The Words of the Week - Jan. 12

‘Smoke’

A fairly recent sense of smoke was in the news last week after the former governor of New Jersey used the verb to refer to a fellow Republican running for the presidential nomination.

Christie caught on hot mic: Haley is ‘gonna get smoked’
— (headline) Politico, 10 Jan. 2024

Smoke has a large number of meanings. The one presumably intended by Christie is one we label as slang, and define as “to defeat or surpass decisively.” The earliest evidence of this sense of the word is from 1972, provided by Connie Elbe, a professor at the University of North Carolina who for more than three decades asked her students to create lists of what was then the current slang of their peers.

‘Bedlam’ & ‘Pandora’s box’

Bedlam and Pandora’s box, a pair of words with interesting etymologies, spiked in lookups after Donald Trump used both in comments to reporters.

Trump warns of ‘bedlam,’ declines to rule out violence after court hearing
— (headline) The Washington Post, 9 Jan. 2024

Trump warns of ‘Pandora’s box’ of perpetual presidential prosecutions if charges against him stand
— (headline) Associated Press, 9 Jan. 2024

Bedlam is defined as “a place, scene, or state of uproar and confusion.” Bedlam was the popular name for the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, London, an asylum for the mentally ill (another meaning of the word is “an asylum for the mentally ill”).

Pandora’s box is defined as “something that produces many unforeseen difficulties : a prolific source of troubles.” The word comes from Greek mythology: this box was said to have been given to Pandora by the gods, with instructions that it should not be opened. When it was, a swarm of evils contained within was loosed upon humankind.

‘Epiphany’

Epiphany spiked in lookups as well last week, a yearly occurrence, coincident with a religious observance.

Arkansas marks Epiphany with historic ordination of first Black Diocesan Bishop
— (headline) KATV, 8 Jan. 2024

The most common sense of epiphany in modern use is “an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure.” However, the oldest sense of the word is “January 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ.”

‘Swatting’

Swatting was looked up more than is usual, the result of a judge having been the victim of this.

Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing Trump's federal election interference case, appears to be victim of ‘swatting’
— (headline) NBC, 8 Jan. 2024

Swatting is “the making of a false report of an ongoing serious crime in order to elicit a response from law enforcement (such as the dispatch of a SWAT unit).” It comes from the acronym SWAT (“a police or military unit specially trained and equipped to handle unusually hazardous situations or missions”), which stands for ‘Special Weapons And Tactics.’ These words are etymologically unrelated to the oldest sense of swat (“to hit with a sharp slapping blow usually with an instrument”), which comes from an English dialect word meaning “to squat.”

Words Worth Knowing: ‘Backfriend’

Our word worth knowing this week is backfriend, defined as “a seeming friend who is secretly an enemy.” To be sure, most of our readers are likely familiar with its newer synonym, frenemy, but we are of the opinion that one can never have too many friends or too many words to describe people who seem like friends but aren’t really.

A Feind, a Fairie, pittilesse and ruffe:
A Wolfe, nay worse, a fellow all in buffe:
A back friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermads
The passages of allies, creekes, and narrow lands.
— William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, 1623