Monthly Archives: June 2009

In a New York Times story today about the election crisis in Iran, it made a reference to samizdat video of a protest march. The Iranian authorities have banned press coverage of the demonstrations and are trying to suppress all information about the dissent:

For the third day in a row, supporters of (opposition candidate Mir Hussein) Moussavi massed in silence, from Hafteh Tir Square, with photographs and samizdat video showing a sea of people at least tens of thousands strong.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, samizdat means:

• 1a. The secret publication and distribution of government-banned literature in the former Soviet Union.
• 1b. The literature produced by this system.
• 2. An underground press.

Samizdat is Russian, coming from sam, meaning self, + izdatel’stvo, meaning publishing house.

I think the NYT story should have given context for the word. Aren’t the photos also samizdat? It could read as though it is a style of video, not a form of journalism.

But maybe I don’t recognize it because I grew up mostly after the Cold War ended? Does this word look more familiar to any of my Baby Boomer or Gen-X readers?

Here’s a link to the video.

The Boston Globe’s language columnist, Jan Freeman, wrote this Sunday about the changing meaning of the word chauvinism. I enjoy her column a lot, and I was surprised and pleased to see that she cited my blog post about chauvinism as the starting point for her column. It discusses chauvinism and two other words and phrases whose meanings changed: “cut bait” and “scan.” She also talks about how language changes:

People who object to such language changes sometimes say, “Just because everyone does it, that doesn’t make it right.” But what’s true about speeding or tax fiddling does not apply to language change; if everyone does it, that does, eventually, make it right. Often, we don’t even notice that a meaning is changing; older speakers use a word one way, younger ones a different way, but not so different that it sets off alarms.

John McIntyre talked about this over at You Don’t Say yesterday (That’s how I was alerted to the Globe column, which I missed this week):

Language becomes what its users collectively make of it. That is how Anglo-Saxon was transformed into English, mainly by a rabble of illiterate peasants, and no one should be sorry about that.

UPDATE: Since it has sparked a few mentions in the comments, here’s Jan Freeman’s further discussion of “cut bait” on her blog.

Question today for the readers:

Is the verb  gyp – meaning to cheat, defraud or swindle — offensive?

Read on and share your thoughts in the comments.

I was out with some friends last night, and one of them said something about getting gypped. Another said he shouldn’t say that because it is an ethnic slur. He said “Oh yeah, I forgot” and that was that.

But I kept thinking about it. I’d also forgotten that there was a question of gyp’s offensiveness. I was talking to my wife about it on the ride home, and I couldn’t decide if it was a word worth fighting over, or even if it really was offensive.

I went through five or six dictionaries this morning, and all of them say that gyp is “probably” or “perhaps” short for Gypsy, and a few date it as a late 19th century Americanism. (An older use of gyp, dating to the mid 18th century in England, was for a college servant.) Gypsies are an ethnic group, not just a lifestyle as some think. (UPDATE: As Cherie B points out in the comments, Gypsies refer to themselves as the Romany, something I knew but forgot. I’ve changed later references in this post to reflect that.)

But is gyp offensive because of its probable origin? It’s a tough question, especially because there is another word that has the same meaning that is unquestionably offensive: jew. As in “he got jewed” or “to jew someone down.” When I as in college, there was once a pretty intense confrontation over this when someone used jew this way during a discussion in one of my classes.

Interestingly, the Webster’s New World College Dictionary gives the definition of  jew as a verb as: “to swindle; cheat; gyp.” It then notes that using jew as a verb this way “is a vulgar and offensive usage, even when the speaker or writer is not consciously expressing an antisemitic attitude.” All of the standard dictionaries that have an entry on jew as a verb have similar notes that say it is offensive; none of them say anything about gyp.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage also warns against using jew as a verb, but does have an entry on gyp:

For some time there has been a tendency to call attention to oneself or one’s group by taking public umbrage at some term or another as an ethnic slur. The verb gyp, reports Safire in 1986, is one of those words. Gyp, which means “to cheat or swindle,” is probably derived from a noun that is probably short for Gypsy. This is a fairly remote derivation to take offense at, and we have no evidence that gyp is ever used in an ethnically derogatory way. But since a few have taken offense, it is likely that others will follow. You should at least be aware that the issue has been raised and that sensitivities are now keener in this area than perhaps they were formerly. The verb, incidentally, is an Americanism of late 19th century origin.

So MWDEU doesn’t like political correctness. Leaving that argument aside, the tone of the entry is fairly condescending. You could replace the word gyp with the word jew in it and make mostly the same argument (it’s derived from a noun that is short for Jewish person), with one key exception. There is plenty of evidence that jew is used in an ethnically derogatory way. I don’t think people in the U.S. ever think of Romany when they say gyp.

But does that make it OK? Is gyp not thought of as offensive because there just aren’t many Romany in America, or if there are, because they are mostly invisible? (Remember, this is an Americanism.) After writing all of this, I think I’d lean toward being careful about using gyp or not using it at all. It’s a word that equates a group of people with stealing as much as jew does. I don’t think I’d like it if it “to get irished” meant to get drunk. And I think it’s hard to make the argument against jew as a verb on the one hand and for gyp as a verb on the other.

What do you think?

I have no idea why this is, but I have thought for my whole life that the word dilemma had a silent n in it and was spelled dilemna. So when I was editing a story last night and saw it spelled the correct way, I pulled out my dictionary to check, and of course, discovered that I was mistaken about the n.

Though there’s no dispute over its spelling, there is dispute over how the word dilemma should be used.

Here are the definitions from Merriam-Webster Online:

• 1. an argument presenting two or more equally conclusive alternatives against an opponent
• 2a. a usually undesirable or unpleasant choice
• 2b. a situation involving such a choice
• 3a. a problem involving a difficult choice
• 3b. a difficult or persistent problem

The American Heritage Dictionary labels the senses other than the first as a “usage problem” because of the word’s etymology: “Late Latin, from Late Greek dilēmmat-, dilēmma, probably back-formation from Greek dilēmmatos involving two assumptions, from di-, meaning two, + lēmmat-, lēmma, meaning assumption,” from M-W Online.

AHD says in a usage note:

In its main sense dilemma refers to a situation in which a choice must be made between alternative courses of action or argument. Although citational evidence attests to widespread use of the term meaning simply “a problem” or “a predicament” and involving no issue of choice, 74 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the sentence Juvenile drug abuse is the great dilemma of the 1980s. It is sometimes claimed that because the di– in dilemma comes from a Greek prefix meaning “two,” the word should be used only when exactly two choices are involved. Nevertheless, 64 percent of the Usage Panel accepts its use for choices among three or more options.

How nice of the usage panel.

Garner’s Modern American Usage agrees: “This word should not be used by slipshod extension for plight or predicament.“

M-W Online disagrees in its own usage note:

Although some commentators insist that dilemma be restricted to instances in which the alternatives to be chosen are equally unsatisfactory, their concern is misplaced; the unsatisfactoriness of the options is usually a matter of how the author presents them. What is distressing or painful about a dilemma is having to make a choice one does not want to make. The use of such adjectives as terrible, painful, and irreconcilable suggests that dilemma is losing some of its unpleasant force. There also seems to be a tendency especially in sense 3b toward applying the word to less weighty problems <solved their goaltending dilemma>

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage agrees with M-W Online in a nearly two-page entry that traces the word’s evolution and later objections against that evolution by usage giant H.W. Fowler. The M-W Usage entry concludes:

Dilemma, in the senses extended from the original application to argument, has never been as restricted in meaning as Fowler and his his successors have wished it to become. Its further extension to instances in which no alternatives are expressed or implied had become the prevailing use int he 20th century, even though disapproved of by Fowler and two leading usage panels. Your use of the word in the sense of problem or predicament should not be a concern — even E.B. White used it that way.

I tend to agree with the more permissive stance on dilemma, especially if it has become the predominant usage as M-W says. You can object to the evolution of something all you want, but that won’t change the fact that it’s evolved.

This month’s Wired magazine had an article about Google’s underlying economic model, which relies on instant auctions to put related advertisements on search results. It used a word I hadn’t heard before:

“The theory was Google as yenta—matchmaker,” said Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist.

Varian’s definition comes from the character Yente in “Fiddler on the Roof,” who was a matchmaker.  But yenta, or yente, is originally a Yiddish word that means “A person, especially a woman, who is meddlesome or gossipy,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary and other sources I found.

I found an offhand reference or two while Googling yenta that said the word also took on the matchmaker meaning after the Broadway debut of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Here’s the American Heritage etymology: From the “Yiddish yente, back-formation from the woman’s name Yente, alteration of Yentl, from Old Italian Gentile, from gentile, meaning amiable, highborn, from Latin gentilis, meaning of the same clan.”

As always when it comes to Yiddish, I welcome corrections for any misinterpretation I might have introduced.

I am reading “Lord of Light,” a science-fiction book by Roger Zelazny. It’s about a planet where the human inhabitants live in a primitive culture that is ruled by a pantheon of Hindu “gods” who are really people with incredibly advanced technology.

In the book, one of the main god characters, Sam, speaks to a group of followers about the nature and limitations of words, the naming of things, and how words relate to the things they name. Here’s a longish, but interesting, excerpt:

Names are not important. To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, ‘What is it like, this thing you have seen?’ So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, ‘It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.’ Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it ‘fire.’

If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant. Therefore, ‘fire’ does not matter, ‘earth’ and ‘air’ and ‘water’ do not matter. ‘I’ do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. The thing that has never happened before is still happening. It is still a miracle. The great burning blossom squats, flowing, upon the limb of the world, excreting the ash of the world, and being none of these things I have named and at the same time all of them, and this is reality — the Nameless.

I don’t agree that words don’t matter, because being able to describe reality, even in the abstract, is important. But experiencing the world is important too, because it gives meaning to the words.

This is an important idea when talking about writing, both in newspapers and other places. One writing cliche is “Show, don’t tell.” It’s much better to give details that tell the story, rather than just describing things.

The New York Times’ Dexter Filkins, who is one of my favorite reporters, is a master of this. One example was cited in last week’s “After Deadline” NYT critique:

Dexter Filkins demonstrated the power of showing, not telling, to make a point, ending his story about U.S. military efforts against opium in Afghanistan with this sharp vignette (Foreign, 4/29):

But the trickiest thing will be winning over the Afghans themselves. The Taliban are entrenched in the villages and river valleys of southern Afghanistan. The locals, caught between the foes, seem, at best, to be waiting to see who prevails.

On their way to Zangabad, the soldiers stopped in a wheat field to talk to a local farmer. His name was Ahmetullah. The Americans spoke through a Pashto interpreter.

“I’m very happy to see you,’’ the farmer told the Americans.

“Really?’’ one of the soldiers asked.

“Yes,’’ the farmer said.

The interpreter sighed, and spoke in English.

“He’s a liar.’’