Without further ado

Recently, a friend of mine returned from presenting a lecture, curious as to why the phrase ”without further ado” has become popular to the point of cliche in introducing speakers. Indeed, we tend not to say, “Without further ado, I am going to the grocery to buy a pint chocolate ice cream,” or “Without further ado, let’s do the spring yard clean-up because the town leaf pick-up is tomorrow.” What is the big ado associated with introducing a speaker? An ado regarding the question ensued on Facebook, generating over 40 comments. Soon thereafter, I attended a conference where I heard the phrase used in introducing speakers, so without further ado, I am going to share my contribution to this linguistic ado.

According to the trusty OED, the phrase "without more ado," meaning "without further work, ceremony," goes back as far as the 14th century. The first literary example listed (from 1380) goes to the effect of the lords engaged in a certain action "without more a-do." (Sadly, my Old English is too rusty to translate the phrase representing that action.) "A-do," the informal version of the verb "at do," originated in the North of England and became "to do" in more broad usage. Around the 16th century, the verb decided to "transgrammar" itself to a noun, "ado." My favorite literary example reads, "William wanted a wife, and they were married without more ado," from a book dated 1876 about the Norman Conquest. Perhaps after marrying, William the Conqueror decided to leave the "further ado" to speechifying rather than marriage, perhaps trying to discourage the “at do” that can accompany marriage.

Contemplating this introductory phrase reminded me of the Southern colloquialism “fixing to,” meaning “getting ready to,” as in “Without further ado, I am fixing to introduce a speaker.” To my surprise, neither my Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang nor my Chamber’s Slang Dictionary has an entry or sub-entry on “fixing to.” Not surprisingly, however, I found a definition of “fixing to” on urbandictionary.com, which identifies the phrase as “vernacular particular to the southern US.” 

LAGNIAPPE: My sister and I many years ago created a sentence reflecting a number of Southern regional expressions: I am fixing to carry my bohunkus to the store to make groceries.

(Be)-Numbed

I am down in the mouth today. No, I am not sad. I am literally down one tooth—the #4 pre-molar. The tooth broke at the end of the summer. I avoided the inevitable loss of the tooth as long as possible, but finally the time had come.

As I sat in the dental chair awaiting my fate, my mind wandered to the words “numb” and “benumb.” Frequently, we add a prefix or suffix to a word to alter its meaning. However, if I took the word “numb,” which I defined as “without feeling,” and added the prefix “be-,” as in “surrounded by,” the meaning of the resulting word essentially stays the same—surrounded by a lack of feeling. My curious mind wanted to know exactly what the dentist did to me before pulling my #4 pre-molar.

Upon consulting my Oxford English Dictionary, I pulled out the following information. “Numb” cut its teeth as an adjective meaning “deprived of feeling, or of the power of movement, esp. through excessive cold.” This adjectival form came from an Old English verb, “nim.” “Benumb” developed its bite as a transitive verb meaning “to make (any part of the body) insensible, torpid, or powerless.” The entry later notes that “benumb” now refers mostly to loss of feeling cause by coldness. According to this information, the dentist benumbed my gums with Novocaine causing numbness which allowed a painless tooth extraction.

Not content to let a pulled tooth lie, I consulted the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. The first definition reflects the OED information. However, at some point, “numb” also took on a verb usage, “to make or become numb” (an absolutely terrible definition, by the way). The AHD entry supplies more information about the early history of “numb,” which evolved from a verb, nomin, meaning “to seize.” A “Word History” note details the history of “niman” as an irregular verb which would have been conjugated “nim, nam, num,” with “num” as the past participial form leading to our modern “numb.” In effect, the potential pain of my tooth extraction was taken away or seized—carpe morsus, as opposed to carpe diem, perhaps.

As the OED notes, “benumb” has retained its link with loss of feeling due to coldness in modern usage. The AHD defines the verb, “to make numb, especially by cold” (another terrible definition) and “to render senseless or inactive, as from shock or boredom.” In more modern usage, the dentist numbed my gums with Novocaine causing numbness which allowed a painless tooth extraction. Later, however, I benumbed the pain with an ice pack.

And so I have seized this opportunity to extract meaning from a now-empty space in my mouth. If I have not rendered you senseless from boredom, I will leave you with the thought that all I got from the Tooth Fairy is another hole in my head!

LAGNIAPPE: In the mid-1960’s, John Lennon published some of his jottings and drawings in two slim volumes, usually collected as one, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. In the former, he includes a piece, “At the Denis,” which details a woman’s experience with a tooth which the dentist (denis) “excretes.” In these works, Lennon combines wicked word play with satire of various things. I discovered these works in the mid-1980’s while striding through the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, avoiding work on the dissertation. I highly recommend these works, especially if you are trying to avoid work or losing a tooth.

Hiatus

Be-Worded is going on hiatus for a few weeks. I will re-commence sometime in the second week of April. In preparing this out-of-Be-Worded notice, I learned something about the word “hiatus.” If you followed the link, you see that “hiatus” has three meanings, according to the American Heritage Dictionary. In all of my linguistic studies, I never remember running across “hiatus” as a linguistic term. I cannot even go on vacation without learning something!