h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank you wrongly spelt one. Plausible, but I had a feeling it was older than tailcoats

As there are a number of fan clubs here on H2G2, what is the origins of the word fan.
I'm interested to find out about fan as in the wafting of fronds to create a cool breeze (or give extra air to raise the heat in the fire).

Fan as in fan club is short for fanatic.Fan as in fantail is a pigeon. Fan as in fan dance is the least you can get away with.

Is the fantail of the pigeon (or peacock) named after the thing that when wafted keeps you cool or the other way round?

Fan comes from the Latin vannus, which was a basket used for winnowing (to separate wheat from chaff by shaking). The English verb also had (and still has) this meaning, and it came to be used with reference to a variety of other similar actions.

I know you didn't ask for it, but a fan in the sense of a truncated fanatic comes from the Latin fanaticus, meaning a devotee or acolyte, itself derived from fanum, meaning temple.

Was that cat tails or Englishmens?
( non discriminatory musings - how do you dig potatoes wearing "top hat , white tie and tails" (lie it on me Ginger!)?)

Is that literal or figurative potato-digging?

I happily concur with W and Mycrosofty on the entymology of 'fan' but feel it necessary to add ..the usage first originated in the British press to describe those attending a series of semi-legal and bloody boxing matches prior to the Queensbury rules and padded gloves.
All manner of Victorian society was addicted to these blood baths, which lasted dozens of rounds and often proved fatal. Kings and prionces rubbed elbows with all sorts. The word fan was meant to imply that the fever, the madness and enthusiasm for watching men pummel each other toward death, crossed all the social barriers from the regal to the frugal. A new word, a classless word, was needed to describe the universality of this perversion.
peace
jwf

Was that princes or ponces you meant Jwf?

John, your post is suffused with enough temporal and spatial anomalies to fill a couple of Star Trek episodes. The first recorded use of 'fann' was in a 1682 edition of 'New news from Bedlam', almost two centuries before the Marquis of Queensberry put his name to the proposition that boxers' boots should not have springs in them. The word did not trouble typesetters again until 1892, when the modern spelling of fan was coined in America, rapidly achieving widespread usage.

Orcus, given the Victorian setting, surely "queens and ponces" would be the most appropriate interpretation.

Cor! Three typos had I then! Good thing this ain't baseball.
Folks'll git the depression I kent spel. But it's these damn fingers of mine. They're forever dune that. And it's not one-o-them freudian slipperies either. Honest secretarial errors, honest.
'Humble jalopies' (as Tefkat would say) to Mycroft, the Marquis of Queensberry and princes everywhere.

~j~

I got one that's been bugging me from Coronation Street.
'box clever'
Is it just Manchester or more widespread?
Any relation to thinking outside the clever box?
Chinese puzzle boxes?


~jwf~

"Box clever" has certainly not stretched across the water as far as Ireland (the vast distance of 267 km).

Is it not "boxing clever"? As in not being hit by the other bloke?

No mate, Oi use a spade.

Not knowing the context, I wouldn't have thought it was current colloqual english ( hey that word is hard to type!) but it is fairly standard english from god knows when.

For me 'boxing clever' suggests not just going crashing in with a haymaker! You know, 'duckin' n divin', in 'n' out. Weave, bob and jab.

Don't know what the context was on Corry, but I generally take it to mean 'playing it carefully while still looking for your chances'.

anyone completely disagree?

Spiff

'boxing'? Hmmm..?
On Corry I'm sure they just say 'box clever'.
It can be used sincerely as in:
"Oh, that was box clever, son." when someone does something creative, innovative or helpful. Or the same words are used with an ironic, sarcastic or facetious tone when the results are not as successful.

The phrase 'Oh, you played a blinder there, mate.' is used in both ways too. It's amazing that the exact same words can have opposite meanings just by the tone of the speaker.

*Now I'm thinking that irony isn't always sarcastic and and sarcasm isn't always ironic - but when they coincide, as in the examples above - is that when we say 'facetious'?*

~j~

Box clever is almost certainly unrelated to pugilism, as the use of the phrase predates the usage of boxing in that context by a couple of centuries. Unfortunately, all the meanings of box which predate box clever aren't likely sources either. The best candidate I can find is box from the Spanish bojar, meaning to sail around, which made its way into English almost contemporaneously with (but not quite) boxing clever. There are a fair few early nautical expressions featuring box which could have similar connotations to boxing clever, such as to box the compass, meaning to recite the 32 points of the compass forwards and backwards. To call someone boxing clever could well have meant they were a good navigator.