Twerk, twerp, and other tw-words

By Anatoly Liberman

I made the decision to throw a seem at a handful of tw-text when writing my earlier post on the origin of dance. In descriptions of grinding and the Harlem Shake, twerk happens with wonderful regularity. The verb usually means “to transfer one’s buttocks in a suggestive way.” It has not yet created its way into OED and most likely never ever will (enable us hope so), but its origin barely poses a trouble: twerk have to be a blend of twist (or twitch) and get the job done (or jerk), a close relative of these kinds of verbs as squirm (potentially a mix of dialectal squir “to throw with a jerk” and worm) and twirl (? twist + whirl). When blends are coined “in basic sight” — as took place to brunch, motel, and Eurasia — no a single has concerns about their descent. Presently, mixing has turn into a tiresome tailor made, and the stodgy items of grafting 1 word on a further are commonly as transparent as Texaco or Amtrak and similarly inspiring. But no 1 can confirm that twirl is indeed a sum of twist and whirl. Its origin will for good stay “unknown.” Be that as it might, twerk does glimpse like a mix, even even though we really don’t know who, exactly where, and when released it into the linguistic place of North America.

Most persons perception an component of sound symbolism in words and phrases like twerk, even regardless of its rhyming associates jerk, quirk, and shirk. By the way, dictionaries tell us that quirk is also of unknown origin and that jerk is a symbolic formation. Shirk is obscure and, according to some authorities, may have skilled the impact of German Schurke “scoundrel rogue.” I have reasonable trust in the shirk–Schurke relationship. First j– is these a popular expressive substitute for sh– that I surprise no matter if jerk is a doublet of shirk or vice versa. In English, tw– implies something fidgety and inconsequential: look at, in addition to the words cited earlier mentioned, tweak, twitter ~ Twitter, tweet, tweedle ~ twiddle ~ twizzle. As with blends, sound symbolism can not be “proved.” Some speakers hear derogatory or humorous overtones in tw-, when some others do not, specially since, for example, tweed and twill are properly respectable. It would be far too considerably to anticipate that some mixture of seems would occur only in semantically related terms. I the moment outlined the symbolic (perhaps onomatopoeic, horrifying) character of English gr- (grim, grind, growl, grueling, and so forth) and experienced to defend my unoriginal concept versus the presence of grace, the gentlest phrase just one can visualize.

Considered from this perspective, the heritage of twerp also provides some fascination. Two of its rhyming associates (slurp and burp) are even a lot less attractive than these of twerk. (Chirp is not much too dignified either the Latinism stirp is bookish and happens almost never.) No citations of twerp in OED predate 1923. Two of the citations (the two published many years after the term was in use) trace it to a mix of a supplied and a relatives name (T.W. Earp). This hypothesis is not unbelievable (evaluate namby-pamby “lackadaisical”, dependent on Ambrose Philips, or dunce, among the hundreds of “words from names”) but probably a tiny as well fantastic to be correct. Potentially twerp ~ twirp “midget idiot an obnoxious person” had some forex at Oxford quickly immediately after the First Entire world War, and the identify T. W. Earp (a serious man or woman and an Oxonian) gave rise to a witticism no one could resist. The term attained common currency as low slang soon just after its to start with attestation. This simple fact also speaks from the jocular origin of twerp amongst a coterie of university good friends.

Regretably, two “serious” etymologies of twerp do not have conviction. According to one, twerp owes its origin to Danish tvær “running all the way across, diagonal.” This etymology was rejected as quickly as it was advised and for fantastic cause. How could a twentieth-century English slang term (a noun) be a phonetic alteration of a Contemporary Danish adjective? According to a further guess, twerp is a doublet of dwarf. The senses correspond flawlessly, but the route from dwarf to twerp cannot be reconstructed. Dwarf, even though missing cognates in the relaxation of Indo-European, has existed in the Germanic languages without end, as evidenced by Aged Engl. dweorg ~ dweorh, Old Icelandic dvergr, Middle Higher German getwerk, plural Fashionable German Zwerg, and other related forms. Twerp could not be a borrowing that is, it could not come from an outside source (these kinds of a resource does not exist reference to Danish is a terrible joke, and, by the way, the similar word exists in Swedish and Norwegian), and no course of action recognised to English historic phonetics would have modified dwarf to twerp. A placing coincidence, an ingenious conjecture, but an unacceptable etymology.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the modern verb twerk has a variant twerp: these types of coinages commonly have “inconsequential” variants. Even so, the most typical English words and phrases commencing with tw– are of course people akin to the numeral two. In Contemporary English, only the spelling reminds us that hundreds of years in the past two was pronounced with tw-. (Inspite of my steady aversion to etymological spelling, I would potentially keep w in two, to protect it affinity with twelve, twenty, twin, twilight, twine, twice, and twain ~ Twain.) Twist belongs right here as well. The noun designates a rope made of two threads, a twirl, and refers to numerous distortions. Therefore the verb twist “to intertwine curve wring.” Specially characteristic are the Germanic congeners of twist: German Zwist ~ Minimal German twist “quarrel, discord” Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish also have tvist (the identical meaning). Twig “a smaller shoot of a tree” seems to be akin to some words and phrases for “fork.” If this is genuine, then a twig after denoted a forked branch, an object with two prongs. How it acquired its present day this means remains unclear. German Zweig does not conjure up a photograph of a very small branch, however it is more compact than an Ast “bough.” (Did Dickens trace to the vicissitudes in the destiny of his hero when he identified as him Twist? Immediately after all, it was he, relatively than Mr. Bumble, who invented the name.)

It is anybody’s guess regardless of whether the plan of being divided into two pieces motivated the semantic advancement of twirl, twitch, and the relaxation. Such ties can rarely be reconstructed with assurance. Some tw-words and phrases have practically nothing to do with these becoming talked over here. Amongst them are twill and tweed (described higher than), the other twig (“to understand”) usually derived from Irish, and twit (“find fault with”) from Aged Engl. æt-witan (go through æ like a in Engl. at), which misplaced its prefix and right now seems like a simplex. Compare mend from amend. (James A. H. Murray of OED fame coined the time period aphetic for this kind of words and phrases.) Tweezers has a rather difficult background. Twee– in it is an aphetic form of French étuis “case,” but I speculate no matter if the simple fact that medical practitioners used to have a pair of ’twees, with twee so conveniently resembling two, played a purpose in the word’s advancement. On the other hand, a detailed dialogue of such nuances would acquire us also much afield. In this submit, we, merry twerkers, have been predominantly intrigued in items not likely outside of the knowledge of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Anatoly Liberman is the writer of Phrase Origins…And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on phrase origins, The Oxford Etymologist, seems right here, each individual Wednesday. Ship your etymology problem to him care of web [email protected] he’ll do his best to stay clear of responding with “origin unfamiliar.”

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Picture credit score: Poster depicting Snow White with the prince surrounded by the Seven Dwarfs by Aida McKenzie. New York Metropolis W.P.A. Art Job, [between 1936 and 1941]. General public domain by means of Library of Congress.