Online Etymology Dictionary

Well, on Fridays (= payday), you saw in Germany quite some "schnaps corpses" ('Schnapsleichen').

And the ghosts of those have been seen walking? By your grandma?

Bookmark.
I hope it works this time, the last one didn't

Hello, everybody. Greetings, wordies, everywhere.

McT

On Setanta's question- in Scotland, I have heard the first drink (a shot of spirits) after a bad hangover called a "livener"

Not exactly an answer, I know.
I think Walter is onto something.

And, heavy drinking on payday saw similar sights in our industrial towns, in the middle of the last century. Not so bad now, though.

Yes, I do know that one. Was your grandmother ever in theater? It's old theater slang, from at least 1833. Supposedly it's a reference to Hamlet. The ghost does walk in Hamlet, but I can't find that exact line.

Somehow that reference came to mean "the paymaster of the theatrical company is at hand." I can see how that line would come wittily to mind in a case where the paymasters was an elusive character.

A more common expression for "it's payday" is "the eagle shits," referring to the U.S. government or the designs on the coins.

Hamlet Act I scene IV

Enter GHOST.
Hor. Look, my lord, it comes. 44
Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable, 48
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father; royal Dane, O! answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell 52
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws, 56
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature 60
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? [The Ghost beckons HAMLET.
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it, 64
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.
Mar. Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground: 68
But do not go with it.
Hor. No, by no means.
Ham. It will not speak; then, will I follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord. 72
Ham. Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself? 76
It waves me forth again; I'll follow it.
Hor. What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea, 80
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it;
The very place puts toys of desperation, 84
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fathoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.
Ham. It waves me still. Go on, I'll follow thee. 88
Mar. You shall not go, my lord.
Ham. Hold off your hands!
Hor. Be rul'd; you shall not go.
Ham. My fate cries out, 92
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. [Ghost beckons.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen, [Breaking from them.
By heaven! I'll make a ghost of him that lets me: 96
I say, away! Go on, I'll follow thee. [Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET.
Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.
Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor. Have after. To what issue will this come? 100
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hor. Heaven will direct it.
Mar. Nay, let's follow him. [Exeunt.

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A more common expression for "it's payday" is "the eagle shits," referring to the U.S. government or the designs on the coins.[/quote]

I believe that "the eagle shits" is a later corruption of an earlier expression -- "the eagle screams." Both expressions were common in the US military when I was a raw recruit back in the late 1950s. But it was always understood that the more scatalogical phrase was merely a variant of the original.

"The eagle Flies" was a Jazz musician metaphor that I first heard used in record videos by Louis Armstrong and later by Ray Charles and Al Hibbler

Here is a question for mr etymonline.

origin of "sure" as an affirmative.

thanks - i posted it in the wrong place - here is the original

Hello,

first, I love your list! Very Very helpful.

and now a question. Under "sure" as in an affirmative youstate that it was "first used" in 1842. My question in this - I am learning Mandarin (no small feat) and the verb to be is (or sounds like) "shr" Grammatically in Mandarin you answer using the verb as an affirmative. (Example: You drink tea? Drink!) So i wondered if using "sure" may have come from this language or another language with a similar grammar structure? - outside of its relation to the french words for safety...


Thanks in advance for any responses.

: )

HELP!!!

We're in a time warp! It says that Craven posted his message Friday June 13. All the other evidence I have at hand indicates that, as I type this, it is only Wednesday, June the 11th. How did we get a message from the future?

(Taking a quick look at the forum index, I see this isn't the only post to originate from the mists of time.)

craven is aware of it

it was a server issue

it is being fixed

no worries

Thank you!



The quick, rude answer is, I doubt it. It seems to me that no outside intervention is required to make the transition from "safe, secure," to "that can be depended on or relied upon," to "firmly established, settled, steadfast" and "certain in mind, having no doubt."

Plus, you've already got "sure" being used in stand-alone phrases like "to be sure" (1657), "sure enough" (1545), and "for sure" (1586). The use as a qualifier meaning "assuredly" goes back to 1425.

All of this takes place before any significant contact between English and Chinese. "Sure" as an answer, on its own, in place of "yes," is recorded only from 1803 (they've pushed back the date a bit since the 1842 I had listed on the site; I've changed that, thanks to your inquiry; I'm still catching up with the latest).

But there seems to be a long and seamless transition of sense and usage in this word.

In general, in etymology, as in the pure sciences, test theories on Occam's Razor. Give preference to the simplest possible explanation, no matter how appealing the odd-ball ones are.

um. thanks.

I guess my thinking was that language was oral before it was written and the way the word sounds and its use just seemed similar.

I did not of course do a lot of research, just asked a quick question. Didn't mean to offend your research and listing.

About 'sure' for yes - I always assumed it was Irish. Sure and the Irish have long been known for using 'sure' and 'surely' generously and emphatically.

hnh, so being raised in new england with it's large Irish population means that I too use 'sure' for yes? Makes some sense to me, I don't recall anyone of my friends from NM or GA using the word that way.

Sure you do, LittleK. Except that here we pronounce it 'Shoo-ah."

You're right in that it's part of the 19th century literary hack's closet-full of stock "Hibernianisms." I have no idea if Irish, living or dead, ever really talked that way more often than non-Irish. But it's been hammered into our heads that they did, in novels written by non-Irish writers.

But that wasn't the case in the 17th and 18th century, when the asseverative "sure" was used without consciousness of Irish speech -- by Sidney, Milton, Pope, and others.

Oh absolutely it was. But it also tends to be pretty conservative. The wholesale importing of French and Latin words into Anglo-Saxon is something English-speakers take for granted, but it is really a rare thing, the result of the political and social power structure of medieval England.

It's even more rare for the "core" words of a language to change, even in a situation like that. If you look at the 200 most common words in English speech today, they still are overwhelmingly from the original Germanic stock.

"Sure" isn't one of them, of course, but it's probably on the next tier.

I read somewhere (I know what book it is, but I'd have to dig to fetch it up again, so take this as a recollection, not a citation) that something like 8 percent of the vocabulary of any two unrelated languages will be the same -- purely by chance. Law of averages and limited range of human speech possibilities, that sort of thing. The book noted that the English word "bad" has an exact equivalent, in sound and sense, in Persian. But, though the languages themselves are related, those words evolved entirely independently.



I am sure I came across to you as rude. I apologize. I didn't feel that way writing. It's difficult to be concise without seeming short.

The Online Etymology Dictionary is a real find. For some reason (I can't help myself) I am always wondering where some word came from, how or why it is related to some other word I know, etc. This site will no doubt cost me hours of computer time, but will bring lots of answers. I particularly wonder about words and phrases used by my grandfather and other old timers from back in the hills of Missouri, Arkansas and Kentucky, some of which seem British in origin, and some others---who knows? I particularly like English humor, (Monty Python, etc.) which reminds me of what we hillbillies considered funny when I was a child. The accent was different.... the meanings the same.

Welcome, Hillbilly! :-D