Russian Words--and Others--With Lessons for Life II

Another lesson of life learned from words is that they always, like Thanksgiving dinner, have leftovers from the previous meals (i.e., essays). So, before returning to the list of words at the beginning of the previous essay, I need to say a word about vapulation and vareuse. The Century has vareuse, though it is absent from the OED. It is "a kind of loose jacket." "His vareuse, unbuttoned, showed his breast brown and hairy." Pictures of vareuses are all over the Internet, but only on French-language sites, which makes me wonder if the word really is an English word. But you have no excuse for not knowing it now... Then, vapulation, derived from the Latin vapulatio and called by the OED "rare," means "A beating or flogging." From 1791: "A strapping colonel interposing, the vapulation did not take place." There seems to be no good reason to lose this word; we don't have an overabundance of terms for beating/flogging; the word is a straightforward one from the Latin; it is easy to say, etc. But somehow the word never really caught on..Except here.

To The "List"

There have been so many "lessons" from words that I scarcely have had time to get to the words themselves. So, let's quickly review prisage and butlerage. In making a list of medieval/early modern forms of common law (English) taxation (ending in age), I would also include murage and tallage. Oops. I think I need to say a few things about the tallage before entering into prisage and butlerage. Derived from the French word "cut" or "tail," the tallage was originally (12th century) an "arbitrary tax levied by Norman and early Angevin kings upon the towns and demesne lands of the Crown." Thus, it was a tax on feudal dependants usually paid in a lump sum to the many lords to whom a town might owe its protection or livelihood. But it wasn't a popular tax, and in 1297 was passed a law, the Statute De Tallagio non concedendo ("On Not Yielding Up the Tallage") attempting to restrict this right. Eventually it was surrendered by the king in 1340. But even though the concept rose and fell hundreds of years before we were born, a knowledge of it is presumed by economic historians. Adam Smith, writing in 1776, could say: "The taille, as it still subsists in France, may serve as an example of those ancient tallages.." David Hume, in his 1762 History of England, says "The king..levided heavy tailliages at pleasure on the inhabitants."

Well, what of prisage (something about murage is here)? The word is derived from the post-classical Latin prisagium, which was a "custom on wine." Actually, the word was first used in English, according to the OED, only in 1505, though it was common in Anglo-Norman legal texts, used in England, back to the 12th century. From a statute in the 31st year of Queen Elizabeth I (1588-89), we have: "Any Offence committed...for the concealinge or defraudinge the Quenes Majestie..of any Custome Tonnage Pondage Subsidie Ymposte or Prisage." Well, how did the prisage duty work? From 1607: "Prisage of Wines,..it is a custome wherby the prince chalengeth out of every barke loaden with wine, containing lesse then forty tunne, two tunne of wine at his price." The Century tells us that the word, in general means simply "a prizing" or "a valuing," but then it defines things slightly differently from above. It says it was a "right which one belonged to the English crown, of taking two tuns of wine from every ship importaing twenty tuns or more." Thus, it was a duty of not more than 10%.

But the Century gives us one other fact of importance, quoted in Blackstone's Commentary I, 315 (1768 ed.):

"By charter of Edward I (14th cent.) [this] was commuted into a duty of two shillings for every tun important by merchant strangers, and called butlerage, because paid to the king's butler."

Well, in order to know how precisely this worked, we would have to know a lot more, but this suffices to give you more knowledge of the phenomenon than 99.9% of people, and gives you questions that would stump the other .1%.

Argus/Argute

Argus was on my list from the previous essay, and argute was absent, but by the law of "varanus," so to speak, I noted argute. First, the word Argus (Derived from the Greek argos, meaning "bright") refers to a giant in Greek mythology of vast strength, in earlier times thought to have four eyes and later to have eyes without number. Hera set him to guard the heifer Io, and after he was slain by Hermes, Hera transferred his eyes to the tail of the peacock. By extension, then, an argus is any observant or sharp-sighted person. "He was the very argus of alertness." Or, "It couldn't have happened under his watch. He is a veritable argus on our behalf." Argus can also have other meanings, but let's leave it while we are ahead.

Argute is a near-neighbor of Argus, and means "sharp (taste) or shrill (sound)." One might also say that it means "subtle, ingenious, sagacious, shrewd." Sterne, in Tristram Shandy, wrote: "I will have him, continued my father...vigilant, acute, argute, inventive." A classicist may suggest argute emendations of texts.

The Russian Words

Well, finally I get to prisiadka, kazachoc, tarantass, and kibitka. Real quick. The first two are taken from Russian dance. The prisiadka is the kicking movement made from a squatting position. Several online sources say that such a movement is supposed to be in the "Russian Dance" or Trepak section of Tschikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, but none of the Internet videos I found have guys doing the prisiadka. Why not? Probably because it is too hard, and you don't want these guys landing a foot in the gut of Herr Drosselmeyer by mistake. Well, the kazachoc is a mainly Ukranian dance, usually with a fast tempo. Only one step of the dance is the prisiadka. From 1928: "No-one could have watched without inner emotion how all danced that most free, most furious dance the world has ever seen, called from its mighty originators the Kozatchok..."

The tarantass and kitibitka are two types of Russian car or carriage. The former, pictured here, is a four-wheeled Russian travelling-carriage without springs, on a long flexible wooden chassis." The kibitka can be a circular tent made of lattice work and covered with thick felt, used by the Tartars; but is, for my purposes here "A Russian wagon or sledge with a rounded cover or hood." This rather primitive cart, is pictured here.

So many more words to do, but this will have to suffice us for today...

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