QI Words and Etymology

suze · 137657. Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:54 am

Ooh thanks Ali - I've not seen that before, and it even comes from my home province! Certainly does make entering IPA rather easier. All we need now is for everyone who uses these forums to understand the stuff and have a suitable font on board (Doulos SIL for me, whatever one thinks about the Summer Institute of Linguistics), and we're laughing ...

Samivel, that was my first thought too. But in fact it is still there - the reason I didn't find it before is that it was so long ago that I didn't have my own user name yet and was posting under that of my then partner (now husband).

post 42116 et seq refer.

samivel · 137663. Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:58 am

Ah, I'd forgotten you did that originally.

stuart · 173791. Sat May 12, 2007 11:53 am

My current favourite bit of etymology – and not only QI, but quite applicable to one of the pictures of Alan I'm sat opposite in the QI Bar – is the origin of the word dunce.

The origin is in Dunsman, a follower of Duns Scotus (John Duns, d. 1308), a Franciscan theologian who resurrected the Socratic method and pursued enquiry through careful, detailed questioning of every proposition. As a result Dunsman, and later Dunce came to be used perjoratively, indicating someone who asked pedantic questions. Pedantic questions became useless questions, and thus associated with ignorance. So, the word has entirely flipped its meaning from someone of high intelligence to one of extremely low. A cautionary tale, I feel...

Jenny · 614983. Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:11 pm

I've edited this thread to read Words and Etymology rather than just Etymology - seems to create a bit more space in it.

zomgmouse · 615203. Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:00 pm

The word "curmudgeon" comes from Scottish, meaning to mumble or to grumble. That it comes from the French "coeur méchant" is a popular misconception.

Ian Dunn · 741505. Thu Sep 09, 2010 4:44 am

I've just come across this brilliant column from The New York Times - "Schott's Vocab", a column devoted to odd words written by Ben Schott, the creator of the famous series of almanacs.

Today's word is "xenagogue" - "One who conducts strangers; a guide. So xenagogy, conduction of strangers: used as the title of a guide-book."

Ian Dunn · 746122. Fri Sep 24, 2010 12:48 pm

Qutopia - coined by Winston Churchill. A qutopia is a communist country were the people have to que endlessly for everything.

Bondee · 746141. Fri Sep 24, 2010 2:59 pm

Ian Dunn · 746144. Fri Sep 24, 2010 3:05 pm

Spud McLaren · 746149. Fri Sep 24, 2010 3:21 pm

Queuetopia?

Doesn't look right...

Efros · 746150. Fri Sep 24, 2010 3:34 pm

Queuetopia looks fine to me, qutopia seems to be used by quizzing types.

Time says "Some of Attlee's followers called it Socialism; some called it "fair shares for all"; some called it the welfare state. Winston Churchill last week scornfully snarled out another name for it: "Queuetopia." Spendthrift's End?"

Zebra57 · 746184. Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:26 pm

The origin of the word Quiz is often attributed to a bet made by a Dubliner Richard Daly. He claimed that in two days he could make up a word which had no meaning and that the good people of Dublin would accept it.

However the word already appeared in use to described a type of toy and also a strange type of person.

dr bartolo · 746400. Sat Sep 25, 2010 12:59 pm

or perhaps from a contraction of que es?

Spud McLaren · 746403. Sat Sep 25, 2010 1:04 pm

zomgmouse · 746469. Sat Sep 25, 2010 10:38 pm

While reading Moby Dick, I found out that "willy-nilly" comes from "will I nill I", roughly meaning "indecisive".
Also that "frenzy" used to be spelled "phrensy".