"That's Not A Word!"
One of the things that happens to you all the time when you're a lexicographer is that people say something to you, something perfectly reasonable, such as "I am appalled by the current celebrification of journalists" and then stop themselves to ask you "Is that a word?"
Considering that the is-it-a-word? word is usually completely comprehensible, I always say "it is now!"
When people say something "isn't a word", they aren't usually saying that the item in question is a piece of rotten fruit, or a shoe, or a phone number, or some other non-lexical object. What they are saying is something like "That's not standard English," or "I dislike that word and wish you wouldn't use it," or "I am not sure that this word is in common use," and so on. They may also want to call attention, obliquely, to the word as being their own coinage (whether or not that is true).
The ruler most people use to measure a word's word-ness is The Dictionary. Not any specific dictionary -- for most people, if a word is in any standard-looking dictionary, that's good enough. (The Dictionary is a stand in for "Any Dictionary I Happen To Have.")
But as a lexicographer, as someone who has seen how the word sausage is made, I think that assessing a word's fitness for use by whether or not it is in The Dictionary is much too limiting. We've already seen that lexicographers can't possibly register, much less describe, all the words that are used in English; how then, knowing that, can you still cleave to the idea that the words that are in The Dictionary are good to use, and the ones that aren't, aren't?
People use The Dictionary as the arbiter of a word's worth because they are understandably lazy. They want to make a quick appeal to an incontrovertible authority, win their argument (or their game of Scrabble) and get on with their day. Using The Dictionary this way probably worked a lot better in the pre-Google age, but when you can fire up your search engine and find 20,000 hits for celebrification, it's a bit harder to argue that it "isn't real."
Don't get me wrong: celebrification may still be ugly, it may still be awkward, it may be better expressed by a paraphrase and not by a single (possibly over-suffixed word), but it's real, all right, and an argument against its use based on "it's not a real word, because it's not in the dictionary" is an argument you're eventually going to lose. Anything that's used as a word, understood as a word, and that works like a word -- is an actual, living, breathing, honest-to-goodness word. Full stop.
Sometimes people use "that's not a real word" to mean "that's a mistake" -- that something is a misspelling, or is used incorrectly, based on traditional use. The "it's not in the dictionary" argument doesn't work there, either. The Encarta dictionary famously listed common misspellings, right in the A-Z, with cross-references to the more common spellings. A facetious argument could then be made that those misspellings are "in the dictionary," and I wouldn't bet that some eighth-grader, somewhere, didn't try it. Dictionaries should list common meanings, even if they are considered errors by traditionalists (but they should also give a warning to that effect). Ignoring a problem never yet made it go away.
But while we're talking about errors and mistakes, I'm not sure if anyone can announce with certainty just when an error, made by enough people over a long enough period of time, becomes the standard. I think that it takes at least three generations, and that it has to be something obscure enough that it can pass unnoticed by all but the most conscientious of copyeditors. For instance, even though confusing your and you're is certainly widespread, I don't see those two words become conflated any time soon -- enough people still know and maintain the difference. But other terms, words we don't use as often or as surely, can sneak by while we're looking the other way (one that Ben Zimmer pointed out recently is minuscule as miniscule).
Whenever a lexicographer starts discussing the natural tendency of words to mutate and transform, of not-words to become words, a great howl arises. It's only natural that people who have taken the trouble to internalize standard English and use it in generally accepted ways would be upset when others don't take that same trouble -- or even, it as it sometimes seems, any trouble at all. But the plain truth is that language changes, drifts, and evolves -- transmutes, even -- and it's very, very difficult to stop it from doing so.
If language change really annoys you, to the point where you find it no longer possible to enjoy your normal daily activities, you should become a copyeditor, and then you will have the exquisite privilege of fixing the usages that annoy you all day long. Otherwise, if a new usage bothers you, I can only say, "don't use it, then."
The Dictionary is no longer the be-all and end-all of wordosity. If you want to be an educated word consumer, you'll have to do a little more work than just checking for in-or-out-ness. If your real question is "should I use this word or not?" you'll probably have to do a little bit more analysis. Who is your audience? What is their reaction to an unusual word likely to be? Would a more standard alternative make for a smoother communication of your message, or do you want and need the jolt that a new and striking term will give your listeners and readers? Will your new word be annoying (and if so, do you wish to annoy)? Or will it be playful and add a necessary shot of attitude?
Words aren't like Bigfoot: a moment's glimpse of a fabled creature isn't sufficient proof for cryptozoology. But just one momentary use is perfectly fine for determining whether or not a word is "real." The big question is what you can do with it, not whether it exists in the first place.
Here's one I think about now and again. Should "refrigerator" have a D in it? I know it doesn't, but SHOULD it? Many people insist on putting one there.
I note that the most common spelling of the abbreviation "fridge" (commonly termed "not a word") does. So if the answer to the above is "no", should the abbreviation have the D removed? Is the appropriate spelling of the abbreviation "frige" - removing the D - or "frig" (as I prefer), isolating the literal spelling of the syllable in question (re - frig - er - a - tor)?
We didn't have a dictionary available, and I was voted down. What a bunch of baloney. Oh, also, this was like ten years ago. But I am not, repeat NOT obsessed with this.
- Alaska Jack
But of course that can always be resolved by agreement ahead of time if a dictionary is the limit or if it's by voting or something else entirely.
The man on the radio was talking about writing an autobiography of George Harrison. How is that acceptable?
Also, don't forget, prescriptivism is racist and sexist and perpetuates inequity. I know, that sucks. I still don't like things that are sloppy or ignorant.
Ha! Unintentional humor is the best kind.
I'm not so sure that was unintentional, but if it wasn't: PWNED!1!!
My understanding that Fridge was not short for Refrigerator, but instead is short/slang for Frigid-Aire. Once upon a time, Frigid-Aire was the most common brand of refrigerator and everyone just shortened it down to Fridge.
That is why there is a 'd' in the word.
word (wurd), n. 1. a unit of language . . . .
language (lang'gwij), n. 1. a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition.
The very concept of language, then, implies the prevalence of norms. Using a word entails invocation of those norms. Norms can be violated without thereby ceasing to be. The purpose or intention of a norm-violating person may be decipherable notwithstanding the violation of the norm, and no new norm is necessarily created by the violation.
So occasion-specific use and intelligibility are not sufficient criteria for wordliness. (In fairness, I do not take Erin McKean to have rujipled otherwise.)
On the whole, three generations sounds like a reasonable interval to me.
My understanding that Fridge was not short for Refrigerator, but instead is short/slang for Frigid-Aire. Once upon a time, Frigid-Aire was the most common brand of refrigerator and everyone just shortened it down to Fridge.
That is why there is a 'd' in the word.
Well, maybe. But then how'd the 'd' get in front of the 'g'? Seems to me that the 'd' is in there only to force the intended pronunciation. (Though I note that this doesn't always happen. Somehow "mic" as short for "microphone" caught on even though "mic" isn't pronounced anything like it looks. Why isn't it "mike," analogously to "bike" and "trike"?)
Any thoughts?
I remember a Saturday Night Live sketch from maybe 20 years ago. The man in charge of the operation of a nuclear power plant is giving his staff instructions as he leaves on vacation. His final advice is "Remember, you can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor." Naturally, the moment he leaves, the workers get into a heated argument: Does that mean "put in all the water you want"? Or is it, on the contrary, "Be careful about adding water, because too much is very dangerous"?
Well . . . then we cut to the boss on a tropical beach with a girl, both of them gazing at a large, lurid, glowing cloud in the distance. He exits, saying to the girl as he leaves, "Remember, you can't look too long at a radioactive cloud." Tee-hee!
OED can be an arbiter for English, but I wouldn't rely upon it exclusively because it's far from complete. For one, it is woefully slow in updating by decades or half-centuries, which is, in its result, the same as leaving out words that are commonly used. For two, it has tended to include in earlier editions many words that are regional, dialectical, nonce, or factitious and can still be found in its volumes. They're hardly suitable for everybody, are they? For three, it includes many words that are now archaic and are used by no one except in discussions of those words themselves. For four, it's still very British, to the disfavor of North American English. For five, it contains almost no grammar, style, or usage information. There are other reasons, but those five should be convincing enough.
Bradley, to look at your aviation metaphor differently, perhaps lexicographers are more like passengers on those airplanes: either they're landing safely or they're going down in a pile of flames, but either way they're sticking with the aircraft. Or if we stick with your metaphor, maybe lexicographers are taking pictures of the plane crashes, but for every one of those, there are 100,000 safe landings and take-offs that nobody but the lexicographer remarks upon.
Peter, the problem with assuming that the presence of norms in that definition (is it tautological to use language to define language?) indicate that there is good speech and bad speech is that we cannot, as speakers of the language, ever reach a perfect consensus as to what those norms are. Even when we have settled for ourselves as individuals what norms we will follow, the careful observer will often later find that they were either wrong about the norms or that the norms have changed while they weren't looking. Determining norms (or a lexicographer's work, for that matter) is like calculating a trajectory in outer space: you have to shoot for where your destination will be when you arrive, not where it is when you blast off, and there's always a chance that the Death Star will have been there first and your destination will be blown to smithereens.
CheckEnclosed, it's nice to see that rare occurrence: somebody with a language peeve that I've never seen before! Most people, I find, who are peeved about language, seem to borrow their peeves without examining them closely, never noticing that most peeves aren't worth the peeve that's peeved over them.
Aeon wrote: An error being commonplace isn't the same thing as "an evolution in the language." There has to be a higher standard for cromulence than that.
There is a higher standard: as Erin pointed out, that standard is yours and yours alone to set for your own speech and writing. I forgive lots of problematic language on the part of others but I get angry at myself for the same error when I make it, be it in an email or on coast-to-coast radio.
The Word List is generated by a committee armed with five popular dictionaries. A word has to be present in one of the five to be presented to the committee for inclusion.
Here's a dictionary abridgement question: What I really need is a dictionary that leaves out simple words (chair, shirt, toy, cat) and just includes the complicated ones. Why can't I buy one of these? It would be much smaller than the unabridged version, and more useful than the typical abridged one.
(Uh oh, spell check says that "abridgement" isn't a word.)
Grant, thanks for this. I tried to get Eugene interested in this subject a few months back to no avail. As "proof" of a word's legitimacy (and let's take that to mean part of standard usage for now), people often cite the OED; e.g, "The OED lists a reference to "irregardless as far back as ___." My argument was that the OED reference could just be the first time that someone used a nonstandard (let's call that "wrong" for now) word that eventually became standard, so the date that it was first found in print really doesn't tell you much about the word's provenance as a "real" word.
I hate playing Scrabble with Scrabble-fanatics. They use the oddest words and refuse to allow perfectly good words all based on the evil "Official Scrabble Players Dictionary". They word list is full of inconsistencies.
EI
What you want is a dictionary of difficult words. I've heard good things about the Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words ... and from people who don't work for OUP, even. You can also get it extremely cheaply as a used paperback. :-) Cambridge also has a similar book, and the editors, Paul Heacock and Carol-June Cassidy, are first-rate lexicographers and good friends of mine.
I'm going to talk more about norms and errors tomorrow, because it's interesting (and hits all sorts of nerves).
Does he extend that descriptivism to spelling, though? If one goes back far enough, one can find examples of "misspellings" in historical literature, because spelling wasn't necessarily standardized until dictionaries became common. Does he therefore think it acceptable for people to spell words however they want, as long as they can be understood? Does he think it wrong to call those alternative spellings "errors"?
It's not that I don't think there's a right and wrong! There is! There are many things that are patently unpermissible in English. But personal preferences aren't the same as linguistic rules and what I see here and elsewhere (mostly elsewhere) almost always has nothing to do with what English will or will not allow, but what with the peever will or will not allow.
We humans don't share one central group brain. So our individual norms are very likely to only approximate our group norms. There will be gibbous overlaps in our Venn diagrams, but there will also be small crescents that belong only to us.
The idea that there's no right and wrong in language makes the "evolution" accelerate at a hugely faster rate, so within a decade or so, plural pronouns = singular pronouns and people write each other's autobiographies.
Let's be clear: no linguist or lexicographer would stay employed for long if they said there was no right or wrong. "She shoe ballcap standing fell" is wrong. It violates the rules of English. "Hopefully and irregardless of whether it rains, we ain't gonna lose this here game" is not standard, not part of a prestige dialect, and not pretty, but also not wrong. English rules permits everything in that sentence, though rules of culture, style, and register may not.
If there were evidence to support the claim that the language is changing at a "hugely faster rate," it'd be one of the biggest language discoveries of the century.
These words have as much meaning as blitiri or bu-ba-baff!
SubRoas -- RE "cromulent" - that was an attempt at wit; google it for info.
I'm quite aware of the origin of the word--you'll note I spelled it "cromulent" rather than cromulence.
And my "blitiri" and "bu-ba-baff" was an allusion to Umberto Ecco's The Name of the Rose (and my username here I guess).
Perhaps not so witty as I had hoped.
Are you talking about using "they" with a singular antecedent? This has been part of English for about 500 years. It has been used by the best writers of English.
We're talking about two different kinds of rules. One kind of rules are rules that govern the linguistic structure of English. The sentence "She shoe ballcap standing fell" violates these rules. A sentence like “When you love someone you do not love them all the time” does not violate these rules - it is naturally produced by native speakers and writers with the expectation that it will be understood. Clearly there are situations where English pronouns do not have to agree with their antecedent in number. We find this behaviour in other languages too.
The other kind of rules are those created in order to proscribe a certain usage because someone believes it is illogical, ugly, or for whatever reason. The prescription against using "they" with a singular antecedent is one of these; it was created in the 1800s because it was felt that pronouns should agree with their antecedents in number. I'm not saying that all prescriptions are bad or unhelpful, I just think it's good to keep the fact of English usage distinct from people's opinions about English usage.
Norms, by definition, are fluid, imperfectly folllowed, less than unanimous. Admittedly, they are also commonly attended by the existence of competing norms. But not every failed effort to conform to a set of norms can be treated as pursuit of a competing norm. Some such failed efforts are just screw-ups -- a case of shooting for the target and missing. To me, "beg the question" for "raise the question" still falls in the screw-up category. Almost no one acquainted with the original meaning of the phrase uses it in the sense of "raise the question." Its use in the latter sense is almost universally the product of ignorance, and so it can fairly be called a mistake.