George was a modest fellow

By Alan Linda | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Here come some more origins of words, in keeping with my fascination of the English language.

George Washington discouraged the new nation from naming anything after him, yet they managed to name the new capitol Washington. They would have likely named the new ten-mile square of land in which it was located the District of Washington, had they not already upset him by naming the town after him. Matter of fact, there was a substantial faction of people who believed the nation should be called the United States of Washington. George squelched that in short order.

There were other people who wanted to call the new nation the United States of Columbia. Therefore, the other hero of the day got that honor. Columbus’s new fame, which history pretty much agrees was highly overrated and suspicious, was due to two factors: first, the new nation needed a hero; and second, a biography of Columbus had just been written, one which threw truth pretty much out the window and painted Columbus in a new light. Thus it was that the District of Columbia was named after Columbus.

There have been several paintings of George, but have you ever noticed that more often than not, his hands are not showing? After thinking that through, think back to the pictures of Napoleon Bonaparte, who always had one hand in his tunic. (George has some like that, too.) The fact of the matter was, it wasn’t that they had this particular pose in mind, but instead was that the artists of the day charged extra for hands and feet. A lot extra.

I wonder how much a horse cost?

Anyway, the next time you hear someone say that what they just purchased cost “an arm and a leg,” you’ll know where that saying originated.

Now we’re off on another tangent. In 1650, there came into existence for the first time in London, England, coffeehouses, where for one penny, admittance was had, and for another penny and a half, a saucer of coffee was served. Refills cost nothing, and the coffeehouses became popular as an alternative to taverns, and business was routinely conducted there.

Refills of coffee, however, due to crowded conditions and a shortage of help, came slowly. Somewhere along the way, jars were placed at each table, with a sign on each of them that read: “To insure promptness.” Later, after the clientele became accustomed to placing some money in the jars to hasten their next cup of java, the sign was abbreviated “TIP.”

During the early years of the new nation, money—the value of it—was a free for all. Any institution that wanted to could print their own bills. Some of these notes weren’t worth the paper they were written on, but some, like the ten-dollar-bill issued by the Bank of New Orleans, became very popular. These particular bills had inscribed on their backs the French word “dix,” meaning ten. These bills became known as “dixies.” Before long, due to a popular song, the entire south became so known.

From German immigration in the late 1800’s came several words. “Kindergarten,” of course; also “shyster,” probably based on the German word for excrement: “scheisse”; “gesundheit,” which means “health”; “autsch,” which became “ouch”; and “kaput,” which means exactly what it means today—broken.

World War II produced some new English words, and some of my favorites are acronyms, or groups of first letters. “SNAFU,” which means “situation normal, all ‘fouled’ up; “FUBAR,” which means ‘fouled up beyond all recognition,” and some others, closely related to these, which have dropped out of popular usage. Some of these are “TUIFU,” “the ultimate in foul ups,” and “TARFU,” meaning “things are really fouled up.”

One of our most popular slangs is “OK.” There are a lot of historians out there thinking a lot of things as far as its origins are concerned. To name just a few, one origin has been suggested as the abbreviation for “olla kola,” Greek for “all good.” Another is that it stands for an early abbreviation used in telegraphy for “open key,” meaning that transmission was finished. Yet another possibility is based on the Choctaw Indian’s word “okeh,” which means, well, OK.

In fact, a word which began in America and is known all over the world became at one point as researched as DNA. It was first used in a Boston newspaper in 1839, as an abbreviation for “oll korrect.”

At the time, spelling was an imperfect science, and there were no norms for lots of words. In 1840, the Democratic O.K. Club was formed to promote Martin Van Buren for president, and from there, it stuck with us.

So. OK then.

Alan Linda writes a column from his home in New York Mills.