7 ms·
Where Do “Shenanigans” Come From? (2013)
- simonblack 4y agoIMHO that is an Irish word. Like the names 'Gilligan', 'Harrigan', etc. Probably also related to 'Larrikin'.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- monero-xmr 4y agoWords are made all the time. I love how the new generations invent such apt words / slang. I hope we never cure death because the young rejuvenate society with their energy and mindset.
- codetrotter 4y agoSomeone once said something to the effect of, imagine what a drag it would be if people from say the 1500’s were still around. And likewise, they said, imagine how annoying it would be for people hundreds of years from now if we the people of present day were still around all those years in the future. Thank heaven, they said, that we are mortal and our lives are short.
- kochikame 4y agoThat was a Louis CK joke I think
- FrontierPsych 4y agohyah. there's a whole slew of new gender pronouns that didn't exist a year ago it seems.
- kazinator 4y agoWords are made mostly by people who have poor command of existing words.
- rvba 4y agoSome people like to embiggen their vocabulary with cromulent words.
- archon1410 4y agoThis shouldn't be downvoted; it is certainly a thought-provoking assertion, and seems true to me at the first impression. Many new words come out of slang from young people, who are much less likely to have "professional" level grasp of language that someone with a lot of higher education will have; the second kind will be more like to lean on existing words from obscure sources they read. The last Oxford Word of the Year was "goblin word", which does sound like it comes from young people, who likely don't have expert grasp on existing language. The full list[1] does contain words like "youthquake", "post-truth", "climate emergency", "squeezed middle" which are likely to have been coined by a much older crowd with more higher education. The second kind of phrases feel much less new, even though both these and "goblin mode" are made up of existing words. Conclusion: claim seems correct but more research needed. [1]https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/ https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kazinator 4y agoPeople making new words sometimes don't have a command of existing words that are not out of the ordinary, wielded by plenty of folks with just a high school diploma. Now "post-truth", "climate emergency" and "squeezed middle" are hardly new words. The first one is just applying the highly productive prefix "post". Anyone with a decent command of English can do this. E.g. Rust programmers are envisioning a "post-C" tech landscape. "Climate emergency" is just an obvious word combination: there is an emergency and it has to do with climate. Someone in 1920 could have pointed to the new Coca-Cola bottle and remarked on its squeezed middle. In the case of shenanigans, I don't suspect that the person who coined it didn't know of ways to express the idea. Shenanigans is one of the words which expresses, "things are going on that don't sit well with me/someone for some reason", which is a variation on "I don't like it". People are attracted to new words in this area, because it isn't interesting or original to make remarks about not liking something. A fresh word adds color to it.
- __MatrixMan__ 4y agoIf I recall, Shenanigan and Mulligan were a pair of jokers that were especially disliked by the more serious golfers in their community.
- m463 4y agoHey, I call sh... er for fact checkers!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- exodust 4y agoReminds me of another fun word 'smithereens', as in blown to smithereens. The same site shares this nicely put observation: "'Smithereens' is one of those unusual nouns that, like 'suds' and 'secateurs', never venture out by themselves - the word is always plural."
- biorach 4y agoAlso, as it happens, Irish in origin - smidiríní - "little pieces" https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/smidir%c3%adn%c3%ad https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/smidir%c3%adn%c3%ad
- thaumasiotes 4y ago"Smithereens" is an unusual word in that it can't occur outside of the single fixed expression that uses it. Being obligatorily plural is a much less unusual trait. We have glasses, pants, and scissors too.
- argentier 4y agoMost of those are residual duals though.
- liotier 4y ago"Secateur" is the French language word for "shears" - it is singular... But has it been imported into English language as plural by analogy to "shears" ?
- jjtheblunt 4y agoPants, trousers, etc? Some weird words look plural but refer to a single instance of a clothing item. I wonder how that happened.
- emmelaich 4y agoBecause they used to be preceded by "pair of .." I presume. Perhaps in early days they literally were two pieces, two blades etc.
- ilamont 4y agoWhat a great debate. I would have assumed it's Gaelic in origin based on the sound and the fact that a lot of Famine-era Irish immigrants were in California at the time, but the comments from Irish speakers indicate it's not likely. There was a lot of flexibility and inventiveness in the English language and modes of communication at the time (mid 1800s). Besides the flood of immigrants and the rise of literacy and mass media, this was the era of the telegraph and the Pony Express. The US Postal Service measured mail in the half ounce at the time (https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/domestic-letter-rates-since-1863.htm https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/domestic-letter-r...), which led to a creative method of saving postage and writing paper called "cross writing" (https://easygenie.org/blogs/news/mysterious-letter-from-the-1860s-is-an-example-of-cross-writing https://easygenie.org/blogs/news/mysterious-letter-from-the-...)
- bartislartfast 4y agoThe origin of Shenanigan as "sionnach uighm" is very questionable. Seems like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Hooligan definitely does come from Irish, from a troublesome family O'Houlihan A few other interesting English words that come from Irish: Galore (from Go leoir, meaning a lot), bother, a slew of, phoney, bog and bogeyman, and unsurprisingly "whiskey".
- feintruled 4y agoSmithereens is my favourite! There is a bit of a cottage industry going in manufacturing Irish etymologies though, you can find someone somewhere claiming just about every unusual English word came from Irish!
- biorach 4y ago"phoney"?
- bartislartfast 4y agophony? did I spell it wrong?
- biorach 4y agoNot the spelling, the etymology - what Irish word is it derived from?
- bartislartfast 4y agofrom "fainne" which means ring. Making fake rings was apparently a common enough scam that it gave its name to fawney which became phony
- biorach 4y agodamn, new one on me
- traeregan 4y ago"What's the name of that restaurant you like, with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?"
- afthonos 4y ago"Shenanigans"..."shenanigans", "shenanigans"...Oh, of course! Shenanigans comes from the Greek word "συνάντηση" (see-NAN-dee-see), which means "meeting". How do you do shenanigans? You meet with people. There you go. (credit to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL9whwwTK6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL9whwwTK6I)
- heresie-dabord 4y agoSudden occurrence of multiple usages in a particular region (California), where many Irish immigrants were working, and a plausible explanation from Irish Gaelic, Original gaelic Irish word 'sionnachuighm' meaning to play tricks - rough pronunciation at that time 'shinnuckeem'. is enough for probability. The Gold Rush, like many other economic frenzies, gives us many novel words for fraud: > The "Philadelphia Times" (Nov. 5. 1877), in defining the word skullduggery [which Bartlett calls "a very good and very common word in the West"], says, "Its best Eastern equivalent is shenanigan, although the less complicated word hornswoggling [which Bartlett also identifies as "Western"] rather directly translates it."