Leprechaun (word of the week)

So, we're back :) And can you guess where we went on holiday?

This week's word is leprechaun, an Irish word deriving from lupracan or luchorpan. Lu meaning little or small and corpan meaning body or person (from the Latin corpus).

In Irish folklore a leprechaun is indeed a small person, being a sprite or a goblin with the appearance of a tiny old man wearing a large red hat. The first mention of a Leprechaun in Irish literature dates back to an 8th century book and since then the Leprechaun has never looked back, appearing in books, advertising and even a film starring Sean Connery! (Darby O'Gill and the Little People)

The main myth attached to the Leprechaun is that he is the shoe-maker for the tuatha de danaan and keeps the gold they pay him for repairing their shoes in a crock or pot that he hides at the end of a rainbow. Most stories involving Leprechauns revolve around someone catching a Leprechaun and trying to force him to tell where the crock of gold is hidden. But Leprechauns are sneaky and clever and the stories generally end up with an escaped Leprechaun and an empty-handed captor.

And to finish off I'd like to give a quick plug to a fascinating museum that I'd recommend to anyone insterested in folklore and who happens to be passing through Dublin. The new National Leprechaun Museum is indeed about Leprechauns but it is more than that, it is about irish folklore and the art of storytelling and well worth a visit. The link for the museum can be found in the sources listed below and even if you're not lucky enough to visit Ireland, the website is well worth a visit as it has some really interesting pages on Leprechauns as well as other Irish myths and stories.

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2010
 Chambers Concise Dictionary, 1989
The Dictionary of Mythology by J.A. Coleman, 2008 (ISBN: 9781841934242)
National Leprechaun Museum  [Accessed 30.03.2011]

Von

We interupt your regular viewing...

...to let you know that there will be no 'word of the week' this week. This is because Ju and Von are skivving off from their blogging duties and having themselves a short holiday in not so far flung places.

Normal service will be resumed next week.

 You may now return to your normal programming...



Ju and Von

Pusillanimous (Word of the week)

 This week we have a short entry for a long word.

Pusillanimous first appeared in its current spelling in 1586, but can be traced back in the English language to the noun pusillamite which appeared in 1393.

It originates from the Latin pusillus meaning small or little and animus, meaning spirit or courage. So literally pusillanimous means little courage.

The dictionary defination is that it is an adjective meaning cowardly or mean.

And to see pusillanimous in action, here it is, guest starring in an Elizabeth Barrett Browning Poem:

Cheerfulness taught by reason
I think we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope
Of yon gray blank of sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls; but since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop,
For a few days consumed in loss and taint ?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted
And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints ? At least it may be said
' Because the way is short, I thank thee, God. '

Sources: 
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2010
Chambers Concise Dictionary, 1989
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cheerfulness-taught-by-reason/ 
[accessed 16.03.2011]


Von

Widdershins (Word of the week)

Widdershins
First recorded in the early 16th Century, Widdershins is a Scottish word originating from the German widersinnes, with wide meaning counter and sins meaning direction or way.

Widdershins means to move in a direction that is opposite to the usual direction - to go the wrong way round, to go in an anti-clockwise direction. It also means to move in the direction opposite to the sun.

It is often used in relation to the occult and folklore, for example, dancing widdershins around a ring of toadstools will put you under the power of fairies (something that rarely seems to end well ...)

In Dorothy L. Sayers' novel The Nine Tailors one of the characters avoids walking around the church anti-clockwise as it is bad luck to walk round a church anti-clockwise or widdershins.

"He turned to his right, knowing that it is unlucky to walk about a church widdershins..."

Sources:
Shorter Oxford Dictionary (2 volumes) 6th edition, 2007
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widdershins [accessed 09.03.11]

Von

The HB Pencil

Ever wondered what the letters HB mean on a pencil?  H is for Hard and B is for Black.  By varying the mix of clay with graphite, pencils are made harder or softer.  This is known as the Conte Process after Nicolas-Jacques Conte who developed this technique in 1795.
Early pencils were graded by numbers, 1 to 4 (hard to soft).  During the nineteenth century letters were used instead of numbers, which is when H and B began.  The more letters, the more extreme the grade, ie. BBB for very soft and HHH for very hard.  However, in the early years of the twentieth century, a new grading system was introduced which is the one still used today, from 9H to 9B.  At this time, the letter F was also added for a fine point pencil.  In this European grading, F falls between H and HB.
The Americans, though, have a different grading system, using numbers. Their 1 is equivalent to our B, 2 is HB, 2 and a half is F, 3 is H, and 4 is 2H.  Now I know what kind of pencil Leo Bloom is talking about in the musical film of The Producers.  In the song I Wanna Be a Producer, Matthew Broderick as Leo Bloom says "Here's my visor...my Dixon Ticonderoga number two pencil...and my big finish!"  This yellow HB pencil is the most famous of all the Dixon Ticonderoga models.

The earliest known use of the word pencil spelt pinsel, was in 1325 and meant an artist's paintbrush.  Chaucer used it in his Canterbury Tales circa 1385 as pencel.  It is thought to have come from the Old French pincel or peincel meaning paintbrush.  But the first recorded use of pencil, meaning a writing implement made from graphite, was in 1612, some 180 years before Conte developed his process.

Let me leave you with a poem from the great Spike Milligan:

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll do a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B.

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (1988), Chambers.
Martin, Doug (1997) Pencil Hardness/Softness Ratings or Grading Pencils, [online]. Available from:  http://www.pencilpages.com/articles/grades.htm (Accessed 10th January 2011).
Milligan, Spike (1999) A Children's Treasury of Milligan Classic Stories and Poems, London, Virgin (the poem quoted above is on page 140).


Juliana

Quetzal

This fantastic bird on the left is the quetzal.  The earliest known reference to this bird is from 1827.  It is taken from the Mexican Spanish word quetzale, which came from the Nahuatl quetzaltototl which was also the name of a bird with a brilliant plumage.


                           **************************          

There is an Aztec god with a similarly fabulous name.  Well, all the mesoamerican gods have great names, but Quetzalcoatl was a man/god of many talents.  He was a creator, a god of science and knowledge, arts and crafts, and agriculture.  He was a patron of priests and invented the calendar.  His benevolent nature brought prosperity to mankind, unlike many of the other gods of mesoamerica.

Quetzalcoatl means plumed serpent in the Nahuatl language, but other mesoamerican cultures have a different name for this god - to the Mayans he was Kukulkan.

One legend said that Quetzalcoatl disappeared out to sea on a raft made from serpents and that he would return one day to create a new peaceful world.  This legend was later usurped by Hernan Cortes in his invasion of the Americas in 1519.  Spanish historians writing in the sixteenth century likened Cortes' landing to Quetzalcoatl's return, and believed that this contributed to the ease at which the Aztecs were overcome.

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (1988), Chambers.
Jones, David M. & Molyneaux, Brian L. (2001) The Myth of the Americas, Lorenz.
Images:
Quetzal bird [online], http://www.bobbyrica.com/2010/08/11/the-bird-that-is-the-quetzal/ (Accessed 30th January 2011).
Quetzalcoatl from the Codex Borbonicus [online], http://www.crystalinks.com/quetzalcoatl.html (Accessed 30th January 2011).


Juliana

Flibbertigibbet (Word of the week)

This week's word has a literary history and can be traced back to Shakespeare's King Lear when it first appeared with its current spelling - flibbertigibbet. (In King Lear Flibbertigibbet is the name of the five fiends that the character Edgar claimed were possessing him). A character named Flibbertigibbet can also be found in Sir Walter Scott's novel, Kenilworth (written in 1821)

The word has been around longer than that however, with flepergebet and flypyrgebet dating back before 1450.

So what does it mean? Originally it meant a person who was a gossip or a chatterer, the word possibly imitating the sound of meaningless chatter. In the early 17th Century a flibbertigibbet was a type of fiend or devil (as in - or possibly because of Shakespeare) and after Kenilworth it came to mean a impish or mischevious child. Now flibbertygibbet is generally taken to mean a person who is irresponsible or flighty.


King Lear (Act IV, Scene 1)
Edgar
"Both stile and gate, horse-way and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man's son, from the foul fiend! Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut; Hobbididence, prince of dumbness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder; Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing; who since possesses chambermaids and waiting women. So, bless thee, master!"

Sources:
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, 2010
Shorter Oxford Dictionary (2 volumes) 6th edition, 2007
King Lear

Von