Year: 2009

Q: We’re hearing more people put “what” into a sentence comparing things. For example: “He can run faster than what I can.” What goes?

A: Grammatically, the “what” is unnecessary, redundant, and nonstandard. But this usage is a common regionalism in parts of the South.

A similar speech pattern, and one that used to be a lot more common, involves the use of “what” in place of “that” or “who” or “which.” Here are some examples:

“This is the dog what bit me” … “Who’s the one what did this?” … “She also brought the egg salad, what made so many people sick.”

All these usages are nonstandard, but they’ve been around for a long, long time. It may be that they just entered your radar recently.

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Q: Your blog post on “spendthrift” cited Shakespeare’s use of “thrift” to mean wealth. That reminded me of another time Shakespeare used the word. In Hamlet, when Horatio agrees that the queen’s marriage “followed hard upon” the king’s funeral, Hamlet replies: “Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” That sounds to me like the more modern definition of “thrift.” Did the word have both meanings at the time?

A: Yes, “thrift” could mean, among other things, either wealth or frugality in Elizabethan times, although the use of the word for household economy was relatively new when Shakespeare wrote those sarcastic lines.

The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition of “thrift” in the sense you mention: “Economical management, economy; sparing use or careful expenditure of means; frugality, saving; euphemistically, parsimony, niggardliness (obs.).”

The OED’s first citation for this meaning, from 1553, says “foode is never founde to bee so pleasaunte” as when “thrift hathe pincht afore.” In other words, you appreciate food more when you have to economize and don’t have enough of it.

The dictionary has published references from the early 14th century to the late 19th century for “thrift” used in the sense of wealth, savings, or earnings, though it says this usage is now considered archaic.

Hamlet was probably written between 1599 and 1601, when both meanings of “thrift” were there for Shakespeare to use. And use them, as you point out, he did.

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She’ll be on the Leonard Lopate Show around 1:20 PM Eastern time to discuss the English language and take questions from callers. If you miss a program, you can get it on Pat’s WNYC page.

Q: I hear politicians talk a lot about drawing lines in the sand, which makes me wonder how we got this expression. It seems to me that a line in the sand could easily be erased—not a very good metaphor for issuing an ultimatum.

A: There are at least two theories about what historical incident, if any, inspired the expression “line in the sand.”

A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory, the title of a book by Randy Roberts and James S. Olson, refers to one theory, which the authors say may be far-fetched and then again may not be.

In 1836, as the small band of Texans in the Alamo was about to be overrun by Santa Anna and his Mexican forces, Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword, according to this version of history.

Col. Travis, so the story goes, then invited those who wished to fight and die with him to cross the line. All but one did, supposedly the guy who lived to tell the tale, which was later passed on by others.

Another line in the sand was drawn some years before the Alamo—168 BC, in fact. The Roman historian Livy writes of a meeting in Egypt between King Antiochus IV of Syria and a Roman Consul, Gaius Popilius Laenas.

Popilius, who was trying to prevent a war between Syria and Egypt, told Antiochus in effect that the Roman Senate wanted him to get his army out of Egypt or else. Here Livy describes the scene:

“Popilius, stern and imperious as ever, drew a circle round the king with the stick he was carrying and said, ‘Before you step out of that circle give me a reply to lay before the senate.’ ”

For a few moments, Antiochus hesitated, “astounded at such a peremptory order, and at last replied, ‘I will do what the Senate thinks right.’ Not till then did Popilius extend his hand to the king as to a friend and ally.”

The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t state an opinion as to what might have inspired “line in the sand.” It defines the verb phrase “(to draw, run, etc.) a line in the sand” as meaning “(to establish) a limit or boundary; (to specify) a level of tolerance or a point beyond which one will not go.”

The OED’s first published citation for the expression is from the Boston Post (July 23, 1850): “He would prefer striking out the clause prohibiting the establishment or exclusion and extending the Missouri line without an express recognition of slavery south of it. It would be running a line in the sand.”

And among its later examples, the OED has this one from the Scotsman (July 23, 1996):  “Whenever John Major draws a line in the sand, you can be sure some Eurosceptic bully will come along and kick it in his face.”

The dictionary describes the usage in these examples as figurative, meaning that the line drawn (or run) was metaphorical rather than physical.

Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, cites a clearly figurative usage from a July 1978 issue of Newsweek: “Brzezinski is more eager to draw a line in the sand and dare the Russians to cross it.”

In recent years, the expression has been used numerous times and has become a near cliché among journalists. Take out the sand, and the expression is even more common—and older.

The OED says that in modern colloquial usage “to draw the line” (or “to draw a line”) means “to lay down a definite limit of action beyond which one refuses to go.”

The first citation in the OED comes from the trial in 1773 of a Scottish Unitarian minister, Thomas Fyshe Palmer, who was found guilty of sedition and sent to Botany Bay for circulating a political handbill calling for parliamentary reform.

One of the judges says (we’re supplying a bit more of the quotation from the transcript): “It is difficult to draw the line between trying to inflame the people against the King … and endeavouring to overthrow not only the King, but the King, Lords, and Commons, which cannot be a lesser crime.”

The expression was probably in use well before that. Somehow we doubt that Lord Eskgrove, the Scottish judge in the Palmer case, made it up.

More recently, the first President Bush issued a line-drawing ultimatum of his own after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990: ”A line has been drawn in the sand.” We wouldn’t be surprised if he was thinking of the Alamo.

The President’s son, George W., definitely had the Alamo on his mind when he used the expression in a fund-raising letter opposing Ann Richards’s election as Governor of Texas in 1990, as William Safire pointed out in the New York Times.

“When Col. Travis drew the line in the sand at the Alamo,” the younger Bush reportedly said, “he discovered immediately who had the courage to stand and fight for the Texas Republic.”

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Q: I tried to phone you at WNYC, but couldn’t get through. In frustration I tracked down your website. Ergo, this question: We know what “ruthless” means, but what is “ruth” and where does it come from? I thought at first of Old Norse, but I speak Swedish and Danish and don’t believe that’s the source.

A: I’m so glad you found us! As it happens, I’ve already written a blog item that discusses “ruth,” “gruntled,” and other linguistic relics. The noun “ruth”’ is an old word that’s rarely seen now, except as part of the word “ruthless.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) do have entries on “ruth,” defining it as compassion for the misery of others or sorrow for one’s faults.

But just because a word appears in a dictionary doesn’t mean it gets around much. The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have any published references for the usage since the 19th century. And I don’t recall seeing or hearing “ruth” in recent years except in attempts to be funny.

The blog entry doesn’t say so (though it should have), but the noun “ruth” (circa 1175) comes from a much earlier noun, “rue,” first recorded in Old English (as hreow) in Beowulf in the early 8th century. It meant sorrow or regret.

The verb “rue” was first seen in Old English (as hreowan) the following century, in the year 888. Similar words existed in Old Frisian, Old Saxon, and other Germanic languages, and there was a related form in Old Norse (so says the OED).

There’s no connection, by the way, between the noun “ruth” and the Biblical name Ruth, which comes from Hebrew.

In case you’re interested, I’ve written a blog item on another word that’s rarely seen without its appendage, “scrutable,” which I hope describes this answer.

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Q: I’ve been dying to ask you about something that irks me! When I moved to New York, I was fascinated (and a little disgusted) at how my friends from New Jersey would leave out words without noticing. For example, “I’m going down the shore” or “Come over my house.” Is there a secret understanding that allows them to leave out prepositions?

A: The expression “down the shore,” meaning at the beach, is a common regionalism in North Jersey, Philadelphia, and some parts of inland Connecticut.

In 1993, a one-act play called Down the Shore, by Tom Donaghy, had a run Off Broadway. Donaghy is from Philadelphia, where the play takes place.

“You guys goin’ down the shore?” one character asks the others. Later he says, “Don’t think about much down the shore.” Another replies, “Beach makes you stupid.”

As for “over my house” instead of “over to my house,” that’s much more widespread. People have reported hearing it from Milwaukee to the East Coast.

I wrote a blog entry last year about “come over” and I wrote one a few months ago about a clipped form that’s probably even more common, “come with.”

These abbreviated ways of talking are usually more common in speech than in writing, as are most regional peculiarities. I don’t think we should condemn them, or even find them irritating.

This is a big country, after all, with many fascinating groups of people. Naturally, they develop special ways of talking to one another.

Even smaller countries like Britain are chock-full of regional differences in speech and usage. I find these differences interesting and charming, and would hate to see them go.

These regionalisms may not be acceptable in formal writing, but I see nothing wrong with them in casual speech or idiomatic writing.

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Q: I just finished Origins of the Specious and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it. But I have one minor issue. I fear that your disdain for Latinistas has led you to accept too many Anglicized plurals. I teach biology and see nothing wrong with using “fora” instead of “forums.” Unfortunately, I see “fora” less and less, and “forums” more and more. Sigh! One other disagreement, sort of. I LIKE “an historic,” and I was taught the “an” is expected.

A: Thanks for your comments, and I’m glad you enjoyed the book. I also appreciate hearing your opinions about Latin plurals.

But “fora”? You have to be kidding! I’m not surprised that you’re seeing it less and less. I’m surprised that you’re seeing it at all outside your classroom.

The “forum” entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, which has five and a half centuries of citations, doesn’t include a single example for the plural “fora.” The only plurals cited are Anglicized, as in this example from a 1647 English translation of Juvenal: “The city of Rome had four great forums or piazzas.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) list “forums” as the primary plural of “forum,” though they do include “fora” as a less frequently used, secondary variant.

As for “historic,” why say “an historic” if you don’t say “an house” or “an hot dog” or “an haircut”?

The article “an” before a sounded “h” is unnatural in English and in fact is discouraged in Britain as well as the United States.

Check out the British dictionary Longman’s, which, under its entry for “historic,” gives these example of its proper use: a historic meeting of world leaders and “It is a historic moment,” he told journalists.

If you’d like to read more about this aitch business, I wrote a blog entry on the subject a couple of years ago.

Sorry if I sound cranky; I don’t mean to be. To end on a lighter note, here’s a Latin lesson from Ira Gershwin: “I say father and you say pater, / I say mother and you say mater; / Father, mother, auntie, uncle – / Let’s call the whole thing off!”

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Q: I find the English language challenging. Why does “ought” rhyme with “thought,” but “tough” with “rough”? And why do we say “to wit” instead of “to whit”? I’m at my wit’s end.

A: People love to point to words like “ought” and “tough” as examples of how wacky English spellings can be. Not so wacky when you look closely. I recently wrote a blog item about these “gh” words and other spelling oddities.

As for why it’s “to wit” and not “to whit,” we’ll have to go back in time, very far back.

In Anglo-Saxon days, a now-archaic verb “wit” meant something like to know, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED’s earliest example of this usage is in King Alfred’s translation of Boethius from around the year 888.

The expression “to wit,” first recorded in 1320, originally meant “it is to be observed, noted, or ascertained.” Later (around 1400), it came to mean “to be sure” or “indeed” or “namely.”

The “wit” part of the phrase was written all sorts of ways for the first few hundred years: “wite,” “witen,” “wetynge,” and so on.

It wasn’t until the late 16th century that the expression “to wit” took on its modern meaning: namely or that is to say. The earliest citation in the OED (from 1577) says “the beginning of vertue is of Nature, to wyt of Perfect Nature.”

As a nature junkie, I especially like this citation from an 1875 book about the history of Maine: “Thrice nine ridges … to wit, nine of bog, nine of smooth and nine of wood.”

“Whit,” a much newer word, means an itty-bitty amount or the tiniest part of something. It first showed up in the 16th century during the early days of Modern English.

And that, to wit, is that.

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Q: Why does everyone now spell “barbecue” as “barbeque”? Isn’t this wrong? Wouldn’t the “q” version be pronounced bar-BEK? À votre santé.

A: It does seem that a word spelled “barbeque” might be pronounced bar-BEK. (Some kind of Parisian cookout, perhaps?) In fact, the usual English spelling is “barbecue,” and it’s “barbecue” in French too.

However, some English dictionaries now accept “barbeque” as a variant spelling. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), for instance, lists “barbecue” as its main entry and “barbeque” as a “secondary variant” that “occurs appreciably less often.” (Both versions are pronounced BAR-buh-kyoo.)

Although the lexicographers at Merriam-Webster’s are technically correct – “barbeque” does seem to occur a lot less often than “barbecue” – both spellings are very popular. Here’s the Google scorecard: “barbecue,” 29.9 million hits; “barbeque,” 9.3 million.

I was surprised to find that the word “barbecue” has been around since the 17th century. The verb was first recorded in English in 1661, borrowed from the Spanish barbacoa, a word from Arawak that the Spaniards picked up in Haiti. The indigenous word barbakoa meant a treehouse or a wooden framework set on posts, and not a cooking apparatus.

As first used in English, “barbecue” (both the noun and the verb) referred to the drying or curing of meat or fish on a framework.

The first use of the word in English for the actual cooking of meat or fish over a fire came along in 1690. As they say, the rest is history!

What about the spelling? It has varied over the years (“borbecu” … “barbecu” … “barbicu” … “barbikew” and so on), but has pretty much been “barbecue” from the 19th century onward.

The OED doesn’t include “barbeque” among the many spellings, but it does mention (and debunk) a myth that the word comes from a French expression: “The alleged Fr. barbe à queue ‘beard to tail’ is an absurd conjecture suggested merely by the sound of the word.”

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Q: I was listening to you on my iPod the other day when you discussed neologisms on WNYC. This reminded me of a recent email from a South Asian colleague who wanted me to “prepone” a scheduled meeting – that is, move it up in time. He was using “prepone” as the opposite of “postpone.”

A: You’re not the first person to write me about this usage, so it must be in the air!

I don’t see it in the dictionaries I usually consult, but several online references, including MSN Encarta, define it as Indian English meaning to reschedule something for an earlier time. That may explain its use by your colleague.

In fact, a bit of googling suggests that “prepone” is very much in the air. I had 118,000 hits, many of them from South Asians or people puzzled when South Asians used the word.

But believe it or not, this word isn’t quite the neologism you think it to be. The verb “prepone” was around as far back as the 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

When it was first recorded, “prepone” meant to place in front of or set before – in a more or less literal sense, such as placing something before someone. The word was borrowed from the Latin praeponere (to place in front of).

The first writer to use it in print, as far as we know, was Robert Crowley, a Puritan social reformer who wrote in 1549: “I do prepone and set the Lord alwaye before myne eyes.” The OED has no citations for this usage after 1656.

Then centuries later, just before World War I, “prepone” surfaced again, according to the OED, this time meaning “to bring forward to an earlier time or date. Opposed to postpone.”

The dictionary says the first use of this new incarnation of “prepone” appeared in the New York Times in December 1913. In a letter to the editor, a reader wrote:

“For the benefit mainly of the legal profession in this age of hurry and bustle may I be permitted to coin the word ‘prepone’ as a needed rival of that much revered and oft-invoked standby, ‘postpone.’ “

The word hasn’t been seen much in the US or Britain since the mid-20th century. In recent decades, according to the OED, its use has been “most frequent in Indian English.”

The latest published reference for the word in the OED is from a 2001 article in the Times of India about a decision “to ask schools to prepone their examinations and start summer vacations in April.”

Will “prepone” catch on in the West (after a long postponement)? Only time will tell.

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Q: My girlfriend met a woman from Mauritius on a recent safari in South Africa and then learned that they had gone to the same college in Boston. We seem to have such encounters every day. Is there a word for this sort of random coincidence or connection?

A: I’m not sure this will fill the bill for you, but how about “serendipity,” a word formed from the old Persian and Arabic names for Sri Lanka?

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) defines it as the “faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) adds that it’s the “phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.”

Horace Walpole, an 18th-century English man of letters, coined the term, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In a 1754 letter, he writes about a discovery that “is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.”

In Walpole’s letter to an English friend living in Florence, he explains that the word was inspired by a “silly fairy tale” called The Three Princes of Serendip.

As the three princes in the Persian story traveled, he says, “they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.”

H-m-m. Sounds a lot like Walpole’s own serendipitous discovery.

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Q: I was listening to WNYC the other day when I heard one of the commentators use the word “Sisyphusian.” I believe the word should be “Sisyphean.” Your comments please

A: Sisyphus, the late king of Corinth who was forced to roll a huge rock up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll down again, gave us the adjective “Sisyphean,” a handy word for describing useless labor.

I can’t find an entry for “Sisyphusian” in any of the dictionaries I regularly consult. But two of them, the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), include a lesser-known spelling, “Sisyphian.”

In fact, the “Sisyphian” version apparently showed up first. The earliest published reference for it in the OED is from a 1599 poem that describes silkworms as “Sisyphian soules.”

The more common word, “Sisyphean,” first appeared in a 1635 poem: “I barter sighs for tears, and tears for grones, / Still vainly rolling Sisyphean stones.”

I don’t know whether “Sisyphusian” will ever make it into my favorite dictionaries, but I suspect that it’s on the radar of the lexicographers who update those dictionaries.

I had 21,600 hits when I googled the word – from “Sisyphusian tasks” to “Sisyphusian bailouts” to “Sisyphusian vacuuming.”

Where does this new coinage come from? Perhaps a profusion of Sisyphean tasks may be described as Sisyphusian.

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Q: I heard you for the first time on a recent broadcast of the Leonard Lopate Show. I was fascinated and wondered if you could help me with a language question. I’m interested in learning about the history of the expression “to a T.”

A: The phrase “to a T” (sometimes written “to a tee”) has meant “exactly, properly, to a nicety” since it first appeared in English more than three hundred years ago, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first published reference in the dictionary is from The Humours and Conversations of the Town, a 1693 satirical work by James Wright: “All the under Villages and Towns-men come to him for Redress; which he does to a T.”

Word sleuths have spent a lot of time trying to track down the source of the “T” in the phrase, but the evidence is still inconclusive. That may be why several of the dictionaries in my office give different explanations for the expression.

My old unabridged Webster’s Second, for example, suggests the “T” stands for “T-square,” while Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) says it’s short for “tittle,” or tiny thing.

The Oxford English Dictionary mentions those two explanations as well as the tees in the sports of curling and golf, and the fact that a “T” is properly completed by crossing it.

Reading between the lines, however, it’s apparent that the OED‘s lexicographers think the “tittle” suggestion is the most likely.

For one thing, the “tee” version, which might support a golf or curling origin, didn’t appear in print until 78 years after the phrase first showed up, according to the OED citations.

The earliest “tee” cite is from a 1771 poem by someone identified only as J. Giles: “I’ll tell you where / You may be suited to a tee.”

Does the “T” come from “T-square”? This explanation is a bit more plausible chronologically (the first OED citation for “T square” is from 1701), but there’s no evidence to support the connection between the drafting ruler and the expression.

Or, as the OED says, this theory appears “on investigation to be untenable.” There’s also no evidence to support that business about the crossing of the “T.”

However, the OED points out, “it is notable that to a tittle (i.e. to a prick, dot, jot) was in use nearly a century before ‘to a T’, and in exactly the same constructions.”

The first citation for “to a tittle,” which the dictionary defines as “with minute exactness” or “to the smallest particular,” is from The Woman Hater, a 1607 comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher: “I’ll quote him to a tittle.”

If I had to guess, I’d go with “to a tittle” as the source of “to a T,” but the origin of this expression isn’t known to a T.

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Q: The president of the college where I teach asked me why we use the possessive in “doctor’s appointment” when the appointment is the patient’s. She also wondered why we don’t use it in “dentist appointment.” I thought I’d better check with you before answering her.

A: We use the term “possessive” today to describe relationships that involve more than possession.

Before we started calling this form (or case) the “possessive,” it was called the “genitive.” These days, only grammarians and other language types use the term “genitive,” but in some ways that old term was less confusing.

Genitives involve relationships much wider than simple possession or ownership. For example: measurement (“a week’s vacation”), affiliation (“Sylvia’s book club”), kinship (“Percy’s cousin”), description (“a bachelor’s degree”), and so on.

To these examples I would add “doctor’s appointment,” a phrase that describes the kind of appointment, not who owns it. Literal ownership is not involved.

Why don’t we say “dentist’s appointment”? Well, many of us do in fact say it, but the additional “s” often isn’t heard because the “st” at the end of the noun runs into it.

I hope this helps. As I say in my grammar book Woe Is I, for an acquisitive society, we have an awful lot of trouble with possessives.

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Q: I was reading on your blog about the use of “were” versus “was,” and your explanation of the subjunctive. Suddenly, I remembered the song “Dixie” and its lyrics: “I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray!” Shouldn’t that be “were?”

A: In any other context, the grammatically correct sentence would be “I wish I were in Dixie.” But, thank heavens, writers of song lyrics are exempt from the rules of English grammar, syntax, usage, spelling, pronunciation, and even logic!

So, the grammar police didn’t give Bob Dylan a ticket for singing “Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed.” Or, for that matter, Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole for singing “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby.”

However, Bruce Springsteen got an A in grammar as well as music when he sang, “I wish I were blind / When I see you with your man.”

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Q: Is it correct to use “fun” as an adjective? I hear sentences like this everywhere: “We had such a fun day!” Is the usage an example of English as an evolving language? Or is it just some cutesy-poo infantilism that is being adopted by trendy semi-literates? You can probably guess which side I’m on.

A: I wrote a blog entry last year about the adjectival use of “fun” and one earlier this year about the etymology of “funny.” But I suppose we can allow ourselves a “fun” update!

Whether “fun” is a bona fide adjective depends on the dictionary you consult.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) includes an adjectival definition of the word, without labeling it “nonstandard” or a usage problem or anything else questionable. In other words, M-W considers it standard English.

Merriam-Webster’s even includes the comparative “funner” and the superlative “funnest,” though both have the modest comment “sometimes” attached. That’s not exactly a wholehearted endorsement in lexicographerese.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), however, feels the adjective is not yet ready for prime time.

In a usage note, American Heritage says the “use of fun as an attributive adjective, as in a fun time, a fun place, probably originated in a playful reanalysis of the use of the word in sentences such as It is fun to ski, where fun has the syntactic function of adjectives such as amusing or enjoyable.“

“The usage became popular in the 1950s and 1960s, though there is some evidence to suggest that it has 19th-century antecedents, but it can still raise eyebrows among traditionalists,” AH adds. “The day may come when this usage is entirely unremarkable, but writers may want to avoid it in more formal contexts.”

I’m with American Heritage on this. When too many people still find a usage remarkable (to put it nicely), it doesn’t yet belong in formal English. But I think it’s acceptable to use “fun” as an adjective in speech or informal writing.

As for “funner” and “funnest,” we are not amused.

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Q: Growing up in Louisiana in the ’40s and ’50s, I frequently encountered the use of “Mizz” for a lady of unknown marital status. It was commonly used to address teachers. I found it very amusing in the ’60s when “Mizz” suddenly took on the “Ms.” spelling and a feminist connotation.

A: The term “Ms.” was used as a courtesy title for a woman long before you were in knee pants and probably before your father was in knee pants too.

I discussed this on WNYC last month and cited the efforts of the linguist and lexicographer Benjamin Zimmer to track down the (so far) earliest known sighting, or antedating, of the term.

Zimmer, the executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus, has traced the term back to Nov. 10, 1901. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he or another word sleuth finds an even earlier example before long.

In “Hunting the Elusive First ‘Ms.,’ ” an article for his interactive reference site, Zimmer describes the detective work involved in finding the usage in the Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Republican.

If you can read the tiny and rather blurred print of the original news clipping, which Zimmer reproduces, you’ll see that writer who uses “Ms.” recommends the pronunciation you grew up with:

“For oral use, it might be rendered as ‘Mizz,’ which would be a close parallel to the practice, long universal in many bucolic regions, where a slurred Mis’ does duty for Miss and Mrs. alike.”

Back then, of course, the use of “Ms.” was not a feminist issue, but one of convenience. Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary describes the term now:

“Ms has been adopted esp. in formal and business contexts as an alternative to Mrs and Miss principally as a means to avoid having to specify a woman’s marital status (regarded as irrelevant, intrusive, or potentially discriminatory).”

By the way, the OED also has entries for “Miz” and “Mizz.”

The earliest OED citation for “Miz,” described as “a southern U.S. pronunciation of Miss,” is from an 1858 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger magazine: “I soon becum a grate favrit with all the ladis, aspeshly Miz Hanscum.”

The “Mizz” entry describes the term as “representing the spoken realization of Ms.”

If you’re interested in reading more, check out a blog item I wrote a few years ago about whether or not to use a dot with “Ms.” And don’t forget to look at Zimmer’s interesting article.

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Q: The word “whatever” is listed only as a pronoun in my dictionary, but don’t you think it’s also an adjective and an adverb in today’s language?

A: It depends on which dictionary you look it up in.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), for example, lists “whatever” as a pronoun (“I’ll eat whatever you cook”), an adjective (“He’ll take whatever terms you offer”), and an adverb (“I’m doing my best, whatever”).

Merriam-Webster’s says “whatever” has been used as a pronoun and an adjective since the 14th century.

As a pronoun, it means anything, everything, and no matter what. As an adjective, it means any or all that, no matter what, or of any kind at all.

The adverbial usage (meaning “in any case” or “at all events”) is more recent, but it’s almost a century and a half old, according to M-W.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) lists “whatever” as a pronoun and an adjective, but it describes as an interjection what Merriam-Webster’s calls an adverb “sometimes used interjectionally.”

Merriam-Webster’s treats all three usages as standard English. American Heritage generally agrees, though it describes as informal the pronoun use in a sentence like “Bring something to the party – pretzels, chips, whatever.”

The Oxford English Dictionary, however, considers the use of “whatever” as an adverb to be colloquial.

I think it’s OK to use “whatever” as a pronoun, an adjective, and an interjection (or an adverb used interjectionally, as M-W puts it), but let your ear be the judge. If the usage seems too casual, save it for speech or informal writing.

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Q: I’m a research assistant on a team studying the people tweeted about on Twitter. To present our work succinctly, we’d like to distinguish between pronouns that refer to people and those that refer to places or things. Are there terms for such pronouns?

A: As you’re aware, a pronoun is a word (like “who” or “which”) that can be used in place of a noun (like “Bertie” or “Jeep”). We’re not aware, though, of a term for a pronoun that can stand in for only a person, or a term for a pronoun that can stand in for only a place or a thing.

English has many kinds of pronouns (personal, reflexive, demonstrative, indefinite, interrogative, relative), but each category includes words for people as well as words for things. In fact, not even every personal pronoun refers to a person. “It,” for example, is a personal pronoun that’s used in place of a thing.

If this isn’t confusing enough, the relative pronoun “that” can refer to either a person or a thing, despite the common misconception that it can stand in for only a thing. We wrote a blog item a few years ago about “that” vs. “who.”

In the glossary at the end of Pat’s book Woe Is I, she describes the different kinds of pronouns. If you want to brush up on them, here’s an excerpt:

“A personal pronoun can be a subject (I, you, he, she, it, we, they); an object (me, you, him, her, it, us, them); or a possessive (my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs). Some of these (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) are also called possessive adjectives, since they describe (or modify) nouns.

“A reflexive pronoun calls attention to itself (it ends with self or selves): myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves. Reflexive pronouns are used to emphasize (She herself is Hungarian) or to refer to the subject (He blames himself).

“A demonstrative pronoun points out something: this, that, these, those. It can be used by itself (Hold this) or with a noun, as an adjective (Who is this guy?).

“An indefinite pronoun refers to a vague or unknown person or thing: all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, every, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, much, neither, no one, nobody, none, one, other, several, some, somebody, someone, something, such (All is lost). Some of these, too, can serve as adjectives.

“An interrogative pronoun is used to ask a question: what, which, who, whom, whose (Who’s on first?).

“A relative pronoun introduces a dependent (or subordinate) clause: that, what, whatever, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, whomever, whose (He’s the guy who stole my heart).”

We hope this helps, and good luck in your research.

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Q: Here’s my question: “interior” and “exterior” are antonyms with the same ending; so are “superior” and “inferior.” Is there a matching antonym for “ulterior”?

A: An antonym for “ulterior” with the same suffix? As far as I can make out, there isn’t one.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the English adjective “ulterior,” first recorded in 1646, comes from the identical Latin ulterior, meaning “further, more distant.” The Latin root is ulter, or “that is beyond.”

The first English meaning of “ulterior,” according to the OED, was “lying beyond that which is immediate or present; coming at a subsequent point or stage; further, future.”

But in the mid-1700s the word gained another meaning: “lying beyond what is openly stated, avowed, or evident; intentionally kept in the background or concealed.”

Like the other words you mention, “ulterior” is a combination of a stem (in this case the Latin ulter) plus the suffix ior, which was used in Latin to form comparatives. The Latin ending has given us such English pairs as “inferior/superior,” “junior/senior,” and “interior/exterior.”

Although “ulterior” was formed in exactly the same way, there’s no opposite side to this coin.

But let’s play Invent a Word! If there WERE to be an etymologically similar antonym, it could be “propior,” “proximior,” “propinquior,” or the like.

In Latin, prope (an adverb) and propinquus (an adjective) mean near or close to. The Romans’ comparative adjective (nearer) was propior and their superlative (nearest) was proximus, from proximare, the verb meaning to draw near or approach.

But even if we had concocted one of these inventions as an English word meaning the opposite of “ulterior,” it probably wouldn’t have evolved the way “ulterior” has. In other words, it’s not likely that it would now mean open and aboveboard.

Oh well. You can’t have everything.

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Q: I was watching The Story of G. I. Joe on cable TV when a character used the term “SOL” – the abbreviation, not the sun or the musical note. I had thought that this shorthand was of recent vintage, but there it was in a 1945 movie.

A: The abbreviation “SOL,” pronounced ESS-OH-EL, is a lot older than that World War II movie. How about World War I?

Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang says it’s been around since the 1910s as an adjective meaning “unfortunate, unlucky, in a difficult situation.” And, as Cassell’s adds, “[abbr. shit out of luck].”

The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as a US abbreviation for “soldier out of luck,” “surely out of luck,” and, of course, “shit out of luck.”

The first citation in the OED is from a 1917 description of slang used by the American Expeditionary Forces in Word War I:

“S.O.L. — Payroll abbreviation for Soldier, adapted to mean Soldier Out ‘a Luck or Certainly Out ‘a Luck, according to the way you spell it. Applicable to everything from death to being late for mess.”

This initialism (an abbreviation formed from the first letters of the words in a phrase) is alive and well today, with even more meanings.

In cyberspace, for example, “SOL” may stand for not only all of the senses mentioned above, but also “smiling out loud” and “sooner or later.”

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Q: Do you have any comments regarding why a word or phrase can completely reverse its meaning over time? For example, “hoi polloi” went from meaning the exclusive classes to the unwashed masses.

A: In fact, “hoi polloi” has meant the masses or the common people since classical times. Some folks erroneously believe it originally meant the elite, but that’s not true.

This misconception is probably the result of confusion with “hoity-toity,” an old expression that means, among other things, pompous or self-important. We recently wrote a blog item that touched on the expression “hoi polloi.”

As for your larger question, it’s true that words and phrases can change in such a way that their modern meanings become the reverse (or nearly so) of the originals.

The word “nice” is a good example. At various times in the past it has meant foolish, overly fastidious, wanton, and profligate. In other words, not very nice.

And “cute,” back in the days when it was short for “acute,” meant shrewd or perceptive or calculating (it has also meant bowlegged in regional American usage!).

“Sophisticated” once meant corrupted, and “silly” meant happy. Likewise, “awful” once meant deserving of awe; “terrible” meant terror-inducing; “wonderful” meant wonder-inducing.

So when you’re reading an 18th-century novel, it’s not surprising to find a magnificent cathedral described as “awful,” or a sudden catastrophe described as “wonderful,” or a fierce animal descrbed as “terrible.”

Why all this change? The reasons vary from word to word, but the short answer is that English is a work in progress.

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Q: I was at a rent meeting where the term “catchment area” was used to describe a neighborhood. I thought it should be “cachement area,” along the lines of “cache,” the geeky word for memory storage. But when I tried to email someone about the meeting, the spell-checker suggested changing “cachement” to “catchment.” What’s the story?

A: Your email spell-checker is right this time. The correct word is “catchment,” not “cachement.”

I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if the “cache” version catches on in this digital age. In fact, I got nearly 7,000 hits when I googled it, though that’s piddling compared with the nearly 5.5 million hits for “catchment.”

The term “catchment area” usually refers to a natural drainage area that “catches” or collects rainwater draining into a river or other body of water. It’s also called a “catchment basin.”

The shorter term “catch basin” usually refers to a receptacle that collects surface drainage or runoff. If you look under one of those grates that you see alongside roads, you’ll often find a catch basin.

The word “catchment,” in its drainage sense, entered English in the mid-19th century. The first published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from an 1847 book on hydraulic engineering: “A great portion of the catchment basin is very little raised above the level of the lake.”

But back to the rent meeting you attended and the usage you found so puzzling. Why is a neighborhood called a “catchment area”?

It turns out that in the mid-20th century the expression came to be used figuratively for a geographical region served by a specific school, hospital, or other institution.

In other words, the institution would “catch” students, patients, or whatever from its “catchment area.”

The first citation in the OED for this usage is from a 1959 article in the Times of London that describes the area served by the Leeds prison as a “catchment area” for the institution.

Of course one can catch lovers of whodunits as well as the crooks who’ve done it. A 1960 citation from a library journal defines “catchment area” as “the area from which readers may be expected to be drawn.”

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Q: I was surprised that you didn’t mention “abscond” in your blog post about “nascond.” It was what I thought of as soon as I read the post, since both words have the same back half and similar meanings.

A: Thanks for pointing this out.

“Abscond,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, entered English in 1586 and originally meant to hide, conceal, or obscure. It has its roots in the classical Latin verb abscondere, meaning “to hide, conceal, to bury, immerse, to engulf, to keep secret.”

The Latin condere means to put together or to stow, and the preposition ab (which becomes abs before words starting with c) in this case means off, away, or from.

In the 1600s, the OED says, the English “abscond” acquired new meanings: “to hide oneself; to flee into hiding, or to an inaccessible place; to leave hurriedly and secretly, typically to elude a creditor, escape from custody, or avoid arrest.”

As for “nascond,” which was discussed in a May 10 blog item, the closest relative I can find is the Italian nascondere (to hide, conceal). The Italian word is derived from the Latin inabscondere, which in turn comes from abscondere (see the etymology above).

In the case of inabscondere, I assume that the prefix in isn’t a negative but rather serves as an intensifier or to convey the sense of inside or within. (Not all in prefixes in Latin are negative (inspirare, “to blow in,” inferre, “to bring in,” and many others).

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Q: I am 58 years old and I learned back in sixth grade that “faggot,” the derogatory term for a gay man, is derived from a term for bundles of wood used to burn witches and anyone else thought to be evil. The last time I looked, Wikipedia pooh-poohed this idea. What’s the scoop?

A: When the word “faggot” first showed up in English around 1300, it meant simply a bundle of sticks, twigs, or small branches bound together for fuel, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

There was no suggestion that the resultant fire would be used to burn witches, heretics, or anyone else thought to be evil. The word is still used today in the sense of kindling, especially in Britain.

It wasn’t until the mid-16th century that the term was used in reference to the burning alive of heretics. The first citation in the OED, dating from around 1555, is by Hugh Latimer, an Anglican bishop.

In a collection of sermons and other writings, Latimer refers to “a few flying apostates, running out of Germany for fear of the fagot.” (Note that the term here refers to the kindling, not the heretics.)

In the late 16th century, “faggot” also came to be “a term of abuse or contempt applied to a woman,” according to the OED. The first citation for this usage is in a 1591 discourse on the immorality of Athens.

Thomas Lodge, the author of the discourse, uses the term “faggot” in reference to “an Athenian she handfull.” Why would a woman (even a “she handfull”) be called a “faggot”?

The word sleuth Dave Wilton, on his website Wordorigins.org, speculates that the usage “probably comes from the idea of a faggot being a burden or baggage (not unlike the modern ball and chain).”

Not until the early 20th century did the word “faggot” come to mean a male homosexual. The OED describes this usage as “slang (orig. and chiefly U.S.).”

The first published reference is from an entry in a 1914 slang dictionary: “Drag, Example: ‘All the fagots (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight.’ “

It’s no surprise, of course, that a term for a woman would one day be applied to a gay man. Another feminine term, “queen,” has been used since the 1890s to refer to a male homosexual.

“Fag,” in this sense, is simply an abbreviation of “faggot.” It’s been around since the 1920s.

In an early citation (from Death in the Afternoon, 1932), Hemingway sneers at “those interested parties who are continually proving that Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare, etc. were fags.”

The noun “fag” has many other meanings today, especially in Britain. For example, it may refer to a cigarette or to a younger student who performs chores for an older one at an English public school.

Why is a public-school drudge called a “fag”? This meaning comes from the use of the verb “fag” in the sense of to work to exhaustion.

As for the cigarette sense, the OED suggests that it may be derived from the use of “fag” to mean something that hangs loose, as in the fag end of a piece of cloth. But where does this hanging-loose business come from?

It seems that an obsolete meaning of the verb “fag” was to droop, decline, or flag. The OED says this sense is of “obscure etymology,” but “the common view” is that it resulted from a corruption of the verb “flag.”

Enough already. I’m fagged, and it’s time for me to hang loose.

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Q: Is “unquote” proper in the expression “quote, unquote.” I hate it. Please tell me it should be “end quote.” Why would you want to unquote something that you’ve bothered to quote!

A: The expression “quote … unquote,” also written as “quote-unquote” or “quote, unquote,” has been in use for almost 100 years, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The wording is “used in actual and reported speech to represent the beginning of a passage that one is quoting or purporting to quote,” the OED explains. The usage represents “opening and closing quotation marks around the quoted word or phrase.”

The first published citation listed is from a December 1918 article in a Connecticut newspaper, the Bridgeport Telegram: “Title of picture to be quote Watchful Waiting unquote.”

The OED also cites a 1921 reference from the Chicago Daily Tribune: “I knew her when she was a quote bear unquote period.” (Actually, that passage ought to read: “quote bear period unquote” but never mind!)

Although the early citations generally have “quote” before the quoted material and “unquote” after it, the entire phrase (“quote, unquote” or “quote-unquote”) is now often used in front of the quoted information.

Here’s an OED example of this front-loaded variation, from Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (2001), a collection edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera: “Occupation: jazz musician. Has clippings in pocket as quote-unquote proof.”

This information comes within the OED‘s entry for “quote” as a verb. The dictionary also lists “quote” as a noun meaning a quotation or a quotation mark (mostly in the plural).

Many usage experts frown on using “quote” as short for “quotation” or “quotation mark,” but these usages have been popular since the 1880s.

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By PATRICIA T. O’CONNER
and STEWART KELLERMAN
Published July 26 in the New York Times Magazine

What can you say in 140 characters? On Twitter, that’s your limit per tweet. The Twitterati consider this the last word in writing lite, but they’ve devoted quite a few tweets to a venerable linguistic quest that has long thwarted old-media types: the search for an all-purpose pronoun that’s masculine or feminine, singular or plural. Scores of tweets in recent months — enough to inspire a CNN segment earlier this year — have agonized over the lack of a universal pronoun and bemoaned the verbal acrobatics it takes to say something like this in a nonsexist way: “Everybody thinks he’s hot” or “A texter worships his smart phone.”

Some of the suggestions? Combining his and her into hiser, and he and she into s/he or he/she or shhe. One tweeter asked plaintively, “Can we just accept that ‘they’ can be used as singular?” But another wrote, “I HATE it when people make improper use of plural pronouns for gender neutrality!” Several suggested writing around the problem (“Sometimes I try to alternate he and she, but bleh”). One tweet seemed to sum up the general attitude: “Damn you, English language!”

Traditionalists, of course, find nothing wrong with using he to refer to an anybody or an everybody, male or female. After all, hasn’t he been used for both sexes since time immemorial? Well, no, as a matter of fact, it hasn’t. It’s a relatively recent usage, as these things go. And it wasn’t cooked up by a male sexist grammarian, either.

If any single person is responsible for this male-centric usage, it’s Anne Fisher, an 18th-century British schoolmistress and the first woman to write an English grammar book, according to the sociohistorical linguist Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. Fisher’s popular guide, “A New Grammar” (1745), ran to more than 30 editions, making it one of the most successful grammars of its time. More important, it’s believed to be the first to say that the pronoun he should apply to both sexes.

The idea that he, him and his should go both ways caught on and was widely adopted. But how, you might ask, did people refer to an anybody before then? This will surprise a few purists, but for centuries the universal pronoun was they. Writers as far back as Chaucer used it for singular and plural, masculine and feminine. Nobody seemed to mind that they, them and their were officially plural. As Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage explains, writers were comfortable using they with an indefinite pronoun like everybody because it suggested a sexless plural.

Paradoxically, the female grammarian who introduced this he business was a feminist if ever there was one. Anne Fisher (1719-78) was not only a woman of letters but also a prosperous entrepreneur. She ran a school for young ladies and operated a printing business and a newspaper in Newcastle with her husband, Thomas Slack. In short, she was the last person you would expect to suggest that he should apply to both sexes. But apparently she couldn’t get her mind around the idea of using they as a singular.

In other matters, though, Fisher was eminently reasonable. Ever since English grammars began appearing in the late 1500s, for example, they were formed on the Latin model (the very word grammar originally meant the study of Latin). Fisher strongly condemned this classical bias and said that English suffered when it was forced into a Latin mold. She not only defended English against claims of inferiority but also said its lack of inflections and declensions (or, as she wrote, “needless perplexities” and “peculiarities”) was an advantage — a heretical view in its time. What’s more, she used plain words, calling a noun a “name” and an auxiliary verb a “helping verb.”

But alas, in swapping he for they, Fisher replaced a number problem with a gender problem. Since the 1850s, wordies have been dreaming up universal pronouns (thon, ne, heer, ha and others), but attempts to introduce them into the language have all flopped. “Among the many reforms proposed for the English language by its right-minded, upstanding and concerned users,” the linguist Dennis E. Baron has written, “the creation of an epicene or bisexual pronoun stands out as the one most often advocated and attempted, and the one that has most often failed.”

Meanwhile, many great writers — Byron, Austen, Thackeray, Eliot, Dickens, Trollope and more — continued to use they and company as singulars, never mind the grammarians. In fact, so many people now use they in the old singular way that dictionaries and usage guides are taking a critical look at the prohibition against it. R. W. Burchfield, editor of The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, has written that it’s only a matter of time before this practice becomes standard English: “The process now seems irreversible.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) already finds the singular they acceptable “even in literary and formal contexts,” but the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) isn’t there yet.

It’s a shame that grammarians ever took umbrage at the singular they. After all, they gave you a slide. It began life as a plural object pronoun and evolved into the whole enchilada: subject and object, singular and plural. But umbrage the grammarians took, and like it or not, the universal they isn’t universally accepted — yet. Its fate is now in the hands of the jury, the people who speak the language. Yes, even those who use only 140 characters a pop.

Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman are the authors of “Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language.” William Safire is on vacation.

Q: I have been trying for years to get a definitive answer to the origin of the word “hobo.” There are some interesting theories, but nothing concrete. Can you shed any light on this truly important American cultural notion? I would be much obliged and quote you eternally!

A: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the only definitive answer to your question is that there is no definitive answer.

The word “hobo” first showed up in print in the northwestern United States in the late 19th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The earliest citation is from an 1889 article in the Ellensburgh (Washington) Capital: “The tramp has changed his name, or rather had it changed for him, and now he is a ‘Hobo.’ ”

Etymologists searching for the origin of the word “hobo” have come up with a lot of theories, some more likely than others, but none of them definitive.

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang lists two “plausible” origins: (1) “hoe-boy,” a migratory farm hand; (2) “Ho, boy,” a term used by railroad mail handlers in the 1880s.

Random House notes, however, that there’s no paper trail for “hoe-boy,” and the documentation for “Ho, boy” is poor, though the expression has been traced to the 19th-century American Northwest, where “hobo” first appeared in print.

The dictionary also mentions an early, tantalizing use of “ho-boy” as a verb that seems to refer to traveling like a hobo.

Here’s the citation, from an 1848 article in the New Orleans Picayune: “A year’s bronzing and ‘ho-boying’ about among the mountains of that charming country called Mexico.”

The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins lists “hoe boy,” “Ho, boy,” and one other possibility: “Hey, bo” (with “bo” a sarcastic corruption of the word “beau”).

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology adds a couple of other hypothetical sources: “hawbuck” and “hawbaw,” 19th-century English dialect for a clumsy or coarse fellow.

I could go on. There are quite a few other theories, but most of them are too far-fetched to take seriously.

I’ll end this with an excerpt from H.L. Mencken’s The American Language (4th ed., 1937):

“Tramps and hoboes are commonly lumped together, but in their own sight they are sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police.”

Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but not all questions have definitive answers.

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Q: I live on Flag Swamp Road in a small town in northwestern Connecticut. I’ve been trying to no avail to learn whether the name of my street is a reference to the invasive yellow-flag iris or an old family called Flag, Flagg, Flagge, or something similar. Can you help?

A: The yellow-flag iris (Iris pseudacorus) is indeed an unwanted guest in swamps, marshes, and other wetlands in Connecticut, but the term “flag swamp” arrived in New England many years before the appearance of the invasive yellow flag.

The iris is believed to have been introduced in the region as a garden plant in the mid-1800s, according to the online Invasive Plant Atlas of New England.

The plant apparently began escaping from gardens and spreading to the wilderness in the second half of the 19th century.

The plant atlas mentions two early reports of yellow flags in the wild: the first in the Hudson River basin in 1868 and the second in Concord, Mass., in 1884.

However, the term “flag swamp” was in use in New England at least as far back as the early 1700s, well before the introduction of the iris.

A book on the history of Sunderland, Mass., for instance, says settlers referred to a wetland in the area as “flagg Swamp” in 1714.

And a book about the history of Falmouth, Mass., citing an anecdote “handed down by tradition” and “probably literally true,” suggests the term may have been in use even earlier than that.

The Falmouth book says the first settlers camped at a flag swamp in 1660. When a child was born at the encampment, the mother reportedly said, “He was born amongst the flags and his name shall be Moses.”

So where does the term “flag swamp” come from? That allusion to the biblical story about Moses in the bulrushes is a good clue.

When the noun “flag” first showed up in English in the 14th century, it referred to reeds, rushes, grasses, or other native wetland plants, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

It wasn’t until the mid-16th century that the term came to be used for irises and other garden plants, but the older sense was still common until at least the late 19th century, according to published references in the OED.

Capt. John Smith, for example, used “flag” in the older sense in The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624): “The chiefe root they haue for food is called Tockawhoughe. It groweth like a flagge in Marishes.”

I don’t know when your street was named, but an 1872 book about the early history of Woodbury and nearby towns in northwestern Connecticut mentions a “Flag Swamp, lying between Roxbury and Southbury.”

So, the term “flag swamp” was being used in your area of Connecticut at a time when the yellow-flag iris had barely begun escaping from cultivation and the older meaning of “flag” was in widespread use. In fact, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) still includes cattails and similar plants among its definitions of the noun “flag.”

Nevertheless, could a family called Flag, Flagg, Flagge, or whatever have been responsible for the naming of Flag Swamp Road in your town? Not likely.

Various “Flag”-type surnames have been common in New England, including eastern Connecticut, since Colonial times. But the name has been rarely seen in northwestern Connecticut, according to a survey of land and census records by Jeannine Green, a local historian in Litchfield County.

In short, the Flag Swamp Road in your town was almost certainly named for a swamp with wild rushes, reeds, or grasses, not for a family or an invasive iris.

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Q: Is “thunk” a new word or did I miss out on this one in my 50-plus years? I hear it used now in reference to thinking. Example: “Who would have thunk?” It’s driving me insane.

A: Yes, the verb form “thunk” is a word, but it’s not a new one. The real question is whether it’s a legitimate word or not.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) describes it as a “nonstandard” past tense and past participle of the verb “think.”

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) calls it “dialect” for the past tense (“He thunk it looked funny”) and past participle (“I’ve thunk the same thing”).

However, I feel the Oxford English Dictionary gets to the heart of the matter by defining “thunk” as jocular dialect.

The OED‘s first published reference for the usage (spelled “thuongk’) is from an 1876 glossary of words in the mid-Yorkshire dialect in Britain.

But here’s a more interesting citation from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939): “I then tuk my takenplace lying down, I thunk I told you.”

Joyce apparently liked the usage. He liked it enough to use “thunk” not only as a verb but also as a noun meaning a thinking session. Here’s a citation from Ulysses (1922): “Have a good old thunk.”

Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang says “thunk” is of US origin, but Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says it’s Canadian. I lean toward Yorkshire, the source of the first citation in the OED.

Interestingly, this “nonstandard” usage is older than the “standard” use of “thunk” as a noun for a dull, hollow sound, or as a verb for making that sound. The audible “thunk” dates from the mid-20th century.

So is it OK to use “thunk” as a past tense or past participle of “think”? If you think it’s the legitimate past tense or past participle, no. But if you’re trying to be funny, yes.

Even so, “Who would have thunk?” and similar expressions are getting a bit tired these days. It might be time to have a good old thunk in search of a fresher way to be funny.

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Q: Is “for” or “in” preferred in a sentence like this one: “I haven’t seen him in/for years.” I believe “for” is more common in Britain, while “in” is more common in the US.

A: The prepositions “in” and “for” have both been used since at least the 1400s to indicate durations of time. In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary gives “for” as a meaning of “in” when used this way.

Although this “in” usage was once seen only in negative sentences (like the one you mention), it’s now used both negatively and positively, according to the OED.

The dictionary doesn’t label this usage as slang or as an Americanism. In other words, it’s standard English on both sides of the Atlantic.

Nevertheless, it’s clear from googling “I haven’t seen him in years” and “I haven’t seen him for years” that “for” is indeed much more common on UK websites, while both “in” and “for” are commonly used on US sites.

The first published reference in the OED showing “for” used to indicate the length time is in a medieval mystery play dating from around 1450: “Who seyth oure ladyes sawtere dayly for a yer thus.”

The earliest OED citation for “in” used this way is from Sir Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (1470-85): “He made them to swere to were none harneis in a twelue monethe and a day.”

But that’s just the beginning. The dictionary has a dozen citations for the “in” usage over 500 years, including a March 1, 1669, diary entry in which Samuel Pepys writes of returning “to Westminster Hall, where I have not been, I think, in some months.”

All the print references are negative until this one from a 1971 article in the Daily Telegraph that refers to the “first bridge across the Bosphorus in 2,300 years.”

That was the last British citation for the “in” usage. The two OED citations since then – one positive and the other negative – are from American sources.

The negative one is from Ed McBain’s novel Sadie When She Died (1972): “Arlene said that she had not played tennis in three years.”

The positive cite is from a 1973 article in Scientific American: “When Mariner 9 reached Mars on November 13, 1971, the greatest dust storm in more than a century was raging.”

In summary, it’s OK to use either preposition in a sentence like “I haven’t seen him in/for years.” But “for” seems to be more popular in Britain today, while both “in” and “for” are common in the United States.

By the way, I’ve written several blog entries about differences between American and British English, including one about the use of prepositions.

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Q: Two years ago I noticed “storied” rearing its head. “Aha,” I thought, “someone has figured out a way to get out of the ‘famous’ trap,” the trap being that you can’t call someone “famous,” because if he or she really is famous, you don’t need to say it. But “storied” is ever worse. “Famous” has its antipode, “infamous.” But “storied” doesn’t tell you anything, except this is someone or something often written about. Am I being a total crank?

A: My opinion is that this craze, too, will pass. Once “storied” becomes worn around the edges (and it must be getting there considering all the websites that have glommed on to it), people will go back to “fabled” and “legendary,” which used to drive me up the walls when I was an editor.

I wouldn’t, however, expect that we’ll ever see the last of “storied.” It’s had a long and at times storied history as an adjective and a past participle.

When it first appeared in print in the 15th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it meant “ornamented with scenes from history or legend by means of sculpture, painting, needlework or other art; also, inscribed with a legend or memorial record.”

The OED’s first published reference for this usage is from one of the first illustrated books printed in England, William Caxton’s Myrrour of the Worlde (1481), which refers to “precyous bookes richely lymned storyed and wel adoubed.”

Alexander Pope was the first writer to use “storied” in the sense of “celebrated or recorded in history or story,” according to the ­OED.

In his 1725 translation of the Odyssey, Pope writes of the disasters that befall Odysseus: “Recite them! nor in erring pity fear / To wound with storied grief the filial ear.”

And speaking of the desperation for fresh (ha!) words in this general category, have you noticed the use of “infamous” to mean “famous” or “celebrated”? Perhaps people think the prefix is an intensifier rather than a negative. I wrote a blog entry a while back on this use of “infamous.”

Are you being cranky? Well, perhaps. But why not?

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Q: I was in West Virginia for a wedding at a stately old stone mansion. On the property was a wooden structure built over a water spring. I am wondering if the term “watershed” had its origin in this type of wooden shed.

A: A wooden shed over a spring may indeed be described as a water shed, but it isn’t the origin of the English word “watershed,” meaning a high point between two river systems, or a region that drains into a body of water.

The Oxford English Dictionary suggests that the English term may have been influenced by wasserscheide, an equivalent word that has been in use in Germany since the 14th century. In the earliest published references in English, the term has the sense of a high point.

The first reference in the OED is from an 1803 collection of essays published by the Highland Society of Scotland: “This is a very high inland tract, being the water-shed of the country between the two seas.” (I’ve modified the citation a bit, based on the original text.)

Here’s another early OED citation, from Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle (1845): “The line of Water-shed which divides the inland streams from those on the coast, has a height of 3000 feet.”

The first OED citation for the use of “watershed” in a more general sense (“whole gathering ground of a river system”) is from an 1874 book on ornithology: “The Missouri Region, in its broadest sense, as embracing the whole watershed of that great river and its tributaries.”

Again, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Your suggestion is interesting, but it doesn’t hold water.

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