Cock and Bull Stories

Signs for the two inns -- via  Cnyborg/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

A "cock and bull" story is one that is rather unbelievable. The phrase sounds a bit obscene.

The most common origin is that the phrase is connected to two inns in Stony Stratford, England. Stony Stratford ("the stony ford on the Roman road") was an important stop for coaches in the 18th and early 19th centuries that carried mail and passengers en route to and from London to northern England.

One version of the etymology says that rivalry between groups of travelers resulted in exaggerated and fanciful stories told on those coaches and in the two inns in town, which became known as 'cock and bull stories'.

The inns are real (signs for them above). Both were on the coach road (A5 or Watling Street). The Cock Hotel is documented to have existed in one form or another on the current site since at least 1470. The Bull existed at least before 1600.

The second most common origin story is that these stories were another form of folk tales that featured magical animals, such as those found in Aesop's fables or The Arabian Nights.

The early 17th-century French term coq-a-l'âne ("rooster to jackass") is sometimes mentioned as the origin, and that it was imported into English, though I found little evidence for this. However, the Lallans/Scots word "cockalayne" with the same type of meaning appears to be a direct phonetic transfer from the French.

I wondered if there is any connection to the words poppycock and bullshit.

"Poppycock" appears to be a much more recent mid-19th-century Americanism. It might come from the Dutch pappekak, which literally does mean dung or excrement, whether from a bull or not.

Poppycock tends to be used for pretty lightweight nonsense, while bullshit has the stronger sense of the intention of deceiving or misleading. "Bullshit," once considered taboo and an expletive, seems more acceptable these days. It is also an Americanism from the early 20th century. It may have a connection to the Middle English word bull.   

The idiom "shoot the bull", meaning to talk aimlessly, was used in the 17th century. It came from Medieval Latin bulla, meaning to play, game, or jest. You still hear people use the shorter and more acceptable "bull" to mean bullshit, as well as the shorter and even less acceptable "shit" to mean the same thing.

Simple Minds

It's always nice when I find a simple explanation for the origin of a band's name. And so it seems appropriate that this is the case the simple explanation is for the band Simple Minds.

Simple Minds, 1982   image link

Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 1977. Their name is taken from a line in the David Bowie song "Jean Genie."

The band is currently a core duo of original members Jim Kerr (vocals) and Charlie Burchill (guitar), augmented by guest musicians. 

Initially signed to Arista Records, Simple Minds released their debut album Life in a Day in 1979 to moderate commercial success, while the following two albums, Real to Real Cacophony (1979) and Empires and Dance (1980), achieved critical praise but limited sales. 

"Don't You (Forget About Me)", their contribution to the bestselling soundtrack of the very popular 1985 film The Breakfast Club, became their breakthrough hit in the US, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. 

The following album, Once Upon a Time (1985), reached number one in the UK and the Netherlands, the top three in Canada and New Zealand, and the top ten in the US. It was certified 3x Platinum in the UK and Gold in the US, and spawned four more hit singles - "Alive and Kicking", "Sanctify Yourself", "All the Things She Said" and "Ghostdancing". 

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN (and stylized as NIИ), is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988. 

Its members are the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Trent Reznor and his frequent collaborator, Atticus Ross. Reznor was previously the only permanent member of the band until Ross became an official member in 2016. 

The band's debut album, Pretty Hate Machine (1989), was released via TVT Records. After disagreements with TVT over how the album would be promoted, the band signed with Interscope Records and released the EP Broken (1992), followed by the albums The Downward Spiral (1994) and The Fragile (1999). 

Why did Reznor choose the name Nine Inch Nails for his band?. Here’s a list of some of the NIN band name origin theories:

• the Statue of Liberty’s nails are nine inches long (factually incorrect)
• coffin nails are typically nine inches long (at one time)
• there is enough iron in the human body to produce a nine-inch nail (factually incorrect)
• a reference to an obscure song lyric from a Tori Amos song (No, NIN had already been around for several years before its release)
• Freddy Krueger’s claws are nine inches long
• Jesus was crucified with nine-inch spikes

Reznor eventually put all these rumors and theories to rest by saying that Nine Inch Nails was simply one of approximately 200 potential band names. This one stuck, and it could be abbreviated easily.

Reznor during the 1991 Lollapalooza festival
Photo: Rik Goldman, CC BY-SA 3.0

When touring these days, Reznor typically assembles a live band to perform with him under the Nine Inch Nails name. Nine Inch Nails has sold over 20 million records worldwide and been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, winning for the songs "Wish" in 1992 and "Happiness in Slavery" in 1996. 

Time magazine named Reznor one of its most influential people in 1997, while Spin magazine has described him as "the most vital artist in music". In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Nine Inch Nails No. 94 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Nine Inch Nails was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.

Apostrophe: Poem and Punctuation

I was writing a post for my Poets Online magazine about the poetry form, the apostrophe. As I was writing, I wondered if there was some connection to the apostrophe punctuation mark. Yes, there is a connection between the apostrophe poetic form and the punctuation mark, and it lies in their shared Greek etymology.

The connection is not in their function, but in the original meaning of the word. Both come from the same ancient Greek root meaning: "a turning away" or "elision" (an omission).

In the omission apostrophe (Figure of Speech), the speaker turns away from the immediate audience to address an absent person, an inanimate object, or an abstract idea (e.g., "O Death, be not proud"). In the apostrophe poetry form, the poem is addressed to someone or something absent (dead, not present, or unable to respond, such as with inanimate objects or abstract feelings).

The apostrophe punctuation mark literally shows where a letter or letters have been omitted in a contraction (e.g., 'tis for it is, or don't for do not.

Which Came First? The literary device is the older of the two. The rhetorical use of "apostrophe" to mean an address to an absent entity has been found in Greek drama and rhetoric since ancient times. The punctuation mark, which was introduced to English via French and Latin, only appeared in the 16th century to specifically mark the omission of a letter in writing.

Here's a very detailed explanation of the two:

Drawing Room, Parlor, Living Room and other room names

In my house as a child, we didn't have a "drawing room," but I read about them in novels and heard the term used in movies. I wanted one.

A drawing room is a formal living room in a house, traditionally used for entertaining guests. Today, the term is less common in the U.S. (we’d just say "living room" and some old timers might say "sitting room"), but drawing room is still sometimes used in Britain, in historical fiction, and period dramas.

But who is drawing in these rooms?

The term comes from the 17th-century shortening of withdrawing room — a space where people could “withdraw” after dinner for conversation, tea, or other socializing, away from the more functional rooms like the dining room or kitchen.

In historic English and upper-class homes, the drawing room was usually elegantly furnished and he social hub for polite company. There was no eating of full meals there, but it was often positioned near the dining room for ease of transition after dinner, and there might be drinks and finger foods.

What are the differences between a drawing room, parlor, and living room, since they’re related but not identical?

Parlor, from the French parler (to speak), was originally a reception room for guests or clergy. In Victorian times, it was also a place for family events like weddings or funerals. It could be formal or semi-formal, depending on the household. Less exclusive than a drawing room, it might be where the family actually sat and talked.

As I said earlier, in my house we had a dining room and a living room, a term popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as homes became less formal. It was a comfortable, everyday space for the family. Sometimes, we lounged there. Sometimes I napped or slept there after dozing off watching TV. It was also as formal as we could be with guests.

A drawing room says, “Let’s impress the guests.” A parlor says, “Let’s sit and talk.” The living room says, “Let’s relax and be ourselves.”

Back to Square One

Have you heard the phrase "back to square one" and wondered what and where is "square one?" It means to go back to the starting place. It may have once been a literal place, but now it is a metaphor for a restart. The phrase implies some perseverance and starting over rather than giving up. 

I assumed it had to do with some board game, and that may be correct. One origin story is that “square one” is the starting point of the game Snakes and Ladders. This 19th-century British board game came from an earlier ancient Hindu game called Moksha Patamu. Americans will know it as Chutes and Ladders, the still-popular children's game version created by Milton Bradley in 1943. They got rid of the scary snake and made chutes/slides.

 
The American game, with its literal "square 1"

In all three versions of the game, players roll dice and move across squares on the board, climbing ladders along the way. But if you land on a snake or a chute, you fall back to where you started - on square one. 

The second origin story I found seems less likely to have become widespread in usage. It comes from British football (soccer). When the earliest live radio broadcast of a British football game occurred in 1927, to help listeners picture the location of the ball during play, a grid diagram of the football pitch (soccer field) was printed in a newspaper. This might be similar to a diagram a coach would use to designate zones for players. Radio commentators referenced those grid numbers during the broadcast, and “square one” was the rear left quadrant of the defender’s side of the field. That’s where the goalie would initiate a new play after an attack failed. Therefore, the ball and the players were “back at square one.” 

How French Entered English After 1066

 

A recent trip to England, when I visited the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, where the Battle of Hastings occurred, inspired me to do a series of posts about how the English language changed after that battle.

William the Conqueror of Normandy, France, invaded British soil, and these French-speaking Normans eventually defeated the Old English-speaking Saxons led by King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. Language experts often cite this as the start of a period of time having a more pronounced effect on the development of the English language than any other event in history. 

Some changes occurred very quickly and others took longer to be accepted, but in the course of a few centuries, English went from being a strictly Germanic language to one infused with a large Latinate vocabulary, which came via French.

You can read all my posts about French into English, including this recent series covering words about legal topics, warfare, food, religion, government, literature, and even things of pleasure.

Ecclesiastical Words That Come from French

On 28 September 1066, William the Conqueror of Normandy arrived on British soil. He defeated the British in the Battle of Hastings on October 14, and on Christmas Day, he was crowned King of England in Westminster Abby. In the years and centuries that followed, English took on many French words to add to its Anglo-Saxon and Germanic base. This is our sixth post about how English changed after that defeat.

Canterbury Cathedral goes back to 597AD when St Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory
 the Great as a missionary, established his seat (or 'Cathedra') in Canterbury.
 In 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral and ever since,
the Cathedral has attracted thousands of pilgrims, as told famously
 in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

For example, when Chaucer wrote in the opening of lines of The Canterbury Tales that when April's sweet showers pierce the drought of March and "Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages," it was 300 years after the Norman Invasion. By then, the English word pilgrim was in widespread use. The French word pelegrin — meaning "foreign" — in turn came from a Latin root for "abroad." Pilgrim and pilgrimage have the same root as the English word peregrinate, which means to travel, especially on foot.

Many of those words that entered English were ecclesiastical words from religion and the church. The word religion itself first appeared in English to mean "life under monastic vows." The Old French word religion derived from a Latin word meaning "obligation, bond, reverence."

A life under monastic vows came with all sorts of practices, like saying one's prayers, derived from the Old French verb preier "to ask earnestly." A preiere was something "obtained by entreaty" and of uncertain outcome. This sense of uncertainty is reflected in English words sharing the same root as prayer, including precarious, deprecate, postulate, and expostulate.

The word for preach, however, came from an Old French root meaning not to ask but "to proclaim." The French verb prechier came from the Latin praedicare, to "pre + declare."

The holiness of saint (from Old French seint) can be found in the word's Latin root sanctus, meaning "holy." The English word sanctuary is from Old French sanctuaire, which originally meant a "church or other sacred place where a fugitive was immune by the law of the medieval church from arrest." Related English words include sanctify, sanctity, and sanctimonious.

Merci is a French word still in use, today as the equivalent of the English "thank you" — and in Old French it meant "pity" — just as we still use it in the phrase "have mercy on me." We also use this root when we speak of merciless killings and merciful people.

More words from French

French Pleasure After the Norman Conquest

 

William

The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson. Harold's defeat began the Norman Conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 mi (11 km) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory. It had a pronounced effect on the development of the English language, changing English from a strictly Germanic language to one infused with a large Latinate vocabulary, which came via French.

This fifth post in this series looks at words surrounding pleasure and pastime that come to us by way of French. Let's start with the word pleasure itself, from Old French plaisir, "to please." 

Delight is derived from Old French delitier, "to charm, allure, please." Later, in English, the verb took on the function of a noun as well. It's the basis for the word "delicate" as well as a bounty of food-related words, including the delicacy you might purchase at a deli and find to be delectable, or delicious.

Delight is often associated with joy, another word entering Middle English from Old French. The French joie was based on the Latin verb "to rejoice." 

If someone jumps up and down with joy and then starts to dance, they might be described with another English word that came in through French. The Old French verb is dancer, and it came from a Germanic root that meant "to stretch."

To act at leisure or to dally — these are also words we get from the French. Old French leisir was based on Latin licere, "be allowed" — and is the basis for the word license as well. The Old French word dalier meant "to chat" and was a word used commonly in Anglo-Norman in the years just after the invasion, when a sort of bilingual society existed — with nobles chatting in French and common folk in English. The word dalliance actually started out in English meaning "conversation" but has since come to take on the meaning of "amorous flirtation."

Sport also derives from French. In Middle English, sport meant broadly "hobby" or "entertainment"; it came from the French word disport. 

The English music is from Old French musique via Latin from Greek for the "art of the Muses." The root is also the basis for amuse, bemuse, mosaic, and museum.

More words from French

Legal Terms from French

This fourth post is on legal words from French that entered English after the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Norman legal system forms the primary basis for the vocabulary of our modern legal system. 

A defendant is summoned to court, from the Old French cort, from the Latin word for yard. If it's a civil affair, one might hope that all people "present at court" (the original meaning of courtier) will be courteous, which originally meant "having manners fit for a royal court."

A complaint is filed by the plaintiff, from the Old French word plaintive — a "lamentation" — which is itself derived from a Latin word, planctus, meaning "beating of the breast."

During the course of a trial, both sides usually introduce evidence, from Old French meaning "obvious to the eye or mind." It's a word composed of the French prefix e ("out" as in evict) and videre "to see." Evidence is laid out for everyone to see.

Perhaps the defendant is in fact a felon, from the Old French word felon, which meant "wicked" or "a wicked person."

During a court hearing and in other legal matters, attorneys advocate and provide advocacy, words that came into Middle English from Old French, from a verb that meant "to call to one's aid." The voc root is also part of words like vocabulary, vocalize, vocation, vociferous, voice, vouch, voucher, vowel, equivocate, evocatory, provoke, and revoke.

A verdict could be made by a group of peers, a jury, from the Old French juree, an oath or inquiry. Or perhaps, the judge will enter a judgment in the final stages of the judicial process and justice will have been served. These are words that came into English through French, and all revolve around the Latin root jus — "law" and also "right." It's also the root for judicious and judiciary.

More words from French

Words of War from French

Our continuing series of words from French that entered English after the Norman invasion of 1066 brings us to words of warfare and the military. It is not surprising that some words that entered English after William the Conqueror of Normandy, France, defeated Old English-speaking Saxons at the Battle of Hastings, and that this category of words was part of that change. Within the course of a few centuries, English went from being a strictly Germanic language to one infused with a large Latinate vocabulary, which came via French.

The English adapted from their French-speaking Norman invaders many words surrounding elements of war. We send to faraway lands, for example, our soldiers, a word that came to us in Middle English from the Old French word soldier from soulde, the Latin word for a "gold coin of the Roman Empire."

Our soldiers are sent off in battalions to do battle, from Old French bataille, based on late Latin battualia describing "military or gladiatorial exercises" — from the Latin root verb "to beat."

In the course of the war, sometimes a sergeant (Old French, sergent) or commander calls for a siege, based on the Old French sege — from asegier, a verb that means "to besiege." Originally, in Middle English, besiege meant to "sit down in front of."

The Old French verb armer means "to supply with weapons" and is the basis of our army, as well as armor and armory. Navy also came into Middle English from Old French, from the Latin word for ship, navis, which also forms the root of navigation.

A traitor is a person guilty of treason, both from Anglo-Norman French treisoun, meaning "handing over."

The word war itself is distinctly Anglo-Norman. The late Old English word werre, which evolved to modern English war, is from an Anglo-Norman French variant of the Old (and Modern) French word guerre.

Werre (Old English war) also shares a Germanic base with the word "worse." The old Germanic werra indicated "confusion, discord." (Modern German developed a different word entirely for war, krieg.) Middle English warrior is from Old Northern French werreior, a variation of guerreior, "to make war."

A war can end after defeat or retreat (Old French retraiter, "to pull back") or after a treaty (Old French traite), and this might lead to everlasting peace, which came to English from Latin pax via the French word pais.

More words from French

My Morning Jacket

cover of is (import album)

My Morning Jacket is an American rock band formed in 1998 in Louisville, Kentucky. They are known for their psychedelic hippie rock. The band is comprised of Jim James (singer-songwriter, guitarist), Tom 'Two-Tone Tommy' Blankenship (bassist), Patrick Hallahan (drummer), Carl Broemel (guitarist, pedal steel guitarist, saxophonist, vocalist), and Bo Koster (keyboardist, percussionist, vocalist).

The band at the Newport Folk Festival in 2015

They are a great example of a band that doesn't really want to explain their band name origin. I might even guess that the name My Morning Jacket has no real origin, hence the mystery.

During our research, we found an article from 2008 by The Independent that revealed a story that lead singer Jim James had told in regard to the band’s name. According to the article, James was visiting an old friend and discovered that his favorite bar had burned down. In these burned remains, he found a jacket with the initials “MMJ” stitched on it, and thus My Morning Jacket was born.

However, other sources claim that James has told numerous, conflicting stories about how the band’s name came to be. He has said that the name came from him writing down various things in a lyrics notebook and that My Morning Jacket happened to be one of those things. He’s also said that the name is just “a weird name for a band.” 

A similar story to the one in that article by Jim James who said he was visiting his old student-hangout bar (Boot's Bar in Lexington), which had been razed by a fire. Amongst the charred remains, he came upon a jacket which had stitched "MMJ", which he took to mean "My Morning Jacket."

A rather far-fetched story is that it is slang for when a man wakes up in the morning with an erection with a condom already on.

This online post collects a number of origins

Literary Words from French

This is the second of our series of words from French that entered English after the Norman invasion of 1066. When William the Conqueror of Normandy, France, defeated Old English-speaking Saxons led by Harold II, King of England, at the Battle of Hastings, many words entered English. This did not happen immediately but was a process over the course of several centuries. English moved from being a Germanic-based language to one with a large Latinate vocabulary via French. In this post, we look at words referring to literature.

The death of Harold, as shown on the Bayeux Tapestry

The English word literature comes down from the Old French lettre. In the singular, the word in French refers to a member of the alphabet; when it's plural, it's as broad as it is in our phrase "Arts and Letters," encompassing literature and culture.

The pen came into English from the Old French penne, "a feather with a sharpened quill." It was dipped in enque, the Old French word for ink came from a Latin word that described the purple fluid meant for a very specific use - the Roman emperor's official stamp of approval.

Various genres of English literature derive their names from French roots, some of which ultimately derive from Greek. Poet, for example, we got from the Old French word poete, which entered French from Greek via Latin. In Greek, there's poiein, a verb meaning "to create." And in Greek there is poetes, "maker, poet." In Middle English, "poetry" at first referred to creative literature as a whole.

Tragedy in English is from the Old French tragedie via Latin from Greek tragoidia. The reasoning behind the Greek roots (tragos, meaning "goat" and oide "ode, song") is not entirely clear. On that note, mystery, from Old French mistere, was a word first used in English with the sense of "mystic presence" or "hidden religious" symbolism.

Comedy at first referred in English to a genre of stories in which the ending was a happy one. It also came into Middle English through Old French, via Latin from Greek, where it's a compound of the words "revel" and "singer." Comedian first referred to a person who wrote comic plays, and then — in the late 1800s — developed the sense of a person who stands in front of an audience and tells jokes.

Journal is from Old French jurnal, or "belonging to a day." At first, it was a sort of reference book that contained the times of daily prayers. In the 1600s, it acquired the meaning of "diary" and later became associated with newspaper titles and lent its root to journalism.

More words from French