Complain, Carp, Grouse, Crab and Beef...

I told J., after a discussion of the differences between "complaining" and "criticizing", that I was going to look up the etymology of "complain." That turned out to be even more fascinating than I'd expected.

Remembering the French verb complaindre, I assumed that our English word had come from that, and that complaindre had a Latin root.  That was right; the word came into English in the late 14th century, from the Old French verb (12th c) meaning "to lament" which did come  from the Latin complangere, which meant "to beat the breast." I was confused by the "com" in this word; the dictionary I consulted said in this case it's used here less in the sense of "with" or "together" than as an intensive prefix. The Latin verb plangere means "to strike or beat the breast," and "plaga", a noun from this word, means a stroke or wound and is probably the origin of "plague." And of course, in a less specific sense than the-plague-as-illness, the things that plague us are those we tend to complain about...the first recorded uses of "plague" meaning "bother or annoy" date from the 1590s.

I was familiar with the word "complaint" being used to mean "lament" from its common occurrence in Renaissance church music - during penitential seasons we sing many motets with texts like, "O Lord, hear the voice of my complaint," which doesn't mean "I'm upset about all the things that are wrong in my life," but rather, "I lament my sins and weaknesses." 

That sense of the word lasted only until the 17th century, giving way to the modern meaning of the word. Its popularity in the language (and human behavior) seems particularly evident in the long and colorful list of synonyms and related expressions: 

moan, whine, kvetch, beef, bellyache, chide, yammer, carp, grouse, rail, crab, quarrel, nag, gripe, bespeak, bitch, and kick.

Not surprisingly, some of these also have very interesting origins as synonyms for "complain." To look at just a few of them, I've heard some of my British friends use the word "whinge," unfamiliar to me, which is related to "whine." Whine/whinge come from the Old English hwinan  which is the whizzing or whistling sound that arrows make through the air.  hwinsian is the whining of dogs, thought to have come from the Old Norse hvina "to whiz," and German wiehern "to neigh". The use of "whine" meaning "to complain feebly" began in the 16th century.

To "beef" about something was a slang term that originated in the 1880s. The origin is uncertain, but it's thought that it might come from a common complaint by U.S. soldiers in the late 19th century about the quantity or quality of beef rations.

"Grouse" is British army slang from the same period, first mentioned by Rudyard Kipling, and did not have to do with the lack of game birds in the military diet! Etymologists think it might have come the word "groucer", in the Norman French dialect, which came from the Old French groucier "to murmur, grumble." 

And while we're in the animal kingdom, "carp" has nothing to do with the fish; the word was already used to mean "complain" in the early 13th century and probably came from the Old Norse karpa "to brag," influenced by the Latin carpere "to slander, revile," lit. "to pluck" (carpe diem="sieze the day") Together, these words somehow mutated toward a meaning closer to "find fault with."

As for "crab" in its use as a noun meaning a sour person, or a verb meaning to complain, it was probably a combination of the temperament of the animal "crab" (from Germanic roots for scratch, claw; the first mention of the constellation known as the Crab appears in English around 1000 A.D.) and the sourness of the fruit (a Scandinavian word for wild apple trees, crabbe, 13th century). The use of the word to refer to a complaining, sour person dates from the 1570s.

All of which is way more than I expected to learn when I offered to look up "complain"!

Comments

[Kim]

This kind of thing fascinates me. I am one of those people who can literally get lost in a dictionary or thesaurus. I think that probably makes me a nerd.

[Vivien]

Yes, derivations are fascinating - how words change over the centuries, and go back to a common origin. The Russian word for bread, "khlyeb", sounds remote, but is related to our "loaf" (Gothic "hlaf", says my dictionary - common Indo-European origin). But I'm glad I don't have to actually study linguistics! If you look up a language on wikipedia, there are the most complex tables of vowel and consonant changes - people must have an extraordinary memory to deal with them and get degrees in the subject. Thank goodness I can just browse over it!

I liked your latest landscape painting very much. Vivien (Oxford, UK)

[Vivien]

PS - I think we have to be so grateful to linguists who fathomed the derivation of languages - it might seem a rather dry lengthy academic struggle to us, but they deciphered the Rosetta Stone, and developed theories about the inter-relation of languages all over the world.

[Jan]

Does this mean you still have to look up "criticize," or is that conversation over and done? I like searches to resolve minor disagreements (especially when I know I must be right) because I end up learning so much in the process. Thanks for sharing these delightful tidbits.

[Beth]

Kim, well, welcome to the dictionary-nerd club!

Vivien, thanks a lot for your comment, I agree with everything you said about gratitude for the linguists! (And I'm delighted that you liked that last painting. Thank you.)

Jan, yes, I *think* the conversation is finished...and I'll leave it to you to guess what it was about to begin with!

[Jean]

I too was wondering about your and J's conversation, of course - even out of testy conversations can come play and creativity and new knowledge :-)

[Natalie]

Beth, and 'piangere' in Italian means to cry.

Beating the breast, crying, lamenting....all so far removed from Customer Complaints Departments of airlines, department stores, internet providers, telephone companies etc. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they changed their title to The Lamentations Department? Or even to the
Moan, whine, kvetch, beef, bellyache, chide, yammer, carp, grouse, rail, crab, quarrel, nag, gripe, bespeak, bitch and kick Department?

[leslee]

So many of those are delightfully onomatopoetic! No complaints here - thanks for sharing this.