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Blog: drawboy's cigar box (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Studio Bowes Art (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Studio Bowes Art (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Art, Words, Life (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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I vote for goat!
Blog: Creative Whimsies (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Day 1: Meet Zelda P. Bird modeling her best cape and hat. |
Nibbles has a wicked sense of humor which Stubby does not appreciate. |
Dance like there's no one watching. |
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Language, goat, Oxford Etymologist, word origins, etymology, anatoly liberman, buggers, Editor's Picks, *Featured, bigots, Dictionaries & Lexicography, Beguines, Beghards, Albigensians, Beggars, Johannes Laurentius Mosheim, Books, Add a tag
By Anatoly Liberman
Apart from realizing that each of the three words in question (beggar, bugger, and bigot) needs an individual etymology, we should keep in mind that all of them arose as terms of abuse and sound somewhat alike. The Beguines, Beghards, and Albigensians have already been dealt with. Before going on, perhaps I should say that Johannes Laurentius Mosheim’s book De Beghardis et Beguinabus Commentarius, published by Weidmann in Leipzig, 1790, is still a most useful work to consult. The first chapter (a hundred pages) is devoted to the names Beguina, Beguinus, Begutta, and Beghardus. If I am not mistaken, this commentary, unlike his Ecclesiastic History…, has not been translated into any major European language and is available only in the original Latin.
Mosheim listed the following hypothetical sources on the derivation of Beguine and the rest: bonus-garten “good cultivator;” St. Begga, the founder of a cloister; Lambert le Bègue (the stammerer), the founder of the order; the word beguin occurring in the old dictionaries by Cotgrave and Florio (“skullcap; a kind of coarse gray cloth poor religious men wore”); the Latin adjective benignum “benign” (neuter); the German verb beginnen “begin” (because the beguttæ were about to enter monastic life); the verbs began ~ biggan “worship”; the verb began “to beg,” either as members of the mendicant orders do or perhaps from their earnest prayer to God; and finally, bi Gott. Some of those hypotheses have circulated much later (the bi Gott tale proved to be especially popular) and have been discussed in my posts. Others are too naïve to deserve our attention today, and still others, by modern scholars, will also be known to the readers of this miniseries and of the essay “Nobody wants to be a bigot.” Those interested in the way from “earnest praying” to mocking names may look up the origin of Lollard.
The core of the problem is the similarity between the three words: bigot, beggar, and bugger. It can but need not be accidental. In the 2012 post, I made much of Maurice Grammont’s connection between bigot and Albigenses and wondered why such a good idea had escaped lexicographers. Since then I have run into several earlier passing references to this connection, which means that Grammont was not the first to trace bigot to the name of the religious order. Yet I have not seen this etymology in any dictionary. It won’t be too bold to suggest that bugger takes us to Bulgarian in its French guise (possibly confused with a homonymous swearword), bigot to Albigenses, and beggar to Beguine. The semantic root is the same, namely “heretic,” hence “pervert; scoundrel; scum,” with further specification to “fanatic” (bigot), “sodomite” (bugger), and “mendicant” (beggar). But, to repeat, it may not be fortuitous that all three words sound so much alike. The reason for the similarity seems to be the onomatopoeic complex b-g ~ b-k (the hyphen stands for any short vowel).
In various Romance Standard languages and especially dialects one finds words like bécqueter “to peck,” bégayer “to stammer” (a stammerer “pecks” at words, as it were, unable to pronounce them), bégauder “to vomit,” and Old French le gesier begaie “to split.” Part of the scene is dominated by the word for “goat” and nouns, verbs, and adjectives more or less clearly derived from it, including devices resembling the goat (either its frame or two horns). Such are bigue and bique “goat” (even the diminutive bigot “goat” and the adjective bigot “lame, limping” have been recorded); bigorna “bigot” and “lame”; bigorner “to squint.” More troublesome is Italian sbigottire “dismay, bewilder” (s-, as always, goes back to ex-) and French faire bigoter “irritate.” One is reminded of the English idiom to get one’s goat. Did it surface as a bilingual joke among the French or less probably Italian Americans? The few current explanations of this phrase strike me as fanciful. Related to sbigottire are bigollone “simpleton, fool; idler” (contrary to common sense, domestic animals—goats, cows, and rams—often epitomize foolishness, at least in idioms) and, to prove the opposite, bigatto “cunning.”
Still another bigot means “mattock; hoe.” In its vicinity we find biga ~ viga “beam’ (along with Italian biga “chariot”) and a whole world of long, elongated, split in two, and cylindrical objects: bigot (masculine plural) “spaghetti,” bigolini “short hair,” bigo “worm,” bigolo “penis” (of course: is there any verbal sphere without “penis,” or membrum virile, as the well-behaved linguists of the past glossed it?), numerous words denoting “moustache,” and quite possibly French bigoudi “hair curler” (the descendant of curl papers). My sources have been Leo Spitzer, Gerhard Rolfs, and Francesca M. Dovetto, who cite dozens of such words.
Only the names for “goat” seem to be fully transparent from an etymological point of view. Goats are often called big-big and bik-bik, even though for bleating mek and its likes occur more often than b-words. Some paths from “goat” are more easily recoverable than others. But if we stay with the idea that big- attaches itself to “stupid animals,” fools, and idlers, we will realize that, once a derogatory term for “heretic” was coined, it received strong reinforcement from many sound symbolic or sound imitative formations with negative characteristics. In such words vowels vary frequently, so that big-, beg-, and bug- were always at speakers’ “beck and call.” It was easy to humiliate a person by calling him a beggar or a bugger, regardless of the precise sense implied. The inspiration came from France. Very soon the offensive names found a new home in the Dutch-speaking world and from there traveled to England.
The words for “beak” and “pecking” can also be traced to the sound imitative complexes discussed above, which should not surprise us. While dealing with onomatopoeia, one cannot apply the terms “related” and “homonymous.” The complex b-g ~ b-k is almost universal, and its range is impossible to predict. In the Germanic languages, it often refers to swelling, as in Engl. big, bag, and bug. Swollen things burst, make a lot of noise, and frighten people; hence bugaboo, bogey, and the rest. As we have seen, the b-g ~ b-k group is used widely in coining “goat words” and terms of abuse. I would add bicker, the theme of still another recent post, to the b-k list. Its immediate source seems to have been the German, originally perhaps Dutch, word bickel, a gambling term. It would be risky to say definitely what exactly bickel meant, because in the Middle Ages the same word often meant the board game and the die (a classic example is the Latin gloss alea “a die”). Rather probably, bickel is another coinage of French descent, but where exactly it belongs among so many b-g ~ b-k nouns would be hard to tell.
We will now let the curtain fall over the history of religious prejudice, bigotry, persecution, and gambling. It is customary to admire the world of medieval and early modern carnivals. Carnivals certainly existed as a supplement to cruelty and an unbridled gratification of animal instincts. To some very small extent, this world has been subdued, but the evil words we have inherited do not allow us to forget how people lived many centuries ago. There are few windows to the past like etymology.
Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears on the OUPblog each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to him care of [email protected]; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.” Subscribe to Anatoly Liberman’s weekly etymology articles via email or RSS.
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Image credit: Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694-1755), Kupferstich / copper engraving 1735. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The post Beggars, buggers, and bigots, part 4 appeared first on OUPblog.
Blog: the enchanted easel (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: primary colors, paintbrush, the enchanted easel, friendship, animals, children's illustration, paint, goat, stories for children magazine, teamwork, whimsical, horse, cow, barn, Add a tag
Blog: sketched out (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: illustration, drawing, humor, cartoon, sketch, stuff, children's illustration, goat, sketchbook, sketching, e-reader, clothesline, Add a tag
After the flurry of sketching in November and December, January saw a sharp decline. Need to get back in the sketching saddle. Hmmmm, sketching saddle, that might be something to sketch, hee hee!
Anywho, this is a detail of the line, from a page, for an e-reader (in the House that Jack built, no, sorry,) that I’m working on.
Hope you’re having a lovely 2013 so far!
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Children's Books, reviews, family, running, friendship, literacy, pig, book review, picture books, emotions, illustrations, circus, goat, picture book review, children's book, trains, competition, plane, chicken, boats, hay stack, cow, duck, childrens book review, picture book illustrations, bicycles, hot air balloon, helping friends, early learning, chasing, barge, caught, 4stars, Library Donated Books, Chasing Watermelons, watermelon feast, bi-plane, chidren's book illustrations, Chimeric Press, circus tent, companionship, crates, cut watermelon, Kevin White, Kid Lit Reviews, Rex White, river boat, trust, watermelons, Add a tag
4 Stars Chasing Watermelons Kevin White Rex White 32 Pages Ages: 3 to 6 ……………… Press Release: When Duck opens a crate of watermelons for a watermelon feast, they begin to roll. Duck chases after them. One by one, Duck invites Goat, Pig, Chicken, and Cow to join the chase by promising, “If you help, [...]
Add a CommentBlog: blog 30 x 30 - Chuck Dillon's blog. (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: animals, goat, pigeon, philadelphia zoo, american sign language, squirrel monkey, Add a tag
I'm currently finishing up a big project for the Philadelphia Zoo's new children zoo which should be open next spring. Among many animal illustrations (60 or so) I also have to make American Sign Language signs as shown above. Can anyone guess what is being signed?
Blog: the dust of everyday life (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: the enchanted easel (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: the enchanted easel, cute, animals, children's illustration, paint, goat, postcards, whimsical, horse, cow, barn, vistaprint, picture book art, Add a tag
planning to have these mailed out by the end of may..right after i make some edits and revisions to my mailing list:)
also, a print of this illustration entitled 'teamwork' can be found FOR SALE here:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/76543425/teamwork-reproduction
nothin' like a little 'teamwork'...;)
Blog: Watercolor Wednesdays (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: goat, invitation, children's book art, Add a tag
My first book. Mostly in watercolor.
Blog: the enchanted easel (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: cute, animals, paint, farm, goat, green, stories for children magazine, blue, whimsical, horse, yellow, cow, barn, the enchanted easel, Add a tag
Blog: Watercolor Wednesdays (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: wolf, Bird, goat, Fox, Lemur, kudo, Julie Hammond, animals of Israel, Add a tag
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Celebrities, Adaptation, goat, rabbit, spit, George R.R. Martin, HBO, head cheese, A Song of Ice and Fire, celebrity chef, food truck, Game of Thrones, squab, Tom Colicchio, Add a tag
Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio created a Game of Thrones food truck to promote HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin‘s A Song of Ice and Fire series.
The menu includes rabbit, squab cooked in sweet wine, and a head cheese dish. Colicchio told Jacket Copy he did his homework for the menu: “These are things that are right out of the book. Every night we’ll have lemon cakes out on the truck … If I really could do it, I would have whole goats roasting on a spit.”
The video embedded above features Colicchio preparing some of the Game of Thrones menu items. Bibliophiles and foodies can find the truck in New York City from March 28th to April 1st and in Los Angeles from April 4th to April 8th. HBO will air the series starting April 17th.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Add a CommentBlog: Whateverings (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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…I would have taken photos of these (below), but I did quicky cartoon pictures instead. My “faux photos”, if you will: The Peeing Goat. Yes, somebody in the neighborhood has a small, black goat tied up in their front yard. I’ve seen him twice when taking a walk. I did a double take the first time, assuming [...]
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Moleskine, mixed media, goat, rooster, from my sketchbook, cow, farm animals, Add a tag
A small sketch utilizing some new, painted textures.
Blog: Sugar Frosted Goodness (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Post Somethin' Monday, goat, ukulele, Jerrold Connors, Add a tag
Hey, SFG. Here's an ink drawing I did for an ukulele instruction book I wrote and self-published in 2002. It's somethin'.
Been missing your humor – glad your back!
Thanks for this. We missed you.
Awww, you guys are so nice! Glad to be back!
Miss you girl!! Look at that naughty little goat….. cute and naughty!
so cute