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Haft, Hilt, Handle & Swashbuckling   Buckle That Swash or Swash That Buckle? Today we swash that buckle with sword words. Do you know the origin of swashbuckler? To swash, among other meanings, is to make a loud noise with one’s weapons. A buckler is a small shield held by a handle on its back and used to deflect blade slashes of an enemy during a sword fight. A swashbuckler was a show-off soldier who made a lot of noise with his swords and shields and other weapons, a dick-wagging braggart who banged his sword on his own shield or that of his opponent. As a stock comic type, the boastful soldier is as old as Roman comedy where he appears in the plays of Plautus as Miles Gloriosus Latin ‘the boastful soldier.’ Strictly pejorative at first, swashbuckler gained reluctant admiration when applied to, for example, bold pirates who captured ships with swashbuckling derring-do. Haft A haft is the handle of a sword or dagger or sickle or large knife. Hæfte in Old English meant ‘handle,’ anything used to grasp an object, directly related to Old English hæft ‘bond, fetter, captive,’ cognate with Old High German haft ‘fetter, captivity.’ Once upon a time an untrustworthy man was described as “loose in the haft,” unreliable like a knife with a shaky handle. Haft of a beautiful Rajput Sword   Hilt The hilt of a sword is its handle. So hilt is a synonym of haft. Hilt is cognate with Old Norse hjalt ‘strong’ and Old Saxon hilta, but its ultimate origin is unclear. The vagaries of war were expressed neatly in this saying in print by 1642 CE: “He that hath the hilt in his hand in the morning, may have the point at his throat ere night.” Up to the hilt is still used to mean ‘completely’ like a sword buried to the hilt in an enemy’s chest. I am taxed to the hilt, like you. Handle  A handle is the part of an object by which it is grasped. Handle descends from hand the same way that thimble descends from thumb, by means of an instrumental suffix, in this case, -le or –el, a suffix that began in Indo-European languages as a diminutive and developed an instrumental meaning later. The [vowel] +- /l/ +- [vowel] is still an operative diminutive in German, Kindl ‘little child> Kind ‘child’ and petzel Yiddish ‘little prick’ > Putz Old German ‘penis.’ The Proto-Germanic *handuz derives from Proto-Indo-European *kent ‘to grasp’ with a reflex in ancient Greek kenteo ‘I poke, I prick.’ The Koine Greek of the New Testament displays the related noun in the famous phrase when Jesus speaks to Saul on the road to Damascus , [Acts 9:5, King James Version] “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” (goads, cattle prods, pangs of conscience). In its original Koine Greek: σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν skleron soi pros kentra laktizein We know skleros, the Greek adjective meaning hard or difficult, from its appearance in common English medical terms like sclerotic artery ‘hardened’ and arteriosclerosis ‘a morbid hardening of the arteries.’ Saint Luke, or whoever wrote The Acts of the Apostles, is here quoting a proverbial phrase extremely common in classical Greek literature, the phrase in one form or another being found in the writings of Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides. Luke means that Jesus is telling Saul that Saul’s persecution of Christians is against his own conscience and if he would only listen to and obey the dictates of his conscience, he would not have to kick against the moral goads of the Lord that he hears as the voice of his conscience. Here endeth today’s lesson, gentles.   Wyeth’s Excalibur   copyright © 2012 William Gordon Casselman

Any comments, emendations, additional word lore or book orders? Please email it to me at wordguy@shaw.ca

 

 

 

Reviews of my New Book

Click bookcover for preview

Jenni French of San Fancisco, California writes on her blog "My Corner of the Universe" for March 19, 2011:

Casselman, Bill. Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A World Lover's Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2010.

"I admit it: I'm a word nerd. I love words: weird words, long words, obscure words, funny words.  This book is right up my alley.  With chapters like "Nautical Words," "Creepy Words," and "Edible Words," I have enjoyed every page of this book. 

And the author has quite a way with words, so I have found myself rereading many sentences in this book and slowing my progress through it. 

My current favorite sentence is found in a discussion of dog hybrid breed names: "What a revolting concatenation of cutesiness and smarmy nomenclatorial treacle parading under the name of canine hybrid breed names" (19).

I'm sure I'll have another favorite sentence in a day or two. 

This book is just that good and just that entertaining."

 

Author Bill Casselman replies: "Thanks, Jenni!"

Just a reminder that this book contains my ALL-NEW word esssays, none of which are available anywhere else in print or online.

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A Great New Review of My Latest Book!

 

October 26, 2011

Welcome to the Enchanted Forest

By WB Johnston

This review is about Bill Casselman’s latest e-book about words: Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik: A Word Lover’s Guide to the Weirdest, Wackiest, and Wonkiest Lexical Gems (Kindle Edition)

 

“Wade Davis, lately of National Geographic, once described each living language as “an old-growth forest of the human spirit.” Once you decide to enter the kleptomaniacal woods of our mother tongue, what you need is more than a tour guide. This is no Disney-fied ‘keep-your-hands-inside-the-car-at all-times’, point A to point B, clear-cutting mining of language. You, here, are in the hands of Sir William of Cassel, a genuine shaman modestly posing as a simple lover of words.

In the best of the spiritual tradition, Bill is the shape-shifter who constantly leads you to all the places you need to find in your soul. Every page is a new country, an invitation to an excursion into the wonderland of rich connections with the myriad of sources of what so often we unthinkingly wield as a prosaic tool.

Pay absolutely no attention to anyone who tells you that this book is anything but pure gold. It’s simply not true, sadly, that all the world loves a lover. Particularly someone whose love is so boundless.

But Sir William is fearless. You don’t earn your keep as a medicine man if you have a thin skin. While I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone could walk away from this book unmoved by its wit, its wisdom and the beautiful transparency by which the author celebrates the glorious romp of our almost unlimited linguistic exuberance, I have to sadly conclude that once in a while, you do meet someone who can’t see the forest for the trees, eh?

Read this book. Leave it on the sofa instead of the $%#!*$% TV remote. Maybe someone you care about will pick it up, even just for a moment, and fall in love with their heritage?

Leave it on your desk at work and trust that someone will riffle through it when you are out at lunch. Shamans are magicians of the highest order. The work of their hands and hearts is game-changing. Or, hey, put it on your Kindle and just feel comforted that you can wander back out into the forest with Bill even in the middle of a boring lecture.

Enjoy.”

 

Casselman replies: Thank you so much, Dr. J., for the kudos.

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Cindy Lapeña on her blog "Creativity Unlimited" of July 19 ,2011, writes:

Posted by mimrlith in 365 Things to Look Forward to.
Tags: 365 things to look forward to, books, reading
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19. Starting a book

To a certified bibliophile like me, a.k.a. bookworm, one of the most exciting things to look forward to is to start reading a new book. In fact, sometimes the prospect of starting to read a new book is so exciting that I have to hurry to finish the book I am currently reading, just so I can start a new one.

If there’s one thing I can’t resist, it’s a book, especially if it promises to be a good one. Of course there are certain books I just won’t touch or be seen with, but at the risk of being hung by my thumbs by fans of such literature, I will not mention any genres in particular. . .

Seeing a book with a title that totally captivates me, like Where a Dobdob meets a Dikdik (yes, that is a book title!) has me so worked up, I just can’t wait to dive in. I imagine all sorts of deliciously fancifully outrageous words with a title like that. Is it obvious? I just love books on words. You won’t believe how many dictionaries I own. Or books on lexical oddities and other lexical explorations. Yes, I am a logophile of sorts. I love the new words I pick up from new books. I relish finding out the meanings of all manner of words and phrases and expressions. What could be more fun?"

(Replies author Bill Casselman: Please scroll to bottom of page or click here to link to a free seven-page preview of my new book, Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik.

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Sample My Newest Book. Click Below.

Jan. 3, 2011

“Mr Casselman,
I wanted to write to thank you for your thoroughly enjoyable [new] book. By background, I am a technologist practicing the somewhat arcane crafts of Information Security.”  

David Gamey, Canada

 

Testimonial Email

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Dear Mr. Casselman,
A search for the origins of an improbable-looking word, paraprosdokian, led me to the first piece of your prose I have had the pleasure of reading, "The Bogus Word Paraprosdokian & Lazy Con Artists of Academe." I have just placed an order for Where a Dobdob Meets a Dikdik, Canadian Words & Sayings, and As The Canoe Tips, and will add more of your titles as I finish these.

I have just retired from a 40-plus year career in book publishing, the last thirty years spent as director/editor of a number of university presses, attempting to sort the genuine writers from the "Lazy Con Artists of Academe." Sad to say, the latter have so over-bred the former that I could no longer see the rare gem in the avalanches of offal that daily swamped my office and desk. I visited your website and spent far too long there; it was a pleasure to meet a real writer through his work.

. . . I revisited the paraprosdokian page, and have finally quit laughing again at “Casselman's Conclusion.” You were not unkind to the "profligate prof-lets." During my years as an acquisitions editor, in rejection letters I often quoted Prof. Moses Hadas, classicist at Columbia University, who wrote a young scholar in response to having been sent the prof-let's first book, "Thank you for sending me your book. I will waste no time reading it."

I know I will enjoy your books. Keep up the good work.

Thank you,
Luther Wilson
Director (Retired)
University of New Mexico Press, among others

 

 

 

Nov. 15, 2010: On Twitter, Doug O'Neill, a happy buyer of my new Dobdob book, writes, "Even funnier flipping through it a second time around."

Thanks, Doug!

 

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Hundreds of links to more word essays; click below.

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