Peter from Easton, Pennsylvania, asks about rapscallion, an old-fashioned term for a rascal, scamp, or scoundrel that can also be used affectionately. Although he once thought he had invented it, the word is recorded in English by the 17th century. Its lineage runs back to rascal, known in English since the 15th century, then through the variant rascallion before settling into rapscallion. The case also illustrates how an unusual childhood word can feel self-made when its source has been forgotten. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Rapscallion Comes from Rascal by Way of Rascallion”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there. I’m Peter and I live in a little city along the Delaware River in Pennsylvania called Easton.
Easton, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the show, Peter.
Hi, Peter.
Oh, thank you so much. Hi. Hi, guys. It’s great to be talking with you.
So growing up, I was really a voracious reader and I was always very fascinated by words.
And I even made up some words, some of which have been sort of lost to time.
But in the blur of my childhood, I think I sort of associated the word rapscallion with some of the words that I had made up.
And I thought that I had actually created the word.
You know, you never really hear people use the word rapscallion.
I think it’s sort of old fashioned.
And it actually came up one day because I was driving through upstate New York with my girlfriend and I called her a rapscallion.
And we got to talking about the word.
I did.
And we got to talking about the word, and she informed me.
She majored in English and is a librarian, so she knew.
And she informed me that I, in fact, did not create the word, that it was a real word.
So I was very fascinated by this, and that’s why I’m calling.
I want to learn more about it.
Well, let me ask you, do you have a time machine?
Because you might have created the word.
No, I guess not.
Unfortunately not, no.
Okay.
Well, Peter, first of all, I just want to congratulate you on your taste in girlfriends, because if she’s an English major and a librarian…
Oh, hot flashes over here.
She’s our people.
So how could you possibly call her rapscallion?
She was being mischievous. I don’t know.
Yeah, it can be affectionate, though, Martha, can’t it?
Oh, sure.
A rapscallion can be kind of, you know, kind of, you know, you album, oh, you rapscallion, you.
Yes, yes. And that’s the sense you’ve had.
It was a little flirtatious.
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
Nice.
Okay.
Well played, Peter.
Well played.
Yeah.
Rapscallion means like a scamp or a scoundrel, something like that.
But yeah, this is a word that has, Grant was asking if you had a time machine because this word has been around since, gosh, the 17th century.
I’m betting that you picked it up somewhere in the blur of your childhood being so well read.
You know what?
I am willing to bet that too.
I read a lot of sort of older children’s books at the time.
So I wonder if that’s maybe where it came from.
Yeah, and its roots actually are in the word rascal,
Which has been part of English since the 15th century.
As I said, in the 17th century, it was modified to rascalion,
And then by the end of the century, it was rapscallion.
And as Grant said, it can be affectionate.
I mean, you know, you can use it a lot of different ways.
You might talk about a little dog who’s chewing your shoes and maybe he’s a rapscallion.
Right, right.
But let’s talk for a second about that weird phenomenon where you think that you invented a word only to find out you didn’t.
Let me ask you, Peter, do you remember when you learned most words that you know?
Oh, gosh.
I would say, what, probably between, I don’t know, 3 and 10, 3 and 12 when you really first start reading.
I don’t know.
What I’m saying is, I was thinking that most words that you know, you don’t know where and when you learned them.
And that would be true for rapscallion as well.
So when we have an unusual word in our vocabulary, we sometimes remember where we learned it, but often we don’t.
And in the word history business that Martha and I are in, we often get well-meaning emails and phone calls from people who are pretty sure that they invented a word.
And we have to gently tell them, well, unless you had a time machine, you didn’t, because we have print evidence of this word from when your great-grandparents were alive.
That’s amazing.
Well, and it echoes sort of the conversation that my girlfriend and I had, right, driving down the road and me insisting, no, really, I created this word.
And she, of course, Googled it.
I think we know who the rapscallion in this relationship is, actually.
Right.
Well, thank you both so much for your time today.
I appreciate it.
It was really a blast.
I’ve been a fan of the show for a long time, so thank you.
Thank you, Peter.
Take care now.
Great to talk with you and hi to your girlfriend.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
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