11.18.08

Waiting with panted breath . . .

Posted in English origins, Italian sources, eponyms at 8:25 am by Bill Brohaugh

In a previous post I promised (I knew you were holding your breath) for more on word origins from commedia dell’ arte, an Italian theatre form (beginning in the 1500s) combining improvisation and standard bits actors could weave in at appropriate moments. Yesterday’s theatre/etymology lesson showed how this improv style gave us the word zany. I talked about zany in the midst of a running theme about names, and the word pants has double origins in names.

One of the stock characters in commedia dell’ arte was Pantalone, generally a miserly, leering patrician codger. Apparently, Pantalone was Venetian; the patron saint of Venice was St. Pantaleone, and Venetians were known as Pantalonis by association with their saint. On stage, the Pantalone stereotype generally wore tight-fitting legwear that came to be known as pantaloons. (I sometimes wonder if that’s why pantaloons and eventually pants are in the plural—ultimately a misinterpretation of the possessive Pantalone’s, perhaps?—but I suspect that on the evidence of breeches and trousers, the plural comes from the fact that humans generally have more than one leg.)

The specific type of tight-fitting trousers were called pantaloons in the 1600s, and by the 1700s the word was applied to trousers (as opposed to knee breeches) in general. By the mid 1830s, the word had been shortened to pants (unrelated to the pants Pantalone did when leering at the female characters).

So wear your pants knowing that they have their origins in making light of old folk (and in fact the word pantaloon by the 1600s meant “old codger”). And men, keep your pants on lest you be accused of being a dirty old man like the commedia dell’ arte dirty old man who kept his pants on. (Particularly good advice for men in England, where pants are underwear.)

Finally, if you’re like me, facing more gray hair than I like in places I like even less, growing old should not scare the pants off you. It should scare the pants onto you.

11.17.08

Johnny on the spot

Posted in English origins, French sources, Italian sources, eponyms, unfortunate English at 8:07 am by Bill Brohaugh

OK, we’ve been on a name kick the past few days. Let’s continue with that theme for a bit, with some unfortunate name origins that didn’t make it into my Unfortunate English: The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use.

I’m going to first indirectly pick on my friend JohnnyB, who is a bit zany and has himself taken to the stage to perform comedy (all this will tie together—I promise). Johnny’s very name (without the B) is implicit in zaniness, because Johns of the world, you have further reason to take offense.

First there’s that slang for “one who partakes in prostitutes” slang. Then there’s that euphemism for toilet. And now, another offense, one not so obvious. A long time ago, John was portrayed as a clown. He was zany. Literally.

The word zany traces back (through Middle French) to an Italian theatre form called “Commedia dell’ arte,” a partially improvised farce using broad stock characters wearing masks. Among the form’s many stock characters (blowhard, geezer, girl-chaser, lovers, harlequin) is the wacky, clownish servant. Zanni. Clownish Zanni. Zany Zanni. And Zanni is a regional familiar version of Giovanni . . . or John.

By the early 1600s the word came to adjective use, first meaning “ridiculous” and then taking on the meaning of “crazy, outlandish.”

So when you call someone zany, you are invoking the insulting portrayal of that John Fool, though anyone named John would have to be really zany to actually worry about it.

(Commedia dell’ arte also gave us the name of piece of clothing generally worn by Johns, zany or otherwise, but that’s a musing for another day.)