Each week here at the Australian Writers’ Centre, we dissect and discuss, contort and retort, ask and gasp at the English language and all its rules, regulations and ridiculousness. It’s a celebration of language, masquerading as a passive-aggressive whinge about words and weirdness. This week, metal heads…
Q: Hi AWC, someone made fun of me yesterday.
A: So just a typical Wednesday then?
Q: Hey! Not fair. They laughed when I emailed them saying that the upcoming project would be a “test of their metal“.
A: Ah, okay.
Q: They say it should be “mettle“ – but surely, you’re testing what you’re made of, right?
A: But humans aren’t made of metal.
Q: Well, okay, sure, but figuratively – you know, like we’re going for gold, and GOLD is a metal, right?
A: Last time we checked. But you’re wrong.
Q: Hmmmph.
A: It’s okay, we won’t laugh at you.
Q: So a test of someone’s metal is not about being ‘made of tough stuff’?
A: Well, yeah, it IS. It’s just that in this case, confusingly, that tough stuff is another noun that sounds identical and is spelt METTLE.
Q: English is the worst.
A: Totally! But you have reason to be confused. Sort of.
Q: You’re not making any sense.
A: We’ll get there. But first, Macquarie Dictionary defines “mettle” as the characteristic disposition or temper; spirit, courage. They also give an example: “to try a person’s mettle”.
Q: Okay, fine. But surely it’s not as old as the word “metal” though – that must be thousands of years old?
A: Why do you say that?
Q: Because of The Bronze Age and The Iron Age.
A: It’s true those time periods were thousands of years ago, but they are relatively new archaeological terms – only debuting around 1850, in relation to the types of tools and weapons used during those times.
Q: So “metal” isn’t the older word?
A: Oh, yes it totally is. Just not as old as you thought. It arrived to English around the 1200s from Old French for “material, substance or stuff”.
Q: Stuff?
A: It was a simpler time.
Q: Clearly.
A: Anyway, the origin does go back further to Latin “mettalum“ (“to mine or quarry”) and from Greek “mettalan“ (“ore”) before that. So yeah, it’s quite old.
Q: Okay, so what next?
A: Well a couple of fun things happened in the 1580s.
Q: Not if you were Mary Queen of Scots or the Spanish Armada.
A: Haha, nice history knowledge! But we meant fun etymological things. First, a new word was created for “a metal disc or coin”. That word was “medal”!
Q: Oh okay, that’s fun.
A: And also during this decade a new word “mettle” also emerged – and guess what it meant?
Q: Hang on, let me just scroll up… okay, did it mean “the characteristic disposition of char—“
A: We’ll stop you there. It meant exactly the same thing as METAL.
Q: You’ve got to be kidding me.
A: That’s why you have reason to be confused. If you lived during Shakespeare’s time and throughout the 1600s, “metal” and “mettle” were used interchangeably.
Q: Used for describing material, substance and stuff?
A: Well, more than that. In the late 1500s, “metal” had started to mean not just mined substances or “stuff“ but also a person’s physical substance and “stuff“. By the 1590s, it expanded to an even more figurative inner strength, courage or spirit.
Q: And both “metal” and “mettle” spellings meant these things?
A: Yeah, they were interchangeable. It was a less simple time.
Q: Clearly. Well, we already know this tale doesn’t end up with them together, so what happened to these star-crossed lovers?
A: According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it was around the early 1700s that the two spellings finally diverged in meaning.
Q: Parting is such sweet sorrow…
A: Haha, yeah. “Metal” returned to being about just the physical attributes, while “mettle” held on to the figurative stuff. And it’s been that way ever since!
Q: Well at least they once meant the same thing, even if they don’t now. I’ve certainly learnt a lot today – can I have a medal for my efforts?
A: A participation trophy maybe.
Q: Ugh, forget it.
And with the Winter Solstice happening this weekend, here’s a bonus flashback Q&A all about EQUINOXES and SOLSTICES.
Do you have a question you’d like us to explore? Email it to us today!
