Who could have sent them? Was it a trap? I decided to take a chance and hefted the pot up and carried it inside. No explosions. No card either. Maybe I could find a clue in the etymology of hollyhock.

Hmm, “holy adj. + hock n.” Holy heck. What does that mean? Hock is from Old English hoc, of unknown origin. It’s a “general name for various malvaceous plants, esp. the Common and Marsh Mallow and the Hollyhock.” I had to look up malvaceous. No big deal. It’s just the Latin adjective meaning pertaining to malva, the Latin origin of the English word mallow. Mallow grows wild in the hills around here, but what about Marsh Mallow or marshmallow? I always wondered how those spongy little sugar puffs got their name. According to the OED marshmallow (British pronunciation “-mallow,” American “-mellow”) is “A shrubby plant of brackish ditches, Althaea officinalis, of the family Malvaceae, native to Eurasia and North Africa, which has ovate leaves, pale pink flowers, and a mucilaginous root…[or] other plants of the family Malvaceae. The second meaning is “A soft sweet confection made originally from the root of the marshmallow plant and later from albumen, gelatin, sugar, etc.” So that’s the etymological (mucilaginous) root.

Hollyhock photo by J.B. Herman

The prefix ob- is from classical Latin ob (also op in inscriptions) ‘in the direction of, towards, against,’ among other meanings. Ob-? It’s of- in this case. That’s because “the b of classical Latin ob is assimilated to certain consonants, becoming oc- before c- , of- before f- , op- before p- , and apparently o- before m- (in omittere ).”

In the 14^th century offend meant ‘to strike with the feet against something, to stumble.’ Just as early it was used figuratively: ‘To make a false step or stumble morally; to commit a sin, to fail in duty; to do wrong, transgress, infringe a rule; (Law) to commit a crime, break the law…to wrong (a person). In the first source cited by the OED, the Wycliffite Bible (1382), to be offended meant ‘to be displeased, vexed, or annoyed.’ Chaucer used offend to mean ‘to hurt (someone’s) feelings’: hoping to never “thynke or seye [anything] That yow myghte offende in any tyme.” He also used it in the sense of assailing or assaulting (figuratively though others had used it literally): “I am‥with loue offended moost That euere was any lyues creature.”

Offense in the sense of ‘an attacking team or player, the attacking component of a team; a system or pattern of attack’ in a sport is originally and still chiefly a North American usage. Hmm. Maybe someone can tell me what offensive players are called in other English-speaking lands. Well, maybe some sports lovers would take offence at the notion of calling any players offensive.

Photo:  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

With enough leftover steak for a couple of meals in a box beside me and a wad of C-notes in my purse I was feeling smug as a bling-bedizened rapper. I decided not to worry about the fact that there was no Wi-Fi on the bus. Data usage plan be damned. I went to www.lapl.org and checked the OED Online. The noun fence, I found, was shortened from defence and beginning in the 14^th century it meant ‘the action of defending.’  Felon Sow of Rokeby, an anonymous ballad from around 1600, contains the line, “For all the fence that he could make, She gat sword out of hand.” Later it meant ‘fencing, or use of the sword,’ In Selections from the records of the city of Oxford, 1509–83, we find “Dennys, a poore scholler and a teacher of fence.”

And the other kind of fencing? Yep, related. Fence came to mean something that served as a defense or bulwark, and by 1512, ‘an enclosure or barrier along the boundary of a field, park, yard or any place which it is desired to defend from intruders.’

Illustration: Fechtende adelige Studenten um 1590 (aus einem alten Stammbuchblatt), Zeichnung aus dem 16. Jahrhundert, Rechte abgelaufen

What does “fend” mean, anyway? I wondered. I checked the OED Online. Fend comes from shortening defend and means ‘to ward or keep off, turn aside, keep out or at a distance.’ Yeah, that’s what I have to do at times. David Livingstone and Charles Livingstone wrote in 1865 in their Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi that they took “a spoonful [of brandy] in hot water..to fend off a chill and fever.” Me too. But I skip the water.

Defend is from Latin de- ‘Off, away’ aside’: as dēclīnāre ‘to turn aside, decline n.’; dēducĕre ‘to lead away, deduce v.’; dēfendĕre ‘to ward off, defend.’

And forfend? Sayeth the OED:

Etymology:  Old English for-… prefixed to verbs, giving the additional sense of ‘away’, ‘off’ [+ fend]

Even though the prefix for- has the same meaning as the Latin prefix de-, forfend has a slightly different meaning: ‘to forbid, prohibit’ or ‘to avert, keep away or off, prevent.’

Speaking of defense, what about fencing, both the rapier and the chain-link kind? I’ll worry about that later, I thought, First I have to see how Fanny Price forfends Henry’s advances without giving offence.

The pest master slipped the pen from the folder and extracted a small spiral notebook from the pocket of his shorts. “How do you spell acaricide?”

“Don’t worry; I’ve been emailing you all the murderous words as we’ve been talking,” I assured him.

“Good,” he said. “Speaking of death, have you got any last words?”

“Sure. I hope you enjoyed your lunch and weren’t tempted to commit coquicide.”

Beetlebaum lowered his chin and rolled his eyes up at me. “And what would that be?”

“It’s a term some smart aleck by the name of Sir George Webbe Dasent made up in his novel, Annals of an Eventful Life, published in 1870. He talks about “a unanimous verdict of Justifiable Coquicide,” or killing a cook, from Latin coqu-us ‘cook’ + -cide.”

Beetlebaum clutched his fistful of hundred-dollar bills. He wasn’t paying for corny jokes, even if they were the kind Ben Franklin himself might have made. “There’s temporicide,” I ventured anyway.

He pounded his fist, bills and all, against the table. “That’s just killing time.”

“Exactly. But here’s one you can use: talpicide from talpi-, the combining form of Latin talpa, ‘mole.’

“Now you’re talking.” He dealt me a bill from his wad.

“I once read a mystery story in which the murder weapon disappeared without a trace,” I said, “because the dead man was a victim of stiricide.”

“What kind of bull—“

“No, not a bull or a steer, but stiria, Latin for ‘icicle’ and cid-, cadĕre ‘to fall.’ Stiricide is an obsolete term for the falling of icicles, as from a roof.”

“OK, Ms. Kahn. I think we’re done here,” Beetlebaum said. “I’ll stop you before you commit suffixicide.”

 Mole drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Icicle photo by Richard Bartz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Beetlebaum liked his coffee sweet and light. I take mine black and bitter.

“Bugs aren’t the only things we rub out,” he said. “Got any more five-dollar words for what we do?”

“Sure,” I said, “but those five-dollar words cost a hundred now. Inflation.” He nodded.

“We’ve already mentioned acaricide for killing mites,” I said, “but if you need a synonym, there’s miticide. And I’m sure you would never do this, but someone who brainwashes a person or destroys his mind commits menticide from classical Latin ment-, mēns ‘mind’ (as in mental) + -icide.”

He slapped down a Benjamin. “Menticide doesn’t count.”

“OK, how about muricide, ‘a killer of mice’ from classical Latin mūr-, mūs ‘mouse’+ -icide?”

He added another bill.

“From mice to lice: pediculicide is a substance that kills lice, from classical Latin pēdiculus ‘louse.’ Well, here’s an interesting note in the OED,” I said, clicking my fingernail against my phone. “Pēdiculus is the diminutive of pēdis ‘louse’ ‘perhaps < the same Indo-European base as pēdere to break wind.’ Who knew the little critters were capable of such a thing?”

Beetlebaum signaled Louie. “Check, please.”

My tongue grazed a spoon of spumoni. “There’s culicicide or culicide, ‘an insecticide for destroying gnats and mosquitoes’ from Latin culex, culicis ‘gnat’ and, as we found before, the suffix –icide or –cide from -cīdium ‘cutting, killing.’ I assume the meaning can be extended to mean ‘the act of killing gnats or mosquitoes.’ Look at this,” I said, showing him the screen of my phone. “The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1900 publication on malaria: ‘The most efficient culicide is tobacco smoke.’ Hmm. Malaria or cancer…?” I asked shifting my palms up and down like the pans of a balance scale.

“OK. That’s another hundred bucks.,” he said, plunking a bill on the table. “Anything else?”

“If you don’t keep your word, you’re a fideicide from Latin fidei, genitive of fidēs ‘faith.’”

He scowled and shook his head slowly.

“If flowers are growing so close to a house that you can’t avoid covering them with your tent you could commit floricide.”

Beetlebaum closed his mouth around a large forkful of cheesecake, set his fork down and slowly wagged his forefinger at me. “You’re stalling. I think you’re out of names for pest-killers.”

“Here’s one: if you help people get rid of snails — or oysters, mussels or octopuses – you’d use a molluscicide. All of those creatures are of the phylum Mollusca.”

He peeled off another hundred-dollar bill. “That it?”

“Nope. Let’s have coffee and I’ll tell you a few more.”

Anopheles mosquito, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Anopheles_stephensi.jpeg {{PD-USGov-HHS-CDC}}

A few more blocks and I hopped off. Something was sticking to my left heel. Yuck. I had speared a wad of discarded spearmint. Now I really am a gumshoe, I thought as I balanced on one foot to remove the gum with a tissue. I skittered around the stars in the sidewalk and through the green mullioned door into Musso and Frank’s.

Beetlebaum was hunched over a menu in the back booth. A short, slight fellow in khaki shorts and a faded T-shirt, he didn’t pose much of a threat. It was dark, though. I felt inside my purse and was reassured by the smooth touch of a mother-of-pearl handle. Good. I had my trusty magnifier. I like to read the fine print.

We made quick work of our fillets.

“You said you wanted to discuss a contract,” I reminded him.

“Like I said, murder is my business. I got the papers here. Sign on the dotted line and I’ll pay $100 a hit.”

I sipped my wine and didn’t correct his grammar.

“I run a very efficient pest control business, but our ads need a little class. You know: an extra helping of je ne sais quoi.”

“So what do you want from me?”

‘”We kill bugs” sounds so crass. I want to say, “We’re experts in the art of, uh, something-icide,” you know?’

“I think I do.” I signed the contract. “Here we go. A is for acaricide, from post-classical Latin acarus, ‘a mite or tick’ and –icide, from classical Latin -cīdium ‘cutting, killing.’”

“That’s one,” he said, slapping down a Benjamin.

“Lots more where that came from,” I replied with a grin.

Latin distringĕre was the source of distress and distrain, which lost their first syllables to become stress and strain. But if distringĕre was also the source of district, why didn’t the OED show it as the source of all those other words like restrain and restrict?

I played a hunch. Aha. Latin also had the word Latin stringĕre. Maybe distringĕre lost a syllable too. Distringĕre and stringĕre both mean ‘to tie, bind, etc.’ And when I searched for stringĕre in the OED Online’s “etymology” field — Jackpot!

Stringere is the source of:

Constrain ‘to severely restrict the scope, extent, or activity of’

Strait ‘a narrow passage of water connecting two seas or two large areas of water’

straits ‘a situation characterized by a specified degree of trouble or difficulty’

Straitjacket ‘a strong garment with long sleeves that can be tied together to confine the arms of a violent prisoner or mental patient.’

Strict originally, ‘drawn or pressed tightly together; tight, close,’ now, ‘demanding               total obedience or observance’ with no wiggle room, as you might say

Stricture ‘a restriction on a person or activity’

String ‘a line, cord, thread’

Stringent ‘astringent, constrictive, styptic, esp. with reference to taste’ or ‘of regulations, procedure, requirements, obligations, etc.: Rigorous, strict, thoroughgoing; rigorously binding or coercive’

Of course, there were also restrain and restrict with the re- prefix meaning ‘back.’

Straight is etymologically unrelated, though. It comes from Middle English, the past participle of strecchen ‘to stretch.’ So, though it’s become acceptable to spell strait-laced (meaning tightly cinched like Scarlett O’Hara willing her waist down to 18 inches with the help of a corset) and (the redundant phrase) strait and narrow as “straight-laced” and “straight and narrow,” that’s a stretch.

Well, I was glad to have that etymology neatly tied up. Hmm. Why do we like to tie up the loose ends in English, while the French find a more satisfying conclusion in the ‘untying’ or dénouement?

Illustrations: Ropes by J.B. Herman; Corset LACMA