Wordcatcher (41 page)

To creep along; to move stealthily
. The furtive verb has slithered along the linguistic path from the Irish
snighim
, “I creep.” Other crawling derivations include the Anglo-Saxon
snican
, to creep, from the Middle English
sniken
, to crawl, a close cousin of the Old English
snican
, to desire, reach for, and Old Norse
snikja
, related to snake. On the island of Guernsey the old Gurns say
snequer
, which means “to rob slyly,” and in Iceland
snik-inn
, which means “to hanker after.” Thus, to sneak is to creep along and reach for something you deeply desire or hanker for, even if you have to steal it. That illicit aspect of the word can be heard in the long “ea,” which sounds creepy, like a loose board in the attic. Companion words include
Sneaky Pete,
a personification of cheap booze, from 1949;
slink
, to creep, crawl,
from Anglo-Saxon
slincan
; and the Dutch
slinken
, to shrink, shrivel. The sexy
slinky
, as in a sinuous and slender woman or the clothes she slid into, slithers into the lexicon in 1921. The
Slinky
toy became all the rage in 1948. Companion quotes include the Milwaukee Braves’ first baseman Joe Adcock’s “Trying to
sneak
a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to
sneak
the sunrise past a rooster.”

A wizard, a reader of fate, foreteller of the future.
Originally, one who predicted the future by drawing lots, so
sorcery
is rooted in the lore of the Roman god Sors, the god of chance. Lucky for us, because Sors inspired the Latin
sors
, lots;
sortes
, the responses made by oracles; and
sortarius
, caster of spells. Ultimately, our everyday phrase “sorting out” derives from
sortilege
, which combines
sors
, lot, plus
legere
, to read. Coming full circle, as word hunts often do,
sorcery
cast its own spell when it was taken into Old French as
sorcier
, which became the English
sorcerer
. It pours through the language in “To read one’s lot in life,” and in “to accept one’s lot,” “to trust in the luck of the draw,” “Sort it out!” and “all sorts,” literally “the dregs,” “the “drippings” in the bottom of beer mugs, to be sold later at a lower price to the poor and undiscerning. Thus a
sorcerer
is someone who “sorts out” all the conflicting messages about the future and seems to cast a spell when explaining how the fates have arranged for things to unfold. Companion words include
soothsayer
, one who tells the truth, figuratively, about the future, from
sooth
, from
southe
, to assent, confirm, prove to be true. And a
sorcerer’s
apprentice of a word, which Helen Keller used audaciously: “Smell is a potent wizard.”

Corkscrewing words; words turned inside out.
A
spoonerism
is what happens when you get your “turds wurned around.” Named after William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) dean of New College, Oxford, for whom language often inverted itself as it came out of his mouth. Here are three of his classics: “Our Lord is a shoving leopard,” for “Our Lord is a loving shepherd,” “Let us raise our glasses to the queer old dean,” for “ …the dear old queen,” and “It is kisstomary to cuss the bride,” for “It is customary to kiss the bride.” Companion words include
malapropism,
from
mal
, bad and
proper
, word usage—a coinage from Dickens, “Mrs. Malaprop,” who is lampooned for using the wrong words at the most inappropriate moments. Also
Bunkerisms
, after Archie Bunker in the 1970s television show “All in the Family.” Finally, a noteworthy anecdote reminding us that even reading dictionaries can be dangerous, from the story of Omai, a Tahitian brought back to London by Captain Cook. After reading Johnson’s
Dictionary
, Omai confused “pickle” with “preserve” when introduced to Lord Sandwich. “May God Almighty pickle his Lordship to all eternity,” he said.

A mark, a brand
. The Greek
stizein
, to tattoo, seared its meaning into our
stigma
. An obsolete meaning refers to a scar left by a hot branding iron, probably in reference to a mark of shame left on a thief, prostitute, coward. Companion words include
stigmata
, a religious phenomenon in which bodily marks resembling the wounds of the crucified Christ appear, and the botanical term
stigma
, the part of the pistil of a flower that absorbs pollen. Alexander Theroux writes, in his beguiling
The Primary Colors
, “It takes 200,000-400,000 dried
stigmas
of the violet flower to make two pounds of saffron. And moreover each flower only has three stigmas, which must be picked by hand at dawn before the sun gets too hot.” He adds that the ancient roads of Rome were strewn with saffron whenever emperors or statesman passed over them. Brewer adds the Latin phrase
Dormivit in sacco croci
, “He hath slept in a bed of saffron,” meaning “light-hearted” because of its exhilarating effects. Thus,
stigma
is a deep mark, ranging from a brand to a tattoo to a subtly beautiful flower.

The sticks that mark out the foundation of a house-to-be.
Story poles are an ancient custom to remind the builders what is actually to be constructed, but also to signal to the community what is about to change. Synchronistically, across the street from the North Beach café where I’m
writing at this very moment,
story poles
are being raised to inform the neighborhood where the new library—and a new story—will be erected. Figuratively, stories are the foundation of our lives. For me, a significant
story
is an account of something worth telling, a narrative telling how things happen. The oldest version of the word comes from Latin
historia
, an account, and the Middle English
storie
, and Old French
estoire
, a tale. The longest example may be the Hindu epic the
Mahabarata
; the shortest story may be Sandburg’s “Born. Played. Died.” Companion words include
storiation
, the architectural feature of narrative images carved into the side of a building.
Confabulation
is psychology-speak for the “generally unconscious, defensive ‘filling in’ of actual memory gaps by imaginary experiences.” The Irish
banaghan
refers to someone who tells terrific stories. A
taleteller
is a
storyteller
nonpareil, someone hired to “tell wonderful stories of giants and fairies, to lull their hearers to sleep.” A
talesman
is the author of a story or report; a
tale bearer
is a mischief maker, the incendiary in the family. Of story tributes there is no end. Ray Bradbury said, “Don’t you know, it was my
stories
that led me through my life?” Of his role as choreographer for
West Side Story
, Jerome Robbins observed, “What are they dancing about? What’s the
story
? You danced to fit the character.”

A lightweight, two-wheeled harness-racing vehicle; a sullen, illhumored, aloof person
. If you can visualize a carriage with room for one and only one person, or a horse trap, you can learn, by what word mavens call “back-formation,” the inner meaning of its root word. Searching for
le mot juste
for the one-seated vehicle, someone’s mind alighted on the image of a loner, a brooder, one who goes it alone, suspiciously solitary. In a word, a
sulker
, one who
sulks
, acts petulantly, broods in an obstinate way. Originally from the Old English
solcen
, slothful, idle, remiss, disgust, languid. The 1913 edition of
Webster’s Revised Dictionary
provides an obscure but useful origin for
sulk
as deriving from the Latin
sulcus
, a furrow, and possibly Old English
sulke
, sluggish. The usage we recognize is “to mope or brood, to be sullen, resentful silence, out of humor, as reflected in the
sulker’s
furrowed brow.” William Blake puts it in perspective: “When I saw that rage was vain / And to
sulk
would nothing gain, / Turning many a trick and wile / I began to soothe and smile.” Companion words include
sullen
, morose, but originally meaning “solitary, hating company,” as in
The Sullen Art
, Colin Wilson’s book about the lone, brooding pursuit of poetry;
boudoir
, a place to
brood
in, from French
bouder
, to
sulk
, perhaps also from English
pout
; and
glouping
, a splendidly sonicky word for “sullen and brooding.”