Grog . In the 18th century, the English
admiral Edward Vernon was in the habit of wearing a
grogram cloak, a garment made of a
coarse fabric of silk and mohair. It was this
cloak that gave the admiral the nickname of
"Old Grog" among the sailors under his
command.
By custom the royal Navy gave its sailors a daily ration of rum. In 1740, the admiral became alarmed at the damage to the physical and moral health of his men. He ordered that the rum be diluted with water, which came to be known as grog after its godfather, the admiral.
Grog eventually gained in popularity and came to be used as a general term for any liquor. Anyone who appears to be shaky on his feet, even if sober, can sometimes be said to be "groggy".
Piano . The harpsicord is an instrument that is played by means of a mechanism that plucks the strings. Gradation of the loudness of the music could not be controlled very successfully. Feeling the need to overcome this drawback in the harpsicord, in 1709, a Florentine instrument maker invented a mechanism by means of which the strings of the instrument are struck by felt-covered hammers. He called this new instrument gravicembalo col piano e forte , that is, harpsicord with soft and loud. In Italian musical termanology, piano means "soft" and forte means "loud."
The earliest known pieces written expressly for this new instrument are sonatas published for the soft and loud harpiscord . The instrument came to be designated by the term pianoforte which was eventually shortened to piano .
Dirge . The meaning is not directly related to the Latin from which it is derived. It comes from a biblical hymn of lamentation from the first word in, "Dirige, Domine deus...." (Direct, O Lord my God, my way in thy sight). This adaptation from the Latin to the English word dirge became the English generic term for a funeral hymn and subsequently for any slow, solemn, and mournful music.
Egregious . This adjective comes from the Latin egregius , meaning "distinguished" or "eminent". The elements of this word are e , "out of", and grex , "herd" or "flock". Thus, an egregious person has some good quality that sets him apart from others.
In the 16th century, however, the opposite sense came into use when the word was applied to someone who was outrageously bad. It is this pejorative meaning which persists in common use today, as in such examples as "egregious blunder" and "egregious brutality".
June 9, 1996 Michael W. Paparella All Rights Reserved