SCRABBLE - The Last Word Newsletter

T H E W O R D S M I T HOn the first floor of the house – what we Americans would call the second floor – there is a very oldwindow covered with a protective shield.Because the English-language guides usually disappear rapidly at the major tourist attractions, I amsometimes left to grab one in another language, and will favor Italian if available. So, when Ireached this exhibit, I read how the “turisti del XIX secolo usavano scarabocchiare il loronome” (“tourists of the 19 th century used to inscribe their names.”)That word scarabocchiare, which I had not known, means to inscribe. But while it isn’t good inSCRABBLE (except of course when using the ZINGA lexicon), it looks a lot like another word that is– SCARAB or SCARABAEID#, a large black beetle.Could there be a connection? The Garzanti Italian dictionary tells me that scarabocchio, thescrawling of a name, desirves from scarabotto, which was the old Italian word for the SCARABbeetle.Perhaps it was the resemblance of ink on paper to the legs of the beetle. Perhaps someonesquished one of the beetles. I have no inkling, really, but the words are simply too close, and thedictionaries offer no other persuasive explanation.Our next stop was the medieval city of York, one of the cultural gems of Northern England, wherewe spent most of our time marveling at York Minster, and shopping in the old part of town, and inparticular in The Shambles.Look up SHAMBLES and you will find two defintions. As a verb it means to walk awkwardly. As anoun, a place of slaughter or complete disorder.The original meaning derives from the Latin scamnum, meaning a bench, and referred, as in York,to the merchants who would set out their benches and wares in the narrow, medieval streets.Nothing bloody or disorderly about that, but over time, the word changed its form and meaning torefer to a place when meat was butchered and sold, leading to today’s idea of a bloody mess anddisorder.The newspaperman in me cannot leave England without taking note of the local daily, the YorkshirePost, which was founded in 1754 as the Leed Intelligencer.INTELLIGENCER is a lovely word, which survives most notably in the American press as theSeattle Post-Intelligencer, which is today an online-only paper.Quite a mouthful, INTELLIGENCER, a word that originally meant an informer or spy, one whobrought news and intelligence.The OED cites the word as early as 1591, in Sir Henry Savile’s 1591 translation of Tacitus’ Agricola.”It is now considered an obsolete word. Unless you happen to be in Seattle, of course, or manage tomake a 13-letter play in SCRABBLE!I shall put off discussion of the Scottish portion of my trip until another time. The linguistic treasuresare too many, the word count too high, and your patience has been taxed quite enough for thismonth.Chris Sinacola is director of the Worcester (MA) NASPA SCRABBLE® Club #600. 65