Oh my Lord, so did I. It was a Wodehouse passage, I think. I was deducing the meaning from context. Maybe in one of his golf stories? I'm not going to tell you how old I was when I finally looked it up and discovered my error, because my age was 37 and I'm a wee bit embarrassed it took me so long.
The eighth (by my count) graf is such a glorious festival of polysyllabism both for its own sonorous sake and because each word that could have been replaced by a simpler choice is so clearly superior to any of the more pedestrian alternatives.
That transition from nonplussed to hoi polloi is a thing of beauty. (And performative language is a big thing in my world, I may write about it sometime in connection with phrases like “This is My body” and “I absolve you of your sins,” etc.)
I'm usually reasonably quick on the uptake, but the first time I ever encountered that usage of "performative," someone had to explain it to me, like, three times.
I've allowed myself to embrace "alright" only in peevish exclamations like "Alright already, I'll be down in a second." Otherwise I firmly believe that the kids are all right.
As long as they are not "alt right", we should be fine. I hasten to add that the "alt" portion seems entirely quaint now that fascism is being mainstreamed and is thus the "right" is not very "alt" at all.
‘Bemused’ drives me mad but I do wish there were a very specific word for what people often think it means. Unless there is and I don’t know it, which is likely.
Is there a difference between a "performative utterance" and a "speech act?" I ask because when I married my wife, our internet-enabled officiant pronounced, at my request, "Shazam!" What have I done? xxoo to lovely Sallie, and to lovely you as well.
That TNR article was the first time I'd ever heard "nonplussed" used that way. I went straight to Merriam-Webster and came away dismayed. "Up" is "down" now in so many things in this country. This was one thing too many. I needed your little rant.
But it sounds like they went out of their way to restate the term, which seems winky.
All these terms — bemused, nonplussed, bimonthly — are what Garner calls "skunked": you can be sure what you mean when you write them, but you can't be sure what meaning a reader will interpret. Hence a standard editorial suggestion: avoid.*
As a kind of aside, I remember the older? meaning of "nonplussed" as a fancy Latin way of saying "can't even".
* There are editorial contexts in which it might be ok to stet such a term and leave it to the reader to look it up and learn something, dammit. But I never worked under this protocol; for us, "if the reader needs to look up a word, you lose".
Perhaps Donald Trump is nonplussed because he’s being surplussed.
Next, I’m hoping, plus fours and/or petit fours. Or fours majeure. (I should have resisted that.)
You can, I've been reliably informed, resist everything and anything but temptation.
Indeed, for I am (notoriously) Wilde at heart.
Up for an Oscar!
Fore!
Heretofore.
Been heretofore, done theretofore.
You and I established together that we both originally thought that plus fours were shoes, right? (Because if you didn't, I did.)
Your memory is entirely correct.
Oh my Lord, so did I. It was a Wodehouse passage, I think. I was deducing the meaning from context. Maybe in one of his golf stories? I'm not going to tell you how old I was when I finally looked it up and discovered my error, because my age was 37 and I'm a wee bit embarrassed it took me so long.
What I foolishly took to be plus fours were, in fact, the improbably named co-respondent shoes.
Fours majeure are very large cakes, right?
Fourtunately … because I’m hungry.
And may the fours be with you.
You mean all those Jedi were saying "Let them eat cake"??
Oh boy, you’ve excelled yourself today—Coinage of the Realm!
“[C]lodhoppered foot” — somehow now I’m transported back to my uneasy childhood watching Red Skelton on the (black-and-white tv), Clem Kadiddlehopper!
The eighth (by my count) graf is such a glorious festival of polysyllabism both for its own sonorous sake and because each word that could have been replaced by a simpler choice is so clearly superior to any of the more pedestrian alternatives.
I'm increasingly incorrigible, I find, and perhaps someone should corrige me instanter.
But first, porridge!
If you deliberately put "count" next to "graf", then I congratulate you heartily. If you accidentally did so, then I congratulate you serendipitously.
And I congratulate you peripatetically
If not peripherally.
That transition from nonplussed to hoi polloi is a thing of beauty. (And performative language is a big thing in my world, I may write about it sometime in connection with phrases like “This is My body” and “I absolve you of your sins,” etc.)
I'm usually reasonably quick on the uptake, but the first time I ever encountered that usage of "performative," someone had to explain it to me, like, three times.
Everything is going to be alright. All right?
I've allowed myself to embrace "alright" only in peevish exclamations like "Alright already, I'll be down in a second." Otherwise I firmly believe that the kids are all right.
As long as they are not "alt right", we should be fine. I hasten to add that the "alt" portion seems entirely quaint now that fascism is being mainstreamed and is thus the "right" is not very "alt" at all.
Right as reign.
Indeed, in these dark and troublesome times, words can bring light. Light laughter … and revelations lite.
Exhilerating perfection. It almost makes me suspect the use of some potentially dangerous, performative-enhancing essay steroid.
I’m glad you didn’t misuse “begs the question.” I couldn’t sanction that. I’d be sanctioned if I did.
‘Bemused’ drives me mad but I do wish there were a very specific word for what people often think it means. Unless there is and I don’t know it, which is likely.
I think that if you want to say “wryly amused,” you should and have to say it.
But no, I don’t think there’s a one-word mot juste, alas.
Is there a difference between a "performative utterance" and a "speech act?" I ask because when I married my wife, our internet-enabled officiant pronounced, at my request, "Shazam!" What have I done? xxoo to lovely Sallie, and to lovely you as well.
An excellent and principled way to draw the line. And please do not ever stop dropping footnotes.
Re note 2: Your enrollment in the Squad Squad is being added to our rolls. Until it arrives, you may positively style yourself a Nattering Nabob.
It does seem as if they were flaunting their flouting.
That TNR article was the first time I'd ever heard "nonplussed" used that way. I went straight to Merriam-Webster and came away dismayed. "Up" is "down" now in so many things in this country. This was one thing too many. I needed your little rant.
The redefinition goes back a few decades, but I don’t think I’d ever before seen the word used that way in what I like to think of as edited prose.
But it sounds like they went out of their way to restate the term, which seems winky.
All these terms — bemused, nonplussed, bimonthly — are what Garner calls "skunked": you can be sure what you mean when you write them, but you can't be sure what meaning a reader will interpret. Hence a standard editorial suggestion: avoid.*
As a kind of aside, I remember the older? meaning of "nonplussed" as a fancy Latin way of saying "can't even".
* There are editorial contexts in which it might be ok to stet such a term and leave it to the reader to look it up and learn something, dammit. But I never worked under this protocol; for us, "if the reader needs to look up a word, you lose".