Mom! Dad dropped the AOL in the toilet again!

Dear Word Detective: With the recent release of a number of “tablet personal computers,” my colleagues and I got to discussing the word “tablet.” The reason that tablet computers are called that is reasonably clear. Why, oh why, do we call some of our pills “tablets”? They are not slabs, nor is there much space to write on them. Can you clear up this conundrum? — Mark Wujek, Tokyo.

Hmm. Tablet computers? Land O’ Goshen, what will they think of next? My laws, I suppose such a contraption is possible…. Oh wait, are we talking about that iPad thing? Yeah, I played with one in an Apple store a few months ago and instantly wanted one. Fortunately, it was insanely expensive, so I dodged the Apple Zombies and left without one. The funny thing is that as soon as I left the store I stopped wanting one, and couldn’t remember why I ever had. People say it’s just the famed Apple Reality Distortion Field at work, but I swear there’s something in the air in those places. Maybe aerosolized psilocybin. That would explain everything.

I know, of course, that there are other tablet computers out there and have been for quite a while. I wish them well, but I don’t want them either. Part of my problem with “tablet computers” is that the name has always struck me as strangely clunky and unappealing (which is why “iPad” is brilliant). “Tablet” for me conjures up the iconic image of Charlton Heston waving the Ten Commandments on those big stone tablets, not a handy little notepad.

“Tablet” first appeared in English around 1300 (adopted from the Old French “tablete”) with the meaning “A smooth stiff sheet for writing on, usually one of two or more fastened together, originally made of clay or wax-covered wood, later of ivory, cardboard, etc.; a number of such sheets fastened together” (Oxford English Dictionary). That “tablete” was a diminutive form of the Old French “table,” which meant “table” as well as “slab,” “writing surface,” “plank” and other things of similar form and function. Not surprisingly, English also adopted the parent word “table” from the Old French, but it came ultimately from the Latin “tabula,” meaning “plank, table, slab, etc.”

Although “tablet” initially meant “writing pad” in English, other meanings began to appear by the mid-14th century, and “tablet” eventually encompassed just about anything flat, squarish and relatively small, from roofing tiles to flat ornamental jewelry (“He hastily drew from his bosom, where it hung suspended from his neck, a large flat tablet of remarkably beautiful onyx,” Thomas de Quincey,1832).

Given that “tablet” in English was being used for anything small, flat and rectangular, it’s not that surprising that it came to mean “A small, flat, or compressed piece of a solid substance, originally of rectangular form; specifically a measured quantity of a medicine or drug, compressed into a small disc or lozenge and designed to be swallowed whole; a pill” (OED). What is somewhat surprising is that this usage first appeared way back in the early 15th century and has been in constant use since then (“It is yet in use, to wear little bladders of quicksilver, or tablets of arsenic, as preservatives against the plague,” Francis Bacon, 1626). So folks have been gobbling (or wearing, I guess) “tablets” of medicine for roughly 500 years.

“Tablet computers” aren’t quite that old, of course, although one probably could have applied the term to an abacus, which is usually small, flat, and can be used to do fairly complex math. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first use of the term “tablet computer” in print to 1984 (“Shostak said battery-operated tablet computers will be available ‘within six months of this election’,” UPI Newswire), although Wikipedia points to a device called a Teleautograph (a primitive fax device utilizing telegraph lines) patented in 1888 as “an electronic tablet used for handwriting.” Um, OK.

Incidentally, “tabloid” was originally formed as a trademarked term for medicine tablets in 1884 by Burroughs, Wellcome, & Co., a British pharmaceutical company, by combining “tablet” with the suffix “oid” (usually used in scientific contexts to signify “having the form of”). By the 1890s, “tabloid” was in general use meaning “a concentrated version of something.” When newspapers appeared at the beginning of the 20th century having pages half the size of the standard “broadsheet” and featuring popular and often sensationalist news stories, the name “tabloid” for the journalistic genre was a natural fit (“Go into any bus or train or lunch room at any hour of the day or night and you see men and boys and women and girls taking and enjoying their tabloids,” 1901).

Not counting the cats perched like pigeons all around the room.

Dear Word Detective: Over the weekend I was at a large rummage sale and one of the booths had a sign saying “Bric-a-Brac.” I know it means “odds and ends” or “knick knacks,” but what is the origin of the term? — Carolyn.

Ah yes, Spring, the beginning of the rummage/yard/garage sale season, when otherwise sane, frugal people rise at dawn on weekends to groggily comb through their neighbors’ bad purchasing decisions on the off chance that they’ll find a treasure among the inevitable exercise  gizmos (obviously unused) and dingy answering machines (clearly pining for the fjords). Back when the US was awash in cheap credit, you’d occasionally find a real bargain put up for sale so the owner could buy a newer one. But for the past few years, the people down the road from us, to pick a proximate example, have been sitting in their front yard every Saturday from April through September trying to sell nothing but plastic dinnerware, some very ugly hats, and a large, rusty chain. I guess they’re saving the shiny chains for eBay.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), that magisterial repository of linguistic odds and ends, defines “bric-a-brac” as “Old curiosities of artistic character, knick-knacks, antiquarian odds-and-ends, such as old furniture, plate, china, fans, statuettes, and the like.” Whether that definition encompasses today’s typical rummage sale fare is debatable, in particular whether “statuettes” includes bobble-head figurines of football players, a favorite around here. And I’m pretty sure they mean the ornamental hand fans popular in the 19th century, not the cat-fur encrusted box fans so often seen at yard sales. So I think it’s fair to say that the “artistic” part of that definition is true, in many cases, solely in the eye of the seller.

“Bric-a-brac” (the hyphens are optional) is, not surprisingly, a French import, probably a modification of the expression “de bric et de broc,” which the OED translates as “by hook or by crook,” and other sources render as “here a little, there a little,””at random” or simply as a nonsense phrase “expressive of confusion.” The basic sense is of a collection of inconsequential but vaguely interesting and pleasant items used as ornamentation in a home, etc., or as the American Heritage Dictionary says, “Small, usually ornamental objects valued for their antiquity, rarity, originality, or sentimental associations.”

The closest synonym of “bric-a-brac” is probably one you mentioned in your question, “knick-knack,” meaning a small article or trinket used for decoration (again, the hyphen is optional and it’s often seen as “knickknack”). “Knick-knack” is simply a repetitive form of “knack,” which originally meant “a trick or devious method,” but later came to mean “a small ingenious toy or trinket.” (“Knack” also eventually took on the meaning of “the trick or acquired faculty of doing something cleverly and successfully,” as in “Bob had the knack of getting late fees removed from his account.”)

Another good word (and one of my favorite words) for the sort of little dust magnets found on many peoples’ mantles and bookshelves is the Yiddish “tchotchke” (plural “tchotchkies”), which is often seen in the phonetic Anglicized spelling “chachka.” I think I have a small tchotchke problem myself. I took an inventory of my office bookshelves a few years ago and tallied a mechanical cow, a small rubber walrus, a small rubber cat, two plastic lobsters, an extensive collection of gargoyle figurines, and a small plastic toaster which, when wound, marches across your desk waving slices of toast and rolling its eyes. I’d be tempted to offer this stuff at a yard sale, but I need the toaster for my work.