Tag: English language

Q: I’m disappointed that “surreal” has become the adjective of choice for disasters. Example: “The Joplin tornado was surreal.” Argh! I can’t stand the loss of what was once a beautiful, subtle word for the dreamlike worlds of Jung and Dali.

A: You’re right that the word “surreal” got a real workout last month as people struggled for words to describe the death and destruction in Joplin, Missouri.

And, yes, the word was probably overused (we got more than 1.2 million hits when we googled “surreal” and “Joplin”), but we don’t think it was necessarily misused.

The adjective “surreal” broke away from its artistic and psychoanalytic roots quite a few decades ago. It has long been a favorite of newspaper headline writers looking for a way of describing something weird, unreal, incongruous, etc.

A 1970 headline in the New York Times, for example, used it to describe Vice President Spiro Agnew’s efforts to support Republican candidates for Congress: “For Agnew, a Surreal Campaign.”

A 1972 headline in the Los Angeles Times used the term to describe the presentation of fashion awards: “Surreal Theatrics at Coty Ceremony.”

And a 1982 headline in the Montreal Gazette used it to describe an interview with the Libyan leader: “Khadafi gives ‘surreal’ interview.”

More in line with the usage that bugs you, here’s a headline from the San Jose Mercury about a 1985 earthquake in Mexico: “WITNESSES DESCRIBE SURREAL, SPECTACULAR SCENE.”

We had a blog item a couple of years ago when a reader complained about the use of “surrealistic” for “surreal.”

Both words are 1930s offshoots of two earlier ones, the noun “surrealism” (1917) and the adjective “surrealist” (1918), coined by the French painter Guillaume Apollinaire (originally as surréalisme and surréaliste).

The French words were immediately absorbed into English, where “surrealist” became a noun (meaning an adherent of surrealism) as well as an adjective.

Surrealism refers to works of art, literature, film, or theater that seek to express the world of the subconscious mind by using techniques like juxtaposing realistic images in an irrational way.

As the poet André Breton explained in his Surrealist Manifesto (1924), the aim was to transmute “those two seemingly contradictory states, dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality, of surreality, so to speak.”

These days, as you’ve observed, “surrealism” and company are used both inside and outside the worlds of art, literature, film, and so on.

In everyday language, both “surreal” and “surrealistic” can simply mean dreamlike, unreal, strange, and so on. In our opinion, though, they’re a bit overused.

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Q: I read your post on “incident” vs. “incidence,” and it made me curious about whether “instance” is related? All three words seem to have a lot in common.

A: Like “incident” and “incidence,” the word “instance” was borrowed from French and ultimately comes from Latin.  But “instance” is derived from a different Latin root. Here’s the story.

When “instance” first showed up in English in the 14th century, it referred to urgent pressure exerted in trying to get someone to do something.

That’s understandable, since the French instance then meant, among other things, eagerness, anxiety, and solicitation, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED’s first citation for this sense of the word (circa 1340) is from a Middle English treatise by the religious writer Richard Rolle: “At the prayere and instaunce of other.” (The “th” in “the” and “other” was represented by a runic letter called a thorn.)

Although this urgent sense of the word is now considered obsolete, we do have a similar sense: instigation, urging, or request. Example: “I’m writing you at the instance of my client.”

Over the years, “instance” has taken on a lot of other meanings: an occurrence, a fact used to make a point, the present time, and so on.

The word “instance” is ultimately derived from the Latin instantia (presence or urgency), while “incident” and “incidence” come from the Latin incidere (to fall into, fall upon, happen).

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Q: I used “sooner” in the sense of “rather” the other day, and it suddenly struck me as an odd choice of words. Is this meaning somehow related to the phrase “sooner rather than later”? Any insight into the origin of this usage will be gratefully received.

A: Why, you ask, do we use the word “sooner” in a sentence like “Elizabeth would sooner be an old maid than marry Mr. Collins”?

Let’s begin with the adverb “soon,” which entered English around 825 with the same principal meaning that it has now: in a short time, before long, quickly.

The word, spelled sona in Old English, was related to similar words in Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German, and other Germanic languages, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The comparative form “sooner” showed up in the early 13th century in the sense of “within a shorter time; more quickly; with less delay; at an earlier time or date.”

At about the same time, the OED says, “sooner” (chiefly in the phrase “sooner than”) took on the sense of “more readily or easily.”

Eventually, in the mid-15th century, this meaning gave us the one that struck you as odd: “More readily as a matter of choice; preferably, rather.”

Here’s an example from Fielding’s novel Tom Jones (1749): “I wou’d sooner swopp her to a Tobacco plantation.”

And here’s one from Trollope’s novel Can You Forgive Her? (1864): “I’d sooner it should be you than me; that’s all I can say.”

We don’t see any connection between this sense of “sooner” and the temporal expression “sooner rather than later,” which apparently arrived on the scene a lot later.

The earliest example of the expression in a recent Google search is from the April 2, 1869, issue of a Scottish newspaper, the Glasgow Herald:

“The man who has only himself to please finds soon or late, and probably sooner rather than later, that he has got a very hard master.”

The expression “sooner or later” (meaning at some time or other) is much older, dating from the 16th century, according to published references in the OED.

The earliest citation is from a 1577 translation of a Latin book on farming: “The stones, stickes, and suche baggage … are to be throwen out sooner or later.”  

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Q: We often hear someone raise a glass of champagne and say, “Here’s to the newlyweds” or “Here’s to the graduate” or “Here’s to victory.” But exactly what does “here” mean here?

A: “Here’s to” has been a common way of introducing a toast since at least the late 16th century, according to published references in the Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s short for “here’s a health to.” A “health,” the OED says, is a “salutation or wish expressed for a person’s welfare or prosperity.” In other words, a toast.

The dictionary says the “here’s” formula is echoed in other drinking expressions like “here’s looking at you,” “here’s luck,” “here’s hoping,” and “here’s how.”

The dictionary’s first “here’s to” citation is from none other than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597): “Here’s to my love!”

Jonathan Swift used it in his A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1653): “Come, Madam; here’s a Health to our Friends, and hang the rest of our Kin.”

And convivial types have been toasting each other with “Here’s to …” ever since.

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Q: I have a question about your posting that Bill Murray introduced the expression “you’re toast” in Ghostbusters (one of my favorite films). It’s not for me to dispute your source, but I wonder how thorough the OED is in its monitoring of American slang. I’m certain I heard the phrase long before the 1984 movie.

A: We said in our posting that Bill Murray is responsible for phrases like “you’re toast,” but what he actually said in the film was “All right, this chick is toast.”

Never mind. You make a good point. From the available evidence, we have Murray to thank for the usage. But with the digitalization of almost everything, earlier examples may eventually come to light.

And now that the Oxford English Dictionary is online and constantly updated, we’re sure that it will be on the case.

The lexicographers at the OED do indeed monitor American slang, though in the early days slang in general wasn’t given nearly the attention—or respect—that it now enjoys at the dictionary.

Of course not all slang locutions make it into the OED, only those that its lexicographers think are likely to last.

Slang dictionaries are another matter. The lexicographers who compile them watch street language very closely, and they record even passing obscurities. Permanence isn’t an issue.

We checked the huge three-volume Green’s Dictionary of Slang (which only recently came out) and here’s what we found.

The adjective “toast,” meaning “facing serious problems; esp. in phr. you’re toast,” is credited to the film script of Ghostbusters by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis.

This we know to be untrue. As we say in our posting, the phrase wasn’t in the script as written by Aykroyd and Ramis. Green’s should have credited Bill Murray’s ad-lib during the filming (which the OED does).

Green’s also credits the journal Campus Slang, edited by Connie Able, as reporting that the phrase showed up on college campuses in 1986—two years after the film.

We did several searches in the Google and NewsBank archives, but the earliest examples we found of “you’re toast” used in this sense were from 1987.

One more comment. Green’s is full of other, different slang uses of “toast.”

In 1984, for example, Campus Slang reported that the phrase “bad as toast” meant amazingly good or shocking. And as far back as 1971 “toast” was used adjectivally to mean excellent.

What’s more, a reader has written to us to point out that T. H. White’s The Once and Future King (1958) has an even earlier reference: “ ‘You run a grave risk, my boy,’ said the magician, ‘of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted.’ ”

But those are worlds away from the meaning we’re talking about.

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Q: In Pat’s May 11 discussion on WNYC of movie ad-libs, she said the lines “I’m walkin’ here!” and “You talkin’ to me?” were improvised. They may not have been scripted, but they weren’t “improvised.” They’re everyday street talk in WNYC.

A: By “improvised,” Pat meant unscripted—in other words, lines that either deviated from the script or that actors were directed to supply on the spot, impromptu.

This is a legitimate use of the verb “improvise,” which the Oxford English Dictionary says can mean “to utter or perform extempore.”

An improvised or ad-libbed line is one supplied by the actor on the spot. It’s not necessarily original and never-before heard.

An ad-lib CAN be original, though, as with Bill Murray’s line in Ghostbusters (1984): “All right, this chick is toast.”

That line was not only improvised (that is, it deviated from the script), but was the first recorded example of this usage, according to the OED.

As we wrote on the blog last month, what Murray apparently invented was the use of a form of the verb “be” + “toast”—as in “I’m toast,” “you’re toast,” and so on.

This has come to be a common expression when stated in a proleptic way (that is, said of something before the fact), and it apparently originated with Bill Murray’s ad-lib.

Another ad-libbed line that Pat mentioned on the Leonard Lopate Show seems to have been original too. It’s Roy Scheider’s remark in Jaws (1980): “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

As one WNYC listener called in to say, Scheider’s expression has become a popular catch-phrase (sometimes as “We’re gonna need a bigger boat”) for people who find themselves in over their heads.

However, most of the ad-libs that came up during the show were not original material. Two, in fact, were deliberate allusions to earlier sources.

For example, there’s Jack Nicholson’s unscripted line in The Shining (1980): “Heeere’s Johnny!”

Nicholson improvised the line on the spot, but it wasn’t original. It was a deliberate allusion to Ed McMahon’s nightly introductions of Johnny Carson.

Another example is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s line in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991): “I need a vacation.”

It was a deviation from the script, done on the spot as a joke. It was a line Schwarzenegger had delivered the year before in Kindergarten Cop.

Then there’s the “You talkin’ to me?” speech ad-libbed by Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976). As De Niro himself has said, the line, though improvised, wasn’t original with him.

Various sources have said he got it from a stage line delivered by either Bruce Springsteen or a stand-up comic. But, as you say, it was probably popular street talk long before that.

And we agree with you that pedestrians had probably said “I’m walkin’ here!” in self-defense long before Dustin Hoffman used the line in Midnight Cowboy (1969).

We can’t say for sure that it was Hoffman’s ad-lib, however, since Hoffman and the producer, Jerome Hellman, tell different stories.

There’s similar disagreement about a line that brought the house down in When Harry Met Sally (1989): “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Of course, actors have been ad-libbing since talkies were invented.

In the very first feature-length film with synchronized speech, The Jazz Singer (1927), Al Jolson says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”

It’s the first speech in the movie. And while it was impromptu (that is, unscripted), he had used similar lines before on stage.

The term “ad-lib” comes from the Latin phrase ad libitum (at one’s pleasure). Originally used as an adverb, the full phrase first appeared in English in 1610 and the abbreviation in 1811.

Through the 19th century, the term in both long and short forms was often used in music, as the opposite of “obbligato” (that is, obligatory).

But it was used in general ways, too, as in “to marry wives ad libitum,” a line from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1848 novel Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings.

The use of “ad-lib” as a verb, an adjective, and a noun, however, was a 20th-century American show-biz invention.

Here are a couple of early examples, courtesy of the OED:

“ ‘Easy money, friends,’ Miss Hoag would ad lib. to the line-up outside her railing” (from Fannie Hurst’s short-story collection Humoresque, 1919).

“ ‘Can the ad lib!’ which means, politely, ‘Will you be good enough to hush!’ ” (from a 1925 article in the journal American Speech about stage slang.)

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Q: If it’s “Victoriana,” is it “Warholiana”? Or is it “Warholana”?

A: Our vote goes to “Warholiana.” It’s the usual term for Andy Warhol memorabilia.

The suffixes “-ana” and “-iana,” when added to proper names, form nouns meaning things associated with the original word.

“Warholiana” is the choice here because “Warholian” is the commonly used adjective.

And when an adjective ends in “-ian” (like “Warholian”) the noun for the memorabilia merely adds an “a” (“Warholiana”).

As the Oxford English Dictionary explains, “-iana” is a form of the suffix “ana” that is “added to nouns whose adjectival suffix is, or would be, -ian.”

So a noun like “Africa,” with “African” as its adjective, has “Africana” as the word for things associated with it. We get “Americana” the same way.

But “Shakespeare,” with “Shakespearian” as its adjective, has “Shakespeariana.” Similarly, “Warhol” has the adjective “Warholian” and thus “Warholiana” for the stuff associated with him.

By the way, the memorable things associated with a person, place, or period aren’t necessarily physical items.

“Victoriana,” for instance, can mean artifacts or collectibles of the Victorian era. But it can also mean anecdotes, notable quotations, gossip, publications, fashions of the day, and so forth.

So, “Warholiana” might refer to Warhol’s paintings, prints, and films; gossip about Edie Sedgwick, Viva, Ultra Violet, and the rest of his retinue; coffee mugs and T-shirts with his image, and things he collected—his cookie jars, Fiesta ware, World’s Fair souvenirs, and so on.

Here’s an example: “The ‘Warholiana’ in the exhibition included the silkscreen painting ‘Eight Elvises,’ the underground film ‘Poor Little Rich Girl,’ and an obituary of Andy’s brother, John Warhola, from the New York Times.”

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Q: Pat was asked on WNYC about the origins of “taken aback” and she seemed taken aback. It’s an old sailing term. The sails are taken aback when the wind suddenly changes and blows them against the mast.

A: Several nautical listeners wrote us about “taken aback” after Pat’s appearance on the Leonard Lopate Show.

You’re correct in thinking that the expression began life as a nautical term. But before examining the history of the phrase, let’s begin at the beginning, with the word “aback.”

In its first incarnation, about a thousand years ago, “aback” was a simple adverb of motion.

The Oxford English Dictionary says it meant “in a direction backwards, to the rear, towards that which is behind,” or merely “back.”

It was also used figuratively, according to the OED, to mean “from the front, or scene of action, off, away, to a distance.”

The word was first recorded in the West Saxon Gospels (circa 1000), the earliest complete translation of the four Gospels into Old English.

The OED has two citations from the Gospels, with “aback” then written on bæc or on-bæc.

Since the Old English looks pretty bewildering, we’ll attempt a literal translation: “Go thou aback, devil!” (Matthew iv.10), and “Many of his learning-knights [i.e., disciples] turned aback, and went not with him” (John vi.66).

“Aback” became a nautical term in the 17th century, the OED says, when it was used to describe sails “laid back against the mast, with the wind bearing against their front surfaces.”

A ship with its sails in that condition was also described as “aback.”

Here are some examples from various nautical accounts:

“I braced my main topsails aback” (1697); “brace the foremost yards aback” (1762); “The Revenge was necessitated to throw her sails all aback” (1790); “We instantly hove all aback to diminish the violence of the shock” (1847).

It’s this use of “aback,” that led in the 18th century to the nautical term “taken aback.”

A ship is “taken aback,” the OED says, “when through a shift of wind or bad steerage, the wind comes in front of the square sails and lays them back against the masts, instantly staying the ship’s onward course.”

Here’s the OED’s first citation, from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (1756): “If they luff up, they will be taken aback, and run the hazard of being dismasted.”

Before long, this evocative term for being stopped in one’s seafaring tracks made the leap from ship to shore.

Since the 19th century, the OED says, “to take aback” has meant “to surprise or discomfit by a sudden and unlooked-for check.”

Here are the first two citations for this sense:

“The boy, in sea phrase, was taken all aback” (from Thomas Hood’s Up the Rhine, 1840);

“I don’t think I was ever so taken aback in all my life” (from Charles Dickens’s American Notes for General Circulation, 1842).

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Q: Is there any difference between “pomposity” and “pompousness”? Different origins, shades of meaning, antiquity, geographical uses? Is one more pompous than the other?

A: We don’t see much, if any, difference in meaning between these two words, though “pomposity” seems to be a lot more popular than “pompousness.”

Here’s the Google scorecard: “pomposity,” 392,000 hits, versus “pompousness,” 79,600.

In fact, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) has a separate entry for “pomposity,” but lists “pompousness” only within its entry for “pompous.”

Merriam-Webster’s defines “pomposity” as  “pompous demeanor, speech, or behavior” as well as “a pompous gesture, habit, or act.”

M-W doesn’t include a definition of “pompousness,” but the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “the quality or condition of being pompous; pomposity.”

If you can detect a significant difference between these two words, you have a better nose than we do.

As for antiquity, both “pomposity” and “pompousness” entered English in the 15th century.

We adapted “pomposity” from the post-classical Latin pompositas (meaning pomp or bombast).

We got “pompousness” by tacking the suffix “-ness” onto “pompous,” which comes from the post-classical Latin pomposus (magnificent, grand, pompous).

Both “pomposity” and “pompousness” ultimately come from pompa, the classical Latin word for a ceremonial or solemn procession (and, yes, the source of “pomp”).

As far as geography goes, we suspect that you’ll find both “pomposity” and “pompousness” wherever stuffed shirts hang out. From our experience, that means everywhere.

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Q: I hear many newscasters refer to a fire that’s purposely set as an “arson fire.” Isn’t that what “arson” by itself means?

A: In other words, is “arson fire” redundant? Well, yes and no.

In our opinion, it’s redundant most of the time, but occasionally it’s not.

The noun “arson” is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “the act of wilfully and maliciously setting fire to another man’s house, ship, forest, or similar property; or to one’s own, when insured, with intent to defraud the insurers.”

Notice that “arson” is the crime—the act of setting a fire. It’s not the fire itself. For this reason, we think it’s sometimes legitimate to use “arson” as an adjective modifying “fire.”

“Arson fire” is not a redundancy along the lines of, say, “fatal slaying” or “major milestone.”

Every slaying is fatal, every milestone is major. But not every fire is arson, so it’s sometimes legitimate to modify “fire” with “arson.”

An insurer, for example, might say that a policy doesn’t cover “arson fire.” So it might cover other kinds of fires, but not those feloniously set.

And we see nothing wrong with a headline like “Man Dies in Arson Fire.” A simple “Man Dies in Fire” doesn’t tell you a crime was involved. And “Man Dies in Arson” isn’t correct—the fire killed him, not the crime.

But we agree that “arson fire” is often one word too many. In the following sentences, the words in brackets should be omitted:

“The [arson] fire was deliberately set” … “This is a case of arson [fire]” … “The inferno that destroyed the skyscraper was ruled [an] arson [fire].”

The noun “arson” came into English in the 1600s by way of Anglo-French. But its ultimate source is the Latin arsum, the past participle of ardere (to burn), the verb that also gave us “ardor” and “ardent.”

The first writer to use the word in English, according to OED citations, was Sir Matthew Hale, a Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in the 17th century.

Hale was author of a treatise on criminal law entitled Historia Placitorum Coronae (“The History of the Pleas of the Crown”). The word “arson” appears several times in the work, which has a chapter entitled “Of arson, or the wilful burning of houses.”

(The treatise was published around 1680, a few years  after the judge’s death in 1676.)

When used as an adjective, “arson” is what’s known as an attributive noun—that is, a noun used to modify another noun. We’ve often written about attributive nouns on the blog, including a posting last year.

For writers who are bothered by “arson fire,” there’s a possible (though rather clunky) alternative—“arsonous fire.”

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) lists “arsonous” as an adjectival form of “arson.” But “arsonous fire” isn’t often used.

“Arson fire” appears not only in news articles but in hundreds of books and other documents about fire safety management, insurance, and criminal law.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily make it good English usage. You can’t beat legal writing for redundancy.

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Q: My question is about the phrase “like Oswald in Ghosts.” I know it’s from Annie Hall and know it refers to the Ibsen play, but I would love to know how it came into our phrasebook and what the heck it means!

A: In a brief flashback scene in the film Annie Hall (1977), Alvy (played by Woody Allen) and his neurotic second wife, Robin (Janet Margolin), are in bed.

Robin, who is all intellect and little libido, is seldom in the mood. Tonight, it’s a headache. Here’s the exchange:

Robin: “My head is throbbing.”

Alvy: “Oh, you got a headache!”

Robin: “I have a headache.”

Alvy: “Bad?”

Robin: ‘Like Oswald in Ghosts.”

The reference is to Henrik Ibsen’s play Ghosts, in which the lead character, Oswald, suffers from excruciating headaches brought on by the congenital venereal disease that’s slowly killing him.

Oswald’s last name, by the way is Alving.

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