Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

What's ouchy about TACT?

Emmett

The word is "tack,"as in changing the course of a sailing ship. The young lady could show some tact by taking a new tack with Granny.

Glenn said:

You make a good point about counting. Still, I think any consecutive ten years can correctly be called a decade. In this case, a lot of people elect to use the "odometer" method of conceptualizing decades. Don't you just love to see those numbers roll up? Besides, it makes it a lot easier to talk about a decade as, for example, the 90s, eliminating the need for some messy periphrase.

Sure, the same applies to the miles my truck has travelled, but who takes a picture of the dashboard when the odometer rolls up to 100,001? My advice: don't invite that person to your next party.

I felt the same way as you did, until, on the advice of Dr. Bart Ehrman, I read the book "Questioning the Millennium", by Stephen J. Gould, wherein he explains the origin of our counting the years. As he describes it, our current system of numbering the years has been so determined and re-determined, and through so many erroneous ways, that the current system of numbering the years is completely arbitrary, fraught with errors, and, according to Dr. Gould's explanation, so inaccurate as to make any worrying over one or two years superfluous. Since reading this book, I have ceased to fight about this topic, and no longer worry about it.

Glenn Peters said:

Even more minor correction: it's a long "a" in "Paoli". (I used to live there, way back when.)

As a native Philadelphian, I confirm my namesake's comment on the pronunciation of Paoli. I prefer to think of it as sounding a lot like the beneficiary of payola, or maybe better, a fictional irregular plural of payola. (e.g. Over the course of the last 10 years, Mr. D.J. Crooks is alleged to have been involved in over 10 separate illegal arrangements for payoli.)

I didn't hear it in the broadcast, but thought I would add that The Main Line comes from the train running from Center City (Philadelphia) along the Pennsylvania Railroad's Main Line. This line is now the SEPTA R5 (SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority: Regional rail line 5). The Main Line is larger than a traditional neighborhood. It encompasses several wealthy suburbs in a long, thin line.

Grant Barrett said:
Jump-in, "P's and Q's" were used before either one of those men were born, dating to the very early 1600s, which, I believe, is also earlier than when today's notation for logic became standard.

The first published discussion of symbolic logic was George Boole's An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, which was published in 1854.

rk said:

Paddywhack. Not sure how this helps to link the word with "hand", but I thought of that kids' song with the lines, "knick knack paddy whack / give a dog a bone." Wikipedia has an article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Old_Man. I have no idea, though, what this means.

Martha and Grant, I love the show. I've been a long time listener!

I agree - I would have looked at the song as at least perpetuating the term 'paddywhack' and suspect the song is the reason that the term is used mostly in reference to children's hands, if it did indeed as Grant says originally refer to grown up hands. I'll bet there are a lot more people familiar with "This Old Man" than with a term used quite a few decades back to refer to brawling Irishmen...

Lookit - I'm thinking that this might have two uses.

On the playground it may be an abbreviation of an expression of excitement (i.e., "Look at this!!!"), but the Irish caller from the Adirondacks used the expression as an imperitive, perhaps it is a truncation of "LOOK, this is the way IT is!" Where I grew up in Mareland (near Balmore) with some Elementary/Jr High School years north of NYC, a similar expression I remember is "Look-here"

John