New Oxford Dictionary
 

Menagerie, Not Museum, for Words That Live

I'm often surprised at some lexicographers' and language historians' willingness to declare some usage or word "obsolete." I can recall from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language a declaration that "merry" was pretty much gone except in a set phrase like "Merry Christmas." What the hell? I use some archaisms, but "merry" isn't remotely archaic, nor at all obsolete to anyone who read Tolkien, who wasn't necessarily archaic in his usages either.

I like that the article refers to a menagerie; language (and the English language in particular) is a living thing

I'm sure they define some threshold. Perhaps a certain distribution of occurances.

'Merry' is definitely archaic. I never hear anyone use this unless they intend to sound archaic. The fact that Tolkien's use of 'merry' happened relatively recently doesn't make it any less so.

When I read Tolkien, I definitley got the impression he was writing to make his stories sound like they came from a past era. I've never read any of his scholarly work though. . .

We use "merry" as a euphemism for drunk. Like "emotional".
Can't remember using it any other way, although I can imagine my Grandad's generation still using i

Instead, we could all be gay.

Is this TW's shortest post ever? Just wondering...

Merry has been in current and steady use with me since, oh, age seven. Don't forget compounds like merrymaking, or half witty sallies like "Let's all make merry and feel rosy," with lecherous winks at anyone present named Mary and Rose. I don't see a lot of conscious archaism here.

Yes, that's cause you're living about... five decades ago.

Probably more like your dad than you'd care to mention.

Nah, definitely not in this.
You use words that went out of fashion around a certain time - many decades ago.
He uses words that went out of fashion around a certain age - around eight.

yep, I agree with the Cambridge source quoted. Except for set phrases, "merry" meaning happy, is archaic. Or maybe not even as old as archaic, but certainly passe.

What, like your dad calls people a "doodie head?"



My father called me out of the blue awhile back to let me know that he had just seen an episode of Law & Order where a character used the word "knapsack," and thus the years my brother and I had spent mocking my dad's out-of-date-ness were clearly unjustified.

I asked him how old the character in the show was who used the word. He was about my dad's age. The mocking lives on.

:eek3: Am I to understand somebody, somewhere, believed "knapsack" to be an obsolete term? That would seem a symptom of not being widely read, or something.

A knapsack itself is no longer the cutting-edge state of the backpack art, true, but all it is is an unstructured sackish thing on shoulder straps. We still have unstructured sackish things.

Looks like I have deeper linguistic roots than some I could name.

Either that, or being surprised at that makes one an obsolete linguist.
It isn't really much, but UG, your language is a few decades too late. This may be a good thing, to you, or may not be - it's up to you, but it's inarguable that, compared to the rest of the english-speaking world, your language is a little bit on the antiquated side.

It's the least of your shortcomings, though, all-in-all.

Knowing a term and its being obsolete in common usage are different things. Are you really prepared to declare yourself common, UG? ;)

Yep. We call them "bags."

Not so much inarguable as arguable, for you're willing, under the impression that you know it all (curable only by experience over time) to try arguing it. But I don't see validity in your basic premise. I reach deep when I speak, and that includes deeply into time, and I am not going to tailor my speech to suit persons who strike me as too shallow. They shall come to my level, not I to theirs. Thus they become better (for more knowledgeable usually is) men, and I am not called upon to practice what I can only see as personal deterioration.

Or your message, whatever it may be, potentially gets lost by readers who have no idea what you are saying.

I repay diligent reading; I am not an obscurantist, nor inarticulate. If I make your mind work in new directions, so much the better, no?

Not that thread drift is against the rules, but what is a thread named New Oxford Dictionary doing becoming It's All About Urbane Guerrilla anyway?