A very special history lesson from The Chaff - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

O, Captain! My Captain! It is with a heavy head and heart that The Chaff must announce that the most hallowed of ’eens will not be taking place this year. That’s right, the band Ween has canceled its upcoming tour, which was intended to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of their 1994 album, Chocolate and Cheese.

 

So now, it is time for us to turn our collective eyeballs towards the very near future, which contains the second most hallowed of ’eens: Halloween. The official holiday of Spirit Halloween fast approaches, which means that all those ’round the town are really ripping into the tender flesh of their favourite pumpkins in order to create the madcap candle vessel that is the modern day Jack-o’-lantern.

 

It’s rather obvious where the ”Jack“ and the ”lantern” are coming from, but did any of you Chaff Riffraff know that the “o” betwixt those two is actually an old time obscurity - an abbreviated form of “of”? Because back in the day, nobody had a bunch of loose, wrinkly folds of spare time to waste on superfluous letters, especially during the all-important pumpkin harvest season. Even when those superfluous letters don’t result in additional syllables. It was the best o’ times, it was the worst o’ times.

 

Now, dear Chaff readers, you may still be reeling from that Ween tour bombshell, but, for any of you Chaff stars out there who weren’t spiritually blown to Weenereens, here are a few more phrases, terms, words and linguistic foofaraw times of antiquity that tend to tickle the staff here at The Chaff, just in time for the multi-month ramp up to All Hallow’s Eve. Who knows, they might just get you through the night.

 

Why walk when one can “obambulate”? After all, a little “obambulation” a day keeps the doctor away!

 

Everybody loves a good, old-fashioned obstruction of justice, but an “obduction” of justice will do just as well in a pinch.
Ever wonder what they call those giant ships that only transport citrus fruit across the ocean? They’re “orangers!” As in, “When’s that bloody oranger going to show up with my damn clementine?!”

 

Do you want to predict something that might happen in the future, perhaps even a prophecy? Then that’s “oss”, boss!
Too busy scarfing down oysters by the Chaff-ful to predict the future? Then that makes you an ostreophagist, old chum!

 

Right around the turn of the 19th century, a troubling increase in the number of lads in the world led to the advent of an excess lad disposal system known as university. Once they were all shuttled off to “receive an education” and the streets were safe to walk again, the jokiest lads of all the ladd referred to their dorm doors as “oaks”, because they were typically made of oak - pretty cool, right?

 

Here’s one you can set your haircut to. “They say that oafishness is next to oakishness.” While less popular than “cleanliness is next to godliness”, this phrase still serves to teach us an equally important lesson: in the days before XBox, Twitter and XBox Live, we mostly just talked about trees.

 

Now, we’re all loving that hot new Billie Eilish song that extols the virtue of enjoying a midday meal, but that doesn’t mean you should be adding an “oak apple” into your lunch sack just yet. Don’t let the name lead you down the oh-so-well-trodden lane of linguistic malapropism - oak apples may sound like a most magical fruit, but, in reality, they’re actually just apple-shaped tumours that grow on oak trees that have been intensely irritated by fungi, insects, or bacteria. Yuck!

 

Now, we’re all loving that hot new Billie Eilish song that extols the virtue of enjoying a midday meal, but don’t try adding an “oak leather” into your lunch sack just yet. Don’t let the name lead you down the oh-so-well-trodden lane of linguistic malapropism - oak leather may sound like a most magical suit, but it’s actually just a leather-looking fungus that grows in the crevices of old oak trees. Yuck!

 

Now, we’re all loving that hot new Billie Eilish song that extols the virtue of enjoying a midday meal, but don’t try adding an oak spangle into your sack lunch just yet. Don’t let the name lead you down the oh-so-well-trodden lane of linguistic malapropism - oak spangles may sound like a most magical fruit, but they are actually just spangle-shape tumours that grow on oak leaves. Yuck!

 

So there you have it, Chaff Folk, Okey Dokes and Bicycle Spokes - just a little hiss of Jack-o’-lantern-centric history that the whole family will be able to use as carver’s inspiration this upcoming Halloween!

 

O Tempora! O Mores!