Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?

by David Feldman

  Why Is Something Great, a “Real Knockout,” Called a Doozy?

  There is a quaint feel to the word doozy, perhaps because the object it was first created to describe has long vanished. The first doozy was the Duesenberg, an American car created by two brothers named Duesenberg. State of the art at the time it was produced (1921-37), the Duesenberg was considered more elite than the Cadillac. The engineer brother, Frederick, aimed so high that he installed the same high-performance engines in boats and airplanes as well as automobiles.

  What is a Kit Cat? And Why Does Every City Seem to Have a Sleazy Dive Called the Kit Cat Club?

  The first Kit Cat Club was named after Christopher (Kit) Cat, a cook who was a member of London’s Whig Club, formed in 1703. Cat originally held meetings in his mutton-pie shop. Although small at first, the Whig Club grew in numbers and stature, as several prominent Londoners joined.

  Sir Godfrey Kneller painted portraits of the then forty-two members of what came to be known as the Kit Cat Club. He hung the pictures in the club dining room, which was too short to contain the traditional half-size portrait, so Kneller revised the usual format. All forty-two portraits, painted on twenty-eight- by thirty-six-inch formats, were less than half-size, but always included the subjects’ hands. Even today, kit-cat is the generic name given to this format of portraits.

  The Kit Cat Club folded about twenty years after its inception, but it lives on in the name of the American chocolate bar, the glory of having all forty-two portraits hung in London’s National Portrait Gallery, and in Kit-Cat bars and strip joints all over the world. Why a once estimable political club lent its name to dives all over the world is unclear, but the alluring alliteration of Kit Cat and the fact that the first Kit Cat Club’s founder was in the food and drink industry probably had much to do with it.

  Why Is a Leader or Boss Called a Honcho?

  This expression was brought to the United States from fliers stationed in Japan during World War II. In Japanese, hancho means “leader of the squad.” Most of the time, one hears honcho in the expression head honcho (“head leader”), which is an obvious redundancy unless the speaker is referring to a boss of bosses (such as a chairman of the board presiding before the top executives of a company).

  Why Are Jitters Called the Heebie Jeebies?

  Heebie jeebies is a coined expression first written in 1910 by a man with an unusual distinction. Cartoonist Billy de Beck, creator of Barney Google, coined two other slang expressions that, though they now sound quaint, have survived for more than half a century: hotsy totsy and horse feathers. Few novelists or essayists have coined more than one enduring expression; de Beck, with the assistance of Mr. Google, originated three.

  Why Does Hobnob Mean “to Mingle” or “to Chat Socially”?

  Hobnob goes back to the Middle English habben (“to have”) and ne habben (“to have not”). Hobnob is a contraction of these two words.

  In the twelfth century, when Chaucer used the word, hobnob meant “hit or miss” or “give and take” as well as “have and have not.”

  Hobnob eventually described the age-old custom of alternating purchasing rounds of drinks (literally “having” and then “not having” to buy the next drink). Although the use of hobnob is no longer confined to drinking, the conviviality and sociability conjured by hobnob resemble the interaction among a group of drinkers.

  Does Anyone Ever Engage in Low Jinks? And What’s a Jink?

  Originally a Scottish word, the primary meaning of jink has, for the past two hundred years, been “to move swiftly, especially with sudden turns.” High jinks has existed just as long. Although we now use high jinks to refer to any prank or frolic, during the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, high jinks was a popular parlor game. A throw of dice would determine one “victim.” He would have to embarrass himself by performing some prank for the amusement of the other revelers; if the victim refused or couldn’t satisfactorily perform the task, he had to pay a forfeit, usually downing a hefty container of liquor.

  If this is the origin of HIGH jinks, it is probably just as well that there is no LOW jinks in our lexicon.

  Why Is Something Clean and Trim Referred to as Spic and Span?

  Spic and span is a contraction of a Middle English phrase used to describe a new or refurbished ship. Spick and span new referred to a ship with shiny nails (spics or “spikes”) and new wood (span new mean “new chips of wood”). The phrase was shortened eventually to spick and span and was forever altered by the commercial success of the cleaner Spic and Span.

  Why Is Somebody Who Abstains from Alcohol Called a Teetotaler?

  Teetotal cropped up in England and the United States at about the same time, and it’s impossible to discern who first coined it. Dick Turner, an Englishman, felt so strongly that teetotal was “his” word that his epitaph commemorates it:

  Beneath this stone are deposited the remains of Richard Turner, author of the word teetotal as applied to abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, who departed this life on the twenty-seventh day of October 1846, aged fifty-six years.

  The early temperance movement in the United States didn’t ask members to abstain from all liquor. Hard-drinking Americans were asked to forsake all but beer and wine. But as the movement progressed, it got more militant. Teetotal, whether first coined in England or the United States, was almost certainly a play on words, emphasizing the t in total. Somebody who signed up as a teetotaler gave up all alcohol, as opposed to the wishy-washy O.P. (“Old Pledge”) members, who promised to abstain only from hard liquor.

  Let’s Get Physical

  Why Are Fraudulent Healers Known as Quacks?

  Poor ducks. It isn’t enough that Groucho Marx defamed them in Horsefeathers by combating a flirtatious, mewling woman while rowing across a lake with, “Was that you or the duck?” No. Ducks are now blamed for the ministrations of bogus healers.

  Quacks is a shortening of the Dutch kwakzalver. Zalf is Dutch for “salve,” so the kwak is clearly a reference to early medical pitchmen who sold cure-alls (“salves”) by barking, or “kwaking,” like a duck.

  Why Is Something Set Aside for a Specific Purpose Said to Be Earmarked?

  This American expression almost certainly stems from the practice of identifying cattle by the markings on their ears. But there is a possibility that earmarked is a biblical allusion. In the days of the Old Testament, servants were given an option after six years’ service. If the servant chose to stay with his master, the master bore a hole in his ear with an awl, and the servant remained indentured for the rest of his life.

  Why Is a Bathroom Sometimes Called a Head?

  In old sailing ships, lavatories were put in the bow—or head—of the vessels. If one were lucky, waves hitting the bow would serve as the primary means of cleaning the facilities.

  But the very earliest ships had no bathrooms at all for crewmen (officers tended to have primitive facilities at the stern). The lowly crew members had to go through contortions to relieve themselves. They went to the head of the ship, clambered over the bulwarks, and urinated or defecated over the edge. Some vessels had holes cut out near the bulwarks and the bowsprit. A few even included seats along the bow. But no indoor plumbing was provided for lowly crewmen—they were forced to hide among the headsails and the riggings to gain some privacy.

  Submitted by Ira Goldwyn of Great Neck, New York.

  Why Do We Say Someone Eager with Anticipation Is Licking His Chops?

  Although we now think of this expression as slang, it has estimable roots. In Anglo-Saxon, chops meant “mouth” or “jaws.” Someone who licked his chops, then, was someone who, like most animals and some humans we know, licks his mouth and drools in anticipation of a tasty morsel or two.

  Why Is an Old Person Said to Be Long in the Tooth?

  The first recorded use of long in the tooth was in J. C. Snaith’s Love Lane (1919): “One of the youngest R. A.s [rear admirals] on record, but a bit long in the tooth for the
Army.”

  The meaning is the same today, but the words don’t seem to apply to humans. The answer is that long in the tooth originally referred only to horses. As horses age, their gums recede. Their teeth don’t actually get longer, but they look longer. The older the horse, the longer its teeth look.

  Why Is Somebody Who Speaks Frankly or Without Reservations Said to Make No Bones About It?

  The OED cites a 1459 reference: “And found that time no bones in the matere.” All of the earliest allusions to “no bones” refer to soups and stews. If one encountered a stew with no bones, one could eat freely, without hesitation or trepidation. John Ciardi notes that although this phrase originally meant “to encounter no difficulties,” its connotation has changed to mean “to be undeterred by, especially by moral scruples or conscientious reservations.”

  How Did the Pap Test Get Its Name?

  The Pap test was named after a Greek-born American anatomist and pathologist with an unfortunately long name, George Papanicolaou. His smear test, developed in the 1920s, didn’t gain wide acceptance until the 1940s, and it has since saved thousands of women’s lives by diagnosing uterine cancer in its curable stages.

  How Did X Rays Get Their Name?

  In 1895, German inventor Wilhelm Roentgen was conducting experiments with the conduction of electrical charges through gases in a vacuum tube. Much to his astonishment, Roentgen observed that radiation passed through objects that were usually opaque. The applications were obvious, but Roentgen didn’t understand how or why radiation worked. For this reason, Roentgen named his invention X Strahlen (“X ray”). He used “X” as in algebraic formulas, a modest admission that he couldn’t explain his own discovery.

  Abbreviations and Other

  Tiny Words

  Who Was the First Guy to Be Called Guy?

  Guy Fawkes, in the early seventeenth century.

  You remember what they say about converts? Fawkes converted to Roman Catholicism, and he despised the anti-Catholic reforms instituted by James I of England. In 1605, Fawkes led a conspiracy, called the Gunpowder Plot, to blow up James and the Parliament on its annual ceremonial opening.

  The day before the bombing was to take place, Fawkes was arrested right where his gunpowder was stashed. Responding with appropriate mercy, the British tortured Fawkes, which yielded a signed confession implicating his coconspirators. To reward him for this information, Fawkes was allowed to be hanged with his cohorts.

  This pleasant story isn’t over yet. To mend wounds, Guy Fawkes’ execution day was declared a national holiday. A charming custom during this holiday was for children to march through the streets carrying human figures dressed in decrepit clothing. These figures were called guys (in “honor” of Guy Fawkes). Because these “guys” were dressed so poorly and haphazardly, guy became slang for “a person of odd appearance or dress.”

  Possibly the first person to use guy to mean “fellow” was Mark Twain, in 1872. Even today, guy connotes a man without great distinction. Although a guy is an O.K. fellow (“a regular guy”), he is unlikely to be listed in Who’s Who.

  Why Is an Army Enlisted Man Called a G.I.?

  Because Army men and women wear government issue uniforms. G.I. sprung up soon after World War I and became a catchphrase during World War II. Originally, G.I. was not an affectionate term, but rather a reference to the impersonality of the Army and an expression of contempt for government property.

  What’s the Difference Between Hip and Hep? Why Is It Unhip to Say “Hep” When It Used to Be Hipper to Say “Hep”?

  About all we know for sure is that hep predated hip by at least twenty-five years. By 1903, hep meant “informed,” or “in the know,” and the expression get hep circulated as early as 1906. Musicians, particularly black musicians, modified the term (hep to the jive was recorded as early as 1925).

  Where did hep come from? One story posits that hep honors a Chicago bartender named Joe Hep, who presumably knew his way around the Windy City. The Morrises offer the fascinating theory that hep derives from drillmasters who barraged their men with the insistent command “Hep, two, three, four,” etc. If this supposition is correct, to be hep originally meant, literally, “to be in step.”

  By 1931, hep was occasionally pronounced as hip. Possibly a regional dialect rendered hep unintelligible. Perhaps hip was the shortened version of on the hip, jazz slang for smoking opium on one’s side. We do know that by 1945, hip had replaced hep among those who used to be hep. After World War II, only a washed-up or spacey bohemian, such as Maynard G. Krebs on The Dobie Gillis Show, would be caught dead saying “hep.”

  The most likely explanation for why hep disappeared is that the artists and nonconformists who first coined the term abandoned it as soon as the culture at large embraced it. Likewise, few things angered the counterculture in the 1960s as much as their “own” words (e.g., groovy, far out) being co-opted by the mass media. Soon those words were verboten (although both have subsequently reappeared). Once Time magazine spots a trend, the hip (or the hep) want to move on to the next big thing.

  Why Were World War II Army Rations, Contained in Packets, Called K Rations?

  Providing all of one’s daily nutritional requirements but none of one’s aesthetic requirements, K rations were probably so named in honor of their inventor, U.S. physiologist Ancel Keys. K also was the Army supply code designation for the rations, and some sources indicated that the code letter, rather than the name of Keys, was responsible for K rations.

  Delicacy prevents me from providing vivid descriptions of the contents of K rations. But highlights include an unrecognizable and usually inedible meat/protein source; the world’s hardest chocolate (designed not to melt in the sun); and, in every packet, cigarettes! Even to famished soldiers, K rations tasted like *!?#!%*!, but they kept G.I.s alive when refrigeration and cooking facilities were nowhere to be found.

  In A Browser’s Dictionary, John Ciardi best describes the love-hate relationship between the American G.I. and the K ration: “Packed in a wax-coated cardboard box, it passed as a meal, the double function being to sustain the G.I. while making him angry enough to kill.”

  Why Is the “I” in the Word I Capitalized?

  After all, the “m” in me is not capitalized, and isn’t it impolite to capitalize I when the “y” in you is stuck in lower case?

  Ego turns out not to be the original reason for the capitalized I. In Middle English, the first person singular was expressed with ich, eventually shortened to i in lower case. But printers encountered difficulties setting the lower case i. The letter would be dropped unintentionally or run together with the words that followed or preceded it (see “Why Do We Mind Our p’s and q’s Instead of Our v’s and w’s?”). So the original purpose of capitalizing the I was to make it stand out from other single letters and provide it with the status as a whole word.

  Now the rock star Prince has extended this principle by capitalizing the word you, although his spelling, U, is a little eccentric. Despite constantly being accused of narcissism, Prince should be commended for his altruistic and egalitarian philosophy of elevating the second person singular to the prestige of first-person-singular capitalization.

  Submitted by Sheila Reiss of St. Petersburg, Florida.

  Why Is Pound Abbreviated as Lb.?

  In the zodiac, the symbol of Libra is the scales. How appropriate, then, that lb. is an abbreviation of the Latin libra (“scales”) pondo (“a pound by weight”). The original pondo was a premeasured weight to be placed in one of the two pans, thus providing a standard to apply against other substances of unknown weight.

  Submitted by Leslie P. Madison of Anaheim, California. Thanks also to Bryan J. Cooper of Ontario, Oregon, and Daniel A. Papcke of Lakewood, Ohio.

  Why Do the English Call a Bathroom a Loo?

  Before the invention of sewers and indoor plumbing, human waste products were pitched out of windows. Although it has long been considered the height of chivalry for men to walk on
the outside while escorting a woman down the sidewalk, I’ve always wondered whether the custom didn’t start with gentlemen trying to distance themselves from flying filth being hurled out of windows.

  The French, at least, had the decency to warn innocent pedestrians of their impending peril. Before pitching the filth, they yelled Gardez l’eau! (“Beware of the water!”). The Scottish transformed the French expression into “Gardy loo.” This wouldn’t be the first time that the British have mangled the pronunciation of a French word (which is pronounced like the word low), but some etymologists explain the discrepancy by crediting the phrase not to a corruption of Gardez l’eau but to an Anglicization of another French phrase, lieux d’aissance (“room of comfort”), which is closer to the French pronunciation.

  One of humankind’s basic instincts seems to be the dire need to create euphemisms to describe places where urination and defecation take place. Lieux d’ aissance is the parent of our rest room and comfort station, and the spiritual ancestor of throne, washroom, and bathroom.

  Submitted by Ira Goldwyn of Great Neck, New York. Thanks also to John H. Thompson of Glendale, New York.