Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year

8 December 2006

In the past, Merriam-Webster’s word of the year was the term that was looked up the most on m-w.com, but this year, the dictionary publisher opened up the choice to the public in an online vote. The word selected by a five to one margin was truthiness, which was the American Dialect Society’s pick for WOTY in 2005.

Truthiness was coined by Stephen Colbert on his television show The Colbert Report in October 2005. (There are a handful of earlier uses, but Colbert probably independently coined it and his use of the term is the root of its current popularity.) Truthiness was defined by Colbert as:

truth that comes from the gut, not books.

The American Dialect Society gave it a more lexicographic treatment by defining it as:

the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.

Colbert commented on the word being chosen by Merriam-Webster, saying,

Though I’m no fan of reference books and their fact-based agendas, I am a fan of anyone who chooses to honor me, and what an honor. Truthiness now joins the lexicographical pantheon with words like “quash,” “merry,” “crumpet,” “the,” “xylophone,” “circuitous,” “others,” and others.

The other words in Merriam-Webster’s top ten for 2006 are:

• google

• decider

• war

• insurgent

• terrorism

• vendetta

• sectarian

• quagmire

• corruption

Holiday Shopping List

8 December 2006

As last week’s article on black Friday and cyber Monday attests, we are now into the holiday shopping season. If you’re wondering what to get that word maven in your life (or if you’re looking to treat yourself), here are some suggestions for books that may fit the bill. All prices given are list price and you can find most of these for significantly less

Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, By David Wilton

All right, if you haven’t bought this by now, for shame. What’s stopping you. Get copies for all your friends.

Do you “know” that posh comes from an acronym meaning “port out, starboard home”? That the whole nine yards comes from (pick one) the length of a WWII gunner’s belt; the amount of fabric needed to make a kilt; a sarcastic football expression? That Chicago is called The Windy City because of the bloviating habits of its politicians, and not the breeze off the lake? If so, you need this book.

Word Myths debunks the most persistently wrong word histories, and gives, to the best of our actual knowledge, the real stories behind these perennially mis-etymologized words. In addition, it explains why these wrong stories are created, disseminated, and persist, even after being corrected time and time again. What makes us cling to these stories, when the truth behind these words and phrases is available, for the most part, at any library or on the Internet?

Arranged by chapters, this book avoids a dry A-Z format. Chapters separate misetymologies by kind, including The Perils of Political Correctness (picnics have nothing to do with lynchings), Posh, Phat Pommies (the problems of bacronyming—the desire to make every word into an acronym), and CANOE (which stands for the Conspiracy to Attribute Nautical Origins to Everything). Word Myths corrects long-held and far-flung examples of wrong etymologies, without taking the fun out of etymology itself. It’s the best of both worlds: not only do you learn the many wrong stories behind these words, you also learn why and how they are created--and what the real story is.

Hardcover; 240 pages; Oxford University Press; December 2004; ISBN: 0195172841; $23.95

Yale Book of Quotations, by Fred R. Shapiro, editor

This extensive and extremely well-researched book of quotations by Fred Shapiro contains over 12,000 quotations from a variety of sources. It not only includes the usual literary quotes found in such collections, such as T.S. Eliot’s:

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

But also quotes from popular culture, such as this one by Tupac Shakur:

California love!
California?knows how to party

And from sources like advertising slogans:

I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” (Alka Seltzer)

As is the usual practice in such collections, the quotes are arranged by author with a key word index in the back matter. Each quotation includes a source, often quite specific and sometimes surprising. For example, we all recall the quote, but who remembers that this famous line was uttered during remarks on an after-school child-care initiative in January 1998:

I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

Every good library should have at least one good quotations reference, and the broad mix of quotations makes the Yale Book of Quotations an excellent choice.

Hardcover; 1,104 pp; Yale University Press; October 2006; ISBN: 0300107986; $50.00

Official Dictionary of Unofficial English, by Grant Barrett

To give you a flavor of exactly what “unofficial English” is, this book is subtitled A Crunk Omnibus for Thrillionaires and Bambots for the Ecozoic Age. Crunk is hip hop slang for good, dating to 1995. A thrillionaire is a rich person who has dangerous hobbies, think Richard Branson. It dates to 1998. A bambot is a crazy person; it’s from Scots, a variation of barmpot, and dates to 1988. And the Ecozoic is an imaginary future where we live in harmony with nature. It was coined in 1991 by Thomas Berry. (In case you’re wondering, omnibus doesn’t rate an entry in the Official Dictionary. An omnibus is a book that contains works published previously elsewhere.)

Barrett, until recently a lexicographer at Oxford University Press, collected most of these words as part of his web site the Double-Tongued Word Wrester (www.doubletongued.org). Most of the words are of recent vintage, but you get the occasional term that is relatively old, like fairy ring.

The coverage ranges from standard jargon like hot wash, a military term for an after-action review, to the whimsical, like Bark Mitzvah, a 13th birthday party for a dog.

The Official Dictionary is a historical dictionary, in that it includes usage citations for each entry, making it particularly valuable for the serious slang researcher. If it has a drawback it is lack of comprehensiveness, with only some 750 entries it is far from the only slang reference you will ever need. But those 750 entries are pure gold. Great stuff, both for the scholar and for those who merely wish to be entertained by fun words.

Paperback; 288 pp; McGraw-Hill; May 2006; ISBN: 0071458042; $14.95

Semantic Wars

1 December 2006

NBC News touched off a bit of a semantic firestorm on Monday when Matt Lauer, one of the hosts of the Today show, announced that “after careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.”

NBC was not the first American news outlet to use the term civil war in reference to Iraq. The Los Angeles Times has been doing so since October.

Unsurprisingly, the White disagrees with NBC’s assessment and use of the term. White House press secretary Tony Snow responded, “what you do have is sectarian violence that seems to be less aimed at gaining full control over an area than expressing differences, and also trying to destabilize a democracy—which is different than a civil war, where two sides are clashing for territory and supremacy.”

The White House would, lexicographically at least, seem to be on the losing side of this definitional battle. The OED2 defines civil war as occurring “among fellow-citizens or within the limits of one community.” Merriam-Webster’s 10th defines it as “a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.” The American Heritage 4th has it as “a war between factions or regions of the same country.” The Encarta dictionary says it is “a war between opposing groups within a country.” The key element for a civil war is that it is between groups within a single country, not the reasons for the fighting.

Civil war is not an oxymoron. The civil refers to the citizens of a country, not their demeanor. John de Trevisa’s 1387 translation of Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden uses the phrase civil battle:

A batayle ciuile bygan bytwene Julius and�Pompeus.

John Coke’s 1550 The Debate Betwene the Heraldes of Englande and Fraunce was the first to add the war:

Contencions and warres�amonge themselves or with theyr neyghbours, whiche the Romaynes call the cyvyle warre.

The White House’s preferred term, sectarian violence, has something to recommend it. In one sense it is more precise than civil war in that it denotes the religious factions in the struggle. But it is also euphemistic in that it is very vague about the degree of violence.

Election Jargon

17 November 2006

Elections are fertile source of slang and political jargon and the 2006 US midterm elections were no exception. At least two words came to the fore in this most recent election.

One is change election. A change election is one in which the electorate permanently changes its traditional voting pattern, ousting one party from power and replacing it with another. The term dates to at least 1992 when it was used in the Christian Science Monitor on 27 April 1992 in reference to voter dissatisfaction with the political parties in the Pennsylvania primary election of that year:

"This is a ‘change’ election," says G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Millersville University in Millersville, Pa. His polls also suggest widespread voter disaffection. Like many political observers here, he expects a significant decline in voter turnout.

But of course, the most famous word coming out of this year’s election is macaca. The word was uttered by Senator George Allen (R-VA) on 11 August in reference to S.R. Sidarth, a 20-year-old of Indian descent who was a campaign worker for Allen’s opponent, Jim Webb:

This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is�Let’s give a welcome to Macaca here.

Unfortunately for Allen, Sidarth was videotaping Allen’s remarks (a common tactic of campaigns in case the opponent makes a gaffe). The video appeared on YouTube and, in combination with other allegations of racially insensitive behavior on Allen’s part, touched off a firestorm.

The Allen campaign initially attempted to defend the Senator’s use of the word claiming it was a blend of Mohawk, a reference to Sidarth’s hair, and caca, meaning excrement. In other words, shithead. Not very nice, but at least not racist. Few believed this very strained explanation. Allen eventually lost the election by a mere 7,231 votes out of more than 2.3 million cast. Few doubt that without the macaca remark Allen would have won reelection and the Republicans would have retained control of the Senate.

Macaco, meaning a monkey or ape, has been in English use since at least 1774, when it was used by Oliver Goldsmith in his A History of the Earth and Animated Nature:

Of the monkies of the ancient continent, the first, he describes, is the Macaguo; somewhat resembling a baboon in size.

Hotten’s Slang Dictionary of 1874 contains an entry for the word Murkarker, which is defined as:

a monkey,—vulgar Cockney pronunciation of MACAUCO, a species of monkey. Jacko Macauco, or Maccacco, as he was mostly called, was the name of a famous fighting monkey, who used nearly fifty years ago to display his prowess at the Westminster pit, where, after having killed many dogs, he was at last "chawed up" by a bull terrier.

The word is a borrowing of macaco, either from France (where it had been in use since the late 17th century) or from Portugal (in use since the mid 16th century). It ultimately comes from Bantu kaku, an echoic term for the animal’s call. Macaque is from the same source.

Allen’s mother, Henrietta Lumbroso is French-Tunisian and after Allen uttered his remarks it was claimed by some that macaca is used a racially derogatory epithet in Tunisia. I have not been able to confirm this claim, but the word is a mildly derogatory term in Portuguese, where it has racist connotations if used by a light-skinned person in reference to a dark-skinned one. And of course in English calling a dark-skinned person a monkey is universally recognized as racist.

Another political term that appears to be getting more play now that the Democrats are in control of Congress is blue dog Democrat. A blue dog Democrat is a conservative one, especially a fiscally conservative democrat, not a particularly liberal one. Many of the newly elected Democrats in Congress are more centrist than is the norm for that party, so the term may be heard more in the coming months and years. The term, however, is hardly new, with citations going back to 1995, when it appeared in the Washington Times of 21 April:

They call themselves the blue-dog Democrats—yellow-dog Democrats turned blue by the choke hold put on them by their own liberal leadership.

The name comes from the paintings of Cajun artist George Rodrigue, who is famed for his images of blue dogs. In the early-to-mid-1990s a group of conservative Democrats would meet in the offices of Louisiana representatives Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes, both of whom had Rodrigue’s paintings hanging in their offices. (Both also eventually switched to the Republican party.) The group formalized their coalition in 1994, taking their name from the paintings. Despite the Washington Times citation above, it has nothing to do with turning blue. Nor is it a reference to blue states, as many believe.

The name is modeled after yellow dog Democrat. A yellow dog Democrat is not especially liberal, but is rather someone who will vote party line regardless of the circumstances. The New York Times records this from 11 March 1883:

There is no eagerness shown, however, among Republicans to seek office at this time, when Democrats can see nothing but certain victory awaiting them. "Why, we could nominate yellow dogs this Spring and elect every one upon the ticket by a big majority," said one of the Democratic ward statesmen to-day.

By 1911, the above quotation had been turned into a political buzzword when the Mansfield News (Ohio) had this on 22 April:

He favors a job for every "yellow dog Democrat" to keep him from want, exertion and worry.

Diegogarcity Alert

10 November 2006

In researching this article, I came across the two listed citations from Alfred’s and Chaucer’s translations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiæ. Then, last night while reading a New Yorker article ("Game Master," by John Seabrook, 6 Nov 2006) about video game designer Will Wright, designer of The Sims, I came across another Boethius reference:

The designer must play God, or at least the notion of God in Boethius’ "Consolation of Philosophy"–a god that can anticipate the outcome of the player’s actions and yet allows the player the feeling of free will.

I love The New Yorker. Where else would an article about video games contain a reference to a 6th century Christian philosopher.

(For those of you who are wondering, diegogarcity is a term coined by Aldiboronti on the Wordorigins discussion forum for the coincidence of just learning something new, such as a new word, and then seeing it in several places immediately afterwords. It is a play on serendipity, as Serendip is an old name for Sri Lanka. For this concept, Aldi chose another Indian Ocean island as the namesake.)