This is the allusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, attempt to pull up Scalaba out of the

linguistic stone. It won't budge, it won't budge.

Coming up in today's show is possibly the very reason why you listen to this show.

Here's an etymological request from listener Gav, who says,

My four-year-old just asked, does bully come from bull? Good question, child of Gav, to

which the immediate answer is no. Bullie is not to do with bull, the bovine male,

which is from the Old English word for the same bullah. It's not from a papal bull,

which is from a medieval Latin word for a sealed document, Bulla, from the older

Latin for a round blob, presumably referring to the raised wax seal on the

document, nor is bullie from the bull that people talk, which could be from the

medieval Latin bullah, a game or a tape, or from the Old French bull, meaning

deception or scheming. So that was a surprise to me that that kind of

bull is also not referring to the animals or what comes out of their bottoms.

But I was more surprised that bully, when it was first around in English some

500 years ago, meant a sweetheart or a beloved friend, from the middle Dutch

bullah, a lover. It's not fully clear how bully turned from loving to bullying

by the late 17th century, but the most plausible explanation I've seen is that

bully was a term for the person who protected a sex worker like a pimple, which

does take you right from the love sense to the intimidation sense in one swift

move. Oh, and the bully in bully beef doesn't have anything to do with bullies or bulls.

It's an anglicisation of bully, the French for boiled. So there you go, child of

gav, a load of old bull, on with the show.

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