Useful Words Beginning with Ga

Let's continue our walk through the "Ga's." After all, it is Holiday season. I "shop" through the dictionaries like eager Holiday window shoppers peer into the storefront attractions. Instead of noticing a beautiful sweater or suit, today I notice these three words. Join me as we examine them more closely.

Gamut

If anyone had asked me, even a few weeks ago, what "gamut" meant, I would have said a "complete supply," such as in the sentence, "When he lost his job, he felt a whole gamut of emotions, from anger, to bitterness, to relief, to an inexplicable sense of freedom." Indeed, my sentence is a correct one. The OED tells us that the figurative meaning of the term is "the whole scale, range, or compass of a thing." But this is only definition four for the word, and when I examined the other three, I was brought with intense joy into the world of medieval music.

How to explain? Well, let's begin with the 1520s definition: "the first or lowest note in the medieval scale of music, answering to the modern G on the lowest line of the bass stave." When Shakespeare said allusively in the Taming of the Shrew (late 16th century): "Gamouth I am, the ground of all accord:/ A re to plead Hortensio's passion," he was cleverly pointing us not only to the lowest line in the bass stave (the G) but to the musical scale itself (we know it as "do-re-mi").

The medieval musical scale was a hexachord (six notes). The names of each of the notes was given in accordance with an 8th century hymn in honor of John the Baptist. Here is the Latin of the the first stanza of the hymn:

"UT queant laxis REsonare fibris
MIra gestorum FAmuli tuorum,
SOLve polluti LAbii reatum
Sancte Joannes."

A translation is, "So that your servants may, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John." I have capitalized, in the Latin, the names of the six notes of the medieval musical scale: "Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, and La." Because the lowest note of the scale, the "Ut," corresponded to the lowest note on the classical scale, designated by the Greek letter gamma ("G") we have the origin of the word "gamut"--combining the first letter of the classical scale (Gam) and the Latin scale (ut). When choirs were engaged in singing the tones of the musical scale, technically known as solfege (sol-fa) or solmization, they would have to have syllables for each of the six notes. Instead of the "ut," which was a little hard to pronounce, they gradually replaced it with "do," perhaps referring to "Dominus," (the Lord). Thus, we have the roots of our musical scale.

Once this musical innovation took place, it wasn't long before gamut could be associated not only with the lowest note on the musical scale, but the entire musical scale itself. From 1596 we have: "Aija, It is needfull for him that will learne to sing truely, to understand his Scale, or (as they commonly call it) the Gamma ut." And then, just as you are ready for the usage to develop, you have Shakespeare experimenting with words again: "I am past my gamouth long ago." By the 18th century gamut was in common use to describe the entire musical scale. From 1709: "They make a greater sound than those who are possessed of the whole Gammut." And, from there it is only a slight jump to the use of the word gamut as "the whole range" which we employ today. Thus, in the history of gamut is the history of about 30% of our communication (music).

Gardyloo

I can dispose of this word, and its contents, much more quickly. Gardyloo is a hilarious word, derived either from the French garde l'eau or gare l'eau, translated as "watch the water," and used as a former cry in Edinburgh, Scotland "to warn passengers (passersby) to beware of the slops about to be thrown out of the window." From Smollett in the early 1770s: "At ten o'clock at night [in Edinburgh] the whole cargo [of the chamber utensils] is flung out of a back window that looks into some street or land, and the maid calls Gardyloo." There are lots of questions to raise about gardyloo, but I will mercifully refrain from raising them, except one. Why is it only attested as an Edinburgh practice? Did some French-speaking servant person (and the Scots and French were allies before the union of Scotland and England in the early 17th century) come to Edinburgh and make up the word or use one that s/he was familiar with back home? In any case, I think we have a wonderful word to express a warning signal when we are giving something the "heave-ho." Instead of saying, "Watch out," or "Look out," why not bring "Gardyloo!" back in? Well, maybe because people, instead of covering their heads, might just look at you and say, "Huh?"

Garnish/Garnishment

I have wanted to study this word for a long time because of the seeming incompatibililty of its meaning in two spheres of my life that are important: eating and law. In the former we know a garnish as a kind of relish or spice; in the latter a garnishing/garnishment is a deduction of one's wages in order to pay off a debt owed. How could these words be related, if at all?

The key to solving this dilemma which I just created for you is to look into the origin of the term. The verb "garnish" is derived from the Old French garnir, which had the sense not only of fortifying, defending, preparing, but also of warning (OED, s.v.). The first attestation of the verb, in the sense of fortify or defend, comes from the 15th century: "Panpylonne, whyche was ryght stronge of murayl and towres, & garnysshed wyth sarasyns." Something that is fortified, then, is said to be "garnished." But by the next century Thomas More could use it synonymously with "to dress..esp. in an elegant fashion." He wrote: "It maketh us gooe much more gay and glorious in sight, garnyshed in sylke." It is only a small jump from there to the meaning of garnish as to fit out or adorn anything, from a closet to a table.

But since the Old French garnis is related to warnis (to warn) , as the dictionary tells me, to garnish is also to warn someone of something. And, that is the origin of the legal concept of garnishment. It is a warning to a person, a notice that some legal action is about to commence. From 1577: The "Sheriffes order in serving this writ is to...goe to the land and there to garnish the partie by sticking a sticke on his land." And, when a collection is in view, the root meaning of garnish as "warn" is captured in this definition from the Century: "To attach, as money due or property belonging to a debtor, while it is in the hands of a third person, by warning the latter not to pay it over or surrender it." Thus, a garnishment, in its most frequent use in American law, is a warning to an employer not to pay over to an employee the full fruits of his salary because a debtor has a prior claim to it.

Isn't that nice? So, we have garnish meaning to protect or defend, to adorn and to warn, all proceeding from the same root. Put that on your Holiday table!

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