As I enter the home stretch of Piers Brendon’s The Dark Valley (regarding which, see Jonathon’s latest post, Preaching to the converted) I have run across a word heretofore unknown to me. Discussing Churchill’s extravagent renovation of his country house, Chartwell, Brandon says: “He created lakes, dams, waterfalls, fish-ponds, treating his black swans, golden orfe and other creatures with anthropomorphic indulgence.” An orfe is clearly a “creature,” but what kind? A fish, as it turns out, or in the words of the OED “A golden yellow variety of the ide (Leuciscus idus), long domesticated in Germany, acclimatized in England in the 19th c.” Not to be confused with the ancient word orf ‘cattle’ (last used in the 14th century), and still less with orf ‘A virus disease of sheep, cattle, and goats, characterized by a secondary infection with the bacillus Fusiformis necrophorus [now known as Fusobacterium necrophorum], which causes ulcers and scabs in and around the mouth and on the feet or other parts of the body; also called scabby mouth, contagious ecthyma, or contagious pustular dermatitis.’
Update (Mar. 2021). The OED updated all three entries in 2004; here are the new definitions.
orfe:
A silvery cyprinid fish, Leuciscus idus, related to the chub and dace, which is native to rivers and lakes in northern Eurasia and has been introduced in lakes in Britain and elsewhere. Also (more fully golden orfe): a yellow variety of this fish, kept as an ornamental pond-fish. Also called ide.
orf¹:
Cattle; livestock. [< a Germanic base, not exemplified in the cognate languages, but probably ultimately < an ablaut variant (weak grade) of the Indo-European base of erf n.1; perhaps compare Old Swedish orf portion of household furnishings.]
orf²:
An infectious disease of sheep and goats (sometimes affecting humans as a zoonosis), caused by a poxvirus and characterized by pustules and scabs of the lips, muzzle, and often other skin areas such as the coronets. Also called scabby mouth. [Probably ultimately (with metathesis) < a form in a Scandinavian language (compare Old Icelandic hrufa and cognates at rove n.2). It is uncertain whether English regional (Yorkshire) hurf, urf, orf, denoting various skin conditions of animals, shows the same word or a parallel borrowing]
See Y’s comment below for the new etymology of orfe.
We put some of those in our pond in England. They are quite common in the sort of places you go to to stock up garden ponds, in Britain at least. I hadn’t encountered the word either until we moved to a house with a pond.
But microbes are so cute…
I think the guy is a little harsh on those of us who might, if we happen to glance casually at them when walking past their pond, confuse them for a pustular and ecthymetic viral disease characterized by a secondary bacterial infection. we’re not all ichthyologists, after all.
All links in the post and in the comments have managed to fall prey to link rot. Orfe in the land of oblivion.
OED:
The first part of the etymology is so mush-mouthed.
The old links are all at archive.org, except the one in the comment which referred to the plush bacteria toys from GIANTmicrobes.
Hans: thanks for the heads-up; I’ve refreshed all three links thanks to the magic of the Wayback Machine.
The OED entry Y quotes was updated the year following my post; here’s the New Improved definition:
I discovered all three words had newly revised entries, so I added that as an update to the post.
related to the chub and dace
I’m reminded of an old comment I’ve seen on the ZBB many years ago, which sadly I only remember very vaguely:
“What conlangs have monosyllabic words for: <a bunch of assorted scientific concepts>
What natlangs have monosyllablc words for: <a bunch of assorted names of fish>”
(I’ll try to look for it if the archives are still around.)
EDIT: found the actual post!
Words I want simple words for in my conlang: hypostasis, apostasy, hypothesis. Words that real languages have simple words for: grebe, spruce, wren, vole, chive.
grebe, spruce, wren, vole, chive
Note that none of those is (by the usual classification) a fish. I’m not sure why I remembered the comment in question involving fish in particular.
Plenty of fish* though: cod, hake, bream, sole, trout, shark, bass, carp, char, pike, wrasse, smelt, eel, perch, gar, shad, ray, sprat, skate,… and lots of more obscure ones. I think the substantial number of monosyllabic fish names is actually just a side effect of there being a very large number of fish types; most fish names are longer, and these names are just unusually short outliers.
* Also the name of one of the earlier Web dating sites.
Oh, so related to Erbe “inheritance, heritage”.
That’s my first encounter with the bare root of firmly ensconced.