The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 21, May 27, 2007, Article 23

BALDERDASH & PIFFLE: WORD AND PHRASE ORIGINS AND A NUMISMATIC QUIZ

British television has its own special flavour, and this week I
happened to catch a BBC "reality show" with a special appeal for
bibliophiles.  Following the typical forced-suspense format of a
nervous moment of judgment before a panel of stern experts, new
candidates for the earliest documented use of an English word or
phrase are vetted before the editors of the venerable Oxford English
Dictionary.  The Balderdash & Piffle show's web site invites readers
to scour archives looking for evidence predating that cited in the
dictionary.

To attract a larger audience, the chosen words or phrases are rather
common and often very recent.  One segment covered the use of "domestic"
by police in reference to a violent family spat.  Another covered the
euphemisms of war such as "collateral damage" and "regime change".
And in the spirit of the lowest common denominator of humanity,
another segment covered euphemisms for urination and defecation.

For example, the earliest known printed use of "Loo" in reference to
the place where one goes to take care of such matters, was found in a
1940 novel.

"The story Sir Steven Runciman recounts places the origin of loo in
the 1860s; yet despite the best efforts of Wordhunters and the OED,
we still cannot be sure that anyone ever actually used the word until
the beginning of the Second World War, more than 80 years later.
Granted, what we are dealing with is a colloquial euphemism on a
sensitive subject which is unlikely to have made it into the Times,
Victorian sensibilities being what they were. Still, it is a leap
of faith we cannot make to take it on trust that any word existed
in English for the best part of a century on the basis of no
evidence at all."

To learn more about the Balderdash & Piffle show, see:
Balderdash & Piffle show

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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