New Free Rice Words--Seventeenth Essay

1. Let's begin with slummock because of the richness of its connotations. The word didn't first appear until 1932: "Chris found himself dancing with Mistress Mutch, the great, easy-going slummock." Though no source I read makes the connection, I would think the word would have arisen from "slum," a word in use for a century previous to 1932 and meaning "a street...inhabited by people of a low class or by the very poor." So, a slummock is "a dirty, untidy, or slovenly person; a slut." In more recent usage it is synonymous with "slob." From 1974: "He wiped Norah's table-top...Norah was a slummock." But, with my interest in tracing the history of derogatory or insult terms, I can't stop here. The OED compares it to slammakin, a word originating in the late 18th century and meaning "a slovenly female, sloven, slattern." I like the first usage (1785): "A female sloven, one whose clothes seem hung on with a pitch fork, a careless trapes." How do you hang on clothes with a pitch fork? In any case, behind slammakin lies sloven, a word going back to the 15th century and meaning a knave or rascal, a person of slothful or indolent habits or a careless and untidy person. Thus, we see how slummock opens up all kinds of interesting worlds for us.

2. Titubate can mean to roll, rock, reel, totter, stumble or, alternatively, to stammer or falter in speaking. I suppose the latter is connected to the former, because if the voice is titubating, perhaps under the influence of alcohol, it is 'stumbling' or 'reeling.' The Latin underlying the word, titubare, means to "stagger." Titubancy is the condition of being titubant, unsteady or tipsy. From 1829: "That amiable state of semi-intoxication which..sets the tongue..tripping, in the double sense of nimbleness and titubancy." In medical usage (former medical usage) it referred to fidgetiness. Again, it refers to the act of rolling, as a curved body on a plane. "What became of this titubating, this towering mountain of snow?" In Book I of Paradise Lost, Satan welters in discomfort in hell; I suppose he might also be said to titubate.

3. A distance relative of titubate is shoggle, which is a sort of portmanteau word for shake and joggle. It means "to shake, swing about, dangle." I suppose when Michael Jackson dangled his kid out of a balcony a few years ago, he really shoggled the kid. To shog also means to shake or roll something heavy from side to side; to rock a cradle; or to agitate a liquid. The first usage of shog, which antedated shoggle by two centuries, was in Wyclif's translation of the Gospel of Matthew (14:24): "The boot [boat]..was schoggid with wawis [waves; Vulg. jactabatur fluctibus].

4. There is some confusion about the meaning of didicoy. The freerice.com game defines it as a "non-Gypsy," but the OED defines it as a "gipsy," though there are some other usages which broaden the meaning. A Romany term, also spelled didicoy, it was first used in English in 1853: "Gipseys, romaneys, didycoys, 'our people', as they call themselves." A 1936 quotation says that this name was given to "gipsies" in Gloucestershire. But, then, it could be more broadly used. From 1966: "Didicoys--the Irish tinkers and other nomads around London who far outnumber the true Romanies." So, didicoy can now take its place with other words for wanderers, vagabonds, hobos, tramps and others.

5.-6. A fogbow, very simply, is a "phenomenon similar to the rainbow, produced by the action of light on the particles of fog." Thus, the nebulous, arching, dense, illuminated white fog, the result of headlights boring into the white, is a fogbow. The verb loup was defined by freerice.com as "jump." The dictionaries say it is derived from "leap," and means to "leap," "spring," or "leap over." "Every one loups over the dike where it is laighest [Scottish word for 'lowest']." Ah, we may have guessed by now that it is a Scottish word, which really may not have much use today.

7. -8. Let's finish with spuddle and spiccato. Spiccato is derived from an Italian word meaning "detached, distinct," and is a style of staccato bowing, esp. on the violin. Thus, it has short breask between notes caused by controlled bouncing on the bow. By so "detaching" the notes, the player gives to every note its distinct sound. As a 1740 music dictionary says: it "is the contrary of what we call slurring." Finally, the verb spuddle means "to work feebly or ineffectively" or "to turn over, dig up, or work at lightly or superficially." A spud is a spade or digging instrument; therefore someone who spuddles "puddles" around with a "spud." To "puddle" means to dig around or stir around in puddles or muddy areas; to befoul. Thus, the verb spuddle might be said to be synonymous to putter, though the former emphasizes the ineffectiveness of the product or, alternatively, the begrimed condition of what results.

Conclusion

Well, you've been good, so let's close with one more word--birr. The noun gives the verb life. A birr is a strong wind or the force or impetus of the wind. Thus, a birr can be a thrust or push. It can also be a pronunciation of Scottish "r," which generates an "energetic whirring sound." I see, also, that it is a unit of Ethiopian currency, but that isn't my concern here. Thus, the verb means "to emit a whirring noise." "They were both seated in the gig, and birring it on merrily towards Carlisle." Maybe we could say that the sound of an engine running is a "birr."

This is enough for one day. See you again soon.

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