The Unexpected Evolution of Language (25 page)

Prior to the nineteenth century, no one would have understood a simple modern-day sentence like the following: “We went to the stadium and saw the game.” For centuries, a “stadium” was a unit of length or perhaps a type of footrace that was a “stadium” in length.

The roots of “stadium” go all the way back to ancient Greece. The Greeks were physical fitness nuts. They loved footraces. A race run at a track in Olympia (site of the original Olympics) was a “stadium” in length, which is equivalent to about 600 feet. Thus, “stadium” came to mean both the length and the race itself.

Even after “stadium” entered English—sometime in the fourteenth century—it still had these dual meanings. By the seventeenth century, however, “stadium” was used generically to mean a running track of any length. And then, in the nineteenth century, large, open-air venues for sports—often containing running tracks—began to be referred to as stadiums.

These days, only a professor of antiquities would make a direct connection between “stadium” and “footrace” or “stadium” and “unit measurement,” for that matter.

The Only Two Still Standing

Starting in the 1990s, baseball teams tore down historic stadiums and replaced them with new, modern facilities. Even the venerable Yankee Stadium got replaced in 2009. Only two classic baseball stadiums remain … unless one of them has been imploded by the time you
read this.

The oldest stadium is Boston’s Fenway Park. The Red Sox have played there since 1912. Compared to recently built parks, Fenway’s size barely qualifies it as a stadium. For one thing, it’s irregularly shaped. For another, its seating capacity is just over 37,400. (The new, improved Yankee Stadium, by contrast, holds more than 52,000.)

The second-oldest baseball stadium is Chicago’s Wrigley Field. It was not always home to the seemingly ill-fated Chicago Cubs. The stadium opened in 1914 and was home to the Chicago Whales of the short-lived Federal League. The Cubs moved there in 1916 and The Loveable Losers have been making fans cry ever since.

starve

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
to die

NEW DEFINITION:
to die, specifically from lack of food

For centuries, no one would have used the now common expression, “starve to death” because it would have been redundant. “Starve,” from a root meaning “stiff,” simply meant “to die.” Thus, you could “starve” due to everything from the bubonic plague to an unlucky accident involving an angry horse.

During the Middle English period, the word began to shift. For the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, “starve” meant to die of hypothermia. It was equivalent to dying of exposure. As Middle English gave way to Modern English, the word began its final transformation to “death by hunger.”

A possibility for why the new meaning of “starve” is restricted to hunger is that, for most of its life, “starve” carried with it the suggestion of a slow death, a wasting away. Extreme hunger causes just such a death. After reading this grim description, you should go gorge on a gallon Ben & Jerry’s.

stew

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
vessel for cooking; cauldron

NEW DEFINITION:
meat and vegetables in a broth

“Stew” has an interesting history. For one thing, it’s a word that underwent a metonymic shift, and for another, it spent part of its life in houses of ill repute.

As noted elsewhere, metonymy occurs when you refer to one thing because it’s associated with something else. For example, athletes are called jocks because male ones wore jockstraps. One says the kettle is boiling, but it’s actually the water
in
the kettle that’s boiling.

Once upon a time, a “stew” was a cauldron. Picture Shakespeare’s weird sisters (see entry for “weird”) stirring the pot and saying, “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.” Then, as now, an easy meal consisted of throwing a bunch of meat and vegetables into a pot and letting it boil for a while. Eventually, this meal
cooked
in the “stew”
became
stew.

“Stew” also used to be a verb meaning “to marinate in a steam bath.” Apparently, brothels of the Middle Ages were known for offering this kind of “stew” (as well as many other earthly delights). Thus, for a period, brothels were known as “stews”—another example of metonymy.

stogie

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
shoe

NEW DEFINITION:
cheap cigar

Did you know there’s a connection between cheap cigars and the taming of the Wild West?

Conestoga wagons, named for the Pennsylvania county in which they were built, first began trekking across America fifty years before the American Revolution. Long before they rolled across the prairies of Kansas and the Dakotas, Conestogas “tamed” the Appalachian region. After the Revolution, Conestogas tamed Ohio, which
was
the West at that time.

Ultimately, Conestogas found themselves out in the “real” West. These are the wagons Americans tend to picture when they think of “covered wagons.” Conestogas were designed to be mostly waterproof when crossing streams, and they could carry loads up to eight tons.

During the California Gold Rush, which began in 1848, Conestogas were practically as common as prairie grass. Folks began to ascribe all sorts of quirks to those who preferred Conestoga wagons as their conveyances of choice.

For one thing, men who drove Conestogas typically wore thick-soled shoes. People began to refer to these shoes as “stogies,” short for Conestoga. A few decades later, people—likely with clucking tongues—also began to refer to the cheap cigars favored by Conestoga drivers as “stogies.” The “shoe” meaning has largely disappeared, but big, cheap, odorous cigars are still called stogies.

stooge

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
a stagehand

NEW DEFINITION:
someone who assists others in, typically, nefarious enterprises

A “stooge” was originally a stagehand. The word had existed in vaudeville since the early twentieth century.

Of course, when you hear “stooge” today, it’s impossible not to think of The Three Stooges. Originally, this comedy troupe—known for its eye-gouging and nyuk, nyuk, nyuks—was called Ted Healy and His Stooges. Healy was the leader of the group, and the shtick was that, while he tried to sing or tell jokes, his noisy stagehands—or stooges—would interrupt him. Before long, The Three Stooges stole the show, leaving people to ask, “Who’s Ted Healy?”

Some etymologists believe the word “stooge” began to change in meaning because of The Three Stooges. And here you thought there was nothing remotely culturally relevant about the group!

This shift helped the word “stooge” reach its principal modern meaning: a none-too-bright lackey, or someone who allows herself or her company to be used to help, say, big business. The suggestion that someone is a “stooge” for the oil industry packs a mighty, pejorative sting.

Other Stooges

Comedy teams often feature one member who’s bizarre, kooky, or silly (Jerry Lewis, Lou Costello) and one who seems reasonably sedate and normal (Dean Martin, Bud Abbott). This “normal” member of the team is sometimes called a stooge. He’s also called a “feed,” “dead wood,” or a “straight man.”

Another type of stooge is someone who helps a magician. Sometimes a magician will pull a spectator out of the crowd to take part in a trick. Often, the person really is just a spectator. At other times, however, he or she is a stooge, someone who secretly is working with the magician to make the trick take place successfully.

Finally, there’s an algorithm called a Stooge sort. The algorithm is used in computer programming to swap values around, causing them to “knock into” each other. The Stooge sort actually was named for The Three Stooges, who often hit each other during their routines.

stove

ORIGINAL DEFINITION:
steam room

NEW DEFINITION:
device for cooking food

At the outset of its lexical life, “stove” meant steam room or bath room, i.e., room in which one takes a steam bath. Thus, one sweated one’s cares away in the “stove.” One also, most likely, met casual sexual partners in the “stove.” Steam baths of the Middle Ages often doubled as brothels and frequently included “bath rooms” as part of their fare.

By the seventeenth century, “stove” stopped being a steam room and became the well-known cooking device. The connection makes sense. Both a steam room and a cooking device heat things up … especially when that steam room doubles as a brothel. Then you’re really cookin’.

Some Brits still call greenhouses “stoves,” which may seem odd at first, but the word keeps alive “stove’s” original definition.

Stove Pipe Hats