From "Merry Andrew" (1958). Not everyone got the memo about driving on the left.
You could of course argue that all words are "made-up", but I wouldn't. I know too little about it but I'm pretty sure the first language was a form of accounting, hence "subject verbs object". Language's first purpose was to describe interactions, not transmit the experience of solitude, which might explain why we're so often having to resort to the word "weird" when describing our current isolation. Don't feel too bad about it, in other words. Anyway, yes, made-up words: In today's episode of A Journal of the Plague Year posted below, Defoe's narrator fulminates against the selling of charms bearing the word "Abracadabra", which led me to investigate whether or not this was the word's earliest appearance in literature. In fact its first recorded appearance is in the second century during the reign of Nero. However nobody knew even then what it meant, only that one should tie it in a ribbon and hang it round one's neck, preferably using the "lard of a lion", which naturally brings me onto the Steve Miller Band.
"Abra... Abra...cadabra... I wanna reach out and grab ya," they sang in 1982, so I don't know, maybe Rock 'n' Roll will die, but certainly it gives no further clue as to what the word meant (although there is a lot going on in the video). But I remembered that the Steve Miller Band had quite a history with made-up words. Their 1973 hit The Joker sung of "the pompatus of love", and so I decided to research the origin of that word instead and, uh, yeah, I hit gold. Horrible gold. According to Jon Cryer, star of the 1995 comedy The Pompatus of Love, the word is actually a corruption of a misheard Vernon Green lyric: "puppetutes of love", and puppetutes are, well, they're puppet prostitutes. So I learnt that today. Defoe also talks however of the disappearance of "merry andrews" from the streets of London, and that's allowed me to sweeten today's post with the song at the top. I love Danny Kaye. Subject verbs object. Hope you're all tickety-boo. Here's episode 3:
I always thought Pompetus was something to do with pompadours and thus was about love strutting about. Then again pre-internet there wasn't much else to do than get drunk and discuss etymology of average songs. Learn something new every day.
ReplyDeleteI always think of the SMB's "Abracadabra" as the obligatory soundtrack for rubbish variety-show magicians, so the video's pretty on the nose. Although as I recall, nobody on Bob Says Opportunity Knocks ever turned a rat into a chicken into a baby. Missed opportunity, there.
ReplyDeleteI've only just realised I don't know what a pompadour is either, VB, well I do, it's a hairstyle, but I more often mis-remember it as a puffy sleeve. I guess rubbish variety-show magicians are pretty S&M, and indeed grabby.
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