Learning something every day...

[fajrdrako]

I foolishly think I have a good vocabulary, but every once in a while I get a shock. The word of the day from the Oxford English Dictionary was 'transpire'. I thought I knew what that meant; I really did. I thought it meant 'to occur, to happen'. Hah! I was wrong. It turns out that this is a misuse. The actually meaning is " To emit or cause to pass in the state of vapour through the walls or surface of a body".

I am shocked and stunned.

The moral: never take any word for granted.

On the plus side, I learned "enantodromia" a week ago and I still remember it.

Comments

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Google saieth:

Definitions of transpire on the Web:

* pass through the tissue or substance or its pores or interstices, as of gas
* exude water vapor; "plants transpire"
* come to light; become known; "It transpired that she had worked as spy in East Germany"
* come about, happen, or occur; "Several important events transpired last week"
* give off (water) through the skin

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this is an example of the evolution of meeting? I am relieved that I wasn't entirely wrong!

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Primary meaning is as defined. Secondary meaning is as normally used, by the same metaphorical process as secrets or information "leaking out"

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

"Became known"? That actually makes it a very useful word!

[dargie.livejournal.com]

It's not a misuse. Websters lists the following definitions (albeit behind the one you quoted):

3 a : to be revealed : come to light b : to become known or apparent : DEVELOP
4 : to take place : GO ON, OCCUR

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You set my mind at rest! I was finding it hard to think that I had accepted a misuse ... especially when Dorothy Dunnett did the same. And I usually find that Dorothy Dunnett's use of words and ideas always turns out to be right, even when some might think it an error.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

I have tremendous faith in Dorothy's use of language.

Did someone jump on you for it? Someone once corrected my use of "Laissez les bon temps rouler" telling me that it was "Laissez les bons temps un rouler." and he knew because he lived in New Orleans. I asked around and nobody agreed with him, not the folks I knew who visited NOLA or even lived there, not the Mardi Gras sites which had the phrase up on their websites. No one. People are strange.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I've never heard "Laissez les bons temps un rouler", which doesn't even make sense - not that Cajun speech needs to make a lot of sense compared to more standard French, but surely it would be (if it were anything) "Laissez les bons temps en rouler?" - but it isn't that, and I have an apron and a tote bag to prove it - souvenires of my trip to New Orleans for the Dunnett gathering there.

So some people just have funny ideas about language usage, and sometimes it's just something that they say themselves that they think is universal, but it isn't.

Sometimes I think we all have our own private languages in our head, that are close to English (or whatever) but never quite an exact fit. And that's without even allowing for accents and dialects.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

I think you're right. I have often remarked that someone I knew used the word "phantom" instead of "fathom" as in "I can't phantom how that could be true." and I can't tell you how many people nod and say "Yeah I know someone who does that, too."

I expect that's how English keeps evolving. I used to be a real language Nazi until I realized that the fluidity of English is one of the reasons why it's still fresh and vital. But here's a chicken/egg question for you, and I don't expect an answer, it's just something to ponder: We know that language helps to shape the way we think, so is English the thing that makes us the sort of people who are linguistic acrobats, or is the English language what it is today because so many speakers of the language over the centuries have been either brilliant language jugglers, or have turned mistaken notions about useage into fact by repetition?

Bingo ...

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

That last notion of yours is actually quite well accepted among many linguists. See the definition of the word "idiolect (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=idiolect)" as an example (or is that exemplar?) of this concept. As for dargie's comment preceding mine, I'd say *both* language juggling and "mistakes into fact" have played a role -- examples of the latter are "turkey" and "indian." What saddens me is that we have now lost any tolerance for language juggling that our ancestors had -- the development of spell-checker programs together with the prior establishment of RP [received pronunciation] English in Great Britain has caused English on both sides of the Atlantic to suffer increasing ossification. If I'm correct, that means that North American English is a Microsoft product ... perish the thought!

Re: Bingo ...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I can see a value of establishing a standardized form of a language - I personally seem to lose a lot of communication value when complications such as accents, jargon, unusual words or odd tonality come into place. For the first few weeks I lived in England I kept missing what people said, not because of the way they said their words, or the words they used, but becuase the intonation was different. Equally I have trouble understanding people with pronounced acents in English, particularly if they come from Virginia, India, or Newfoundland. While I've never had a problem understanding someone from Scotland or South Africa - I wonder why?

I think the 'tolerance for language juggling' of our ancestors was simply that they didn't have mass media, esecially broadcast media. The written word allows for more variation.

Spell-checker programs would be a good thing if there was ever one that knew the language properly. That being said, I've seen some spelling online that would make my hair curl - I guess spell-checkers must be a good thing!

I don't know if you've ever noticed, but I do speak slightly differently from other people - probably less so than I used to. When I was young, people often asked me what my accent was - they couldn't place it, but variously said I sounded "European" or "continental". In England they all thought I sounded Irish. I think my way of speaking came from learning much of my vocabulary through reading, or from not having a good ear for accents.

Re: Bingo ...

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I would realy realy hate the dictator who could freeze language into one universal mould. The life of Poets, philosphers and writers in general, who all live by twisting, tweaking and turning words, would be so much poorer. Life of us al!

Re: Bingo ...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Quite true - to be creative with language, you have to have flexibility and fluidity. And thank goodness we have that!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I worry about the misuses I may have put into Eden. But then I think that part of why I studied English was to rewrite it for myself...

Having spent way too long asking as to whether 'the King' should be capitalized or not and getting two million different answers, I resorted to just writing it how I liked it and letting editors fuss, lol.

I agree that we often seem to have our own private languages in our head!

The King

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Capitalizing or not capitalizing 'the king' has been an issue for me, too. I tend to prefer the capital, especially when it is a king who is a specific character in the story who is being referred to. I think it's one of those many questions where the real answer is stylistic.... Though people will argue all sorts of reasons for their own answer to be right.

Re: The King

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have capitalized it because it just looks right to me.

Re: The King

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm with you, but don't hold me to it!

Re: The King

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Charles I demands it. :p

Re: The King

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yeah... he would!

Re: The King

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Not to mention Louis XIV.

Re: The King

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

...But he surely is le Roi.

Re: The King

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

That too, lol.

[ceruleancat.livejournal.com]

It's not a misuse but a legit meaning. I'm not sure whether it's an extension of another use or an independent development though, both of which are the natural state of things, linguistically. What the distinctions are between a misuse and acceptable divergence of meaning is an interesting question.
Of course, dictionaries are one of the things that limits the pace of language change either intentionally, due to editorial views, or simply because they are printed, and therefore less easily updatable (this last one might not be in the dictionary, but is perfectly acceptable use of a productive paradigm...).

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to see what divergences and difference you find in different dictionaries - especially between Canadian, British and American usage. (I suspect usage in Australia, India, South Africa, and other English-speaking places varies too, I'm just not so familiar with them.)

There are also fashions in language like euphemisms and jargon and fad words. Computers have greatly changed the language I use and hear in the past twenty years, and scientific words that were previously unknown are in common usage - 'genome', for example.