Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Tea
I read in the DT that our tea is about to be delivered in nylon tea bags rather than paper ones. Tea fiends are pleased - it seems one gets a much posher cup of tea this way - eco fiends are cross because nylon is not very eco. Interestingly we had noticed that the French in Paris already use the things - and their lemon tea was fine even if their milk was not.
Prompted by the interesting allegation in the TLS that the words blackmail and bereave come from the reivers who plagued the Scottish boarder country until the union - reivers being rather unpleasant Doone types (overlooking the fictional Exmoorian origins of these last) - I took a peek in the OED, and the result was, I think, a score draw. To reave is indeed an old word for robbing and stealing, usually with violence, and a reaver or reiver was the person what dun it. So one can see how bereave came to have its present meaning. However, while the border reivers were probably the last of the breed (I imagine that Ireland, while at the time similarly lawless, had a differant word), bereave started to drift towards its present meaning without a Scottish connection. Shared point.
Turning to blackmail, we find that mail is an old word for a tax, rent or duty (in addition to its chain mail connection). Quite differant from the mail which derives from the French malle (now a suitcase) and which originally meant a packet and is now to do with the Post Office. One had white mails or white rents which were paid in silver and so were white, and one also had black mails and black rents which were paid in kind. The term drifted to meaning a mail paid under duress and was certainly used to describe the protection money paid to the border reivers by farmers. But then there is a bit of a jump to its present meaning. Another shared point, making one point each.
Interestingly, Littre tells me that the French word for blackmail, chantage, is entirely differant and is derived from the custom of making people sing (for the entertainment of those present and perhaps for their supper) at table. From there to 'faire chanter someone' was to make someone do something they did not particularly want to do. And going back to English we go back to the criminal connection with evil doers singing to the police and making people sing. The singing connection presumably lurking in the background of chantage. Pay up or I'll sing.
And then being in the G department I learn that a greffier - a sort of court official - also means a graft or scion. And a greffe was the place where the court register was kept. All this being connected by the English common law custom of grafting new bits of law onto old bits, this building up the tree or body of common law. So the greffier kept pasting new bits of law onto the old bits of law which were kept on the greffe. Unlike that dreadful Roman law. All great fun, one could go on for ever.
Prompted by the interesting allegation in the TLS that the words blackmail and bereave come from the reivers who plagued the Scottish boarder country until the union - reivers being rather unpleasant Doone types (overlooking the fictional Exmoorian origins of these last) - I took a peek in the OED, and the result was, I think, a score draw. To reave is indeed an old word for robbing and stealing, usually with violence, and a reaver or reiver was the person what dun it. So one can see how bereave came to have its present meaning. However, while the border reivers were probably the last of the breed (I imagine that Ireland, while at the time similarly lawless, had a differant word), bereave started to drift towards its present meaning without a Scottish connection. Shared point.
Turning to blackmail, we find that mail is an old word for a tax, rent or duty (in addition to its chain mail connection). Quite differant from the mail which derives from the French malle (now a suitcase) and which originally meant a packet and is now to do with the Post Office. One had white mails or white rents which were paid in silver and so were white, and one also had black mails and black rents which were paid in kind. The term drifted to meaning a mail paid under duress and was certainly used to describe the protection money paid to the border reivers by farmers. But then there is a bit of a jump to its present meaning. Another shared point, making one point each.
Interestingly, Littre tells me that the French word for blackmail, chantage, is entirely differant and is derived from the custom of making people sing (for the entertainment of those present and perhaps for their supper) at table. From there to 'faire chanter someone' was to make someone do something they did not particularly want to do. And going back to English we go back to the criminal connection with evil doers singing to the police and making people sing. The singing connection presumably lurking in the background of chantage. Pay up or I'll sing.
And then being in the G department I learn that a greffier - a sort of court official - also means a graft or scion. And a greffe was the place where the court register was kept. All this being connected by the English common law custom of grafting new bits of law onto old bits, this building up the tree or body of common law. So the greffier kept pasting new bits of law onto the old bits of law which were kept on the greffe. Unlike that dreadful Roman law. All great fun, one could go on for ever.
# posted by Jim @ 1:22 AM 
