Search Results for: pettifogger

Another fun etymology (via wordorigins.org): pettifogger (“a lawyer who engages in petty quibbling and cavilling, or who employs dubious or underhanded legal practices”) is explained by the OED as simply petty plus the earlier fogger, and the OED says of the latter:

[Of somewhat obscure history; but prob. derived from Fugger, the surname of a renowned family of merchants and financiers of Augsburg in the 15th and 16th c.

The name passed as an appellative into several European langs. In German fugger, fucker, focker (see Grimm) has had the senses ‘monopolist, engrosser’, ‘usurer’, ‘man of great wealth’, ‘great merchant’, and, in certain dialects (doubtless originally through ironical use), ‘huckster, pedlar.’ Kilian 1598 has Flem. focker ‘monopolist, universal dealer’ (monopola, pantopola), giving fuggerus and fuccardus as popular mod.L. equivalents; and in mod.Du. rijke fokker is an avaricious rich man. Walloon foukeur and Sp. fúcar are contemptuous designations for a man of great wealth. A ‘petty Fugger’ would mean one who on a small scale practises the dishonourable devices for gain poularly attributed to great financiers; it seems possible that the phrase ‘petty fogger of the law’, applied in this sense to some notorious person, may have caught the popular fancy, and so have given rise to the specialized use in sense 1. …]

1. A person given to underhand practices for the sake of gain; chiefly, a contemptuous designation for a lawyer of a low class. Usually preceded by petty (see PETTIFOGGER). Obs.
1576 FLEMING Panopl. Epist. 320 As for this pettie fogger, this false fellowe that is in no credite or countenance. […]

Yes, the jokes write themselves.

Update (May 2024). The OED revised the entry in 2016; here’s the new etymology:

Probably < Fogger, former spelling in English texts (see note) of Fugger, the surname of a family of wealthy mercantile bankers and venture capitalists from Augsburg, Germany, in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Notes

Historical background.

The Fugger family, operating largely through their agents in Antwerp, controlled much of the European economy in the 16th cent. and were widely criticized for unethical business practices, such as attempting to secure a monopoly on copper, selling indulgences and benefices, and petitioning the Pope to rescind the prohibition of usury.

Forms of the surname.

For evidence of the spelling Fogger of the surname in the mid 16th cent., compare e.g.:

1553 Item, the King’s Lettres Patentes of Securitie..for the payment of cxxvijml and ijc florens Carolyns of Flaunders money to the Foggers.
in Acts Privy Council (1892) vol. IV. 423

The surname is recorded in English documents from the mid 16th cent. in a wide variety of forms, as e.g.: Folker, Fouger, Fouker, Foulker, Fowker, Fuggar, Fukker, Fulcor, Fulker, all recorded from 1546–53, and a number of these have also given rise to common nouns in English (compare fulker n., fowker n., fooker n.). This variation in the form of the name probably partly reflects the range of spellings and pronunciations of the surname in German (compare the variants Focker, Fucker (both recorded from the early 16th cent.)) and Dutch (compare Fokker (1632 or earlier)). Additionally, a number of forms probably reflect assimilation to the English surname Fulcher, Fulker, Folker, Fulger, Foulcher, etc., which is recorded from the 12th cent. onwards.

Parallel nouns in other European languages.

The surname also came to be used as a noun (usually in a similar derogatory sense) in a number of European languages. Compare e.g. Dutch †focker, †fokker monopolist, universal dealer (1588 in Kiliaan), a contemptuous term for a wealthy man, ‘moneybags’ (1621; usually in rijke fokker), German †Fucker monopolist, engrosser (1691 or earlier; also 1520 in Luther, apparently denoting a corrupt dealer, merchant, or financier; also in form Fugger), and also Spanish fúcar (1615), French regional (Belgium) foukeur, both in sense ‘rich man’.

Semantic development in English.

The specific application of this word and of the compound pettifogger n.¹ to dishonest lawyers appears not to be paralleled in other European languages; the motivation for its development is unclear.

In sense 2 perhaps reinforced by association with fog v.¹ 3.

And the first citation is now:

1564 I knowe them verie well, thei are two pettifoggers in the lawe.
W. Bullein, Dialogue against Fever Pestilence f. 12ᵛ

Over six years ago I wrote about “an obscure mid-19th-century Russian writer called Yakov Butkov” (Russian Wikipedia), an ambitious, self-educated writer from Saratov who made his way briefly into the Saint Petersburg literary world but died young and poor; ever since then I’ve been wanting to read his best-known work, Петербургския вершины [Petersburg attics], and having found it on Google Books (and downloaded it as a pdf for my Kindle — what a great world!), I’m making it my final read before plunging into Dostoevsky. It’s by no means great literature, but it’s enjoyable reading and is clearly the product of the resentful, somewhat paranoid, hanging-on-by-his-fingernails scrivener described in the Milyukov piece. Thumbnail sketches of the stories I’ve read so far will give you an idea: in “Poryadochny chelovek” [A respectable man], poor Chubukevich wins a fortune at cards and becomes “respectable,” happily cheating others; in “Lentochka” [The ribbon], Ivan Anisimovich gets a promotion and a ribbon (because he can copy documents in a fair hand without understanding a word) and hopes this will help him win the hand of the fair Wilhelmina (“Minchen! Minochka!”), but when he shows it off to her she barely notices it and tells him happily she’s engaged to another man; in “Pochtenny chelovek” [The estimable man], the narrator (trying to evade his creditors) runs into his old pal Luka Pachkunov, who tells him how and his wife make money from fake charities; in “Bitka” [Smart guy], Samson Samsonovich, once an up-and-coming “smart guy,” now spends his time cadging drinks in a German-style tavern called Kitai [China].

Since the last-named story starts with a bit of linguistic humor, I’ll quote the opening here:

It’s a shame that from day to day the Russian Language loses the meanings and even the use of many ancient, powerful, accurate words that have been driven out by foreign ones, supposedly because our language is poor and inexpressive! Nowadays, for example, the word genius is very much in fashion. It’s worth inquiring about who gets called a genius, and why. A contributor to a magazine whom the thrifty editor or publisher doesn’t feel the need to pay for his work is called a genius by way of encouragement, when in fact he’s no genius, he’s just an unskilled laborer of the literary world. In an office, a man who has perfectly mastered officialese, who knows how to confuse a matter with clerkly flourishes and can write and copy with equal perfection passes for a genius, when he’s nothing but a pettifogger […]

Furthermore, they call someone a genius who can’t be called a unskilled laborer, or a pettifogger, or a thief, not to any extent, someone who is nothing other than a smart guy.

This story is about a smart guy.

The Russian:

Жаль, что день отъ дня теряютъ свое значеніе въ Русскомъ Языкѣ и вовсе выходятъ изъ употребленія многія древнія, сильныя, мѣткія слова, тѣснимыя иными чужеязычными словами, будто потому, что языкъ нашъ бѣденъ, невыразителенъ! Нынѣ, напримѣръ, въ большомъ ходу слово геній. Стоитъ освѣдомиться, кого и за что величаютъ геніемъ. Журнальный сотрудникъ, которому разсчетливый редакторъ, или издатель журнала, не находитъ нужнымъ платить за трудъ, называется, для поощренія, геніемъ а между тѣмъ онъ не геній, а только литературный чернорабочій. Въ канцеляріи, человѣкъ, совершенно владѣющій казеннымъ слогомъ, умѣющій запутать дѣло подьяческими крючками, съ одинаковымъ совершенствомъ пишущій и переписывающій слыветъ геніемъ, а онъ только строка…
. . .
Далѣе, геніемъ называютъ такого человѣка, котораго нельзя назвать ни чернорабочимъ, ни строкою, ни воромъ, въ какомъ бы то ни было размѣрѣ, человѣка, который не что иное какъ битка.

Идетъ рѣчь о биткѣ.

The word битка [bitká] is long obsolete; Dahl defines it as “челов. бойкий, бывалый, опытный, дошлый, смелый.”

Mark Liberman at the Log has a post about an interesting fact I was unaware of: the name of the H0/HO scale of model railway is from “half zero.” Accordingly, the Wikipedia talk page contains a vigorous prescriptivist (“The correct name is ‘H0’ or ‘half zero’; Google only shows that most people do it wrong”) versus descriptivist (“You seem to have forgotten that what was and what is are two separate situations. Your argument is the same as arguing that if a word is a Latin derivative, then it is still a Latin word and should be spelled the same”) debate. I’m sure you can guess which side I come down on.

Totally unrelated, but a comment by Christopher Squire on Pepys’ Diary explains an interesting premodern usage by quoting the OED:

pragmatical, adj. and n.

. . 3.a. Officious, meddlesome, interfering; intrusive. Obs.

. . b. Conceited, self-important, pompous; opinionated; dogmatic, unbending.
1660 H. More Explan. Myst. Godliness iv. xiii. 131 The leguleious Cavils of some Pragmatical Pettifoggers.
1668 J. Glanvill Blow at Mod. Sadducism Pref. sig. A2, With a pert and pragmatical Insolence, they censure all.
1712 J. Addison Spectator No. 481. ¶4 Lacqueys were never so saucy and pragmatical, as they are now-a-days.
1724 Swift Let. to Molesworth 2 Which‥ may perhaps give me the Title of Pragmatical and Overweening.
1779 F. Burney Let. 25 Oct.–3 Nov. in L. E. Troide & S. J. Cooke Early Jrnls. & Lett. Fanny Burney (1994) 407 His extreme pomposity,—the solemn stiffness of his Person‥& the quaint importance of his delivery,—are‥ like some Pragmatical‥ old Coxcomb represented on the stage.’

As Christopher says, “A useful word which has gone out of use for some reason tho’ the type it describes is still with us.”