Ordinary--Second Essay

Oops. I think I am jumping the gun a little too eagerly by talking about ordinary as "rule." An ordinary is also a "judge having authority to deal with cases in his or her own right and not by delegation." This is similar to the ecclesiastical definition, and so the concept of ordinary sweeps widely. The OED tells us that in parts of the US it can be "a county judge having jurisdiction, esp. of a court of probate." Don't you just love probate courts? They can also be called surrogate courts. Well, back to ordinaries. The term goes back to 1607: "Ordinarie (Ordinarius), in the civil lawe, whence the word is taken, it doth signifie any judge that hath authoritie to take knowledge of causes in his own right...as he is a magistrate..and not by deputation." I wonder if this is also the origin of the concept of an Ordinarius Professor (the terminology of German universities), to refer to a professor who, as it were, has "jurisdiction" over his/her field.

Well, the American writer Flannery O'Connor used the term in this way, "The Ordinary was an old woman with red hair who had held office for forty years and looked as dusty as her books." Then, from as recently as 1972, we have: "Under Georgia statute, an ordinary is a judge, and may lawfully perform the marriage ceremony." I can just hear the family discussion now.

"Who is going to do your wedding, dear?" "Oh, some ordinary." "Ordinary What?" "I don't think that is his name." "What are you talking about?" [fisticuffs or some other indication of confusion].

An Ordinary Biblic

Having mentioned that the professor who is in charge of an academic field or "jurisdiction" in a German university is an Ordinarius, I also think it interesting that there was at one time a distinction between biblic/ordinary and cursory lectures in a medieval university. The Century tells us that in medieval universities, the lowest grade of bachelor of theology was called the biblic. "The ordinary biblic read and expounded the Bible on the days of the ordinary lectures; the cursory biblic did so in extraordinary courses." So, ordinary lectures are those set up according to a schedule by authorized teachers in the faculty. The OED tells us that cursory lectors (derived from the Latin term for "running") are those of "a less formal and exhaustive character delivered, especially by bachelors...at hours not reserved for those prescribed lectures." According to an 1894 quotation, "the 'cursory' lectures of Paris are the 'extraordinary' lectures of Bologna." Then, "It is probable that the term 'cursory' came to suggest also the more rapid and less formal manner of going over a book..."

Even when I was a professor and told students I was going to give a "cursory overview" of the subject, I had no idea that I was drawing upon a distinction in medieval education. The older I live the more I am convinced that almost every lecture and almost every course is cursory.

To Other Meanings of Ordinary

One of the things that ecclesiastical officials do is give orders. These "ordinaries" then were formulas or rules prescribing certain courses of action; they were ordinances or regulations. More specifically, by the 16th century an ordinary could describe a rule prescribing, or book containing, the order of divine service, esp. that of the Mass. Then, the word took on an even more precise meaning, to describe those unvarying parts of the service which form the mass as a musical setting (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei). The Mass became divided into two parts, the Ordinarium et Canon Missae, which later became the Ordo Missae (order of the mass) and the Canon Missae (canon of the mass). So, we have a brilliant array of concepts under the word ordinary, don't we? Of course it refers to something prosaic or commonplace, but now we know it is an ecclesiastical officer with his own jurisdiction, a civil authority, a certain priest who gave the "neck verse," a rule or regulation, a term from heraldry to denote common lines or designs on shields and the unvarying parts of the Mass.

Ordinary and Food

But there is more. An ordinary can be "customary fare; a regular daily meal or allowance." It is a meal "regularly available at a fixed price in a restaurant, public house, tavern." It also has a figurative meaning derived from this usage, illustrated nicely in Coleridge: "The two public ordinaries of Literature, the circulating libraries and the periodical press." But, the literal meaning was used by James Joyce in Ulysses: "He took his ordinary at a boilingcook's." Then, writing for an audience which is unaware of the historical meaning, Healthy Eating in 1999 ran this sentence: "Many people ate their dinner in eating houses, seated at long tables. Known as the 'ordinary,' the meal consisted of a hot meat dish, bread and ale, often costing less than a shilling."

By further extending the meaning of ordinary, it came to mean "an inn, public house, tavern, where meals are provided at a fixed price" (we see it is the "fixedness" of things that makes gives it the name ordinary). Thackeray used the word in this way in 1852: "The cost at the dearest ordinary or the grandest tavern in London could not have furnished a longer reckoning, than our host of the Handcuff Inn." Here is the old website of the Tanglewood Ordinary, a restaurant in Maidens, VA. Glad that someone in the Old Dominion is aware of historical terminology...

Finishing on Ordinary

This doesn't fully exhaust the OED entries on the subject; I will mention one more in closing. In naval terminology it is the part of a fleet which is laid up or out of service. The phrase "in ordinary" means a ship out of commission or not in service. It is a bit counterintuitive, ins't it? Usually when we see the phrase "in ordinary" we would think that it would mean "in the customary or usual" [manner of operation] but it means the opposite. From an 1833 book: "I have constantly been 'at the receipt of custom' when any rousing match has been toward; and being now a veteran, and laid up in ordinary, I may be allowed the vanity of the quotation, 'Quorum magna pars fui,'" ("in which I played a great part"). I think the term in ordinary carried with it the notion of being repaired or being prepared to go "online." Thus, it was not quite ready for commission and active service, but was being prepared for it.

Conclusion

One other thing I didn't know is that the word ornery, to describe something "commonplace, inferior," but increasingly nowadays meaning "cantankerous, contrary," is really the word ordinary. Something commonplace, we know, is ordinary. But when you give a regional American twist to the word, you have "ornery." From 1939: "Wild sweet williams in the wood lot were much more alluring than the 'o'n'ry' weeds." Before today if I were to characterize someone as 'ornery,' I would mean that they would be a whiner, a complainer. But now that I see the origin of the term, I would see the person as just a commonplace or even inferior individual. Their current emotional state wouldn't be on my mind.

Such are a few of the wonders of words. Thanks for joining me, in my quest to know and exposit "all the words."

3823