Monday, April 30, 2012

The Meaning Of A Meaning

Or not -- me, daring to comment at Wondermark, with etymology that may not be true:
It has been forgotten that the word "brunch" began during Prohibition as a slang term used to describe hung-over weekend revellers, arriving on Saturday and Sunday too late for breakfast, too early for lunch and "being raunchy" until some sort of hasty portmanteau meal could be slapped together to feed them. The meal (mostly table scraps from real breakfast, plus things of uncertain hue found in the fridge and dusty cupboard-corners) set before this reeking, bleary-eyed and "be-raunched" crowd was soon named for them, and by the time the Great Depression had caused a great vowel shortfall (FDR's various new TLAs were permitted at most one per acronym -- check me if you doubt) and soon after Repeal caused syllabic loss, "be-raunch" had to be telescoped down to "brunch," where it has stayed ever since, still slightly hung-over, goggling dimly at nearby entries in the modern lexicon.

It's a crime; I intend to write a stern letter forthwith. Possibly Zed, or perhaps W. Maybe N.

As an exercise for the reader, can you identify the other stern letters? Extra credit: List the two letters that are normal, one twice as much as the other.

Update: The normal and double-normal letters have been identified, though no one has gone on to identify the one that is on the square, let alone the one that is both square and normal.

The stern letters (other than Z, W and N) remain unknown. I suppose it is no help to point out that one of them is cross nearly all the time, while another is only rarely cross, almost never so in print. Or that you could win this on points.

13 comments:

Josh H said...

...and now we have "brunches" at places like church and as a social gathering with friends. Thanks for the word history.

karrde said...

While I may not be clear on which letters are stern, I am fairly sure that the letter "T" is normal.

(Using this meaning of normal.)

Thus, "H" would qualify as twice-normal, I think.

Kirk A said...

And to think that I though it was a contraction of breakfast and lunch...

Joe Allen said...

That would be inchLunkfastinch.

Stranger said...

A menu from my dad's 24 hour restaurant dated 1904 lists "four AM Santa Fe special:" breakfast 6 to 9:30: brunch 9:30 to 11:30, lunch 11:30 to 2 PM, late lunch 2 to 6:30: dinner 6:30 to 9:30: and "midnighters" at any time. With special dishes for each.

The Santa Fe special was timed to catch the railroad men rushing to change train crews. A bowl of bean soup, slice of ham, fresh fruit or pie, and coffee, all for 25 cents.

As I recall,the 18th Amendment was not ratified until 1919. Which makes it a nice story but not likely.

Stranger

Stretch said...

Guesses as to author's ID:
Dorothy Parker
H.L. Mencken
F. Scott Fitzgerald (What IS in the Baltimore water?)

Roberta X said...

::blush::

Guffaw in AZ said...

My friend and I have taken to adopting 'lunner' from a Denny's advertisement of yesteryear.
Not lunch, not dinner.
Served during the 'prevening' of Dr. Sheldon Cooper of the Big Bang Theory's invention!
No we are not drunk - when we start...

Tam said...

Joe Allen,

"That would be inchLunkfastinch."

Nice callback! :D

Roberta X said...

What Tam said! inchVery Kewlinch

karrde said...

After a day or two of thought, and a little research, I nominate V as a stern letter.

Not sure I've got square or normal figured out, maybe I'll send an email or two with my thoughts.

Anonymous said...

X is the crossed stern letter.

Roberta X said...

Nope! X isn't stern.