Submitted by William Debuvitz of Bernardsville, New Jersey.
Fun and Games
Why Do Weight Lifters Hoist Dumbbells?
We could suggest that no smart bell would want to be lifted by a weight lifter, but we are too dignified to engage in this kind of cheap wordplay. And besides, the actual story is fascinating.
The original dumbbells were not free-standing, but were rather complicated mechanisms. The exerciser pulled on a wooden bar attached to a rope that hoisted a weight, similar in theory to our weight machines of today.
These dumbbell machines were designed to simulate the movements of bell ringers, who attained tremendous upperbody development simply by doing their job. To reinforce the idea that one could possess the body of a bell ringer, the original weights were in the shape of a bell, thus accounting for half of dumbbell.
In Old English, dumb meant “mute” (thus the derivation of deaf and dumb, which did not originally have any negative connotations; it meant, simply, “deaf-mute”). Dumbbells acquired their name because there were no real bells on the device and thus it made no sound. In essence, the dumbbell was promoted by proclaiming, “Attain all of the body-building benefits of bell ringing without the accompanying earache.”
The stereotype of the typical bodybuilder is “all body, no brain,” but etymologically there is no connection between dumb meaning “stupid” and dumbbells, which were introduced in the 1850s.
Is a Caddy a “Little Cad”?
Nope. Caddy is a corruption of the French cadet, the same word now applied to military students. The word was brought into Scotland by Mary Queen of Scots (who was born in France) and originally referred to an errand boy. In golf, the caddy is, in essence, an errand boy.
In France, cadet means “younger son.” In Mary’s time, patrimony was the rule. The oldest son inherited the fortune of the father. Younger sons, even in wealthy families, often had to fend for themselves financially. So gentlemen often volunteered for military service only because they didn’t have the good fortune to be born before their siblings.
Why Are Two Consecutive Baseball Games Played in One Day Called a Doubleheader?
Doubleheader is a straight “steal” from railroad jargon of the late nineteenth century. A doubleheader to them was a train with two engines.
Submitted by Douglas Watkins, Jr., of Hayward, California.
Why Do We Call the End Position in Chess Checkmate?
Checkmate has nothing to do with either bank drafts or lovers. It comes from a Persian word, shah-mat, meaning “the king is dead.”
Submitted by Robert J. Abrams of Boston, Massachusetts.
Why Is the Dice Game Called Craps?
The dubious distinction of introducing this game of chance goes to a Frenchman named Bernard Marigny. He brought the game, which was a simplified version of the French dice game hazard, to New Orleans around 1800.
Two theories have been advanced to explain the derivation of craps, and both are so definitive-sounding that one suspects the veracity of either story.
Theory one: Marigny was known as Johnny Crapaud (“toad” in French—toad was a common nickname for the French in the United States). Craps, then, is simply a shortening of Crapaud.
Theory two: In the game of hazard, the lowest roll (two “ones” or “snake eyes”) was known as craps. If true, this explains why craps is not only the name of the game but also the term for an initial throw of two. Left unexplained, however, is why a roll of three or twelve is also called craps, and also signifies an instant loss for the unfortunate thrower.
Why Do We Say That Someone Who Is Taking Careful or Deadly Aim Is Drawing a Bead On…?
The bead referred to is not a bauble, but the little knob at the end of the gun barrel used for sighting. Also known as the foresight or muzzle sight, the bead on guns with two sights is always the one closer to the muzzle.
We Know What a King Is and What a Queen Is. We Even Know What a Joker Is. But What Is a Jack?
Etymologically, jack derives from the Old English chafa (“boy, male child”). But the clue to the identity of the jack is its alternate name, knave. A knave was a servant of royalty, so it is no accident that in a deck of cards, the jack is the lowest-ranked picture card.
Later, knave accumulated negative connotations, including “deceitfulness.” But knavery usually is associated with rascality, which explains, perhaps, why the jack is often wild in poker games.
Submitted by Mark Anderson of Seattle, Washington.
Why Is a Loyal Partisan Called a Fan?
Fan is short for fanatic, which was derived from the Latin fanaticus, meaning “belonging to a temple” but also meant “a frantic participation in orgiastic rites.” Although the earliest application of fanaticus must have been religious, the first recorded English use of fanatic referred to a lunatic who no doubt acted somewhat like someone possessed with religious fervor.
Fan first appeared in print in 1896, describing rowdy boxing enthusiasts. By the mid-1920s, fan mail became a symbol of a celebrity’s fame and popularity.
Why Do We Say That a Person or Team That Scores for the First Time Is Off the Schneider?
Schneider is a Yiddish term for a cloth cutter. To the many first-generation Jews in America, cloth-cutting was the entry-level position into the garment industry. Although there was nothing ignoble about the task, it was the lowest rung in the trade; if you were a cloth cutter, you were a nothing, “a zero.”
The game of choice among the occupants of the higher rungs of the garment industry was gin rummy. The first time a player scored, he was said to be off the schneider (i.e., no longer “a zero”). Rummy terminology later spread to all sports.
Was There a Real Duke Who Put Up His Dukes?
The oldest son of King George III was the king of England. The second son was a jerk with a lofty title: duke of York. Frederick Augustus’ military career ended in 1809 after he fought a scandalous duel with the Duke of Richmond.
The Duke of York further scandalized English society by pursuing an interest in boxing, which, in the days before Marquis of Queensbury rules, was downright disreputable. York’s fascination with boxing gained such notoriety that boxers nicknamed their fists dukes of York, and by the end of the nineteenth century the phrase was shortened to dukes.
Why Is the Offensive Field General of a Football Team Called a Quarterback?
American offensive football formations were quite different in the late nineteenth century. The center was flanked by three linemen on each side, and the fullback was aligned behind the center, but quite far away. The two halfbacks stood, logically enough, halfway between the line and the fullback. The quarterback was actually not directly behind the center, but a little off to either side. The quarterback stood only one-quarter the distance behind the line as the fullback, and thus the derivation of the term.
In Golf, Why Does Par Mean the “Standard of Excellence”? Why Does a Birdie Mean “One Under Par”? Why Does an Eagle Mean “Two Under Par”? Why Does a Bogey Mean “One Over Par”?
Although we might assume that golfers always had a target to shoot for, par (in Latin, “equal”) did not exist as a golf term until 1911. Par represents how an excellent golfer would expect to score on a given hole. When a golf club committee determines par, the golfer is always allotted exactly two putts on each green. In the United States, par is determined solely by the length of the hole. For men, a par three is any hole less than 250 yards; a par four, 251 to 470 yards; any hole more than 471 yards is rated a par five. There are no par six holes in the United States for men.
Women, who generally cannot hit golf balls as far as men, have a more generous par allotment. Any hole less than 210 yards is a par three; 211-400 yards is a par four; 401-575 yards is a par 5; any hole longer than 576 yards is a par six. Because some country club committees frown on a par six for women, they solve the problem by having women start at the ladies’ tees, often 20 to 40 yards closer to the hole than the men’s tees. In the Uni
ted Kingdom and Ireland, where weather conditions often are severe and their roughs much more untameable, par is not determined solely by the length of the hole, and is up to the discretion of the course’s committee.
Birdie, meaning “one under par,” is an American invention and a variation of an already accepted slang expression. Bird had long meant “excellent” when the Atlantic City Country Club, in 1921, coined this new use of the word. An eagle, presumably, was so named because it was a “big birdie.” A double eagle is “three under par” and rarer than holes in one. Barring flukes, the only chance that most golfers have to achieve a double eagle is to score a two on a par five, a feat considerably harder than making a hole in one on a par three.
Bogey is derived from the Middle English bugge, meaning “demon” or “goblin.” Although a professional golfer might consider a bogey a devilish curse, many duffers would embrace a bogey as a gift from heaven.
Until 1890, golfers didn’t have pars to shoot for. But Hugh Rotherham, a member of England’s Coventry Golf Club, created Rotherham’s game, in which a target was assigned for each hole. To win, the golfer had to equal or better the goal after adding his handicap.
In 1891 the song “Bogey Man” became a smash in England. British players created a mythical creature, Colonel Bogey, who was the demon that golfers tried to beat in Rotherham’s game; and a bogey, in England, became the target score for a hole. In England, the bogey was not the expectation of the great golfer, but a target for the “decent” golfer.
When the rubber golf ball was invented in the United States and gained popularity throughout the golfing world, the English were left with a dilemma. The new balls traveled much farther than the old gutta-percha balls, making the traditional British bogey much too easy to beat. The solution: The British retained the name bogey but simply reduced the goal by one stroke per hole. The bogey, once the target of the decent golfer, became, like the American par, the goal of the excellent golfer. Only decades later did the British, who invented the game, succumb to the American scoring system.
Submitted by Joseph Surgenor of North Vancouver, British Columbia.
Why Do We Say That Someone’s Ranking in a Tournament Is His Seed?
In most tournaments, the top players are placed in the early rounds so that they don’t face each other. If a tournament has sixteen players, the number one seed would face number sixteen (the last-ranked), number two would play number fifteen, etc.
Seeding serves the intended purpose of maintaining the integrity of the later stages of the tournament. But because a low-ranked player must defeat a top seed to advance to the later rounds, seeding also tends to perpetuate the success of the top seeds, since the favorites are playing the worst players in the tournament first.
One suspects that seeding always will exist in professional contests; it is one way for sponsors to recoup their expenses. Spectators pay money to see the top seeds and are disappointed when players they are not familiar with reach the finals of a tournament.
How did the name seed develop to describe the top-ranked players? The name refers to the metaphor that the top players, like the seeds of a crop about to be planted, are scattered throughout the different playing brackets.
There’s No Place Like Other
Places
Why Is Someone Who Escapes Penalty or Punishment Said to Have Gotten Off Scot-Free?
Although we are not above dabbling in ethnic stereotypes, this expression has nothing whatsoever to do with Scots’ supposed propensity for getting something for nothing (or as close to nothing as possible). Scot-free isn’t even Scottish, but an Old English expression that, according to the OED, originally meant “an amount one owed for entertainment.” If one went out with friends, your share of the food and drink would be your sceot.
Eventually, the meaning of sceot was broadened to include taxes, particularly a tax paid to a local sheriff. So the earliest beneficiaries of being scot-free were citizens who were exempt from paying local taxes or who circumvented paying them.
Why Is Scotland Yard in England?
The original Scotland Yard, established by Robert Peel (see “Was the London Bobbie Named After a Real Bobby?”) in 1829, was placed on the site of the former palace where Scottish kings and queens resided when visiting England to conduct affairs of state or to pay tribute to English royalty. Scotland Yard became known as the name of the street as well as the palace.
Although the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan [London] Police later moved to the Thames Embankment and then to the Victoria area of London, it still retains the name of its original site.
Submitted by Meg Smith of Claremont, California.
Dave, Are There Any Great Euphemisms Involving African Countries?
O.K., I admit it. Nobody has ever asked or ever will ask me this question. But indulge the artificiality of the question, because it yields a wonderful answer.
In their delightful compendium Kind Words: A Thesaurus of Euphemisms, Judith S. Neaman and Carole G. Silver list many euphemisms for the sexual act. The most bizarre, without doubt, is an English euphemism, discussing Uganda.
I assume this phrase started with some skeptical father yelling out to his daughter and her suitor ensconced in the car parked in front of the family house:
“Hey, what are you doing in the back seat?”
“Oh, Daddy,” replies the dutiful daughter breathlessly, “We’re just discussing Uganda.”
Why Is a Late Patch of Warm Weather Called Indian Summer?
Much as anything French seems to have sexual connotations, most phrases starting with Indian mean “false.” Early American colonists had the habit of naming “Indian” anything they found in America that resembled what they knew from home but that differed in some way. Indian pudding, Indian corn, and Indian tea were all originally pejorative terms, meaning “bogus pudding,” “bogus corn,” and “bogus tea.”
Colonists were so paranoid about Indians defrauding them that they even “accused” Native Americans of perpetrating a “false summer,” Indian summer.
Of course, Indian summer is hardly exclusive to the United States. The British have an equivalent expression, St. Martin’s summer, a reference to St. Martin’s Day (November 11), when a late “summer” day might occur.
Why Do We Call the South Dixie? And How About Dixieland?
Many arguments have ensued over the origin of Dixie, but one thing is certain: The term Dixie was popularized at the same time that one of the most popular black face minstrel performers, Dan Emmett, wrote and performed “I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land,” in 1859. Although introduced in New York, the song took the entire country by storm. But when the Civil War erupted, the South proudly adopted “Dixie” as its marching song and unofficial anthem.
The real question is whether Emmett himself coined the term or if he borrowed a word already in circulation. Where could he have found Dixie? One theory is that Dixie is slang for Jeremiah Dixon, one of the two English surveyors (the other, Charles Mason), who were hired almost a century before the Civil War to resolve the border dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania. Before the Civil War, the border between the two states was considered to be the boundary between slave and nonslave states. The Mason-Dixon Line, then, had much to do with defining the identity of the South, and the eventual loyalties of the states during the Civil War. Although this theory is plausible, it doesn’t explain why Dixon was chosen instead of Mason, or why a name associated with a border between two places should be used to identify a region lying entirely on one side of the border.
Perhaps Dixie came from the French word dix (“ten”). Before the Civil War, ten-dollar notes were issued by a bank in Louisiana that had dix, rather than ten, printed for the numeral. How one bank became emblematic of the whole South is problematical, however. Although other theories have been advanced, including one that Dixie was an eponym for a lovable northern slave-owner, we probably will never arrive at a definitive answer. Surely, it is possible t
hat Emmett simply liked the euphonics of Dixie—it wouldn’t be the first time that a songwriter chose a title for its sound rather than its meaning.
Dixieland got its name because it was the type of jazz played in New Orleans. Louisiana, of course, was soundly in the Dixie camp during the Civil War.
Submitted by Malinda Fillingion of Savannah, Georgia.
Why Are People from the Backwoods Called Hillbillies?
Hillbilly is an American expression first recorded in 1904 to describe rustic hill dwellers in the South, so the “hill” in hillbilly is easy enough to understand. But why “billy”? Couldn’t we be more respectful and call them hillwilliams?
“Billy” had long meant “fellow” or “guy” in America, much as “Mac” or “Bud” (as in “Hey, Bud!” or “Hey, Mac!”) has in the twentieth century. So hillbilly really just means “hill fellow.” This use of “billy” (simply the diminutive of the male name Bill) lives on in one other English expression, billy goat, which is similarly the generic term for a male goat.
Denizens of Indiana Are Called Hoosiers. But What in the World Is a Hoosier?
Hoosier, first recorded in 1829, comes from the Cumberland dialect’s hoozer (“something big”). A probably fanciful theory for the derivation of hoosier is that the custom for inhabitants of Indiana, upon hearing a knock on the door, was to inquire, “Who’s here?”
Submitted by Mrs. D. L. Billiet of Los Altos, California.
Why Is the Most Violent Sea Called the pacific Ocean?
Those explorers we learned about in elementary school sure seemed to have more guts than brains. Most of them stumbled upon their “discoveries” while looking for somewhere or something else. Perhaps the most famous explorer, Magellan (so famous he goes by only one name, à la Liberace, Cher, and Sting), was responsible for naming El Pacífico (“peaceful,” “mild”) when he left Spain in 1519 to venture out and explore the New World. As Magellan sailed west, he found the water smooth and the weather pleasant.
Who Put the Butter in Butterfly? Page 8
