Magenta A brilliant red colour derived from coal-tar, named in commemoration of the battle of Magenta, which was fought in 1859.

The battle was crucial to the Italian Risorgimento, the unification of Italy.

Thank you bill! i couldn't remember that.. i was sure it was mauve, that was a made up name, for a new shade the became available with coal tar dyes, and when i checked, i found out wrong! and then for the life of me i couldn't remember what color it was..

Magenta.. a beautiful color!

I am taking these from the Brewer Dictionary of Phase and Fable.

Magi (The), according to one tradition, were Melchior, Gaspar, and Balthazar, three kings of the East.
The first offered gold, the emblem of royalty, to the infant Jesus; the second, frankincense, in token of
divinity; and the third, myrrh, in prophetic allusion to the persecution unto death which awaited the “Man
of Sorrows.”
MELCHIOR means “king of light.” GASPAR, or CASPAR, means “the white one.”
BALTHAZAR means “the lord of treasures.”

Now I know what "Caspar" was appropriate name for ghost in cartoon series by that name.

Magnolia A flower so called from Pierre Magnol, professor of medicine at Montpelier. (1638-1715.)

Mall or Pall Mall (London). From the Latin pellere mallco (to strike with a mallet or bat; so called
because it was where the ancient game of pell-mall used to be played. Cotgrave says:-

“Pale malle is a game wherein a round boxball is struck with a mallet through a high arch of
iron. He that can do this most frequently wins.”

It was a fashionable game in the reign of Charles II., and the walk called the Mall was appropriated to it
for the king and his court.

I remember being told when i was in highschool, it was always pronounced "pell mell" Is this still true?

Mandarin' is not a Chinese word, but one given by the Portuguese colonists at Maca'o to the officials
called by the natives Khiouping (3 syl.) It is from the verb mandar (to command).

Manure (2 syl.) means hand-work (French, main-oeuvre), tillage by manual labour. It now means the
dressing applied to lands.

Martyr (Greek) simply means a witness, but is applied to one who witnesses a good confession with his
blood.

Mascotte One who brings good luck, and possesses a “good eye.”

I remember being told when i was in highschool, it was always pronounced "pell mell" Is this still true?

Never been true in my lifetime, Bill - unless you wanted to say it like a real (and probably pretentious) toff.

"pell mell" [sic] is used, though, meaning running around like crazy. Ah, here it is in M-W:

Main Entry: pell-mell
Pronunciation: "pel-'mel
Function: adverb
Etymology: Middle French pelemele
Date: 1596
1 : in mingled confusion or disorder
2 : in confused haste
- pell-mell adjective or noun

May (the month) is not derived from Maia, the mother of Mercury, as the word existed long before either
Mercury or Maia had been introduced. It is the Latin Maius- i.e. Magius, from the root mag, same as the
Sanscrit mah, to grow; and means the growing or shooting month.

> “Pale malle is a game wherein a round boxball is struck with a mallet through a high arch of
iron. He that can do this most frequently wins.”

I only read about this a few days ago - I hear it's of Scottish tradition. Anyone ever seen it played? Sounds a little like hurling, not that I know the game well. Re. the pronunciation: I've only ever heard it pronounced one of two ways; either 'paul-maul', or 'pal-mal' (with pal said pretty much like the dog food).

I remember being told when i was in highschool, it was always pronounced "pell mell" Is this still true?

Bill, I have never heard it pronounced anyway but 'Paul Maul' or 'Pal Mal' or simply 'The Mall'.

The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian history and even the pronunciation of words at the time. Mr. Fraser is meticulous with his reseach.

either 'paul-maul', or 'pal-mal' (with pal said pretty much like the dog food)

Just realised I didn't clarify - the English (as far as I'm aware) never use any pronunciation other than Pal Mal (with the "a" as in apple).

It's yet another of those odd English (English) pronunciations that helps us tell locals from invaders within the time it takes to say a sentence.
Sussex (where I live) is absolutely full of place names like that.

I'd therefore recommend that none of you say Paul Maul when you're in England or playing English (English) Monopoly - unless you're doing an intentional wind-up.

Weren't there "Pall Mall" cigarettes once upon a time?

Pall Mall cigarettes had a significant market share in WWII. They were longer than regulars
by almost an inch, and the ads showed a fighter pilot holding up a Pall Mall beside a brand X
one. New Yorker magazine carried a cartoon showing Hermann Goering holding a long and a short
cigarette side by side, and saying to Hitler:"This means something to US Air Force, but
we can't figure out what."

My dictionary gives "pell-mell" = in wild, disorderly haste . You may rely on it, no American
lexicographer invented that pronunciation.

Here's a URL about it. Says it originated in France. So Paille Maille" got pronounced "pell-mell".
http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Croquet.htm

Pall Mall cigarettes

So how was that Pall Mall pronounced, Bill?
Pal-Mal, Pel-Mel or Paul-Maul ?

Paille Maille
I'd imagine this would be pronounced Pie Mie(roughly) if it follows modern French pronunciation. Interesting point: quite often when French words have been anglicized they have ended up being pronounced as they are spelt rather than how they used to be said by the French. There's a very common phrase that (errm) fails to spring to mind (will try to recall), but Cinque Ports became "sink ports", for instance. Pall Mall may have done something similar.

Paul Maul is pretty close to was cigarette name was pronounced. I'm still a bit
puzzled why it took so long to learn "Cigarettes are hazardous to your health".
I got the word from a classmate who was chest surgeon seeing many patients
with lung carcinoma. I quit in early fifties, thank goodness.My brother who smoked
about ten years longer than I did is now having moderately severe chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease.

Mercia The eighth and last kingdom of the Heptarchy, between the Thames and the Humber. It was the
mere or boundary of the Anglo-Saxons and free Britons of Wales.

Meredith (Owen). The pseudonym of Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, author of Chronicles and
Characters, in verse (1834). He became Lord Lytton (1873-1891).

It was a dark and stormy night........

Merry The original meaning is not mirthful, but active, famous; hence gallant soldiers were called “merry
men;” favourable weather, “merry weather;” brisk wind, “a merry gale;” London was “merry London;”
England, “merry England;” Chaucer speaks of the “merry organ at the mass;” Jane Shore is called by
Pennant the “merry concubine of Edward IV.” (Anglo-Saxon, mara, illustrious, great, mighty, etc.). (See
Merry-Men .)
'Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all (2 Henry IV., act v. 3). It is a sure sign of mirth when the
beards of the guests shake with laughter.

mes Gothic = dish, whence Benjamin's mess, a mess of pottage, etc.
Mess, meaning confusion or litter, is the German mischen, to mix; our word mash.

Mews Stables, but properly a place for hawks on the moult. The muette was an edifice in a park where
the officers of venery lodged, and which was fitted up with dog-kennels, stables, and hawkeries. They
were called muettes from mue, the slough of anything; the antlers shed by stags were collected and kept in
these enclosures. (Lacombe: Dictionnaire Portatif des Beaux-Arts.)

Mexitli Tutelary god of the Aztecs, in honour of whom they named their empire Mexico. (Southey.)

Tutelary = guardian

Midden The kitchen midden. The dust-bin. The farmer's midden is the dunghill. The word is Scotch.
(Danish, mödding; Norwegian, mudder; Welsh, mwydo (to wet), our mud and mire.)

Middlesex The Middle Saxons- that is, between Essex, Sussex, and Wessex.

Nothing to do with sex.

Mikado (Japan, mi, exalted; kado, gate), is not a title of the emperor of Japan, but simply means the
person who lives in the imperial palace.

The Middle Saxons- that is, between Essex, Sussex, and Wessex

- and now all part of London (though you still specify the county as Middx in your address). Wembley (football) and Harrow (posh school) in NW London, aren't really far out at all, but they are Middlesex rather than London addresses.

And here's a link to previous Sussex & Essex stuff (courtesy of Bill again):
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=76205

Milesians (The). The ancient Irish. The legend is that Ireland was once peopled by the Firbolgs, who
were subdued by the Milesians, called the “Gaels of Ireland.”

Milliner A corruption of Milaner; so called from Milan, in Italy, which at one time gave the law to
Europe in all matters of taste, dress, and elegance.
Milliner was originally applied to the male sex; hence Ben Jonson, in Every Man in his Humour, i. 3,
speaks of a “milliner's wife.” The French have still une modiste and un modiste.

Milo An athlete of Crotona. It is said that he carried through the stadium at Olympia a heifer four years
old, and ate the whole of it afterwards. When old he attempted to tear in two an oak-tree, but the parts
closed upon his hands, and while held fast he was devoured by wolves.

But his last name was not Washington.

Minstrel simply means a servant or minister. Minstrels were kept in the service of kings and princes for
the entertainment of guests

Mint So called from the nymph Minthe, daughter of Cocytus, and a favourite of Pluto. This nymph was
metamorphosed by Pluto's wife (Proserpine) out of jealousy, into the herb called after her name. The
fable is quite obvious, and simply means that mint is a capital medicine. Minthe was a favourite of Pluto,
or death, that is, was sick and on the point of death; but was changed into the herb mint, or was cured
thereby.

Miolnier (3 syl.) [the crusher]. The magic hammer of Thor. It would never fail to hit a Troll; would
never miss to hit whatever it was thrown at; would always return to the owner of its own accord; and
became so small when not in use that it could be put into Thor's pocket. (Scandinavian mythology.)

There are other spellings of this name.

Miscreant (3 syl.) means a false believer. (French, mis-créance.) A term first applied to the
Mahometans. The Mahometans, in return, call Christians infidels, and associate with the word all that we
mean by “miscreants.”

Canopy, as if from Canopus (the star in the southern hemisphere), is the Greek konopeion (from
konops, a gnat), and means a cloth to keep off gnats.

Custard, the food, is from the Welsh for curded milk

Foxglove is not the glove of the fox, but of the fays, called folk - the little folk's glove

Greyhound has no connection with the colour grey. It is the grayhound, or hound which hunts the gray
or badger

Humble pie, for umbil pie. The umbils of venison were served to inferior retainers and servants.

Pen means a feather. (Latin, penna, a wing.

Foxglove is also my favorite example of herbal remedies driving drug development... it's the central compound to the digitalis family of drugs for regulating the heart rate.

Interesting history on the foxglove/digitalis connection at
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/digitalis/digtalis.htm.
[Although "Molecule of the Month"? I think I'm going to vomit... ]

and the latin name, digitalis , contains the word digit, (finger) and means "for the finger". a much better fit for latin name then the latin name for columbine (named for doves, since someone thought the flower resembled doves, dipping their heads down to drink) in latin the flower is Aquilegia because its namer thought it resembled the talons of an eagle!

wofahulicodoc: Where are you when we need you? That article about digitalis has one big fat error it in.
The primary effect of digitalis, I remember from fifty years ago, it that it decreases the resting length of cardiac muscle,and so restores lost contractile power, and thereby corrects cardiac failure. It is also used for other cardiac problems, but I do not know enough about them to discuss them.

my understanding of digitalis was it made the heart pump strong, but slower.. It works by increasing the intensity of the heart muscle contractions but diminishing the rate-- and by pumping slower, it let the heart muscle rest longer..

since congestive heart failure is often characterized by an an increase rate, of ineffective pumping, it causes the heart to be overworked, but circulation to be sluggish, which then results in the blood stagnating, and causes edema, first in the extremities, and eventually in the lungs, which causes them to be saturated, and less effective at oxygen exchange, which increases the CO2 level in the blood, which then signal the brain to increase the heart rate, and the cycle increases till the heart, is total worn out and totally fails... (or the fluid that collects in the lungs leads to pnumonia, and the weakened heart is further starved for oxygen)

a secondary treatment for congestive heart failure is diuretics, which reduce the volume of fluid, and the edema, (but then make the blood too thick, so Hepatrin(sp?) is then used to thin the blood.. )

until the circulary system was understood, digitalis was a treatment for dropsy.. or edema.

but i am sure Doc comfort, or one of the other more knowledgable scientist on the board will correct me if i am wrong..

Heart failure is regrettably much more complicated than that; you could give yourself a hernia lifting textbooks on the subject...


Alert: Probably more than you wanted to know about digitalis (foxglove)

Digitalis has many different effects on the heart, known by their Greek names:

inotropic - makes the muscle contract more vigorously (faster and stronger); that's the primary benefit

chronotropic - makes the rate faster in spontaneously-active pacemaker-like cells, so that too much makes an excessively fast heart. (But as the heart failure is relieved by the inotropic benefit, the heart doesn't have to work as hard, and then it can slow down a bit. It's only a secondary effect of the digoxin.)

dromotropic - makes the conduction of impulses from atria to ventricles slower, so that if there is Atrial Fibrillation and the ventricles are going too fast, digoxin will slow it. (That's another place where the slowing-down comes into play.)

bathmotropic - makes the individual cells more irritable, so they may give extra beats more frequently. Can be dangerous, or merely annoying but harmless, or not even noticed!

I feel like a real dinosaur now - those Greek names aren't even in the current textbooks of pharmacology any more! Too abstruse for our times, I suppose. The properties of the drug remain unchanged, though

Except for the irritability part, these are generally beneficial for a person with a failing heart. Unfortunately it's very easy to tip over into excess since the difference between "enough" and "too much" is quite small: the drug has a "narrow toxic/therapeutic ratio."

We use other things too for relieving the various symptoms of heart failure: diuretics for fluid retention; "ACE inhibitors" to permit more "circulation-per-squeeze" without using any more energy; "beta-blockers" so the heart isn't running on overdrive continuously. Digoxin has become an "add-on" drug. And of course there is more public awareness of what causes the problem in the first place, as well as more effective medicines, leading to better control of smoking, of blood pressure, of cholesterol, and of diabetes, and therefore to less coronary artery disease to have to treat.

It's interesting that the chief cause of heart disease in Withering's day (rheumatic fever; rheumatic heart disease) is virtually unheard-of today in this country, so that we're largely dealing with a diffferent set of problems.

Getting back to "digitalis," the extract of D. purpurea: it's actually a combination of a lot of related compounds called digitalis glycosides (dozens, I was told) which differ only by minor changes in the structure of the parent compound and the associated sugar part but have great variation in effects. Nowadays the drug has been standardized and synthesized, and isn't obtained from the plant any more. The most common preparation is "digoxin," only recently available as a generic but even the venerable brand Lanoxin (r) is very inexpensive by today's standards.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/wildseed/27/27.4.html
for a picture of foxglove - which took forever to locate!

And for a *lot of info, including how to grow and market foxglove :
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/f/foxglo30.html

which also has a link to a medical (?) site on antidotes - which I am not sure our AWAD MDs will be thrilled with.
????

>> Magenta - A brilliant red colour derived from coal-tar, named in commemoration of the battle of Magenta, which was fought in 1859.

The name given to bloody red of battle -- a commemoration, or a commentary?

As far as bloodshed is concerned, the battle of Magenta was less horrible than most.
I found a net site that said there were 6,000 casualties. But it was very important in
its significance in leading to the unification of Italy.

Miss, Mistress, Mrs (masteress, lady-master). Miss used to be written Mis, and is the first syllable of
Mistress; Mrs. is the contraction of mistress, called Misess. Even in the reign of George II. unmarried
ladies used to be styled Mrs.; as, Mrs. Lepel, Mrs. Bellenden, Mrs. Blount, all unmarried ladies. (See
Pope's Letters.)
Early in Charles II.'s reign, Evelyn tells us that “lewd women began to be styled Misse;” now Mistress
is more frequently applied to them.

Mistletoe Shakespeare calls it “the baleful mistletoe” (Titus Andronicus, ii. 3), in allusion to the
Scandinavian story that it was with an arrow made of mistletoe that Balder was slain. (See Kissing Under
The Mistletoe .)
The word mistletoe is a corruption of mistel-ta, where mist is the German for “dung,” or rather the
“droppings of a bird,” from the notion that the plant was so propagated, especially by the missel-thrush.
Ta is for tan, Old Norse tein, meaning “a plant” or “shoot.”

Mob A contraction of the Latin mobile vulgus (the fickle crowd). The term was first applied to the
people by the members of the Green-ribbon Club, in the reign of Charles II. (Northern Examiner, p.
574.)

And for a *lot of info, including how to grow and market foxglove :
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/f/foxglo30.html
which also has a link to a medical (?) site on ntidotes

Interesting link indeed. I didn't scan every word, but the only date I saw was 1922. We've come a long way since then!

The biggest problem with herbal preparations - and antidotes - is that we just don't know what's in them. They aren't standardized, not even Digitalis Leaf. The more esoteric ones probably have many active ingredients, and we have no confidence that one pill is the same as the next, even out of the same bottle. Or whether there isn't something else in there besides what we think we want. Not to mention how any of the known or unknown ingredients may interact with the more standard nostrums our allopathic physicians may have prescribed, or anything else we may be taking.

As you may conclude I don't feel very secure with people taking alternative remedies, even "natural" ones, for a variety of reasons...

Morgue a dead-house, is generally associated with mors (death). but this is a blunder, as the word means
visage, and was first applied to prison vestibules, where new criminals were placed to be scrutinised, that
the prison officials might become familiar with their faces and general appearance.

Mosaic Work is not connected with the proper name Moses, but with the Muses (Latin, opus muscum,
musium, or musivum; Greek, mouseion; French, mosaique; Italian, mosaico). Pliny says it was so called
because these tesselated floors were first used in the grottoes consecrated to the Muses (xxxv. 21, s. 42).
The most famous workman in mosaic work was Sosus of Pergamos, who wrought the rich pavement in
the common-hall, called Asaroton oecon. (Pliny: Natural History, xxxvi. 4, 64.)

Mother Goose A name associated with nursery rhymes. She was born in Boston, and her eldest daughter
Elizabeth married Thomas Fleet, the printer. Mrs. Goose used to sing the rhymes to her grandson, and
Thomas Fleet printed the first edition in 1719.

Mow a heap, and Mow, to cut down, are quite different words. Mow, a heap, is the Anglo-Saxon mowe,
but mow, to cut down, is the Anglo-Saxon máw-an.

To cut grass is to mow, rhymes with bow and arrrow. When the grass has been cured it is stored
in a part of a barn called a "mow" rhymes with "now".

Munchausen (Baron). The hero of a volume of travels, who meets with the most marvellous adventures.
The incidents have been compiled from various sources, and the name is said to have pointed to
Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, a German officer in the Russian army, noted for his
marvellous stories (1720-1797). It is a satire either on Baron de Tott, or on Bruce, whose Travels in
Abyssinia were looked upon as mythical when they first appeared. The author is Rudolf Erich Raspe, and
the sources from which the adventures were compiled, are Bebel's Facetiæ, Castiglione's Cortegiano,
Bildermann's Utopia, and some of the baron's own stories.

N This letter represents a wriggling eel, and is called in Hebrew nun (a fish).

My favorite Terry Gilliam film. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0096764

She was born in Boston, and her eldest daughter
Elizabeth married Thomas Fleet, the printer

Not according to this, Bill:
http://www.librarysupport.net/mothergoosesociety/who.html

Sounds like there is some debate on this one!

I recently saw a performance of a pantomime called Mother Goose, and I assumed the story to be the origin of the name (i.e. "Mother Goose" was just another fairy tale). It was closely allied (no surprise) with the story of "the goose that laid the golden eggs". However, I reckon the pantomime is a fairly modern creation that just reuses the (very old) name.

Dear fishonabike: I'm not taking sides. However, Brewer was obviously a serious scholar,
and being a Brit,would have had no motive to award undeserved fame to any Bostonian.

Brewer was obviously a serious scholar

Couldn't agree more, Bill - as witness all these delightful and informative derivations that you have been passing on from the man (for which we are all very grateful).

However, he is only human. He may have made a mistake in this instance, or he may even be dropping in a little joke.

being a Brit,would have had no motive to award undeserved fame to any Bostonian
I don't think Brits are (or were) invariably anti-US by any means, and especially in pockets there has been (and is) a very close relationship indeed. Tom Paine, friend to Benjamin Franklin, and a man with local connections - and a local brew named after him! - springs to mind:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRpaine.htm

No, I'm only basing my (cross-threadable) skepticism on an intuition that Mother Goose is far older than implied here, as are fairy tales about geese and golden eggs and so forth. Mrs Goose's name was a bit more like serendipity from this viewpoint.

I've no evidence whatsoever to support. But then, what's new?

Mother Goose contains not stories, but short verses, of the sort grandmothers recite to
small children. Many of them undoubtedly originated in England and were brought by
settlers to New England. I have read that some of them are said to have been satires
on Englidh political events. E.g.:



Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said,
What a good boy am I!

I have read that this is said to refer to an agent of HenryVIII, who when he carried a "pie"
which was a package of deeds to church property the king had seized, he stole a couple
deeds and had them registered in his name.

I am not impressed by alleged difficulties in finding gravestone of Elizabeth Goose. I have
ancestors older than her whose gravestones have disappeared from Copp's Hill.

Edit: I later found this on a different site:

According to legend, Little Jack Horner was actually Thomas Horner, steward to the Abbot of Glastonbury during the reign of King Henry VIII. Rumor had it that the inquisitive king would soon be reaching for some Glastonbury holdings. The nervous Abbot, hoping to appease the royal appetite, sent the king a special gift: a pie containing twelve deeds to manor houses. On his way to London, the not-so-loyal courier Horner stuck his thumb into the pie and extracted the deed for Mells Manor, a plum piece of real estate, where his descendants live to this day.

The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian history
Have you read these, Rhuby?

The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian history
Have you read these, Rhuby?

All of them, Jackie. Twice. I highly recommend them for a thumping good read and some incredible insights into 19th century life all over the world. Flashman visited the US several times and they have so far been recorded in Flash for freedom about the slave ships into Nawlins,Flashman and the Redskins about the '49 gold rush and the Sioux wars of '76 and Flashman and the Angel of the Lord about the Harper's Ferry insurrection. He also took part in the US Civil War but this book hasn't been written yet. Mr. MacDonald Fraser had better hurry up because he's pushing past 80 and I would hate to see him give up before the series is complete.

My all-time favourite is Flashman and the Great Game about the Indian mutiny. Oh, and if you want to know a bit about cricket then read Flashman's lady. There's an excellent commentary on a real match played between MCC and the gentlemen of England in 1842. Classic stuff.

The Flashman books by George MacDonald Fraser is a very good source for Victorian history

I knew the books were popular worldwide, but didn't realise how popular until just now. Here's a link to "The Royal Flashman Society [small print: of Upper Canada ]":
http://www.pangloss.ca/flashman/

Some people may be interested to know that Flashman first appeared as a (significant) character in Tom Brown's Schooldays.