shambles

I can’t imagine there are many of us who haven’t uttered the words ‘it’s a [expletive] shambles’ about something or other. So I’m sure you know that it means a state of disorder or confusion, AKA SNAFU. But, did you know that despite having been around since the end of the 16th century, it was only in the 1920s that ‘shambles’ came to mean this? Before that it had a much darker meaning… DUM DUM DUUUUUUM

Photo by Madie Hamilton on Unsplash

Okay, so the first meaning of shamble (singular) was a stool or a ‘money-changer’s table’ (this isn’t the dum dum dum, don’t worry), from the Latin for footstool, ‘scamellum’. After a time it took on the extra meaning of a ‘table for the exhibition of meat for sale’, with ‘shambles’ (plural) becoming a term for a ‘meat market’ (the kind that sells meat, not the Colchester Hippodrome on a Friday night in the 90s). It wasn’t long before ‘shambles’ became an alternative word for a slaughterhouse and, finally, was used figuratively to describe a scene of blood, like a battlefield or place of execution. DUM DUM DUUUUUUM (there it is).

Here’s ‘shambles’ in action in this way in Shakespeare’s Othello:

‘Desdemona: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.

Othello: O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles, That quicken even with blowing.’

Photo by Hayden Pollard on Unsplash

(I think this means he doth not esteem her honest.)

Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester (swoon) also uses it in this context:

‘If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter […] had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?"

YES, EDWARD, YES. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes. The Shambles, the picturesque street of timber-framed buildings in York, is so called because there used to be lots of butchers’ shops there – 31 in 1885 apparently. Its full name was ‘The Great Flesh Shambles’. I can see why they rebranded.

I found a couple of different sources for ‘shambling’ as in wonky walking/zombies. Both stem from the stool/table-meaning I mentioned before all the dum dum dumming above. One source says that because people regularly hacked up chunks of meat on these tables, wobbly legs – or ‘shamble legs’ – were a hazard of the job. A second source says that it was to do with the bowlegged position you have to assume to sit on a stool, or shamble.

(I haven’t been able to find out why ‘shambles’ got sanitised in the early 20th century and came to have the hot-mess meaning it does today. Sorry.)

aspersion

To cast aspersions on someone (or have them cast on you), is to make false or misleading claims about someone meant to harm their reputation. But have you ever wondered what an aspersion actually is? Well, it turns out that back in the day an aspersion was actually quite a nice thing to have thrown at you. Have a look at this quote from Sir William of Shakespeare’s tale of a magical island The Tempest:

‘No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall.’

So, why is the aspersion sweet here? Let’s get our etymology on… ‘Aspersion’ comes from the Latin word ‘aspersus’, which itself comes from the verb ‘aspergere’, meaning to sprinkle or scatter. It first appeared in English in the 16th century and was used for nice sprinklings (which sounds weird), like holy water in religious ceremonies. In fact ‘aspersion’ is a type of sprinkly baptism, alongside ‘immersion’ (which is self-explanatory) and ‘affusion’ (which is when you get water poured on your head). There’s a whole load of kit that goes along with aspersion as well, including an aspergillum (a tool that holds the water pre-sprinkle), and an aspersorium, AKA holy water bucket (good name for a band). Aspergilla (the plural of aspergillum) aren’t limited to the Christian church either – apparently modern-day pagans and Wiccans also use them to throw liquid at other people in various cleansing rituals.

(There’s also a fungus called aspergillus, so named by its discoverer because it looked like a holy water sprinkler – he was a priest as well as a biologist – under a microscope. According to Wikipedia, aspergillus are ‘found in millions in pillows’. Gross.)

So when did aspersions become bad? Pretty quickly, actually – by the end of the 16th century we were using the word to describe reports that stain someone’s reputation. Why? I don’t know, is the short answer. But I imagine it was because most sprinklings to the face (that aren’t holy or made of chocolate) probably aren’t good. Probably.

shrift

Have you ever given someone or someone short shrift? And if you have, have you ever wondered what it actually means? No? Oh.

For anyone who’s still here, if you get or are given short shrift, it means you’re treated without sympathy and don’t get much in the way of attention. The word ‘shrift’ is well old, going all the way back to ye olde Anglo Saxons. Back then a shrift referred to the penance you were given by a priest for doing something naughty. That comes from the verb ‘shrive’, which means to hear confession, or give someone penance or absolution. And ‘shrive’ goes all the way back to the Latin word ‘scribere’, which means ‘to write’. I told you it was well old.

Ricky III #nohunchback

But why are shrifts generally short nowadays? As with many of our words and phrases we can thank Shakespeare for that. ‘short shrift’ appears in ‘The Tragedy of King Richard the Third’, first performed in 1594. Lord Hastings, who’s loyal to Ricky’s bro Edward IV, is sentenced to be executed for treason. He’s told to make his pre-beheading confession – AKA his shrift – quick, because the Duke of Gloucester (the Lord Protector of England who’s ordered the separation of H’s head from his body) is hangry:

‘Dispatch, my lord [Hastings]; the duke would be at dinner:

Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.’

It wasn’t long before people took the phrase ‘short shrift’ and started using it to describe giving something little thought or sympathy.

The word ‘shrive’ also gave us the ‘Shrove’ in Shrove Tuesday. That’s because it’s traditionally a day for Christians to be be shriven (or shrove) i.e. do some confessing before Lent. Oh, and eat a load of pancakes at the same time.

tawdry

The Hay Festival, a literary festival in Wales that I’ve been to a few times (because I is well intellectual) has been doing a virtual version this year, because of you-know-what. I watched one sesh with Greg Jenner, writer and historian extraordinaire, where he briefly mentioned the origins of the word ‘tawdry’. And turns out it has an interesting backstory, which I’m now going to share with you, you lucky people.

St Audrey in her glad rags

If you describe something as ‘tawdry’, you’re saying it’s showy, and cheap or crappy quality. You can also use it to describe something that’s immoral, like a ‘tawdry extramarital affair’. So, where did it come from?

Allow me to transport you back to 7th century England. The daughter of the king of East Anglia is a young princess called Etheldrida, who’s known as Audrey (and who can blame her with a name like Etheldrida? Although spare a thought for her sisters, who were called Wendreda and Seaxburh). After a life which basically consisted of not having sex (she took a vow of virginity, despite having two husbands), Audrey died in the year 679 of a throat tumour. The Venerable Bede recorded this as a just punishment because poor old Audrey liked a lace necklace, and this vanity apparently meant she deserved to die from cancer. Wow. Nice one, Bede.

Despite this, Audrey still managed to get beatified (AKA saintified) as she founded an abbey in Ely (just up the road from where I’m writing this, and today the site of the gothic gorgeousness that is Ely Cathedral). Fast forward to the 16th century and admirers of St Audrey are buying saintly merch in the form of lace necklaces, called St Audrey’s laces. Over time, this gets shortened to ‘taudrey laces’.

100 years later, the Puritans are everywhere, and Audrey’s statement necklaces are now seen as old-fashioned and cheap. So it’s not long before the word ‘tawdry’ comes to mean the same. This meaning was cemented by Shakespeare in ‘A Winter’s Tale’ – the character Mopsa, who’s a bit of a country bumpkin, has the line: ‘Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace and a pair of sweet gloves’, which shows how unsophisticated she is.

I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for Aud. The woman hung on to her virginity through two marriages, then founded an abbey, and this is what she’s remembered for? Shame.