Mallemaroking and other Interesting Words

Of course, when you think you know enough words, there are always more, some of which have a technical or obscure meaning, some of which have long since passed out of use and are only present in dictionaries because someone once used the word, and some of which just have not come previously into our ken of vision. And, if you only study words for future spelling bees (which I don't, anymore), you will be frustrated, since some of these words aren't in the Century or the Webster's Collegiate or the Webster's Third International. But each of them makes us stop for a little while to appreciate and probe meaning and, if we are lucky, discover our lives more fully. I only have space here to discuss two of them: mallemaroking and qualtagh.

Between Mallee and Mallemuck--is Mallemaroking

Simon Winchester, whose book on The Professor and the Madman I remember reading with great appreciation about a decade ago, wrote a uproariously humorous article on mallemaroking, which originally was defined as "the visiting and carousing of seamen in the Greenland ships" (from the Century). That dictionary hypothesized that the word may have been derived from or be related to the one next following it--mallemuck, which describes the fulmar petrel which is "heedless" in its habits. But I can't prove this one way or the other. In any case, both Winchester and I were quite amazed with the narrow scope of the word. We must be a hardy people indeed to come up with a term that only seems to describe a few people in our world--those sailors who party in Greenland's icy waters. From 1812 we have the first appearance of the word in English: "Bear away again run 73 or 74 degrees of Lat. and then have another visit or Mallemuching as it is termed by the Fishers." By 1867 we have the "Greenland" part of the definition named.

But then, as Winchester points out, something seemed to happen in the definition. Rather than simply being confined to frolicking off Greenland, more modern dictionaries expanded the "net" of the definition, so to speak.

The mid-1970s definition from the Chambers Dictionary, for example, has mallemaroking as "the carousing of drunken seamen on icebound whaling ships." According to this definition, then, mallemaroking could happen anywhere there was ice in the waters, south or north. What had begun as fun in Greenland had now, seemingly, spread with alarming quickness to other parts of the world. The newer edition of the OED tried to control the seepage a bit by defining the term "the boisterous and drunken exhange of hospitality between sailors in extreme northern waters," but even there we have a potential expansion far beyond Greenland. Canadians, for example, might be engaging in mallemaroking. Or Russians, for that matter. At least in the OED's world, however, it wouldn't reach Brazilians or any near the Antartic. Phew.

But then, the latest Chambers Dictionary simply has mallemaroking as the carousing of seamen in icebound ships. Now there is no Greenland, no whaling men, no drunkenness necessary, not even Northern waterns in view. Indeed, mallemaroking may soon break out of its "icebound" limitation, what with global warming and all, and soon be any kind of fun on a ship. Then, Carnival Cruise lines will get into the act and advertise for mallemaroking cruises for the young and young at heart. Can't you see how langauge "slips," and how we simply sometimes just have to hold the line against this well-intentioned but mindless liberalism in the decline of linguistic precision? So, write your Congressmen (oops, people) and your Senators, except for Ted Stevens of Alaska, who might have done too much mallemaroking in Alaskan waters for his own good...

Tell them you want to keep mallemaroking where it belongs, in Greenland's icy waters. Then, perhaps when we sing again that old missionary hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," we will restore the purity and solemnity of a 19th century world that is fixed and immovable. Order will be restored to the world, and mallemaroking will be confined to where it belongs. Thank you, Simon Winchester, for raising the first alarm about 11 years ago on this issue...

Qualtagh (from an Irish or Scots Gaelic Word...)

The word appears as quaaltagh in the OED, though it lists qualtagh as a variant. Yet, there are about 10X as many references to qualtagh as quaaltagh in a Google search. So, I will keep it as qualtagh, even though it can't be used in a spelling bee--because I have found it in no dictionary other than the OED. The OED defines it as "the practice or custom of going in a group from door to door at Christmas or New Year, typically making a request for food or other gifts in the form of a song." The OED tells us that this word, though only first appearing in English in 1835, is already "historical." Let's introduce a few other terms, through an 1891 quotation: "The actors in Quaaltagh do not assume fantastic habiliments, like the mummers of England or the Guiscards of Scotland." The quotation is incorrect--it is the "guisards" of Scotland, and it means a guiser or a mummer--someone who mimes or acts.

So, I ran into a quotation that tells us something about these folk who went around from door to door on New Year's day. My source says the following was common on the Isle of Man.

"On this day (i.e., New Year's Day) an old custom, says Train in his History of the Isle of Man (1845, vol. ii. p. 115), is observed called the quaaltagh. In almost every parish throughout the island, a party of young men go from house to house singing the following rhyme:

"Again we assemble, a merry New Year To wish to each one of the family here, Whether man, woman, or girl, or boy, That long life, and happiness, all may enjoy, May they of potatoes and herrings have plenty, With battel and cheese, and each other dainty; And may their sleep never, by night or day, Disturbed be by even the tooth of a flea; Until at the Quaaltagh again we appear, To wish you, as now, all a happy New Year."

When these lines are repeated at the door, the whole party are invited into the house to partake of the best the family can afford. On these occasions a person of dark complexion always enters first, as a light-haired male or female is deemed unlucky to be the first-foot or quaaltagh on New Year's morning. The actors of the quaaltagh do not assume fantastic habiliments like the mummers of England, or the guisards of Scotland, nor do they, like these rude performers of the Ancient Mysteries, appear ever to have been attended by minstrels playing on different kinds of musical instruments.

This is enough instruction for one day. Take, meditate on it, and horizons expand.

3662.