Marplot

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Slava
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Marplot

Postby Slava » Thu Jun 26, 2014 6:04 pm

The Goodword for June 26:

• marplot •


Pronunciation: mahr-plaht • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A person or thing which hinders or ruins an undertaking, a screwup, a bungler, a spoiler.

Notes: Today's Good Word is another absolute lexical orphan—no derivational relatives. We might note that mar- was a popular combining form in the 18th and 19th centuries. We find it in mar-all (17th century), mar-feast (dinner party-pooper), mar-good, and mar-joy (killjoy).

In Play: Marplots often turn up in minority political parties: "The filibuster is the political tool of congressional marplots, who resort to it more and more these days." However, we meet them everywhere: "No, don't put Donny Brooke on my committee; that marplot will screw up all our plans."

Word History: Today's Good Word is an eponym of a character in Susana Centlivre's 1709 play, The Busie Body. Centlivre describes her Marplot as "[a] sort of a silly Fellow, Cowardly, but very Inquisitive to know every Body's Business, generally spoils all he undertakes, yet without Design." Centlivre composed her character's surname from two words, mar + plot, capturing the sense of someone who spoils even the best laid plans. Mar comes from Old English merran "to spoil", Proto-Germanic marzjan "to annoy, to offend" from PIE root mer- "to harm". It emerged in several Indo-European languages with the sense "forget": Sanskrit marsayati "forget, forgive" and Lithuanian užmiršti "forget" are two examples. The origin of plot is unknown. (Davida Gregory is the farthest thing from a marplot of our daily word series, for Davida recommended marplot as today's Good Word.)

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Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 8040
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
Location: Finger Lakes, NY

Re: Marplot

Postby Slava » Fri Jul 21, 2023 6:48 pm

I'd say marplots can have great influence on the major parties, too. A split-ticket will almost always lead to the other side winning, as it dilutes the votes the marplot's side would have gotten if they'd remained unified.

One question; from the samples provided, I'm under the impression that a marplot is not an intentional spoiler, more a bad luck charm. Any thoughts?
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.


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