The Unexpected Evolution of Language (17 page)

Stories filtered back home. These stories suggested that legions of Vishnu’s followers sacrificed themselves (or were sacrificed) to Vishnu under the wheels of the juggernaut. Other tales were told of entire houses being dismantled to make way for the juggernaut.

Thus, a juggernaut became any large, implacable, unstoppable object. The ceremony that gave English the word “juggernaut” continues to this day.

juggler

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
wizard; sorcerer

NEW DEFINITION:
one who keeps several objects in the air simultaneously

Now that juggling is one of those diversions—like card tricks—that bore jaded modern audiences, you may be interested to know that, at one time, a juggler was so much more than a person who keeps a few balls in the air. He was a wizard, a sorcerer, a practitioner of magic.

The word goes back to the dawn of the Middle Ages, and at that time, jugglers did pretty much what they do now. In addition to keeping several objects aloft, they might tell jokes or funny stories. After all, the Latin word at “juggler’s” root means joker.

Jugglers got a bad name—as practitioners of magic—as the Middle Ages progressed. Religious fuddy-duddies went about accusing jugglers of being wizards and sorcerers and basically—to use a modern expression—harshed their mellow. The “art” stopped being performed publicly.

It never died, however. By the eighteenth century, the first modern circuses developed, and they were filled with jugglers. You’ll still find jugglers in circuses today, but they’re more likely to be tossing around chainsaws and machetes.

jury

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
temporary

NEW DEFINITION:
group that decides a legal verdict

“Juries” used to come in two types: noun and adjective. The noun always has had legal overtones, while the adjective suggested makeshift or temporary. The same word has two very different identities because they come from two different roots.

“Jury,” as in makeshift, has a colorful origin. First off, this “jury’s” most recent ancestor is an Old French word, “ajurie,” which means “help or relief.” Some sources disagree and suggest that “jury” is a corruption of the French word for “day,” (“jour”) which indicates something “juried” is meant to be temporary.

The adjective is nautical. A “jury mast” was a makeshift mast—the “pole” that holds up a ship’s sails—fashioned when a storm at sea, or some other calamity, caused the original mast to break. Thus, this new mast came to the aid of the sailors, but it also was meant to be a temporary fix.

The term “jury-rig” still exists, but “jury” as an adjective in isolation has fallen into disuse. Thus, the only “jury” today is the type that you’ll find in a courtroom.

Jury, as in group that makes a verdict, comes from root words that mean, variously, oath, swear, and law. A jury swears an oath to uphold the law. The word’s most recent ancestor is the Old French “juree.”

K

keister

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
strongbox; chest

NEW DEFINITION:
buttocks

The English language has thieves and pickpockets to thank for this colorful word for “ass.”

The word derives from the German word “kist,” meaning chest, as in “place for valuables.” Germans kept their loot in their “kists,” and, of course, some nefarious folks would break into those “kists.”

When English speakers “stole” the word, a chest, safe, or strongbox became a “keister.” Thus, a burglar might rifle around in your “keister,” looking for nuggets. Enter pickpockets.

By the nineteenth century, pickpockets were so common in England that they make regular appearances in Charles Dickens’s work. The charming albeit cheeky Artful Dodger of
Oliver Twist
is a pickpocket, for example.

Since “keister” already referred to a place for valuables, some pickpockets began to call a mark’s rear pants pocket a “keister.” Thus, “keister” stopped being the pocket and became the fleshy appurtenances underneath the pocket.

ketchup

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
Chinese condiment made of the brine of pickled fish

NEW DEFINITION:
tomato-based condiment

For such a quotidian item, ketchup has an exotic history. The Chinese words from which ketchup derived—kichap and koechiap—meant brine of pickled fish. This nasty-sounding concoction, invented by the Chinese in the late 1600s, was intended as a condiment.

Ketchup was common in England by the 1740s, but, at that time, it was used generically to refer to “spiced sauce” and could contain nearly everything: mushrooms, walnuts, shellfish. A tomato-based version was in existence by the early 1800s, but that variety did not become synonymous with the ketchup everyone knows today until the mid-1800s.

One reason tomato ketchup became popular was that many were afraid to eat fresh tomatoes during that time. They were still somewhat exotic, and people thought they might be poisonous, in the same way that people tend to be wary of mushrooms. Folks thought that a processed product like ketchup was safer. Heinz released its version of tomato ketchup in 1876, and the condiment was on its way to tables across America.

By the way, the alternate spelling of “catsup” was an attempt to Anglicize the word ketchup, which people considered too exotic. To this day, both spellings are common.

Fifty-Seven Varieties

For many, ketchup and Heinz are linked. Since 1896, the Pittsburgh company has used as one of its slogans, “57 varieties.” Many believe this is the number of products the company offered when it developed the slogan, but they are wrong.

When the company came up with the slogan, it already offered more than sixty products, including mock turtle soup, mincemeat, Indian relish, and even breakfast cereal. One day, company founder Henry J. Heinz saw an ad for a store that offered twenty-one varieties of shoes.

He wanted to create a slogan that was even more impressive. Heinz focused on fifty-seven because five was his lucky number, and seven was his wife’s lucky number.

L

lewd

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
lay (as in, not a member of the clergy)

NEW DEFINITION:
lascivious; lecherous

Class distinctions sometimes affect innocent words. Take “lewd,” for example. The word meant “nonclerical,” as in, this “lewd” person is not a priest or bishop; he’s a regular guy. In olden times, members of the clergy were well educated. After all, they needed not only knowledge of God and the Bible but also different ways to refute arguments against God and the Word of God. They needed to be able to parse biblical concordances with the care of a present-day lawyer reading lewd (in the modern sense) text messages from a man to his mistress.

The word degenerated due to snobbery. Someone “nonclerical” is likely to be unlettered … i.e., uneducated. Uneducated people—sniff, sniff—were considered coarse and vulgar. Now, one tends to think of “lewd” as connected to its evil twin, “lascivious.” It’s a word that describes pornography and the stares of dirty old men.

lobby

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
covered walkway

NEW DEFINITION:
to attempt to influence the vote of a public official

Long ago, a lobby was a covered walkway, especially one that led to a monastery. The word comes from German and Latin words meaning “home” or “shelter made out of foliage.”

By the seventeenth century, “lobby” more commonly was used to describe the entrance hall of a large building. It was the sort of place where people gathered before heading to various offices.

The British House of Commons had such a large lobby. Influence peddlers would teem there like termites in rotten wood. Thus, the people who hung out in lobbies waiting for politicians were said to be “lobbying.” A noun became a verb, and foliage transformed into corporate toadies. America, the country that has made lobbying an art form, developed the word “lobbyist” in the 1860s.

lovemaking/making love

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to pay amorous attention to

NEW DEFINITION:
to have sex with

For about 400 years, the word “lovemaking” and the phrase “making love” were equivalent to the modern term “flirting.” Modern readers might be nonplussed, for example, when reading the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Jazz Age writer’s stories are filled with men and women “making love” at parties and in other conspicuous places. Viewers of the Christmas classic
It’s a Wonderful Life
may blanch when innocent, virginal Mary Hatch tells her mom that George Bailey is “making violent love” to her on the couch downstairs.

By the middle of the twentieth century, “lovemaking” began to shift into a more, um, explicit sense. Most likely, that was because the 1950s were a fairly prudish time, and the decade required euphemisms for “having sex.”

Some linguists suggest that the change is related to the 1960s hippie mantra “make love, not war.” Hippies were known for free love, so if they said “make love,” they must have meant “go at it vigorously.”

Don’t Make Love to Us!

Alice Reighly was sick of “cake eaters” (flirtatious men of leisure) ogling her, whistling at her from their automobiles, and attempting to “make love” to her on the streets. As a result, she organized the Anti-Flirt Club in February of 1923.

The club had rules designed to keep young ladies from encouraging this type of man. One was, “Don’t wink—a flutter of one eye may cause a tear in the other.” Another was, “Don’t use your eyes for ogling—they were made for worthier purposes.” And, finally, consider, “Don’t fall for the slick, dandified cake eater—the unpolished gold of a real man is worth more than the gloss of a lounge lizard.”