16 October 2009

Lay the Table, Mabel

Greetings,

Chatting as we were last week about ancient Greece and what they ate, got me thinking about food (it takes very little to trigger the food response in me ... I have a lot in common with Pavlov's dogs), but it seems it's also a subject dear to the heart of many of our Merry Band, such as Lark, who hails from Lake Tampa in Florida. Lark pondered some of Life's Great Mysteries when she asked, "how did we get sporks or why the heck do we need a shrimp fork or when did napkins fall into our laps?"

So, as if I needed any encouragement, off I went to my best mate, Google (and my second-best mate, Wikipedia) to find out. Yes, the things I do for you, dear reader, the things I do ...

Since I reminded you about ancient Greece this week, let's start with table napkins, which, I'll bet you're fascinated to discover, originated in Sparta! 

We're indebted to Suzanne von Drachenfels's book about all things dining called, The Art of the Table for this information.

The Spartans, despite what we learnt about their black broth last week, were actually quite a civilised lot when it came to dining (always in a communal Mess or phiditia) and actually used something called apomagdalie to wipe their messy fingers. Now, this wasn't a piece of cloth as we know it, but rather a very practical alternative -- a piece of dough. (It reminds me of the way kids everywhere always seem to enjoy pulling the middle out of bread rolls and rolling the dough into tight, dense balls before eating ... must be a genetic thing!)

This dough was apparently rolled and kneaded at the table as the Spartans ate, and each kneading would remove some of the drips and grease from their fingers. We're not told what happened to the resulting blob, but I'm really hoping it was given to the dogs or pigs, rather than to the slaves at the end of the meal. However, knowing how the Spartans treated their slaves, I'm not terribly optimistic about that one. (That's a story for another day, too.)

The Romans, great diners as we know, improved on the Spartan notion of napkins and actually used cloth. They had small, hanky-sized pieces to mop their sweaty brows during the heat of a Roman summer  (there's nothing worse than drops of perspiration falling into your dormice at a banquet). And larger pieces, which were more like our modern napkins (although a bit bigger) and these were used to protect the couch as the Romans reclined to eat at their dinner parties. (I've always thought that must have been a terribly uncomfortable position for eating ... it couldn't have been good for the digestion, either.)

At the end of the meal, this napkin was often used to wrap up leftovers to take home (and how many of us have seen others in fancy restaurants covertly drop some tasty tid-bits into a napkin held on the lap and surreptitiously stuff the package into a handy bag?) This is also, fairly obviously, the origin of our "doggy-bag." 

Guests had to take along their own napkins (mappae), and I can see the greedy ones hauling huge table-sized napkins that could be filled with all the juicy morsels left from the banquet.

By Mediaeval times, manners had gone out the window, and people used their sleeves, backs of hands and chunks of bread to wipe their fingers after wrenching great greasy gobs of meat from the carcase on the table. As time went by, a few niceties (and practicalities) returned to the table, and cloths were used to indicate the place of honour at the table and also to provide something for guests to wipe their hands on. This was a swag of cloth pinned around the edge of the table, as you can see in this painting of 'The Last Supper' by Dieric Bouts: (Source)

Later still, this communal napkin was replaced by a towel-sized cloth carried by a servant. The cloth was draped over the left-arm of the servant (a custom you'll no doubt recognise in the delicate white cloth carried by staff in flash restaurants today ... I bet they're glad it's not there in its original role!)

Table napkins continued to shrink in size as diners became more couth, for which we can thank the humble fork. It wasn't until the 1600s that using a fork became accepted practice. Before then, knives had been the main table tool, used to cut and spear the food, which was then picked up in the hands to eat. But forks made the whole experience much neater, since food could be controlled by the fork during the cutting phase and then conveyed delicately to the mouth. This, of course, meant that far less food ended up on the lap and much more made its way safely to the intended orifice.

The French have always been at the forefront of fussiness, and they it was who decreed in a treatise in 1729 that "it is ungentlemanly to use a napkin for wiping the face or scraping the teeth, and a most vulgar error to wipe one's nose with it."

Which rather makes me grateful I didn't have to dine with any of them!

By 1740, we'd arrived at our current fashion in napkins and tablecloths where we have cloths with matching napkins, after which time we satisfied ourselves by mucking around with what began as a simple, practical solution to maintaining a tidy table and proceeded to fold the humble napkin into weird and wonderful shapes. (See this week's Little Something Extra for instructions on how to transform your table napkin into a swan or a cardinal's hat or ...)

And that brings us, wiping our greasy hands on the front of our shirts or that complicated construction depicting a Bird of Paradise, to the subject of sporks, foons and splayds. All are combinations of spoons, forks and knives, but the spork (thankfully the foon never really captured the imagination of the punters) precedes the splayd by several decades.

We have our 'Murkin cousins to thank for the spork, which was patented in 1874. You can see photos of a number of designs here.

The splayd is an Aussie invention of the 1940s, and when I married the Love of My Life in the 60s, a set of splayds was an essential gift for every newly-wed couple. We still use ours ... they're extremely handy little utensils. See the difference between a splayd and a spork  here. (I've never ever heard them referred to as "sporfes" ...)

All these terms (some patented, some merely the product of too many beers) are examples of portmanteau words ... words that are jammed together in the one bag (or portmanteau).

We have many accepted portmanteau words in everyday usage:

motel (motor hotel)

gerrymander (Gerry and salamander; the division of a county, etc., into electoral sections so as to gain advantage for a political party or racial group; formed from the name of Eldridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, who first employed the system in 1812)

modem (modulator and demodulator)

pixel (pix and element; picture element, basic unit of an on-screen image)

shareware (share and software; free trial software often requiring later payment)

emoticon (emotion and icon; an illustration conveying a mood; as when viewed sideways, this emoticon, :-) signifies happiness; while this emoticon, :-( represents the opposite feeling). There are hundreds of emoticons that have been created for all kinds of emotional expressions

brunch (breakfast and lunch)

And some that people wish would come into regular usage, such as these:

“cinemaddicts”: People who see too many movies.
“interferiority complex”: A reference to a busybody or snoop.
“administrivia”: Complicated, nitpicking administrative procedures.
“palimony”: Another term for “alimony” for those who formerly lived together and who have gone their separate ways. A blend of pal and alimony.
“Renovated”: People who get quickie divorces in Reno, Nevada.
“infanticipate”: Expecting a baby.
“shamateurs”: Amateur athletes who receive money for their activities.
“alcoholiday”: A lost weekend as a result of excessive drinking.
“victicracy ”: The rule, or government, of victims. The blend of victim and cracy.
“videots”: Those who are hooked on television. A blend of video and idiots.

So, does that answer your question, "Which fork do I use(?)"(?) ...

And your next question: where do I put the question mark when there are two questions?

Patricia O'Conner, in the latest edition of her great grammar book, Woe Is I, has a chapter called the "Comma Sutra" in which she addresses this curly problem. (And don't you just love the chapter headings? It's worth getting the book just for them!)

Patricia explains: Sometimes a question comes wrapped inside another question. When you meet a question like this -- What do you mean, "What did I do to my hair" -- where does the question mark go?

Well, where do you think it should go?

The answer depends on which question you want to emphasize, Patricia writes, then gives the following examples:

How many of you have asked yourselves the question, "Who am I?"

What do I say when the waiter asks, "Which wine, sir"?

See?

Another mystery solved!

Woe Is I covers all those tricky grammar issues that can make or break your writing ... you'll find chapters that cover "Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety," "Blunders with Numbers," The Possessives and the Possessed," "The Joy of Punctuation" and many more. (As I said, the chapter headings alone make the book worth having ...)

Read more here (There's also a junior version for the kiddies!)

Map of the World

Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK. For all the flash new browsers, you'll have to do a search on my mate google to find what to do. There's a search box on the archives page!)

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This week's quiz:

Portmanteau words - separate these into their bits (which two words have been yoked to form each one below?)

1. chortle

2. smog

3. splatter

4. squish

5. blurt

6. splutter

7. grumble

8. flaunt

9. flare

10. squawk

"I can't believe I got a 'D' on this paper," moaned John. "Not only did I spend hours at the library and online, I did a fully annotated bibliography."

"And...?" said his mother.

"She told me that I plagiarised the articles I referenced. She said I was supposed to read the articles and use the information to state my position in my own words.
"I thought as long as I stated in my bibliography exactly where I'd gotten the information I was doing a good job."

"Obviously," said his mother, "you got the Op. Cit. effect."

Last week's quiz:

palimpsest, patache, palisade, paralipsis, palinode, paradigm, palindrome, palinopsia, patible, pareable

1. abnormally recurring visual imagery - PALINOPSIA

2. a word or phrase that reads the same backward as forward - PALINDROME

3. a poem in which the poet retracts a view or sentiment expressed in a former poem; a retraction of a statement - PALINODE

4. a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing; figurative something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form - PALIMPSEST

5. to cut off the outer coating, layer, or part of - PAREABLE

6. rhetoric the device of giving emphasis by professing to say little or nothing of a subject, as in not to mention their unpaid debts of several millions - PARALIPSIS

7. fortification consisting of a strong fence made of stakes driven into the ground - PALISADE

8. a tender to a fleet, formerly used for conveying men, orders or treasure - PATACHE

9. a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model; a world view underlying the theories and methodology of a particular scientific subject - PARADIGM

10. sufferable; tolerable; endurable - PATIBLE

"What are my choices?" he asked.

"Yes or no," she replied.

A Little Something Extra

How to fold napkins here

Dining in ancient Athenian kapeleion or taverna here

Eating with the Boys in a Spartan phiditia here

Archives of the Sheffield Graduate Journal of Archaeology here

Word of the week: Prestidigitation (n) sleight of hand; performance of or skill in performing magic or conjuring tricks with the hands; show of skill or deceitful cleverness

This word comes to us from the French word prestigiateur 'juggler, conjurer' from the Latin praestīgiae 'juggler's tricks,' which came from Italian presto 'nimble' and the Latin digitus meaning 'finger.'

Oxymoron of the week: boarding house manners

And a Latin phrase for times when your Greasy Spoon serves something akin to Black Broth ...

Cave cibum, valde malus est

[KAH-way KEE-boom WAHL-day MAH-loos EST]

(Beware the food, it is very bad)