Accafortis, Yehoodi & other "family words"
Posted by ESC on January 23, 2000
While browsing in my favorite bookstore this week, Poor Richard's,
I found a nifty little book, "Family Words: The Dictionary for People
Who Don't Know a Frone from a Brinkle" by Paul Dickson (Addison-Wesley
Publishing Co., 1988). Family words and phrases are those particular
to one family - like when the baby "mispronounces" a word and that
becomes part of the family's private language or when family members
use a phrase taken from an inside joke. Some family words, Mr. Dickson points out, are actually are "verbal
antiques," word or phrases that were once widely used but disappeared
from everyday language. A couple of the entries, I was happy to
find, had previously been the subjects of inquiries on Phrase Finder: RABBIT, RABBIT! -- "Don't ask us where or why we picked it up,
but it's not original with us," writes Warren Johnson, who reports
that the expression is a cry that goes up on the first day of the
month when one family member first meets another. YEHOODI - In more than a few families, this was the name for an
imaginary person who left the television on, didn't flush the toilet,
or committed ny of a number of other household sins. In his "Complete
Unabridged Super Trivia Encyclopedia," Fred Worth has an entry for
"Yehoodie" which may explain its origin. It reads, "The little man
who pushes the next Kleenex tissue up in the Kleenex box. As Created
by Bob Hope on his radio program." Worth also carries an entry for
Yehudi that reads, "Non-existing character created on radio by Jerry
Colonna. He's never heard or een." When the question was posted about Yahoodi (a phrase used by the
poster's father, I believe), all I could find was "Yehuda," a term
that my source (can't remember the reference now) sid meant Jewish
man. The Facts on File "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins"
by Robert Hendrickson lists this: "Jew - Jew comes from the German
'Jude,' which is a shortened form of Yehuda, the name of the Jewish
Commonwealth in the period of the Second Temple." I don't know if "Yehoodi," meaning Mr. Nobody and Yehuda have any
connection. Another family word in Mr. Dickson's book sounds awfully familiar
to me: ACCAFORTIS. Anything that is especially strong in flavor, taste,
or muscular ability is "stronger than accafortis' in the family
of Kenneth P. Weinkauf of Athens, Ohio. Nobody in the family knows
what it means. I know I've heard that phrase before - with accafortis pronounce
AK-a-four-tis. My daughter the Latin scholar tells me that "fortis"
means "strong, sturdy" in Latin and guesses that maybe accafortis
was some sort of product at one time. Maybe a patent medicine. Has
anyone else heard this phrase??
|