Happy tax day!

Add comment April 15th, 2009

No less an authority on English than Groucho Marx made one of my favorite homonym jokes, in the 1933 movie “Duck Soup.”

Groucho’s character, Rufus T. Firefly, has just been made the leader of Freedonia. In a discussion with that nation’s officials, one of them asks that they take up the tax.

Firefly suggests they take up the carpet.

Official: I still insist we must take up the tax.

Firefly: He’s right. You’ve gotta take up the tacks before you can take up the carpet.

“Tack,” a short nail or pin, comes from “takke” in Middle English, which is from the Middle Dutch “tacke” for “twig, point.” Before that its path is a bit hazy.

“Tax” traces all the way back to the Latin verb “tangere,” meaning “to touch.” It also gave rise to “tact” and the related “tactful” and “tactile.”

This may explain why government officials seem to feel the need to reach out and tax someone. Probably not, though.