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| Hearsay: |
Do you look up words when you encounter ones you don’t know? I do. Sometimes I find myself making entire lists and looking them up later in one big orgy of dictionary browsing. Especially after playing my friend Kate at Scrabble. This guy took a solemn vow to look up every word he didn’t recognize. My kind of dude.
Although it may not always seem like it, writers do want to get through to readers. When Don Paterson uses “litotes”, “recrudescence” and “concupiscence” in the course of an introduction to a book of Robert Burns’s poetry, he isn’t showing off, or being obscure for the sake of intellectual exclusivity. He is being precise. The first example is a technical word for a type of understatement, my ignorance of which shows how poor a literature student I was at university; the second and third belong to the shameful category of words which I used to skim over repeatedly without ever being quite sure what they meant. Paterson was being demanding of his readers; but if you can’t be demanding in an introduction to a book of poetry, where can you be?
Post-albedo I resolved that I wouldn’t pretend to myself any more that I knew what a word meant when I didn’t, or that the context was enough to understand it, or that I’d find out what a word meant one day, but not today. I would set my rudder against the prevailing attitude, which is that anyone who doesn’t know a word we use is a fool, and anyone who uses a word we don’t know is a snob. I’d look the words up then and there, and write the meaning down. I might even learn them; so help me, I might even use them, although I doubt I shall live long enough to work “banausic” and “threnody” into the same sentence (Margaret Boerner of Villanova University: it is you and your website that I refer to).
I love watching people’s faces in conversation when they use a word I don’t know and I stop them and say, “Sorry, what exactly does that mean?” It’s like I’ve crossed a social boundary of some sort. Aren’t we all supposed to pretend we all know what we’re all talking about? (That might be fine for some people, but I often hang with academics — a subspecies of humans invested in having their own impenetrable dialect.) Quite often they can’t define it, which is awkward.
I especially pull this kind of in-your-face asshole routine out at business meetings when people “utilize” “paradigm shifting” “boiler plates” to “ramp up” “communications” “functionality” with their “publics”. Someone says “utilize” and I say, “Beg pardon, but do you mean “use”?” Then they say, “functionality” and I say, “I’m sorry, do you mean “capability”?”
I’ve probably told this story before, but it’s my blog and one of my last posts before Giftmas, so hush up: My favourite example of this was a friend who called out a Microsoft exec at a product demo way back in the late 90s. The guy up front had been rattling on in this techno jibber-jabber of invented board room words and said, “As you can see, this represents a complete paradigm shift in how we approach these problems.”
My buddy stood up, raised his hand and said, “Excuse me, can you please define the word “paradigm”?” The guy stumbled and sputtered something like, “Well, what I, uh, mean is that it’s a completely new way of…” “That’s not what I asked you,” says my pal. “I asked you to define the word “paradigm”…” People actually clapped. These days, my bro would likely have been tased for this. But it’s still a fond memory of being an asshole on behalf of the language.
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December 18th, 2007 at 11:09 am
The Microsoft story is priceless. Defending the use/effectiveness of language against corporate-speak is one of the few things remaining that grants us the occasional “be an asshole for 10 glorious minutes” permit.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I once lost a job because I used the word “pertinent” during the interview. My two middle-aged interviewers, both LCBO managers, looked at me like I was speaking Chinese and then asked “Perti-what, what does this mean?” There is a time and place for linguistic prowess, though in most situations one’s vocabulary just isn’t relevant.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Heroic. I had similar battles with the priests of “postmodernism” in univiersity.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Yeah, I’ve been doing this for 3 or 4 years too, ever since I attempted to read the Collected Works of a certain poet, a certain Irish poet…I won’t go into details, but his name rhymes with “spuldoon.” But unless you sit down at some point to learn them, all you end up with is a fat book of words you don’t know. I already had one of those: the COD.
Okay, so I make it a point to learn–not just words–but references, place names, etc. But I fancy myself a writer. It’s my job. Not all readers are similarly motivated. Or are they? Is it even a question worth asking?
December 18th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
There’s a girl from Germany in my English department who was complaining about all the jargon people throw around, assuming that she just didn’t know enough English to figure out what they’re talking about. One of the PhD students told her that most of those people didn’t know what they’re talking about, and that he’ll often ask them to define or explain a term when he suspects that they’re BSing things. He also told her that, being from Germany, she has a perfect excuse to ask them to define/explain anything while maintaining a façade of innocence, even if she’s just doing it to call them out on their BS. Oh, the glimmer in her eye upon hearing that was nothing less than breathtaking. No doubt much Schadenfreude has resulted from that exchange.
December 18th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
oh i do love schadenfreude. especially when its committed by actual Germans. It just makes it so much more authentic.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
could you please explain schadenfreude
December 18th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Sure. Schadenfreude is a German word that refers to the pleasure one takes in another person’s misfortune. There’s no analogous native word in English, so schadenfreude has become a loan word.
A loan word is a word from one language that, through widespread usage, becomes part of the lexicon of another language.
A lexicon is all the words in any given language.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Please do not ask me which size of Coffee I would like to purchase at Starbucks, it tends to upset me.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
I agree. Those words should never become part of the English lexicon.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:28 am
Thanks George. You’ve inspired me to put my OED to better use than stabilising my rickety bookshelf.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:56 am
I don’t see what the fuss is about. “Paradigm” is a perfectly cromulent word.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Someone, here at “the sausageworks” was denied a promotion, and was subsequently debriefed (with me present, as shop steward)on why. She was told her answers in the interview were not “fulsome” enough. The irony of this malapropism (which has since become a local buzz-word) was delicious in spite of the bitter taste in our mouths at the time.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Yes, but is it ‘tased’ or ‘tasered’?
December 19th, 2007 at 11:10 am
It was a reference to the microcelebrity moment: “Don’t tase me, bro!”
December 19th, 2007 at 11:39 am
i’d like to give fulsome answers to my employer… i hope they’re not reading this
December 19th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Jamie,
Lovely as that moment sounds, it was not so much a malapropism as an example of the polysemy rampant in the English language. It makes the boss’s comment subtly ironic, but not incorrect. From Merriam Webster:
1 a: characterized by abundance : copious b: generous in amount, extent, or spirit c: being full and well developed
2: aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive
3: exceeding the bounds of good taste : overdone
4: excessively complimentary or flattering : effusive
December 19th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
My favourite example of polysemy: cleave.
As for being denied jobs, I was once not hired on the basis of being a bookworm. How the bank manager ascertained I was is beyond me (though I did mention I worked in the antiquarian book trade, and he did ask me what antiquarian meant, and I knew, so I told him).
I am grateful not to have been hired. Oh, so grateful.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I’ve heard so many tales of illiterate bosses and managers that I suspect literacy is being selected against in the Darwinian sense in most workplaces. Alas, the fact that “the ogre cannot master speech,” matters but little in a culture dominated by ogres.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Roland,
Perhaps ogres only allow literacy in their workplace as a “Tolkien” gesture.
(chortles, holding ribs)
December 19th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
That, Matt C, was lovely.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Just don’t make a hobbit of it!
December 19th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
My bestfriend is French-Canadian, and after we had become close enough for him to be comfortable, he would often ask me what certain words meant.
I would tell him what *I* had always thought the word meant, but then would look up the word’s official definition for him as well (to err on the side of caution). It became a really interesting exercise. I felt it was a study of my ability to learn words (in my native-tongue) by context. Most of the time my definitions were correct (albeit less exact than the dictionary), but sometimes I actually found that I had been mis-using words. Even without my friend around, I still sometimes look up words that I think I know, just to see if in fact I do.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:07 am
ZW: We can agree on irony, then.
I confess that double entendre was the first term that came to mind, but I chose malapropism because he had meant to say full and grabbed something more sesquipedal (or perhaps fulsome) instead.
I must also confess that I do not have a Webster’s. On my desk at home and at the sausageworks, I keep the Concise Oxford, which considers fulsome to mean cloying, excessive, or disgusting by excess (of flattery, servility, or exaggerated affection), and does not mention abundance or generosity. I also keep the Nelson Canadian Dictionary, which offers: 1. Offensively flattering or insincere, 2. Offensive to the taste or sensibilities. It also offers a third meaning: Copious or abundant, in the sense of abundant, well-fed, arousing disgust (from ME fulsom). It further warns that it can be used in this third sense to mean simply “abundant,” without implication of excess or insincerity, but that this usage invites misunderstandings.
In a little book called, Between You and I: a Little Book of Bad English, the author, James Cochrane, describes what he calls some of the more egregious errors in English usage, including, ” the belief that fulsome means generous (it actually means excessively flattering, not at all the same thing).”
But we must not forget Polysemy: Polly would have been Noah Webster’s (that excursive pioneer of American English) daughter, or perhaps wife, or perhaps both!
My poor old cartoon mind conjures up an image of Professor James Murray(founder of the OED) and Doctor Johnson seeing old Noah Webster off at the docks, or at the edge of the American frontier, waving goodbye and exhorting him with, “Go ahead, man, fill yer boots!”
You see, I cannot make you a ‘fulsome’ answer; my wit’s diseas’d
December 20th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Y’know, aside from the fact that MW has absolute crap for etymology compared to the OED, I’ve never been able to use that dictionary after finding out just how verrückt good ol’ Noah was. Writing to the President to tell him how new, American spellings will improve the language and nation and are superior to the old, faulty, British spellings? It’s nice that he loves his language so much, but man, that’s a little bit too kooky for me to trust as a reference source.
December 20th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
It’s also the best thing available for free on-line. My complete OED is in a box in an attic on the other side of the country, alas.
An online etymological (etymonline.com) dictionary has the following entry:
M.E. compound of ful “full” + -som “some.” Sense evolved from “abundant, full” (c.1250) to “plump, well-fed” (c.1350) to “overgrown, overfed” (1642) and thus, of language, “offensive to taste or good manners” (1663). Since the 1960s, however, it commonly has been used in its original, favorable sense, especially in fulsome praise.
The Wiktionary has this entry:
Etymology
Middle English full + some. The meaning has evolved from an original positive conotation “abundant” to a neutral “plump” to a negative “overfed.” In modern usage it can take on any of these inflections. See usage note
[edit] Adjective
1.
* abundant; copious
the fulsome thanks of the war-torn nation lifted our weary spirits
* fully developed; mature
her fulsome timbre resonated throughout the hall
2. excessively flattering (conotes insincerity)
3. offensive to good taste; tactless;
[edit] Usage notes
It is important to recognize that common usage tends toward the negative connotation, and using fulsome as in the primary definition may lead to confusion without contextual prompts.
[edit] Synonyms
* effusive (2)
* unctuous (2)
I think it’s safe to say that there were “contextual prompts” in this case.
It’s an interesting case because it’s evolved from good to neutral to bad back to good (as a semi-erroneous reading by people trying to sound smart). But all that error does is unearth one of the word’s past lives, not invent a whole new meaning for the word. It’s not like “begs the question” which has been so universally and ubiquitously misused that almost everyone now uses it to mean “the question begs to be asked” or, my least favourite malapropism of all, “the proof is in the pudding.” I’ve yet to see a pudding recipe that calls for a cup of proof. Fulsome as your friend’s boss used it actually makes sense (and its rhyme with “wholesome” probably encourages this usage), unlike these warpings of old metaphors.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Don’t get be going about people who use ‘enormity’ to refer to the size of something.
Do we really need another synonym for big? It saps the meaning. Grumble grumble snort.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
And don’t get me going about typos either! People saying “get be going” when they mean “get ME going.”
December 31st, 2007 at 2:14 pm
This reminds me of a cartoon a show where one of them was a cartoonist who drew a scene about people using “Kafkaesque” all the time when they had no idea what it mean. The scene involved someone touching meat. Oh the zeitgeist of it all.
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:41 am
am i the only person unhappy with dictioanry definitions? etymology is a waste of time and listing synonyms seems to miss the point.
January 3rd, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Generally, a large vocabulary is good. Translating from Japanese to English, mine and that of my native tongue often come up short (it is in the nature of translation: it happens going the other way, too). In books where the absent words are often called for, I invent my own: “syllabet” for uniform syllables expressed with a single letter (”mora” is opaque, hence unusable in a book for laymen); “slugboat” for a boat used to gather sea cucumbers, etc.. I think of them as a sort of loan word. If you use them they may become permanent, if not . . .
I only wish that universities would teach students when not to use so many big words. It would help if the teachers themselves were capable of doing the same.
The most over-used big word? INDIVIDUAL. No man or person or woman or jerk ever commits a crime anymore, they are all individuals and if the word can be used three times in one sentence you are a properly educated rural law enforcement officer.
For #30 = only the acephalous are always happy with their dictionary. There are few perfect synonyms and a good selection of them is shorthand for the connotations. Etymology is only a waste of time if you think time spent with words wasted. OED is pretty good with first instances, but the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Japan’s large dictionary (which I call the OJD) offers far more diverse etymologies. They do not help us understand the word, but they help us to read old allusions based on them, whether those etymologies are right or wrong.
For#26 = Be careful with that pudding! Even sea cucumbers could be called sea pudding and that should tell you where the proof might be. (You can find info by searching inside Rise, Ye Sea Slugs! atAmazon or Google books.)
ps One of the two titles for my most recent book is “Octopussy, Dry Kidney & Blue Spots;” that “octopussy” is a perfect example of a word created from Japanese. It has nothing to do with Fleming’s word borrowed from the stern of a coracle (if a coracle has a stern), though the same sea creature is part of the etymology. It should give you word people a lot of fun.
January 6th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
What does acephalous mean? Also, apologies all around for the glaring typos in my previous post. Makes me look like the boneheads who leave comments on their local newspapers’ websites.