decolletege and decollete and davy jones's locker and and widdershins and levorotatory and dextrorotatory

I propose to do two things in this mini-essay: to examine commonly-used phrases that come up in the "Da's," commenting on their meaning and history, and then dive back into some verbs that are particulary arresting from the "De's." Actually, as it appears, we will have to wait for the verbs until the next essay.

Commonplaces from the "Da's"

Everyone knows that Davy Jones is the eponymous fiend presiding over the evil spirits in the depths of the ocean. Both the OED and the online Wikipedia point to the first use of that term in a 1751 work, though that quotation seems to imply that the term was already in common use among sailors. Interesting to me, however, is that the Collegiate says that Davy Jones's locker, also meaning the bottom of the sea, only goes back to around 1777. An 1803 quotation has it, "The seamen would have met a watery grave, or, to use a seaman's phrase, gone to Davy Jones's locker." But alas! or bingo! or something like that. When I was researching the history of the word "locker," I came up with a 1726 quotation saying the following: "Heaving the rest into Davy Jones's Locker" (George Roberts, The Four Years' Voyages of Capt. G , p 41). So, it looks like someone, not me, will have to rewrite the history of Davy Jones's locker. I hope they do it on dry land.

Date Rape

Then, there is date rape, not a very pleasant topic, but one that is attested in the dictionary. Date rape, according to the Collegiate goes back to 1975, while date-rape only emerged in 1984. The latter is supposedly a verb, while the former is a noun. However, acquaintance rape comes from 1979 (though the OED's first quotation is from 1980). I would have thought that acquaintance rape would have arisen earlier, with the more politically-charged and "in your face" term date rape coming about later, but it just ain't so. I can see why the verb arose after the noun. Often this is the case. For example, the noun queue, meaning "line" goes back to the early 1830s, while queue used as a verb for "to line up" only appears in the 1890s (queue as a verb meaning 'to put up (the hair) goes back to 1777). And, then, the Collegiate attests "date rape drug" in 1995. It took that many years for the guys who committed date rape, i.e., who date-raped, to discover a drug that made date-raping easier. Or, to put it more accurately, it took the dictionary-makers about a decade to realize that guys were slipping girls drugs on occasions to aid in the "date rape."

The reason I decided to write a paragraph on date rape/acquaintance rape is not that the phenomenon began in the 1970s or 1980s but to illustrate something about law. Feminist scholars were seeking a way to allow wives/girlfriends/women in general to be able to bring legal charges against men who had "forced themselves" on the women during an encounter that was not consensual but bore enough indicia of consensuality (such as being out together on a date, being alone in each other's home, etc.) that the legal system would not formerly have prosecuted the man for a crime. In order to get legal recognition for this type of male activity, the feminists first needed a word to describe what they were talking about. Once you have a word, you potentially have a crime. Note the 1980 quotation from Mademoiselle magazine, "He could be prosecuted if only the legal system would accept that 'date rape' is possible." Case closed.

Day-to-day; Deasil

The "up-to-date" Collegiate defines "day-to-day" as "taking place, made, or done in the course of days--i.e., everyday; or providing for a day at a time with little thought for the future," as in a "day-to-day" existence. But neither of these really captures the way the term is now used in American English. Though I really am not a sports nut, I seem to hear the phrase "day-to-day" increasingly used in that area to describe the status of injured players. 'He is "day-to-day"' means that he might play tomorrow, or he might not. If he has "clearance" (another great word) from the trainer, he can play. We will just have to wait until "gametime."

I suppose that deasil is really on no one's lips, but since it is in the Collegiate, I learn it. It means "clockwise." The OED has several quotations in which deasil is equated with "sunwise" or "clockwise." But then the Collegiate takes us into a pleasant world by saying "compare WIDDERSHINS." Let's do just that. I think I can see the word "wider" (against) behind it, and sure enough, it means "counterclockwise." We also have the two words levorotatory and dextrorotatory, counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively, but these terms arose in the 1850s and 1860s as scientific terms, while deasil and widdershins are several centuries older. For example, from 1878, "The solutions of both acids have a dextro-rotatory action on polarized light." As for me, I don't know what I will do. Probably mix and match, and say "deasil" or "levorotatory." That will surely confuse everybody.

Conclusion--A Few on the List

Well, let's finish this page by giving several words that I simply have to learn. Everyone ought to know what a deaconess is. I put it here to emphasize that the "c" and "n" are not doubled. A daymare is a "nightmare" during the day. "My second period class is a regular daymere." A decare is 10 acres; to deaminate a solution is to remove the amino acids; and a deckle is a frame around the edges of a mold used in making paper by hand. At least that is what the dictionary says. Decolletage and decollete are useful terms for men to know, the former referring to a low-cut neckline on a dress and the later referring to the wearing of the dress. Now, let's turn to some verbs.

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