Yes, getting sacked does originally involve bags.
Just ten days into his new role as White House Communications Director, Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci was sacked, as a number of British headlines having been putting his firing while General John Kelly takes over as Trump’s Chief of Staff.
Where does this expression, getting sacked, come from?
We had a lot of interesting words in the news this week (some more polite than others). Here’s a news review with—what else?—an etymological twist.
Continue reading “It’s time for another Friday etymological news roundup”
Mooch may ultimately derive from an old Indo-European root meaning “darkness” or “silence.”
The new White House Communications Director, Anthony Scaramucci, drew many people to dictionaries last week for his distinctive surname. Scaramucci is indeed related to scaramouch, “cowardly braggart,” originating as a stock character in Italian comedy and familiar to most of us from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. As I discussed in an earlier post, the Italian scaramuccia gives English skirmish and scrimmage.
As if Scaramucci weren’t already colorful enough, Trump’s new Comms man also goes by the nickname the Mooch. Mooch, here, is taken from the pronunciation of his last name—although the word’s sense of “sponging” or “scrounging” are a bit ironic for a man who spent his career up to this point as a financier. So, where does this mooch come from, anyways?
Mashed Radish 