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
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.
Read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," particularly the essay on Garner's American Usage. Then get Garner's Modern English Usage, an updated version. Both books address the issue of change over time. As for your "uncommon" words, I frequently use them all (except for "harridan," which I love but doesn't go down well. "Shibboleth" in particular is very useful, having to do with words or accents that determine membership in a tribe. Look up the scriptural reference; it's a great tale.
I found and enjoyed "Consider the Lobster" (the essay). Then I realized you may have meant a collection of essays under that title, which included an "essay on Garner's American Usage." Oops. So, I think I failed to find and read the recommended essay (or did you mean the lobster article?). I can't seem to find it with a quick search. But I do know more about lobsters now.
I also find parallels between that and our language discussion (which is part of why I wonder if maybe it were that lobster essay that you intended for me): the discussion in there on how we view the ignorance and barbarism of Roman gladiatorial games compared with how the future (or PETA today) will view us for murdering animals to consume. Very similar to how we view changes in language over time.
On the animal killing, even as an avid meat eater, I do fully expect that in future centuries, killing animals (or at least mammals and birds, or perhaps vertebrates) for food will not happen, at least not legally. I think we'll be able to grow meat that is biologically equivalent with flavor and texture that's indistinguishable from meat from living animals, at which point, it will be tougher to justify growing animals as crops to kill and eat. Of course, that will lead to the near extinction of cattle and pigs, whose existence is dependent on human farmers. I don't think boiling a lobster alive is any worse than slaughtering a brown-eyed cow for a cut of filet mignon.
But for language, my beef (ha) is not with the change in language or grammar, but only with an excessive rate of change that weakens the ability to communicate across generations.
I should have been clearer about that title. Yes, I meant the book Consider the Lobster. The essay I referred to is "Authority and American Usage," which holds the record for Wallace's worst title.
Many years ago, I did a piece on the love lives of lobsters. Ever since I was a kid, lobster had been my special birthday dinner. After reading about the astonishingly complex lives of these seemingly brainless crustaceans, I couldn't bear seeing them lowered into boiling water.
I now welcome hunters on our land and eat the venison they bring. While we all tend to focus on the death of cows, pigs, and woodland deer, maybe we should consider the lives they lead until then. How much were they penned up or mistreated?
The same question could apply to humans. Besides focusing on longevity, can we think more about what constitutes a good life?
Jeez, Colin, I've only had one cup of coffee. I'm blaming you my navel gazing.
Fascinating topic for discussion. Thanks for this (and allowing the impact on your morning). Along those lines, if an animal is suffering in captivity, perhaps killing it is an act of mercy. If so, would killing the cow young be more humane than a life of imprisonment, making veal more humane than steak? Of course, even if that could be used to justify termination of the animal for food, that obviously couldn't justify its prior treatment. Otherwise, torture would become a justification for subsequent murder -- "Just releasing him from his pain, not murder. This was an act of kindness."
In economics, we actually have a definition for quality of life based on the number of choices available. If a person or group has a set of choices A and adds more choices to it to yield set B (so B is a superset of A), then life B is assumed, in general, to be better than A. As such, the goal of economic policy is generally to get from A to B. For some individuals, add'l choices may be a source of confusion or frustration (and some would argue that social media of today or rock music and its "evil" influences in the 70's were negative choices), but in the aggregate, for a population as a whole, economics would say B is the more desirable set. During the industrial revolution, workers left farms to work in what we would now call dangerous and low-wage factories mostly (not exclusively) because they were safer and paid better than working on farms. For most who made it, this was a rational choice toward a "better" life.
The complexity comes when set B merely intersects with set A, even if B is larger (additional options for social media seems to have reduced personal interactions; "video killed the radio star" -- radio still exists, but rock music changed from focusing on the music to focusing on looks as a result of the existence of music videos). Then this becomes more subjective. That's when we try to use generally agreed metrics like longevity, yes, but also access to education, freedom to move or travel, availability of food and shelter, happiness surveys, etc.
To the extent you could apply economic rules to animals, caging them deprives them of choices, so that's a negative. A pet dog or cat or horse has different choices than its wild cousin, so that's a tougher call. For animals used for testing or food, they are worse off than pets (a subset of choices of pets), but not necessarily worse off than in the wild (life expectancy, access to food, safety from attack, etc. may favor the caged animal over the wild one).
Interesting topic. Never thought about this before. And I have now found Wallace's "Authority and American Usage," which I will read over the weekend. Thanks for both!
Documenting the intergenerational differences in language and usage is a worthy endeavor. The history of the OED is interesting, and I wonder how the French and German language police have met their challenge. How do they draw a distinction between offensive slang and true words? Is the OED simply inclusive?
Your quiz on words for ‘women’ included “crone” (I’d never heard of it before) and excluded “chone” which everyone in my college’s class of 1966 would still know. But students today at the same institution (it’s trying hard not to be a “college” any longer) do not know that word or many of the other terms we used 60 years ago. Is there a localized version of the OED?
I recently reread Huckleberry Finn (in preparation to read James by Percival Everett) and had to use the ‘touch’ and ‘look up’ features of Apple Books to look up “fandom” and some other words Huck used. Most of the words used by Jim/James from Twain’s slave dialect could be discerned by reading them aloud and ‘hearing’ (in my mind’s ear) what the equivalent words are. Will OED document dialects? Is there a correct spelling as well as correct meaning?
When do neologisms get documented or allowed to die (as “chone” was)? Yes, “radium” became a real word with real meaning. A recently popular song and ‘album’ ( a word with changed meaning) uses a new term for an annual season as if it were an old Vermont expression. Most old Vermonters have never heard of it. I hope OED will let it die. It didn’t win a Grammy or a Nobel Prize.
I enjoy reading about how language bends our communal soul.
Never heard of "chone," which the OED decribes as a rift or fissure--a denotation that has a nasty connotation if applied to women. (Unless people simply misprounced "crone" back in the day.)
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
Gina, just knowing you read my post made me feel delight, bordering on smugness.
Only bordering on smugness? Did the authorities prevent you from entering?
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.
Read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," particularly the essay on Garner's American Usage. Then get Garner's Modern English Usage, an updated version. Both books address the issue of change over time. As for your "uncommon" words, I frequently use them all (except for "harridan," which I love but doesn't go down well. "Shibboleth" in particular is very useful, having to do with words or accents that determine membership in a tribe. Look up the scriptural reference; it's a great tale.
I found and enjoyed "Consider the Lobster" (the essay). Then I realized you may have meant a collection of essays under that title, which included an "essay on Garner's American Usage." Oops. So, I think I failed to find and read the recommended essay (or did you mean the lobster article?). I can't seem to find it with a quick search. But I do know more about lobsters now.
I also find parallels between that and our language discussion (which is part of why I wonder if maybe it were that lobster essay that you intended for me): the discussion in there on how we view the ignorance and barbarism of Roman gladiatorial games compared with how the future (or PETA today) will view us for murdering animals to consume. Very similar to how we view changes in language over time.
On the animal killing, even as an avid meat eater, I do fully expect that in future centuries, killing animals (or at least mammals and birds, or perhaps vertebrates) for food will not happen, at least not legally. I think we'll be able to grow meat that is biologically equivalent with flavor and texture that's indistinguishable from meat from living animals, at which point, it will be tougher to justify growing animals as crops to kill and eat. Of course, that will lead to the near extinction of cattle and pigs, whose existence is dependent on human farmers. I don't think boiling a lobster alive is any worse than slaughtering a brown-eyed cow for a cut of filet mignon.
But for language, my beef (ha) is not with the change in language or grammar, but only with an excessive rate of change that weakens the ability to communicate across generations.
I should have been clearer about that title. Yes, I meant the book Consider the Lobster. The essay I referred to is "Authority and American Usage," which holds the record for Wallace's worst title.
Many years ago, I did a piece on the love lives of lobsters. Ever since I was a kid, lobster had been my special birthday dinner. After reading about the astonishingly complex lives of these seemingly brainless crustaceans, I couldn't bear seeing them lowered into boiling water.
I now welcome hunters on our land and eat the venison they bring. While we all tend to focus on the death of cows, pigs, and woodland deer, maybe we should consider the lives they lead until then. How much were they penned up or mistreated?
The same question could apply to humans. Besides focusing on longevity, can we think more about what constitutes a good life?
Jeez, Colin, I've only had one cup of coffee. I'm blaming you my navel gazing.
Fascinating topic for discussion. Thanks for this (and allowing the impact on your morning). Along those lines, if an animal is suffering in captivity, perhaps killing it is an act of mercy. If so, would killing the cow young be more humane than a life of imprisonment, making veal more humane than steak? Of course, even if that could be used to justify termination of the animal for food, that obviously couldn't justify its prior treatment. Otherwise, torture would become a justification for subsequent murder -- "Just releasing him from his pain, not murder. This was an act of kindness."
In economics, we actually have a definition for quality of life based on the number of choices available. If a person or group has a set of choices A and adds more choices to it to yield set B (so B is a superset of A), then life B is assumed, in general, to be better than A. As such, the goal of economic policy is generally to get from A to B. For some individuals, add'l choices may be a source of confusion or frustration (and some would argue that social media of today or rock music and its "evil" influences in the 70's were negative choices), but in the aggregate, for a population as a whole, economics would say B is the more desirable set. During the industrial revolution, workers left farms to work in what we would now call dangerous and low-wage factories mostly (not exclusively) because they were safer and paid better than working on farms. For most who made it, this was a rational choice toward a "better" life.
The complexity comes when set B merely intersects with set A, even if B is larger (additional options for social media seems to have reduced personal interactions; "video killed the radio star" -- radio still exists, but rock music changed from focusing on the music to focusing on looks as a result of the existence of music videos). Then this becomes more subjective. That's when we try to use generally agreed metrics like longevity, yes, but also access to education, freedom to move or travel, availability of food and shelter, happiness surveys, etc.
To the extent you could apply economic rules to animals, caging them deprives them of choices, so that's a negative. A pet dog or cat or horse has different choices than its wild cousin, so that's a tougher call. For animals used for testing or food, they are worse off than pets (a subset of choices of pets), but not necessarily worse off than in the wild (life expectancy, access to food, safety from attack, etc. may favor the caged animal over the wild one).
Interesting topic. Never thought about this before. And I have now found Wallace's "Authority and American Usage," which I will read over the weekend. Thanks for both!
Documenting the intergenerational differences in language and usage is a worthy endeavor. The history of the OED is interesting, and I wonder how the French and German language police have met their challenge. How do they draw a distinction between offensive slang and true words? Is the OED simply inclusive?
Your quiz on words for ‘women’ included “crone” (I’d never heard of it before) and excluded “chone” which everyone in my college’s class of 1966 would still know. But students today at the same institution (it’s trying hard not to be a “college” any longer) do not know that word or many of the other terms we used 60 years ago. Is there a localized version of the OED?
I recently reread Huckleberry Finn (in preparation to read James by Percival Everett) and had to use the ‘touch’ and ‘look up’ features of Apple Books to look up “fandom” and some other words Huck used. Most of the words used by Jim/James from Twain’s slave dialect could be discerned by reading them aloud and ‘hearing’ (in my mind’s ear) what the equivalent words are. Will OED document dialects? Is there a correct spelling as well as correct meaning?
When do neologisms get documented or allowed to die (as “chone” was)? Yes, “radium” became a real word with real meaning. A recently popular song and ‘album’ ( a word with changed meaning) uses a new term for an annual season as if it were an old Vermont expression. Most old Vermonters have never heard of it. I hope OED will let it die. It didn’t win a Grammy or a Nobel Prize.
I enjoy reading about how language bends our communal soul.
Never heard of "chone," which the OED decribes as a rift or fissure--a denotation that has a nasty connotation if applied to women. (Unless people simply misprounced "crone" back in the day.)
As for Huck Finn, did you mean "fantods"? There's a decent glossary of the book online: https://mrclarkgbhs.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/0/5/23057334/huck_finn_glossary.pdf?c=mkt_w_chnl:aff_geo:all_prtnr:sas_subprtnr:1538097_camp:brand_adtype:txtlnk_ag:weebly_lptype:hp_var:358504&sscid=11k9_6tssh&utm_source=ShareASale