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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: zetlander on Tuesday 01 September 20 11:08 BST (UK)
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talking about our family history with my niece I explained how my grandmother had a child before she married.
My niece then asked who grandmother had had an 'affair' with. Then niece referred to this child as 'love child.'
Uncle Walter (1880-1959) was homosexual - not a secret - lived with his valet. Today he would be described as 'gay.'
Is it right to use modern terminology when describing things of the past i.e. should we talk about grandmother's 'affair' or about Uncle W being 'gay' because those terms were not around in their time?
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I think you use the terminology that is familiar to the listener, and add what words might have been used at the time you're talking about.
This then may convey the difference between 'love child' and the very judgemental 'bastard" of the time, which brought with it great disgrace, and often great and unfair discrimination.
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I agree. The English language is constantly evolving and words and phrases often become the opposite of their original meaning.
I make a point of deliberately misunderstanding when an American tells me he has "lucked out" - when he means that he is in luck!
Most people in medical professions would consider a natural child to have been conceived without the aid of any external procedures, or medication.
Regards
Chas
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Interesting Kiltpin, I didn’t realise that. I would have assumed that ‘Lucked out’ meant out of luck !
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Interesting Kiltpin, I didn’t realise that. I would have assumed that ‘Lucked out’ meant out of luck !
Yes, so would the rest of the world, except for the bit between Canada and Mexico!
Regards
Chas
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As George Bernard Shaw (allegedly) said "two nations separated by a common language"
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"I make a point of deliberately misunderstanding ...."
Why?
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"I make a point of deliberately misunderstanding ...."
Why?
For my own amusement. I use deliberate misunderstanding in conversation when I note that others are being obliquely racist, or ageist, or sexist, or, or ... It forces them to either realise what they are saying, or defend their attitude.
Regards
Chas
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Maybe it's just me, but I don't see anything offensively racist, ageist, or sexist about the idiom 'to luck out' and I have never heard it used in such a way. Would it be cynical to suspect that your explanation is deliberately disingenuous?
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Maybe it's just me, but I don't see anything offensively racist, ageist, or sexist about the idiom 'to luck out' and I have never heard it used in such a way. Would it be cynical to suspect that your explanation is deliberately disingenuous?
Yes, it would be cynical - I did say, in the first sentence, that it was for my own amusement.
Regards
Chas
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I quite understand. It is, indeed, amusing to expose someone else's prejudice.
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I am sure you are amused.
Regards
Chas
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Without wishing to pass judgement one way or the other, I would merely note that mocking American idiom has been the standard stock-in-trade of British comedy for as long as I can remember.
Take, for instance, one of the earliest "Dad's Army" episodes that I can remember (and I remember seeing it the first time it aired - just) "My British Buddy"
[Corporal Jones tells a great long, convoluted anecdote, and then explains the gist of it for the benefit of anyone who didn't follow it when he told it the first time around]
American colonel: You don't say!
Corporal Jones: I DO say ... I just said it!
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"stock-in-trade of British comedy"
To be sure. It's been going on for centuries. One of my favorites is Samuel Johnson disdainfully dismissing the word 'tomahawk' and using 'tom-axe' instead because, you know, why should the rubes over there feel free to introduce new words or expressions into the language?
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Back in the penal colony of N.S.Wales in the 1820s, the British Governors oversaw grants of land to emancipated settlers and to soldiers who were completing their service and not returning to Britain. There were several variations on the ways to apply, but one was 'Grants Without Purchase' ... Those seeking a Grant Without Purchase had to find an 'UPSET' amount and pay that to the governor's officials. Today's word would be SET-UP. :) Without Purchase ... they were granted the Land without handing over the full purchase price. That scheme was quickly changed because it became oversubscribed.
JM
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talking about our family history with my niece I explained how my grandmother had a child before she married.
My niece then asked who grandmother had had an 'affair' with. Then niece referred to this child as 'love child.'
Uncle Walter (1880-1959) was homosexual - not a secret - lived with his valet. Today he would be described as 'gay.'
Is it right to use modern terminology when describing things of the past i.e. should we talk about grandmother's 'affair' or about Uncle W being 'gay' because those terms were not around in their time?
In your specific example yes, it could and probably would be acceptable to describe him as gay, but there is a caveat.
Gay originally meant carefree and uninhibited which many young single people would be and it was not until the early 20th century it the meaning changed to homosexual.
However it is not as simple as that because in the latter part of the 19th century the term was applied to prostitutes and brothels, which could give entirely the wrong impression of your Uncle Walter.
In a similar way the term bastard was the official or legal designation of a baby born out of wedlock, it was not a derogatory term, there were many other terms that could and indeed were used to show disgust.
Cheers
Guy
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We say "lucked out" in Canada, too. I've never really thought about it until now. :D
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I used to have a colleague of oriental parentage whose first name was Luckin (I shan't mention his second name as he is, to the best of my knowledge, still alive) ... is that the exact opposite of luck out?
(And I remember once asking a girl in my O level music class, whose surname was Newall, "what's the past tense of know-all?" She replied "Knew-all" without thinking ... but she was a lovely unassuming girl, who could NEVER have been a know-all ... )
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I used to have a colleague of oriental parentage whose first name was Luckin (I shan't mention his second name as he is, to the best of my knowledge, still alive) ... is that the exact opposite of luck out?
(And I remember once asking a girl in my O level music class, whose surname was Newall, "what's the past tense of know-all?" She replied "Knew-all" without thinking ... but she was a lovely unassuming girl, who could NEVER have been a know-all ... )
My niece was fortunate to survive a traumatic birth and her parents wanted to call her 'Lucky' but were advised against doing that by some older relatives who said that giving someone the name 'Lucky' would guarantee a life of bad luck!
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We say "lucked out" in Canada, too. I've never really thought about it until now. :D
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I have heard it both ways here...to be lucky or unlucky. We have a British/American/Canadian hybrid English.
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I agree. The English language is constantly evolving and words and phrases often become the opposite of their original meaning.
I make a point of deliberately misunderstanding when an American tells me he has "lucked out" - when he means that he is in luck!
Most people in medical professions would consider a natural child to have been conceived without the aid of any external procedures, or medication.
Regards
Chas
Not sure I agree re medical professionals as most that I know would be able to apply context to their interpretation and be aware that the same phrase could mean different things depending on where it is used.
I will only ask for an explanation if I either feel someone is being bigoted or abusive or I am genuinely unclear what the person has said. If it is a phrase particular to their area of the World but I know what they mean then I won't ask even if it is not a phrase I wouldn't use myself.
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Most people in medical professions would consider a natural child to have been conceived without the aid of any external procedures, or medication.
Not sure I agree re medical professionals as most that I know would be able to apply context to their interpretation and be aware that the same phrase could mean different things depending on where it is used.
I could, of course, be wrong pharma, but isn't natural childbirth considered to be without interventions?
Regards
Chas
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Most people in medical professions would consider a natural child to have been conceived without the aid of any external procedures, or medication.
Not sure I agree re medical professionals as most that I know would be able to apply context to their interpretation and be aware that the same phrase could mean different things depending on where it is used.
I could, of course, be wrong pharma, but isn't natural childbirth considered to be without interventions?
Regards
Chas
Since we're talking semantics "natural child" and "natural childbirth" are two different phrases and we were initially discussing the former. Furthermore natural childbirth is a laypersons term for what you refer to. With regard to childbirth the correct term for childbirth without any interventions would be "spontaneous vaginal delivery". We don't tend to divide childbirth into natural and unnatural.
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The alternative to "natural" isn't invariably "unnatural" ... it can sometimes be "artificial".
We don't, for instance, refer to "unnatural pearls" or "unnatural watercourses".
Mind you, I'm not sure that "artificial childbirth" sounds any better ....
(Actually, of course, the "artificial pearl" isn't a pearl at all, whereas the "artificial watercourse" IS a watercourse ... but then there are cultured pearls, which ARE pearls, just not naturally occurring ones ... so I guess that means that there is more than one alternative to "natural" besides "unnatural" ... )
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Language changes over time, but there are those who decide to use use words to have meanings other than their accepted ones, whether by design or ignorance. This 'sick' has been appropriated to mean a good thing rather than a bad one, presumably intentionally. The internet is full of people who confuse 'of', 'off' and 'have', to the point that the sentences lose their meaning. However, others then go on to treat the 'wrong' versions as correct, and go on to use the same horrendous style.
This has always gone on. The burial register for one of my relatives, who died in 1788, says he was "Casually poisoned".
'When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'