The owner of the new bakery in town, who has become a friend of mine, gave me a sample of marionberry pie the other day. I said it didn't seem to be sweetened with cocaine, and she didn't get the joke. I had to explain that Marion Berry was the mayor of Washington, DC, when he was arrested and convicted in a drug sting some years ago.
Whence marionberry? I went to onelook and there were no definitions, though a reference to another politico named Marion Berry turned up from Wikipedia.
Then I googled it: 27,300 googlits.
Two questions: For whom is marionberry named?
And, more interestingly, are there other words like this, with no onelook hits yet tens of thousands of googlits?
Made up words, nonce words, things like that aside, I don't think there can be that many words that are used fairly frequently in the world but don't show up in a huge compendium of dictionaries.
EDIT:
Dr. Bill pointed out to me that the mayor of DC was Marion Barry, not Marion Berry. That's what being away for a quarter of a century will do to you. He asked if it was another one of my puns. Well, sorta.
TEd (edited Augst 7 at 9:15 PM EDT)
For whom is marionberry named?Marionberry:? This hybrid berry -- a cross between a blackberry, raspberry, olallieberry and chehalem -- was named for its county of origin, Marion County, Oregon. The syrup captures the essence of the marionberry, with just the right combination of sweet and pungent flavors.http://snipurl.com/grydSo it would seem that "marionberry" was not named after a person, unless the County of Marion was named after a person. And perhaps it was.
* But then the association would be indirect and unintended. In this case, "marion" simply identifies the source of the hybrid geographically.
* Marion County HistoryChampoeg District was redesignated a county in 1845 and renamed Marion County in 1849 after General Francis Marion, a Revolutionary War hero.http://snipurl.com/gryg
The Marionberry is the most widely planted blackberry variety in the world and is grown exclusively in Oregon. Here, the spring rains and sandy soils of the lush Willamette Valley have increased production to 26 million pounds since 1956 when the Marionberry was first introduced to the American consumer. In fact, the Marionberry was developed here among the fields of Marion County and from this birthplace the Marionberry hails its name. Marion County itself is named in honor of the daring “Swamp Fox” hero of the American Revolution, General Francis Marion.
http://commhum.mccneb.edu/fstdatabase/HTM_files/Fruit/marionberry.htmIn 1959 and '60, Disney produced an historical television series based on the career of General Marion in which the Swamp Fox was played by Leslie Nielsen!
"Swamp Fox! Swamp Fox!
Tail on his hat,
Nobody knows where The Swamp Fox's at.
Swamp Fox! Swamp Fox!
Hiding in the glen,
Nobody knows when he'll fight again."
In reply to:
And, more interestingly, are there other words like this, with no onelook hits yet tens of thousands of googlits?
Made up words, nonce words, things like that aside, I don't think there can be that many words that are used fairly frequently in the world but don't show up in a huge compendium of dictionaries.
nonce-words are becoming an endangered spicies, due to technology. you can take many a nonce-wd, as identified by the OED, and find it plastered all over the internet in all kinds of non-intended contexts. after all, the nonce-word, by definition, originally had a very limited sense and intended usage.
as an example of this process in action, take the word floricide, used by one Horace Smith in 1841 to mean 'one who destroys flowers'. or take the word frictionary, used by Lady Lytton (yes, that Lord Lytton) in 1839 to mean 'related to friction' -- this one is being quite thoroughly corrupted.
not that this is necessarily a bad thing; we all have been chastened, and instructed, by Humpty Dumpty.
and no one really cared about the snail darter either. : ]
frictionary, noun. A book or database in which one looks up words that rub one the wrong way.
one day soon, frictionary and.. oh, say.. floricide (or googlewhack) will show up as a googlewhack, linking to this very thread, and your fame and fortuity will be made, FS.
so, nary.
nary.
dictionary.
stationary.
how's that work?
1-ary noun suffix [ME -arie, fr. OF & L; OF -aire, -arie, fr. L -arius, -aria, -arium, fr. -arius, adj. suffix]
1 : thing belonging to or connected with; esp : place of <ovary>
2 : person belonging to, connected with, or engaged in <functionary>
(C) 1996 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated
so, dictionary <> a thing connected with words
stationary <> fixed (connected) in place
thanks, t.
and nary? things belonging to No?
Ovary. Wow. I'd never made that connection before.
Thanks, tsuwm.
stationary.
I've always liked the "stationary, stationery" pair. There was a "B.C." comic strip I liked where one of the characters has a store with a sign that says "Stationary" and another character remarks that it hasn't moved.
Of course, stationery is what one buys from a stationer, or where one finds a stationer. I suppose the stationer is then stationary....
There's always the old story about the very handsome young lawyer who was camping in the Maine woods. One day he decided to write some letters and went to the local general store. He asked the beautiful young lady who was running the store, "Do you keep stationery?"
She giggled and replied, "Yes, until the last few seconds, then I get really wild."
Date: Mon Oct 14 00:01:06 EDT 2002
Subject: A.Word.A.Day--hapax legomenon
X-Bonus: There are two kinds of fools: One says, "This is old, therefore it is good"; the other says, "This is new, therefore it is better." -William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (1860-1954)
hapax legomenon (HAY-paks li-GOM-uh-non) noun, plural hapax legomena
A word or form that has only one recorded use.
[From Greek hapax (once) + legomenon, from legein (to say).]
"Linda Tripp, the faithless friend, says to Monica Lewinsky about the President, `Right now I think he's a schwonk.' This qualifies as what biblical exegetes call a hapax legomenon, the only known use in print, which makes it difficult to define."
William Safire, Where's the Poetry?, The New York Times, Nov 1, 1998.
"The entire Song of Songs is a hapax legomenon of its own, the Blochs say. It is unique in both the Old and New Testaments because it leaves out God entirely. It never mentions Israel as a people or a nation. It is free of any talk of sin. And it is the only surviving example of secular love poetry from ancient Israel. Why such a romantic poem found its way into the biblical canon is something of a mystery."
Laurie Goodstein, Translators Find Sensuality in Bible's `Song of Songs',
The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb 21, 1998.
I prolly posted this here afore; but.
[excerpt from Jesse S. email]
>can you explain to me the difference
> between a nonce-word and a hapax legomenon?
A hapax legomenon--the term is normally used only in reference to dead languages--it a word or form that is found only once in a given corpus (an entire language, the works of a particular author, etc.). That's it--there's no other implication here about its use. Often the assumption is that the word could have been more common but the one example is all we have. Note that the reoccurrence of the word in criticism doesn't change its status; that is, if you say "so-and-so is a hapax in Shakespeare", your use of "so-and-so" does not mean that you now have another example in English and it's no longer a hapax.
A nonce-word is generally used to mean a word coined for a specific occasion, with the implication that it's not likely to be used again or outside a very limited range. While nonce-words _can_ become widespread, the assumption is that they won't.
hth.
All right, all right; dag nab it, you never let me have any fun... [grumble]
Talking about "frictionary"...I publish a blog that is called "The Frictionary". It's a weekly post of quotations that might stimulate thinking (friction produces heat) or even rub you the wrong way (friction could also chafe). Take a look for yourself at
http://www.frictionary.blogspot.com