wake

August 13, 2021

13 August 2021

The word wake has a number of senses in today’s speech. It can be a verb meaning to remain conscious or to bring someone to consciousness. This sense usually appears in the forms waken or awaken. It can also mean to stand watch, to keep a vigil, although this sense is rare nowadays. As a noun it can mean a state of consciousness, but again this sense is rather obsolescent; instead, this sense is more likely to be expressed by wakefulness. More often the noun wake refers to a vigil, especially a funeral vigil. The noun wake can also mean the track left by a ship on the water’s surface, but this sense is a distinct word with an entirely different origin. (For the slang sense meaning socially or political aware, especially in regard to racism, see woke.)

All but the nautical sense can be traced back to the Old English noun wæcce, a state of consciousness, and the verb wæccan, to watch, to rouse. This noun can be seen in the Old English translation of Genesis 31:38–40, where Jacob is chiding Laban for having been cheated:

Wæs ic for pam nu twentig wintra mid ðe? Naeron þine heorda stedige, ne ic ðærof ne aet. Swa hwaet swa man ðærof forstæl oððe wilddeor abiton, ic hit forgeald. Daeges & nihtes ic swanc, on haetan & on cyle & on watccan.
(Have I been with you now for twenty winters? Your herd were not barren, nor did I eat of them. Whatsoever someone stole or wild beasts devoured, I paid for it. Days and nights I toiled, in heat and in cold & in wake.)

And the verb appears in Beowulf, lines 81b–85, where the narrator foreshadows the destruction of Heorot:

                                  Sele hlifade
heah ond horngeap;    heaðowylma bad,
laðan liges—    ne wæs hit lenge þa gen
þæt se ecghete    aþumsweoran
æfter wælniðe    wæcnan scolde.
(The hall towered, high and horn-gabled; it awaited battle-surges, hostile flames—it would not be long until sword-hate would waken deadly hostility between son-in-law and father-in-law.)

It’s a short jump from a state of consciousness to a turn at watch or a vigil. We see this sense by the early Middle English period. For instance, the sense of a funeral vigil appears in the poem The Story of Genesis and Exodus, which was written c.1250:

Sum on, sum ðre, sum .vii. nigt,
Sum .xxx., sum .xii. moneð rigt,
And sum euerilc wurðen ger,
Ðor quiles ðat he wunen her,
Don for ðe dede chirche-gong,
Elmesse-gifte and messe-song,
And ðat is on ðe weches stede.
Wel him mai ben [ð]at wel it dede!
([For] some one, some three, some seven nights, some thirty, some twelve months [are] right, and some are honored every year. While he is present here, attend church, perform alms-giving and mass-song for the dead, and that is standing in the wakes. Well may he be who does it well!)

As mentioned above, the nautical wake is a different word altogether. It’s a much later addition to the language, recorded in the sixteenth century, although its oral use in English may be older. It comes from the Old Norse vök, meaning hole or opening. Originally it referred to a break in an ice sheet caused by a passing ship, later extended to refer to the waves caused by a ship moving through water.

The Oxford English Dictionary, in a century-old entry, has an early sixteenth-century citation that reads:

No ship to ride in another's walk.

The OED gives the source as London, British Library, Harley MS 309, fol. 4. The text in question would seem to be the c.1530 A Booke of Orders for the Warre, Both by Sea & Land, penned by Thomas Audley. This text has never been published in full, and digital images of this manuscript are not available, so I can provide no further context for this snippet.

A clearer sixteenth-century use of wake in the nautical sense does appear in an account of Robert Dudley’s 1594 expedition to the West Indies. The account is penned by a Captain Wyatt, who was a soldier on the expedition. His first name may have been Thomas. The account appears to have been written shortly after the return to England:

But passinge the straighte wee bare awaie north and by east for some two daies as the winde woulde suffer us, but after altered that course and bare for the coste of Florida, a more westernlie course, to lie in the wake of the fleet of the West Indies bownde for Spaine.

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Sources:

Crawford, Samuel John. The Old English Version of the Heptateuch. Early English Text Society, O.S. 160. London: Oxford UP, 1922, 162–63.

Fulk, R.D., Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles, eds. Klaeber’s Beowulf, fourth edition. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 2008, lines 81b–85.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. wake, n., wacche, n.

Morris, Richard, ed. The Story of Genesis and Exodus, second edition (1873). Early English Text Society, O.S. 7. New York: Greenwood Press, 1996, lines 2461–67, 70. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 444.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. wake, n.1, wake, v., waken, v., wake, n.2.

Wyatt, Thomas[?]. “Robert Dudley’s Voyage to the West Indies, Narrated by Capt. Wyatt” (c.1595). The Voyage of Robert Dudley. George F. Warner, ed. London: Hakluyt Society, 1899, 52. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Photo credit: Stromeyer and Wyman, 1894. Public domain image.

vaudeville

August 12, 2021

12 August 2021

Today, vaudeville is a term for music hall or variety theater of bygone days. One often hears the word in reference to entertainers of the early-to-mid twentieth century who made the transition from the variety stage to movies and television. As one might guess, the word is from French, but its original meaning was that of a ballad or country song.

Vaudeville is a clipping and alteration of chanson du Vau de Vire (song of the valley of the Vire). The Vire Valley is in Calvados, Normandy. The phrase was originally applied to songs written by the fifteenth-century composer of drinking songs Olivier Basselin, who was born there.

Vaudeville made its way into English via bilingual dictionaries, such as Abel Boyer’s 1702 Dictionnarie Royal:

VAUDEVILLE, S.M. (Chanson historique qui court par la ville) a Ballad, or Country-Ballad.
(Historical song that runs through the city)

By 1724 vaudeville appeared in Elisha Coles’s English dictionary, indicating vaudeville was being used in English discourse. But since Coles, like most lexicographers of the period, included only unusual or “hard” words in their lexicons, the word was probably not yet in widespread or common use:

Vaudeville, verelay, a country ballad, or common proverb.

An 18 June 1739 letter by Horace Walpole uses vaudeville in this sense of a song. He wrote the letter from Rheims, France, so he is using it in French context:

I had prepared the ingredients for a description of a ball, and was just ready to serve it up to you, but he has plucked it from me. However, I was resolved to give you an account of a particular song and dance in it, and was determined to write the words and sing the tune just as I folded up my letter: but as it would, ten to one, be opened before it gets to you, I am forced to lay aside this thought, though an admirable one. Well, but now I have put it into your head, I suppose you won't rest without it. For that individual one, believe me, ’tis nothing without the tune and the dance; but to stay your stomach, I will send you one of their vaudevilles or ballads, which they sing at the comedy after their petites pièces.

Over the course of the next century, vaudeville broadened in meaning to mean any light entertainment, not just ballads or other songs. We can see this broader use in dramatist and songwriter Thomas John Dibden’s 1837 Reminiscences:

I also had the honour (for such it most certainly was) of being selected by her Royal Highness the Princess Elizabeth to write a sort of vaudeville farce, to be performed at Frogmore Lodge, before their Majesties and the royal family, at a fête given in celebration of the recovery of the late Princess Amelia from a dangerous indisposition.

And by the same year we see an American sense had developed, the one we’re most familiar with today, that of music hall or variety theater. From the Evening Star of 31 August 1837:

NIBLO’S VAUDEVILLES.—Niblo’s Benefit.—The proprietor, William Niblo, so universally known and esteemed for his successful and well directed efforts for many years past to gratify our citizens with whatever can add to their instruction and pleasure in the way of amusement, himself asks a benefit tonight. He will not ask in vain, and if the superior attractions of music and a Vaudeville theatre, (the first in our country) which he has offered this year, are any claim, and the crowds that flock nightly to them are in proof they are, let the author and getter up of these costly luxuries for the public, be for once richly rewarded.

This kind of American vaudeville flourished for about the next hundred years, when movies and then television drove the variety stages out of business.

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Sources:

“Amusements.” Evening Star (New York), 31 August 1837, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Boyer, Abel, ed. Dictionnaire Royal, François et Anglois, vol. 1. The Hague: Adrian Moetjens, 1702. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Coles, Elisha, ed. An English Dictionary. London: R. and J. Bonwicke, et al., 1724. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Dibden, Thomas. The Reminiscences of Thomas Dibden of the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Haymarket, &c., vol. 1 of 2. London: Henry Colburn, 1837, 268. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. vaudeville, n.

Walpole, Horace. Letter to Richard West (18 June 1739). The Letters of Horace Walpole, vol. 1. Peter Cunningham, ed. Edinburgh: John Grant, 1906, 20. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Image credit. Unknown artist, 1894. Library of Congress. Public domain image.

upsydaisy

August 11, 2021

11 August 2021

Upsidaisy is an exclamation used when helping someone rise to their feet, lifting someone up, or giving someone a boost over an obstacle. It’s often used in reference to a lifting a child but can be used for adults as well. Upsidaisy is spelled in a number of different ways. Other variants include: upsydaisy, oops-a-daisy, and whoops-a-daisy.

The up- element has an obvious origin, it refers to the action of rising. The -a-daisy element is more mysterious. This latter portion of the word is likely simply nonsense syllables, akin to the interjections lackadaisy and alack-a-day, which despite being very different in meaning are strikingly similar in form and in part of speech. Wright’s 1905 dialect dictionary records the variant upaday in use in Northamptonshire, East Anglia and in America, but whether this is an older form or a later variant is unknown.

The earliest known use of one of the variants is in a January 1711 letter by Jonathan Swift to Esther Johnson, a.k.a. “Stella,” a close friend, possible lover, and maybe even his wife by a secret marriage—the exact nature of their relationship is a matter of debate. Swift is using the word in the context of rising from a chair or perhaps his bed:

I wish my cold hand was in the warmest place about you, young women, I'd give ten guineas upon that account with all my heart, faith; oh, it starves my thigh; so I'll rise, and bid you good morrow, my ladies both, good morrow. Come stand away, let me rise: Patrick, take away the candle. Is there a good fire? --So—up a-dazy

Another early appearance is in William Toldervy’s 1756 The History of Two Orphans:

Throw made not any answer, but in attempting to go out of the room, struck his foot against a chair, which made him reel; and putting out his hands, in order to save himself, he almost laid hold of Miss Honeyflower’s arm, which Tom Heartley taking for design, gave Mr. Throw that blow in the face, which brought him sprawling upon the floor. “You see how it is, said Culverin, we had better have gone before, friend Throw; but, however, I’ll help you up again.” This noble resolution he was about to put into practice, and stooping down for that purpose; “Up-a-daisey,[”] said Miss Bella, and then, with all her strength gave him a push behind, which brought the old warrior’s honour to the dust; his wig flew off, which discovered the baldness of his pate, and his nose having reached the Portland stone, which lay before the fire, rather sooner than his hands, a crimson stream came pouring plentifully down from that fountain.

Early print appearances like these are often in adult speech, but that does not preclude an origin in children’s slang. Upsidaisy could very well have got its start among children, which would likely have gone unrecorded, only appearing in the written record when adults started to use it.

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Sources:

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. upsadaisy!, excl.

Merriam-Webster. “The 'Oops' and 'Whoops' In 'Upsy-daisy.'” Accessed 20 July 2021.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. upsidaisy, int., up-a-daisy, int.

Swift, Jonathan. “Letter 15” (31 January 1710–11). Journal to Stella, vol. 1 of 2. Harold Williams, ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948, 181. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Toldervy, William. The History of Two Orphans, vol. 2 of 4. London: William Owen, 1756, 23–24. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Wright, Joseph, ed. The English Dialect Dictionary, vol. 6 of 6. Oxford: Henry Frowde, 1905, 329.

upset

August 9, 2021

9 August 2021

In sports, an upset is a race or match in which the favorite is defeated by an underdog, and the verb to upset is often used when an underdog defeats the favorite. The verb dates to at least 1857, when it appears in the context of horseracing in the turf and sports journal Spirit of the Times on 5 September 1857:

At the York August meeting, there were only four runners for the Chesterfield Handicap of 208 sovs., one mile, and the favorite, Ellermire, 5 yrs., 7st. 121b., was upset by the Dipthong colt, 3 yrs. 6st. 2lb.

The noun dates to a couple of decades later, when it appears in the pages of the New York Herald on 29 May 1877, again in the context of horseracing:

Again, on the only occasion he has had to show his quality this year he wins with so much in hand that his jockey could trust him within a length of his nearest follower, Brown Prince. A quarter of a mile from home every horse was under the whip except Chamant, and he was being held in; so it will indeed be a marvellous [sic] upset if any of the Two Thousand runners finish in front of him at Epsom.

And a few months later, this appeared in the New York Times on 17 July 1877:

The programme for to-day at Monmouth Park indicates a victory for the favorite in each of the four events, but racing is so uncertain that there may be a startling upset.

From this horseracing use, upset spread to other sports.

There’s a false etymology for this use of upset that involves the defeat of a racehorse that many consider to be the greatest of all time: Man o’ War. During his career, Man o’ War lost only one race, the 13 August 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga, New York. Man o’ War was heavily favored to win but lost to a horse named Upset. This, so the legend goes, is where the sports term upset comes from. Man o’ War would face Upset in five other races, winning every one, but this one loss early in his career, according to the tale, would be the one to make lexicographic history.

The basic facts about the race are true; Upset did defeat Man o’ War, but as we have seen from the earlier uses of the word, this is not the origin of the sporting term upset. For years, while many suspected the story to be too good to be true, it was accepted as fact. But those suspicions were borne out in 2002 when researcher George Thompson discovered the above New York Times citation. The horse’s name is what we call an aptronym, a coincidentally apt moniker—to give another example of an aptronym, when I was an undergraduate, the head of the Religion department at my school was Professor Pope. Upset beating Man o’ War is a neat coincidence, but not the origin of upset’s use in sports writing.

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Sources:

“The Derby Day. Chamant Said to Have Gone Amiss.” New York Herald, 29 May 1877, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“The Long Branch Races.” New York Times, 17 July 1877, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Our Horses in England.” Spirit of the Times, 5 September 1857, 355. ProQuest Magazines.

Thompson, George. “‘Upset’ in Horseracing.” ADS-L, 13 November 2002.

Zimmer, Ben. “Debunking the Legend of ‘Upset.’” Word Routes (blog), 12 July 2013.

Zimmer, Ben. “‘Upset’ and Its Old Hoof-Prints.” Wall Street Journal, 5 July 2013, C4. ProQuest Newspapers.

Zimmer, Ben. “‘Upset’ Redux.” ADS-L, 6 July 2013.

Photo Credit: Charles Christian Cook, 1919. Public Domain Image.

up to snuff

August 6, 2021

An 1827 engraving, titled The Contrast, depicting two women, one young and one old, snorting snuff — An 1827 engraving, titled *The Contrast*, depicting two women, one young and one old, snorting snuff

6 August 2021

[9 August 2021: added third current definition of being in good health]

The phrase up to snuff has three meanings. It can mean that something meets the expected or required standard, being in good health, or it can refer to someone who is knowing, not easily deceived. The phrase dates to the turn of the nineteenth century. The snuff is a reference to tobacco, taken by snorting through the nose. Snuff, here, is a metaphor for either having a good nose, i.e., not easily deceived, or mature enough to use tobacco, i.e., meeting the expected standard. (In Present-Day American dialect, dipping tobacco—ground tobacco placed between one’s cheek and gum—is often called snuff, but that’s not what the metaphor underlying the phrase refers to.)

Its first appearance in print that we know of is in the London Morning Post of 29 October 1807 in the sense of not easily deceived, but which also makes a play on words because it involves literal snuff. Unfortunately, the digital scan of the paper that is available is barely legible. The portions in square brackets are my interpretations of difficult-to-read or missing letters that can be guessed at from context; the ellipses represent completely illegible text. What can be made out from the legible portions is that a man offers a woman some false snuff; she refuses; and he comments that she is up to snuff, i.e., is not easily deceived:

[So]m[e] tim[e] since a Gentleman having a false snuff [...] in which there was a Friar, asked a youn[g lad]y if she would have a pinch of snuff, and on [?]he […]ing in the negative, he facetiously observed [I s]uppose you are up to snuff.

The sense of meeting the expected standard is in place a few years later, when it appears in what is essentially a gossip column, again in the Morning Post, this time on 28 December 1809:

By the late establishment of Mr. Foot, it must appear pretty evident that he is up to snuff.

And yet another appearance in the Morning Post several months later, on 10 August 1810, uses the phrase in jest. The article is about a political meeting that is written in the style of a theater review, in particular a review of an alleged farcical play titled The Reformers, and the article makes mention of Francis Burdett, a reformist politician of the era. In the relevant passage, a tobacco vender is speaking, praising certain politicians, and the crowd shouts, “he’s up to snuff,” a double entendre simultaneously expressing support and warning that he is trying to make a profit by selling tobacco:

This scene being closed, the Tabacco-vending President (a character very whimsically sustained by W-sh-rt), in a tone and manner most extrava-ly ridiculous that can be conceived, expressed his happiness, which he declared to be inexpressible, at meeting so respectable a company on so glorious an occasion. There were many instances, he observed, both in sacred and prophane history, of persons who offered themselves as advocates for people being assailed and ill-treated by the friends of corruption. Than these nothing could be more common. The case of Sir F. Burdett, therefore, though perfectly unprecedented, was not entirely new—(Applause.) It was well known (by those who had had the story read to them as he had), that the craft of the men of Ephesus, by craft, he begged to be understood not to mean the gentle craft. Nothing was farther from his intention than to make any reflection on his friends the Long Cobler, and Mr. Gooseberry-eye, from Fetter-lane, or on the shoemaking fraternity in general. He meant merely to say that the cunning of the men of Ephesus was, when they found themselves in danger to shout aloud “Great is Diana, the Goddess of the Ephesians!” [Partial applause, mingled with cries of “He’s up to snuff!—What the devil has that to do with the Meeting?” &c.] Silence being obtained, the Snuffman proceeded to apply this piece of information, by saying, that in like manner at the present day, when the friends of corruption were assailed, they shouted against the worthy Baronet (Sir F. B-rd-tt), to uphold their system.

Also in 1810, the phrase appears in John Poole’s play Hamlet Travestie, a parody of the Shakespeare play. Act 2, Scene 1, Guildenstern remarks that Hamlet is up to snuff, that is will not be deceived by their ploy. But in the print edition of the play, Poole includes commentary, allegedly written by noted and deceased literary critics, such as Samuel Johnson and William Warburton. The relevant lines:

Rosen.
He does confess himself non compos mentis, But won't tell what the cause or the intent is.
Guilden.
He'll not be sounded; he knows well enough
The game we're after: Zooks, he's up to snuff (a).

Poole includes a note to “explain” the phrase:

(a) he's up to snuff.
This is highly figurative. To snuff up is to scent. Guildenstern says,
“————he knows well enough
The game we're after: Zooks, he's up to snuff.”
that is, he has got scent of the game we are in pursuit of. The metaphor, which is striking and apposite, is borrowed from the Chase.
WARBURTON.
Without having recourse to a far-fetched explanation, I choose to understand the passage in it's [sic] common acceptation: The game we're after means. nothing more than the trick by which we are endeavouring to worm from him his secret; but which, as he is up to snuff, i.e, as he is a knowing one, he will, assuredly, render inefficacious.
JOHNSON.

The explanation given in the commentary is specious, but it is clear that Poole did not expect his readers to know the slang, indicating that the phrase had been recently minted.

Another early use appears in an April 1811 letter printed in the Reflector about a very competent lawyer:

Mr. Garrow never fails to talk to his witnesses in their own way, to meet them upon their own ground, to give them slang for slang. This at once frightens those who come prepared with a false story; the truth drops out involuntarily; and the witness goes away with the conviction how impossible it is to deceive that Garrow, for he's up to snuff.

And it appears in James Kenney’s 1812 play Turn Out! in a conversation between two characters, Gregory and Forage:

Greg. But you'll excuse me; I'm a going into Doctor Truckle's room to look for a pen, and ink, and paper, to write to her. She'll think it unhandsome if I don't let her know I'm safely arrived in good health, you know, and so forth.
For. Certainly—and all this gentility and attention to Polly Smallfry will get you into high favour with your old master, I've no doubt.
Greg, Why if he's up to snuff, I shouldn't at all wonder.

By this point, the phrase had become well established. So, that’s it. The snuff in the phrase refers to snortable tobacco, and the phrase dates to the early nineteenth century when snorting snuff was very much in fashion.

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Sources:

“Art. XI.—The Law Student. Letter II.” (April 1811). The Reflector, vol. 1. London: John Hunt, 1811, 377. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Fashionable Arrivals.” Morning Post (London), 29 October 1807, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

“The Katterfelto Dinner.” Morning Post (London), 10 August 1810, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

Kenney, James. Turn Out! A Musical Farce in Two Acts. London: Whittingham and Rowland for Sharpe and Hailes, 1812, 6. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. snuff, n.3.

Poole, John. Hamlet Travestie: In Three Acts. With Annotations by Dr. Johnson and Geo. Steevens, Esq. and Other Commentators. London: J.M. Richardson, 1810, 21, 79–80. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Theatres.” Morning Post (London), 28 December 1809, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

“This History of ‘Up to Snuff’ is Up to Snuff.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed 15 July 2021.

Image credit: 1827, stipple engraving with watercolor in the style of Louis Boilly. Wellcome Library. Public domain image.