Narolines

[Quizmonster]

Did you see 'Balderdash & Piffle' on BBC 2 yesterday evening? It is a programme, presented by Victoria Coren of 'The Observer', looking into the etymology of words and phrase development.
The novelty aspect of the show is that Ms Coren presents her findings to three 'judges' who actually work in senior positions for The Oxford English Dictionary (TOED).
Most of her results failed to pass their test for inclusion in the dictionary but one succeeded. She put back by about ten years the date of the earliest recorded use of 'ploughman's lunch'. It will now appear in the next edition.
Obviously, I am contacting you here to make it clear that TOED does accept convincing proof that their dating is wrong. So, I hope you do approach them with your information about Morris Dancing, as discussed earlier in this category. What Coren can do, Narolines can do better! Why not? Good luck once again! Cheers

[jno]

of course Narolines it helps if you are an attractive female with a well-known father, so you can get a TV series to back you up!

[Quizmonster]

Such cynicism, J, and so early in the new year! The thing is, though, that - despite Victoria's being a very pretty lady with a well-known father - the experts (rightly) refused to countenance the other 'successes' she claimed to have.
I think her single victory based on indisputable evidence reveals that however ugly and masculine you may be, Narolines, and however unknown your father is, they'll still listen to you if you are convincing. (I'm not at all suggesting that you actually are ugly or even masculine, N!)

[kempie]

...and as for suggesting that Narolines father is unknown!

[Quizmonster]

I know, Kempie, it's awful isn't it? (That should be spoken in the style of Basil Fawlty's wife, by the way.) I truly have no idea which gender Narolines belongs to. Despite the stage direction above, I myself am male, by the way.

[MustafaTinkl]

Who can straighten what God has made crooked, Quizmonster ?

[Narolines]

Blimey - I'm suddenly a question! Yes, I did see said programme and said delightful young lady, and the same thought had occurred to me. For future reference, I am male, and of a certain age, as they say, though I do not feel qualified to judge my own degree of attractiveness or otherwise! My father was certainly known to me - though he was just an ordinary working bloke and has been dead for 25 years, so I suppose his chances of fame are now slim.

[Buenchico]

Just a few boring points:

1. Like most interesting TV programmes, 'Balderdash & Piffle' has been stolen from Radio 4. (Anyone who's familiar with 'Word of Mouth' will know what I mean).

2. The OED has always accepted contributions and suggestions from us 'mere mortals'. (An early foreruuner of Wikipedia, perhaps?).

3. There's some interesting stuff about the OED here:
http://www.oed.com/about/writing/
(The page itself isn't particularly informative but the links are).

4. How dare Jno refer to Alan Coren merely as 'well-known'! As someone who collects every word he's ever written, I wish to inform Jno that he's England's greatest living writer! (Oh, OK, Cricklewood's greatest living writer anyway!).

Chris

[Quizmonster]

You must have missed some of the wonderful Alan's writing, Chris. He moved from Cricklewood to Primrose Hill some months ago.

[jno]

yes, Cricklewood is all furniture shops these days, don't know why. Writers must by law live in Primrose Hill or Hampstead, though youger ones may apply for a licence to live in ethnic communities in Willesden or the East End, but only for long enough to gather material.

[Peter Pedant]

This wasnt the programme that insisted that gay meant jolly, the Gay Nineties, were not louche and sexually liberated (Cleveland St etc) and that Oscar Wilde was not a notorious mummy's boy, but a happily married man with two kids ?

Not to mention that when Elizabeth called Drake a 'gay dog', she did in fact mean 'he whistleth the live long day' and not something completely different.

Yeah I saw a bit of it.....

[Peter Pedant]

I thought she made a bit of pigs ear over 'pig'. I thought it was obviously from porcus, and perhaps piglet from porculus.

Dog is much better - Dog pops up around 1000 years ago from nowhere. Canis venaticus - hunting dog - gives us hound and hund - its venaticus, in case people cant see how canis become hund.....

but who am I to judge ?

[kempie]

PP - at times you do come out with some rather confounding and ludicrous statements.

Pig does not derive from porcus (pork does via Norman French!)
Dog does not derive from canis

Similarly
Cow does not derive from bos
Sheep does not derive from ovis
Chicken does not derive from gallus

The English names for the vast majority of domesticated animals are Old or Middle English in origin (i.e. more likely to have evolved from another North European language), whereas any meat they produce is from the Norman French. This is because the 'English' serfs tended the animal whilst the Norman lords ate the meat.

[jno]

I missed the show - what did it say about pig? I would have thought porcus was a possible source. It doesn't matter that pork is too, words sometimes arrive via two different routes - eg royal and regal made their way from Latin in different ways.