Going doolally
This is an excellent example of the way in which the
English language adapts and borrows words from other languages. The expression
is certainly a British one (though now not heard in that form), but to
find its origins we must travel to India.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, the British army had a military sanatorium at Deolali, about 100 miles northeast of Bombay. One of its functions was to act as a transit camp for soldiers who had finished their tours of duty ( 'time-expired', in the jargon of the time) and were waiting for a troop ship to take them back to Britain. Ships only left Bombay between November and March, so a soldier ending his tour outside those dates might have a long wait for transport.
The effects are best explained in the words of Frank Richards,
who knew the camp well. He wrote in 'Old Soldier Sahib' in 1936:
'The time-expired men at Deolalie had no arms or equipment;
they showed kit now and again, and occasionally went on a route-march,
but time hung heavily on their hands, and in some cases men who had been
exemplary soldiers got into serious trouble, and were awarded terms of
imprisonment before they were sent home. Others contracted venereal disease
and had to go to hospital. The well-known saying among soldiers when speaking
of a man who does queer things, 'Oh, he’s got the Doo-lally tap', originated,
I think, in the peculiar way men behaved owing to the boredom of that camp'.
To say someone was ‘doolally tap’ meant he was mad, or at least very eccentric. The first bit is obviously the result of the standard British soldier’s way of hacking foreign-sounding names into something that sounded English. The second part is from a Persian or Urdu word ‘tap’, a malarial fever (ultimately from Sanskrit ‘tapa’, heat or torment). So the whole expression might be loosely translated as 'camp fever'.
By the 1940s the full expression had already been shortened
to ‘doolally’ (‘tap’ didn’t long survive the journey from India). , These
days, to hear the expression 'he’s gone doolally', is applied to somebody
showing signs of odd behaviour. You can still often hear it, though not
one speaker in a thousand can connect it to a town in India.
Triacle
An old name for treacle or molasses. Treacle is the usual
British name for what Americans prefer to call molasses (remember the treacle
well in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland). The apothecaries' term 'triacle'
is an older form of the word, but it was originally used for something
very different - an antidote to the venom of a snake or insect.
This word came through French and Latin from Greek 'theriake', meaning an antidote against a poisonous bite, which has its origin in 'therion', a wild beast. Herbal remedies against such bites often contained alkaloids, and so tasted bitter - it was common to sweeten them with honey to make them easier to swallow. English apothecaries changed over to black treacle as the sweetener when it began to be available in the Middle Ages.
The word was often used in a sense not so very different
to that of 'balm' or 'salve', some fragrant ointment or preparation used
to heal or soothe the skin. By the end of the seventeenth century, 'triacle'
had come to mean the molasses itself rather than the herbal remedy; by
then the vowel had became slurred, the word dropped from three syllables
to two, and it was respelled in the modern form, 'treacle'.
Buccaneer
Those who fondly remember swashbuckling movies will be
surprised to learn that the word 'buccaneer' equates with 'barbecuer'.
The English borrowed the French word 'boucanier', which
referred to a person on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola or Tortuga who
hunted wild oxen or boars and then cooked them over a fire, on a frame
called a boucan. Soon, English, French, and Dutch boucaniers had a lucrative
business intercepting Spanish galleons laden with riches, sailing home
to Spain from the South American mines. The first recorded use in English
of buccaneer in this sense was in 1690.
One of the most famous buccaneers was Henry Morgan, who
was even knighted by the king of England for capturing and destroying the
city of Panama, which belonged to England’s enemy, Spain. However, by 1700
these buccaneers began attacking ships of all nations, and the British,
French, and Dutch governments classified them as pirates, who were outlaws.
A modern buccaneer is a ruthless speculator or adventurer
in business or politics.
Lackadaisical
Meaning: lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly
lazy.
This word is delightfully evocative, bringing to mind
some languid person lolling on a couch while all around goes to ruin. It
owes its origin, strangely enough, to an old saying of regret or dismay,
'lack-a-day!', a short form of 'alack-a-day!'. 'Alack' dates back to medieval
times, and probably comes from a dialect word 'lack', variously interpreted
as failure, fault, reproach, disgrace, or shame. So 'alack-a-day!' originally
meant 'Shame or reproach to the day!' (that it should have brought this
upon me). But over time it became weakened, until it became no more than
a vapid and vacuous cry when some minor matter went awry.
When he arrived in Moscow, however, the businessman realized that he had neglected to put the greeting 'Ladies and gentlemen' at the start of his speech. He had no idea what the Russian for this was. Then he hit upon a plan. He went down to the lavatories in the hotel where he was staying and saw men going in one door and women in the other. He took the appropriate word from over each door and put them at the start of his speech.
It went triumphantly well, and at the conclusion he was
feted by the Russians for having spoken in their language. 'Only one thing
puzzled us,' explained his host. 'We weren't terribly sure why you chose
to start your speech by addressing us as "water closets" and "urinals'.
The worldwide spread of the soft drinks Coca-Cola and
Pepsi Cola has given rise to some difficulties in translating their slogans.
It is said that 'Come alive with Pepsi' became, in German, 'Come alive
out of the grave,' and, in Chinese, 'Pepsi brings your ancestors back from
the dead.' When Coca-Cola started advertising in Peking, 'Put a Smile on
Your Face' came out as 'Let Your Teeth Rejoice'. Odder still, the famous
slogan 'It's the Real Thing' came out as 'The Elephant Bites the Wax Duck'.
A favourite story of King George V - which he never tired
of hearing - concerned an English-born princess paying a visit to Uppsala
Cathedral in Sweden. The Archbishop was keen to show off his knowledge
of English and opened a chest of drawers in the sacristy with the words,
'I will now open these trousers and reveal some ever more precious treasures
to Your Royal Highness'.
The English-language version of a car rental firm's brochure
in Tokyo exhorted hirers thus: 'When passenger of foot heave in sight,
tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles
your passage, then tootle him with vigour'.
That is a lovely example of brochure Japanenglish. I very much doubt that the Germans would make the error that Saffy quotes: English is very much a Germanic language, after all. But with far Eastern languages anything can happen. They bear no similarity to English at all. In the 1950s, when Japanese industry was still copying the West and bringing out cheaper imitations, a Japanese form of Meccano was marketed in Britain with 'THE ERECTION SET' emblazoned on the lid. I have always wondered why Japanese businesses apparently never think of hiring somebody who could examine the firm's 'fair copy' translations, and correct the more risible and outrageous errors before the product is released.
The Last Word
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)
In 1902, the author Samuel butler, though dying, was
engaged in the purchase of the freehold of a house in Hampstead. To Alfred
Emery Cathie, his clerk, ‘servant and friend’, he said, ‘Have you brought
the cheque book, Alfred?’ Butler then took off his spectacles and put them
down on the table. ‘I don’t want them any more,’ he said. His head fell
back, and he died.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is sometimes said that Oscar Wilde’s last words
in 1900 were – apropos the poor furnishing in the room where lay: ‘This
wall paper will be the death of me – one of us will have to go'.
Dear Oscar is also quoted
as saying, 'I am dying as I have lived - beyond my means'.
From a graveyard in Ruidoso, New Mexico:
From the grave of Sir Christopher Wren, St. Pauls Cathedral,
London, England:
Saffron - July 2001