Let's talk about words

Today's words are taken from John Ciardi's "A Browser's Dictionary: A Compendium of Curious Expressions and Intriguing Facts". By the way, this book seems to be out of print and I've discovered there is a "Second Browser's Dictionary" and a third and a fourth! But you can only get the first one for a decent price. The others are available used, for exorbitant sums. I also bumped into the fact that Ciardi died in the 80s. Sad, that. I'd love to see the other versions. Okay, enough from me. Here are today's words. 

Bikini. The minimal two-string, three-cup (all demitasses) bathing suit. [After Bikini, the atoll in the Marshall Islands used as the site of the 1956 A-bomb tests.] Historic. The next-to-nothing bathing suit was introduced in France at about the time of the tests and in the U.S. soon after them. The take is told that in the slick chic of ad-agency jargon they were called bikinis, first, to suggest the state of nature, and second, because they would have the impact of an atomic bomb (bum?). The language, in its often easy tolerance of the absurd and even of the disastrous, accepted the term at once, and with no sense of indignation at this coupling of the poisoned islands and these little swishes of chic.

Dodgers. The National League baseball team, once central to the mythology of Brooklyn and Miss Marianne Moore, which broke Miss Moore's heart by moving to Los Angeles, where the earthquake is already coiled to swallow the team into the pit for its perfidy. [In the late nineteenth century, when Brooklyn was still an independent municipality, Brooklynites were commonly called Trolley Dodgers because of the unusually large number of horse-drawn trolley cars that clanged through its crowded streets before the extension of the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit subway. The baseball team was first known by the full municipal nickname, later shortened to Dodgers. Not -- as fanciful persons have asserted -- because a streetcar line ran through the outfield of the team's first playing field, forcing outfielders to dodge a trolley when fielding a ball.]

Long in the tooth. Getting on in years, Roger Fredland used to be a bit of a heller, but he's getting to be short of breath and long in the tooth. [There being no truth in horse traders, the potential buyer checks the horse's age by examining its teeth. Constant grinding of fodder causes the horse's gums to recede, whereby the teeth of old horses seem to grow long. Dating unknown. Probably of remote folk origin.]

Nines: dressed to the nines. Dressed to perfection. [Probably not, as often suggested, from Middle English to then eynes, to the eyes (in which then is the dative of the), later nonced to to the neynes; the form is unattested. It is not possible to be certain, but the form is likely based on numerology, once a "science" as seriously regarded as alchemy and astrology. Numerologically, 9 (a trinity of trinities) stood for perfection. The use of plural nines would imply "the sum of all perfections."] (Note from Keith: I like the original suggestion that he casts off. "To then eynes" sounds perfectly logical as the derivation of this phrase.)

Scholar. One who studies. [Nor would a modern reader sense any contradiction in "hard-working scholar"; yet the root sense is "leisure". 1. leisure; 2. a work of leisure; 3, a gathering place (an informal school) where men of leisure met for discussion. So the phrase:] a gentleman and a scholar. A man of leisure and of learning. [The phrase being a pure survival of the root sense.] Historic. The root sense offers a fair glimpse into one aspect of Greek society, in which the labor of slaves permitted the cultivation of philosophy and the arts by men of leisure.

PS: What is "nonced"? I know you're wondering. Here goes:

Nonce: for the nonce. For this one time. For the time being. Middle English for then anes, for that one time; the form then nonced, the n shifting from then to anes: for the nanes, which was modified to for the nonce.]

So in the history of the phrase to the nines, Ciardi used nonce to indicate the change from "to then eynes" to "to the neynes". He said it nonced from one phrase to the other. Got it now?

Fun baseball language post coming up this weekend. Stay tuned!