More random fiction complaints!

[conuly]

Sooooo if you are confronted with more silverware at the table than you're accustomed to using, the rule is outside in. You start on the edges and work your way inwards, and unless your dining companion simply enjoys fucking with you they will tell you that rather than muttering "That's the wrong spoon" every time you try to eat your soup. The only people who actually have to remember which spoon is which are the ones setting the table, which brings us to point two:

Nobody's going to set the table with more utensils than they actually plan on using. Nobody. If it's a three course meal, that's three courses worth of utensils, not twenty. There is such a thing as being just too much, and at a certain point everybody's laughing at their faux pas instead of yours. (Then again, if your so called friends have spent the meal telling you you're using the wrong fork without telling you how to find the right fork, maybe they're just rude assholes.)

You can add this to the list of hills on which I'll die.

Comments

[conuly]

Words are created because people make them up.

Yes, but they don't usually make them up from scratch. I'm not saying that *never* happens - there are several very well-known examples! - but the vast majority of words come from other words which can be traced back to proto-IE or some other proto-language contemporary to it.

It's as good as any; otherwise, one might be locked into a trap created by too much source pedantry, where a true word origin was lost to history, but a likely one is rejected because not enough documentation.

It's not as good as any, because it's false. We have ample documentation of the etymology of this phrase. If it had some other origin then either we'd have documentation of that origin or it'd show up with a little note saying "origin unclear"

[peristaltor]

We have ample documentation of the etymology of this phrase.

Uh, I looked at your source, but saw nothing in it that denied Petrosky's possible origin tale. I would appreciate any clarifying information.

[conuly]

...why would you expect to see that?

Seriously, why do you think that's a reasonable expectation?

For every true etymology, there is a potentially infinite number of false ones. Why would anybody waste time refuting them all? Perhaps one or two, if they're particularly well-known and pernicious - but I'm guessing this one is neither.

It is enough to simply cite the evidence we have for what we *do* know. We don't need to then go on and say "Okay, and there's no evidence for this, and there's no evidence for that" - which is what refutation would amount to anyway, stating that there is no evidence for a certain position.

[peristaltor]

...why would you expect to see that?

Uh, because it would be necessary? No, scratch that: it should be necessary. Otherwise, why repeat it? Seriously. "Spic & span!"

"What does that mean?"

"It means clean."

"Why?"

"Because."

And with enough "because" as an answer, I drop it from my vocabulary, because I see no reason to repeat what I don't understand. Petrosky gave me enough information for me to not drop the term.

I went back to your source, the Collins. I found the definition, along with the ME word origins. What I didn't see is the important part: why did folks in the Middle English period refer to neat and tidy with the words spic & span? Really? You're going to refer to a tidy kitchen (which is usually is, in usage) with terms that refer not to broom or mop, but to fork and spoon?

That makes zero sense, so one is——well, I am drawn to a better explanation. Discovering a probable reason behind a term fleshes out its background. So, yeah, for me, that would be a reasonable expectation.

I'm not saying that Bible-like, because Petrosky said it, I believe it. I'm saying it's the best explanation for the term that I've heard. And he shared that observation in the part of his book dealing with, well, eating implements and when they were used. He even managed to explain why the English swap out their forks and knives between eating and cutting food, something that drove Germans I knew batty.

Turns out, according to his book, using both knives and scooping gadgets started in the Middle English period. Huh. There's a coincidence.

[conuly]

If this were a valid etymology, there would be evidence for it, and you'd be able to find that presented in a reputable dictionary rather than a pop ling book.

It is not necessary for dictionaries, especially those which don't have a significant etymology focus, to disprove every folk etymology other people made up in their heads.

I know you like this story because it has a nifty little story attached to it, but the truth is, most etymologies don't. Why do people today sometimes like to say "Netflix and chill" rather than "sex"? You could probably spin a silly story about that, but the answer boils down to "because".

[peristaltor]

If this were a valid etymology….

Aaaand we're back where I started. It's why I mentioned the illiterate masons with their perpend bricks, who used a word the literate only partially understood (as you can well tell with their "valid" definitions that are built on assumptions, and therefore seriously all over the place, often even contradictory).

If it's written down, it's valid. If not, if it was first and foremost used by the illiterate, it's… something else.

I'd have to re-read Petrosky to see exactly how he shared the term, and since I don't think I still own the book, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Bottom line: dictionary definitions have shown themselves to be faulty too many times in my life for me to take them that seriously. (Look up the recent Oxford English definition of "syphon" for a good example.) I'd much rather violate the dictionary well than adhere to it poorly.

It's a living language. It ain't skookum. It's possible for things to go cattywampus, and in the process get all jury rigged.

[conuly]

We're not talking about definitions, we're talking about etymology. Speculation with no evidence is, frankly, nonsense. You cannot say, with any justification, that since lots of people are illiterate, therefore, evidence or the lack thereof is meaningless. And that *is* what you're trying to say. That whole attitude is irresponsible. It's the sort of attitude that, when normalized, gets us antivaxxers and flat-earthers, who think that what they make up in their heads about vaccines and geology is just as valid as what we know from looking at the facts. Your speculation based on no evidence is not as valid as actual evidence.

We have evidence that the phrase span-new existed in writing before the phrase spick and span. We have evidence that the phrase spick and span new existed in writing before the phrase spick and span. You are saying that because some people can't read, then what exists in writing doesn't mean anything, that we can't actually know things or prove things. There is no logic to this! If your speculation had any basis in reality, then these other phrases would not exist in writing at all.

Meanwhile, there is approximately a zero percent chance that people were using the term "spike" to mean "knife" at any point in England and nobody wrote this down. That's a sort of evidence on its own.

You like this story because there's a story. Well, yeah. We all like stories. But the sad truth is that word histories don't usually have clever just-so stories attached to them. We can make those up all the time, and that's a popular historical pastime, but it's still nonsense. I could make a story right now that it has to do with fibercraft because when something is "spun" (or "span") cleanly there are no "specks". But it's just a story. I made it up. And even if I call it speculation - it's not. It's me making stuff up.

And if this person is willing to make stuff up and publish it like speculation when it's only storytelling, then everything he writes is suspect because he's not doing history, or even pop history - he's doing fiction. He may as well say that spoons and spikes were given to us by ancient aliens at that point, because after all, nobody can prove otherwise.

[conuly]

But you are welcome to look through any reputable dictionary you like. Options include, but are not limited to, Merriam-Webster's, American Heritage, and the OED.

We know that the earliest written citation is "spick, and span-new", Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives. If it had anything to do with spoons and licking plates we'd see that after "spick and span" or not at all. We also know that "span-new" predates "spick and span-new", which again makes any derivation that relies on both words to start spurious.

We'd also see, if the phrase had anything to do with knives, people using the term "spick" or at least "spike" to refer to knives outside of this phrase.

He even managed to explain why the English swap out their forks and knives between eating and cutting food, something that drove Germans I knew batty.

That's typically an American custom. We imported it over from Europe before the non-zigzag method became popular. In my experience, Brits make fun of Americans for doing it.