This glittering array of festive glassware, decanters and carafes (decanters without stoppers) caught the eye in Duncan & Reid Books and Antiques at 5 Tanfield last week. The shop stocks all manner of unexpected treasures – including porcelain, jewellery, fabrics, pictures, and other old and intriguing stuff.
Anyone with an interest in etymology may like to know that the word decanter derives immediately from a Middle English verb – cant – meaning to tip or slant. This in turn derives from a medieval Latin noun – canthus – which is the pouring beak of a jug; and that term had its origins in the Ancient Greek – κανθúς – which is the the corner of the eye where the lids meet. In human physiology, the temporal canthus is the outer corner of the eye, and the nasal is the inner.
Strangely, though, the term is also applied to the dewlaps, snoods and wattles of birds including the turkey cock. ‘Large wattles,’ says Wikepedia, 'are correlated with high testosterone levels, good nutrition and the ability to evade predators, which in turn indicates a potentially successful mate.’
As with best-evaded, red-faced, strutting well-wishers at the Christmas Office Party, some comprise ‘erectile tissue and may or may not have a feather covering’.
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