so ran eche at other / and myssed by reason of stryuinge of their horses. The seconde course they met and ataynted. Than therle of Buckyngham sayd / hola: cease for it is late.

And to hollow, an early form of to holler, meaning to yell, comes a few years later. From a medical text by Andrew Boorde from 1542:

Also they must abstayne from drynkynge of wyne, and vse not to drynke ale and beere the whiche is ouer stronge: vocyferacyon halowynge, cryeng, and hygh synging is not good for the hed.

And toward the end of that century, the word was being used as a cry to attract attention or to indicate that one should listen. Poet and dramatist John Lyly used the word in that sense in his 1589 tract Pappe with an Hatchet. The tract was part of an ongoing propaganda war between Puritans and supporters of the Church of England known today as the Marprelate Controversy. A Puritan using the punning pseudonym of Martin Marprelate published a series of ribald and mocking pamphlets attacking Anglican bishops. Lyly and others attempted to use the same tactics. Lyly wrote in his:

Hollow there, giue me the beard I wore yesterday. O beware of a gray beard, and a balde head: for if such a one doo but nod, it is right dudgin and deepe discretion.

But the hello spelling doesn’t appear until nineteenth century America. The Connecticut Norwich Courier of 18 October 1826 uses hello in the same fashion that Lyly used hollow several centuries earlier:

I guess I’ll play a trick on these plaguy Methodists. Hello, Jim! I tell you what: I’ve got a sharp knife and feel as if I’d like to cut up something or other: and now if you’ll git some of their harness. I vow I’ll make short work of it.

It is easy to see how this attention-grabbing word could slip over into a greeting, and this happens in a 28 May 1853 article in the New York Clipper:

Hello ole feller, how are yer?

Hello becomes associated with the telephone because the earliest models of the device did not have a bell to signal an incoming call, so some sort of attention-grabbing term was needed. Alexander Graham Bell was in favor of using ahoy, but that lost out to hello, which was favored by Thomas Edison, among others. Edison makes note of this in a 15 August 1877 letter to T.B.A. David, the official in charge of a demonstration of the technology in the city of Pittsburgh:

Friend David, I do not think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What you think? Edison

Three days later, on 18 August 1877, the Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle records the word hello being used just this way:

The word “Hello” was called into the Fourth avenue box, and directly a still small voice answered at the ear, “Hello, what do you want?”

And after bells were added to telephones, people continued to open their telephone conversations with hello, and from there it worked its way into other modes of communication.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Boorde, Andrew. Hereafter Foloweth a Compendyous Regyment or a Dyetary of Helth Made in Mou[n]tpyllier. London: Robert Wyer for John Gowghe, 1542 chapter 33, sig. M.iii. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Edison, Thomas A. Letter to T.B.A. David, 15 August 1877. In Allen Koenigsberg. “The First ‘Hello!’: Thomas Edison, the Phonograph and the Telephone—Part 2.” Antique Phonograph Monthly, 8.1, 1987.

Froissart, Jean. Here Begynneth the First Volum of Sir Iohan Froyssart of the Cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne, Portyngale, Scotlande, Bretayne, Flau[n]ders: and Other Places Adioynynge. John Bourchier, trans. London: Richard Paynson, 1523, fol. 241r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Lyly, John. Pappe with an Hatchet. London: John Anoke and John Astile, 1589, Cv. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2008, s.v. hello, int. and n.; second edition, 1989, holla, int. and n.

“Rightly Served.” Norwich Courier (Connecticut), 18 October 1826, 4. Newsbank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: unknown photographer, c. 1915. Public domain image.

malarkey

Scene from HBO’s Band of Brothers, set in 1943, in which Private Donald Malarkey, played by actor Scott Grimes, undergoes weapons inspection by his company commander, played by David Schwimmer

24 December 2020

Malarkey is a slang term for nonsense, humbug, or bullshit, and it is a favorite of President-Elect Joe Biden, who uses it with regularity. The origin is unknown, but there are several conjectures. The word is primarily an Americanism, but one of the possible origins roots it in northern English dialect.

Malarkey or Mullarkey is also an Irish surname, as the video clip from HBO’s television series Band of Brothers demonstrates—one of the soldiers in E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment during World War II was Sergeant Donald Malarkey (1921–2017). But how that surname might be connected to the slang meaning has never been explained. There is no person of that name who is particularly associated with nonsense or foolishness.

The Oxford English Dictionary also lists the suggestion that it comes from the Greek μαλακός (malakos), meaning soft. This seems a stretch, to the point of absurdity, in my eyes.

More plausibly, Green’s Dictionary of Slang raises the possibility that it is from the northern English dialect marlock, which, with various spellings, is well attested in nineteenth century. It is no stretch of the imagination to think that English immigrants brought it to the United States, with the diminutive -ey suffix being attached to it along the way. Joseph Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary gives several definitions for marlock, several of which align with the American slang meaning:

A prank, frolic, “lark”; a trick, practical joke; a noisy disturbance, an uproar, “row.”

A fraudulent contrivance or trick.

One who plays pranks, a fool.

1922 cartoon by T.A. Dorgan featuring a man and a woman watching two men trying to talk on adjacent telephones

1922 cartoon by T.A. Dorgan featuring a man and a woman watching two men trying to talk on adjacent telephones

The American slang sense is recorded in the early 1920s. The earliest uses I’m aware of are by two noted and widely circulated newspapermen, cartoonist Theodore Aloysius (Tad) Dorgan and Independent New Service sportswriter Davis J. Walsh.

Dorgan uses Milarkey in a 9 March 1922 cartoon to designate a telephone exchange. Milarkey would stand for the letters MI, which on a telephone dial would indicate the numbers 6 and 4:

Listening to two blokes battle as they try to phone in a joint without a booth [...] Aw, go chase yourself!!! No– No– Not you Central—I’m talking to a fish faced dodo here opposite me—no on my word Central—yes Milarkey 609 J. What? Say...

1924 cartoon by T.A. Dorgan featuring lawyers arguing in a courtroom while four policemen converse in the gallery

1924 cartoon by T.A. Dorgan featuring lawyers arguing in a courtroom while four policemen converse in the gallery

This particular use is not, in and of itself, relevant to the slang usage, except that two years later, on 2 April 1924, Dorgan uses malachy in another cartoon, this time clearly in the sense of nonsense or humbug. In the cartoon, a group of policemen are discussing two lawyers:

I don’t trust ‘em either—they might be framin’ up the poor prison at that

Malachy—you said it—I wouldn’t trust a lawyer no further than I could throw a case of scotch

In light of his later use, it seems clear that Dorgan chose Milarkey for the fictitious telephone exchange because it was associated with nonsense. Dorgan’s various spellings hint that he hadn’t seen the word in print; he had only heard it spoken.

And in between the publication of Dorgan’s two cartoons, syndicated sportswriter Davis Walsh used malarkey in a column about Argentinean boxer Luis Firpo. From an 8 September 1923 column:

Indeed the challenger has been so unimpressive in public that a coterie of volunteer pallbearers has made a practice of attending all workouts at the dog track and laughing immoderately at every move the Latin makes They seem to think he is a lot of “malarkey,” as it were

The periods are missing in the original.

Walsh would use malarkey a number of times in the first half of the 1920s. From a 17 February 1924 column:

Some attempt has been made to account for the defeat of the United States hockey team by the Canadians in the Olympic games by declaring the result was the fruit of team work rather than individual brilliancy. This is as so much malarkey, according to the best informed sources.

From 12 March 1924:

From a potpourrie [sic] of affirmations and denials in circulation today on matters of heavyweight business it was declared on the plumb-bob level to be fact and not fancy that there would be only two heavyweight championship bouts to be held this summer, to wit: Jack Dempsey versus Tom Gibbons in New York during the early part of June; Jack Dempsey versus Luis Firpo in Jersey City early in September.

The rest of the chatter is so much malarkey, according to a tip so straight that it can be passed thru a peashooter without touching the sides.

From 19 April 1924:

That the business is not so much malarkey is indicated by the fact that English and American sections of an international intercollegiate committee, already appointed, include the names of some of the most prominent men in the tennis world.

And from 6 December 1924:

However, all talk of Eddie Roush figuring in any deal with the Giants is so much malarkey, according to Hendricks.

Both Dorgan and the less-well-known Walsh were syndicated writers and their work appeared in newspapers across the United States. While it’s highly unlikely that either coined the word malarkey, they undoubtedly played a significant role in popularizing and spreading the slang term.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Dorgan, T.A. “Indoor Sports” (cartoon). San Francisco Call and Post, 9 March 1922, 23. California Digital Newspaper Collection.

———. “Indoor Sports” (cartoon). Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin), 2 April 1924, 11. NewspaperArchive.com.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. malarkey, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2008, s.v. malarkey, n.

Walsh, Davis J. “College Tennis League Formed.” Marion Daily Star (Ohio), 19 April 1924, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

———. “Cubs Won’t Part with O’Farrell.” Minneapolis Daily Star, 6 December 1924, 12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

———. “Firpo Is Real Actor Even if Does Nothing Else in Proper Way.” Defiance Crescent-News (Ohio), 8 September 1923, 8. NewspaperArchive.com.

——— [“Walsh, David” recte Davis]. “The Sport Crucible.” Tampa Sunday Tribune (Florida), 17 February 1924, 10-D. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

———. “Sport News.” Indiana Evening Gazette (Pennsylvania), 12 March 1924, 13. NewspaperArchive.com.

Wright, Joseph. The English Dialect Dictionary, vol. 4 of 6. Oxford: Henry Frowde, 1905, s.v. marlock, sb. and v.

Video credit: Ambrose, Stephen E. and Erik Jendreson (writers), Phil Alden Robinson (director). “Currahee.” Band of Brothers, HBO, airdate: 9 September 2001.

hell in a handbasket

23 December 2020

Today, to go to hell in a handbasket means to willingly or without opposition to deteriorate or decline, especially a moral decline. Handcart, as opposed to handbasket, is also commonly seen. The metaphor is one of being easily transported or carried, as one might carry a small dog in a hand-held basket. But originally the meaning was more literal, referring to actual damnation. Often labeled as an Americanism, the phrase is also fairly common in Britain, and the earliest versions of the phrase are British dating to the early seventeenth century.

There are many variations on the phrase, and the handbasket version has only become the canonical one relatively recently. The earliest use of a variant that I’ve found is to hell in horse litter found in a 1636 sermon by Peter Hausted, an Anglican preacher and playwright; many of the early uses are found in sermons:

O yee will hug us of the Clergy, so long as wee let yee alone; so long as wee doe not bring backe your sinnes to your memory, wee are quiet and honest men, so long as wee will suffer ye to goe to Hell in a Horse litter, a fine easie pace, without any rubs or molestations in your way, we shall be accounted good and worthy men amongst yee.

Horse litter, like handbasket, is alliterative, but most of the early instances are not. Here is to hell in a fiery chariot from a 1641 sermon by Cornelius Burges. It is in reference to burning a heretic at the stake, hence the fire:

For, as Hoffeus the Jesuite was wont to bragg, they hold it a good peece of Pietie, instantly to commend him to the fire, ut anima ejus in curru igneo ad inferos trahatur, that so his soule might be forthwith carried to hell in a fiery Chariot.

While many of the early uses of the phrase and its variants are homiletic, not all are. Here is one from a popular song, “Chipps of the Old Block,” that was reprinted a number of times, the earliest I have found from 1659:

That Mine of fraud Sir Artur,
His Soul for Lands will barter;
And if you ride to Hell in a Wayn, he's fit to make
your Carter.

The handbasket variant appears in an anti-Catholic tract by Henry Care from 1682:

That noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fanatical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms.

We have an American appearance in December 1734 in the Pennsylvania Gazette, a publication published by Benjamin Franklin. Here it is to hell in a cradle, a reference to the rocking of a sinking ship:

New and Vaughan, and one Spinner, the three greatest Rogues were drowned. One of the transports who were saved confessed, on his coming to Bristol, that Vaughan beat the Hole in the Boat, in order to make the Owner run her ashore, that they might have an Opportunity to make their Escape. They swore and curs’d all the Way, and New in particular swore, That he was going to Hell in a Cradle, for so he term’d the Rolling of the Vessel...The six other Transports were all delivered at Bristol, and go by the next ship to Virginia.

The handbasket variant reappears in a letter by Irish chartist leader Feargus O’Connor in a letter published in the Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser on 23 January 1841. And it is about this time, in the mid nineteenth century, that the handbasket version starts to emerge as the canonical phrase and become a fixed idiom. Other versions, especially the alliterative handcart one, still appear, but they become less common:

I am one of those who believe that the virtues of man, if cherished, and fairly displayed, very much preponderate over his vices. Sanctified hypocrites will tell you not, and that, do what you will, you are all to go to hell in a hand-basket, thereby, in fact, making you mere passive creatures in this world—passive to their will.

Here’s an example from the next year in the New York Herald of 10 April 1842, showing the phrase was alive on both sides of the Atlantic:

Pray, Mr. Bennett, good Mr. Bennett, keep the whip a going; lash the loafers, the dandies, the speculators, the pipelayers, the septuaginary Lotharios, the careless schoolmistresses, the Quack Doctors, Ministers and Lecturers; the State Borrowers, and City Borrowers; the wise Magistrates who try to enrich the State and City by increasing our taxes; the pettifogging Lawyers, and all those pious folks who think it a mortal sin to eat roast potatoes, who make a hell of this goodly earth, and won’t let us go to heaven unless we go in their handbasket.

It is recorded in 1865 with the sense of murder, sending someone to hell. It appeared in the context of a military tribunal of “Copperheads,” that is Northern Democrats who sympathized with the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War. A group of Copperheads, calling themselves the Order of American Knights, was accused of plotting to free Southern prisoners and form them into an army. During the February 1865 tribunal, a witness testified that Illinois politician Buckner S. Morris gave a speech in the fall of 1864 using the phrase. Morris would be acquitted.

The witness’s account of Morris’s speech was recorded in the Chicago Tribune with a dateline of 13 February 1865:

He said we had friends in Camp Douglas who were Puritans, or betters compared to the Lincoln hirelings. He also spoke of giving these abolitionists hell under the shirt-tail, and about sending them to hell in a hand-basket. His speech was responded to by cheers.

I. Winslow Ayer, one of those who unmasked the conspiracy, also reported on Morris’s speech in his 1865 The Great North-Western Conspiracy:

He referred to the suspension of the habeas corpus, and said many of our best men were at that moment “rotting in Lincoln's bastiles;” that it was our duty to wage a war against them, and open their doors; that when the Democrats got into power they would impeach and probably hang him, and all who were thus incarcerated should be set at liberty; that thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would “send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.”

By the end of the nineteenth century the sense of general decline was in place. From an article by journalist W.C. Brann published in 1896:

These are the unhung idiots who imagine that a nation, producing in abundance everything humanity needs, would go to hell in a handbasket if it adopted an independent currency system or an international policy which Yewrup did not approve.

So, just as the phrase indicated, its sense slowly slid from a literal and specific one of death and damnation to a squishier and more general one of decay and decline.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Anti-Moonshine. Letter. New York Herald, 10 April 1842, 3. Gale News Vault.

Ayer, I. Winslow. The Great North-Western Conspiracy. Chicago: Rounds and James, 1865, 47. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Brann, W.C. “Jingoes and John Bull. Anglo-Maniacs vs. Americans.” Brann, the Iconoclast (vol. 1 of 2). New York: Brann Publishers, 1896, 228–29. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Burges, Cornelius. Another Sermon Preached to the Honorable House of Commons Now Assembled in Parliament, November the Fifth, 1641. London: R.B. for P. Stephens and C. Meredith, 1641, 24. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Care, Henry. The History of Popery or Pacquet of Advice from Rome, vol. 4, 23 June 1682, 215. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“Chipps of the Old Block.” Ratts Rhimed to Death. Or, the Rump-Parliament Hang’d Up in the Shambles. London: 1659, 49. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Goranson, Stephen. “Re: [ADS-L] New York Sunday Mercury,” ADS-L, 15 November 2020.

Hausted, Peter. “The Third Sermon Preached Upon Saint Peters Day.” Ten Sermons Preached Upon Severall Sundayes and Saints Dayes. London: John Clark, 1636, 55. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

O’Connor, Feargus. “O’Connor Upon Physical Force.” Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser (Leeds, England), 23 January 1841, 7. Gale News Vault.

“Our Cincinnati Letter. The Chicago Conspiracy.” Chicago Tribune, 16 February 1865, 4. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2008, s.v. hell, n. and int.

The Pennsylvania Gazette, vol. 2 of 20, 5–12 December 1734, 3. Hathitrust Digital Archive.

Tréguer, Pascal. “To Go to Hell—or Heaven—in a Handbasket.” Wordhistories.net, 23 May 2018.

List of Early Uses

What follows is an early list of uses of to hell in a [conveyance] from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Some of these are literal uses referring to damnation, and there are many similar uses that I’ve left off because they did not refer to a vehicle of some sort (e.g., to hell in a dream or in a crowd).

Hausted, Peter. “The Third Sermon Preached Upon Saint Peters Day.” Ten Sermons Preached Upon Severall Sundayes and Saints Dayes. London: John Clark, 1636, 55. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

O yee will hug us of the Clergy, so long as wee let yee alone; so long as wee doe not bring backe your sinnes to your memory, wee are quiet and honest men, so long as wee will suffer ye to goe to Hell in a Horse litter, a fine easie pace, without any rubs or molestations in your way, we shall be accounted good and worthy men amongst yee.

 

Burges, Cornelius. Another Sermon Preached to the Honorable House of Commons Now Assembled in Parliament, November the Fifth, 1641. London: R.B. for P. Stephens and C. Meredith, 1641, 24. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

For, as Hoffeus the Jesuite was wont to bragg, they hold it a good peece of Pietie, instantly to commend him to the fire, ut anima ejus in curru igneo ad inferos trahatur, that so his soule might be forthwith carried to hell in a fiery Chariot..

 

Abbot, Robert. Milk for Babes, or, A Mothers Catechism for Her Children. London: John Legate for Philemon Stephens, 1646, 263. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Hence is it that they swim in the Kingdome of pleasure, and, with their eyes to heaven, are going as fast as they can to hell in a feather-bed.

 

Tub-Preachers Overturnd. London: George Lindsey, 1647, 4. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Nor could he, having once the knowledg of the truth, be deceived by your errors by all your glozing specious pretences of New-Light, Christ upon his Throne, Godly Party, Free-grace, Saints, Comfort of beleevers, Divine Light, Pilgrim of the Saints, and Honey-comb, and a thousand sweet lyes in them to have a man go slumbring to hell in a feather-bed.

 

Godolphin, John. The Holy Limbeck. London: John Field for Edmund Paxton, 1650, 144–45. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Have you never observed a man at a Sermon to sleep very attentively, that heard, all, understood, little, and practised nothing: It seems there may be deaf hearers as well as dumb Preachers. Thus there are more ways of sleeping at a Sermon then one, and for him that cannot refrain, it would be less Hypocrisie to go to Hell in a feather-bed at home.

 

Sheffeild, John. A Good Conscience the Strongest Hold. London: J.B. for Samuel Gellibrand, 1650, 302. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Bernard speaks of some that were much wiser, and more skilfull then others, yet all the use they made of their wisdom was to go to Hell in a more neat and handsom manner.

 

“Chipps of the Old Block.” Ratts Rhimed to Death. Or, the Rump-Parliament Hang’d Up in the Shambles. London: 1659, 49. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

That Mine of fraud Sir Artur,
His Soul for Lands will barter;
And if you ride to Hell in a Wayn, he's fit to make
your Carter.

 

Gray, Andrew. Great and Precious Promises; or, Some Sermons Concerning the Promises. Edinburgh: Society of Stationers, 1663, 47. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Satan hath three different wayes of guiding souls unto everlasting torment; there are some that Satan carryeth to hell in a chariot of delusions, making them believe that they are still going to heaven; and such are the hypocrites in Sion: and I shall say; I think that chariot was never so filled as it is in those dayes. O fear that anxious disappointment that many of you (it is like) will meet with? An hypocrite he hath strong hopes, he hath strong idols, and he hath strong delusions, these are his three attendants. And there are some that Satan carryeth to hell in a chariot of profanity and ignorance of God, whose judgement goeth before hand, and they are known that they are going there. And there are some that Satan carryeth to hell in a chariot of civility.

 

Care, Henry. The History of Popery or Pacquet of Advice from Rome, vol. 4, 23 June 1682, 215. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

That noise of a Popish Plot was nothing in the world but an intrigue of the Whigs to destroy the Kings best Friends, and the Devil fetch me to Hell in a Hand basket, if I might have my will, there should not be one Fanatical Dog left alive in the three Kingdoms.

 

Phillips, Edward. The Mysteries of Love & Eloquence, or, the Arts of Wooing and Complementing, third edition with additions. London: James Rawlins for Obadiah Blagrave, 1685, 180. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

VVell fare him that is born to be hang'd say I, for he goes to heaven in a string, when he that is drown'd goes to hell in a ferry-boat.

 

Curate, Jacob. The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence; or, the Foolishness of Their Teaching Discovered. London: Randal Taylor, 1692, 111. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

I will tell you a sad truth, Sirs, You have been driven to Hell in a Coach this eight and twenty years, and that old Stock, my Father (pointing to him) has been the Coachman.

 

The Pennsylvania Gazette, vol. 2 of 20, 5–12 December 1734, 3. Hathitrust Digital Archive.

New and Vaughan, and one Spinner, the three greatest Rogues were drowned. One of the transports who were saved confessed, on his coming to Bristol, that Vaughan beat the Hole in the Boat, in order to make the Owner run her ashore, that they might have an Opportunity to make their Escape. They swore and curs’d all the Way, and New in particular swore, That he was going to Hell in a Cradle, for so he term’d the Rolling of the Vessel...The six other Transports were all delivered at Bristol, and go by the next ship to Virginia.

 

Rudder, Samuel. “Window XV.” The History of Fairford Church in Gloucestershire. Cirencester: S. Rudder, 1763. Hathitrust Digital Archive.

Description of a stained glass window

Here is Dives in hell, praying for a drop of water to cool his tongue; and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosum; also a woman going to hell in a wheelbarrow, for scolding at her husband.

 

Flavel, John. The Whole Works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel, vol. 6 of 8. Paisley: A. Weir and a. M’Lean, 1770, 191. Hathitrust Digital Archive.

There are but two differences betwixt me and the poorest slave the devil hath on earth; such are whipped on to hell by outward miseries, and I am coached to hell in a little more pomp and honor; these will have a less, and I a greater account in the day of reckoning.

 

Erskine, Ralph. “Sermon XV.” The Practical Works of the Reverend Ralph Erskine, vol. 1 of 10. Glasgow: William Smith, 1777, 456. Hathitrust Digital Archive.

Why, they had a good hope of heaven; and so, the higher their hope, the more dismal their fall and disappointment. Oh! how many ride triumphantly to hell in a chariot of foul-destroying delusion! They imagine they are right enough, and that all is well; while it is quite otherwise with them.

 

Goldsmith, Oliver. The Citizen of the World; or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, residing in London, to His Friends in the East, vol. 2 of 2. London: R. Whiston, et al., 1790, 166. Hathitrust Digital Archive.

Reference to the Fairford Church window

It some way resembles a picture I have seen, designed by Albert Durer, where, amidst all the solemnity of that aweful scene, a deity judging, and a trembling world awaiting the decree, he has introduced a merry mortal trundling his scolding wife to hell in a wheel-barrow.

 

Des Carrieres, A. J. Précis de l'Histoire de France, Depuis l'Établissement de la Monarchie, Jusqu'à Nos Jour, vol. 1. London: 1791, 33. Hathitrust Digital Archive. https://www.hathitrust.org/

The monks have loaded this prince [i.e., Dagobert] with praise, the reason of which is plain; they thought it a duty to acknowledge his pious prodigality. One of them records, that they saw the dæmons conduct his soul to hell, in a boat; but that St. Denis, St. Mauritius, and St. Martin, came to its aid, rescued it from their hands, and carried it to Abraham’s bosom.

 

Meadows, Thomas. “Four and Twenty Puppet Shews.” Thespian Gleanings; a Collection of Comic Recitals, Songs, Tales, &c. Ulverston, Cumbria: George Ashburner, 1805, 170. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Four and twenty Puppet Shows all on a row

There was Punch and his wife going to old Nick in a hand basket, and the little devil lighting them with a dark lanthorn for fear they should lose their way

 

Dow, Jr. (pseudonym of Elbridge Gerry Paige). “Number XCIV. On Whales and Little Fishes.” Short Patent Sermons. New York: L. Labree, 1841, 232. HathiTrust Digital Archive. https://www.hathitrust.org/

The fact is, my friends, this billowy world, in which wo are spawned, may be properly considered one vast ocean, and its inhabitants, fishes of all sorts, sizes, grades and classes. Some are scaly, some are slimy, some are soft, some are smooth, and some are solid and consistent, clean through, from the dorsal to the ventral fin. Of the scaly tribe I may mention those suckers belonging to the body loaferish, that never rise to the surface of respectability, but are always groveling in the mud of corruption, whose sole study appears to be to see how much they can get without the least physical exertion; and who would rather ride to hell in a hand-cart than walk to heaven supported by the staff of industry.

 

O’Connor, Feargus. “O’Connor Upon Physical Force.” Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser (Leeds, England), 23 January 1841, 7. Gale News Vault.

I am one of those who believe that the virtues of man, if cherished, and fairly displayed, very much preponderate over his vices. Sanctified hypocrites will tell you not, and that, do what you will, you are all to go to hell in a hand-basket, thereby, in fact, making you mere passive creatures in this world—passive to their will.

 

Anti-Moonshine. Letter. New York Herald, 10 April 1842, 3. Gale News Vault.

Pray, Mr. Bennett, good Mr. Bennett, keep the whip a going; lash the loafers, the dandies, the speculators, the pipelayers, the septuaginary Lotharios, the careless schoolmistresses, the Quack Doctors, Ministers and Lecturers; the State Borrowers, and City Borrowers; the wise Magistrates who try to enrich the State and City by increasing our taxes; the pettifogging Lawyers, and all those pious folks who think it a mortal sin to eat roast potatoes, who make a hell of this goodly earth, and won’t let us go to heaven unless we go in their handbasket.

 

“Our Cincinnati Letter. The Chicago Conspiracy.” Chicago Tribune, 16 February 1865, 4. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.

He said we had friends in Camp Douglas who were Puritans, or betters compared to the Lincoln hirelings. He also spoke of giving these abolitionists hell under the shirt-tail, and about sending them to hell in a hand-basket. His speech was responded to by cheers.

 

Ayer, I. Winslow. The Great North-Western Conspiracy. Chicago: Rounds and James, 1865, 47. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

He referred to the suspension of the habeas corpus, and said many of our best men were at that moment “rotting in Lincoln's bastiles;” that it was our duty to wage a war against them, and open their doors; that when the Democrats got into power they would impeach and probably hang him, and all who were thus incarcerated should be set at liberty; that thousands of our best men were prisoners in Camp Douglas, and if once at liberty would “send abolitionists to hell in a hand basket.”

 

Brann, W.C. “Jingoes and John Bull. Anglo-Maniacs vs. Americans.” Brann, the Iconoclast (vol. 1 of 2). New York: Brann Publishers, 1896, 228–29. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

These are the unhung idiots who imagine that a nation, producing in abundance everything humanity needs, would go to hell in a handbasket if it adopted an independent currency system or an international policy which Yewrup did not approve.

bear / bruin (animal)

Alaskan brown bear in a river with a fish in its mouth

Alaskan brown bear in a river with a fish in its mouth

22 December 2020

Bears are large, carnivorous quadrupeds of the family Ursidae. There are eight extant species of bear (unfortunately, soon to be seven as climate change is killing off the polar bears) found across the northern hemisphere and in South America. The brown and polar bears are the largest terrestrial carnivores currently existing.

The English word bear has cognates throughout the Germanic languages: Frisian bear; Dutch beer; German Bär; Icelandic bera; Norwegian Bjørn; Swedish Björn; and Danish bjørn. The Proto-Indo-European root is *bher-2, which is associated with the color brown.

The word goes back to the Old English bera, an example of which can be found in a late tenth-century sermon taken from the biblical book of Kings by Ælfric of Eynsham:

Þa forseah se ælmihtiga God þone Saul æt nextan and hine of his rice awearp be his agenum gewyrhtum and ceas to cynincge þone cenan Dauid, se ðe butan wæpnum gewylde ða leon and þæs beran ceaflas tobræc mid his handum and ahredde þæt gelæhte scep of his scearpum toðum.

(Then the almighty God finally spurned Saul and cast him out of his kingdom because of his deeds and chose the brave David as king, he who without weapons overpowered the lion and shattered the jaws of the bear with his hands and delivered the captured sheep from his sharp teeth.)

The word bruin, which also means bear, is a fifteenth-century borrowing from the Dutch. Bruin in Dutch means brown. Bruin makes its way into English in William Caxton’s 1481 translation and printing of the tales of Reynard the fox:

the kynge thouught that alle this was good and saide to brune the bere syr brune I wyl that ye doo this message / but see wel to for your self / ffor reynart is a shrewe / and felle & knoweth so many wyles that he shal lye and flatre / and shal thynke how he may begyle deceyue and brynge yow to some mockerye

The use of words meaning brown to name the creature is probably some form of taboo avoidance, out of fear that mentioning its name will make the bear appear. In other words, the bear is, like Voldemort, “one who must not be named” and thus was referred to as “the brown one.”

xkcd cartoon featuring four people discussing the etymology of the word bear

xkcd cartoon featuring four people discussing the etymology of the word bear

All this is a rather straightforward and obvious etymology, except there is a belief afoot, as evidenced by the Randall Munroe xkcd cartoon pictured here, that the “true name” of the bear has been lost. This idea is wrong on several levels. First, there is no such thing as a “true name” of something. Names are arbitrary (usually, echoic ones aren’t arbitrary) combinations of sounds used as commonly understood labels. There is nothing magical or special about older names. Second, the older root has not been lost.

As Munroe’s cartoon points out, the Proto-Indo-European root meaning bear is *rkto-, and that root survives in the Greek άρκτος (arktos) and the Latin ursis. The latter can be seen in the Linnaean nomenclature of Ursidae for bears. The name Orca for killer whales is from the same root and comes from earlier use to mean sea monsters. The root is also the source of J.R.R. Tolkien’s monstrous orcs, which he took from the Old English orcneas, meaning some kind of demon or evil spirit. These uses of the Proto-Indo-European root to mean monstrous creatures supports the idea of taboo avoidance in bear, but they disprove the idea that the older name has been lost. It hasn’t; the Germanic languages just no longer use it to refer to bears.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Ælfric. “Sermo excerptus de Libro regum” (“A Sermon Excerpted from the Book of Kings”). Old English Lives of Saints, vol. 2 of 3, Mary Clayton and Janet Mullins, eds. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 59. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019, lines 12–17, 140.

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020 s.v. bear2, n. and bher-2 in Appendix of Indo-European Roots.

Caxton, William, trans. This is the Table of the Historye of Reynart the Foxe. London: Caxton, 1481. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Dictionary of Old English: A to I, 2018, s.v. bera.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2020, s.v. bear, n.1.; December 2016, s.v. bruin, n.

Image credits: Chapman, Carl, 24 June 2006, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license; Randall Munroe. “The True Name of the Bear,” xkcd.com, 2020.

heathen

21 December 2020

Heathen is an unusual word. For despite being a very old one, it has retained its meaning pretty much intact through the centuries, with few additional senses or connotations. A heathen, of course, is someone who is not an adherent to one of the Abrahamic faiths, although in early use it was sometimes used to refer to Jews and Muslims as well. But while its form and use in English is well documented and understood, the word’s early history is contested, with two competing explanations.

The word is common in Old English, with close to a thousand extant instances. Since many of the surviving Old English texts are religious ones, the high number is not terribly surprising. For example, the eleventh-century gospel of Mark 7:26 found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 140 reads:

soðlice þæt wif wæs hæðen sirofenisces cynnes

(truly that woman was a heathen of the Syrophoenician people)

The original Greek is:

ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἦν ἑλληνίς, συροφοινίκισσα τῷ γένει:

(the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation)

Heathen is also common across the Germanic languages: the Old Frisian hêthin, the Old Saxon hêðin which gives way to the present-day Dutch heiden, the Old High German heidan and the present-day German heide, and the Old Norse heiðinn with the present day Swedish and Danish heden.

The common explanation is that heathen comes from heath, a tract of uncultivated or wild, but not wooded, land, from the Old English hæþ. A heathen, according to this explanation, is a dweller on the heath, which corresponds to the Latin paganus, originally a rustic person and later a worshipper of older gods. Paganus is, of course, the source of pagan. It is presumed that Christian writers in the Germanic languages translated paganus as heathen. There are some problems with this explanation though. The endings, particularly the difference between the Old High German -an and the Old English -en, are not explained. Furthermore, the oldest of the Germanic appearances, the fourth-century Gothic gospels, places it earlier than most of the Latin Christian writings.

The Gothic gospel of Mark renders the opening clause of 7:26 as:

wasuþþan so qino haiþno, Saurini fwnikiska gabaurþai

(truly the woman was a heathen (Greek?), a Syrophoenician by birth)

The competing explanation is that Gothic, an East Germanic language from the Black Sea region, borrowed it from the Armenian հեթանոս (het’anos) which in turn comes from the Greek ἔθνος (ethnos, nation). Thus, the Gothic haiþno would be better translated as Greek than as heathen, which would make the Gothic biblical verse a word-for-word translation from the Greek. From the Gothic it spread to the other Germanic languages. This explanation is chronologically sound and accounts for the phonological changes.

We’ll probably never know which one of these explanations is the correct one. I prefer the second as it accounts for all the evidence better, but the first is far from implausible.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Dictionary of Old English: A to I, 2018, s.v. hæþen, hæþ1.

“Gothic Bible and Minor Fragments.” Wulfila Project.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. hethen, adj. and n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. heathen, adj. and n.1, heath, n.