Open Writing

Sooner or later, in one fashion or another, all intelligent writing invariably returns home to roost in the comfortable and familiar branches of etymology, that fascinating field of study dealing with the origins of words and phrases. Indeed, as scholarly endeavors go, etymology ranks without question among the most compelling and absorbing of them all, every tittle the equal of such research sweethearts as genealogy, tropical rashes, and bird plumage.

Among the fascinations of etymological research is the frequent delight of discovering new words whose original linguistic purpose bears little or no resemblance to their present usage. The word squash, to cite but one example, originally had nothing to do with (as we know them) a vegetable, an athletic contest, or a violent act. In fact, it can be traced directly back to early Sumerian cuneiform tablets, from which the wedge-like symbol for squ translates loosely as "the smell of burning," while the more familiar symbol for ash is known to have signified "goat cheese." Thusly, the word-combination squ-ash, in its original form and intent, meant "the smell of burning goat cheese."

There are thousands of such examples, of course, even a superficial treatment of which would fill literal volumes in itself. The ongoing word-game represents for many a kind of linguistic treasure hunt which never seems to lose its scholarly seduction, with each new and exhilarating discovery merely fueling the intellectual fires of the already-smitten.

A classic example is the term "barbed wire," which in its original context was neither "barbed" nor "wire," as we know and use the terms today.

The product derived its catchy name from its French co-inventors, Alain D'Barbed (pronounced dee-BAR-bed) and Jean-Claude Weere, and had as its prototype an inexpensive but extremely durable early acrylic used extensively throughout the south of France following its initial appearance there in the mid-1720s.

The name of D'Barbed, incidentally, is still well-known throughout the whole of France, more than 200 years after his selection as Poete Distingue by the prestigious L'Academie Nationale de Poesie, in the year 1736. The same may be said of his award-winning poem, "Descartes Before De Horse," reproduced here as translated from the original Provincial French:

Decartes Before De Horse

"Cogito ergo sum," he said,
"I think, therefore I am"
And though Rene is long since dead
He's left us in a jam

Could "Cogito ergo cogito sum"
Possibly offer a key
For the lesser, simpler, dimmer minds
That dwell in folks like me?

Could one more "cogito" filling the chink
Help clear this cerebral jam
As it then more correctly would render "I think,
Therefore I'm thinking I am"?

In any event, I disagree
And can prove, I think, in a blink
That all who somehow happen to be
Do not necessarily think.

I, for example, don't think at all
So if I were to buy this rot
Despite the canard that my life is a ball
I guess HE would say I am not.
D'barbed - 1733

In any event, although the acrylic's original utilitarian purpose was indeed to assure the confinement of French livestock within the meadows and fields of their respective owners, the early acrylic eventually proved a disconcertingly impractical solution to the age-old problem of keeping one's animals separate from those of his neighbors. Nor was the discovery of the notorious impracticality without a certain irony.

The livestock, it seems, and more particularly the sheep, apparently liked the feel of the smooth acrylic against their wooly sides, an attraction that kept them close to fence lines for long periods of time. Not only did this result in peripheral over-grazing that became a genuinely serious problem in itself; it also proved a classic example of "invention arising from idleness," as Agatha Christie would describe it more than two centuries later.

As it happened, the fleecy creatures soon learned that by judicious plucking of the plastic material strung from post to post, they could produce a primitive, although quite stirring rendition of La Marseillaise, a discovery that caused no little vexation among the concerned populace as all patriotic Frenchmen within ear shot found themselves suddenly leaping to absolutely appropriate attention at embarrassing and decidedly inappropriate moments.

As one might imagine, this quickly became a nuisance - so much so, in fact, that by summer's end of the year 1731, the venerable Livestock Alliance of Southern France voted to a man to give the incommodious matter its highest priority. Nor, as one might reasonably expect from the demented minds of elected officials, did this prove merely another example of placating lip-service. Many of the LASF officials were themselves residents of the area in question, and had on more than one occasion been subjected to the annoyance of the ovine-initiated anthem inundating the countryside at predictably awkward moments during the long days and longer nights. In short, the problem being personal as well as constituental, they meant business.

Trial and error, those mischievous twins of progress, eventually brought the determined and frustrated Frenchmen to the threshold of discovery. To their delight, they experimentally determined that, unlike the smooth and pleasurable acrylic, the abrasiveness of rusted metal strips was decidedly not to the liking of the various animals, particularly when spliced at ominous intervals with sharp and nasty metal points. By 1737, the new product had been field-tested, and found true.

The trade name D'Barbed-Weere. by that time, had become a more or less generic term for virtually anything strung between two posts (occasional sausage links included). It quite naturally carried over to the newly-perfected metal substitute, and "barbed wire," as we know the product today, turned out to be the solution to a dilemma that had witnessed thousands of agitated French farmers uncomfortably torn between patriotism and practicality. With the eventual mass advent of the new material, the dozen-year nightmare of sudden and unexpected musical concerts was brought to an abrupt end, albeit one pasture at a time.

The original name passed into English, of course, and is used to this day in locations as diverse as Omaha, Vidalia, and the Oregon countryside - this despite the probability that not one native out of a thousand is remotely cognizant of the agricultural (and confinement) heritage passed our way by a couple of innovative and unassuming French lads named Alain D'Barbed and Jean-Claude Weere, truly the unknown soldiers of modern fencing.