ABRA CADABRA

Oct 05, 2009 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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I was thinking of words that are often confused like bazaar and bizarre, or berth and birth. While they should make one wary of the English Language, they are part of the reason one can never grow weary of it. Take “berth” for instance. It is supposed to mean a place to sleep on, essentially a bed on a ship or boat.

You can give birth on a berth on a boat, moor your boat in a berth, get a job or a “berth” on a boat or elsewhere, and you can ensure that you have sufficient room to maneuver at sea by giving sufficient room or berth to another vessel.

This ambiguity was brilliantly exploited by an employer who agreed to provide a poor-performing employee with a reference. He ended with, “If you have a berth in your company for this gentleman, make sure it’s a wide one.”

Brazier, brassiere and brasserie, not to mention braze and bras can be confusing. A brazier (or brasier) is something that contains objects that help to heat the environment. Sounds interesting, you say, but brassieres do that too.

OK – on to brasserie. A brasserie is a place that is open every day of the week and serves the same menu all day.

“Well, go on,” you may urge. “So far I can’t see any difference.” “Brasserie” comes from the French word “brasser” (to brew). “Brazier” comes from the French word “braise” (live coals), or the Middle English “bras” meaning “brass”, or someone who works in brass and not bras.

Confusingly, “brassiere” comes from the Old French word “brassiere” or “bras” meaning “arms”. This is not, anatomically speaking, correct.

However, the Latin is even worse as “bracchium” means “arms” and “iere” instead of meaning that everything is as close to perfect as could be, stands for “one associated with”.

In that case Samuel Colt and John Browning, the well-known weapons manufacturers, are really brassieres in the less-known meaning of the word. The famous opening sentence of Virgil’s Aeneid should also be changed from “Arma virumque cano” (Of arms and the man I sing) to “Brassieres virumque cano.”

However, to avoid getting hung up on “brassieres”, the commonly accepted origin is the word “brassiere” which is “a child’s jacket with sleeves”. Given the brevity of some brassieres today it is clear that the said undergarment has come a long way by taking the shortest route.

There is an amusing story about what is supposed to be the first or mother of all brassieres. Mary Bellis in “about.com” writes, “The first modern brassiere to receive a patent was the one invented in 1913 by a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob…(She) had just purchased a sheer evening gown for one of her social events.

At that time, the only acceptable undergarment was a corset stiffened with whaleback bones. Mary found that the whalebones poked out visible around the plunging neckline and under the sheer fabric.

Two silk handkerchiefs and some pink ribbon later, Mary had designed an alternative to the corset… On November 3, 1914, a U.S. patent for the ‘Backless Brassiere’ was issued.” Mrs. Jacob sold the brassiere patent to the Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for US$1,500 which made about US$15million from it over the next thirty years.

Like the printing press and gunpowder, the bra also seems to have been invented in China and then patented in the West.

According to media reports, in June 2004 archaeologists excavating an ancient tomb in Inner Mongolia’s Aohan region discovered a 1,000-year-old Liao dynasty padded bra made of fine silk and cotton padding, with shoulder straps and back strings.

It may have belonged to the famous Chinese princess, Mai Denform of the Hung family. (Sorry about that – I needed to get it off my chest).

Wherever brassieres came from, or whatever words they’re derived from, they obviously serve a useful purpose as far as women are concerned, and absolutely useless as far as men think, a distance restricted by their limited imaginations and sexual fantasies.

For women alone they are indispensable, but for women and men together they are dispensable. However, given that there are thirty-one common types of bra designs ranging from the adhesive and convertible, through full-cup, demi-cup and padded, to minimisers and maximisers, they are here to stay even though stays have gone.

What will also remain is men’s interest in women whose cups runneth over. Winston Churchill travelled to Fulton, Missouri, to deliver a speech and to be present at the dedication of a bust in his honour.

After his speech, Churchill was approached by a rather attractive and well-endowed woman. “Mr. Churchill,” she declared, “I travelled over a hundred miles this morning for the unveiling of your bust.” “Madam, I assure you,” he enthusiastically replied, “in that regard I would gladly return the favour!”

George Hamilton, the actor, was more direct. He said, “While a man is trying to figure out the size of a woman’s breasts, the woman has already figured out whether or not you’d be a good husband, how many children you’re going to have and what their names will be. They are so far ahead of men.” Except in one thing.

According to Bare-Necessities.com, seventy percent of women wear the incorrect bra size. This can lead to severe health problems including constricted breathing, back pain, restricted circulation, muscle strain, irritable bowel syndrome, suppression of melatonin and increased risk on breast cancer, as well as breathing and digestion problems.

Clearly women need help in choosing their bras. Unfortunately Winston Churchill has passed away. However, I am sure I can find a whole heap of volunteers. The only problem is can they differentiate between a brazier and a brassiere, or are they apt to go into a brasserie or a bistro looking for a bustiere and hoping they will find it on Madonna?

*Tony Deyal was last seen talking about the well-endowed actress who told her equally buxom companion, “Honey, Lloyd’s once insured my breasts for four million dollars.” The other woman replied, “What did you do with the money?”

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