we do hope marbles turns up

A concerned citizen went down an idiomatic rabbit hole, attempting to recreate the roots of the expression of “having lost one’s marbles.” Very much adrift from a straightforward explanation, there are several layers of cultural intersections to be peeled back to arrive at the phrase’s etymology and meaning. From the late seventeenth century until the 1950s, the human mind was described as a lumber room—lumber metaphorically meaning unused furniture, a clutter and chaos of old, staid knowledge and anxieties that cluttered the brain and made it less limber.
While the notion that one’s memory banks can become full and new ideas and experiences can’t be imprinted until we’ve cleared out something old and useless is now largely stood to be incorrect, there is some truth to the perception that older, experienced people are sometimes slower recalling or processing information because there’s simply so much more of it to sift through. The idea of mind lumber seems utterly alien nowadays but if one reads carefully, we can find the dead metaphor employed by Arthur Conan Doyle and Virginia Woolfe. Drawing on the French word for furniture, les meubles—that is something movable as opposed to real estate, bien immobilier—as slang for household accoutrements in the late nineteenth century. Around the same time, reaching back to the earlier furniture metaphor for the contents of one’s head, marbles started being used as a substitute for wits—the idiom of “losing one’s marbles” outliving the slang senses that preceded it.

ferðasaga

First published on this date in 1937, I recall having read through W H Auden’s and Louis MacNeice’s collaboration Letters from Iceland in preparation for a short trip there years ago—fascination for Iceland is nothing new or novel but before selfies and social media, I turned to the inter-war pastoral’s section marked “For Tourists.” I don’t have an enduring impression of the correspondence or the travelogue but remember the advice to avoid Reykjavík—which I didn’t heed, but we do think it’s a good occasion to revisit the book and plan a return excursion Iceland itself.

for the nonce

Rounding out a whole year’s worth of Weekly Word Watches, the always vigilant crew at Oxford Words blog introduces some trending—perhaps one-off—concepts including the concept of identity condiments, prompted in response to the premature requiem for mayonnaise that demonstrates the strength of connection that individuals have to their sides and dips.

Also in this issue’s word bank is the indictment of so-called woke-washing—a portmanteau of two themes that are very much rooted in current politics, diluting the power and presence of being aware and enlightened through misappropriation as a marketing ploy, like greenwashing and similarly constructed superficial uprightnesses. We’ll be sure to keep checking out this logophilic regular feature and hope you will as well.

mcdol ou le maire mccheese

We learn that the town of Dolus-d’Oléron has staged a four year legal battle to keep one fast food franchise off the picturesque and pristine Île d’Oléron (previously here and here), and amid contentions the courts may arrive at a decision soon.
Opponents, hoping to continue to foster a culture of environmental sustainability and minimising the deleterious effects of human enterprise, present some rather compelling arguments against the famously unwelcome franchise. Above and beyond reasons of aesthetics and how the competition hurts local business, the opposition group, led by the mayor of Dolus, offers that the business model of fast food and drive-thru service is a relic that’s done quite enough damage and has no place in the future. France has had a rather fraught relationship with the fast food giant over the decades not only as an assault on the palette but also a symbol of unchecked globalisation, protests and dialogues prompted over a trade dispute in 1990s when the US retaliated against an array of French products, including Roquefort cheese, over Europe’s refusal to allow hormone-treated beef into its markets.