The Word Detective

Spider (float)

Great moments in antipodean product naming.

Dear Word Detective: My question is this: for as long as I’ve known them, soft drink floats have been called “spiders” in Australia (perhaps elsewhere in the world as well) and I was wondering if you could track down the reason WHY they’re called “spiders.” — David.

That’s a great question, and perfectly timed as well, because today is opening day of spider season here at Go Figure Farm (“When the weather warms, beware what swarms”). After fifteen years here, I’ve become somewhat used to the little nippers, but I still take a powder when I notice a cat staring at the ceiling above my head. Probably the best reason to have cats.

Spiders are, of course, arachnids of the order Araneae, having eight legs, fangs (often poisonous) and, in many cases, the ability to spin webs of varying sophistication. The word “spider” itself comes from the Middle English “spithre,” derived from Old English “spinnan,” meaning “to spin.” Other arachnids include mites, ticks, scorpions and “Harvestmen” (Opiliones), also known as “daddy longlegs,” which are not spiders but are (take it from me) incredibly stupid. We get these things by the dozens in our house every fall, and all you can do is pick them up gently and toss them out the door.

I had never heard of an ice cream float being called a “spider,” but neither have I ever been to Australia. Nothing against Australia, you understand; it’s just I don’t like airplanes and I’m a lousy swimmer. Fortunately, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has heard the term, and dates its first appearance in print to the mid-19th century (“They asked us what we would have to drink; we had a spider each.” 1854).

There’s a catch to this example, however, and it applies to all such uses of “spider” in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. A “spider” at that time was an alcoholic drink made from lemonade and brandy (or similar ingredients) (“The favourite tipple of the bushman was mixed brandy and ginger beer — a ‘spider’, as it was called.” 1888). The kind of “spider” involving a scoop of ice cream in a glass of either soda or seltzer with flavoring (called, respectively, a “float” and an “ice cream soda” in most of the US) didn’t make it into print until 1941 (“‘You’ve had your drink, so now you’ve got to buy us all a spider at Smith’s’ … I didn’t want to go back and sit in Smith’s and drink silly coloured muck with ice-cream floating in it.”).

There are various theories floating around about the origin of “spider” in the “ice cream soda” sense, the most plausible involving the “spidery” appearance of the ice cream as it slowly dissolves. But I think it’s more likely that the dessert drink simply got its name by allusion to the “two things mixed together” alcoholic drink. That, of course, raises the question of where the bar drink got its name.

One of the earliest (1859) citations for the term in the OED offers an explanation while noting then current names for the drink: “Shandy-gaff, or spiders, — the latter to clear their throats of flies as they said.” The joke of swallowing a spider to catch a fly previously swallowed is found in a fairly famous children’s song (“There Was Once an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” recorded by Burl Ives in 1953), but it’s likely that the idea is much, much older. In any case, the hot, dry climate of the Australian outback, and the attendant flies, almost certainly explain both the name and the popularity of these liquid “spiders.”

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Like

A matter of likelihood.

Dear Word Detective: We were driving home tonight and passed our neighbor’s house, in front of which he had piled a precarious mountain of odds and ends on top of the wheelie bin to be emptied by the trash folks in the morning. Knowing the persnickety standards of the local “waste management” company, my wife said, “I don’t think they like that like that.” For some reason, those two “likes” piqued my curiosity and I wondered if, and how, “like” the verb is related to that other “like,” whatever part of speech it is. — Alan C.

In that particular case, it’s either an adverb or an adjective, but “like that” is an established idiom, and idioms are weird, so it’s a bit hard to pin down. In any case, “like” can also serve as a preposition, conjunction and noun (as in Facebook “likes”). Speaking of weirdness, had I been in the back seat of your car at that moment, I might well have started humming a song from the early 1960s called “I Like It Like That,” written and recorded by Chris Kenner and Alan Toussaint in 1961 and later covered by the Dave Clark Five. The refrain of the song was “The name of the place is I like it like that,” and while it lacks the narrative subtlety of, say, “Louie Louie,” it’s a catchy tune.

The two “likes” are indeed related, both coming ultimately from a Germanic root (“likam”) that meant “body, shape, form,” with the added sense of “same.” The verb “to like” is somewhat older than the adjective in English, first appearing in Old English as “lician.” Curiously, the original meaning of the verb “to like” in English was “to be pleasing or suitable,” rather than “to be pleased or find suitable.” Thus if you were happy with your dinner, you might well announce that “It likes me.” This usage persisted into the 19th century (“I rode sullenly Upon a certain path that liked me not.” D.G. Rossetti, 1861), but beginning in the 12th century our modern transitive form (to find agreeable, attractive, admirable, etc.) gradually became more common. “Like” has produced dozens of idioms in English (e.g., “Like it or lump it”); interestingly, when applied to people, “like” is often used in explicit or implicit contrast to “love,” connoting a weaker emotion.

“Like” as an adjective came from Middle English, followed by the adverb, preposition and conjunction a bit later. The adjective “like” carries the sense of similarity and resemblance: something is “like” something else. As an adverb, “like” means “in the manner, fashion or to the extent of something or someone” (“Bob dances like a robot”), which leads us to the idiom “like that,” in which the “that” refers to something indicated or previously mentioned (“What was the use of his talking like that?” 1872).

Incidentally, “like” the adjective originally had comparative (“liker”) and superlative (“likest”) forms, but these have long since faded away. On the bright side, we still have the handy adjectives “alike” and “likely.” Interestingly, “likely” originally meant simply “resembling,” but it came to mean “probable” in the late 14th century, based on the sense of “resembling the truth or what is known.”

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May – June 2015

Semper Ubi Sub Ubi

readme:

Just under the line again. It’s spooky, isn’t it? Especially because in real life I’m pathologically early for everything. I used to show up at my job every day at least 1/2 hour before my shift started.

Thanks again to all the folks who have subscribed or contributed over the past few months. It’s been a huge help.

As usual, we seem to have skipped spring again this year and plunged straight into summer, with all its attendant horrors. I hate summer. Hate. We went for a walk down our road one evening about a week ago. (Actually, Kathy walks and I sort of hobble/shuffle along.) Just as we turned around to go back, I saw one of the local honor students driving his daddy’s pickup down the middle of the road at us at an insane speed. So I stepped off the side of the road to play it safe, lost my balance (quelle surprise), and landed face down in a drainage ditch, which happened to lie close to, and directly downhill from, a pig pen (with real pigs). I am never going outside again.

Then again, indoors has its own problems. We don’t watch a lot of TV around here, certainly nowhere near the national average of twelve hours a day or whatever (more like six hours a week, in fact), but I’ve noticed that there seems to be some sort of grand conspiracy afoot to prevent me from even approaching a proper patriotic level of grazing in the Vast Wasteland. No sooner do I start watching a show by myself (i.e., a show Kathy shuns) than said show is cancelled. Abruptly and with no hope of return.

It happened recently with an NBC show called Allegiance, which centered on a young CIA analyst who discovers that his parents are evil Russkie spies. It was, I’ll admit, a howlingly silly show, but it grew on me, right up to when they cancelled it after only five, yes five (of 13), episodes. This being the internet age, they let you watch the remaining episodes of the season online, but it still stings.

Not that this hasn’t happened before; a few years ago I was watching a sci-fi thing called The Event, which was not only very silly but occasionally completely incomprehensible. It finished its first season with a truly shocking cliffhanger. And was then cancelled. Before that there was some weird thing about aliens in a Florida swamp. Cancelled. And some time-travel dinosaur thing I barely remember. Kaput. C’mon, guys, if I can suspend my disbelief to watch your shows, at least wrap up the story line before you kick me to the curb. Right now I’m watching (on NBC — yes, I’m a slow learner) American Odyssey, which I think is kinda a blend of Homeland, Three Days of the Condor, The Bourne Identity and Homer’s Odyssey. It’s OK, but I try not to be too enthusiastic or look directly at the screen so they won’t notice me watching and cancel it.

Speaking of TV, how is it that the simpering soap opera Downton Abbey grinds on for six years, i.e., at least 40 episodes, while the brilliant Wolf Hall is crammed into only six episodes by the BBC? The two books by Hilary Mantel on which it is based (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies) together top 1000 pages. They could easily have gone with 12 episodes, maybe even two seasons, and had far fewer viewers looking stuff up on Wikipedia trying to follow it. As is, it was like watching a long trailer for a wonderful series that will never be made. But the idiotic Game of Thrones is bulletproof. Oh well, I was halfway through Wolf Hall (the book) when the series started, so I guess I’ll just finish reading the books.

Elsewhere in the Vast Wasteland, I was not a huge David Letterman fan for the last ten years or so (although I will say that the show was far better on NBC), but I was quite sad when he closed up shop. End of an era, blah blah, but true. He really was the last great broadcaster, the end of a line that stretched back to Dave Garroway (whom I, obviously, only vaguely remember). Conan’s too frantic and arch, “the Jimmys” are utter ciphers, and Stephen Colbert seems too tightly wound, a really bad choice to succeed Dave. But I am often wrong, so there’s that.

Once again, your support is always deeply appreciated, and is most conveniently accomplished by subscribing.

And now, on with the show…

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