Bob's Your Uncle

As a follow on from yesterday's post on avuncular nepotism, here's a brief account of exactly why Bob is your uncle.

It should be noted that there are several theories for this, and a new one is invented every week, but the standard line* is that it refers to the political career of Arthur Balfour. Balfour was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1902 to 1905, which, given the size of the British Empire, made him pretty much the most powerful man in the world. However, it was not always thus. When he was first elected to parliament in 1874 he was considered a bit of a joke; and when he was suddenly made Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887, everybody thought that it was rampant nepotism because the prime minister who promoted him was his uncle, Robert Cecil.

So, Balfour's easy success was down to the fact that Bob [Cecil] was his uncle.

As I said, there are a bunch of other theories, partially because the earliest written reference comes in 1931. However, if you wanted to know what Uncle Bob looked like, you should (probably) see the picture below.

*Despite what a citationless Wikipedia article may tell you.

Avuncular and Nepotistic Uncles

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews - sons mine... ah God, I know not! Well -

The word nepotism is, literally, nephew-ism; because the Latin for nephew was nepot. However, nepotism gained its current currency from the overactive and sinful loins of the medieval popes. An Italian history of the papacy written in 1667 was titled Il Nipotismo di Roma and it opens thusly:

I begin the History of the Nipotismo, from the time of Sixtus the fourth, since he was the first that delivered up Rome and the Popedom in prey to his Nephews.

Sixtus the Fourth created 34 cardinals, of which six were his nephews; except that they probably weren't. You see a Pope wasn't officially allowed to have any sons, so, when he did, he would pass them off as his nephews and then show them enormous favouritism, or nepotism. So the primary definition of nepotism in the OED is:

The showing of special favour or unfair preference to a relative in conferring a position, job, privilege, etc.; spec. such favour or preference shown to an illegitimate son by a pope or other high-ranking ecclesiastic.

They in turn would have illegitimate sons whom they would pass off as their nephews and so on and so forth until the Roman Church had become thoroughly avuncular.

That's because avuncular just means like an uncle. So if you treat somebody in an avuncular manner, you behave as though you were a friendly and indulgent uncle. That's why nepotistic (being nice to your nephews) is exactly the same thing as avuncular (being nice to your nephews*).

In fact... hmmm... that's a very neat point, but it may be wrong. You see, I just checked, and avuncular, etymologically speaking, means like an avuncul and in Latin an avuncul is a maternal uncle. So perhaps a maternal uncle is kinder because his sister's children are not competing for his own children's inheritance. I don't know anything about Roman inheritance law, but that would make sense. Therefore, both words would have to do with the twisted relationship between uncles and wills.

This brings us inevitably to the nineteenth century and the wonderful dramatic monologues of Robert Browning. One of the best of these, and for some reason one of the least known, is The Bishop Orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church, Rome. It's basically the deathbed speech of a thoroughly corrupt medieval priest who, among other things, can't remember which are his sons and which are his nephews.

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews - sons mine... ah God, I know not! Well -
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

It's an absolutely bloody fantastic poem and you can read the whole thing by clicking on this link. There's a great bit in it where he's describing an ornament that he wants on top of his sarcophagus:

Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...

Such lascivious blasphemy! Read the whole thing here. It's much better than anything I write.



*Nieces are innumerate and don't count.

The Inky Sage

Not so much a post today, as a photograph. On the right you will see a picture of the great man Laszlo Biro. Biro (1899-1985) was a Hungarian journalist who noticed that newspaper ink dried more quickly than the ink in fountain pens. However, it was too viscous to put the one inside the other. So he and his brother came up with the ballpoint which is known today as the biro, although technically Biro should be capped up as, like Hoover or Photoshop, it remains a proprietary name.

As a strange point of linguistic imperialism, Biro was bought out by a Frenchman called Marcel Bich, who started manufacturing Bic Biros. I once bought a Bic Biro and noticed that it said on the side Made in France. What amused me was that this was a French company making a French product and I had bought the Biro in France. But it still said Made in France in English.

Dungle

Some words seem to have been invented just so that they could be used as names for characters in a Charles Dickens novel, or by children's authors. Such a word is dungle. I can just imagine old Professor Dungle pottering about his library, or Mr and Mrs Dungle being the evil family with whom our orphan-hero is forced to live.

In fact, though, dungle has a precise and clear meaning. It's a verb and it means to throw something onto a dunghill; once there the thing is said to be dungled.

It's worthwhile noticing that a dungled person is liable to end up sharny-faced, which is an old Scottish term for bedaubed with dung.

I'm glad I don't live in Old Scotland. However, I also reckon that I could get away with calling somebody sharny-faced and making it sound like a compliment.

As we're on the subject of dunghills, I cannot but quote John Lyly's lovely lines:

It is the disposition of the thought that altereth the nature of the thing. The sun shineth upon the dunghill and is not corrupted, the diamond lieth in the fire and is not consumed, the crystal toucheth the toad and is not poisoned, the trochilus liveth by the mouth of the crocodile and is not spoiled,

This is all terribly true, however the last clause is a bunch of crap:

a perfect wit is never bewitched with lewdness neither enticed with lasciviousness.

Dungled.

Twenty [One] Books on Language

A lady asked me to post a link to her list of the twenty best books on language. So here it is, and a very interesting list it seems too. However, there is one glaring omission that renders it utterly obsolete - it doesn't include this blog's book The Etymologicon.

The mere fact that The Etymologicon doesn't actually come out until November the third does not excuse this. November 3rd is only a few weeks away; and, anyway, you can already pre-order it with FREE SHIPPING TO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD from this website, and that's with a 25% reduction.

And how else are you ever going to find out about the etymological connection between film buffs and buffaloes, or find Mick Jagger's use on a lawn? No how - that's how. No how.

Did I mention the free shipping? Did I? I did? I mentioned the free shipping. Good. Then your Christmas shopping is solved by FOLLOWING THIS LINK.

Gold foil on crimson cloth.

It's all too beautiful.

Umbrellas and Bumbershoots

It's a funny thought for an Englishman that the etymological purpose of an umbrella is to keep the sun off you. Umbrella comes from the Latin umbra, or shade, so an umbrella is a little shade, just as a parasol is a protector-against-the-sun, just as a parachute is a protector-against-falling.

An eldritch combination of the above words is bumbershoot - which is an American slang term for an umbrella and an utterly lovely word to say. Basically, if you mess up the word umbrella you're as likely as not to get something along the lines of brolly or bumber. Then, if you notice that an umbrella looks a bit like a parachute you can add the chute onto the end and get bumbershoot, which first appeared in 1896.

The OED has bumbershoot down as originally and chiefly US. However, I intend to import it the moment that the Indian Summer currently hanging over London perishes in October's icy grip.

Damned sunburn

Anglophone Saxophones

The English-speaking world is anglophone because England (or Angle-land) is named after the Angles who invaded along with the Saxons when the ages were Very Dark Indeed. But what of the poor dear Saxons? Why didn't they get a phone?

Well, they sort of did. You see, the surname Sax or Saxe means Saxon, and does all across northwest Europe. So Adolphe Sax (1814-1894) must have come by a straight male line of descent from a Saxon. So when he patented the saxophone in 1846, the anglophone world was finally reunited with its etymological twin.

Anglophone and saxophone.