Category: Etymology

Q: I have seen both “gastronomic” and “gastronomical” as adjectives for “gastronomy.” Is one of them right and the other wrong? Are they interchangeable? Do they have different uses?

A: They’re both OK, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.), Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), and several other standard dictionaries we checked.

Perhaps some people might consider the longer one a bit stuffier, but we don’t see much, if any, difference between them.

Merriam-Webster’s, for example, defines “gastronomy” as “the art or science of good eating” as well as “culinary customs or style,” and it lists both adjectives without comment.

So the choice here is up to you. It’s a matter of taste, and (in this case at least) there’s no disputing taste.

The noun “gastronomy” showed up in English in the early 1800s, according to published references in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first citation in the OED is from the 1814 diary of Sir Robert Thomas Wilson, a British general: “The banquet was according to all the rules of perfect gastronomy.”

English adopted the noun from the French gastronomie, but the word’s roots are in ancient Greek, where gastronomia meant the “laws or science pertaining to the stomach,” according to Panorama of the Classical World, by Nigel Spivey and Michael Squire.

Interestingly, the OED has an earlier citation for the adjective “gastronomical” than for the noun “gastronomy.”

The first cite is from Diedrich Knickerbocker’s satirical History of New York (1809): “The gastronomical merits of terrapins.” (Knickerbocker was a pen name of Washington Irving.)

The adjective “gastronomic” arrived on the scene in 1828 and the adverb “gastronomically” in1875, according to the OED citations.

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Q: For a couple of years, I’ve been hearing an extra “what” in sentences like this: “She’s less aloof than (what) she was last year.” I wonder when this phenomenon started.

A: This particular use of “what” after “than” isn’t new. And it isn’t incorrect, either, just a bit wordy by modern standards.

The 20th-century grammarian George O. Curme has written that this “than what” construction usually shows up in speech, but was once common in writing.

In A Grammar of the English Language, Vol. II (1931), Curme says the “what” is sometimes inserted in informal speech to make up for a perceived absence—a dropped subject or adverb.

He begins by using a “what-less” sentence as an illustration: “He works harder than he did as a young man.” He then discusses cases in which a “what” is added “to fill the vacancy” that’s felt.

Sometimes, he writes, the “what” that’s inserted after “than” is the subject of a clause, as in “thicker than what was usual.” And sometimes it’s an adverb, as in “I laughed heartier then than what I do now.”

Here we’ve abbreviated the examples given by Curme, both of which come from 19th-century writers. The “what” in each of them would probably be considered unnecessary today and would be omitted.

In a sentence like the one you mention—“She’s less aloof than what she was last year”— “what” functions as an adverb.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) says that as an adverb, “what” means “how much; in what respect; how.”

Both American Heritage and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) use interrogative examples to illustrate the adverbial usage. AH: “What does it matter?” M-W: “what does he care?”

But the kind of sentence you’re noticing, with “what” used adverbially after “than,” is different. It isn’t a question, and the “what” is normally omitted in modern written usage.

As Curme says: “This what is a marked feature of current popular speech; ‘I’m more in earnest than what you are.’ ‘I hope you can walk quicker than what you eat.’ What is now never inserted here in the literary language.”

The 19th-century American grammarian Goold Brown noted that earlier writers often omitted the word “what” after “than.”

In A Grammar of English Grammars (1851), Brown makes his point by restoring the omitted “what” in two well-known quotations:

“He does nothing who endeavours to do more than [what] is allowed to humanity” (Samuel Johnson);

“My punishment is greater than [what] I can bear” (Cain in Genesis 4:13).

Today, nobody notices the omission of “what” in sentences like those, and speakers who insert it raise eyebrows.

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Q: Would you please discuss the derivation of “fixing to” do something? I understand it means getting ready to do something, but as a New Yorker living in Texas, I hear it all the time.

A: We’ve written before on the blog about the use of the phrase “fixing to” in the sense of “preparing to” or “ready to.” The construction dates back to mid-19th century America, and an earlier version, “fixing for,” is a century older.

But we wrote that brief post nearly five years ago, so we’ll refresh it now with a little more detail.

The Oxford English Dictionary has examples in which the verb “fix” and its participle “fixing” are used to mean “to intend; to arrange, get ready, make preparations, for or to do something.”

In this sense, the verb is accompanied by the prepositions “to,” “for,” “out,” and “up,” says the OED, adding that these phrases are American in origin.

The earliest example in writing is by an American-born colonist, Col. Benjamin Church, who fought in the First Indian War in the late 1600s. In his account of the conflict, History of King Philip’s War (1716), he wrote: “He fixes for another Expedition.”

A similar usage appears in a 1779 document, now in the New Hampshire Historical Society Collections, in which Capt. Daniel Livermore wrote: “Troops are busy in clearing and fixing for laying the foundations of the huts.”

The OED’s first example of “fixing to” is from Norman Ellsworth Eliason’s 1956 book Tarheel Talk: An Historical Study of the English Language in North Carolina to 1860: “Aunt Lizy is just fixing to go to church.” (The example is dated 1854-55.)

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) has an interesting usage note on “fixing to,” or as American Heritage spells it, “fixin’ to.” (We’ll break the note into paragraphs to make it easier to read.)

“Fixin’ to ranks with y’all as one of the best known markers of dialects of the Southern United States, although it occasionally also appears in the informal speech and writing of non-Southerners. Fixin’ to means ‘on the verge of or in preparation for (doing a given thing).’

“It often follows a form of the verb to be, and it consists of the present participle of the verb fix followed by the infinitive marker to; They were fixin’ to leave without me.

“Although locutions like is fixin’ to can be used somewhat like the auxiliary verb will in sentences that describe future events, fixin’ to can refer only to events that immediately follow the speaker’s point of reference. One cannot say, We’re fixin’ to have a baby in a couple of years.

“The use of fixin’ to as an immediate or proximate future is very common in African American Vernacular English, and is one of many features that this variety of English shares with Southern dialects. Although this expression sometimes appears in writing as fixing to, in speech it is usually pronounced fixin’ to.”

As for the use of “fix up” in a similar sense (to arrange), here’s a line from J. B. Priestley’s novel Wonder Hero (1933): “I may be able to fix up for you both to go out to supper afterwards.”

And while we’re at it, let’s look at an entirely different construction—“fix up with.” The OED says it means “to arrange for (a person) to be provided with.”

The earliest citation is from Booth Tarkington’s novel The Conquest of Canaan (1905): “Can you fix me up with something different?”

And then of course there’s “fix up” and “fix up with” in the matchmaking sense: “to encourage or arrange for (a person, couple, etc.) to embark upon a romantic or sexual relationship,” in the words of the OED.

Oxford’s first citation is from a Sidney Kingsley novel, Men in White (1933): “Fix him up. … It’d do him good.”

We like this later example, from Helen Fielding’s comic novel Bridget Jones’s Diary (1997): “The minute I decide I like Mark Darcy, everyone immediately stops trying to fix me up with him.”

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Q: Any idea why the Brits say “ta” to mean “thank you” and “ta-ta” to mean “goodbye”?

A: The Oxford English Dictionary views “ta” (thank you) and “ta-ta” (goodbye) as infantile or nursery expressions that are now also commonly used by adults colloquially—that is, in speech.

No further etymology is given for these characteristically British interjections, so we can assume they got their start as baby talk.

The OED’s first citation for the use of “ta” in writing is from a birthday letter written in 1772 by an Englishwoman, Mary Delany, to her year-old niece:

“My dearest little child, this is your birthday, and I wish you joy of its return; perhaps if you knew what a world you are enter’d into, so abounding with evil you would not say ‘Ta’ to me for my congratulation.” (We’ve gone to the original to expand the quotation.)

This 19th-century example of the word is from Israel Zangwill’s novel Children of the Ghetto (1892): “Give it me. I’ll say ‘ta’ so nicely.”

The later expression “ta-ta,” for “goodbye,” was first recorded in a letter written in 1823 by Sara Hutchinson, who was a friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth:

“Baby I believe has not learnt any new words since Mrs M. wrote last, but she has the old ones very perfect—‘Gone’—‘Ta ta’—‘By bye.’ ”

And here’s a later example from the Victorian era, in Sir Francis Cowley Burnand’s novel Strapmore! (1878): “Ta-ta, little one très cher! Bye-bye.”

Among the many more modern examples given in the OED is this one from L. R. Banks’s novel The L-Shaped Room (1960): “Charlie’ll come up in a few minutes and see how you’re getting on. Tata for now.”

In fact, “ta-ta for now” became so common in Britain that it inspired “TTFN,” an initialism (with or without dots) that the OED says was popularized in the 1940s by a BBC radio program called Itma (the letters stand for “It’s That Man Again”).

The dictionary’s first citation for “TTFN” in writing is from a 1948 book about the show, Itma, 1939-1948, written by its producer, Frank Worsley.

In writing about “the beloved Cockney Charlady, Mrs. Mopp (played by Dorothy Summers),” he says that among “her famous sayings were the letters ‘T.T.F.N.’—a contraction of ‘Ta-ta for now’ with which she made her exit.”

With that, we’ll say “ta” for your question and “ta-ta for now.”

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Q: When I tell my wife that I’m going to “get a shower,” she corrects me and says it should be “take a shower.” Who’s correct and why?

A: We’re on your side. “Get” is one of the most versatile verbs in English, and it’s always adapting itself to new usages well beyond its original meaning—to acquire or obtain possession of.

Particularly in colloquial (that is, spoken) or informal usage, “get” is widely used. It wouldn’t be unusual to hear someone say, “I don’t get out much, but today I think I’ll get a nap, get a shower, then get a bite to eat.”

In many common phrases, the verb “get” has something immaterial as its object, as in “get the better of,” “get the worst of it,” “get religion,” “get a cold,” “get the upper hand,” and “get a lift,” all of which are several hundred years old.

More recent examples from the OED include “get your dinner,” “get there” (that is, attain one’s object), “get wind of,” “what gets (annoys) me,” “get about,” “get back at” (retaliate), “get your own way,” and “get a shave,” all of which were first recorded in writing in the 19th century.

It seems to us that there’s little semantic difference between “get a shave” and “get a shower.” And the latter expression is hardly unusual, since “get a shower” gets about 2.7 million hits on Google (though the more common “take a shower” gets 63.4 million).

These days, new usages of “get” come along so swiftly that the Oxford English Dictionary is always adding new ones in online draft additions.

The relative newcomers are too numerous to mention, but they include “get by” (to manage), “get across” (make understood), “get lost” (go away), “get moving” (hurry up), “get it” (see a joke), “get with it,” “get it on,” “get with the program,” “get over yourself,” “get real,” “get off on,” “get a life,” and “how [fill in the blank] can you get?”

In the grand scheme of things, a marital difference over “get a shower” versus “take a shower” is small potatoes. May all your arguments be trifles! As Marvin Gaye put it, “Ah, baby, let’s get it on.”

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Q: Is “enthused” a word?

A: Many people object to the verb “enthuse” (to feel or cause or show enthusiasm) and to its participle “enthused.” But both are indeed words, if inclusion in dictionaries is any indication.

You can find them in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.), Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), and the Oxford English Dictionary, among others.

They’re back-formations, a term given to new words formed by dropping prefixes or suffixes from older ones—in this case the noun “enthusiasm.”

We’ve written about back-formations before on our blog. Other words that were formed this way include “incent” (from “incentive”), “escalate” (from “escalator”), “baby-sit” (from “babysitter”), and “curate” (from “curator”).

Back-formations always take time to gain acceptance. And while “enthuse” and “enthused” are now accepted by most lexicographers as standard English, this wasn’t always the case.

A Merriam-Webster’s usage note says the verb “is apparently American in origin, although the earliest known example of its use occurs in a letter written in 1827 by a young Scotsman who spent about two years in the Pacific Northwest.”

The note continues: “It has been disapproved since about 1870. Current evidence shows it to be flourishing nonetheless on both sides of the Atlantic esp. in journalistic prose.”

American Heritage also includes an interesting usage note within its entry for “enthuse” (we’ll add paragraph breaks for readability):

“The verb enthuse, a back-formation from enthusiasm, is viewed as an irritant by many. The sentence The majority leader enthused over his party’s gains was rejected by 76 percent of the Usage Panel in our 1982 survey, by 65 percent in 1997, and by 66 percent in 2009.

“Back-formations often meet with disapproval on their first appearance and only gradually become accepted. For example, diagnose, which was first recorded in 1861, is a back-formation from diagnosis and is perfectly acceptable today.

“Since enthuse dates from 1827, there may be something more at play here than a slower erosion of popular resistance. Unlike enthusiasm, which denotes an internal emotional state, enthuse denotes either the external expression of emotion (as in She enthused over attending the Oscar ceremonies) or the inducement of enthusiasm by an external source (as in He was so enthused about the diet pills that he agreed to do a testimonial in a television ad).

“It is possible that a distaste for this emphasis on external emotional display and emotional manipulation is sometimes the source of distaste for the word itself.”

Both American Heritage and Merriam-Webster’s now accept “enthuse” and “enthused” as standard English. The Oxford English Dictionary, however, still labels “enthuse” as humorous or colloquial (that is, characteristic of spoken rather than written English).

As for the etymology of “enthuse,” the OED calls it “an ignorant back-formation.” Ouch! As we said, these things take time.

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Q: In The Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell writes that Johnson “could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when he had taken the wrong side.” How did both “to worst” and “to best” come to mean to defeat?

A: The verb “worst,” meaning to defeat or overcome or outdo, isn’t seen much these days, but it’s the older of the two usages.

The earliest example in the Oxford English Dictionary for “worst” used in this sense is from a 1636 book about the Roman emperors by Robert Basset: “After many battailes Otho being worsted … slew himselfe.”

Initially, the usage referred to military defeats, but by the mid-1600s, it was being used for defeats in arguments, suits, and so on.

In a 1651 religious tract, for example, Richard Baxter writes: “Lest if you were silent the people should think you were worsted.”

The use of the verb “best” in similar senses didn’t show up in print until the mid-1800s, according to citations in the OED.

Here’s an example from The World in the Church, an 1863 book by Mrs. J. H. Riddell: “As I am a staunch Churchman I cannot stand quiet and see the Dissenters best the Establishment.”

Oxford describes this usage as colloquial—that is, occurring more in speech than in writing—but the standard dictionaries we’ve checked list it without qualification.

How, you ask, did the verbs “best” and “worst” come to mean the same thing?

The OED explains that to “best” comes from the idea of “getting the better of” or “having the best of it” while to “worst” is another way of saying “to make worst” or “put to the worst.”

In an etymology note accompanying its entry for the verb “best,” the dictionary acknowledges that “the form is hardly in accordance with the sense, which is nearly equivalent to the existing vb. to worst.”

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Q: Can the words “colloquial” and “idiomatic” be used interchangeably? Is “idiomatic” somewhat more formal?

A: The terms “idiomatic” and “colloquial” widely overlap, but they aren’t identical. In general, a colloquialism is a spoken usage, but idioms can be found in speech as well as in writing, even in formal prose.

We wrote an extensive blog item last year about the term “idiomatic.” As we say in that posting, “Broadly speaking, an idiom is simply a peculiarity of language.”

An idiom might be an expression or grammatical construction that’s unusual in some way—peculiar to a language, a region, a dialect, a time period, or a group of people.

(For example, groups like doctors, mechanics, and teenagers all have their own vocabularies and expressions, which might be described as idiomatic.)

“Idiom” is a very broad term and can even refer to a distinctive literary expression. In our blog entry, for instance, we noted that in the 17th century John Donne called the biblical “amen” an idiom.

Some idioms aren’t easily translated, or can’t be taken literally. As the Oxford English Dictionary says, an idiom can be “a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from the meanings of the individual words.”

“Colloquial,” on the other hand, means characteristic of spoken language. So colloquialisms are more likely to be found in common speech than in formal written English.

The OED says the word “colloquial,” first used by Samuel Johnson in 1751, means “of or pertaining to colloquy; conversational.”

Both “colloquial” and “colloquy” (a conversation or dialogue) are derived from Latin, in which the prefix col- means together and the verb loqui means to speak

When “colloquial” is used in reference to words, phrases, and so on, the OED says, it means “belonging to common speech; characteristic of or proper to ordinary conversation, as distinguished from formal or elevated language. (The usual sense.)”

In summary, many colloquialisms can be described as idioms—like “I could care less,” which isn’t meant literally, or “that dress just isn’t you,” which wouldn’t make sense in another language.

But not all idioms are colloquial. Phrases like “weather permitting” or “on the other hand” are idioms commonly used in writing as well as speech.

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Q: Pat seemed puzzled during her last appearance on the Leonard Lopate Show by the use of the noun “appetizing” for such things as smoked fish, bagels, and cream cheese. I guess she didn’t grow up in or near a Jewish community.

A: You’re right—Pat grew up among Irish Catholics in Iowa. And Stewart, who did grow up in New York when an “appetizing” shop could be found on every other street, was home in rural Connecticut and couldn’t bail her out at the WNYC studio.

So what is an “appetizing store” and what is the “appetizing” sold there?

For an answer, we’ll go to the website of Russ & Daughters, a Lower East Side institution and one of the few appetizing stores that still survive in New York.

The noun “appetizing,” the site says, refers to “a Jewish food tradition that is most typical among American Jews, and it is particularly local to New York and New Yorkers.”

Put simply, according to Russ & Daughters, “appetizing” consists of “the foods one eats with bagels.”

And the popularity of cold appetizers like smoked fish and cream cheese to go on those bagels “led to the creation of the institution known as the appetizing store.”

“In New York City, until the 1960’s, there were appetizing stores in every borough and in almost every neighborhood,” the website says. “On the Lower East Side alone there were, at one point, thirty appetizing shops.”

The site notes that Jewish dietary laws prohibit the eating and selling of meat and dairy products together, so two different types of stores sprang up to cater to Eastern European Jewish immigrants:

“Stores selling cured and pickled meats became known as delicatessens, while shops that sold fish and dairy products became appetizing stores.”

And, as Stewart recalls, grocery stores commonly had both deli and appetizing counters when he was growing up in New York.

The word sleuth Barry Popik, on his Big Apple website, lists several early citations for “appetizing store,” including an April 7, 1914, reference in the New York Times to the “Lenox Appetizing Store, 154 Lenox Ave.”

Joel Russ opened his first appetizing store in 1914 on Orchard Street and moved it around the corner in 1920 to 179 East Houston Street, the site of the present store.

In 1933, he changed the name from “J. Russ National Appetizing Store” to “Russ & Daughters” (for his daughters Hattie, Anne, and Ida, who worked with him in the store).

The store concludes its online page about appetizing this way: “So, now that you know, please don’t call us a deli!”

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Q: Just catching up on posts, including the one about “gazebo” and its possible relationship with the Latin lavabo. My British-born mother always called the bathroom sink a “lavabo”—but NOT the kitchen sink. Until I read your post, I hadn’t put it together with the future tense of “I wash” in Latin—and I’ve had TWO YEARS of Latin! Is this use of “lavabo” British? I used to picture it in my mind as “lavabeau” (a beautiful place to wash up). I knew the Latin “lav” root meant wash, and I seized on the Gallic “beau” to explain the other part.

A: It’s interesting that your mother should use “lavabo” as a noun for the bathroom sink. As it happens, this use of “lavabo” is standard English for a bathroom sink in both British and American dictionaries! (Who knew?)

As we said in our “gazebo” post, one theory about the origin of the word is that it’s a quasi-Latin coinage.

“Gazebo,” according to this theory, would be translated as “I shall gaze,” mimicking Latin verb forms ending in –bo, like lavabo (“I shall wash”).

Never underestimate the capacity of English to absorb new words. In the mid-19th century, it adopted the Latin lavabo—the first-person singular future tense of lavare (to wash)—as a noun.

The noun was first used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in connection with Christian rites, where it had several meanings.

For example, the “lavabo” meant the ritual washing of the celebrant’s hands at the offertory, performed before touching the offerings.

In the Roman Catholic rite, the hand washing was accompanied by a recitation from Psalm 26, beginning Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas (“I will wash my hands in innocence”).

As the OED explains, ”lavabo” was also used to mean “the small towel used to wipe the priest’s hands” as well as “the basin used for the washing.”

It was also used by at least one historian in the late 19th century to refer to “a washing trough used in some mediæval monasteries.”

More secular uses of the word began to show up in the early 20th century, according to citations in the OED. This is when “lavabo” came to mean a household wash-stand or a lavatory (in the sense of a small room for washing the hands and face).

In 1909, Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language defined a “lavabo” as something like a sink: “a wash basin with its necessary fittings, esp. one set in place and supplied with running water and a waste pipe.”

And Dorothy L. Sayers used the word in the sense of “lavatory,” according to the OED, in her novel Strong Poison (1930): “The little lavabo in the passage.”

This calls for a brief look into “lavatory,” a 14th-century word that’s also derived from the Latin verb lavare.

When first recorded in writing, sometime before 1375, it meant a bath or a vessel for washing. But in the 16th century it was also used to mean the Christian purification rite that was later called the “lavabo.”

The modern sense of “lavatory” can be traced to the 17th century, when it first came to mean a small room equipped with a wash basin.

Here’s how the OED defines this use of “lavatory”: “An apartment furnished with apparatus for washing the hands and face, subsequently also including water-closets, etc. In the 20th c. one of the more usual words for a W.C. (and in turn giving way to more recent euphemisms: lav., loo, toilet, etc.).”

In some of its citations, the OED delicately adds, “lavatory” is used elliptically “for the appliance itself”—that is, the toilet bowl. We’ll quote a couple of those examples:

“Albert closed the door and sat down on the lavatory,” from Jack Trevor Story’s novel Something for Nothing (1963).

“Flush Conscience down the lavatory,” from the now-defunct BBC publication The Listener (1965).

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Q: A friend has a soup container with a label that reads “fresh healthy delicious.” Is “healthy” correct? I realize it’s supposed to mean you’ll be healthy if you eat the soup, but doesn’t it actually mean the soup is healthy?

A: We have to disagree here. Not many people reading that label would think the soup itself was enjoying robust health.

We’ve written before on our blog about “healthful” and “healthy.” But that was more than five years ago, so we’ll revisit the subject.

In traditional usage during much of the 20th century, “healthy” people led “healthful” lives—that is, they ate “healthful” foods and did “healthful” things.

So a person was “healthy” if the vegetables he ate and the exercises he sweated over were “healthful.” That’s how a lot of early- to mid-20th-century usage guides explained the difference.

But language authorities no longer insist on this distinction. As we said back in 2006, “It’s become almost universal for people to refer to ‘healthy food,’ even though a literal-minded person might imagine a stalk of broccoli lifting weights!”

Today, dictionaries regard this use of “healthy” as correct, standard English. So it’s not a mistake to refer to a healthful thing as “healthy.”

As it turns out, history is on the side of this broader interpretation. For hundreds of years, “healthy” was freely used to mean good for you, and nobody minded until a distinction was drawn in the late 19th century.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) has an interesting usage note on the subject (we’ll add paragraph breaks):

“Some people insist on maintaining a distinction between the words healthy and healthful. In this view, healthful means ‘conducive to good health’ and is applied to things that promote health, while healthy means ‘possessing good health,’ and is applied solely to people and other organisms. Accordingly, healthy people have healthful habits.

“However, healthy has been used to mean ‘healthful’ since the 1500s, as in this example from John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education: ‘Gardening … and working in wood, are fit and healthy recreations for a man of study or business.’

“In fact, the word healthy is far more common than healthful when modifying words like diet, exercise, and foods, and healthy may strike many readers as more natural in many contexts. Certainly, both healthy and healthful must be considered standard in describing that which promotes health.”

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) agrees, defining “healthy” as both “enjoying health” and “conducive to health.” M-W quotes General George S. Patton: “walk three miles every day … a beastly bore, but healthy.”

Finally, the Oxford English Dictionary has citations going back to the 16th century in which “healthy” is used to mean “possessing or enjoying good health” as well as “conducive to or promoting health.”

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Q: When my wife and I attended City College after World War II, we’d cheer on our basketball team with this nonsense: “Allagaroo, garoo, gara, Ee-yah, ee-yah, Sis boom bah, Yay, team!” Is there a hidden meaning in those lines?

A: “Allagaroo, garoo, gara!” was the City College of New York’s battle cry during the postwar years and students used it to cheer on the basketball team when it won both the NIT and NCAA basketball championships in 1950.

Where did “allagaroo” come from? The origin isn’t really known, but the word sleuth Barry Popik has come up with a couple of speculative theories.

Popik tracked down a 1950 article in the Sporting Times with this explanation: “According to school legend, an allagaroo either was a cross between an alligator and a kangaroo or a corruption of the French phrase ‘allez guerre’ (on to the war).”

In an article on his Big Apple website, Popik also points out that City College wasn’t the only school with an “allagaroo” cheer.

Hutchinson High School in Kansas has had one since 1901, but eliminated a stanza in 2003 after complaints about racial overtones. Here’s the first stanza of the revised cheer, from a Hutchinson alumni website:

Allagaroo, garoo, garoo; Wah, hoo, bazoo; Hicer, picer, dominicer; Sis! Boom! Bah! Hutchinson High School Rah! Rah! Rah!

As for the old City College cheer, we’ve seen various versions of it on the Web, including this one from an article in the April 3, 2000, issue of Sports Illustrated:

Allagaroo garoo gara, Allagaroo garoo gara, Ee-yah ee-yah, Sis boom bah, Team! Team! Team!

The Sports Illustrated article notes that in early 1951, “with CCNY’s grand season still fresh in the city’s memory,” seven members of the basketball team were arrested and charged with conspiring to fix games.

But let’s get back to the City College cheer you asked about.

The “ee-yah” part of the cheer has a history of its own. The yell was popularized by Hughie Jennings, a big-league baseball player and manager from 1891 to 1925, according to the Dickson Baseball Dictionary (3rd ed.).

The dictionary says Jennings made the ear-splitting yell famous while he was the manager and third-base coach of the Detroit Tigers before World War I.

Dickson discounts stories that Jennings picked up the yell while working as a mule driver in his youth or that it originated from his mangling a Hawaiian phrase, weeki-weeki (watch out), used by a pitcher from Hawaii.

The Jennings yell became so well know, according to Dickson, that American infantrymen shouted it during trench warfare in World War I.

Now, let’s look at the interjection “sis boom bah.”

The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as an “echoic” expression that represents “the sound of a skyrocket: a hissing flight (sis), an explosion (boom), and an exclamation of delight from the spectators (bah, ah).”

The OED says the expression originated in 19th-century America, and is “a shout expressive of support or encouragement to a college team.”

The dictionary adds that it’s also used as a noun meaning “enthusiastic or partisan support of spectator sports, esp. football.” (Here’s a possible noun use: “Give us a sis-boom-bah.”)

Finally, we’ve written before on the blog about the word “yay,” so we won’t repeat ourselves.

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Q: Many people use “morals” and “ethics” interchangeably, but I think the former refers to values imposed by the community while the latter refers to a personal sense of right and wrong. What do you think?

A: You believe a person’s morals come from outside—they’re determined by the surrounding community—while ethics come from within and are determined by one’s character.

We have roughly the same impression about these nouns and their adjectives, “moral” and “ethical.”

And so, more or less, do the editors of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

In an explanatory note, American Heritage says “moral” applies to “personal character and behavior: ‘Our moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for these societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human rights’ (Jimmy Carter).”

The word “ethical,” the explanation continues, “stresses idealistic standards of right and wrong: ‘Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants’ (Omar Bradley).”

Merriam-Webster’s explains that “moral” implies “conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong (‘the basic moral values of a community’).”

The dictionary says “ethical” may suggest “the involvement of more difficult or subtle questions of rightness, fairness, or equity (‘committed to the highest ethical principles’).”

This difference, however, isn’t so apparent in the etymologies of the two words. In fact, their linguistic ancestors were nearly identical.

As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, the classical Latin word moralis (moral) was formed by Cicero as a rendering of the ancient Greek word ethikos (ethical).

Cicero apparently took as his model the Latin mores (habits, morals), which was already in use as the Latin equivalent of the Greek ethe (customs, manners, habits).

Similarly, when “moral” and “ethical” first came into English, they meant much the same thing.

The adjective “moral” (which predates the noun “morals”) was first recorded in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (circa 1387-95).

It originally meant, in the words of the OED, “of or relating to human character or behaviour considered as good or bad; of or relating to the distinction between right and wrong, or good and evil, in relation to the actions, desires, or character of responsible human beings; ethical.”

We still use “moral” in that way, but we also use it in a less abstract sense when applied to an action or a person, a meaning that emerged in the late 16th century.

When applied to an action, the OED says, it means “having the property of being right or wrong, or good or evil; voluntary or deliberate and therefore open to ethical appraisal.”

And when applied to a person, it means “capable of moral action; able to choose between right and wrong, or good and evil.”

Also, we sometimes use “moral” to mean “virtuous with regard to sexual conduct,” a meaning the OED says was first recorded in 1803.

The noun “ethics” (originally used in the singular, “ethic”), entered English at about the same time as “moral,” in the late 1300s. At first, it meant a scheme of moral science or the study of moral science.

The adjective “ethical” came along in the early 1600s and meant “of or pertaining to morality or the science of ethics.”

A later meaning emerged in the 19th century: “in accordance with the principles of ethics; morally right; honourable; virtuous; decent; spec. conforming to the ethics of a profession, etc.”

So by the 19th century, the distinction between “moral” and “ethical” was established, although there was still a lot of overlapping.

Of the two, “moral” has taken on more senses over the years. We had a posting some time ago about one of them—the use of “moral” in the expression “moral support.”

It occurs to us that the difference between “moral” and “ethical” is more pronounced in their negative forms: “immoral” and “unethical.”

As applied to a person, “immoral” conveys possible meanings (like impure, dissolute, licentious) that aren’t found in “unethical.”

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Q: Just thought I’d let you know why the young lady in your Sept. 28, 2008, post lost the multiplication bee. When you’re speaking or writing numbers, the word “and” is actually the decimal point. So one hundred thirty-two is 132, but one hundred and thirty-two is 100.32. It may seems a small matter, but it makes a big difference in the number.

A: This is a common misconception, but in spoken or written numbers the conjunction “and” does not mean decimal point. So someone who says, “Twelve times eleven is one hundred and thirty-two” means the result is 132, not 100.32.

The number 132 can correctly be spoken or written as “one hundred thirty-two” or “one hundred and thirty-two.” British speakers and most Americans use “and,” but the conjunction is sometimes omitted in North American usage.

The “and” merely means “plus” and indicates that more of the number is coming. What follows “and” can be a whole number or a fraction, whether decimal or not (as in “three and five-eighths”).

Normally, someone speaking a decimal number like 100.32 would say “one hundred point thirty-two” or “one hundred point three two” or “one hundred and thirty-two hundredths.” When you use “and” in speaking a decimal number, the size of the decimal fraction (“tenths,” “hundredths,” and so on) must be included.

Our posting mentioned a child who lost a multiplication bee because she answered that 12 times 11 was “one hundred and thirty-two.” The correct answer, according to the contest sponsors, was “one hundred thirty-two,” so she was penalized for using “and.”

Apparently there was a special rule in the math contest against using “and” in answers. Contest rules are a kingdom unto themselves, and it may be that the usual practice in multiplication bees is to forbid the use of “and.”

But we can assure you that “and” does not mean “decimal point.” That is not among the definitions of “and” in any dictionary that we can find, and that includes standard dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary, and mathematical dictionaries.

As we said in our earlier posting, the OED’s entry for “and” lists this as one of its definitions: “to connect (units or) tens to hundreds (or thousands), as two hundred and one, three thousand and twenty-one, six thousand two hundred and fifty-six.”

In English, the earliest written references for this use of “and” are from the Lindisfarne Gospels, which were written in Old English in the late 7th or early 8th century. And the usage has been common practice ever since. We’re talking about more than 1,200 years of history.

The OED further explains that the “and” in numbers “is frequently omitted colloquially in North American usage.” This implies that including “and” is the more standard usage, while omitting it is an informal or conversational usage.

The use of “and” in numbers is a very ancient practice. You’re probably familiar with the now old-fashioned use, for example, of “one and twenty” to mean twenty-one, a convention that English inherited from the older Germanic languages.

“With numerals of the type one and twenty,” the OED says, “compare this type of composition in other Germanic languages, e.g. Old High German fiarzug inti sehso forty-six, Middle High German einz und drizic thirty-one, German einundzwanzig twenty-one, Old Icelandic einn ok tuttugu (also tuttugu ok einn ) twenty-one, etc.”

We don’t know where the misconception that “and” means “decimal point” came from. But unfortunately, it’s all over the Internet and apparently elementary-school teachers are even passing it on to their students. Never mind. It’s nonsense.

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Q: I realize that the taboo against ending a sentence with a preposition is a myth, but I’ve been reading with increasing frequency such sentences as “I don’t know where he’s at.” Is this use of a superfluous “at” incorrect as well as awkward sounding?

A: We’ve written before about these “where … at” constructions, but after four years it’s time for an update.

Many people criticize sentences like “Do you know where Dad’s at?” and “Tell me where they’re at” and “Did she say where she’s at?” But they often do so for the wrong reason.

The problem with such sentences isn’t that they place the preposition at the end. As you know, and as we’ve written many times, there’s nothing wrong with ending an English sentence with a preposition.

So what’s the issue here? The problem—if there is one—is simply that the “at” is redundant. “Where she’s at” is just a redundant way of saying “where she is.”

But needed or not, people persist in using “at” with “where” in their speech (very seldom in writing). And they sound perfectly natural in doing do.

When we asked ourselves why, it occurred to us that this “at” very frequently follows a contraction: “where he’s at,” “where it’s at,” “where they’re at,” and so on.

Aha! A light began to dawn.

People naturally use contractions when they talk, but not at the end of a sentence.

This is because when you end a sentence with a contraction, like “she’s,” the verb (“is”) gets swallowed up. And a swallowed-up verb at the end of a sentence—as in “Did she say where she’s?”—is not idiomatic English.

So anyone who uses a contraction is going to want to put something after it—like “at.”

Besides, in these “where … at” constructions, it’s the location—the “at”—that’s stressed in speech, not the verb. One would stress the verb if the “at” weren’t there, as in “Now where the hell is it?” or “Where could it be?”

We were pleased to see our suspicions verified in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.

“In current speech,” Merriam-Webster’s says, “the at serves to provide a word at the end of the sentence that can be given stress. It tends to follow a noun or pronoun to which the verb has been elided, as in the utterance by an editor here at the dictionary factory: Have any idea where Kathy’s at?”

As M-W explains, “You will note that at cannot simply be omitted: the ’s must be expanded to is to produce an idiomatic sentence if the at is to be avoided.”

The usage guide says the “where … at” combination has been a part of American speech since at least 1859, when it was recorded in Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms.

M-W adds that the Dictionary of American Regional English says it’s used mostly in the US South and Middle America.

So we know why this usage turns up so often in American speech. But is it a crime?

If it is, the folks at Merriam-Webster’s seem to think it’s a pretty small one. “A more harmless idiom would be hard to imagine,” they write.

We agree that a redundant “at” is not a hanging offense. But if you’re conversing with a stickler, you’ll probably be taken to task for using it.

Unless your conversation is very casual indeed, the unnecessary “at” may give your speech an uneducated flavor.

And of course it should be avoided when you’re writing and you want your English to be at its best (unless you’re quoting someone else).

But, as we say in our previous posting, there’s a related expression that’s become an accepted idiom. This is the colloquial expression “where it’s at,” as in “Dylan really knows where it’s at!”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the idiomatic “where it’s at” this way: “the true or essential nature of a situation (or person); the true state of affairs; a place of central activity.”

The OED has published references for this expression going back to a 1903 article in the New York Sun, but it really took off in the 1960s.

Here’s an OED citation from 1967, in the now-defunct BBC magazine The Listener: “As Dylan says, ‘I’ll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours.’ I think I know where he’s at.”

And here’s one from Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974): “That, today, is where it is at, and will continue to be at for a long time to come.”

We’re pretty sure that this use of “where it’s at” will be part of the language for a long time to come.

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Q: How did earwigs get their name and is there any truth to the belief that they like to crawl into people’s ears to lay their eggs?

A: Before we get to the etymology, let’s clear up the entomology.

It’s a myth that earwigs lay their eggs in human ears. And it’s an even yuckier myth that they bore into human brains to lay their eggs, driving the poor hosts crazy.

Yes, earwigs like to hang out in moist, dark places, and ear canals fit that description.

But the entomologist May Berenbaum says she knows of only “one single reference in about ten centuries of literature to an earwig actually being found in an ear.” [See the note below.]

In The Earwig’s Tail, her 2009 book about mythological bug stories, she suggests that the belief in the earwig’s attraction to human ears may have its roots in Roman times.

“Like so much entomological misinformation,” she writes, “the notion that earwigs infect ears may have originated with Pliny the Elder, first-century polymath who, among other things, believed that caterpillars originate from dew on radish leaves.”

Berenbaum cites Pliny’s advice in Historia Naturalis that if “an earwig … be gotten into the eare … spit into the same and it will come forth anon.” (We’re using the same 1601 translation that Berenbaum quotes.)

Now, on to the etymology. The modern word “earwig” comes from an Old English term, earwicga, a compound of words for ear and an insect of some sort. The two earliest written examples in the Oxford English Dictionary date from around 1000.

One of those citations, from the Old English Leechdoms, a collection of Anglo-Saxon medical remedies, includes a cure in which a blade of grass or straw is used to drive an earwig out of the ear.

So, the myth about earwigs and ears was alive and well in Anglo-Saxon times, and we suspect that it played a role in the naming of the insect itself.

An etymology note in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) says wicga, the second part of the Old English word, is a member of the same family of words that has given us “wiggle” and “wag.”

“This group of terms,” American Heritage adds, “denotes quick movements of various sorts and the prehistoric ancestor of the Old English word wicga probably meant something like ‘wiggler.’ ”

Although there’s no truth to the belief that earwigs commonly inhabit ears, many other languages have similar terms for the insect, according to Berenbaum, head of the entomology department at the University of Illinois.

The French call the earwig perce-oreille (ear piercer), the Germans Ohrwurm (ear worm), the Russians ukhovertka (ear turner), and so on.

Since earwigs don’t live in ears or brains, where do they hang out?

In a garden, you’ll find them in clumps of mulch and bark. In a house, you’ll find them in cracks and crevices. That is, if you really want to look!

A final note: Berenbaum says an earwig’s hind wings look a lot like human ears when unfolded. But she doesn’t buy that as an explanation for the insect’s name. And neither do we.

[Update. A reader sent us this email on August 15, 2015: “Just letting you know that when my son was young, an earwig crawled into his ear at night and woke him up.  He came to me, telling me that something was crawling around in his ear.  I looked and could see nothing.  Just to be sure, I dipped a q-tip in alcohol and gently (and carefully) moved it around in his ear.  He said the movement stopped. The next day, I took him to a doctor to check his ear out.  The doctor looked, gasped, and said, ‘It’s true!’ as he pulled the earwig from my son’s ear. So—maybe that’s twice in history.”]

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Q: I’ve heard that one should use “like” for comparisons and “such as” for examples, but everyone I know uses “like” for examples as well. What’s the story?

A: Respected writers have been using the preposition “like” in the sense of “such as” since at least the early 1800s. And as far as we can tell, no language authority objected to this usage until the second half of the 20th century.

Since then, a handful of commentators have criticized the usage for one reason or another. But other usage authorities have either ignored the issue or pooh-poohed the objections.

Count us among the pooh-poohers.

American and British lexicographers, the people who keep track of how English is actually used, agree with us that one standard meaning of the preposition “like” is “such as.”

We checked a dozen standard dictionaries published on both sides of the Atlantic and they were unanimous on this point.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.), for instance, gives this example of the usage: “saved things like old newspapers and pieces of string.”

And the Cambridge Dictionaries Online gives this one: “She looks best in bright, vibrant colours, like red and pink.”

When the ancestors of “like” and “such as” entered English in Anglo-Saxon times, the meanings of the two terms were pretty much alike, according to citations in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Old English source of “like” (gelic) meant “like one another, similar, of identical form or character,” while the Old English ancestor of “such as” (swelce swa) meant “of the kind or degree that; the kind of (person or thing) that.”

If anything, the earliest ancestor of “like” was more specific and suggested an example while the earliest ancestor of “same as” was less specific and suggested a comparison.

It wasn’t until the late 17th century, according to OED citations, that “such as” took on the sense of “for example.”

Here’s an early usage from A History of the Earth and Animated Nature, a 1795 work by Oliver Goldsmith: “All of the cat kind, such as the lion, the tiger, the leopard, and the ounce.”

Not long after Goldsmith wrote that, other writers began using “like” in the same way, according to published references collected by the language researcher Mark Israel with the help of the Merriam-Webster editorial department.

Here are a couple of examples from Jane Austen’s novels:

“Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon,” Mansfield Park (1814).

“A straightforward, open-hearted man, like Weston, and a rational unaffected woman, like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own concerns,” Emma (1816).

And here’s an example from Charles Darwin: “to argue that because a well-stocked island, like Great Britain, has not, as far as is known” (On the Origin of Species, 1859).

The OED—from its earliest “like” entry, published in 1903, to its latest online entry—has consistently said “like” often has the sense of “such as.”

(The earliest entry was published in a fascicle, or book part, before the first edition was completed or even called the OED.)

The dictionary’s first citation for the usage is from an 1886 letter by Robert Louis Stevenson: “A critic like you is one who fights the good fight, contending with stupidity.”

OK, lexicographers like the usage, but what about usage authorities?

Well, Henry Fowler, the language maven’s language maven, certainly didn’t see anything wrong with using “like” this way.

In the 1911 first edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, which Fowler edited with his brother, Francis, one meaning of “like” is listed as “resembling, such as.”

As an example of the usage, the Fowlers give “a critic like you,” and say “like” is being used to mean “of the class that you exemplify.” Yup, as an example!

Interestingly, neither the original 1926 edition of Henry Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage nor the 1965 second edition, edited by Sir Ernest Gowers, cites any problem with using “like” in the sense of “such as.”

It’s not until the third edition, edited by Robert Burchfield in 1996 and 1998,  that an eyebrow is raised about the usage. Burchfield says the use of “like” for “such as” is sometimes questioned because of possible ambiguity.

As an example, he says the title of Kingsley Amis’s 1960 novel A Girl Like You could be read as referring to the girl herself or a girl resembling her.

We think that he’s nitpicking and that it would be silly to use a clunky title like A Girl Such as You to help the one reader in a million who might misread the original. And remember, Henry Fowler himself used “a critic like you” as an example of proper usage.

So where did Burchfield, a pretty tolerant language guy, get the idea that the use of “like” for “such as” may be confusing?

We can’t ask him, since he died in 2004, but we assume he was influenced by the few objections raised in the second half of the 20th century to a usage that had passed without notice since the early 1800s and perhaps earlier.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage has a half-page entry on how some language mavens blew this issue of ambiguity out of proportion in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Wilson Follett appears to be the first language authority to write about the “shade of difference” between “such as” and “like” used in this sense.

In Modern American Usage (1966), Follett says the two terms “may often be interchanged,” but “such as leads the mind to imagine an indefinite group of objects” while “like” suggests “a closer resemblance among the things compared.”

Because of “this extremely slight distinction,” he says, some critics may object to the phase “a writer like Shakespeare” on the ground that no writer is like Shakespeare.

He adds, however, that “context usually makes clear what the comparison proposes to our attention. Such as Shakespeare may sound less impertinent, but if Shakespeare were totally incomparable such as would be open to the same objection as like.”

A few years after Follett’s book came out, another language authority, Theodore M. Bernstein, made light of the issue and used Beethoven instead of Shakespeare as an example.

In Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins, Bernstein’s 1971 book about language myths and misconceptions, he writes that “only some nit-pickers object to saying, ‘German composers like Beethoven.’ ”

Interestingly, both Follett and Bernstein seem to feel that “like” may be somewhat more specific than “such as”—that is, “like” may suggest an example and “such as” a similarity.

Leslie Sellers, in Keeping Up the Style (1975), appears to be the first language writer to suggest that “such as” should refer to examples and “like” to similarities.

H. Ramsey Fowler and Quentin L. Gehle then picked up the idea in The Little Brown Handbook (1980), followed by James Kilpatrick, in Reflections on the Writing Art (1993), and a few other commentators.

After reviewing these “rather diverse opinions,” Merriam-Webster’s concludes that there’s no agreement on standard usage here and  that “the issue of ambiguity, which evidently underlies the opinion of those who urge the distinction, is probably much overblown.”

The usage guide goes on to list eight 20th-century examples of “like” used for “such as,” including a 1956 letter in which Flannery O’Connor refers to “reading someone like Hemingway,” and two books in which language mavens use “like” this way:

Words on Paper (1960), by Roy H. Copperud: “Phrases like three military personnel are irreproachable and convenient.”

American English Today (1985), by Hans P. Guth: “Avoid clipped forms like bike, prof, doc.”

In none of the examples, the M-W editors add, “can you detect any ambiguity of meaning, either as they are written with like or as they would read if you substituted such as.”

In summary, most English speakers don’t recognize a distinction between these two terms, and the few usage writers who believe in a distinction can’t agree on what it is.

We use both “like” and “such as” to mean “for example,” though Pat considers “such as” a bit stuffy and uses it less than Stewart.

What do we do when we want to emphasize that we’re referring to an example? We simply use “for example” or “including” or a similar term:

“The writers we reread the most—for example, Jane Austen, Anthony Trollope, P. G. Wodehouse, and Angela Thirkell—all have a sense of humor.”

Finally, if you’re up for reading more about “like,” Pat wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine in 2007 about its use in “She’s like, ‘No way,’ ” and a blog post that same year about its use in “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”

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Q: I seem to recall reading somewhere that “forever” means continually and “for ever” means eternally. I checked my dictionary and it only has the one-word version. Is there really a difference or is the one-word version enough for both senses?

A: In American English, the one-word version is the only version for the adverb meaning continually, incessantly, or eternally.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.), Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), and all the other standard US dictionaries we checked agree on this.

In British English, the situation isn’t quite so simple.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the two-word version can mean either eternally, continually, or incessantly, but it has a half-dozen citations, beginning as far back as the 17th century, for the one-word version used in both senses.

The original 1926 edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage doesn’t mention the issue, but the 1965 second edition insists on the two-word version.

But, wait, the latest Fowler’s (the revised third edition) says the one-word version means continually or persistently and the two-worder means eternally—except in the US, where one word can do for all those senses.

The lexicographers at standard British dictionaries, however, don’t generally buy that arbitrary approach.

The Cambridge Dictionaries Online, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, and the other British dictionaries we checked list “forever” and “for ever” for all senses in their British editions. And the one-word version is listed first.

In other words, the British seem to be coming around to the American usage here.

In fact, Garner’s Modern American Usage (3rd ed.) says “the solidified version has become standard in both AmE and BrE, and the two-word version is best described as archaic.”

The two-word version, according to OED citations, is by far the oldest, first showing up around 1300 in Cursor Mundi, a Middle English poem: “This folk … that suld vs serue for euer and ai” (“This folk … that should us serve for ever and always”).

The one-word version first appeared in a 1670 satire by John Eachard that expressed “honest and hearty wishes that the best of our Clergy might forever continue as they are.”

By the 1800s, however, sticklers were complaining about the one-word version. We’ll end with an excerpt from “Forever,” a poem by Charles Stuart Calverley, one of the 19th-century complainers:

Forever; ’tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deem’d it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?

Forever! What abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what
Despair! For ever (printed so)
Did not.

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