Words fascinate me. I suppose it is natural for one who uses so many of them to have a sort of affinity for words and their origins. In the past I have written blog posts about the Oxford English Dictionary and other topics familiar to wordsmiths. Today’s entry is simply a bit of playing with words that sound good when I say them out loud.

We received a graduation announcement this week from a high school senior. Along with the usual announcement of the graduation ceremony was an invitation to attend a Nacho Bar at the home of the graduate. I know what to expect when attending the party. There will be plenty of tortilla chips and a lot of different toppings for them. Principal among the toppings will be a cheese sauce, but there are likely to be a lot of other options, including ground beef, lettuce, olives, onions, pico de gallo, beans, tomatoes and sour cream. So I got to wondering where the name Nacho comes from. Actually, I was wondering if the name Nacho refers principally to the chips, or to the cheese sauce, or to the combination of all of the ingredients. Are nachos any dish that starts with the chips and uses the chips as the primary utensil for getting the food to the mouth?

Wikipedia credits the origin of the dish to Ignacio Anaya. It is pretty simple to assume that the name of the dish came from the first name of its inventor. Ignatio to nacho isn’t a very big trip linguistically. Ignation Anaya was a Mexican chef who worked on the north-east border of Mexico in the 1940’s. The online etymology dictionary credits the “Dallas Morning News” issue from October 22, 1995 as naming the cook as inventor of the dish in Piedras Negras in 1943. The Oxford English Dictionary , however, doesn’t share the conviction that such an origin is the only possible source. It simply states that it is a possible source of the word, but that more research is needed. That made me wonder how one gets the job as a word origins researcher. I would be willing to go through books and newspapers and visit restaurant after restaurant ordering nachos if it would contribute to the education of the world. Heck, a lot of writers would got through a lot to get their name into the Oxford English Dictionary.

The job is going to open relatively soon. John Simpson has announced that he will be retiring as Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary after 37 years working on that famous reference. Being a word sleuth could be quite an adventure. After all the OED goes far beyond simply providing definitions. I suppose that not every word has a complex history, but plenty of them do.

WD40 is simply the 40th formula for a Water Dispersant Lubricant that was tried. Forty seemed to be the trick and the name stuck. The formula has stayed the same as well. But there are lots of other words that aren’t so simple to fathom. Take for example the common name we give to the motorized vehicles we drive. The most common term in our house is “car.” I suppose that car is short for carriage which was in turn shortened from horseless carriage, a term used to refer to the vehicles early in their history. In other parts of the world they are referred to as “autos,” which is shortened from automobile, itself a hybrid words with origins in the Greek autokineto, meaning “moved itself,” and the French locomobile.

Similar adventures can be had in researching the origins of almost any word in our language. And the fun thing about English is that we are so quick to adopt and adapt words from other languages. Nacho is a good example. Chances are the first person to coin the term was speaking Spanish, not English. Never mind, we love adopting words form other languages.

Here’s a term that you might not know. Etaoin shrdlu is an expression that once was common in newsrooms, but is no longer heard much at all. It is possible that even people who have read Anthony Burgess’ “Homage to Qweret Yuiop” don’t know that term. Burgess wrote essays on a wide range of subjects in his collection – probably as diverse as the topics of my blog. He wrote about the movie business, about authors, about travel, culture, languages and literature and a whole lot more. But the Hungarian man named Qwert Yulop is, I believe, pure fiction. If you use a standard keyboard, you’ll recognize the spelling of his name as the top ten letters of a standard keyboard in their original order from left to right. Etoain shrdlu, by the way are the first two rows of a Linotype machine from top to bottom. No one uses Linotype machines any more. It simply means “garbled type” something that may be a bit less common in the days of Microsoft Word’s spellcheck function, but computers have not saved us from garbled thinking or misplaced words.

For what it is worth, I won’t be submitting my resume for the position of the Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, as interesting as the job seems on the surface. In the first place, I am sure that I am not qualified. One has to have a lot more experience with editing that I have and a lot more knowledge on how to research word origins. I’m pretty sure that the OED doesn’t rely on Wikipedia and the Online Etymology Dictionary as primary sources.

Besides, I think the job is one for a younger person. After all the third edition of the OED is not expected to be complete until 2037. By then, I’ll be 84. That may be deemed a bit too old for such a prestigious position.

More fruitful, perhaps, would be to begin saving so that I might buy a copy of the third edition. After all, I’ve wanted a copy of the second edition ever since it came out in 1989. Doesn’t everyone need a 20 volume dictionary? But the price, quite frankly, has deterred me so far. No point in buying books that will be obsolete so soon in any case. I wonder how many volumes the third edition will require.

In the meantime, I’m hungry for some Nachos.

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