We Three Kings

From Colossus Inklings No.121

We published reader Peter Robinson’s letter about the King Canute story in Colossus 121’s Puzzle Postbox. Here are three legends of British kings, which may be true or not.

King Canute sat on the beach and ordered the waves to turn back and leave his feet dry. As Canute knew would happen, the waves kept coming and he and his courtiers had to retreat. The real meaning of this was probably an attempt by Canute to teach his flattering courtiers that even a king’s power was limited by nature and God.

When King Alfred the Great fled to the Somerset Levels, he was sheltered by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some cakes cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn and was taken to task by the woman. Upon realising his identity, she apologised profusely, but Alfred insisted that he was the one who needed to apologise.

King Robert I of Scotland, according to legend, was on the run and hid himself in a cave where he observed a spider trying to spin a web. Each time the spider failed, it simply started all over again until it succeeded. Inspired by this, Bruce returned to inflict a series of defeats on the English, thus winning him more supporters and eventual victory.

OzWords

From Colossus Inklings No.120

The Australian National University in Canberra ran a competition asking readers to send in an Australian place name with a suitable definition. The entrant was allowed to add, remove or change one letter of the place name if desired. Here are some of the witty results:

Barragate - a really fishy scandal
Bringarooma - BYO accommodation
Bullabulling - a bull doing what bulls do
Caniambo - a very intelligent ambulance driver
Chillingham - a frigid pig
Cignet - a device to catch baby swans smoking
Crookwell - How are you really?
Gundaroo - a less serious crime than Gundagai
Maitland - Oz
Mangalore - a surfeit of males
Mundiwindi - Sunday’s weather forecast
Noondoo - a long lunch
Nagga Nagga - a bigamist’s worst nightmare
Tullamarine - Try fooling someone else!
Warrawee - asked by many a lost tourist

Threescore And Ten

From Colossus Inklings No.120

A reader recently wrote in to tell us that she was 20 years past threescore and ten. Why didn’t she just say ‘fourscore and ten’? I suspect it’s because the prescribed lifespan of an average person was purported to be threescore and ten’ 70 years old. And she was telling us that she was proud to have cheated that prediction by reaching 90 years old.

In the Old Testament, Psalms 90 has the line:

‘The days of our years are threescore years and ten.’

• Although we expect to live past 70, the average life expectancy of the world nowadays is only 66.12.

• According to United Nations estimates for 2005-10, Australia’s life expectancy at birth is ranked fifth among the world’s nations for men and sixth for women.

• In 2008, the average life expectancy for Australians is 80.73 and for New Zealanders 80.24.

I would love to know how many of our puzzlers have beaten three score and ten?

On The Danger List

From Colossus Inklings No.120

To show how much words change their meanings, look at these five words that have similar meanings. Only one had the same meaning originally.

Danger comes from 13th C daunger ‘power’, as in ‘power to inflict injury’. This in turn came from Latin dominium ‘ownership’.

Hazard evolved from the Arabic al zahr, ‘the dice’. Crusaders in the Holy Land learned this word that associated dice games with risk.

Risk is derived from Italian rischiare which in turn came from the Greek rhiza ‘cliff’ because of the risk when sailing along rocky coasts.

Jeopardy originates from the Old French jeu parti meaning ‘divided game’, jeu from Latin jocus ‘joke’ and partir from French ‘to divide’.

Peril is the only word that had the same meaning as far back as we can go. It comes from the Latin periculum, which actually meant ‘danger’.

Shoptalk

From Colossus Inklings No.119

Milliner ‘ originally meant ‘native of Milan’, later ‘a vendor of fancy goods from Milan’.

Stationer - comes from the medieval Latin stationarius meaning ‘tradesman at a fixed location, ie not itinerant’.

Butcher ‘ variant of the Old French bochier from boc ‘he-goat’ or buc ‘male deer’.

Tailor ‘ Originally from the Latin taliare meaning ‘to cut’.

Confectioner ‘ From the Latin conficere meaning ‘put together’. In the Middle Ages it generally applied to medicinal preparations.