Pylimitics

"Simplicity" rearranged


What about ratnapped?

You’ve got your kidnapping and dognapping that have to do with capturing either people or dogs. But then you come to catnapping and it means sleeping — except that in 1983 the London Daily Telegraph used it more like kidnapping: “Mr Smith..suggested that Tilley may have been ‘cat-napped’.” 

Power napping is definitely sleep. But some kinds of cloth (velvet, for example) have a “nap,” which is a layer of thread that projects up away from the surface. In all, there are (or have been) at least 19 different versions of “nap.” In the 1400s a “nap” was a drink. In the 1800s a “nap” was a leg of beef, a fake hit or punch in the theater, and a card game. In the mid-1900s “nap” was used to mean a disobedient horse as well as any thick sauce that covers and adheres to food. I could go on. 

The “nap” in “kidnapping,” though, comes from the 1600s and was probably imported from the Swedish, Danish and/or Norwegian “nappe,” which means to snatch or steal. It was originally used alone, like in this 1665 example: “My Chester-Landlord..espy’d me, and..presently fetcht two Officers, and coming out into the street napt me.” It only took until the late 1600s for “kid” to be attached: “A Servant, who was Spirited or Kidnapt (as they call it) into America” (1693). Kidnapping in those days generally meant abducting someone (usually a young person) and sailing off to the New World where they’d be forced to work as a servant. 

The version of “nap” that means a short sleep is a different word, derived from the Old English “hnappian,” which meant the same thing. There was another Old English word that ended up as the (obsolete) “nap” that meant a bowl or cup, but they didn’t have to put up with the confusion we do, because back then it really was a different word: “hnæp.” The “h” in both cases is silent — maybe it was soundnapped. Or else it’s just napping. 



About Me

I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated puppy Chocolate. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel.