The Writer and the Idle Man boldly mounted camels and rode out into the Arabian Desert.
-Amelia Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, 1877
I am struck by Edwards’ reference to her fellow British traveller as the Idle Man, knowing that the Arabic word for Idle, Battāl, comes from the root B-T-L, which also gives the words Batal, Hero, and Mubtil, which Wehr has as Prattler, Windbag, and Liar. I was taught in Cairo that you answer the question, How Are You?, with, Mish Battāl, Not Bad, literally, Not Idle, which contradicted everything I saw on the street, Idleness being what most Cairenes seemed to strive for.