Brief Intermission Seven

SOME INTERESTING DERIVATIONS

PEOPLE WHO MADE OUR LANGUAGE

Bloomers

Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller invented them in 1849, and showed a

working model to a famous women’s rights advocate, Amelia J.

Bloomer. Amelia was fascinated by the idea of garments that were

both modest (they then reached right down to the ankles) and

convenient—and promptly sponsored them.…

Boycott

Charles C. Boycott was an English land agent whose difficult duty

it was to collect high rents from Irish farmers. In protest, the

farmers ostracized him, not even allowing him to make purchases in

town or hire workers to harvest his crops.

Marcel

Marcel was an ingenious Parisian hairdresser who felt he could

improve on the button curls popular in 1875. He did, and made a

fortune.

Silhouette

Finance Minister of France just before the Revolution, Etienne de

Silhouette advocated the simple life, so that excess money could go

into the treasury instead of into luxurious living. And the profile is

the simplest form of portraiture, if you get the connection.

Derrick

A seventeenth-century English hangman, Derrick by name, hoisted

to their death some of the most notorious criminals of the day.

Sadist

Because Count de Sade, an eighteenth-century Frenchman, found

his greatest delight in torturing friends and mistresses, the term

sadist was derived from his name. His works shocked his nation and

the world by the alarming frankness with which he described his

morbid and bloodthirsty cruelty.

Galvanism

Luigi Galvani, the Italian physiologist, found by accident that an

electrically charged scalpel could send a frog’s corpse into muscular

convulsions. Experimenting further, he eventually discovered the

principles of chemically produced electricity. His name is

responsible not only for the technical expressions galvanism,

galvanized iron, and galvanometer, but also for that highly graphic

phrase, “galvanized into action.”

Guppies

In 1868, R. J. Lechmere Guppy, president of the Scientific

Association of Trinidad, sent some specimens of a tiny tropical fish

to the British Museum. Ever since, fish of this species have been

called guppies.

Nicotine

Four hundred years ago, Jean Nicot, a French ambassador, bought

some tobacco seeds from a Flemish trader. Nicot’s successful efforts

to popularize the plant in Europe brought him linguistic

immortality.

PLACES THAT MADE OUR LANGUAGE

Bayonne, France

Where first was manufactured the daggerlike weapon that fits

over the muzzle end of a rifle—the bayonet.

Cantalupo, Italy

The first place in Europe to grow those luscious melons we now

call cantaloupes.

Calicut, India

The city from which we first imported a kind of cotton cloth now

known as calico.

Tuxedo Park, New York

In the country club of this exclusive and wealthy community, the

short (no tails) dinner coat for men, or tuxedo, was popularized.

Egypt

It was once supposed that the colorful, fortunetelling wanderers,

or Gypsies, hailed from this ancient land.

Damascus, Syria

Where an elaborately patterned silk, damask, was first made.

Tzu-t’ing, China

Once a great seaport in Fukien Province. Marco Polo called it

Zaitun, and in time a silk fabric made there was called satin.

Frankfurt, Germany

Where the burghers once greatly enjoyed their smoked beef and

pork sausages, which we now ask for in delicatessen stores and

supermarkets by the name of frankfurters, franks, or hot dogs.