DID YOU KNOW?

So I'm studying up on Early Modern English (not Old English, mind you) in preparation for a short essay on how to write Luna-speak. Fun fact I found: "derring-do" (the inspiration for Daring Do, if you didn't get that), which is a noun usually meaning "adventurous nonsense" in today's usage (as far as I can tell), started out as a verb phrase way back in the sixteenth century, "dorryng do," which literally means "daring to do," and implied manhood and chivalry ("Robin Hood's awesome. He's dorryng do something to stand up to Prince John."). Kind of cool how that circled around to what we think of it now.

So why did it change in the first place? Believe it or not, it started out as a typo. "Dorryng" became "derrynge" for whatever reason (if you think those spellings are weird, there's about twelve more where those came from), and Edmund Spenser, seventeenth-century poet who liked to try and resurrect old words in his writing for the "betterment of the noble English language", thought it was a descriptive noun phrase ("he is dorryng do," or "daring to do," became "he has much derrynge do," or "derring do" as we spell it today) when he found it in an old historical novel. It stuck, and through a series of more errors, became what it is today, the still-weirdly-spelled "derring-do" (I have no idea why it's still spelled that way).

Have you ever wondered why English is so screwy as a language? A lot of it comes from things like this. Typos, of all things. Well, that and we English-speakers got ourselves too tangled up in our world-wide imperial mess to tidy up our language when the printing press came into style like the Spanish did. And America picked up a bunch of slang lingo after the Revolution, like a rebellious teen trying to lash out at Mom, and we never quite got over that phase. Moral of the story: listen to your editor when he tells you to leave out that sweet phrase you found in the classic you read in English class. Future generations will thank you.

Here's the Oxford Dictionary history entry on "derring-do"
Here's the essay I found this tidbit in. The "dorryng do" part is about two-thirds down, under "Archaism and Rhetoric." It actually explains the history better than the Oxford Dictionary does. Also check out if you're interested in this stuff, or Luna makes your head hurt. Actually, this will probably make your head hurt too, so just hold out until I do the hard part for you!

NOW YOU KNOW!