The Etymologicon #4
Mark Forsyth’s The Etymologicon explores the strange connections between words.The last of four features this week uncovers the origins of famous book titles.
Today: Naked Lunch, Tropic of Cancer and The Grapes of Wrath…
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Wrath in the sense of anger, comes from the Old English word for twisted and tormented. Grape is what etymologists call a backformation from the verb graper, which meant to grasp or grab or pick a fruit from a tree of vine. Eventually, the thing you grasped came to bear the name of the verb.
Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
Raymond Chandler wrote about Hollywood executives getting ready to drink their lunch, and etymologically he was spot on. Luncheon was originally none-schench or noon drink. So, in origin all lunches were liquid.
Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
A rhetorical trope is a turn of phrase, and the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn mark the latitudes where the sun stops heading South or North and turns back towards the equator. So a tropic is a turning. Meanwhile Cancer is the crab because both tumours and crabs are hard. Also, the ancient physician Galen thought that some cancers were crab-shaped.
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A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language…
What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces?
The Etymologicon is an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening.
Watch out for an exclusive The Etymologicon competition this Friday on Bookhugger!
