WORDSPEAK
A belated October surprise
ANAND
THIS "Wordspeak" was meant to be about some of the most beautiful words in German and other languages. But the results of a contest sponsored by the German Language Council were not out before the deadline for e-mailing the text for the column. So, folgender Monat.
The previous two columns were about words related to votes and elections, as most of the world seemed preoccupied with the presidential elections in the United States. Although it will be known who will be the next U.S. president by the time this column is published, the memory of the 2004 presidential race will still be fresh. Therefore, some explanations to what the readers wanted to know, and some belated additions.
The Greek way
In the context of using ballots (ball +ot = small ball) for votes, and the verb "to blackball" meaning to exclude or ostracise a person by means of dropping a black coloured ball, reader Sandeep Chandra pointed to the oversight of not mentioning another word with the same meaning. Ostracise came from Greek ostrakos (potsherd or pieces of broken pottery), from the fact that in ancient Greece, shells or these were equivalent of scraps of paper. Occasionally, the citizens of Athens were called upon to vote on whether to banish someone from the city. This was done by writing the person's name on a potsherd and dropping it into an urn. Its Indo-European root is ost- (bone), that gave birth to such words as oyster, osteopathy, ossify, and Sanskrit asthi (bone).
The North American meaning of "stumping" intrigued many cricket-loving readers. For them, this addendum: In the frontier days of the U.S., when the forests were being cleared, the settlers gathered in a clearing and the politician stood on a tree stump so he could be seen and heard. Many drawings of that time show Abraham Lincoln standing on a stump. But when Gene Talmadge campaigned for governor and senator in Georgia in the 1930s, the woods had been so denuded that he had to take a portable stump with him to some meetings.
Electing heads
Reactions to "poll" meaning a head, and to the ancient and arithmetically simple way of counting heads to determine how many of any one thing were there that lead to polling humans to keep a score of their opinion, were varied. Poll is seldom heard without a reference to elections or voting, unless we come across Red Poll, a hornless short-haired breed of beef and dairy cattle; blackpoll, a North American bird having a black-and-white head, and giltpoll, a valuable food fish common in the Mediterranean (also called a gilthead, so named from its golden-coloured head). Clear as daylight, when we find that a clodpoll is a stupid-head or a dolt.
Except Sevastopol, the historic city in Crimea, southwest Ukraine. It has been suggested that poll, pol or pole in place names came possibly from a hill or a head-like elevation. I lean towards another explanation. Metropolis, a chief or capital city, rooted in Greek metros (mother) and polis (city), became metropole in the 14th Century. And history tells us that Sevastopol is near the site of a Greek colony founded in 5th Century B.C. Several places in that region have names ending in pol, including Simferopol.
Orchestrated surprise
One frequently used term during the recent U.S. presidential campaigns that is virtually unknown in India is October Surprise, meaning "a last minute surprise, especially one orchestrated by a candidate to influence an election. The term originated in the 1980 U.S. presidential elections. U.S. embassy personnel were held hostage in Tehran, leading to speculation that the incumbent president would secure their release just before the election, in order to boost his prospects for re-election."
But those backing Ronald Reagan against the incumbent U.S. President Jimmy Carter, sprang a surprise of their own by allegedly making a deal (the Iran-Contra affair) with the Iranians (through the CIA) to continue to hold American hostages beyond the 1980 November elections. The hostages were not released until January 20, 1981, the very day that Reagan was inaugurated as president. Those who claim that a deal was made allege that certain Republicans with CIA connections, including George H. W. Bush (a future president and father of the current president) arranged to have the hostages held through October, until Reagan could defeat Carter in early November, and then be released. A U.S. Senate committee formed to investigate the allegations was named "October Surprise Task Force."
What's it this time?
Scores of books with October Surprise in the title have been published before or after the past six U.S. presidential elections. In 2004, there were "Name the October Surprise" contests where you answered the question: "What do you think is a possible October Surprise that Bush will announce in order to try to win a close election?" A new October Surprise Blog tracks and comments on articles about current and past stunts on the Internet. It has even been accepted in American journalese: "Consumers should get ready for an October surprise from their banks when this new cheque processing law is implemented."
And where else but in America you would see: Play Osama bin Lotto and Win by Guessing Bush's October Surprise. www.OsamaBinLotto.org
E-mail the author at: anand@journalist.com
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