WORDSPEAK
The French connection
ANAND
IN response to last "Wordspeak" "X as in Xmas", reader Tommy Chandana, a journalism student, wrote back: "I congratulate you for taking such a risk to inform the readers when Christmas is coming near." Since he advised me to continue writing about "brain feeding" words, I am a taking a certain risk in this column, which otherwise I might not have.
Loo as a British euphemism for a toilet has perhaps been popular among schoolgirls since time immemorial, or so it seems. Dictionaries such as Webster's cite its derivation from the French lieux (places), short for lieux d'aisances (literally, places of conveniences). Consider, in this vein, the use of "in lieu of" for "in place of." Loo could also have been a mispronunciation of le lieu (the place) when one did not want to use the whole word, especially in company.
More interesting, however, is the possibility that loo was a shortening of gardy loo, a warning maids and housewives yelled when they emptied chamber pots out of the window into the street; gardy loo being a corruption of French gardez l'eau ("watch out for water"). Remember, it was Shakespeare's time, and indoor toilets were for the very rich and flush toilets were still a long time away.
While on this subject, let me quote the following as I found it: "A man traditionally walks on the outside of a woman in the street because chamber pots were emptied out of the window in Elizabethan times; in those days a man was expected to take the greater risk of walking near the curb and protecting his lady by shielding her with his body as well. Among men walking together without women brutal fights were fought over who would `take the wall'."
Another French word incorporated into world languages, albeit with some transformation, was tenez, the original word for tennis. Tennis came to English from Latin tenere via Old French tenez, the imperative plural form of tenir ("hold"), but also used in the sense of "here it is" or "take it". Some of the earlier forms of tennis were tenetz, teneys and tenes. Apparently the server would shout tenez to his opponent to alert him to the imminent approach of the ball, akin to shouting "fore" in golf.
An observation for readers seriously into etymology. Following words have the syllable -ten or -tain in common: obtain, contain, continent, continue, maintain, detain, retain, tenable, tenable, tenant, content and tenement. All these words mean "hold" in some way, and they all came from Latin tenere (to hold) and tendere (stretch), which itself was derived from the Indo-European root *ten- "stretch, extend".
If tennis came from "hold", then why is a zero score in tennis called love, an expression used at least since 1742?
For that explanation, we have to go back to France, where tennis first became popular. Romantics claim that a big, round zero on a scoreboard probably looked like an egg to the French, and was called l'oeuf, which is French for "egg". When tennis was introduced in Britain and the U.S., English speakers mispronounced it as "love". Americans generally discount this explanation, but Britons and Indians who play cricket should buy it. The score of a batsman dismissed for naught (zero) was called "duck" because the zero on the scoreboard looked like a duck's egg. So why not l'oeuf?
Serious minded etymologists, including those of the OED, question the l'oeuf theory and point out that "love" in this sense goes back to at least the 18th Century, when it was applied to many games other than tennis. They suggest that it comes from the phrase "play for love". A person who fails to score in tennis might be said to be playing for the love of the game, and that "love (zero) in tennis" comes from the expression "play for the money or play for love (nothing)". The idea here is similar to that behind the word amateur, which comes from the Latin amator, "lover", and strictly speaking, means a person who loves a game or subject, and engages in such a pursuit as a pastime rather than a profession.
Caddie, the person who carries the golf bag for the player, is another mispronounced French word, and has two stories behind it. One just for fun: Mary, Queen of Scots, went to France. The King of France had a golf course built for her so that she could play the Scots' favourite game. To make sure she was properly chaperoned (and guarded) while she played, the King ordered cadets from a military school to accompany her. In French the word cadet is pronounced "ca-day" but in English the golfer's assistant became a caddie.
Close, but as we say in North America, no cigar. Cadet, a 17th Century French word meaning a young trainee in the armed forces or the police force, is commonly used in India. But it has been also used in the sense of "errand boy"; in New Zealand an apprentice on sheep farms is called a cadet. That's the more likely explanation. Cadet as caddie was first applied to golf in the first half of 19th Century; Mary had been long dead.
E-mail the author at anand@journalist.com
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