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Gina Barreca's avatar

Fantods is a word my students learn in context--I use it when one of their number gives a particularly unnerving response or comments, saying "That gives me the fantods" and moving the discussion along. Great piece today. I have no doubt your other admirers will feel the same delight (bordering on smugness) I'm feeling when I realize I know most of these words. Ain't I bright and erudite? The poll made me laugh. xxx Gina

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Colin Higbie's avatar

I agree that language must change and evolve: it has and it will regardless of what people do to prevent that. However, I also think that there are demonstrable benefits to minimizing the rate of change. Without too much help, most of us can follow the texts back about as far as Shakespeare (but that far back gets tricky for many, with even commonly quoted words like 'wherefore' not having the meanings many assume by their similarities to the more commonly used words of today). Almost all books and documents written in English since the U.S. was founded remain readable, but some words from the dawn of our nation may need context to understand, like trying to read something with specific industry or legal jargon.

Now, imagine a much faster rate of change of the language. If people cannot read and understand the books of prior generations because their language has evolved so that 20th century English is to them as Old English (or even Middle English) is to us, that diminishes their ability to learn from the wins and losses of their forebears. Documents like the Constitution cease to be the property of all and become the property of the white tower few who can translate it. It also severs future generations from the novels and fiction of prior generations. I would argue that fiction is one of the best tools for understanding what life was like at the time it was written. Overall, rapid change of language leaves our descendants worse off, with the only benefit being catchier slang.

To your closing question, some uncommon words I like that seemed relevant to this week's article and which I believe, but don't know definitively, were more popular in the past: harridan (vicious old crone), inveigle (persuade), molder (decay to dust over time), recondite (difficult, obscure subject matter), shibboleth (among other meanings, a saying or phrase that lacks current fit with the times).

And on the clever use of a new word (albeit purely fictional), one of my favorite fantasy authors, Stephen R. Donaldson, used the term "caesures" to describe tornado-like storms that damage time and can move people (violently) between times separated by thousands of years. I found this a brilliant bit of word crafting for the evocative sense of the violence and painful nature of a seizure with the meaning of the musical or poetry term "caesura" and pausing time.

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