Flea Markets

Montsoreau Flea Market, Loire Valley, France CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

My wife mentioned that with the weather warming up our local flea market would be reopening soon. This got my word-mind working on why you would want to name a shopping place after those pesky little parasites of the order Siphonaptera ("wingless bloodsucker") that infest dogs, clothing, and especially upholstery on old furniture that might be for sale. It seems like very poor marketing. My wife said she doubted that the etymology was that literal. 

A flea market is usually a street market that provides space for vendors to sell previously-owned (second-hand) merchandise. Being outdoors, they are often seasonal. The line sometimes blurs as these places move indoors or become year-round places. Sometimes "swap meet" or "casual market" is the label. I've seen flea markets mixed with farmer's markets where (hopefully) at least the produce is not second-hand! 

And what happens when a group of street vendors begins to gather in one place? Is that a flea market? Probably not, and especially not if they are selling new items as many street vendor do with t-shirts, art etc.

I still view a flea market as a place selling used goods, from collectibles (books, records, toys etc.), to antiques (from jewelry to furniture) and vintage clothing.

There is now a National Flea Market Association which almost seems antithetical to the whole casual concept.

Where did the "flea" part of the term come from? Certainly markets of a similar nature existed in the Middle East and Asia a very long time ago. But the fleas appellation? 

One American theory is that there was a "Fly Market" in the late 1700s in New York City, located at Maiden Lane near the East River in Manhattan. The location was originally a salt marsh and so flies, fleas and other annoying critters were part of it. That Fly Market was the city's principal market by the early 1800s. But no mention of fleas in the name.

Perhaps, the American term made its way over to Europe, but more likely is that the "flea" term came from France to America. This loan translation is known as a calque. For example, the French “cela va sans dire” is loaned to English as “it goes without saying.” [Sidebar: "It goes without saying" is an odd phrase since we almost always follow it by saying what doesn't need to be said: "It goes without saying that she has plenty of money."]

The accepted etymology for "flea market" is an English calque from the French "marché aux puces" ("market of the fleas"). The first reference to this term appeared in stories about a location in Paris in the 1860s which was actually called the "marché aux puces" because items sold there were previously used and worn and so could very easily have contained fleas.

A vintage travel gear seller at Marché Dauphine, Saint-Ouen, the home of Paris' flea market
by Jorge Royan,  CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Words That Are Their Own Opposites

In Roman mythology, Janus presided over the beginning and
 ending of conflict, including war and peace.

Most people learned in school that an antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word. Children learn about opposites at a young age: up/down, in/out, hot cold. Contronyms are somewhat related but quite different.

An example of these words that are their own antonyms is "oversight."  What does this sentence mean?  "The supervisor's oversight led to the procedure's approval." Does it mean that the supervisor was inattentive and so allowed something to be approved that shouldn't have been approved? Or, does it mean that because he was overseeing a procedure properly it was approved?

That's a contronym. You may also see them referred to as an auto-antonym or autantonym, or Janus word - a word with multiple meanings of which one is the reverse of another.

I heard on the news recently that some members of Congress might be sanctioned, meaning a penalty will be imposed upon them. But a sanction can also mean "to give official permission or approval" which is quite different in meaning.

A few others:

Cleave can mean "to cling to or adhere," and also "to split or sever."

Fast can mean "moving rapidly," as in running fast, or "fixed, unmoving," as in holding fast. 

You can weather a hurricane (to withstand or come safely through) but a seaside home can look weathered because it has been worn away by the elements, because weather is a contronym.

Here are some more examples 

  

Major League Baseball

One of the many signs of spring is baseball's spring training, even though it wintry in much of the U.S. then. Even opening day games in April are often cold and even snowy. The "Boys of Summer" probably prefer days that are in that just-right Goldilocks zone that is late spring and early autumn.

The pandemic really hurt baseball as well as other sports in 2020 and although the games are on this year, the number of fans is still limited and teams still are still dealing with cases.

Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada.

There are 30 teams in American Major League Baseball (MLB). They are divided up evenly between the American League (AL) and National League (NL) with 15 teams in each. Each of the leagues is divided into three divisions called the East, the Central, and the West.

The NL and AL were formed as separate legal entities in 1876 and 1901, respectively. Beginning in 1903, the two leagues cooperated but remained legally separate entities. In 2000 the leagues merged into a single organization led by the Commissioner of Baseball.

We are working our ways through all the teams' name origin stories. 

MLB also oversees Minor League Baseball, which comprises 256 teams affiliated with the major league clubs. I don't know if we'll get around to all those minor league teams - but some have very interesting name-origin stories.

See all our baseball team name origins 
and all our other sports name origins posts.

National League
East
Atlanta Braves
Miami Marlins
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
Central
Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers
Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals
West
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants

American League
East
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays
Central
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers
Kansas City Royals
Minnesota Twins
West
Houston Astros
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland Athletics
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers

reminisce

When we "reminisce," we think or tell about past experiences, and the word's origin comes from our minds.

Reminisce (and its noun relative reminiscence) comes from the Latin word mens meaning "mind." When attached to the prefix re- it became the Latin verb reminisci ("to remember").

In English, we have other re- verbs that suggest bringing an image or memory into our mind: remember, recall, remind, and recollect. 

Reminisce differs from these others because it suggests not only a casual recalling of experiences past but also a sense of nostalgia about those memories. 

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

The Black Crowes

The Black Crowes--Luther Dickinson, Sven Pipien, Steve Gorman, Chris Robinson, and Rich Robinson performing at the 2008 Newport Folk Festival. (Adam MacDougall was playing keyboard out-of-frame to the right.)

THE BLACK CROWES is an American rock band formed in Marietta, Georgia, in 1984. The first incarnation of the band was called Mr. Crowe's Garden which was used until 1989. It was a name taken from L. Leslie Brooke's children's book Johnny Crow's Garden. which had been a favorite of original members Chris and Rich Robinson. Brooke was best known as a book illustrator and the 1903 book is known more for its illustrations than for its minimal text.

The band was influenced by contemporary local acts like R.E.M. along with 60s psychedelic pop and classic southern rock. Gradually, the band's sound moved more toward 70s-era blues rock.

The band had many personnel changes, breakups and reunions over the years but brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, who were the founding members while they were still attending Walton High School, have remained the band's core. 

They changed the band's name in 1989 when they signed with Def American Records at the suggestion of producer George Drakoulias. They released their debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, the following year and their follow-up, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, reached the top of the Billboard 200 in 1992. 

The band went through a hiatus from 2002 to 2005, then regrouped and toured for several years and released Warpaint in 2008. They released a greatest hits/acoustic double album Croweology and did a 20th-anniversary tour, then followed that with a second hiatus. 

Continuing their dizzying history, after a 2013 tour, the band announced another breakup in 2015. As you might guess, by now none of its original line-up was left except for Chris and Rich remained.

The Black Crowes have sold more than 30 million albums, and are listed at number 92 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and the UK Melody Maker named them as "The Most Rock 'n' Roll Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World."

Shake Your Money Maker (2020 Remaster, 3 CD Super Deluxe Edition)

In late 2019, during an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Chris and Rich Robinson announced that they had resolved their differences after not speaking since the band's 2015 split. They announced a 2020 tour in support of the 30th anniversary of Shake Your Money Maker. but it was canceled due to the COVID pandemic.

Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes--A Memoir

Eurythmics

Eurythmics were a British pop duo consisting of members Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. The duo formed in Wagga Wagga, Australia, and released their first studio album, In the Garden, in 1981. It didn't catch much airplay, but their their second album Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) in 1983 had a worldwide hit with the title track.

They picked Eurythmics as their name because that was a method of teaching music going back to the 1890s that Lennox had encountered as a child.

The duo was never really a "band" unless they were on tour and the two were the only permanent members and songwriters. 

Lennox and Stewart had been a couple but split as a couple around the time that they signed their RCA record deal. The duo went on to release a string of hit singles and albums before they split up in 1990. 

Stewart went on as a record producer. Annie Lennox began a solo recording career in 1992 with her debut album Diva.  

After almost a decade apart, Eurythmics reunited to record their ninth album, Peace, released in late 1999 and reunited again in 2005 to release the single "I've Got a Life", as part of a new Eurythmics compilation album, Ultimate Collection. 

 

Groundlings and Underlings

We read Julius Caesar in my high school sophomore English class. It didn't make much of an impression on me because we just read it - much of it alone as homework - and Shakespeare needs to be seen and heard as a performance. 

When Cassius says "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings." (Julius Caesar I, ii, 140-141) I don't think it made an impression on me. The famous quotation usually does not include those four final words. 

I went on to be an English major and read a lot of Shakespeare and learned a lot about Will and his theater. It was then that I learned that Cassius was saying something that was an anachronism thrown in for the underlings watching the performance. 

Shakepeare's underlings were called groundlings. They were patrons at the Red Lion, The Rose, or the Globe theater in the early 17th century. They were too poor to pay to be able to sit on one of the three levels of the theatre. For a penny, they could stand in "the pit", also called "the yard", just below the stage, to watch the play. 

They were up close to the action but they had to stand for a few hours and were usually packed in tightly with sometimes 500 of them there. The groundlings were commoners. They were also referred to as "stinkards" (hygiene not a priority) or penny-stinkers. The name "groundlings" came into usage after Hamlet used the term around 1600 in a not very complimentary way.

Hamlet:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to 

you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as

many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had

spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with

your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent,

tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion,

you acquire and beget a temperance that may give

it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a 

robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to 

tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,

who for the most part are capable of nothing but

inexplicable dumb shows and noise.

I only recently discovered that it is not a Shakespearean invention. The word had entered the English language to mean a small type of fish with a gaping mouth. Maybe from an actor's point of view on the raised stage, the faces of these patrons might have looked like open-mouthed fish. 

I had learned in college that the groundlings were not well-behaved and the upper-class folks that were high above them were happy to be there.

Groundlings supposedly threw fruit and nuts they were eating at characters/actors they did not like. My professors also told us that Shakespeare would include characters (Falstaff et al), ghosts and jokes to keep the groundlings interested.

I guess if "all the world's a stage," then maybe we are all underlings when it comes to why we might not succeed. Don't blame Fate. Blame yourself. Take responsibility for your place in the Globe. 

The Cranberries

The Cranberries live in Montreal, 2012 via Wikimedia

The Cranberries were an Irish rock band formed in Limerick, Ireland, in 1989 by lead singer Niall Quinn, guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan, and drummer Fergal Lawler.

The band classified itself as an alternative rock group, but they incorporated aspects of indie pop, post-punk, folk-rock, and pop-rock into their sound.

In mid-1989, brothers Mike, 16, and Noel Hogan, 18, formed a band called Cranberry Saw Us (a pun on cranberry sauce) with drummer Fergal Lawler, 18, and singer Niall Quinn. Quinn left in 1990 and the three continued as an instrumental band until 18-year-old Dolores O'Riordan answered their ad for a female singer.

As the band moved on to new material from Noel Hogan and O'Riordan, playing gigs and signing a major label deal, the name was changed to The Cranberries. 

The Cranberries' fame went international fame with their debut album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?, with the 1994 hit singles include "Linger" and "Dreams." Five of the band's albums reached the Top 20 on the Billboard 200 chart, and eight of their singles reached the Top 20 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.

There was a 25th-anniversary reissue of The Cranberries’ debut album that had sold over 5,000,000 copies in the US and over 600,000 in the UK. The album has been remastered at Abbey Road (under the supervision of the band’s Noel Hogan) and is now available on vinyl. They were one of the biggest bands of the 90s.

The group broke up but returned to the stage in 2012 with a new single "Tomorrow." The reunion was short-lived. O'Riordan started legal proceedings against Noel Hogan in October 2013 and the case was struck out in July 2015 and the cause was not divulged.

But the band did get together again. Unfortunately, on 15 January 2018, O'Riordan died unexpectedly in London. She had recently arrived there for a studio mixing session on her D.A.R.K. album and to discuss the upcoming album of the band with record label BMG. It was ruled that she had drowned in her hotel room's bathtub due to sedation by alcohol poisoning.

Official band website cranberries.com

Gin Blossoms

Gin Blossoms is an American rock band formed in 1987 in Arizona. Their first major-label album in 1992 was New Miserable Experience. The first single was "Hey Jealousy" which was a Top 25 hit and went gold. The album went quadruple platinum with four other singles from it also charting.

Their name, Gin Blossoms, is also in lower case "gin blossoms" a skin condition. Rosacea is a condition that causes "blossoms" (burst blood capillaries) on the face particularly the nose from drinking too much alcohol. In the late 1800s, gin was a popular alcoholic drink amongst heavy drinkers because it was cheap. 

It is said that the band saw a photo of film comedian W.C. Fields in Kenneth Anger's infamous (and often inaccurate) Hollywood Babylon. That photo has the caption "W.C. Fields with gin blossoms."

The band's follow-up album is Congratulations I'm Sorry (1996) which went platinum and the single "As Long as It Matters" was nominated for a Grammy Award. 

Gin Blossoms broke up in 1997 but reunited after a number of member changes in 2001. Major Lodge Victory (2006), No Chocolate Cake (2010), and Mixed Reality in 2018 are their latest albums.

Gin Blossoms has been described as an alternative rock band and jangle pop and very much a road band. They are labeled as being part of the "Mill Avenue sound", or "southwestern sound", and are compared to other Arizona bands such as The Sidewinders, The Refreshments, The Meat Puppets, and Dead Hot Workshop.

Official band website  ginblossoms.net

Mad as a March Hare

The March Hare as illustrated by John Tenniel

March has arrived. In my neighborhood, it "came in like a lamb" so it supposedly it will go "out like a lion." Another proverb attached to this month is "Mad as a March hare."

I connect the phrase to Lewis Carroll's Alice stories but its usage predates his books.

This British English phrase has been connected to a kind of "spring fever" craziness and also Love being "in the air." It appeared in John Heywood's collection of proverbs published in 1546. 

In the excellent book, The Annotated Alice (my favorite edition), it is explained that it was a popular (and somewhat accurate) belief about rabbits/hares' behavior at the beginning of their breeding season. In Britain, it starts in February or March and runs until September. In the early days of that breeding season, males are "mad" and overly enthusiastic about getting on with things. Females sometimes have to repel those unwanted suitors with their forelegs. Apparently, this observation was once believed (incorrectly) to be two males fighting for breeding dominance.

The March Hare that Alice meets in Wonderland is sometimes confused with the Mad Hatter hare. The March Hare is called "Haigha" in Through the Looking-Glass and he is most remembered, especially from film versions, as part of tea party scene in Carroll's 1865 classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Alice, knowing that it is not the month of March, thinks that perhaps "The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March."

The Mad Hatter is a friend of the March Hare. 

Alice, March Hare & Mad Hatter at the tea party

I like Sir John Tenniel's illustrations best. He shows the hare with some straw on his head, which was a common way to depict madness in Victorian times.

The March Hare later appears at the trial for the Knave of Hearts. His final appearance is as "Haigha." Lewis Carroll says the name is pronounced to rhyme with "mayor", which would make it "hare." Haigha is the personal messenger to the White King in Through the Looking-Glass and oddly Alice doesn't seem to recognize him as being the March Hare from his earlier appearance in her dream.

That can happen when you go through a looking glass or down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

jury rigging

an example of some jury-rigged plumbing

A plumber working at my house recently said that he could "jury rig something until I get the parts I need."  I know he meant that he could do a temporary fix, but then I wondered (as I often do here) about where the term originated.

It didn't seem to have any connection to the common use of jury as related to a courtroom trial. Is it about a lawyer trying to rig the member of a jury to work to his client's advantage? In fact, it doesn't have any connection to that use of jury.

Jury rigging (AKA "jerry rigging") is both a noun and a verb describing makeshift repairs made with only the tools and materials at hand. 

Its origin comes from the world of boats and ships, particularly sail-powered ones. After a dismasting, a replacement mast, often referred to as a jury mast and some sail, would be fashioned so that the craft could continue on its journey. That explains the "rigging" part as it is the system of ropes, cables, or chains employed to support a ship's masts and to control or set the yards and sails. 

But what about the "jury" part?

Using "jury" as an adjective, in the sense of makeshift or temporary, has been said to date from at least 1616. There are two parts to the origin of this usage. Part one is that this is a corruption of the French jour meaning "a day." Go back further to the Latin adjutare ("to aid") and the Old French ajurie ("help or relief").

So, my plumber (who likely did not know any French or Latin or has spent much time on ships) was saying that he could "give me some relief for the day."

toady

Have you ever heard someone called a toady? It means someone who flatters excessive, probably in order to gain favor. 

I always thought it was an odd word. Could it have any connection to a toad? That seemed unlikely. 

Surprisingly, there is a connection to the amphibian. Back in the 17th-century in Europe, there were people known as toadeaters. They worked with magicians, showmen and charlatans. As an assistant, one of their jobs was to eat - or at least fake that they were eating - what the audience was told was a poisonous toad or frog. The entertainer (who might also have been selling cures) would then save the assistant by purging the poison from the toadeater. 

These assistants who would do anything to make the charlatan look good became symbols of someone who was very subservient to another. A "toadeater" became the term for a sycophant or any obsequious underling. In the early 1800s, it was shortened to toady and by the middle of that century toady was also being used as a verb meaning "to engage in sycophancy."

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Super Bowl LV (55) in 2021 will be played in Tampa, Florida.
We have already written about the Kansas City Chiefs here,
so today we add their opponent, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football team based in Tampa, and they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. 

They were an NFL expansion team in 1976, along with the Seattle Seahawks. In their first season, they played in the AFC West division and prior to the 1977 season, Tampa Bay switched conferences and divisions with Seattle, becoming a member of the NFC Central division. Then during the 2002 league realignment, the Buccaneers joined three former NFC West teams to form the NFC South. 

The team name of "Buccaneers" was selected early in 1975. The name was said to be reminiscent of José Gaspar and the Buccaneers of the Caribbean. Gaspar (AKA Gasparilla) is an apocryphal Spanish pirate and the "Last of the Buccaneers." According to legend, he sailed and plundered across the Gulf of Mexico and the Spanish Main from his base in southwest Florida.

The term buccaneer was taken from the Spanish bucanero and derives from the Caribbean Arawak word buccan, a wooden frame on which Tainos and Caribs slowly roasted or smoked meat. From it derived the French word boucane and from that, the closely sounding boucanier was used to describe French hunters who used such frames to smoke meat from feral cattle and pigs on Hispaniola. The English colonists anglicized the word as buccaneer.

The nickname "Bucs" quickly became popular (but not the variation of "Bay Bucs").

The team's original colors were green, orange, and white. Orange represented the Florida citrus industry. The green was quickly dropped as being too similar to the teal used by the Miami Dolphins and the greens used by the college Miami Hurricanes and Florida A&M. Red was added as an accent color. Some people say it is a nod to the University of Tampa Spartans and loosely, to the Florida State Seminoles. The orange/red/white combination was now a composite of all major college teams in the state at the time.

Shortly after the franchise was awarded, in February 1975 the team name of "Buccaneers" was selected. The name was said to be reminiscent of José Gaspar and the Buccaneers of the Caribbean Sea, and the color orange representing the Florida citrus industry. Almost immediately, the nickname "Bucs" became popular, but the alternative "Bay Bucs" failed to gain traction.

History of the team logo - via Wikimedia

A few months later, however, green was dropped from the color scheme. The artists' renditions were too similar to the teal used by the Miami Dolphins, as well as the green shades utilized by the Miami Hurricanes and Florida A&M. While they desired to keep the primary color orange, which provided a popular visual link to the Gators, Hurricanes, and Rattlers, they sought to further distinguish themselves. The color red as an accent color was substituted, as a gesture to the former Tampa Spartans and loosely, to the Florida State Seminoles. The orange/red/white combination was now a composite of all major college teams in the state at the time.

There was a conscious effort to distinguish the team's branding from the other NFL "pirate" team, the Raiders. The Bucs would beat the Raiders by a score of 48–21 in Super Bowl XXXVII, nicknamed 'The Pirate Bowl'.