Unlike you, I actually own a full set of the Oxford English Dictionary. A dozen massive volumes — each a foot tall and weighing about 8 pounds. A linear yard of navy blue spines — "Oxford blue," aptly enough — if you include the four supplements, stretched out across the upper shelf of the rolltop desk behind me. Spin around in my chair and I can yank one down, and sometimes do.
Why go to the trouble when a few clicks will bring up any meaning without the risk of handling one of these big boys? Really, drop it on your foot, you could break a toe.
My set was published in 1978, making it nearly a half-century out of date. The meaning of "computer" is given as, "One who computes; a calculator, reckoner; spec. a person employed to make calculations in an observatory, in surveying, etc." That's it. A brief, old definition — the way the word is defined in Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary.
Plug "computer def" into a search engine and you get: "an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program." Much more current.
But not in-depth. If you find that explanation, like so much online, thin gruel, navigating a lake a thousand miles wide and an inch deep, you can also subscribe to the OED for $10 a month, $100 a year, then plunge into the etymologies and stay up on the blizzard of changes to a language that is mutable and plastic ("5. Susceptible of being moulded or shaped.") Why be behind the times?
Well, for starters, have you had a close look at the times we're in? In a lunge for publicity, the folks who publish the OED designate a "word of the year." On Monday they announced 2025's term: "rage bait" defined as, "(n.) Online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account."
Rage bait won out, by public vote, over two shortlist contenders: "aura farming," ("The cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a way intended subtly to convey an air of confidence, coolness, or mystique") and "biohack" — ("to attempt to improve or optimize one's physical or mental performance, health, longevity or wellbeing by altering one's diet, exercise routine or lifestyle by using other means, such as drugs, supplements or technological devices.")
I'd never heard of any of them — of course not. I'm marooned on one of the increasingly scattered and windswept islands of professional daily journalism, my signal fire guttering, subsisting on coconut milk and grilled voles, watching the water rise up the beach. Though I'm told that kids in their 20s toss "rage bait" out regularly. Last year's word was certainly on point: "brain rot," which is "low quality, low value content found on social media and the internet" and what lapping that up three hours out of 24 — the average chunk of life blown every day on social media by Gen Z types — does to a person.
To continue reading, click here.
Here's my problem: the OED's "word of the year" the last two years has not been a WORD, but a TERM—a combination of multiple words to create a new definition not covered by any of the words in the term alone. (My definition!) If even the OED can't accurately bestow a lexicon award of its own making, we really are far along on our descent to the dark ages.
ReplyDeleteOED actually addresses that in their announcement:
ReplyDelete"Isn’t rage bait two words?
We’re not rage baiting you by choosing two words—though that would be in keeping with the meaning of the term!
The Oxford Word of the Year can be a singular word or expression, which our lexicographers think of as a single unit of meaning.
Rage bait is a compound of the words rage, meaning a violent outburst of anger, and bait, an attractive morsel of food. Both terms are well-established in English and date back to Middle English times. Although a close parallel to the etymologically related clickbait, rage bait has a more specific focus on evoking anger, discord, and polarization.
The emergence of rage bait as a standalone term highlights both the flexibility of the English language, where two established words can be combined to give a more specific meaning in a particular context (in this case, online) and come together to create a term that resonates with the world we live in today."
Okay! Thank you for clarifying! God knows we need as much clarity as we can get these days.
DeleteFor me, that prompts 2 questions: "Why would OED have 'clickbait' as a single word, with 'rage bait' as a 2-word term? Why is last year's OED winner, 'brain rot' a 2-word term, when even Henry David Thoreau, who evidently coined it in 1854, had it hyphenated?" From the OED's citation of "Walden": "While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?" (And, wow, what an observation by HDT!)
DeleteFWIW, Merriam-Webster online's main search response has "rage-bait" hyphenated, while also offering "ragebait" and "rage bait" as alternatives. Meanwhile the main entry for "brain rot" is as two words, while "brainrot" and "brain-rot" are given as alternative spellings. 🤔
Personally, I think the rule should be that, unless it's one word, it shouldn't be included. I remember back in the '80s, the Black Hawks for some reason became the Blackhawks. I'm not sure why, but I doubt it was to enhance their lexicon appeal.
DeleteI think "ragebait" as one word might look like it should be prounced rag-a-bait.
DeleteSo interesting! Off to see a Shakespeare play this weekend and being a dummy, I know I won't have a clue about what they're talking about.
ReplyDeleteI always struggled reading Shakespeare, but seeing it performed helped me understand it a little more. I hope you enjoy the play!
DeleteJust let the music of the text flow.
DeleteAnd that's part of the problem. Shakespeare needs to be heard, not read. The magic is in the sound.
Reading the synopsis ahead of time might help. Otherwise, it just takes study. I remember, I directed Act 5 of "Hamlet" in high school, and we had to go over the whole script, and explain everything. "He dost comply with his mother's dug before he suck'd" meant he tipped his hat to his mother's breast before nursing. That type of thing.
DeleteEvery morning I open up my garage and drive towards the arterial Street and there is garbage overflowing out of the city cans everyday even the day after the trash pickup there is trash laying on the ground around the garbage cans.
ReplyDeleteAs you know this is a problem it brings rats though a lot of the garbage cans have holes chewed through them from the rats or the raccoons so getting the trash in the can is not as helpful as it could be if the damaged cans would be replaced.
I have a couple of options here I can contact the city for what that's worth see if they bring any additional cans or cans that aren't damaged I can go up and down the alley like one of my neighbors does and put the trash into the garbage can push down on the top of the full ones so that there's garbage inside the can and not outside. Are they actually joined in and helped him do this because it seems like the only solution
Or I could write and b**** to you everyday or nearly every goddamn day about the trash in the alley that's overflowing the cans not if there's anything you're able to do about it anymore than your readers can overthrow the government or replace it or just get Trump out of office
This is an example of a legitimate circumstance that mirrors what you're doing in your column not to the magnitude unless of course you have rats in your house because of the behavior of others in your house that you're trapping under your bed that your dog is chasing yes I've had this
You might see this is rage bait but it's not meant to be it's just meant to be a simple conversation between two adults intelligent people which you don't consider to me to be one because that's how you treat a lot of your readers like they're stupid you told me to f*** off to f*** off who's exhibiting rage here?
Tom
Tom, I've found that the City absolutely will replace bad trash cans and it's quite simple through the 311 system, or app, which I use. There's probably a website option for it too. A Streets & San person explained to me years ago that a chewed hole at bottom of a can is from rats, and chewed at top is from squirrels, and either can be replaced. The request may need to come from the person at the address where the bad cans are but I'm not sure. If so, rather than picking up the trash, you'll have to engage in actual conversation with your neighbors to explain the problem, your concern about rats, how the simple solution works, and offer to help them with that. The City provides a certain number of black trash bins and blue recycling bins per housing unit so be sure there's an adequate number in your alley for everyone. It may take a little time, but more appealing than picking up the trash regularly, so well worth it!
DeleteGood luck.
Monica
DeleteThank you for the advice I'm not sure where you live but in my part of town nothing is that easy talk to the neighbors you say?
Contact the city on the website well we've tried those things and now our housing a feral cat population in hopes of keeping the rodents at Bay
When people own their own homes you can kind of get them to go along with the program but renters are kind of a different story.
Many parts of the city are overwhelmed with rats a very difficult circumstance my point actually is how would you like it if no matter what comment I made I always included the problems we're having with the rats?
Only the stupid ones, Tom. I find it odd that you seem to care a lot about being called stupid. But not so much about, you know, being stupid. Here's a thought: up your game, and you'll be received better. Don't shit yourself so much, and your neighbors will stop complaining of the smell.
DeleteOuch! I was reading about the stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius who wrote external irritations can be managed by how you control yourself with your mind.
DeleteGood advice all the way around I think
You have a very cool home office. I don't know if anyone else whould notice or say as much. Most of us would have our cranky old wives grousing and shouting at us to "get rid of all this junk!" Good that you can keep your junk and have peace and quiet as you steam ahead into old age.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It is comfortable. Believe me, my wife occasionally glides in, looks around, scowls, and says, "Why don't you get rid of all this CRAP so I don't have to go through the ordeal myself when you're DEAD?" Or words to that effect. But it's a big house, and she has her own room filled with her own assembled junk she has no intention of clearing out, so we're even.
DeleteDitto the cool home office...comfortable, professional, surrounded by words in cardboard covers
DeleteThat room looks very nice, Mister S. Kudos for the neatness and the organization. At least, it looks that way to me. Our house is a two-bedroom bungalow. The bedroom we sleep in has walls covered with pictures of trains and streetcars from various cities, mostly Chicago. That's the Trolley Room. My wife is okay with it and encouraged it and has even contributed to the artwork.
DeleteThe other bedroom is the Cub Room. One guess what its walls are covered with. All sorts of Cub memorabilia and framed images. But it was also filled with twenty years of accumulated dreck that was finally disposed of last year, when we had guests for the viewing of the eclipse. The double bed is now actually usable.
My incredibly patient and long-suffering wife has said the same thing many times over...about not wanting to have to deal with all my CRAP when I'm DEAD. But one side of the Cub Room is still stacked high with boxes of junk. And the basement and the garage are still full as well. She married a hoarder and a pack rat. And unless I act soon, she will curse me after I'm gone, as she cleans up the piles of files, tools, and all the useless detritus that I leave behind.
She has tolerated so much from crazy old me. And yet...we are still married. Tomorrow, December 4, will be exactly sixty years since we first met...on a blind date. And our 33rd anniversary as well. It all went by so fast. Too fast.
I guess I'm too OCD. I hate clutter and my poor husband does not get to keep all his crap. He got some revenge when the floor at the CBOT shut down, and he needed an office at home with a shit ton of monitors. So he took over my space and I get the little partner desk. Married 48 years so we worked it out.
DeleteSerious question... do you think the Sun Times would want them back?
ReplyDeleteI think your piece beautifully captures modern society's fleeting fancy with the physical tome. Why write in stone what can be written and rewritten more times than the amount of times an unladen swallow flaps its wings to achieve some unknown airspeed velocity.
Is what is now right? When will we know?
I did pause and consider that after I wrote the last paragraph. Honestly, I can't imagine them doing that. But decided, should the improbable happen, I would enjoy the process —their awkward "Yeah, give that back to us" and my lugging the volumes to Navy Pier. A column in itself. Plus it would free up about 40 inches of shelf space.
DeleteMy fear for you is that the Trump DoJ will try to indict you for felony theft. Not because you're an opponent of this administration of course - in their words "justice,not revenge"
DeleteI just love reading your column. And to show how much, I just bought a subscription!! I feel like such a free-loader enjoying you for free.(My husband actually pays for a paper delivery though) Guilt free and ready to enjoy!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteI would mildly disagree with the latter half of "Facts and reason didn’t get you here; facts and reason won’t lead you back." Ignorance gets people to all kinds of dark places, and certainly many are easily led there, but some of those do respond to facts and reason once those are presented to them. Even some former Trump supporters are starting to recognize the horrible mistake they made. Whether they're too late remains to be seen.
ReplyDeleteSure, it's POSSIBLE. But I don't see it much. I've never heard from a repentant Trump fan. Not once. The duped become invested in the fraud.
DeleteThe ones whose ACA insur. rates just went through the roof may be repentent.
DeleteI am so happy to see that you still have the magnifying glass that came with the set! Ours was anonymously 'borrowed' by a needy attorney who never returned it. I was always in dismay over this flagrant, selfish act that hindered the use of those lovely volumes. In dismantling and moving the law library over the years, these books were kindly taken on by another, more caring lawyer who hopefully is still enjoying and using them in his home office. I was SO Happy to see your pic this morning! Ah, memories of print publications....
ReplyDeleteThis isn't particularly on-point, but does have to do with folks' attitudes toward language. A tiny subset of people who play Wordle visit the "Wordle Review" page at the N.Y. Times website afterward to post how they arrived at that day's solution, perhaps what they think about the word, and whatever else they feel like talking about that day.
ReplyDeleteMost days there are 900 to 1,000 comments, but it seems like the majority are multiple comments from regular commenters, so, maybe 300 or so people are involved in this friendly little online community.
An interesting (YMMV!) feature is that on days when the Wordle answer is a.) uncommon [e.g. LORIS, TRICE], b.) seems like an abbreviation [e.g. ADMIN, CONDO], c.) originally was an acronym [e.g. SNAFU], d.) is pretty informal [e.g. GOFER, PRIMO], or particularly e.) when it seems too "foreign" to the readers [e.g. NINJA, MAMBO, MANGA, VOILA] the number of comments will increase. I believe the record was set with almost 1,600 comments about GOFER, followed by over 1,400 for LORIS and nearly as many for FRITZ.
Wordlers who don't usually comment will be compelled to point out that such-and-such a word should NOT have been a solution, and often that it is NOT a word. Sometimes, they're IRATE! Others will then point out dictionary definitions, some of which go back hundreds of years, indicating that the answers are indeed words. Whether or not they're too uncommon for an "easy" daily word game is a matter of opinion, of course.
As seems to mostly be the case with our genial host's one-off correspondents, the complainers very seldom reply to such responses...
It reminds me of Yelp reviews of restaurants. Diners will note that they've been to a place dozens of times and enjoy it, but the ONLY time they leave a comment is the time the waiter was rude, or inattentive, or whatever. Hard for a place to maintain a good score when 20 pleasant experiences go unremarked upon, but a single disappointing visit gets represented by a one-star review.
There. I hereby submit the most INANE comment of the day. 🙄
Thinking of your eight feet of OED... I have a 1944 Encyclopedia Brittanica that my folks bought approximately when I was born, I think in the vain hope of my becoming a scholar, or at least having to look something up. It's interesting to open to a random place and see what's being talked about. There are a lot of period pieces, of course, including a discussion of 1944 Chicago, but a good deal is still relevant and the plates, both B&W and the rare Color, are great.
ReplyDelete