BS: Kith & Kin

Subject: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:04 PM

What with midwinter upon us, I find myself using that phrase a lot which has made me wonder several things, and I knew the Mudcat was the place to ponder them:

-Why do you have kinfolk but not kithfolk?
-If you say "kissin' cousins" with a lisp will you confuse anybody?
-Why do you till hear people introduced or referred to as kin but never as kith? Or do you, somewhere?

Merry midwinter, all! Don't forget that "ponder" comes from the French for "to lay an egg" which explains why some people are so bad at it!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Richie Black (misused acct, bad email)
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:14 PM

I just finished a book called "Kith and Kin" by Stevie Davies. It is set in Swansea in the 1950's. Sorry for the drift Mrrzy.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Janie
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:19 PM

I'd guess it is because "kin" is still common usage to describe relatives, but "kith" is out of common usage to describe friends, neighbors or acquaintances.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 12:19 PM

(A kithing cuthin?)

You got me started checking out that phrase (I also like kith, kin and kine). I rather like one explanation I read which was that it refers more especially to 'friends and neighbors'.

Evidently it is an old word, harking back at least to the 12th century.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:05 PM

Kathy hath kith and kin in Kathakstan.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:08 PM

Kith - 1. acquaintances, friends, neighbors, or the like; persons living in the same general locality and forming a more or less cohesive group.

The concept of kith-hood strikes me as being a tacit aspect of any scene were you would be making introductions. Also, kith-hood has no formal categories or bounds, where kinship has a distinct array of categories which make it categorically disprovable, unlike kithhood. Kithship?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:12 PM

Kath hath kith and kin in Kathakstan as hath Stan.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 01:46 PM

Happy Kithmas all!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Amos
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 02:30 PM

No world of richesse great is mine;
I have no gold or house or kine
No yachts or gems, nor horse nor swine.
But this estate I can live with,
For I am richly blessed with kith
And satisfaction have therewith.
And then, content within my skin
I celebrate, as well, my kin,
Who share the world that I live in.


Marigold Poppinjay
Tweetings from Twits
Abingdon Military Press, Albuquerque, 1999

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 02:51 PM

I'd guess it is because "kin" is still common usage to describe relatives, but "kith" is out of common usage to describe friends, neighbors or acquaintances.
The question was why is kin still in common usage and not kith, dear.

Lovely twit, above!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 03:49 PM

perhaps the term kith has become archaic because for the most part we do not live in tight small communities where we knew just about everything about our neighbours any longer.

lacking both kith and kin is making this a singularly painful non holiday for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 06:28 PM

Merry midwinter, VaTam, hey, you got us! (((((((U)))))))

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 06:41 PM

{{{{VTam}}}}}

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 07:19 PM

((((VA Tam)))) from all of your virtual kith.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Smokey.
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 08:14 PM

A kith is just a kith, a thigh is just a thigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Janie
Date: 05 Dec 10 - 11:29 PM

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{VT}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}.   

Kith became archaic long before the demise of many small communities.

(As an aside, having lived in more than a few small communities, and worked in a few more, I can attest that there are cons as well as pros to everyone knowing everything about everyone else.)

Seems to me, on reflection, that changes in the English language (that occurred I know not why or when) led to the significant reduction of words, especially nouns and verbs, that end in th.

Perhaps the linguists among us could chime in?

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 12:29 AM

I have a weird brain- I have now read this title as 'Keith and Kim'. Twice.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 05:07 AM

Kin you believe it? No? Then give uth a kith!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 06:48 AM

Perhaps Kith are people who marry into the family counting distant cousins aswell and family that I have hardly ever seen. Kin being the ones who are there when the will is being read out.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 06:56 AM

Kith and Kin is a plural noun which describes anyone close to us including friends and family.... http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/kith-and-kin

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 08:11 AM

Re Guest Patsy's post above. When did this myth grow about wills having to be read out to assembled family &c? I have even known people who insisted that a will couldn't be executed till there had been a reading, which is rubbish. I have never been to one, or known anyone who has. Outside such as 'Laughter in Paradise', 'The Midsomer Murders' & such film & telly nonsense, does any one know anyone who actually has?
Sorry for drift.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Charmion
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 01:32 PM

Yes, I have. Twice.

In both cases, the executors and beneficiaries gathered to read the will so they could at the same time make a collective plan for carrying out its provisions.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 02:33 PM

'kith' and also 'kin' are Old English words of German origin. Kith is linked with 'couth', meaning belonging to one's society, part of the social group. Here in East Anglia, the 'th' sound from old Anglo-Saxon roots is still with us, even in unexpected places. Many of my Norfolk pupils referred to Thetford Forest as 'Thet-thord Thorest' and "Oi wuz thirst!" in a race. I studied Phonetics as a side-subject at Uni, and these little traces of our old languages fascinate me. We also studied Anglo-Saxon stories in Eng.Lit. and the 'th' sound was everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Micca
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 04:25 PM

But what of the caboodle?

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: frogprince
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 04:34 PM

Kin I kith you?
When I was in grade school, that was "terrify tissue" in our local dialect.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 10 - 04:42 PM

Micca, you're jumping the traces again. The caboodle belongs to the kit and the kat, not the kith and the kin. Kith and kin are pedestrian, and hence have no caboodles. Kits and kats are steampowered and always used to have one at the end.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 11:11 AM

Ah, yes, the caboodle: youngest kin, all wrapped up and in a cradle, right?

Ah kin dig it!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: frogprince
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 11:56 AM

Among the native Americans, those are papoodles.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 12:27 PM

I though Papoodles were male poodles who had fathered!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 12:31 PM

Definitions of caboodle on the Web:

•bunch: any collection in its entirety; "she bought the whole caboodle"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

•any large collection of things or people
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caboodle

•all; the whole lot (also: the whole kit and caboodle).
www.artistwd.com/joyzine/australia/strine/c.php

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 07 Dec 10 - 01:01 PM

My off-hand guess as to the demise of 'kith' as a common word is that it's a little hard to say (and to distinguish from lisping -- and why isn't 'lisping' spelled 'lithping?'), and is a little less specific in meaning. I know who my kin are. I would have trouble defining any given person as 'kith' or not; I would have to think how many degrees of separation there are between said person and myself.

I suppose I would call someone 'kith' if I can recall their names, unlike some of my second cousins twice removed (and I'm getting a court order if a thrice-removal is needed). So if someone is on my Facebook page as 'friended,' he/she is kith, but if they're my aunt's daughter's son's wife, she's kin of a sort.

So what about the participants in "I'm My Own Grandpa?" Kith, or kin?

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Ringer
Date: 08 Dec 10 - 08:55 AM

English has many of these double-phrases such as kith & kin, time & tide, goods & chattels, etc. The double-words persist even after one half has become so archaic and unused by itself that many would struggle to define it.

Few, for instance, recognise that the "tide" in time & tide is not the twice-daily maritime phenomenon, but season, as in Christmastide.

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Dec 10 - 09:23 AM

I know about that removing stuff, when my generation became "grand" or "great" my kids got once removed, and I was offended on their behalf. They had done nothing wrong!
Also, goods and chattels don't alliterate like the other examples above...
I thought kith were the people you knew, and kin those to whom you were related.
I wouldn't have thought that "kin" was a rare term but at a funeral on my kids' side of the family, one of my niblings didn't know how to answer the question "who are you kin to?" when asked by an old country lady that I didn't know how she was kin, if at all, anyway.
Nibling, in case it isn't clear, is the gender-neutral term for niece or nephew.
Ah, interesting about Tide. Now All is clear!

Subject: RE: BS: Kith & Kin
From: Ringer
Date: 08 Dec 10 - 01:12 PM

"There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune" is a pun.