Never mind
That thing about closed-minded versus close minded? Whaddya know, I was wrong.
The Online Etymology Dictionary tells the story:
close (adj.)
late 14c., “strictly confined,” also “secret,” from Old French clos “confined; concealed, secret; taciturn” (12c.), from Latin clausus “close, reserved,” past participle adjective from claudere “stop up, fasten, shut” (see close (v.)); main sense shifting to “near” (late 15c.) by way of “closing the gap between two things.” Related: Closely.
Meaning “narrowly confined, pent up” is late 14c. Meaning “near” in a figurative sense, of persons, from 1560s. Meaning “full of attention to detail” is from 1660s. Of contests, from 1855. Close call is from 1866, in a quotation in an anecdote from 1863, possibly a term from the American Civil War; close shave in the figurative sense is 1820, American English. Close range is from 1814. Close-minded is attested from 1818. Close-fisted “penurious, miserly” is from c. 1600.
Oh that “close.” I knew that but forgot about it. In the 16th century the close stool was the exciting new technology.
Props to Maureen Brian for alerting me.
listen, I still haven’t gotten past the loss of the silent ‘T’ in the word ‘often’ which was the law when I was first taught the word. Well, I’ve mostly gotten past it.
Luckily, my decree against literally=figuratively is still in effect. I’ll just go notify the rest of the world…
And Holms, while you’re at it, could you add a codicil to your decree on the topical of “I could care less”? Honestly, don’t people realize that says the opposite of what they mean? “COULDN’T care less” COULDN’T.
Then there’s the crying all the way to the bank becoming laughing all the way to the bank – I gave up on that one a long time ago.
I’m still unnerved by the insertion of an “l” in the pronunciation of “calm” and “folks.” I hear it all the time now.
the crying usually follows leaving the bank.
Holms@2:
I’m afraid that I have to tell you that the use of “literally” as an intensifier has a long and storied past, a firm hold on the present, and a front row seat in the future. Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, James Fenimore Cooper, Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Dryden, Pope, Dickens, Thoreau, and even Shakespeare have all used it that way. In other words, it’s not wrong. It’s no different than “really”, to be honest, an adverb that just means “real”, but which is used as an intensifier along the lines of “very” a really bigly* amount. Who would complain of a person on a hot summer’s day complaining that “this heat is so parching that I’m really dying of thirst” when all they want is a nice lemonade? Change that “really” to “literally”, however, and out come the torches and riot mobs. Literally.
:D
(That being said, it’s overused. That’s probably its worst aspect. Overuse of anything is a violation against taste and decency.)
*i.e. English gets perverted in ways that we’re not always going to like.
Iknklast, The use of ‘…could care less’ used to really annoy me for the same reason. I’ve developed a theory that, for at least some people, when they say that what they really mean is ‘I don’t care about that and indeed I could care less just to spite you.’ It’s even more passively aggressively antagonistic than the alternative, if that’s possible.
I still remember the first time somebody apologised to me by saying “My bad” and waited for him to finish the sentence. I still do, just looking at them until the silence becomes uncomfortable, then ask “Your bad what?”.
And never get an answer!
“Bad” is being used as a noun there, Acolyte of Sagan. It’s word play, not ignorance. “Bad” was an adjective; now it’s also a noun. It’s an efficiency! An improvement in English! One syllable instead of lots! And (in case you were wondering) when people say “that’s a big ask”, they are using “ask” as a noun. And when people explain that something works “because science”, they are extending the syntactic repertoire of “because” – these innovations are not necessarily bad. A few decades ago, people were horrified at “host” and “contact” being used as verbs (and as recently as this millennium I‘ve heard disproval of “to Google”). People play with their language. Words change class: nouns become verbs, adjectives become nouns, etc. It’s a standard process in English.
My bad / my fault. Two syllables each. And why don’t they say “my good’ when being right? It’s nonsense.
Now, unless you’re planning on mowing it for me, get off of my lawn!
I love these conversations, being something of a word addict as I am. It’s interesting how words and meaning morph over time. If I recall correctly, the word “mob” (short for mobile vulgus, “excitable crowd”) was once considered to be vulgar and its use a sign of low-breeding. (Random possibly true fact.)
It’s our thin-edge-of-the-wedge strategy. Me and my fellow fifty-something linguistic delinquents are just waiting till “my bad” achieves fully cromulent status in formal writing, and then we’ll be starting the push for “my good”.
Wel,l this post proves you aren’t close-minded.
And there’s speculation that the late NBA star Manute Bol coined “my bad.”
http://boingboing.net/2010/06/21/manute-bols-legacy-d.html
Well I was wrong too. I vaguely remember ranting a little bit about this in the comments here a few years ago.
“Closed-minded” still seems the more satisfying and literal interpretation so I’ll keep using it and be more silent in my hatred of people who use “close-minded”.
I would of picked it up eventually…
We’re all aware that language changes but that doesn’t mean we have to like or endorse every particular change, My spouse – despite being the offspring of a teacher – uses “could of” daily. Daily. Every day. Several times a day. In various inventive ways.
And yet there’s not a court in the land that would fail to convict me of her inevitable murder.
“Could of”. I mean, for fuck’s sake.
In speech the difference between ‘could of’ and ‘could’ve’ is minimal – at least my ear can’t usually tell the difference. The transfer between speech and the written form is just one of the ways in which language changes. As I understand it, this process is the origin of many irregular verbs in English.
Ian, I’ve no idea where you live and how the words are pronounced but I’ve never had a problem telling could of (rhyming with toff) from could’ve(rhyming with shove).
Easiest solution? Coulda, woulda, shoulda – and I hate myself for suggesting that, even as a joke.
Damn and blast. Not ‘toff’, more like ‘Molotov’.
What is this cult that goes around telling people that language changes over time as though every single language user didn’t already know that?
Everyone knows that language changes over time. I doubt there’s a single person alive who pretends otherwise or wants to prevent it. What would be the point?
But some people want to preserve particular bits of language because they happen to be useful and the alternatives we’re sliding toward are shit.
For example, we can change the meaning of the word “literally” to mean more or less the exact opposite. That’s an example of language changing through usage. But we’ve now lost a word, haven’t we? There’s no longer a word that means “literally” because we’ve suddenly decided it means something else now.
So how do we indicate isomorphic relationships now? We can’t. There isn’t a word we can use that doesn’t mean the opposite of what it used to.
Nobody denies that language changes over time and nobody understands why the people who constantly point this out are quite so satisfied with themselves.
Because EVERYONE KNOWS THIS.
And because there’s nothing wrong with people trying to preserve bits of language. All language doesn’t automatically change, after all and patterns are preserved. There’s nothing wrong with people wanting to preserve particular patterns. The effort will work or it won’t but criticising people stemming a tide because there’s a tide is pretty pathetic. That’s what we human people do, isn;t it?
Ben (#4) where I live and talk (west coast of US) calm w/the l pronounced is conventional. Just a warning if you ever bring your ear to Seattle. Folk w/an audible l isn’t.
As long as I’m at it, stop using x as a plural marker. Everyone who does that, stop it. Because I don’t like it. So stop.
Claire, I promise never to use x as a plural marker* if you promise to stop using w/ for ‘with’.
*I never do, but I still promise not to.