Word lore can pop up in unexpected places. I just saw the old Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night" again, and there's a scene where George Harrison describes a shirt as "grotty" (sounds like "grotto"), to which he quickly adds, "You know, grotesque.*" It's odd for a rock star to stop and give a definition of a slang word at a particular moment in time, so let's look into it.
I had never made that association before, but in grade school, there was the word "grody" (rhymes with "brody") which when we were using it was clearly just a silly way of saying "gross." It even had the awful supersized variation: "grotacious." Now, "gross" itself is a very odd collision of ideas, meaning a specific amount (12 dozen), an overall total ("gross profit"), overweight, of low standing, unrefined, vulgar, offensive ... with all kinds of subtleties in phrases like "gross incompetence" and "gross injustice." As a verb, "to gross" involves reckoning ("grossing a thousand dollars") and "to gross out" is mostly kid stuff ("grossing out your parents"). [DC] gives the source of gross as Middle English "gross" (large), from Old French "gros" (large), from Late Latin "grossus" (thick).
Back to "grotty": [DC] says perhaps from "grotesque", with the note "apparently not akin to 'grody';" though under "grody" their stab at the origin is "1960-65 Americanism, probably alteration of "grotesque."
[EO] points out that "grotesque" used to have a more positive, fanciful meaning, but became darkened by the mid 18th century, no doubt due to the Gothic movement in literature. Comically, [EO] says "grotty" had "a brief vogue in 1964 as part of Liverpool argot," thanks to the Beatles. To come full circle, [EO] traces "grotesque" back to Italian "pittura grottesca" ("pictures in a cave") ... first used "of paintings found on the walls of basements of Roman Ruins". So, the word went from "grotto art" to wild flights of fancy, to Gothic downers, to just plain "grotty."
I'm not sure the two words ("grotty" and "grody") can be separated, however, it's possible that "grotesque" began to rub off on the word "gross" once both began to gather negative vibes. If I told my sister something was "grody", we'd get a good laugh out of it -- the meaning is still there, but with a strange kind of nostalgia. If any schoolkids still use this word, please let me know.
Of course, a "grotto" is still a small cave, though I've heard it used to describe small clumps of trees as well. It's a complex relation between this batch of ordinary, strange, and vulgar words.
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*Oddly, right after that scene, John Lennon walks off stage with a showgirl saying, "She's going to show me a stamp collection."
I had never made that association before, but in grade school, there was the word "grody" (rhymes with "brody") which when we were using it was clearly just a silly way of saying "gross." It even had the awful supersized variation: "grotacious." Now, "gross" itself is a very odd collision of ideas, meaning a specific amount (12 dozen), an overall total ("gross profit"), overweight, of low standing, unrefined, vulgar, offensive ... with all kinds of subtleties in phrases like "gross incompetence" and "gross injustice." As a verb, "to gross" involves reckoning ("grossing a thousand dollars") and "to gross out" is mostly kid stuff ("grossing out your parents"). [DC] gives the source of gross as Middle English "gross" (large), from Old French "gros" (large), from Late Latin "grossus" (thick).
Back to "grotty": [DC] says perhaps from "grotesque", with the note "apparently not akin to 'grody';" though under "grody" their stab at the origin is "1960-65 Americanism, probably alteration of "grotesque."
[EO] points out that "grotesque" used to have a more positive, fanciful meaning, but became darkened by the mid 18th century, no doubt due to the Gothic movement in literature. Comically, [EO] says "grotty" had "a brief vogue in 1964 as part of Liverpool argot," thanks to the Beatles. To come full circle, [EO] traces "grotesque" back to Italian "pittura grottesca" ("pictures in a cave") ... first used "of paintings found on the walls of basements of Roman Ruins". So, the word went from "grotto art" to wild flights of fancy, to Gothic downers, to just plain "grotty."
I'm not sure the two words ("grotty" and "grody") can be separated, however, it's possible that "grotesque" began to rub off on the word "gross" once both began to gather negative vibes. If I told my sister something was "grody", we'd get a good laugh out of it -- the meaning is still there, but with a strange kind of nostalgia. If any schoolkids still use this word, please let me know.
Of course, a "grotto" is still a small cave, though I've heard it used to describe small clumps of trees as well. It's a complex relation between this batch of ordinary, strange, and vulgar words.
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*Oddly, right after that scene, John Lennon walks off stage with a showgirl saying, "She's going to show me a stamp collection."
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