Of chocolate boxes and tea boards

In my youth chocolate boxes had their lids illustrated with pretty scenes of landscapes, villages or pets.  Anne Hathaway's cottage and its pretty garden were a favourite subject.  As a result the term .   Over the years the term chocolate boxy came to be used, often pejoratively, to describe paintings that were warm, idealistic and sentimental and, by extension inferior or too pretty pretty. Yorkshire Pudding in their blog recently wrote "I went into Meekfield Wood and out the other side to another chocolate box lid hamlet called Moorhall." so the phrase is still well in use but now it tends to be used less insultingly and simpky to mean very pretty.
(Incidentally, I couldn't find a single image of a British choloate box lid from that era so they obviously weren't considered hanging on to.)

In Victorian times tea trays or teaboards were similarly decorated and they had a term with the same meaning - teaboardy - to mean art lacking merit..

Living will

   A living will is a document written by a person while still legally fit to do so, requesting that he or she should be allowed to die rather than be kept alive by artifical means if subsequentl severly disabled or suffering from a terminal illness.  The term is a modern one and has only recently made it into the Oxford English Dictionary.

Blankets - dry and wet!

The original meaning of the word blanket was a rough undyed woollen fabric used in a variety of ways. Gradually this became used primarily for a bed-covering and in the early fourteenth century the word gained its modern meaning of a large rectangular piece of woollen or similar material (often with bound edges) used as a bed covering or other covering for warmth especially a large, rectangular piece of fabric, often with bound edges.  To blanket then came to mean to cover with something and by extension the noun came to mean any extended covering or layer such as a blanket of snow.

In case of fire attempting to smother with a wetted blanket was (and remains) as effective as most things that come readily to hand.  The term wet blanket therefore acquired its modern meaning of a person who smothered the enthusiasm of others by his mood or behaviour.

Meanwhile, to be born on the wrong side of the blanket had become an oblique way of saying someone was born illegitimately. Illegitimacy has always been a special case in heraldry – indeed, it has been a special case in Western Christianity, the group of societies in which heraldry first arose.   When someone entitled to bear arms has acknowledged paternity of his 'natural children' or those “born on the wrong side of the blanket”, and has made the necessary arrangements with the heraldic authority, his illegitimate offspring would receive a grant of part of his arms ‘suitably differenced’.  This was usually thought to be by having a bar or baton across them so their arms included a “bar sinister” - a broad diagonal stripe from top right to bottom left.  In Victorian times this was held to be a terrible social disability. People from armigerous families who were of bastard descent would often forget or deny their connections in order not to be obliged to bear arms that included the said “bar sinister”.

 This drawing is by John Pottinger (1919–1986), a Scottish officer of arms, artist, illustrator and author of 'Simple Heraldry, Cheerfully Illustrated'.  He makes use of the expression “wrong side of the blanket” to produce an illustration of Campbell, Duke of Argyll, with two legitimate sons (both doing the Highland fling!), one with a label, the other with a plain blue border. Below the blanket is their illegitimate half-brother William, with a broken border and a “bar sinister” (and a filthy look to boot!).

Libertine

The modern meaning of the word libertine is a man (rarely a woman) not bound by moral laws; someone of licentious habits.  It has had this meaning since 1593. 

At one time it also meant a free-thinker, a man not aligned to a particular religion.  In relation to Roman times it means a freedman, a person manumitted from slavery or the son if a freedman. 

Pygal

   Pygal is a zoological term meaning of or pertaining to the hind quarters of an animal.  The related word pygalgia is a rarely used term meaning pain in the buttocks.  I'm sure there is a joke in there somewhere since the expression pain in the buttocks, pain in the butt and pain in the a**e are versions of the expression pain in the neck meaning a nuisance; a source of trouble or annoyance. 

Screation

  Screation is a noun meaning neurotic and excessive clearing of the throat.

 (Although screation is something I might occasionally be accused of I can't find the word in my Oxford Dictionary nor is it in any of the Scrabble Dictionaries on-line.  So I don't know how it came to be in the book 'Depraved English' by Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea but there it is!  Perhaps they found it in some archaic lexicon or strange medical dictionary. )

Dusk, twilight or dimpsy

That great mid-twentieth century wordsmith Ivor Brown (author of ‘A Word in Your Ear’ and other books) points out that Shakepeare would not have recognised the word dusk – a noun meaning the darkest stage of twilight in the evening. So far as he and his contemporaries were concerned the term dusk was a verb meaning to make dark.

During early to intermediate stages of twilight, there may be enough light in the sky under clear-sky conditions to read outdoors without artificial illumination. Civil dusk occurs when the earth rotates to a point at which the center of the sun is at 6° below the local horizon. This marks the end of the evening civil twilight, the point where artificial illumination is required to read outside.[1] Twilight comes after sunset, which is the point at which the earth has rotated just enough that the sun is no longer visible on the local horizon (under clear conditions).

Wikipedia informs one that there are various technical definitions of dusk -

Civil dusk

    The time at which the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon in the evening. At this time objects are distinguishable and some stars and planets are visible to the naked eye.

Nautical dusk

    Is when the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon in the evening. At this time, objects are no longer distinguishable, and the horizon is no longer visible to the naked eye.

Astronomical dusk

    The time at which the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon in the evening. At this time the sun no longer illuminates the sky, and thus no longer interferes with astronomical observations.

Shakepeare didn’t use the term twilight either though the term was dear to Milton.

The reason Brown raised the issue of this word was that he had found the word dimpsy – meaning twilight - was still in common usage in parts of England.  I wonder if it still is. 

Zeugma

Zeugma (pronounced ZOOg-muh) is a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses.  It means the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words usually in such a way that it applies to each in a different sense (as in "She left in a huff and a Chevy" or  "John and his licence expired last week" .)

It looks like a good word for Scrabble or Bananagrams.   

Sidling in the Darkling Night

   Darkling began its life as an adverb meaning 'in the dark'.  ('Out went the candle and we were left darkling' said the Fool in King Lear).

Keats, in 'Ode to a Nightingale', wrote 'Darkling I listen...'  meaning he was standing in the dark, listening.

But even before Keats used it in its proper form the word had come to be regarded as the participle of a verb 'to darkle'.  And ever since things have darkled for the poets so we find that night darkled, moonles landscapes and even minds have done likewise. 

This creation of a verb from an adverb is called back-formation and a much more common example is the verb to sidle, meaning to walk in a furtive or timid manner, especially obliquely.  Originally there was no such verb but it was back-formed from the adverb side-long or side-ling.

Gobbets

   Having told you what gobbeting meant in the last post I thought I should tell you the delightful meaning of the noun gobbets.  This, however, I decided not to illustrate.  Gobbets are pieces of human bodies washed ashore from a shipwreck. 

I promise the next word on this blog will be somewhat nicer...