A Note on Nuance

[and some big style news]

So there I was, about to comment publicly that a New York Times op-ed was “meretricious junk,”¹ when it occurred to me, with a sudden lurching instinct for self-preservation of the sort I wish made itself known to me more frequently, like when I bite into something that “tastes funny,” to pause and look up the word “meretricious.”

Which is how I learned (or perhaps reminded myself of something I’d forgotten, which happens more and more these days as I glide toward old age) that meretriciousness² isn’t simply junkiness but attractive, flashy junkiness. As is, by the bye,³ tawdriness.

In the case of this particular op-ed, there was absolutely nothing attractive to be found in it, not even in a sequin- and spangle-covered fashion, so I withdrew my “meretricious” and simply called the wee essay what I thought it was: junk. (Omit needless words, and all that.)

I think that we sometimes infer meaning from context—especially repeated, familiar context—with somewhat shaky actual understanding, so I’m not particularly surprised that I somehow, at some point long ago, missed the boat of meaning on “meretricious” and simply took it as a nice little emphasizer for garbage.

Similarly, occasional references to “coruscating wit” have led over time to the ongoing redefinition of “coruscating,” which simply means “sparkling,” to mean—because, I suppose, what is wit if it is not critical, pointed, wounding?—“scathing,” “corrosive,” “excoriating,” etc. Which, I assert, it doesn’t mean, even if that’s what it looks like it means.⁴

Back to “meretricious,” though, it’s a lovely word, don’t you think? And your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is now to spend a little time with the dictionary and/or the thesaurus and other wonderfully finger-pointing words like “specious,” “spurious,” “tendentious,” and all of their cousins, all of which (I think) sound like what they mean but each of which is nuantially⁵ different from the others.⁶

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Meanwhile, the big editorial news of the day is that the forthcoming 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style will, amid myriad evolutions and improvements (and a couple of things I don’t care for at all, but that’s the way it goes), endorse the practice of capitalizing the first letter of the first word of a complete sentence that follows a colon.

This delights me, not least because it’s the way I was taught to do it and the way I’ve always done it. Or, to quote myself, another thing I find myself increasingly doing as I age:

1. Which one?, you may be asking. Oh, come now, take your pick.

2. I’ll leave you to look up, at/in the dictionary of your choice, the word’s ancestry in discussions of prostitution.

3. If you just had a moment of “‘By the bye,’ really?,” I’m happy to let you know that it’s as correct as, if far less popular than, the standard-issue ‘by the by.” Given the choice between something standard-issue and something eyebrow-raising, I have a tendency to opt for the latter.

4. Those who subscribe to the notion that all alterations in language are charming and adorable and to be merrily applauded, as if language is a rambunctious toddler clobbering the local cat, may assert that if lots and lots of people think that “coruscating” means “scathingly critical,” then that’s what it means. I do not so subscribe, and we can discuss, in this vein, the increasing uselessness of “nonplussed” and “bemused” at some point in the future, and I’m sure we will.

5. I once thought that I’d coined the word “nuantial,” but it turns out that someone(s) beat me to it. Perhaps if I keep using it I can get it into the dictionary.

6. Addendum posted 21 April 2024, mostly for my own later use: The other day I ran across a use of the word “meretricious” that absolutely puzzled me till I realized that the writer thought that the word means “with merit.” Well, that’s a new one. Unfortunately I forgot to keep track of where I saw it….