Chrysti The Wordsmith: Vamp - 2

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Last time we investigated the biographies of various incarnations of the word vamp from its oldest meaning of the part of a shoe covering the four foot two the revamp that refers to a restoration vamp it turns out is the Angus ization of the French word of P.A. which means before the foot and refers to the part of the shoe that covers the fore foot with the known vamp was verbal fide in the sixteen hundreds it meant to furnish an old shoe with a new vamp and later it came to refer to mending an article of clothing with patches in the early 1900s. The verb revamp appeared to accommodate the notion of restoring anything in need of repair from a shoe with a torn vamp to an outdated kitchen. From this idea of general patching up sprang the notion of musical vamping filling or patching in improvisational notes between verses. Another type of vamp is the alluring woman. I

like the Oxford English Dictionary definition of this vamp quote a woman who intentionally attracts and exploits men. A jazz a bell frequently as a stock character in plays and films. This vamp has nothing to do with shoes or restoration. It's the truncation of a vampire from the perception that that creature sucks the life blood of its victim vamp in this sense was first cited in 1907. I'm Christie the wordsmith. CHRISTIE The wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.