Our Shrinking Language
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 12:30AM in Pari Noskin Taichert by Pari
Am I Cassandra? I wonder. I find myself worrying in broad strokes about our culture. The questions I ask are big. Even the ones that appear trite feel huge to me. None have easy answers.
For example: What impact do thesauri in word processing programs have on contemporary language?
Yeah, I know. Weird. But I really do think about these things.
Consider this:
In the MS Word thesaurus, the word mystery yields these choices: (n.) secrecy, anonymity, obscurity, ambiguity, inscrutability, vagueness. (adj.) unknown, anonymous, unidentified. (n.) whodunit, detective novel, thriller, crime novel.
Without getting into the question of whether "mystery" is ever really an adjective, I will say that the above alternatives are perfectly serviceable. There's nothing wrong with any of them.
However, when I look up mystery in my old Roget's International Thesaurus (circa 1977), something very different happens.
I'm forced to think.
I can imagine Dr. Peter Mark Roget sitting across from me. He's wearing those square glasses that Benjamin Franklin wore; they're halfway down his nose. He puts down his quill and shakes his head. "Mystery? What do you mean, Mrs. Taichert? Are you considering enigma or fiction? Are you referring to occultism or perplexity? Inexplicability or wonderfulness? Please clarify that I might offer assistance."
Merely by looking at the options in the book's index, my way of thinking about the word has expanded. I go to the enigma entry and find: enigma, mystery, puzzle, puzzlement, Chinese puzzle, crossword puzzle, jigsaw puzzle. Hmmm. Some of those might work. But there's more: problem, puzzling or baffling problem. I like the word baffling. Haven't thought of it in years. On I continue to question, question mark, vexed or perplexed question . . . Oh, I like this: mind-boggler, floorer or stumper, nut to crack, hard or tough nut to crack; tough proposition. How cool are those?!
Right below the enigma entry is one for riddle, conundrum, charade, rebus, logogriph . . .
What the hell is a logogriph?
So then I look up to the larger idea category and see that it's Unintelligibility and I start to think about that in relation to mysteries and the mysterious.
Wow.
All that thinking: the consideration and discarding of irrelevant words; the grouping of ideas and expansion of their meanings; the stumbling into different concepts I'd never thought about in relation to the word "mystery;" the meeting of old friends -- words I'd forgotten I liked; the curiosity kindled by words I'd never encountered before . . .
This was no mere collection of synonyms; it was an intellectual exercise. After those few minutes of searching, I felt enriched. I grew and made connections that stimulated my mind and sparked creativity.
I wonder how many people take the time to do this anymore? I know that most kids who compose on their computers don't bother with what I think of as a real thesaurus. The quick approximation is good enough for them. I can tell this is happening in popular literature as well. Words that are a little different stick out; they're becoming obsolete.
Is it because they're anachronistic? Or is it simply because they don't pop up in our computer programs?
I don't know. These questions nag at me.
Are we bankrupting our vocabulary, our language, because of convenience? What price will we pay for this laziness?
What do you think?
Do you have a favorite word that seems obsolete now?
Is there a word you'd like to bring back into usage?
Am I looking for problems where there are none?
Reader Comments (51)
The smaller the pool, the more we keep bumping into the same words.
I also love the old Brewer's Dictionaries, and every time I go into a used bookstore (not so much as I used to, I'm sorry to say) I find the reference section to see if there are any old volumes I don't have.
I often look things up in other languages too - French, Italian, Spanish, Latin - just to see what I find.
That's the one thing missing now that I'm writing downstairs. My chair in the garret is right by a bookcase, and the entire shelf at my right arm's reach has all my dictionaries and reference books on it.
Personally, I do use the thesauri in my word processor or the one on Bartleby because, usually, I'm just suffering from a brain freeze and need a jolt.
However, your post has me thinking that I'll move my thesaurus closer to my desk.
But I think the problem goes beyond mere laziness. In my view, a large part of the problem has been the progressive erosion of real teaching in our schools, what with all this focus on standardized test scores nowadays. When I was in school, teachers could actually teach, could feed the passions they ignited in their students, could take half a day to give us a tour of a dictionary or thesaurus. But those things aren't on the standardized tests, so nobody much seems to teach them anymore. Despite my best efforts, my daughter's still shaky on the use of a dictionary, and it's not because she (or I) don't want her to learn the skill. It's because there are only so many hours in the day, and the schools seem to feel they have "more important" things to teach.
The other problem, of course, is the widespread use of text messaging, which teaches our young people to value speed over expressiveness. But that's a different rant for another day...
Sometimes I do despair for the future of our young people.
U R rite.
Stephen
Now, maybe it's just that I'm getting older and have forgotten my vocab from those SAT days -- but I adore using my printed thesaurus because I always, always find something interesting.
I have my dictionary and thesaurus on one of the side leaves of my old wooden desk. I turn to the thesaurus more often.
I don't know about the Brewer's Dictionaries though. If you have a moment, please tell us about them.
I DO use the online programs when I hit a wall or a brain freeze and they work for that. I just think we've all become too dependent on them because of convenience.
I could rant for quite a while about standardized testing and the change I've seen in my children's elementary school as a result.
To have standards is a wonderful thing. But the way NCLB has been administered and funded is a travesty.
I know little about texting and my one daughter who has a cell phone doesn't have the capability to do it on her machine.
But I have seen the erosion of spelling. The example you give of the store in your town is so horrid you've just got to laugh.
Of the words I'd like to see come back, where to begin? I've been told that I'm the only person who "scampers" anywhere, but it seems like such a small and insignificant verb, how could I be alone in its usage? And "tootles" (to move or proceed in a leisurely way) - no one tootles around anymore. I'd like to see more tootling.
Ululate, for example. Now that's a damn fine word. Right up there with defenestration.
However, when I really NEED the right word and I don't see it, Roget comes out. It's always there.
I think a lot of people were inclined to be lazy about these things in the past, too, but that laziness either kept them from getting immortalzied in print, or was edited out. Now it seems to slip throuhg more often, in part because we're used to reading hastily dashed off emails and text messages, and, at the book level, because editing has become more of a luxury than a requirement.
But just this morning Judy Greber and I decided that we'd like to bring back the use of the word TARNATION. it fits my mood today.
And "tootles?" Oh, that's a wonderful word. I didn't know it could be used as a verb.
Thank you for broadening my world today!
Ululate -- I had to look that one up to make sure I knew what it was. I remember one of my belly dancing teachers using it decades ago. We ululated while we danced.
I have heard "defenestration" in more recent memory.
I'm going to have to think about that. Intuitively it feels like it's absolutely linked to what I was writing about today.
The idea of editing being a luxury is frightening, isn't it? I watch my children dash off papers as if they're masterpieces and spend quite a bit of time talking with them about editing and showing them some ways to do it.
As a kid that impulse to believe your writing is magnificent in first draft is endearing.
Adults shouldn't be accorded the same indulgence.
I'd always heard it in the context of "Where in tarnation?" or "What in tarnation?" but it has a larger and more colorful range.
Thank you.
I mourn the loss of my own vocabulary, which seems to be shrinking as I get older, and the words that I do remember seem to get lost as they try to find their way to my tongue.
I confess to using the on-line thesaurus too much for the sake of convenience, and am making a promise to myself right now to have a "real" one closer by, both here at work and at home from now on.
A word I miss? Copacetic. An aunt of mine used to use that word a lot, and it just seemed to fit her."Mornin', auntie - how are you?" "Copacetic, my dear, copacetic."Isn't that a fun word? As is tarnation - and I'm betting I can use that one today!!
I don't use a hard-copy Thesaurus anymore, preferring Bartleby.com. If I type in a word I get references to it from Roget, The American Heritage Dictionary (a good one), The Columbia Encyclopedia, and a number of other fine resource works. Just looking at that first page of brief citations often tells me a lot more about the word than I ever knew, and I can follow up with the full text from any of those sources. It's invaluable, and I don't need a dozen books on my desk. I've never used Word's thesaurus. I would trust that about as far as I can throw spellcheck.
While I don't tend to use a hard-copy thesaurus either (I live at a computer), I never use the one in Word. It's too limiting. I tend to go to thesaurus.com, which pulls from several different thesauri.
And God help me...the grammar check should be stricken from the program. A computer cannot replace a brain. In one memorable love scene I was writing, I said something about the hero cupping the heroine's breast and Word thought it should be "cut". God. So does that mean it's just stupid or are the creators sadists? Hmmmm.
I love to find new, different meanings for words, love an author who spends time to find an alternate meaning. It's one of the reasons I love Anu Garg's Word of the Day - today's was liminal.
Here are some of my favorites:Defenestration, serendipity, onomatopoeia, callipygian, juxtapose, persnickety, balderdash and kerfuffle. Oh, and codswallop.
It must also be related to comfort level; I'm happier with hardcopy than pixels and binary code.
I bet our Rob would find a print version of Roget's as cumbersome as you do.
Again, I refer you to Taylor Mali's poem "The the impotence of proofreading."
BTW: one of my favorite words is "chuffy." It means "chubby," but sounds so much happier about it.
But don't feel alone, Pari. I've thought about the very same thing. I remember being so excited about having a thesaurus at my fingertips, just pressing a button and, voila, synonyms magically cascade across my screen! Then I began using it in earnest, and let me just say, I've never fully recovered from the letdown.
I haven't tried any of the store-bought computer thesaurus programs yet. I'm very spoiled. I want Roget or Rodale at my fingertips, not Pee-Wee Herman.
Well what a pleasure to see you here at Murderati!
"Let down" -- yeah, I think that's part of the experience of using one of those thesauri after you've enjoyed the real thing. Kind of like the difference between real chocolate mousse and pudding.
Callipygian. Thank you! Great word!
Just think about it. France even has an academy that monitors what happens to French. Why don't we in the U.S. care to that extent about what makes us verbally unique?
Wonderful words, all. Personally, I like simple words used in a slightly off-centre way, rather than very long words. I try and limit my use of words that are off the wall, to maintain the flow of the story - but then, I've never claimed to be writing high art ;-]
But, I do slide them in occasionally. Hence I've used 'anosmic' - to have no sense of smell, 'oneiric' - belonging to dreams, and 'crepitus' - the sound of fractured bones grating together.
I've been reeling out my favourite odd words and phrases on my 'Rati posts for a while now, but I still love words like zabernism, hyperglast, deipnosophist, obmutescene and fard.
I was most disappointed to find out that one of the favourite words from my childhood - 'wangy' -was missing from my Chambers dictionary and may well be something we made up. It means something has gone off or rotten, particularly related to fruit. "Don't eat that banana, it's gone wangy."
And I love those that sound just familiar enough NOT to stand out or stop the action.
"Wangy" is such a great word. Without a definition, you still understand exactly what it means.
And at the shop, when I feel the need to vent, I use "piffle", which makes people smile, and then they laugh when I apologize for using harsh language.
I love words. Thank you, Pari!
On the thesaurus part . . . I'll admit 1) I rarely use a physical thesaurus. I can't take the time to stop what I'm writing to look up a word. 2) I occasionally use the computer thesaurus but usually it's because a word is on the tip of my tongue and I know what it means, but can't think of it.
When I write, I put the first good word that comes to mind on paper, and often I use that word too many times. During revisions, that's when I'll go to dictionary.com (my personal favorite) or the Visual Thesaurus (which could be better, but I like the visual display of words. It's a subscription, though.) I'll have to check out bartleby.
But I tend to use simple words. My writing isn't literary. When I hear my books are an "easy read" I don't take offense--I write escapism. Hmmm . . . maybe I'm part of the problem with the dumbing down of language.
"Wonky" has real potential too. I'm feeling wonky right now from too little sleep and too much worry about our dog.
I'd like to share one of my own. Loving words and thinking about them has nothing, really, to do with the kinds of writers we are. My books are "entertainments" (as Tony Hillerman would say) rather than "literary fiction" for example. But I take joy in finding the right word, in expressing it in some way that will delight the reader. I don't think telling the story and considering language is/ought to be mutually exclusive.
Simple words are beautiful. I'm not looking to complicate by my voyages into the thesaurus; I'm looking to capture exactly what I mean in, perhaps, an interesting and slightly different way.
I think reading widely is better than a thesaurus, but I do resort to Roget at least once a week.
The dictionary seems to come out every day, at least once.
I've never heard of The Word Menu. Sounds like it needs to go on my birthday wish list.