I was reading James Hill’s NY Times piece “In This Parisian Atelier, Bookbinding Is a Family Art” (archived), which describes the work done in the Atelier Devauchelle and has gorgeous illustrations (some of which are video clips), when I came across a word that was more or less new to me (in that I may have seen it before but had no idea what it meant):
Naïk Duca has worked at the atelier for 19 years. She presses a thin heated roller onto foil to repair gold lines on leather book covers, a process known as gauffering.
Most dictionaries do not have this specialized sense of the verb: Merriam-Webster “to crimp, plait, or flute (linen, lace, etc.) especially with a heated iron,” AHD “To press ridges or narrow pleats into (a frill, for example),” OED (entry from 1900) “To make wavy by means of heated goffering-irons; to flute or crimp (the edge of lace, a frill, or trimming of any kind).” But Wiktionary does:
1. (transitive) To plait, crimp, or flute; to goffer, as lace.
2. (transitive) In fine bookbinding, to decorate the edges of a text block with a heated iron.
The odd thing is that the prevailing spelling is goffer: M-W says, s.v. gauffer, “variant spelling of ɢᴏꜰꜰᴇʀ,” AHD has “gof·fer also gauf·fer,” and OED’s entry is “goffer | gauffer.” Wiktionary, bizarrely, has one entry for gauffer and another for goffer, with differing definitions and no hint that they are related. As for the etymology, AHD says:
[French gaufrer, to emboss, from Old French, from gaufre, honeycomb, waffle, of Germanic origin; see webh- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]
gaufre is French for and cognate with waffle, but what Naïk Duca is pictured using does not look like a waffle iron.
I’m a little surprised British English doesn’t spell it gauffre.
Général Joffre
Enjoyed a gaufre.
I’m a little surprised British English doesn’t spell it gauffre.
Perhaps because it’s the verb that was borrowed, not the noun. Most of those French-style -re words seem to have started life as nouns, and in most cases still only exist as nouns. British English even spells metre as meter when it’s a verb.
The “-ing” form of the verb looks terribly awkward if you don’t use the “-er” spelling, so that could be the main reason why British English has largely favoured “-er” for the verbs.
@mollymooly
I was also unhappy with the etymology via gaufre for gauffer/goffer, but all I could find was a Middle French Provence word goffe “hinge”. If it was the spine being decorated, this might make sense, but it is usually the front cover.
And yet, centring.
Roberts and Etherington have a longer description of gauffering: https://archive.org/details/bookbindingconse0000robe/page/114/mode/2up which also gels with my experience that one does not gauffer a cover, but only the edges (one would merely gild a cover). Further, the edge design has traditionally been honeycomb or waffle-like. For example: https://cary-exhibits.rit.edu/exhibits/show/edgesofbooks/item/164
n.b. @mollymooly, Roberts and Etherington give gauffred as a variant and I expect that if any of the British fine bookbinding trade journals were digitized one would see gauffre at some point.
…There’s “No Cross No Crown” on that one. I suppose the intended implication is the opposite of ni dieu ni maître…?
By the way, “gauffer” may be the etymon of “gopher”, a North American burrowing tortoise or rodent, whose holes might make the ground look like a waffle. The American Heritage Dictionary gives the other theory: “Probably short for earlier megopher, gopher tortoise, probably of Muskogean origin; akin to Choctaw kofussa, a hollow, an excavation.”
Even more by the way, I just saw that Wiktionary and Etymonline mention a suggestion that “gopher”, the wood that Noah made the ark from, is cognate to “cypress”. I see more resemblance there than in “megopher” and “kofussa”.
I believe pc has it right, that what Duca is doing in that passage (replacing the gold leaf pressed into insets in the book’s cover) is not gauffering. I think the way I learned the word (almost thirty years ago), it only referred to the activities listed in the Wiktionary definitions, both of which involve a texturing effect. However, that does not rule out that the meaning could have been extended (perhaps only in French, not English) to cover other activities as well.
Ah, it hadn’t even occurred to me that the reporter had got it wrong — silly of me!
The “-ing” form of the verb looks terribly awkward if you don’t use the “-er” spelling, so that could be the main reason why British English has largely favoured “-er” for the verbs.
And yet, centring.
The exception that proves the rule, in every way – as far as I know, it’s the only one of those words that has a regularly used verb form, and it looks terrible!
Every time I have to write “centring” I always want to change it to “centering”. Centring just looks and feels completely wrong to me, even though I’m a native user of British spellings.
Hmm. Wiktionary has entries for both “genring” and “genreing”. That’s different because there’s no “gener” variant; but Wiktionary also has an entry for “metring”, which is just like “centring”.
In BrE and OzE editing I always change “centering” to “centring” for consistency. If I were to meet with “rhymed and metered” I would of course do similarly; and therefore also with the less likely “rhyming and metering”.
No, I would not rephrase to avoid supposed awkwardness. If we can say it we can write it.
That’s the best I can come up with till my return from Bali on Wednesday. Being intentionally without a full-capability computer and restricted to my computerphone has been a great boon; but enough is (quite famously) enough. Swimming under the rain is bracing, but the nearness of devastating floods concenterates the mind a little too piquantly.
To me, “centring” looks disyllabic while “centering” looks hyperenunciated. I want “centṛing”.
Per Nat Shockley, “metre” for me is only for the SI unit. Other nouns and verbs are generally “meter”, so much that “metring” is practically a misspelling rather than a mere variant. Dictionaries don’t support me, because they are all wrong.
I see what you did there.
Gopher and magofer, the rodent and the tortoise, of French or Muskogean origin, are not properly discussed anywhere I could see. So I jumped into this gopher’s burrow as follows.
First, early attestations of gopher and its variants, the prairie rodent:
Brackenridge, Views of Louisiana; together with a Journal of a voyage up the Missouri River, in 1811 (1814), p. 58: “The Gopher, is supposed to be non-descript; it lives underground, in the prairies, and is also found east of the Mississippi.”
C.S. Rafinesque, in The American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review 2(1):45 (1817): “It [Diplostoma] contains probably several species; but only two are known as yet, and they have been discovered and ascertained by Mr. Bradbury: they both are found in the Missouri Territory, they burrow under ground and live on roots; they are called Gauffre by the French settlers.”
Webster’s dictionary of 1848: “GOPHER, n. The French popular name (Gaufres) of two species of Diplostoma, as is supposed, rodent quadrupeds, found in the Mississippi Valley and on the Missouri, about the size of a squirrel. They burrow in the earth, throwing up hillocks twelve or eighteen inches high. They are very mischievous in cornfields and gardens.” Webster refers to Peck’s 1837 Gazetteer of Illinois, which describes the animal, spelled gophar.
The 1864 dictionary expands: “Fr. gaufre, waffle, honeycomb. Cf. GAUFFERING. An animal of several different species. The name was originally given by French settlers to many burrowing animals, from their honeycombing the earth. In Canada and Illinois, the name was given to a gray burrowing squirrel (Spermaphilus Franklini); west of the Mississippi to S. Richardsonii; and in Wisconsin to a striped squirrel. In Missouri, a common species is a pouched rat of a reddish or chestnut-brown color, with broad, mole-like fore feet, the Geomys bursarius. In Georgia, a snake (Coluber coupen) is called by the same name; and in Florida, a turtle (the Testudo polyphemus).”
The OED on gopher quotes Webster with little elaboration.
Now, to the tortoise, starting with a shaggy dog story:
“Gelasinus”, The Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State, July 11, 1789, p.4, c.2: “Mr. Printer, Please to insert the following advertisement. I have for nearly a year lost one of my young curs, and on Saturday last found him a second time in your Paper. Although, he will answer to the names of Bombardinion, and Zoilus, his true name is Snarler, a full blooded descendant of the old Manger Breed. It was never my intention to trouble the public with the scratching or yelping of any from my kennel. But this fellow by nature is an itinerant, and frequently escapes me. I hope the next time he attempts to paw upon any part of your paper, you will secure him and send him home. There is something extraordinary in this young tatterdemallion; he was never known to have a tooth; he can growl and hiss like a serpent; and sometimes slobbers on his prey but never bites: and yet I have seen some little folks as much pleased with his froth, as if he could actually seize. The father of Snarler, old Manger, ran himself to death that he might keep the allegators in a neighbouring pond from eating light-wood-knots; and Zoila, his mother, was found the ninth day driving the buzzards from the bones of a polecat, and at last expired by the mouth of a megopher’s hole, where she had lain twenty days keeping the owner from enjoying his habitation.”
William Bartram, Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee country, the extensive territories of the Muscogulges or Creek confederacy, and the country of the Chactaws., p. 18 (1794 [1791]), describing an area near the coast of Georgia: “The dens, or caverns, dug in the sand-hills, by the great land-tortoise, called here Gopher [fn.: “Testudo Polyphemus.”], present a very singular appearance: these vast caves are their castles and diurnal retreats, from whence they issue forth in the night, in search of prey.”
Amidst a page of back-and-forth hair-curling invective:
H. Osborne, The Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State, Feb. 28, 1795, p.4, c.2: “Robert Watkins having again impertinently introduced my name in Mr. McMillan’s paper of Thursday last, I flatter myself you will not deem it improper to have my reply; to you I appologize for the language, and for this reason, that to make Mr. Watkins feel he must be used like a magoofer by putting fire on his back.”
J.E. Holbrook, North American herpetology, or, A description of the reptiles inhabiting the United States (1836), p. 41, referring to names of the tortoise, Testudo polyphemus: “Gopher and Mungöfa, Vulgo.”
The OED explains the etymology of mungofa thus: “Apparently < a Western Muskogean word, perhaps in the sense ‘one that scoops out’; compare Oklahoma Chickasaw yaakni’ makofa’ gopher (a rodent) < yaakni’ earth + ma-, of unknown origin + kofa-, cognate with Creek koːf- to scoop out. The unshortened English word is attested only in the sense ‘tortoise’, but it remains uncertain which animal the word first referred to (see gopher n.¹), either in Muskogean or in English. Compare later gopher n.¹”
The above is evidently based on Munro and Willmond’s Chickasaw dictionary, which has the entry “yakni’ makofa’, gopher”, given by Mary Ella Russell.
Putting it all together, the plausible history of the word seems to me as follows. It is of Muskogean origin, something like makofa or mąkofa, meaning ‘scooper’ or ‘digger’ or such. The nasalization, sometimes reflected in forms like mungofa, was either always present but not always heard by anglophone transcribers, or it reflected different forms in different languages, since nasalization alternation is used by some Muskogean languages to modify a verb’s Aktionsart. Indeed, there likely are two similar or identical forms here, independently devised by the Muscogee of the Georgia coast for the tortoise, and by speakers of a different Muskogean language in the west, for the rodent. Likewise, not understanding the meaning of the ma- morpheme, I speculate that forms like gopher derive from a language in which the ma- was not used. Or, it could have been omitted when adopted by European languages. English gopher would have been derived from (ma)kofa by non-rhotic speakers.
I believe the French etymology is a folk etymology. Perhaps gauffre came through English, or directly from the Muskogean word. It’s possible that the French word was used solely because of its similarity for the native word, and that the ‘waffle’ explanation was attached to it later. In any event, I think it’s unlikely for an animal to be named after the landform it engenders.
Impressive digging (or scooping out), and I think I agree with your conclusion.
Corrections:
“Mature” should be “nature” in the dog story.
Coluber coupen in Webster (1864) should be Coluber couperi. The typo is in the original.
Additions:
Daudin, Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des reptiles, (XI [1803]), v. 8, p. 347, lists “Tortue gopher; Testudo polyphemus.” This early occurrence of gopher in a French publication argues against its origin in French gauffre, as does its apparent source on the Georgia coast, which had never been French territory.
J. Le Conte, “Description of the Species of North American Tortoises”, in Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New-York, v. 3, pp. 91–131 (1829), notes on p. 97, under Testudo polyphemus, “Mungôfa, vulg.”, and adds in a footnote, “The letter ô in this word has the sound of the French ou, or the English oo.”
“Mature” should be “nature” in the dog story.
I fixed that one, since it could impede understanding.
Thanks! I had hoped you would.
I couldn’t resist quoting that whole letter. I did resist quoting the whole Osborne vs. Watkins mudfest, but it’s fun to read, too.
Yes, very impressive! FWIW, I agree that those words beginning with m- are hard to reconcile with a purely French origin.
“Gopher Snake” now refers to Pituophis catenifer, widespread in the western and central U.S., and some other members of the genus are called Gopher Snake with some adjective. Here in northern New Mexico we call them bull snakes, which properly refers to P. c. sayi, bur I’ve been informed that I’m actually in the intergrade zone between that subspecies to the north and P. c. affinis to the south. Coluber couperi was the even longer Eastern Indigo Snake, now Drymarchon couperi.
ETA: I think Osborne spelled it “magooffer” with two f’s. (I wonder whether he and Watkins ever fought a duel.)
You’re right! Magooffer it is.
I suppose Coluber couperi was called a gopher because it burrows, while Pituophis catenifer is called a gopher snake because it eats Geomys gophers.
That Henry Osborne was quite a character. No duel, apparently.
Per Nat Shockley, “metre” for me is only for the SI unit. Other nouns and verbs are generally “meter”, so much that “metring” is practically a misspelling rather than a mere variant. Dictionaries don’t support me, because they are all wrong.
The corpuses agree, as regards the spelling of the verb form. The GloWbE corpus at English-Corpora.org suggests that almost no one anywhere uses “metring”/”metred”. I think most people would regard it as a misspelling, or at best a misguided overcorrection.
Yes, it’s poetic metre that looks wrong to me but not to Collins et al.
I suppose Coluber couperi was called a gopher because it burrows,
And lives in Gopher Tortoise burrows.
while Pituophis catenifer is called a gopher snake because it eats Geomys gophers.
And probably other rodents called gophers. Incidentally, it was also originally put in the genus Coluber.
The OED does have the bookbinding sense under the adjective goffered. And the Century Dictionary has the verb, in a slightly more informative definition than Wiktionary: “2. To raise in relief, especially for ornamental purposes, as thin metal, starched linen, or the like. —Goffered edge, an indented decorative design on the edges of a book: an old fashion in bookbinding, applied to gilded or silvered edges.”
As with everything, that dictionary has been discussed previously at Language Hat!
Well, Linnaeus recognized very, very few genera; judging from a few minutes in Wikipedia, he stuffed most snakes – all colubroids, viperoids and elapoids – into Coluber, except the (elapoid) sea snakes, which he didn’t recognize as snakes at all and put in Anguis (the slow-worms)!
See also: all anurans in Rana; all salamanders in the species Lacerta salamandra until his student described Siren lacertina.
Yet Roberts and Etherington state: “The most common (sometimes simply the most commonly encountered) form or spelling of a term has been used, e.g., myrabolans, not myrabalans, gauffered edges, not gauffred, gaufré, or goffered, with the variations in spelling being included with the bold-faced heading.” Maybe the -o- spelling is more common for clothing, while -au- is more common for bookbinding? The google ngram for “goffered edges,gauffered edges” seems to agree (a big spike for “goffered” in
1845–1848 represents, as far as I can tell, a lot of books all carrying the same advertisement for something “handsomely bound in morocco, with goffered edges”).
Collins is another dictionary that includes the bookbinding sense for the verb “goffer”.
The correct term for applying gold lines on leather book covers is, if I understand correctly, “gold tooling”. But hey, if the NY Times had said that, then we wouldn’t have this post.
From Ulysses, at “Circe”, soon after some discussion of millinery but involving gaffer rather than the forms discussed above:
Then still at “Circe”, a few pages later:
At “Ithaca” in the catalogue of Bloom’s books there’s an opportunity to use a form of the relevant term but it’s not taken up:
And as KTS says: “The correct term for applying gold lines on leather book covers is, if I understand correctly, ‘gold tooling’.”