I have never played Wordle, a game invented by a man named Wardle (it's true). The other day on her blog, Rachel complained that the word of the day was one she had never encountered before. When she looked it up, the word turned out to be not even an English word but--gasp!--an Americanism (Rachel lives in the UK). A commenter mentioned that it had begun life as an acronym.
The word was snafu.
I have been familiar with snafu for at least 75 of my 82 years because my Dad served in the United States Navy during World War 2, which is where and when the term originated. The phrase the acronym represented is Situation Normal, All F***ed Up (expletive deleted because this is a family blog). At our house it was modified to Situation Normal, All Fouled Up because we didn't use gutter language.
Many Anglo-Saxon words one hears or sees in print nowadays never appeared in print when I was young nor were they uttered in public, but times have changed. Anything goes now because, as I see it, a great coarsening, a great deterioration has occurred in the last 60 years.**
The Norman Conquest of 1066, when William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, drove many Anglo-Saxon terms into disrepute and disuse as the Normans, who were French, imposed their culture on the inhabitants of Britain. They stayed verboten until fairly recently, and the re-emergence of the old terms has been, to my way of thinking, a great step backward.
I do not begrudge the English the reclamation of their own language, but to many in other parts of the world many words remain vulgar and unacceptable. I may be in a minority of 1, but if I ruled the world many words that just happen to be Anglo-Saxon in origin would be eliminated. Most of the words describe body parts and bodily functions or are derogatory epithets. You will never find any of them on my lips or in this blog. They include:
a-words (2)
b-words (4)
c-words (3)
d-words (1)
f-words (2)
m-words (1)
n-words (1)
p-words (3)
q-words (1)
s-words (2)
t-words (1)
TOTAL: 21
There are probably more.
If you found this post irrelevant, curious, shocking, intolerant, laughable, stupid, hopelessly old-fashioned, or some other combination of words of your own choosing, I don't care.
For the record, you are also entitled to your opinion.
**I am aware that the Supreme Court of the United States in 1959 declared that such books as Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic Of Cancer, and Fanny Hill were not obscene but had redeeming social value. They are entitled to their opinion. It doesn't change mine.
There are of course many polite Anglo Saxon words, and Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry often explores the contract of these and their Norman equivalents.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Tasker. It reveals that you are both a gentleman and a scholar.
DeleteI love that you have your opinion just as I have mine. There are many books and articles I have not read because I am offended. However you are entitled to read as you wish.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Emma. Everyone has leanings, biases, preferences. That's why ice cream comes in so many flavors. To each his own. As one Supreme Court judge said, "I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see it."
DeleteI also thought snafu was unacceptable in wordle because it's not in general use except in the US. It's also slang (or am I wrong on that?)
ReplyDeleteYour list of Anglo Saxon words just makes me curious. Are the ones I think of the ones you mean?
Thank you for commenting, kylie. Snafu is probably slang; it most definitely began life as an acronym just as radar and laser did. The words you are thinking are probably the words I'm thinking of. Thinking is not offensive but blurting things most definitely can be.
DeleteIn my opinion, all of the Anglo Saxon words you refer to have their legitimate place in our language but their use in speech and writing requires sensitive judgement rather than elimination. When all is said and done, they are only words.
ReplyDeleteI have been attempting "wordles" pretty successfully for the past year and I suspect that you would also enjoy the daily challenge because your head is a reservoir of words and you are interested in the nuances of language. Go on, give it a try Bob!
Thanks for your cmment, Neil, and I apologise (your spelling) for the delay in answering. I don't like to see the words in print and I don't like to hear the words spoken. But that's just me. The world has moved on and continues to degenerate in spite of all the technological progress. Maybe because of all the technological progress. j No one knows for sure, but there are many theories.
DeleteI'm an old Scrabble fan and played Words With Friends for a while, but Wordle has never attracted me.