Master, Mister, Mistress

10 November 2006

The word master has several different, although related, meanings in English. And it has given rise to a well-known variant, mister. The noun master is almost exclusively used to refer to males, but there is a female counterpart in mistress. These words have also given rise to various abbreviations, Mr., Mrs., and Ms.

The etymology of master is, on the surface, rather straightforward. It’s from the Latin magister. Although if one gets into the details, one finds that the situation is somewhat more complex. Magister was imported into English twice during the Old English period with different vowel sounds. The earlier, mægister, eventually gave rise to the form mister, as well as several other orthographic variants. Somewhat later it was borrowed again as magister, with the vowel a being longer than it is today, but exactly how long is uncertain. The vowel in this second form shortened in the Middle English period, leaving us with the modern master.

The original sense in English is that of a man with authority or control over others. It appears as early as c.897 in Alfred’s translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care:

Thonne he gemette tha scylde the he stieran scolde, hrædlice he gecythde thæt he wæs magister & ealdormonn.

The sense of a teacher dates to around 888 in Alfred’s translation of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae:

Se unrihtwisa Neron wolde hatan his agenne magister [L. præceptoremque suum]�acwellan.

And that of a skilled workman appears in the Middle English period, c.1300 in Childhood Jesus:

Gwan the maister was i go, Jhus tok alle the clothes tho.

The sense of the head of a business comes about a century later, c.1400 in Burgh Laws:

Nane sal hafe in his ovyn ma servandis na iii the maystyr and twa servandis & aknafe.

Finally, the sense of the head of a household appears rather late. Here’s an early example from 1536 in a letter by an M. Bryan:

Mr. Shelton saythe he es Master of thys Hows.

The use of master as a title goes back to Old English. But the use of master as a title for a boy or a young man is also from the early 16th century. From c.1533-34 in letter by an H. Dowes:

It pleased your Maistershipp to give me in charge not onlie to give diligent attendaunce uppon Maister Gregory.

The variant mister first appears as title. From the Accounts of St. John’s Hospital, Canterbury, 1523:

Paied to a carpenter by grete for mendyng of Myster Collettis house.

Today we normally think of the abbreviation Mr. as standing for mister. But it originally stood for master. From the Letters & Papers of J. Shllingford, 1447-48:

Maister John Gorewyll�Mr William Filham.

Now master and mister are almost exclusively applied to men. For the female equivalent, the English speaker turns to mistress. This word comes from the Anglo-Norman maistresse, and ultimately from the Medieval Latin magistrissa. The vowel shift from ai to i parallels the vowel shift in master.

In English, the original sense of mistress was that of a woman with the charge of a child, a governess. From the manuscript Sir Tristrem, c.1330:

To hir maistresse sche gan say that hye was boun to go To the knigt ther he lay.

The word was also being used to mean a female teacher from a very early date. From Ayenbite’s 1340 Covaytyse:

Thet is rote of alle kueade�thet is the maystresse thet heth zuo greate scole thet alle guoth thrin uor to lyerni.

The use to mean a female head of a household appears earlier than the equivalent sense of master. We see it before 1375 in William of Palerne:

Alisaundrine�attlede the sothe, that hire maistres & that man no schuld hire nougt misse, thegh sche walked�from here sigt.

Mistress has also long been used in sexual contexts. The sense of a woman courted by a man can be found as early as c.1425 in a poem:

Now good swet hart & myn ane good mestrys I dew recumend me to yower pety.

The most familiar use today is that of a female sexual partner other than one’s wife. This sense is also quite old, appearing before 1439 in John Lydgate’s translation of Bochas’ Fall of Princes:

Callid�a fals traitouresse�Off newe diffamed, and named a maistresse Off fals moordre.

And the rather specialized use to mean a female dominant in sadomasochistic activities is quite recent. It doesn’t appear until the 20th century, in F. Savage’s 1921 translation of L. von Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs:

"Slave!" "Mistress!" I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her garment.

The use of mistress as a form of address gets its start in Middle English. Here’s an example from before 1425 in Chaucer’s translation of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiæ:

O Maystresse, what demestow of this?

Use as a title for a married woman appears a few decades later, c.1461 in Gnatyshale’s Paston Letters:

To my ryght worchepfull Mastres Paston.

While we’re familiar with the use of mistress as the title for married women, it has over the years also been used as a title for unmarried women. From another of the Paston Letters, this one from 1474:

Myn own fayir Mastresse Annes, I prey you accepte thys byll.

Like the male form, mistress has been abbreviated. But three different abbreviations for mistress are in use today, not just one as in master.

The first of these abbreviations is Mrs., used as a title for a married woman. Use of the abbreviation dates to at least 1485 in Churchwardens’ Accounts:

Item, a pyx clothe of sipers frenged with grene sylke and red,�of Mres. Sucklyng’s gyfte.

The second abbreviation is Miss. We’re familiar with this today as a title or form of address for a girl or an unmarried woman, but the original use of this abbreviated form was in the sense of a kept woman. From Nicolas Breton’s 1606 Choice, Chance, & Change:

If your mistris haue a fine wit, and your wife, but a plaine vnderstanding�if your mis. be kind & your wife dogged: wil you loue your mis. better then your wife?

The use as a title for an unmarried woman dates to 1667 in Pepys Diary of 7 March:

Little Mis Davis did dance a Jigg after the end of the play.

One use of Miss that has fallen out of use in recent decades is as a title for a professional woman using her maiden name. This use was especially common among actresses. From Appleton’s Journal of March 1881:

The invocation of Artemis already spoken of might alone stamp Miss Terry as a great actress.

The third abbreviation is quite recent and is a rarity in that it is one of the few deliberately coined terms that has infused itself into the language to such an extent that we’re not even aware of its politically correct origins only a few decades ago. I’m talking of course about Ms. It’s a blend of Mrs. and Miss and it dates to the mid-20th century. From Mario Pei’s 1949 Story of Language:

Feminists�have often proposed that the two present-day titles be merged into�"Miss" (to be written "Ms."), with a plural "Misses" (written "Mss.").

These are the major senses of master and mistress. There are others, mostly subtle variations on the senses given here. Master is unusual for its flexibility in form, phonetic and orthographic. Many words have as many or more meanings than master does, but few have shown themselves to be as versatile in form.

Pornography, Obscenity, & Indecency

3 November 2006

A discussion earlier this week on the American Dialect Society email list demonstrated that even among linguists and lexicographers there is confusion and uncertainty over the legal status of pornography in America and what exactly constitutes hardcore and softcore pornography. Additionally, some other words are thrown into the fray. What exactly is obscenity and is it legal? And what about indecency and profanity.

While erotic imagery and writing is a practice dating back into antiquity, pornography is a relatively new word, dating only to the latter half of the 19th century. It is a modern formulation from the Greek ?????, prostitute, + ??????, writing.

Determining exactly what constitutes pornography is difficult. It is a word that has defied precise definition. Perhaps the most famous definition is given by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in his concurrence with the court’s decision in Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Writing about whether a particular film constituted hardcore pornography, Stewart wrote:

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

In 1986 the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, a.k.a. The Meese Commission, issued a highly controversial report on the topic. Whatever flaws exist in that report, and there are many, the report does include a very succinct and apt definition of pornography. That commission defined it as:

Material [that] is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.

If one attempts to use this definition to determine whether or not a particular work constitutes pornography, one will run into the "I know it when I see it" problem that bedeviled Justice Stewart. But as a general definition this is as good as any.

Pornography is often subdivided into hardcore and softcore material. This use of hardcore dates to at least 1959 when it appears in Ernst & Schwartz’s Censorship:

A work of literature�stands on quite a different footing from hard core pornography.

The term hard core dates to the mid-19th century and originally referred to the interior of a structure, road, or foundation consisting of gravel and other rough refuse material. By the early 20th century, it was being used to refer to something that was tough and intractible, as in this citation from the 12 September 1936 issue of Nature:

Possibly 200,000 would be practically unemployable on any ordinary basis–the "hard core" as it is called.

The use of hardcore to mean harsh or aggressive postdates the pornography sense, appearing in the 1970s.

Softcore pornography appears a bit later that its hardcore complement. From the New York Times of 25 September 1966:

The soft-core pornography of advertisements like "Have you had any lately?"

There are various descriptions and definitions of exactly what constitutes hardcore v. softcore porn. None of them are universally accepted and what one person might consider softcore another might deem hardcore and vice versa. The determination is in the eye of the beholder. About the only universal is that softcore material is less explicit than hardcore.

As far as the legal status of pornography goes, there seems to be just as much confusion as there is in the definition. As far as law in the United States goes, pornography is irrelevant. The law is not concerned with pornography, at least so long as it features and is distributed to adults only. What the law is concerned with is obscenity, indecency, and profane material.

The English adjective obscene dates to the late 16th century. It’s taken from the Middle French obscène and ultimately is from the Latin obscenus, meaning ill-omened, filthy, or disgusting.

According to U.S. law, obscene material or speech is not protected by the First Amendment and it may be prohibited outright by the government. What exactly constitutes obscenity? Unlike Stewart’s "I know it when I see it" doctrine, the definition of obscenity in U.S. law is fairly clear, albeit still open to some interpretation. The operating standard was penned by Chief Justice Warren Burger in his majority opinion in Miller v. California (1973). Burger proposed a three-pronged test for obscenity:

(a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

What this means is that, at least as far as the law is concerned, individual words, phrases, or passages cannot be declared to be obscene. The work must be considered as a whole. Therefore, a novel that uses a certain four-letter word or contains some erotic passages, like D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover to name one that is famous for having been censored for both these reasons, cannot be considered obscene.

The Supreme Court has ruled that obscene material can be banned. Obscene speech and writing is not protected by the First Amendment and can be utterly prohibited by the federal and state governments. This is not the case with indecent or profane material. These are protected by the First Amendment, but can be limited, but not banned, by the government.

The operative legal standard for indecency is FCC v. Pacifica (1978), a Supreme Court case about the broadcast of comedian George Carlin’s "Seven Dirty Words" routine by a radio station. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates use of the broadcast spectrum, fined the station, which appealed the decision to the courts. Justice Stevens writing for the majority determined:

Although these words ordinarily lack literary, political, or scientific value, they are not entirely outside the protection of the First Amendment. Some uses of even the most offensive words are unquestionably protected. [�] Indeed, we may assume, arguendo, that this monologue would be protected in other contexts. Nonetheless, the constitutional protection accorded to a communication containing such patently offensive sexual and excretory language need not be the same in every context. It is a characteristic of speech such as this that both its capacity to offend and its "social value," to use Mr. Justice Murphy’s term, vary with the circumstances. Words that are commonplace in one setting are shocking in another. To paraphrase Mr. Justice Harlan, one occasion’s lyric is another’s vulgarity.
In this case it is undisputed that the content of Pacifica’s broadcast was "vulgar," "offensive," and "shocking." Because content of that character is not entitled to absolute constitutional protection under all circumstances, we must consider its context in order to determine whether the Commission’s action was constitutionally permissible.

The court ruled that this particular broadcast, because it was in the middle of the afternoon when children were likely to be listening and because of other conditions, could be restricted by the FCC. But that it might be permissible to air the offending monologue at another time or in another context and that the indecent words could not be completely banished from the airwaves in all contexts.

To comply with this ruling, the FCC has defined indecency as “language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities.” Note that unlike the obscenity definition offered by the court, this definition does not require the work be taken as whole. Particular words and phrases can be indecent in certain contexts.

The FCC also limits the broadcast of profanity. It defines profanity as "language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance."

The FCC does not permit the airing of indecent or profane material between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. And note that the FCC only regulates over-the-air broadcasts. It has no jurisdiction over cable or satellite television or other privately transmitted mediums. These mediums can broadcast indecent or profane material with impunity–although obscene material can still be prohibited on them.

The US Postal Service has similar rules governing the inclusion of indecent material on postcards or on the exterior of envelopes and packages. Mailing indecent material inside a nondescript package is perfectly legal.

So there you have it. The complete scoop on exactly what types of offensive speech are legal in the United States and in what contexts.

Crisis

27 October 2006

Earlier this week I heard Al Gore speak at a rally in favor of Proposition 87, a question on the ballot this year here in California that will authorize more taxes to pay for research into alternative energy sources. Political rallies and demonstrations in Berkeley are hardly notable, but it’s not everyday that you get the opportunity to hear a former vice president and since the rally was literally around the corner from our office a group of us spent our lunch hour listening to Gore.

He was, obviously, in favor of alternative energy and the proposition, but he also said something that raised my linguistic skepticism. Gore repeated the old chestnut that the Chinese word for crisis was formed from two characters, one meaning danger and the other opportunity, thus a crisis is really a two-edged sword. I had, of course, heard this one before, but this time I was motivated to look into whether or not it was really true.

I found the answer in the first Google search result. An essay by Victor Mair, professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, conclusively debunks this old saw.

The Mandarin word for crisis is w?ij?, and when written is composed of two characters w?i and j?. And w?i is indeed also used to mean danger.

So far so good. But j? does not mean or connote opportunity. J? has a variety of meanings in Mandarin. It can mean critical moment or turning point. So w?ij? does not mean danger + opportunity, so much as it means dangerous point in time–a pretty accurate translation of the English crisis. J? can also mean quick-witted, resourceful, and machine or device, none of which are particularly relevant here.

The confusion may have arisen because j? is also one of the syllables in the Mandarin word for opportunity. That word is j?hu�, where hu� means occasion. But j? in and of itself does not mean opportunity or anything close to it.

The English word crisis is a direct lift from Latin, which in turn takes it from the Greek, ??????, meaning decision. English use of the word dates to the mid-16th century when it was used to mean a turning point in the course of a disease, a point that would either result in the patient’s recovery or death. Bartholomew Traheron’s 1543 translation of Vigon’s The Most Excellent Workes of Chirurgerye defines the term as:

Crisis sygnifyeth iudgemente, and in thys case, it is vsed for a sodayne chaunge in a disease.

This medical sense of crisis isn’t much used anymore, but the adjective critical still refers to such a turning point in a patient’s health.

By 1627, crisis was being used to mean a turning point in things other than medicine. And by the 18th century it had acquired its current meaning of a time of danger or insecurity. From Myles Davies’s Athenæ Britannicæ of 1715:

Great Crisises in Church and State.

And from the Junius Letters of 1769:

To escape a crisis so full of terror and despair.

Mair’s essay can be found at
http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html.

Book Review: Yale Book of Quotations

20 October 2006

This extensive and extremely well-researched book of quotations by Fred Shapiro contains over 12,000 quotations from a variety of sources. It not only includes the usual literary quotes found in such collections, such as T.S. Eliot’s:

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

But also quotes from popular culture, such as this one by Tupac Shakur:

California love!
California–knows how to party

And from sources like advertising slogans:

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing." (Alka Seltzer)

As is the usual practice in such collections, the quotes are arranged by author with a key word index in the back matter. Each quotation includes a source, often quite specific and sometimes surprising. For example, we all recall the quote, but who remembers that this famous line was uttered during remarks on an after-school child-care initiative in January 1998:

I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

Every good library should have at least one good quotations reference, and the broad mix of quotations makes the Yale Book of Quotations an excellent choice.

Hardcover; 1,104 pp; Yale University Press; October 2006; ISBN: 0300107986; $50.00

Pages

20 October 2006

The Foley scandal, in which a Florida congressman has been found to have sent sexually explicit instant messages to teenage assistants has brought the word page to fore. Why do we call young attendants and messengers pages, and is the word related to the pages in a book?

The word page is from the Anglo-Norman word page, meaning young male servant. This sense dates to around 1225 in French and makes its English appearance shortly afterwards in the form of surnames like Serlo le Page (1234), Walt. Page (1236), and Will. le Page (1240). The earliest cite in the OED3 for the term as an ordinary noun is from c.1300 in the poem Havelok the Dane:

Was ther-inne no page so lite that euere wolde ale bite.

The ultimate origin appears to be from the Greek παιδιον, meaning boy.

Page was used over the centuries to mean a young servant, especially one attending a person of high rank, and by 1781 the word was being used to mean a boy or young man employed by a hotel or other establishment as a waiter or messenger. From William Cowper’s 1781 Truth:

She yet allows herself that boy behind;�His predecessor’s coat advanced to wear, Which future pages yet are doomed to share.

On the left side of the Atlantic, the word also came to be used for a boy who is employed to run errands for legislators (now, of course, pages can be girls too). From the Boston Evening Transcript of 18 February 1840:

A page took them to the Clerk–the Clerk handed them to the Speaker.

The verb to page dates to the 16th century, originally meaning to wait on or attend someone. From The History of Kyng Boccus & Sydracke, believed to be from 1537:

A chyld�is both tendar and grene�Unto he come to greatter age That he may hym selfe page.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the verb had also come to mean to use a page to summon someone. From L.L. Bell’s 1904 At Home With Jardines:

The name of Jardine was paged through the corridors and billiard-room and café.

And from the New York Sun of 21 August of that same year:

A bell boy is called. "Here, page Mr. Smith, Room 186," the clerk will say. The process of "paging" Mr. Smith consists of calling out his name in the dining and other public rooms of the hotel.

By 1936, the term was being used to refer to electronic announcements. From the RCA Review of 1936:

General announce and paging systems.

Finally, this sense of page is not related to the word for one side of leaf of paper. While that sense is also from an Anglo-Norman word page, it ultimately comes from the Latin pagina, a piece of writing. The Latin pangere means to compose.