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Brand-new

Posted by ESC on July 05, 2000

In Reply to: Brand-new posted by Bob on July 05, 2000

: : : : This one came up today and after throwing it back and forth for a while and coming up with zip, my aunt and I have given up and want to ask you all - where the heck does it come from? Any clues?

: : : Although they no longer do it, doctors used to spank new babies on their little bottoms to get them to start breathing. Nothing's newer, yes?

: : That sounds like a good theory to me. "Brand-spanking-new" is a "sandwich word" created from "brand-new."

: : BRAND-NEW - "'Brand-new has nothing to do with the brand name of a product. It is rather associated with the word 'brand' that is cognate with 'fire,' as in firebrand. The product would thus be fresh from the anvil, or as Shakespeare put it in 'Twelfth Night,' 'fire-new.'" From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997). According to the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988), the word "brand" ".dates back to the Middle Ages and earlier, when 'brand' meant 'flame or torch' as it does in the still current phrase 'snatching a 'brand' from the burning.' The description 'brand-new' in those days was applied to products - usually made of metal - newly taken from the flames in which they were molded."
: :

: I disagree with the Encyclopedia when they say brand-new has *nothing* to do with product brands. The modern concept of branding has its linguistic roots in the branding of cattle, where a hot branding iron would permanently mark the ownership of a cow. (It's a small step from cattle to the brands on commodity products ... e.g., the smiling quaker man on sacks of oats in the 19th century that reassured consumers of a reliable quality level.) In this century with more widespread literacy, we tend to associate brand with brand name, but easy-to-recognize picture symbols are the original true brand identifiers. And the branding iron has its roots in the etymology noted. It's not a direct connection, but it's a real one.

I, too, think "cows" when I hear the word "brand." So I was surprised to read what Mr. Hendrickson and the Morrises had to say.

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