Fun with place names
The challenge last time was to repurpose New England place names, as the 1983 book “The Meaning of Liff ” did with place names from all over. The coauthors of that book seem to have been free-associating when they came up with most of their repurposing — for instance,
Ludlow to refer to something one wedges under a table leg to keep the table from wobbling.
Most of the readers who took up the challenge were more rigorous, wanting their new meaning to somehow pertain to the place name. And I see why: The authors of “Liff,” in particular Douglas Adams of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” fame, already had what would now be called a brand, of which a prominent feature was whimsy. So they could simply decree that the name of the Australian town of Coodardy, in its Liff life, means “astounded at what you’ve just managed to get away with” — and it would be so. But if any of the rest of us decreed that a Meddybemps is a dark horse with a white mane, say, or a pig that has wings and can fly, we’d come across as fatuous or possibly stoned.
Hence Jack Neiman, of Framingham, repurposed Framingham in a punny way, to mean “putting all the blame for a flop on an overacting cast member.”
Diane Hansell, of North Hampton, N.H., reported: “My brother and I played a similar game in the ’70s. Attitash: what you do when your soup needs more salt!”
Jeanie Kelley, of Abington, defined Woburn as “the act of rejecting a suitor.” Marc McGarry, of Newton Highlands, saw the same name from the opposite perspective, saying it means “to be painfully rejected when expressing romantic love for someone.” Marc also defined Groton as “vegetables that have gone bad in the garden.”
Jeff Kaufman, of Needham, was more free-associative, à la the authors of “Liff,” deeming
Nahant to be “a removable three-season mosquitoproof shelter that I can attach to my deck” and
Scituate “a toothbrush for my dog’s teeth.”
Stephen Mulloney free-associated more freely still to riff on Quabbin. In the real world, Quabbin has a rich Native American backstory: It is said to come from the name of a tribal chief, Nani-Quaben, and Quaben itself was a Nipmuc word meaning “meeting of many waters.” When Stephen repurposed Quabbin, he gave it a completely different backstory, whose unabridged version referenced “noted character actor Bill Hickey” in the 1967 movie “The Producers” and Frank Sinatra singing “One for My Baby.”
Here’s the abridged version: “When there is only one patron in a local saloon, often the first or last customer, that person is called a quabbin.
Coined by an unknown Boston bartender in the late 1940s, the term migrated west with Bostonians headed for Hollywood and is now used regularly by movie and TV casting directors: ‘We need a quabbin in this scene.’ Quabbins are either drunks or profound philosophers, except on those occasions when they are both.”
Can I resist awarding that bragging rights? I cannot. Stephen, well done, you!
Now, Toni Doherty, of Northampton, writes: “We often host friends at our home, and though the start time often indicates what guests might expect in terms of refreshments, we spell it out. But I’m feeling the need for a suitable term for “snacks served with drinks, after dinner.” Hors d’oeuvres and appetizers sound like something you have before dinner. I’m looking to upgrade from ‘snacks, finger foods, and nibbles.’ Is it appropriate to use hors d’oeuvres here, or do we need a better term?”
This is, no doubt unintentionally, a trick question, because the literal meaning of hors d’oeuvres
in French is “outside the work,” which is to say, “not part of the main course.” So if we go by that, then nibbles served after dinner would indeed be hors d’oeuvre. (The French plural doesn’t end with s.)
But in French, as in English, literal meanings are not to be trusted. In both languages, the true meaning is appetizer or starter —or entreé, in the sense of “first course,” as the word is used in French and in most of the English-speaking world except the United States and the anglophone parts of Canada.
Back to business: The challenge this time is to help Toni out by coming up with something that’s sophisticated but comprehensible and meets her need. Send your ideas to me at Barbara.Wallraff@globe.com by noon on Friday, Oct. 28, and kindly include where you live. Responses may be edited.