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Why ‘any other’ doesn’t mean ‘any’

Q: I become a little apoplectic (alright, my husband would say very apoplectic) whenever I hear or read “any other” illogically cropped to “any,” as in this passage from Timothy Snyder’s newsletter: “Russia has done more for the cause of nuclear proliferation than any country in the world.” Am I being needlessly pedantic?

A: No, we don’t think you’re being pedantic. That sentence from the Yale historian’s newsletter is dissonant to us too, though it doesn’t give us apoplexy.

The comparison is off-kilter because it contrasts an individual entity (“Russia”) with a group it belongs to (“any country in the world”). The two have to be exclusive for the comparison to make sense: “Russia” vs. “any other country in the world.”

Faulty comparisons like that one aren’t rare. And they don’t cause misunderstandings as long as we know—as we do with that example—what the writer intends. He doesn’t mean to imply that Russia isn’t a country.

However, not all comparisons using “any” instead of “any other” are as easy for a reader to interpret. Some can be ambiguous and leave us wondering. We’ll make up an example:

“She is better qualified than any European candidate.” If we don’t know anything about the person, we might assume she’s not European. But if she is European, this is a misleading comparison that should read, “She is better qualified than any other European candidate.”

What purpose does “other” serve here? It separates the individual from the group, allowing for a legitimate comparison.

Not many usage guides comment on this. An exception is Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (4th ed.). The editor, Jeremy Butterfield, says that comparisons using “any” can be marred by “a fine net of illogicality.”

He uses this example, then corrects it: “a better book than any written by this author (read any others).”

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Why ‘well-heeled’ means well-to-do

Q: I’ve read online that the well-off meaning of “well-heeled” comes from cock-fighting. Could this be true?

A: Yes, the use of “well-heeled” to mean well-to-do is indeed derived from the verb “heel” and adjective “heeled” used in reference to a gamecock fitted with sharp artificial spurs.

These terms can be traced to hela, the Anglo-Saxon noun for “heel,” the body part. The Oxford English Dictionary’s oldest example of the noun is from a Latin-Old English prayer:

“[Tegetalos cum tibis et calcibus / helan sconcum helum” (“[Protect] my ankles with shins and heels”). From Glosses to Lorica of Laidcenn. A “lorica,” from the Latin term for body armor, is a prayer to protect each part of the body from evil.

The verb “heel” (meaning to replace the heel of a shoe, stocking, etc.) appeared in the late 16th century:

“Vnwilling to vndertake the cutting out of a Garment, before I can heele a Hose.” From A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Seruingmen (1598), by “I. M.,” believed to be the English writer Gervase Markham.

In the early 18th century, the verb “heel” took on the sense of “to provide (a fighting cock) with spurs; to arm (a fighting cock),” according to the OED. The dictionary’s earliest example is from a book about cock fighting:

“I would let no man Heel a Cock, unless he has first seen him Sparr, and know his way of Striking” (The Royal Pastime of Cock-Fighting, 1709, by Robert Howlett).

The book has several other examples of “heel” used as a verb as well as a few examples of “heeled” and “heel’d” as adjectives. However, the adjectives apparently refer to gamecocks with naturally sharp or dull spurs, not artificial ones.

In discussing the choice of a fighting cock, for instance, the author recommends “a Cock that is hard, Sharp-Heel’d, and handsome shaped.”

We’ve seen several examples from the 1600s for “heeld” or “heel’d” used similarly. But in the following passage, it’s possible that “heelde” may mean artificially spurred:

“The best cock-maisters are of opinion, that a sharpe heeld cocke, though hee be a little false, is much better then the truest cocke which hath a dull heele, and hitteth seldome.” From “Of the Fighting Cocke,” Chapter 19 in Country Contentments, or The Husbandmans Recreations, by Gervase Markham. (The book first appeared in 1611, but our citation is from the fourth edition, 1631.)

The OED, an etymological dictionary based on historical evidence, defines the artificial sense of “heeled” this way: “of a fighting cock: provided with artificial spurs.” The dictionary’s earliest recorded example is from the 19th century:

“In this inhuman contest, a number of cocks heeled with artificial spurs, are turned down together.” From Clavis Calendaria; or, a Compendious Analysis of the Calendar (1839), by John Brady, an author and Royal Navy victualing clerk.

A couple of decades later, the OED says, “heeled” was used in writing to describe someone “armed with a revolver or other weapon.” The dictionary’s first example, which we’ve expanded, cites Mark Twain’s Letters From Hawaii (1866):

“In Virginia City, in former times, the insulted party, if he were a true man, would lay his hand gently on his six-shooter and say, ‘Are you heeled?’ ”

And a few years later, Oxford says, “heeled” came to mean “provided or equipped with resources, esp. money; well off, wealthy.” The dictionary’s earliest example has “well-heeled,” though “heeled” is in quotes, suggesting the usage is relatively new:

“Mr. L. L. Northrup is … so well ‘heeled’ that he gives his attention entirely to the banking business” (The Neosho Valley Register, Iola, KS, Sept. 21, 1871).

The latest OED citation is from A House Is Not a Home, the 1953 memoir of the madam Polly Adler (ghost-written by Virginia Faulkner): “I made up my mind to go back in the whorehouse business and this time not to quit until I was really heeled.”

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Wet behind the ears

Q: Am I right in assuming that the expression “wet behind the ears” refers to a newborn baby still wet with amniotic fluid?

A: Yes, the expression is believed to be an allusion to a wet newborn, but it first appeared in English in a negative version, “not yet dry behind the ears.”

The ultimate source of the usage, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is the German “(noch) nass hinter den Ohren,” which showed up in the 1640s, and means “(still) wet behind the ears.”

The OED, an etymological dictionary based on historical evidence, describes the usage as “apparently with allusion to the idea that the area behind the ears is the last part of a newborn’s body to become dry after birth.”

A German version using “dry” showed up in the early 1700s as “(noch nicht) trocken hinter den Ohren,” meaning “(not yet) dry behind the ears,” and that’s the version that appeared in English in the early 1800s. The earliest English example in the OED is a translation of the negative German version:

“The French call such inexperienced uneducated boys, green creoles, (des créoles verts), as in German we usually say of such a person, ‘he is not yet dry behind the ears.’ ” (From the Aug. 21, 1802, issue of The Port Folio, a Philadelphia political and literary newspaper.)

The “wet” version of the expression appeared in English in the mid-19th century. The earliest Oxford example is from The Boston Daily Atlas, March 25, 1851:

“Such a louse student, who is still wet behind his ears, thinks because he is received in the castle, he is some great person!”

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Is ‘curt’ terser than ‘terse’?

Q: What are the connotations of “terse” vs. “curt”? Why does the latter seem somehow terser?

A: When used to describe language, “terse” and “curt” can both mean brief, concise, and pithy, but “curt” often has the negative senses of brief to a fault or rudely brief, especially when characterizing speech.

The differing senses of the two adjectives may reflect their Latin origins. “Terse” comes from tersus, Latin for clean, neat or correct, while “curt” comes from curtus, Latin for broken off, mutilated, or shortened.

“Terse” referred literally to something clean, neat, and correct when it first appeared in English at the beginning of the 17th century. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary, which we’ve expanded, describes a street in Rome:

“I protest to thee, I am enamord of this streete now, more then of halfe the streetes of Rome, againe; tis so polite, and terse: Ther’s the front of a Building now. I study Architecture too: if euer I should build, I’de haue a house iust of that Prospectiue.” (From Poetaster; or, The Arraignment, 1602, a satirical comedy by Ben Jonson.)

The OED says that old sense of “terse” is now obsolete, and the current meaning is “freed from verbal redundancy; neatly concise; compact and pithy in style or language.” We’ve expanded the dictionary’s first citation for this sense:

“In eight terse lines has Phædrus told / (So frugal were the Bards of old) / A Tale of Goats; and clos’d with grace / Plan, Moral, all, in that short space.” (From The Goat’s Beard: A Fable, 1777, by the English poet and playwright William Whitehead.)

The adjective “curt,” which appeared in the early 17th century, describes a word, sentence, and so on that’s terse or terse to a fault, according to the OED. The dictionary’s first example refers to the simply terse name of a hostler, someone who cares for horses at an inn:

“Peck! his name is curt, / A monosyllabe, but commands the horse well.” (From Ben Jonson’s 1631 comedy The New Inne: or, The Light Heart.)

The next Oxford citation, which refers to Hebrew passages in the Old Testament, uses “curt” to mean terse to a fault:

“The obscure and curt Ebraisms that follow.” (From Tetrachordon, a 1645 treatise by Milton. Its title comes from τετράχορδον, ancient Greek for “four stringed.” Milton, whose wife left him, cites four biblical passages to justify divorce.)

In the early 19th century, “curt” took on the additional sense of “so brief as to be wanting in courtesy or suavity,” according to the OED. The earliest example cited is from Benjamin Disraeli’s novel The Young Duke (1831):

“ ‘Ah! I know what you are going to say,’ observed the gentleman in a curt, gruffish voice. ‘It is all nonsense.’ ”

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Is ‘lovely’ a girly word?

Q: Sixty-six years ago, my high-school Latin teacher interrupted a lesson to digress about the word “lovely.” He said it’s used only by women in describing another woman. My late wife used it a few times, always to express admiration for a woman. Was my Latin teacher right?

A: Is “lovely” a girly word, one largely avoided by guys? Over the last century many people have said as much, including respected linguists. The two of us have a feeling that this may be true, but intuition isn’t evidence.

The “lovely” we’re talking doesn’t merely mean beautiful. The adjective is also used figuratively to express approval or admiration, as in “a lovely idea,” or “a lovely thing to say,” or “he’s ugly as sin but he’s a lovely old man.” And it’s used sarcastically too, as in “lovely weather we’re having” when there’s a hurricane on the way.

Differences between men’s and women’s speech have long fascinated researchers in the field. But until recently there hasn’t been much hard data analyzing the actual speech of men and women and measuring the frequency with which they use particular adjectives. What evidence there is about “lovely” isn’t definitive.

In the early 1920s, the philologist J. M. Steadman began asking students at Emory University to collect lists of words they avoided using for one reason or another. They were given ten weeks to collect their lists, which Steadman compiled over the years and later analyzed in a series of articles.

Among the taboo words was “lovely,” which appeared on a list of 194 words that the college students—both men and women—considered affected. But more significantly, “lovely” scored high on a list of 44 words regarded by both sexes as effeminate, alongside “charming,” “adorable,” “cute,” “sweet,” “darling,” and “divine.”

As Steadman comments, “The most curious thing about the attitude towards effeminate words is that this classification (which was not suggested to the students) was made independently by both the men and the women, while no student classified any taboo words as masculine.” (From the journal American Speech: “A Study of Verbal Taboos,” April 1935, and “Affected and Effeminate Words,” February 1938.)

The view of “lovely” as an effeminate word gained ground in the 1970s, when the linguist Robin Lakoff included it in a set of adjectives that, when used figuratively to show approval or admiration, seemed “to be largely confined to women’s speech.” (Others in the “women only” column were “adorable,” “charming,” “sweet,” and “divine.”)

Lakoff says the similar figurative use of “great,” “terrific,” “cool,” and “neat” was “neutral as to sex”—that is, found equally in the speech of men and women. (From “Language and Woman’s Place,” a paper published in the journal Language and Society, April 1973; her book of the same title followed in 1975.)

She adds that some categories of men—academics, ministers, “hippies,” and upper-class Englishmen—can get away with using “the words listed in the ‘women’s’ column,” but only among themselves. Her evidence, she notes, was based largely on her own observations.

Lakoff’s findings prompted a flurry of similar work through the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, with some linguists supporting her conclusions and some disputing them.

However, none of the scholarly research done in the 20th century was based on measurable data taken from recorded speech and showing how real men and women actually talk. That kind of evidence has become available only in the last 15 years or so, thanks to digitized collections of transcribed speech.

Yet even these new research tools haven’t settled the question. Some scholars analyze such data and conclude that men and women use adjectives differently; others disagree or say the results are ambiguous or the methodology is faulty.

For instance, two linguists in the “ambiguous” camp published a paper in 2018 challenging the notion of “lovely” as a woman’s word. They found that men used it slightly more than women in the large database they analyzed, which was compiled from speech recorded at the University of Michigan. But though they found a quantitative difference, they didn’t see it as important.

The two linguists, Shala Barczewska and Agata Andreasen, said that the difference in the use of “lovely” was minor, and that neither sex used it much. Their conclusion: “Although the difference is not statistically significant, and limited to one particular genre, it does suggest that Lakoff’s intuitions may have been off and more work should be done into the notion of ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ adjectives.”

(From “Good or Marvelous? Pretty, Cute or Lovely? Male and Female Adjective Use in MICASE,” published in December 2018 in Suvremena Lingvistika, a Croatian journal devoted to language and gender. Barczewska and Andreasen analyzed the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, a database of 1.85 million words recorded in 1997-2002 in college classrooms, lectures, seminars, office hours, meetings, student presentations, and so on.)

In Lakoff’s defense, she did say back in 1973 that male academics were more likely to use “lovely”-type words than men in other occupations. And Barczewska and Andreasen themselves acknowledge that the database they used was limited to “the context of university life.”

A larger database than the Michigan collection, and one not confined to a college setting, is the speech section of the British National Corpus. It’s huge—about 10 million words transcribed from thousands of interviews and conversations in the 1990s in a wide variety of contexts, both public and private.

As the linguist Paul Baker has written, in the spoken BNC database the frequency of “lovely” per million words “is 433.97 for females and 134.35 for males, so we could conclude that females say lovely about three times as much as males—quite a large difference.” (From his book Using Corpora to Analyze Gender, 2014.)

But those numbers are misleading. For the most part, Baker notes, the men in the BNC were recorded at the workplace and the women at home. That would influence the atmosphere, the subjects discussed, and the vocabulary used. As Baker says, “When males and females are compared in similar settings, the amount of difference reduces.”

Closer scrutiny of the BNC data reveals a less stereotypical picture. “The majority of males and females in the corpus did not say lovely,” Baker writes, and “the word is not distributed equally across the speakers.” He notes that one woman, who contributed 1,974 words of speech, used “lovely” 27 times. “In fact, over half of the female utterances of lovely were made by just 36 speakers (or 2.6% of the female speakers in the BNC).”

In short, he says, “This is a relatively rare word for both males and females, with a few atypical females using it a lot.” He concludes that “a focus on just the differences does not reveal the full picture—we also need to take into account the fact that any group of speakers that are compared (including men vs men or women vs women) will produce differences.”

So as of now, scholars are divided as to whether (and how, and why) gender affects language. Work in the field continues, but keep in mind that people’s speech changes with the times—probably faster than speech databases can keep up. The English spoken 25 or 30 years ago, when some of that speech was recorded, isn’t the English spoken today.

Our guess is that as time goes by, differences in the way people use words like “lovely”—if gender differences indeed exist—will get narrower and narrower.

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The poop about a mass noun

Q: I came across your “waste paper” posting online, but it didn’t answer a question that’s been puzzling me. Which is correct, “bodily waste” or “bodily wastes”? I’m referring to the undigested food eliminated by human beings.

A: When “waste” refers to an unusable or unwanted byproduct, such as “bodily waste” or “industrial waste,” it’s usually a mass or uncountable noun, one that doesn’t typically have a plural form (like “air,” “knowledge,” “water,” etc.). However, the plural is sometimes used to make clear that different kinds of waste are intended.

We’ve seen written examples of both “bodily waste” and “bodily wastes,” but the “waste” version is much more common in comparisons done with Googles’s Ngram Viewer, which tracks digitized books, and the News on the Web corpus, a database from online newspapers and magazines.

“Waste” is also a mass noun when it refers to the unnecessary use of resources, as in a “waste” of time, money, electricity, and so on. And “wastes” is a mass noun in plural form when it refers to a large, barren area, such as the “the icy wastes of Antarctica” or “the arid wastes of the Sahara.”

Interestingly, the noun “waste” had that barren sense when it first appeared 800 years ago. As John Ayto explains in his Dictionary of Word Origins, the “etymological notions underlying waste are ‘emptiness’ and ‘desolation.’ ” Ayto says the source of the English word is the classical Latin vastus (empty),  which has also given English “vast” and “devastate.”

When the noun entered Middle English around 1200, it meant an “uninhabited (or sparsely inhabited) and uncultivated country; a wild and desolate region, a desert, wilderness,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The first OED citation is from the Trinity Homilies at the University of Cambridge:

“Ac seðen hie henen wenden, atlai þai lond unwend and bicam waste, and was roted oueral and swo bicam wildernesse” (“But it’s true that after they [the old tillers] left, the land lay idle and untilled and became a waste, and took root all over and so became a wilderness”). The citation is from a homily on the Assumption of Mary that compares the sinful world to a field not tilled.

The OED, an etymological dictionary, notes that an even older, now obsolete adjective had a similar meaning in Old English: “Of a place: uninhabited and uncultivated; wild, desolate, waste.” The Anglo-Saxon term (woeste, woste, wæste, etc.) comes from prehistoric Germanic, but it’s ultimately derived from the same Indo-European root as vastus, the Latin source of “waste.”

The dictionary’s earliest citation for the Anglo-Saxon adjective is from Psalm 69:25 in the Vespasian Psalter, an eighth-century illuminated manuscript written in Latin as well as Old English:

Fiat habitatio eorum deserta, et in tabernaculis eorum non sit qui inhabitet. Sie eardung heara woestu & in geteldum heara ne sie se ineardie” (“Let their dwelling place be desolate [deserta in Latin and woestu in Old English], and let no one dwell in their tents”).

Getting back to the noun “waste,” its sense of a “useless expenditure or consumption, squandering (of money, goods, time, effort, etc.)” appeared in late 13th-century Middle English. The dictionary’s first citation is from The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (1297), an account of early Britain: “Wiþ so gret prute & wast & so richeliche” (“With such great pride and waste and so richly”).

The sense of “waste” as trash, including an unusable or unwanted byproduct, was recorded in the early 15th century. The earliest OED example is from Libeaus Desconus (1430), a Middle English version of a romance about Gingalain, son of King Arthur’s knight Gawain:

“For gore, and fen, and full wast, That was out ykast” (“For all the filth and dung and waste that was cast out”). The Middle English wast here means trash, while both gore and fen could mean either filth or dung.

Interestingly, the OED entry for the noun “waste,” which hasn’t been fully updated since 1923, doesn’t include an example in which the unwanted byproduct sense refers to the undigested food eliminated by the human body.

As far as we can tell from a search of digitized newspapers and books, the excretion sense of “waste” first appeared in the 19th century. Here’s an example that we found in a medical textbook:

“There is a direct sympathy between the stomach and the rest of the body, by means of which the stimulus of hunger becomes unusually urgent where the bodily waste has been great, although a comparatively short time has elapsed since the preceding meal” (from The Physiology of Digestion, 1836, by the Scottish physician Andrew Combe).

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