Revolving Secret Santa gifts

The other night my wife's workplace had their Christmas meal together, and during the course of the evening (which was held at the home of one of the senior staff) we played a form of Secret Santa which apparently was originated on the TV series, The Office. It's rather complicated to explain but basically the first person whose name is drawn out of a hat goes to the pile of little gifts, picks one, and then draws the next name. 

If the person who's drawn second thinks he or she would like the first person's gift, they're entitled to take it off them (!), or they can go and get a new present from the pile. And then the third person comes into the game, and again can choose someone else's gift or get a new one. It's gets quite complicated once a number of gifts have been opened, because things start to move around the room quite rapidly, especially if they have appeal to more than one person. 

The gift I got didn't have appeal to anyone else, so I wound up with it, and couldn't snaffle anyone else's gift. My wife, on the other hand, managed to get something she wanted from someone else, lost it, got it again and finished up losing it completely before winding up with a jar of tamarillo chutney.

My gift was a box of three little scented candles. Maybe we'll find a use for them sometime, or else we'll put them in someone else's Secret Santa parcel if the occasion arises...

Unlike these Diptyque candles shown in the picture, mine were modest little fellers. The left hand one of the three in the picture is called Feu de Bois or firewood, the one on the right, Figuier, means fig tree. The middle one doesn't appear to have a translation. While the site where these candles are advertised talks about how the company came into existence, it doesn't give any indication as to how the name came about, with its curious spelling, easily mispronounced. However, good old Wikipedia tells us that the word is related to the Greek diptykos, and relates to a painting or sculpture composed of two panels or parts. I'm not sure how that connects to the candles, but I'm sure there's someone out there who'll know.

Intriguing words

I'd never heard of the company, diptyque, (no capital letter) until today, and to be honest at first I was more intrigued by the word than by what they actually sell! It's a French brand name, and the word goes back to the Greek (see below). Although there's a good deal of information about the company and its history on its beautifully designed site, it doesn't seem to say where it got the name from.  

The distinctive oval-shaped stickers appear on all their products as well as the rather curious arrangement of the letters of whatever the product is - in this case, Baies candle by diptyque. Baies is a mixture of blackcurrant and Bulgarian rose, I believe, and early in their history the company produced English perfumers for French customers. 

But back to that word, diptyque. Its origins are similar to our English word, tryptich, meaning a painting that consists of three sections.  I assume there's an English equivalent of diptyque too, presumably spelt: diptych.  Yes, of course there is. 

Talking about interesting words, I came across this one yesterday: Occlupanid.  Apparently this was coined by the delightfully named Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group [HORG] as a generic term for the humble bread tie (occlu, close, pan, bread).  The Wordways column in this morning's paper has a number of other interesting words that we could well start using again (the English language is full of words that have been left behind, sadly).  Usufructry, for instance.  This means the temporary possession of a piece of land that doesn't belong to you, and making use of it: you might graze sheep, if you had any, or pick the apples off the trees on the land.  It was kind of like taking windfalls before they'd actually fallen.  

A four-headed pillory!

Fixfax is the Scottish word for a pillory (it's also spelt/pronounced paxwax in some dialects).  It's typical of that English usage of two identical sounds separated only by the first consonant.  (There's a name for that, but don't ask me at the moment what it is.) 

There's also nuncheon, which belongs to the family from which we get luncheon, and truncheon.  There aren't many words in this family so it's quite good to come across a long-lost relation.  Nuncheon is the virtual equivalent of luncheon, except it relates to drinking.

And finally sockdolager, which is apparently one of those words that arose serendipitously out of the blue one day: it means a knock-out punch.  'I've given him a sockdolager, and that's put him in his place.' 

Actually, not finally, after all.  I forgot to mention that the earlier use of the word treadmill was as a means of punishing people who'd been naughty in some way.  Prisoners were supposed to 'become wearily repentant of their crimes.'  Sounds a bit like the modern treadmill, says my wife.