Haggard Hawks 🦅📚 Words | Language | Etymology
@HaggardHawks
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Obscure words, etymological tales, language trivia | Books available here: https://t.co/5k8NBYQJW6 | Tweets by @PaulAnthJones | Artwork by @bread_and_ink
Joined December 2013
❄️ Every day in December, we’ll be sharing a different entry from the latest @HaggardHawks book, A WINTER DICTIONARY—a collection of obscure words for the festive season—which is OUT NOW!. 👉 🧵 Follow the thread below to collect all the words.
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In the late 1500s, the English printer Henry Denham proposed using a reverse question mark, ⸮, called a PERCONTATION POINT to indicate that a question was rhetorical and so didn’t require an answer.
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Alexander Graham Bell suggested that telephones should be answered with the word AHOY. HELLO was Thomas Edison’s suggestion.
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The Icelandic word GLUGGAVEÐUR means ‘weather that looks appealing from inside, but would be unpleasant to be outside in’. It literally means ‘window-weather’.
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As a word for a young pig, the word PIGLET only dates back to the mid 1800s. Before then, a young pig might be called a HOGLING (14thC), a PORKET (1550s), a HOG-BABE (1600s), or a GRUNTLING (1680s).
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A baby pangolin is called a PANGOPUP.
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In 19th century English, the expression ‘Come, come, that’s Barnard Castle!’ was used as a response to someone who had offered a flawed excuse for their actions. (fr. English Proverbs & Proverbial Phrases: A Historical Dictionary, 1929)
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The term APHERCOTROPISM refers to the response an organism makes as it grows to overcome an obstacle in its way. http://t.co/DD7jN4a3kP.
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Koko the gorilla, who died this week aged 46, mastered more than 1000 words of modified American Sign Language. Once, when confronted about a sink she had torn from the wall of her habitat, she signed “the cat did it”.
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Mediaeval scribes invented this bizarre Latin sentence as a joke to show just how difficult Gothic text could be to read.
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A RASTRUM is a multi-nibbed pen used to draw the five lines of a musical stave simultaneously. It literally means ‘rake’ in Latin.
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Feral pigs in Canada have been found to survive the cold temperatures by building tunnel-like shelters lined with insulating grasses and reeds beneath the snow. These shelters are known as PIGLOOS.
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WINDFUCKER and FUCKWIND are 16th century nicknames for the kestrel.
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In Old English, MEAT was food of any kind, a GIRL was a young child of either sex, a DEER was any large mammal, a HOUND was any dog, a WIFE was any woman, a FOWL was any bird, to STARVE was merely to die, and an APPLE could be any fruit.
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UPSIDE DOWN can be spelled upside down using right way up letters of the alphabet: umop apisdn.
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The Old English word for a library was BÓCHORD. It literally means ‘book hoard’.
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A robin’s red breast is actually orange. But English didn’t have a separate word for the colour orange until the fruits became familiar to English speakers in the 16th century—and because the name REDBREAST dates back to the mid 1400s, it is older than the word ORANGE itself.
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The Swedish word MÅNGATA is used of the line of silvery white light cast by the moon on the surface of a body of water. It literally means ‘moon-street’.
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The German word VORFÜHREFFEKT—literally, ‘the demonstration effect’—refers to a situation in which something stops working, and then suddenly starts working again when you try to show someone what the problem is.
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RESISTENTIALISM is the belief that inanimate objects can display malice or spitefulness towards people.
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SNOLLYGOSTER is a 19thC slang word for an unprincipled politician who will do anything to achieve public office.(Indianapolis Journal, 1895)
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In 19th century slang, a DICK was a dictionary. ‘To swallow the Dick’ was to use long and complicated words of which you don’t fully know the meaning. (fr. Slang And Its Analogues, 1891)
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Gibraltar has been besieged so many times in its history that TOASTING THE SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR is an old naval expression used as an excuse for having a drink regardless of the time or day—because chances are there’s an anniversary of at least one Siege of Gibraltar coming up soon
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First used in the 1920s, this bizarre passage of text was once used as a diction test to audition potential new radio announcers.
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To GOVE is to stare vacantly, or ‘to look about like a simpleton’. (Westmoreland & Cumberland Dialects, 1839)
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MOGSHADE is an old English dialect word for the shadows cast by trees.
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In Japanese, a cat sitting compactly with all its legs pulled in under its body is affectionately known as KŌBAKO-ZUWARI—or ‘sitting like an incense box’. The English equivalent is a CATLOAF.
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A BIRKENSHAW is a grove of birch trees. An OSIARD is a grove of willow trees. A POMARY is a grove of apple trees. A MYRTETUM is a grove of myrtle bushes. A COULDRAY is a grove of hazel trees. A SAPBUSH is a grove of maple trees. A DARROCH is a grove of oak trees.
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A BLUE-BORE is a sudden clear blue opening in an otherwise gloomy or overcast sky.
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A group of otters is called a ROMP.
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In mathematics, 2022 is a HARSHAD number—meaning it is equally divisible by the sum of its digits, 6. The word ‘harshad’ comes from the Sanskrit for ‘joy-giving’.
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Japanese designer Kosuke Takahashi has invented Braille Neue, a typeface that mixes written letters with the dots of the Braille alphabet. ➡️
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‘Are we not drawn onward to new era?’ is a palindrome.
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The elongated reflection of the moon on a body of water is called the MOONGLADE.
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English has no one-word equivalent of the Welsh word HIRAETH: a deep, nostalgic homesickness, it refers to a longing to return to something or somewhere now gone (or that perhaps never was), or else a grief felt when someone is lost, changing familiar circumstances beyond repair.
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MIRROR ANAMORPHOSIS is an artistic technique in which an image hidden in an artwork can only be revealed by placing a mirror alongside it and observing its reflection.
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Apparently, it’s #HedgehogDay—and because we could all do with some good news, a reminder that a baby hedgehog is called a HOGLET.
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‘To be threshed with your own flail’ is to suffer the same fate as you have allowed others to suffer, or to become the victim of your own actions or failures.
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In French, a circumflex ( ^ ) often indicates that a word has lost a historic letter S. Many English equivalents of these words have kept their S—leading to word pairs like FORÊT and forest, TEMPÊTE and tempest, ÎLE and isle, HÔPITAL and hospital, and ANCÊTRE and ancestor.
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The expression BEE’S KNEES first emerged in the 1920s as part of a trend for inventing random phrases alluding to animals, all implying the pinnacle of excellence. Others from the time included the CAT’S CUFFLINKS, the ELEPHANT’S INSTEP, the HEN’S EYEBROWS and the CLAM’S GARTERS.
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The tiny Bohemian town of Joachimstahl—now Jáchymov, Czechia—was once home to a silver mine whose silver was used to mint coins called ‘joachimstahler’. When these coins arrived in America in the 1600s, their name shortened to ‘thaler’—and eventually morphed into the word DOLLAR.
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CHIBBLY is an old English dialect word describing frost-covered ground that feels crisp or crackly when walked upon.
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In the dd/mm/yyyy system, today’s date is a PALINDROMIC AMBIGRAM—a figure that reads the same forwards, backwards, and turned upside down.
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A group of bats is called a CAULDRON.
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A GRAMMAGRAM is a word that can be expressed phonetically as a string of single letters—like ODIOUS (“o-d-s”), DEVIOUS (“d-v-s”), or EXPEDIENCY (“x-p-d-n-c”).
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To OUTTRUMP someone is to defeat them.
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Because of its compact, rotund shape, an old dialect nickname for the long-tailed tit is the BUMBARREL bird.
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The Japanese word KOMOREBI means ‘sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees’.
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The old Scots word JACHELT was used to describe trees that have grown with the direction of the wind. http://t.co/bqlqW9buUf.
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GRAVY is thought to derive from and Old French word, ‘grané’, that likely meant ‘seasoned’ or “well flavoured’. The N in ‘grané’ was likely misread for a U or a V in the Middle English period, and the mistake has remained in place ever since.
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Children are called KIDS because young goats are called kids. The word—which dates back to the 1100s—originally only referred to goats, before it began to be jokingly applied to children in 16th century slang. It’s been in widespread use in that sense since the mid 1800s.
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The handle of a spade is the COSP. The handle of an axe is the HELVE. The handle of a jug is the HANK. The handle of a teapot is the BAIL. The handle of a rake is the STALE. The handle of a knife is the HAFT. The handle of a cauldron is the KILP.
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The poem ‘Death and Life’ (1890) is read by first using the top set of letters to complete the words on the middle line, and then the bottom set of letters. The endings of the words remain the same either way. (Gleanings … from the Harvest-fields of Literature, 1890)
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The far area of the sea, visible from the shore, is called the OFFING—which is why something that is imminent or likely to appear soon is said to be ‘in the offing’.
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In French, a wren is a ‘little king’, ROITELET. In German, it’s a ‘hedge king’, ZAUNKÖNIG. In Dutch, it’s the ‘winter king’, WINTERKONING. In Danish, it’s a ‘fence-slinker’, G��RDESMUTTE. In Hungarian, it’s an ‘ox-eye’, ÖKÖRSZEM. In Faroese, it’s a ‘mouse-brother’, MÚSABRÓÐIR.
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The Irish word BEOCHAOINEADH means ‘an elegy for the living’—a sorrowful lament or toast for someone who is alive, but who has gone away or is dearly missed.
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A RÜCKENFIGUR is a figure of a person in the foreground of a painting with their back turned to the viewer.
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Word of the Day: CRYBULLY (n.) someone who habitually harasses or abuses other people, but then professes to be the victim when treated similarly themselves.
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A fox’s tail is called a BRUSH. A rabbit’s tail is called a SCUT. A deer’s tail is called a SINGLE. A boar’s tail is called a WREATH. An otter’s tail is called a RUDDER.
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The word CLUE derives from ‘clew’, an Old English word for a ball of string. It came to mean ‘a hint that aids a solution’ through allusion to the Greek legend of Theseus, who used Ariadne’s ball of thread to find his way back out of the Labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.
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Word of the Day: BENOTHINGED (adj.) utterly destroyed, annihilated.
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‘Never came a hearty fart out of the wren’s arse’ is an 18th century proverb warning not to expect a generous present from a miserly person.
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All fourteen lines in David Shulman’s sonnet ‘Washington Crossing The Delaware’ (1936) are anagrams of the title.
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Some etymological stories are too long to fit into a single tweet, so here’s a quick story about how one man’s awkward encounter with Thomas Jefferson sparked a massively popular 19th century catchphrase. 1/9
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In Old English, the suffix –en was sometimes used to form feminine nouns, like ‘wylfen’ (a she-wolf), ‘byren’ (a she-bear), and ‘gyden’ (a goddess). Only one such word has survived into English to this day—VIXEN.
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It’s World Dictionary Day! To mark the occasion, here’s an A to Z thread of @HaggardHawks facts about the 26 letters of our alphabet. 🧵
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The German word ERKLÄRUNGSNOT refers to a moment in which you have been caught in a situation requiring justification, but cannot properly account for your actions. It essentially translates as ‘explanation emergency’.
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The sudden, random, short-lived bursts of energy seen in pet dogs and cats—popularly known as ‘zoomies’—are actually called ‘frenetic random activity periods’, or FRAPs.
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EXULTANT literally means ‘jumping up’. DESULTORY literally means ‘jumping down’. INSULTING literally means ‘jumping upon’. ASSAULT literally means ‘jumping at’. SOMERSAULT literally means ‘jumping over’. All these words derive from ‘saltus’, a Latin word for a leap.
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RESPAIR is the little-known opposite of ‘despair’: a word for a renewed or reinvigorated hope, or a recovery from anguish or hopelessness.
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The sentence ‘we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire’ is a palindrome in Latin—‘in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni’.
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‘It is a foolish goose that comes to a fox’s sermon’ is a 16th century proverb advising that it is unwise to listen to or take guidance from untrustworthy or prejudiced people.
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HALCYON literally means ‘kingfisher’. The expression HALCYON DAYS—meaning ‘a period of calmness or innocence’—derives from ancient Greek folklore, as the Greeks believed that kingfishers nested far out at sea during winter but were provided unseasonably calm weather by the gods.
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Sausages were nicknamed BAGS OF MYSTERY in 19th century slang. (Passing English of the Victorian Era, 1909)
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The Japanese word SHINRINYOKU—literally ‘forest-bathing’—refers to a relaxing trip to a forest, taken to improve your health and wellbeing.
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In Old English, the verb NILL meant to be unwilling to do something. As effectively the opposite of WILL, it was often found in rhyming constructions like ‘will I, nill I’—literally, ‘whether I will or not’—and it was this that eventually became the word WILLY-NILLY.
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Unnecessarily adding a word that is part of an acronym onto the end of the acronym itself—like ‘LCD display’ or ‘ATM machine’—is called RAS SYNDROME, or ‘redundant acronym syndrome syndrome’.
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Charles Dickens coined the word GROWLERY in Bleak House (1853) to mean ‘a place you like to retreat to when you’re in a bad mood’.
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According to the original definition of a SHIPWRECK in English law, if the ship’s cat survived then the ship wasn’t considered a wreck.
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MUDDYWANT is an old English dialect word for a mole.
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HAP is an old word for luck or chance—so if something HAPPENS, then it literally takes place by chance. If someone is HAPPY, then it’s as if they’ve literally been favoured with good luck. And if something is HAPHAZARD, then it’s literally open to random risk or chance.
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The adjective ROBUST literally means ‘made of oak’.
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In zoology, a species that is found alive after being declared extinct—like New Zealand’s takahe bird, which was rediscovered in 1948—is called a LAZARUS. A creature that looks like it has come back from extinction but is later found to be unrelated to the original is an ELVIS.
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The only non-human credited with asking an existential question was a parrot named Alex, who asked “what colour?” while looking in a mirror during a language experiment reported in 1983. His last words before his death in 2007 were, “You be good. See you tomorrow. I love you.”
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A THEIC is an excessive drinker of tea. (Scientific American, 1886)
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POTOOOOOOOO was the name of a renowned 18th century thoroughbred racehorse. It was pronounced “pot-eight-Os”. http://t.co/mnclOZ9nXx.
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Attributed to Lewis Carroll, the poem ‘I often wondered when I cursed’ can be read both horizontally and vertically.
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The new HH book AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WORDS is OUT NOW!. The book tells the stories behind 80 different words and phrases whose origins lie on the world map—so here’s a quick round-the-world thread of some of the etymological tales you’ll find inside.
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1. The first cut made by a saw is called the KERF.
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The trail of bubbles left by an otter as it swims underwater is called the CHINE.
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There is a word in Dutch, STRUISVOGELPOLITIEK, for a flawed form of leadership that fails to address problems, and instead relies on clearly ineffective measures to create a false sense of security or control. It literally means ‘ostrich politics’.
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The goldcrest is Europe’s smallest native bird. At just 9cm in length, and weighing just 7g, it was once known as the THUMB-BIRD.
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Who needs a pre-Christmas thread of nothing but nice, positive words? Y’know, apart from everyone?
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A group of lemurs is called a CONSPIRACY.
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A flock of hummingbirds is a GLITTERING.
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An IRREVERSIBLE BINOMIAL is a stock phrase formed from a pair of words that has become so established in the language that reversing the order of its elements would immediately sound wrong—which is why we say ‘salt and pepper’, and never ‘pepper and salt’.
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A group of bats is called a CAULDRON.
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The soft, high-pitched chirping of ducklings is called QUEEPLING.
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The accent traditionally associated with pirates has no historical basis, and stems from the actor Robert Newton’s performance in the 1950 Disney adaptation of Treasure Island. Newton exaggerated his own West Country accent to play Long John Silver, and the tradition stuck.
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