Pippi and a taxing tale
QUESTION Was the author of the books about Pippi Longstocking responsible for changing Sweden’s tax laws?
SWEDISH writer Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) was famous for her children’s books, bringing down the government and, eventually, reforming the tax laws.
In 1945, she wrote the first Pippi Longstocking story and broke the mould of children’s literature.
Her heroine was red-haired, freckled, unconventional and morally and physically incredibly strong – she was able to lift her horse one-handed.
Pippi, like Lindgren, made fun of unreasonable adults. When moralists argued that Pippi’s behaviour made her an unsuitable role model, her creator revelled in this criticism.
Lindgren became a figure of national importance in Sweden, campaigning for environmental causes, children and animal rights – the Lex Lindgren animal protection law was named after her.
In 1976, she discovered that following a change in the tax system, as a self-employed writer she was effectively being taxed at 100% of her earnings.
Sweden had a marginal rate of 89.4% and Lindgren also had to pay employer’s fees.
In 1976, she published a scorching satirical fairytale, Pomperipossa In The World Of Money, serialised in the evening newspaper Expressen, about a children’s book author forced to pay exorbitant taxes.
The story ignited a debate over the tax laws and the Social Democratic Party, which had been in power for 44 years, lost the election to a centre-right coalition. Lindgren had helped change the political landscape, but Sweden’s complex tax system proved more difficult to reform. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the upper tax rate was reduced to 60%.
Karl Lavender, by email.
QUESTION Why is a nun’s wimple so called?
A WIMPLE is a garment of linen or silk folded to envelop the head, chin, sides of the face and neck.
It dates to the Middle Ages, when married women covered their hair as a sign of modesty. However, wealthy women would used the wimple to display their riches by attaching jewels to the cloth. The modesty and plainness of the wimple made it a popular choice for nuns, leading to the phrase ‘to take the veil’, which means to join a religious order.
Wimple can be traced back to the Old English wimpel, which is also found in most Germanic languages, such as the Middle Dutch and Middle Germanic wimpel and Old High German wimpal. Its origin is uncertain; one suggestion is that it is derived from the compound wind-poell, a garment used as protection from the wind – poell being a borrowing from the Latin
pallium, a woollen cloak worn by the Pope. The word wimpel first appeared in English in the tenth century in a list of clothes in the glossary by the prolific medieval author Aelfric of Eynsham.
Wimple has gained two related meanings: since the 17th century, it has been used to denote a flag, pennant or streamer, and from the 18th century, it refers to a meander, twist or turn.
Alison Scott, Tewkesbury, Wilts.
QUESTION Where did the word ‘cat’ as an adjective – eg, ‘the weather is cat’ – originate? Is it Irish in origin?
THE adjective ‘cat’ , often used in Ireland to describe something that’s bad, in all probability has its origins in the Irish language, although linguists are divided on the subject.
One expert on the subject was convinced of the Irish origins of the word as it is used today. Bernard Share, who wrote a book about Irish slang called Slanguage in 2008, believed it combined the use of the word ‘cat’, which in English slang means ‘vomit’, as in ‘shoot the cat’. Meanwhile, in the Irish language, an incident characterised by mischief and calamity became known as ‘cat marbh’, or ‘dead cat’. Indeed, Dineen’s Irish-English dictionary extended this meaning, citing the phrase, ‘Cia an cat marbh a chas in mo shlighe tú?’, or ‘What mischief brought you my way?’
But experts also say there is a lack of evidence linking these usages to the manner in which we use ‘cat’ today.
Another great authority on the English language as it is spoken here, the late Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, wasn’t fully convinced of the origins of the word ‘cat’ .
He noted the equivalence of ‘cat’ with ‘vomit’ in English-language slang but couldn’t determine if the link was evident here.
As Jeffrey L Kallen points out in Irish English Volume 2: The Republic Of Ireland (2013), many English words used in a distinct way by Irish people have no clear etymology. Take ‘goo’ for the noun ‘look’ (‘give us a goo…’) as an example. What’s certain is that ‘cat’ has come to mean something that’s bad or terrible and it’s still widely used in situations such as ‘the exam was cat’, ‘I’ve a cat pain in my head’ or – the most damning criticism of all – ‘that performance was cat melodeon’.
Even if the source of the phrase divides scholars, the word serves us extremely well in describing unfortunate situations. Not bad for just three letters…
Tony Conway, by email.
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