Question: If you think about it, "so long" seems like such an odd expression of farewell. Is it possible that it's a distortion of the Irish word "slan," which means "goodbye"?Answer: This hypothesis has occurred to others, and it's not an unreasonable proposal. It does have a few gaps, though, so we can't accept it as fact. First, it's unlikely that native English speakers would have acquired "slan" just from listening to Irish speakers because foreign words are rarely borrowed in this fashion. Speech in an unfamiliar language is heard as a succession of meaningless syllables, from which it's impossible to interpret the meaning of any collection of sounds without cues.
It's more plausible that "slan" may have been reshaped to "so long" by speakers of Irish and English as these people lost more and more of their Irish. But for this to be the case, there would have to be early evidence of "so long" in the English of Ireland or in Irish-American speech, and such evidence is completely lacking.
The early history of "so long" is curious. Walt Whitman uses it several times in a poem titled "So long!" published in the 1860 edition of "Leaves of Grass." This is the earliest known attestation, and apparently the phrase was not yet generally understood, because Whitman was later asked to define it. (He called it "a salutation of departure, greatly used among sailors, sports and prostitutes.") Whitman's use suggests that "so long" is an Americanism, but only five years later it appears in the work of a writer in Australia. Wherever "so long" originated, it diffused quite rapidly. By about 1900, it seems to have been in general use among English-speaking writers.
There are many other theories about the origin of "so long," but they too are unsatisfactory for one reason or another. We will be limited to unfounded guesses unless more evidence surfaces.
Question: "Billingsgate" is a word I heard for the first time just recently. Is this yet another government scandal, or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Answer: You're right that "-gate" has become a sort of suffixal synonym of "scandal" in American politics, from Monicagate to Travelgate to Irangate. The "gate" in all of these scandal-related coinages derives, of course, from "Watergate," the name of the Washington hotel where the bungled break-in that was to cause the demise of the Nixon administration occurred. But "billingsgate" is something altogether different.
The word "billingsgate" means "coarse language," and it derives from the name of a place that gained a reputation for verbal vulgarity. From the time of the Roman occupation until the early 1980s, Billingsgate was a fish market in London, notorious in past centuries for the crude language that resounded through its stalls. In fact, the fishmongers of Billingsgate were so famous for their swearing that their feats of raw language were recorded in British chronicler Raphael Holinshed's 1577 account of King Leir (which was probably Shakespeare's source for "King Lear"). In Holinshed's volume, a messenger's language is said to be "as bad a tongue as any oyster-wife at Billingsgate hath." By the early 1700s, "billingsgate" had become a byword for foul language.
Question: Do you know the origin of the expression "to eat crow?"
Answer: "Eat crow" is an Americanism that was first recorded in the 19th century. Exactly how it originated isn't known. One highly imaginative story goes back to the War of 1812. It involves a New Englander hunting for dinner during an armistice near the end of the war who, not having had much luck hunting, shot down a crow flying overhead.
Unfortunately, he had unwittingly crossed over enemy lines, and his shot drew the attention of a British officer. The unarmed officer, feigning admiration for the gun, tricked the American into handing it over for closer inspection. Once he had possession, he pointed the gun at the American, admonished him for violating the armistice and as punishment, forced him to take a bite of the crow. The officer then returned the gun to its owner and ordered him back to his own territory. The incensed American, however, followed the officer's example and, holding the gun on him, forced the British officer to eat the rest of the crow. And so, the story goes, the expression "eat crow" was born. The story is undoubtedly a fabrication, but we thought you might enjoy it anyway.
This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster's "Collegiate Dictionary," Tenth Edition. Send questions to: Merriam-Webster's Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal St., Springfield, MA 01102.) (C) 1999 Merriam-Webster Inc. Dist. by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service