Wordcatcher (12 page)

In recent slang, a lousy deal; originally an idle, worthless fellow, a rascal.
Older than you think, the root word
bum
was first recorded in 1387, possibly imitative, as the OED says, of a “protuberance, swelling.” Five centuries later, we find
bum
, as in hobo, tramp, in 1864, from
bummer
, loafer, idle person, 1855, possibly deriving from British
slang
for “butt, backside, bum,” and also German slang
bummler
, loafer, from
bummeln
, go slowly, waste time. Thus, a picture emerges of the hordes of German immigrants in the Northern army during the Civil War, using the word to describe how the war was going slowly, wasting their lives away.
Bummer
, for a terrible experience, like the fraternity running out of beer in
Animal House,
arises in the 1960s. But even so there is startling evidence of 19th-century usage that might have been muttered by John Belushi: “Thus San Francisco has been called the Elysian of
bummers
.” In California, men
who profess to be journalists, and so obtain free dinners and drinks, are called “literary
bummers
.” Companion words or phrases include
bum’s rush
, for forcible eviction, like being tossed out of a bar or ballgame. To wit, the great crepehanger of a comic George Carlin said, “If God dropped acid, would he see people?
Bummer
.” The Hindu shopkeeper Apu says to Ned Flanders on
The Simpsons
: “That’s the problem with your religion: it’s a
bummer
—but the sing-alongs are okay.” And the Dude in
The Big Lebowski
sighs “Bummer” no fewer than a dozen times, which is far less than the 283 “f-bombs” that are dropped during the movie.

A pioneer custom of sleeping fully clothed in the same bed with members of the opposite sex.
A tradition formerly in vogue in Wales and New England during a time when beds were scarce, men and women slept together in the same bed without removing their clothes.
Halliwell’s Dictionary
cites the Duke de la Rochefoucauld’s
Travels in America
: a practice wherein “a man and woman slept in the same bed, he with his small clothes, and she with her petticoats on; an expedient practiced in America on a scarcity of beds, where, on such an occasion, husbands and parents frequently permitted travelers to bundle with their wives and daughters. This custom is now abolished.” Could it be that the coo of lovers, “little
bundle
of love” came from
bundling
? Since you asked,
bundling
comes from the Middle Dutch
bondel
, from
bond,
and
binden
, to bind, binding, and German
bundilin
. The modern sense of
bundling
a baby or a package, “to wrap up in warm heavy clothes,” was recorded in 1893.

To collude with, to be in league with, to deal with secretly.
So furtive is this word, no one really knows its origins. It hides in etymology dictionaries like a crow in a dark cave. Some scholars suspect it derives from the old Roman word
cohorts
, a troop of soldiers, and others say it comes from Old French
cahute
, hut, which provides a shadowy word picture of clandestine deals made in remote cabins in the woods. More recently, Daniel Cassidy suggests, in
How the Irish Invented Slang
, that its roots are in the Irish
comh-udar
, co-author, co-instigator. Thus, to be in
cahoots
with your collaborator on your next spy novel would be as redundant as sending a keg of Guinness to Ireland. Writing in the
New York Times
in 2000, columnist Molly Ivins asked, “Where’s the outrage? I’ve got plenty for ya!” When she interviewed the director of the Intermountain Tissue Center in Salt Lake City about the highly profitable trade in body parts,
he told her, “If donors were told at the time about profits, they wouldn’t donate.” Ivins adds, “Duh. The nonprofit foundations involved in this grisly trade are in
cahoots
with the for-profit corporations.”

To count; a method of reckoning.
If you visualize the Roman fresco of a definition that the venerable Skeat provides, “to reckon by help of small pebbles,” you’ll never look at
calculation
the same way. For it comes from the Latin
calculus
, pebble, and
calx
, stone, specifically stones for the Roman (or Chinese) abacus to be used for accounting purposes. These stones also contributed to a clever Roman invention that only Mel Brooks could’ve staged. Mounted onto a chariot that carried passengers was a box full of pebbles with a small hole in the bottom. This box was attached to another box into which the pebbles dropped as the chariot rumbled along. When the chariot reached its destination, let’s say the Colosseum in Rome, the dropped pebbles were counted or
calculated
and the “fare” determined. Imagine the stones dropping like those numbers that click over on the old taxicab meters, and you’ll appreciate this Fred Flintstone-like device as the first taximeter. Who knew that math could be so much fun? Companion words include
calculus
, Newton’s invention of the branch of mathematics, and
calculation
, the act of figuring out stock prices, baseball averages, or the odds at a roulette table. “I
can
calculate
the motion of heavenly bodies,” Newton said, “but not the madness of people.” Calculus is also a medical term for a stone in the bladder. Curious companions include
cancel
, Old Latin for “fenced in,” represented by the # symbol, which is what we have to do with some of our
calculations
. And yet, not everything is
calculable
. Bertolt Brecht reminded us: “I want to go with the one I love. / I do not want to
calculate
the cost. / I do not want to think about whether it’s good. / I do not want to know whether he loves me. / I want to go with the one I love.”

Sheer tranquility amid the storms of life.
This diminutive beauty comes down to us from the Provençal French
chaume
, to describe the time when flocks of sheep rested. Now that you’ve
calmed
down, think of how
chaume
evolved from the Latin
caume
, for the heat of the Mediterranean noonday sun, an utterly sensible time to rest, and the earlier Greek
kauma
, heat, and
kaiein
, to burn. Thus, we find compacted into a crisp, cool syllable the old folk
wisdom
that is wise to
calm
down when life heats up. If we don’t learn how to
calm
down, we will end up “burning down the days,” as novelist James Salter titled his memoirs. Companion words include the ironically stressful-sounding
ataraxy
, the psychiatric term for
calm
, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Stranger still, the APA resorts to defining
calm
not by what is, but what it isn’t: the “absence
of anxiety or confusion,” adding that tranquilizers are called
ataractic
drugs, which makes me nervous just typing it. Fortunately, companion images abound:
halcyon
, as in the “halcyon days,” so named after the kingfisher bird that nested on seas,
calming
them at the period of the winter solstice. Later,
halcyon
coolly evolved into a popular synonym for idyllic, youthful, soothing, evergreen
calm
. One of the most
becalming
lines of poetry I’ve ever encountered was by the 11th-century Arabic poet Abu al-Alaa’ al-Ma’arrii: “The world’s best moment is a
calm
hour passed in listening to a friend who can talk well.”

A curve in classical Greece, an arch in ancient Rome, a shadow-catcher instrument invented in 19th-century Paris, a dream-maker in Hollywood.
Our sense of
camera
originates with
chamber
, in Old Latin; later it becomes a scientific term for any wooden box with a lens. As the box grew larger, with ever-stronger lenses, it came to be called
camera obscura
, a dark room, an innovation that aided such early painters as Vermeer and Caravaggio and later ones like Andy Warhol and David Hockney. By the early 19th century the box and the term shrank to become simply
camera
, the basic tool of a photographer, who can proudly and literally call herself a “light-writer.” Thus, a
camera
is a little room you hold in your hand by which you write with light. To keep going with the metaphor, here is an intriguing sidelight.
When the first colonial
cameras
arrived in 19th-century South Africa they were advertised side by side with the first affordable rifles. The verb to shoot developed for both simultaneously. Little wonder that indigenous people around the world were suspicious of all those newfangled
cameras
aimed at them. “Shooting” was in the air, and the
cameras
caught it. In his autobiography, Ansel Adams gratefully remembered the summer of 1916: “One morning shortly after our arrival in Yosemite, my parents presented me with my first
camera
, a Kodak Box Brownie.” His sense of awe lasted a lifetime. In
The Camera
, he wrote, “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.” In the late 1980s, I enjoyed a few Proustian privileged moments watching Henri Cartier-Bresson wandering with his Leica around the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, looking, looking, looking through his
camera
before he ever snapped the shutter. Years later, when I read his humble admission, “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst,” it made sense how he waited and watched, and watching, finally
saw
what he wanted to shoot.
Bon courage
to all those who follow the light. Lest we think artists are humorless, let us recall Larry the Cameraman’s words in
Groundhog Day
, “People think that all cameramen do is point the
camera
at things, but it’s a heck of a lot more complicated than that!”