Althouse: language

Showing posts with label language. Show all posts

January 19, 2026

"'Choiceful,' a term that started becoming popular among executives a few years ago...."

Last May, for example, Rick Gomez, the chief commercial officer of Target, said that 'consumers have been choiceful in their buying decisions.' In November, he used the term again, saying that 'guests are choiceful, stretching budgets and prioritizing value.' Tony Spring, the chief executive of Macy’s, discussed 'the reality of a more choiceful consumer' on the company’s earnings call in December, using the term four times during the call...."

From "No One’s Buying? Maybe Consumers Are Just 'Choiceful,' Executives Say. A new way to characterize unenthusiastic consumers has overtaken earnings calls" (NYT).

We already had the word "choosy." I think what we're talking about is being choosy where one of the options is to choose nothing at all.

There are some really old examples of "choiceful" in the OED, but they're about having a wide array of choices and not holding back from choosing. And even "choosy" lacks the connotation these executives are trying convey. They're saying people are averse to buying at all. I think the best word is "frugal."

January 14, 2026

"But to me, a question lingers: Why?"

Writes Justice Gorsuch, concurring, alone, in William Trevor Case v. Montana, issued this morning, which held that "police officers generally do not violate a person’s Fourth Amendment rights when they enter his house without a warrant, but with an 'objectively reasonable basis' for believing someone inside is in physical danger and in need of immediate aid."

Does the Fourth Amendment tolerate this limited emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement just because five or more Justices of this Court happen to believe that such entries are “reasonable”? Or is this exception more directly “tied to the law”? Carpenter v. United States, 585 U. S. 296, 397 (2018) (GORSUCH, J., dissenting). The answer, I believe, is the latter.

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January 11, 2026

"We've seen it since the 1960s.... Police violence lands on this country in a tinderbox fashion."

"And so what is so important for leaders to do in that circumstance is: to obviously lament the lives lost, pledge an independent transparent investigation, and pledge to... seek justice no matter where it leads.... It strikes me that the exact opposite of that is what has occurred. And immediately after [Renee Good] was killed, she was called a domestic terrorist, very publicly. There are people who then accuse the cop of murder, very publicly, right off the bat. That is pouring gasoline on this situation, and it's horrific.... This incredible rush to judgment results in fixed positions about complicated matters.... And then... there's this assertion, well, this is completely your fault because... when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life. No, no, no, no. That is not what a free society says. We should respect officers... but it is simply not the case that... your right to your life depends on compliance with federal officials.... It's dangerous to drive away from the police. You should not drive away from the police. But under no circumstances is America a country where the command should be obey the men and women in uniform or your life is forfeit. That's not the standard of the United States of America."

Says David French on the new episode of the Advisory Opinions podcast (transcript and audio at Podscribe).

ADDED: If you are questioning the usage in the phrase "or your life is forfeit," know that C.S. Lewis used in in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (full text at Gutenberg):

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January 10, 2026

2 words I didn't expect to read in a biography of John Quincy Adams.

It took me literally a year to read James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned), but I have finally come to the end. Speaking of the end, JQA's famous last words were "This is the end of earth."

JQA:MS is not the only book I read in the past year, but it is the one I spaced out the most.

Anyway, here are 2 passages each with a surprising word that I will render in boldface:

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January 4, 2026

"'The task in front of him is stupefying,' said a senior U.S. official, noting the dizzying array of policy decisions related to energy, elections, sanctions and security that await."

"This person, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to respond freely. The moment marks the realization of a long-held goal for Rubio, who has voiced his criticisms of Maduro and desire for change in Venezuela for well over a decade. Those who have worked closely with Rubio, whose parents left Cuba before the Communist takeover in 1959, say the issues of the region are close to his heart. 'Marco’s parents’ experience … is hardwired in him,' said Cesar Conda, a Republican strategist who worked as the former senator’s chief of staff between 2011 and 2014.... His Spanish proficiency, familiarity with Latin American leaders and the Venezuelan opposition make him a natural point man for Trump, said another senior U.S. official...."

From "Rubio takes on most challenging role yet: Viceroy of Venezuela/The top U.S. diplomat has pushed for regime change for over a decade. Now the hard part begins" (WaPo).

WaPo's use of the word "viceroy" expresses its own opinion — though few readers will have any idea what that opinion is and many will mistake it for an official title that has been given to Rubio. It's not.

Wikipedia says: "A viceroy is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning 'in the place of' and the Anglo-Norman roy (Old French roi, roy), meaning "king.' This denotes the position as one who acts on behalf of a king or monarch. A viceroy's territory may be called a viceroyalty...."

I guess this is raw meat for the "no kings" crowd. But then again, maybe it's just a tidbit for those of us who enjoy alliteration: Viceroy of Venezuela. Maybe "governor" is a more appropriate word, but save that for the Washington Post headline when we take over Greenland. Just an alliteration joke. I think the right answer is that no title at all is appropriate for what Rubio is doing and a descriptive phrase like "who is taking the lead role" is best.

December 12, 2025

"Why everything is ‘aesthetic’ to Gen Z and Alpha/'Aesthetic' is now an adjective and a one-word compliment. Why does it still sound wrong to older ears?"

That headline at the Washington Post sent me right to the OED to see when "aesthetic" first became an adjective.

The relevant meaning is "Of a thing: in accordance with principles of artistic beauty or taste; giving or designed to give pleasure through beauty; of pleasing appearance." The OED traces that back to the 1800s:

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December 7, 2025

"The famous party slogan in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' was 'Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.'"

"Orwell’s proposal that totalitarianism demands the rejection of objective truth and the alteration of the past is perhaps the most original idea in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.'... 'The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc [English socialism]. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts, the world is either standing still or going backwards.' And the very medium of thought, in Orwell’s reckoning, language, would be crippled. Winston’s co-worker, employed in the project, explains: 'Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year? … In the end we will make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.' What actually happened?... This logarithmic graph shows that in 1948, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was about 29,000 pages. Its final printed edition, in 2010, had 33,000. Today most of us rely on Wikipedia (despite its occasional errors and editing wars), which as of last year had the equivalent of 3.2 million Britannica pages, a hundredfold increase...."

Writes Steven Pinker, in "1984 revisited: George Orwell would be relieved at how we’ve done/It’s common to suggest the great dystopian novel was full of warnings that have largely come true. But the evidence shows otherwise" (London Times).

"People often ask her how, as a famous person, she still takes the Tube, but the reason why is simple — nobody is looking up from their phones."

"'It’s heartbreaking,' she says. 'Nobody’s looking into the f***ing world any more.'"

From "Kate Winslet: ‘Young women have no concept of what being beautiful is’/At 50, the actress doesn’t care what people think of her any more. She lets rip about social media, weight-loss drugs — and why it has taken her so long to become a director" (London Times).

I don't like the expression "let rip." It's too reminiscent of "rip one." But let's read this OED entry for "to let rip." which is defined as "to act or proceed without restraint; (also) to speak violently," which I don't for one minute believe that Kate Winslet did, even as she chided women for — whatever — lip injections and Ozempic.

The first of the historical quotes comes from California in 1857 and gives some insight into the court system:

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November 30, 2025

"rage bait" — "online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative or offensive."

It's the Oxford University Press "Word of the Year" (the NYT reports).

The runners up were "biohack" and "aura farming."

I've never used (or quoted) the phrase "rage bait" or "aura farming."

I did quote "biohack" once. The context was the use of an IV to fend off a hangover. I commented: "Drinking is funny until it's not. Does this IV bag extend the funny phase or expedite the tragic? The need to say things like 'self-care,' 'virtuous aftercare,' and 'biohack' sounds desperate, but that can be part of the funny, especially for the drunkards."

November 18, 2025

"How do we squash the prejudice against female presidential nominees, which has always been with us, but became even worse after Kamala Harris got whomped by Donald Trump?"

Asks Gail Collins in a column with a title that asks a different question, "Where, oh Where, Will the First Female President Come From?"

Maybe it would be better to ask this other question, my question: When will we ever get to evaluate a female presidential candidate as just another presidential candidate? We've been nudged too many times to pick the woman because she is a woman. It makes people wary. I mean, really, why was Kamala Harris foisted on us?

So, yeah, she got "whomped." I'm collecting these colorful words that make losing seem violent but also fun. I'm thinking of George W. Bush taking what he called a "thumping" in the 2006 midterms, and Obama, after the 2010 midterms, saying he'd experienced "a shellacking."

Gail Collins is talking about whomping and squashing. Brutal words, but still polite. Euphemisms.

What's the etymology of "whomp"? It's the sound. A heavy, low sound. From the OED, quoting a 1960 issue of New Scientist: "The Sunday edition of the New York Times..whomped to the floor outside my apartment door."

October 31, 2025

"When people say it, they’re not just repeating a meme; they’re shouting a feeling. It’s one of the first words of the year that works as an interjection..."

"... a burst of energy that spreads and connects people long before anyone agrees on what it actually means."

Says Steve Johnson, "director of lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group," quoted in "'6 7' is Dictionary’s word of the year. What does it say about society? A phrase coined by the rapper Skrilla has swept social media, delighting teenagers and puzzling their parents" (London Times).

Perfect for our time, don't you think? A vocalization whose meaning is no meaning, shouted out repeatedly because it is shouted out repeatedly, that is, it's meme. But it is not just a meme — we're told — because it's a feeling, the feeling of repeating what has already been repeated.

I remember the old days, when words had meaning:

October 29, 2025

"It is especially amusing to hear progressives, the principal creators of the watery Caesarism of today’s presidency, sorrowfully describing Trump’s ballroom..."

"... as discordant with the White House’s proper modesty. They should worry less about the president’s residential immodesty and more about his anti-constitutional immodesty.

Writes George Will, in "The choreographed fakery of American politics: East Wing edition/Trump’s residential immodesty is nothing compared with his anti-constitutional immodesty" (WaPo).

I wondered if anyone had written "watery Caesarism" before. It sounds like a bad salad. A real salad, not a word salad. Don't put the dressing on until you're about to eat it. Anyway, "watery Caesarism" did turn up on a few old web pages, but — are you surprised? — they're all written by George Will!

1992: "Trouble is, most presidents are mediocre.

watery Caesarism of today’s presidency, sorrowfully describing Trump’s ballroom..."'>Click for more »

October 25, 2025

Nil admirari.

Nil admirari is today's Word of the Day in the Oxford English Dictionary. I ran across it because, writing the previous post, I looked up the word "sunder," after David Axelrod had accused Donald Trump of "sundering history." It's an odd word, but it's not the most apt word. Sundering has more to do with separating than demolition. And how do you do either to history?

But I was glad to get deflected into the OED, because I'm finding out about Nil admirari: "The attitude of indifference to the distractions of the outside world advocated by the Roman poet Horace. Also: a person adopting this attitude."

Etymology: "classical Latin nīl admīrārī, in nil admirari prope res est una..quae possit facere et servare beatum, ‘to wonder at nothing is just about the only way a man can become contented and remain so’ (Horace Epistles 1. 6. 1).

From the Wikipedia article about the term: "Nietzsche wrote that in this proposition the ancient philosopher 'sees the whole of philosophy,' opposing it to Schopenhauer's 'admirari id est philosophari' (to marvel is to philosophize)."

Here's the Horace:

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October 16, 2025

Name a song that you've heard hundreds of times but you finally one day just played of your own volition.

For me, this morning, it's "Black Water" by The Doobie Brothers. I don't think I'd ever played a Doobie Brothers song on my own.

It's odd the way old songs that used to be pushed at you endlessly on the radio drift back to mind. I was just thinking about the word "backwater" — not "black water" — after it came up in a podcast: "He suggested that the horde ride west and toward a previously unexplored land that sat on the periphery of the world, a great peninsula jutting out of the Asian land mass, about which The Mongols knew little. These were the lands of Europe. Europe around the year 1200 was something of a backwater...."

"Backwater" began as a literal description of water: "A piece of water without current, lying more or less parallel to a river, and fed from it at the lower end by a back-flow" (OED). But we know it better figuratively: "A place or situation in which no development or progress is taking place." If you're trying to think of a song with "backwater," it might be "Backwater Blues."

September 30, 2025

Only one word?

1. "'Hypercharged' Is the Only Word for This Supreme Court" — headline for a NYT interview.

2. "The only word for this is 'transplendent'" — the Shelley Duvall character in "Annie Hall."

ADDED: This rhetoric is really a form of hyperbole. Surely there are other words... or what's a thesaurus for? I do think this device can be used well, but it can also be pretty silly. You can back yourself into a corner with a promise you can't keep, as in the perennially hilarious:

3. "America is a nation that can be defined in a single word: [????]" — Joe Biden.

September 26, 2025

"It didn’t have its spark. It didn’t have its distinctive definition in the lines, in the swirls. It just lost — it just lost its oomph...."

"You take the Twombly. I mean, to some people it just looks like fifth grade scribbles. To me it looks like a symphony orchestra."

Said Ronald Perelman, quoted in "Judge Rejects Ronald Perelman’s Claim That His Art Had Lost Its ‘Oomph’/The collector’s holding companies had sued his insurers for $400 million to cover paintings that they say had been damaged in a fire. The insurers said they had survived untouched" (NYT).

The OED traces "oomph" — "The quality of being exciting, energetic, or sexually attractive; energy, vigour" — back to 1937: "With actors, the 'it' quality has to do with their visual personality—sex appeal, magnetism, or whatever you care to call it. Back of the camera, we refer to the ingredient as 'umphh.'" The etymology is "An imitative or expressive formation." I presume what it is imitative of is sexual intercourse.

Meanwhile, you know Cy Twombly — pencil-scribbly things like this:

If the collector sensed oomph and the oomph is now gone — it's like the spark gone out of a love affair — how can he convey his anguish to the judge? His anguish, if any. Who's to believe it ever existed? How can you insure something so ineffable?

"Hughes’s libretto is full of smart, Maga-bashing one-liners, dodgy rhymes and contrived but nevertheless funny exchanges that (possibly) hold a mirror up to the weird actualite of family life in Trumpland."

"At one point we learn that the president has mistaken Melania’s body-double for his wife — with predictable consequences. The comedy isn’t subtle, but neither is its target."

From "Melania the Opera review — a sweary, funny first lady faces the music/The year is 2027 and Russia invades Slovenia: what would Melania do? The composer Jeremy Limb and singer Melinda Hughes dive into Trumpland in a smart, Maga-bashing piece" (London Times).

Is "actualite" a typo (for "actuality") or is the Times using the word the OED spells "actualité" (with an accent on the "e")? That word is defined as "An event from real life, a news item; (in plural) news, current affairs. Also: a work representing or recording such an event."

Among the quotes, from 1859, "the subject of her Saintship is not a matter of mere historical interest, but aspires to the dignity of an 'actualité.'"

September 23, 2025

Once more, I am the only martyr..."

"... in late night."

I would have advised Steven Colbert against using the word "martyr."

It is — at least for some of us — too evocative of the loss of Charlie Kirk. Why wouldn't you notice? Or did you notice and intend to make sport of it?

The OED has this as the oldest meaning of the English word "martyr":

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September 19, 2025

"Czechs agog as national archive prepares to open mysterious envelope sealed for 20 years."

CNN reports.

Today is the day!

What were the last words of the country’s revered first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk?...

The final thoughts of the statesman, who governed the Czechoslovak Republic from 1918 to 1935, are believed to have been recorded by his son Jan Masaryk just before his death in September 1937 and have been sealed in a letter ever since, according to Czech public radio, which has set up a special section of its website to cover the opening of the envelope on Friday.

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September 13, 2025

"The Communist Party believes in building enormous projects to boost the economy and burnish political prestige."

Dan Wang, author of "Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future," quoted in "China set to open world’s tallest bridge, expanding infrastructure push The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge can fit almost two Eiffel Towers under it and will be touted as evidence of China’s engineering prowess when it opens this month" (WaPo).

Last month, Premier Li Qiang stressed the need to “harness the exemplary and galvanizing role of megaprojects”....

Poor and inland provinces... have been the target of this effort as the central government has pushed a “strategic hinterland” strategy. Despite its isolation and relative poverty, Guizhou — roughly the size of Missouri — boasts an extensive infrastructure network, with 11 airports, tall bridges and new roads.

These megaprojects are “not bridges to nowhere,” [said Li Mingshui, a civil engineering professor at Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu]....

ADDED: Why is the unusual word "hinterland" used? It's a word I sometimes use but only jocosely. I call my own location (in Wisconsin) a "remote outpost" and l sometimes say things like "here in the hinterland." It's funny to me to see it in the bureaucratic, leadenly serious context. I know it's translation from Chinese, so that might explain the oddness of this usage.

I invited ChatGPT to engage with my observation, and it said:

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January 19, 2026

January 14, 2026

January 11, 2026

January 10, 2026

January 4, 2026

December 12, 2025

December 7, 2025

November 30, 2025

November 18, 2025

October 31, 2025

October 29, 2025

October 25, 2025

October 16, 2025

September 30, 2025

September 26, 2025

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September 13, 2025

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