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March 21, 2017 edition

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More Word Watch articles in other editions

February 14, 2017 edition

We are all being forced to get used to a brave new post-truth world. A Trump world of fake news. A world where blatant liesfor instance on the size of the crowd in Washington for the presidential inaugurationare 'alternative facts'.
Totalitarianism, militarism, fascism, colonialism and corporatism have all manipulated language and always will. George Orwell satirized this brilliantly in his novel Nineteen Eighty Four, first published in 1949, about a totalitarian state. Newspeak was the fictional state's controlled language designed to eliminate expressiveness and limit thought. In Newspeak, the word 'blackwhite', referred to the ability to believe that black is white, and to forget that you ever believed the contrary. A term totally pertinent today.

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January 24, 2017 edition

It is fascinating to see how different languages handle profanity and abuse-where their sensitive spots are, so to speak. Some languages focus on religion and blasphemy. Some target ethnicity and appearance. Others curse with animal names, or parts of the body. Many languages, English included, have developed a rich vocabulary of abuse around sexual intercourse, genitalia, and excretion.
In times past, cursing in English was more religion-based than it is today. 'God's Blood' used to be an extreme profanity. Abuse words relating to sickness and disease, like 'poxy' or 'scurvy' were also much more common when disease itself was a curse. "A plague on both their houses," Mercutio famously says in Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare's plays are absolutely full of rich, inventive insults, but one word you will not find is today's most prevalent swear-word in English-the 'f' word. This is not because it was too offensive-but on the contrary, because in those days it was not. It was then a relatively recent addition to English meaning 'to copulate'. Today, 'f-k' is certainly not a word to be used in polite conversation, and is still coyly avoided in print (hence the hyphens). Yet it is one of the most colorful and versatile words in the English language, appearing in expressive combinations with various adverbs (off; about; around; up; with) and in various parts of speech (as noun, verb, adjective).

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