'Beckon Call' or 'Beck and Call'?

Dave J. asked, “What's the appropriate phrase—'beckon call' or 'beck and call'?”

The correct phrase is “beck and call.” If you are at someone's beck and call, you respond immediately whether he or she beckons or calls; it implies complete subservience.

It's an old phrase, originating in the late 1800s, during a time when “beck” was used to mean “beckon.”

The problem is that the “on” in “beckon” sounds a lot like how we sometimes slur the word “and” in “beck and call.” Kind of like “rock ’n’ roll,”—we often say “beck ’n’ call.”

The word “beck” goes all the way back to Old English, but the Oxford English Dictionary seems to say that “beckon” is even older because they list “beck” as a shortened form of “beckon.” Old Saxon, Old High German, and Old Norse all had similar words. 

The correct phrase is 'beck and call.'

At first, “beck” didn’t mean to signal someone to come to you, it simply meant to make a gesture, but by the 1400s, “beck” meant to signal someone to approach. 

The words “beckon” and “beacon,” as in the light, actually come from the same Proto-Indo-European word that meant “to shine,” and if you think about it, a beacon can call someone to it just like a beckon. 

Examples of ‘Beck and Call’

“Oh please," Scout said."Don't take that tone with me. You know you'd love to have a minion. Someone at your beck and call. Someone to do your bidding. How many times have you said to yourself," Self, I need a unicorn to run errands and such?” — Chloe Neill, “Firespell”

“I cannot be willing to believe that spirits who have left this world have nothing better to do than be at the beck and call of any and all who choose to call them from the ‘vasty deep’ of the hereafter,” said the Philosopher. — “The Seven Travelers” ("Emerson’...

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