The Word Of this Week is;
Shivoo
Look out! There’s been a mudslide. The mundane mumble-tongues couldn’t understand, remember or pronounce the EYEtalian word Charivari, so it slid down the linguistic hill, and entered the English language as
shivaree
noun (US & Canadian)
a discordant mock serenade to newlyweds, made with pans, kettles, etc.
a confused noise; din
Also (esp. dialect) charivari
Then it made its way by tramp steamer to Australia, land of kangaroos, platypuses, and Diggers who can’t handle three-syllable words, where it ended its ignominious tumble, as the Abo word
shivoo
noun, plural shivoos. Australian.
a boisterous party or celebration.
Origin of shivoo – origin uncertain
This is like the story from several years ago, where a Florida woman had been brain-dead from an accident for five years. Her husband wanted to pull the plug on the life-support machine and achieve closure, but her Catholic parents fought him in the courts.
His/their family name was Chiavo, and even the more intelligent of the TV talking heads insisted on pronouncing it Shy-voe, when any good Italian made three syllables of it, and pronounced it Shee-ah-voe.
Out among the street trash, one could get kicked in the nuts, or the balls. Some tried to describe being mugged with a more upscale word. Whether it was too intellectual, or simply too long to say, gonads quickly shrank to ‘nads. The mud has slud even further. Now, ‘nad’ is (mis)pronounced nard, a word which used to mean ‘an ointment used by the ancients.’
Jimmy Cliff sang I Can See Clearly Now. If we could get more of the great unwashed to hear and pronounce clearly, communication and comprehension would benefit greatly. 😯
