Advertise here for as little as 40 baht per week
Bobby’s British Breakfast Foods
UK Sausages, Ham, Bacon, Pies, Teas etc.
Call 087 155 7737 or 089 985 7473
SERVED UP BY...
A section for all you budding etymologists where each week the origin of a word or phrase is investigated.
This week it is..... Point-blank
Close enough to go directly to a target.
In the Late Middle Ages, when ‘point-blank’ was coined,
archery and artillery targets were usually white. ‘Blank’
derives from the French ‘blanc’, which of course means
white. ‘Point’ is a little more ambiguous. What was first
meant by ‘point-blank range’ was rather more precise
than our current meaning. Then, as now, it meant ‘too
close to miss’, but the specific meaning was ‘within
the distance that a missile travels in a direct line, with
no perceptible drop due to gravity’. The ‘point’ in the
term may have referred to the point of the arrow that
was about to be fired - if the point coincided with the
target in the archer’s eyeline then the target would be
hit, so long as it was within ‘point-blank range’. Another
interpretation is that ‘point’ was a verb and that ‘pointblank’ just meant ‘pointing at the (blanc) target’.
The expression betrays its ye-olde origins by appearing
first in print in the form of ‘poynt blancke’. An example
of that comes from the English mathematician Thomas
Digges’ Arithmetical Military Treatise, 1579, asking the
kind of question that might have turned up in a Tudor
maths lesson (no wonder they crept like snails, unwilling
to school):
If a Falcon that carrieth poynt blancke 150 pase, at
vtmost randon randge 1300 pases, I demaunde howe
farre a Culuering at his vtmost randon will reach, that
at poynt blancke, or leuell, rangeth 250 pase.
Note: Falcons and culverins were cannons, small and
large respectively.
Into the 17th century and the ‘direct level flight’ meaning
was alluded to by no less an author than Sir Walter
Raleigh, in The History of the World, 1614:
Training his Archers to shoot compasse, who had bin
accustomed to the point blanke.
Note: Compass meant ‘curved’, as in the flight of an
arrow over a long distance.
The figurative ‘direct and blunt’ meaning that we now
often use is found in phrases like ‘asked/denied/refused
pointblank’. This also came into use around the turn of
the 17th century and was listed in John Florio’s English/
Italian dictionary A worlde of wordes, 1598, in which he
equates ‘forthright’ with ‘point blanke’.
siamexpat.tv
Siam Expat TV is a brand new, ‘cutting edge’ IPTV service
providing the best of UK TV to expats in Thailand!
7
With over 100 of the best UK TV channels (no filler or ‘junk TV’ channels added to
make the service sound bigger than it is!) covering Sports, Movies, Entertainment,
Documentaries, Kids channels and News, there is something for everyone. Plus, we
constantly record over 70 channels which means that you can go back and watch shows
that have already aired! You can also pause and rewind live TV as well!
Quote ‘A
WO
Only ฿990 per month plus ฿4,395 for our set top box.
when yo L’
Please visit our website at www.siamexpat.tv for
order an u
d get
more details or call today on: 088 581 01 03
10% off!
Join the AWOL forum