How does he make his voice do that?

Dear Word Detective:  What is the root and meaning of the word “ventriloquist”? — Joe Parsons.

That’s a good question, but in the course of researching it, I began to wonder how many of our younger readers have actually ever seen a ventriloquist.  In the 1950s and 60s, of course, they seemed to be everywhere.  Ventriloquists were a staple of the Ed Sullivan TV show, ranging from Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy, to Paul Winchell with his wooden pal Jerry Mahoney, to Senor Wences, whose sidekick Johnny consisted of a face drawn on the side of Wences’ hand.  My absolute favorite was Shari Lewis and the immortal Lamb Chop, a sheep hand puppet sporting abnormally long eyelashes.  I actually own a replica of Lamb Chop that I drag out of the closet every so often to annoy the cats.  I also have a duplicate of the rubber dog hand puppet that appears on Conan O’Brien’s show as Triumph the Insult Dog.  My dog puppet actually predates Conan’s show, though I’m not sure I should brag about that.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of our benighted readers who have never seen a “ventriloquist,” the word means a performer who, usually working with a wooden dummy or puppet, appears to make the character talk by speaking without moving his or her lips.  A good ventriloquist can not only pull off this basic parlor trick, but create such a complete character in the “dummy” that the dialog between the two seems entirely natural.

Although “ventriloquy” (or “ventriloquism,” the words are interchangeable) is today a form of humorous entertainment, the origins of the term lie in a practice that was deadly serious and more than just a little creepy.  The word “ventriloquism” comes from the Latin “ventriloquus,” meaning “speaking from the belly” (“venter,” belly, plus “loqui,” speak).  So far, so good.  “Speaking from the belly” is a plausible metaphor for ventriloquism.

But “ventriloquus” was no metaphor.  It was believed by the Ancient Greeks (who called the phenomenon “eggastrimuthos”) and Romans that noises emanating from a person’s belly could be the voices of the spirits of the dead or, in the worst-case scenario, a sign of demonic possession.  A “ventriloquist” (later called a “gastromancer”) was a seer or psychic who interpreted the sounds coming from the person’s abdomen and, depending on the supposed  source, passed along predictions of the future, messages from great-grandma, or bad news about the spiritual future of the patient.

Ventriloquism and gastromancy as a means of divination persisted through the Middle Ages and even up to the 18th century in Europe and America.  Eventually, however, as the public ardor for spiritualism flowered into the age of stage magic, the term “ventriloquism” came to be used for the trick of “throwing one’s voice” in front of an audience.   By the late 19th century, “ventriloquy” was a standard act in the repertoire of vaudeville, and the wooden ventriloquist’s dummy had become an icon of popular culture.  Interestingly, however, ventriloquy has never been able to completely shed its overtones of creepiness, as the number of horror movies involving a ventriloquist’s dummy which moves around quite well on its own attests.

Fruit of the Look?

Dear Word Detective: What does “the apple of my eye” mean?– Beth.

This is an interesting question for two reasons.  I’ve received it many times before, and I first answered it several years ago, but the story of “apple of my eye” is definitely worth repeating.  But now I’m wondering where people are hearing this phrase.  Although it’s a staple of word origin books, I can’t recall seeing or hearing “apple of my eye” used “in the wild” (outside of historical fiction and old movies) by an actual human since, well, forever.  I suspect that it’s one of those phrases that have survived purely because of their weirdness, like “the bee’s knees” and “the cat’s pajamas,” rather than because people actually use them in everyday speech.  On the other hand, there are more than nine million Google hits for forms of the phrase, so I guess it’s not in real danger of extinction.

To be “the apple of someone’s eye” means to be their “favorite,” the cherished object of their affections, and to be regarded as especially precious and dear to them (“He can’t live without you. You’re the Apple of his Eye, the Joy of his Heart, the Lamp of his Life,” 1693).  The phrase can be applied to anything, even inanimate objects (“He parked his 1932 Mercedes-Benz (he called it the apple of his eye) outside A Block,” 1987), but it’s probably most frequently used in reference to a favorite child or an unrelated but fondly regarded younger person (“Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye,” Sir Walter Scott, 1816).

As English idioms go, “apple of one’s eye” is about as old as they get.  It first appeared in print in the writings of King Aelfred way back in the ninth century, and crops up, in the modern sense of “cherished favorite,” in both the King James Bible (numerous times) and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

But before “apple of one’s eye” was used to mean “favorite,” it was used literally, as an anatomical term.  The “apple of the eye” was the pupil, the aperture at the center of the human eye.  At the time the phrase came into use, the pupil was erroneously thought to be a solid, round object, and it was called the “apple” because apples were the most commonly encountered spherical objects.

Because sight has always been considered the most important of our senses, and the center of the eye is thus arguably the most valuable bit of our anatomies, “the apple of one’s eye” quickly came to be used as a metaphor for “that thing which is most precious.”

Elsewhere in the wonderful world of ocular imagery, it’s worth noting that the word “pupil” for the aperture in the eye comes from the Latin “pupilla,” meaning “little doll,” referring to the tiny reflection one sees of oneself when looking into another person’s eyes.  The same root, in the broader sense of “child,” gave us “pupil” meaning “student in school.”  And when we say that we’d “give our eyeteeth” for something we desperately desire, we’re referring to our upper canine teeth, located directly under our eyes.  Not only are these teeth immensely useful in eating, but damage to them can cause severe pain in one’s eyes.