This quote is attributed to Hemingway:

quote:

I use the oldest words in the English language. People think I'm an ignorant bastard who doesn't know the ten-dollar words. I know the ten-dollar words. There are older and better words which if you arrange them in the proper combination you make it stick. Remember, anybody who pulls his erudition or education on you hasn't any.

I think this is bad advice, for two reasons. First, the assumption that older words are better - why should this be? Secondly, the implication that we should use the oldest word when we have a choice. Let's take the first paragraph of The Sun Also Rises:

quote:

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew in Princeton. There was a certain inner comfort in knowing he could knock down anybody who was snooty to him, although, being very shy and a thoroughly nice boy, he never fought except in the gym.

impressed is old, but it's not as old as stirred or awed.
boxing isn't as old as sparring or fisticuffs.
counteract should be replaced with the older offset or even out.
shyness isn't as old as bashfulness.
inferiority should be lower position.
snooty is a very young word; how about proud or haughty.
gym should be spa, which predates it by about 200 years.

With my edits, Hemingway's prose would be much better, I'm sure you'll agree.

(Of course Hemingway's prose is great the way it is, because he chose the right words, not the oldest words.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

Sure, pick on Ernie when he's not around to rebut you.

"Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all."

Winston Churchill

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
"Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all."

Winston Churchill

Then why couldn't Churchill follow his own advice? This is from The River War:

quote:

The known strength of the Khalifa made it evident that a powerful force would be required for the destruction of his army and the capture of his capital. The use of railway transport to some point on the Nile whence there was a clear waterway was therefore imperative. [...] The route via Abu Hamed was selected by the exclusion of the alternatives. [...] The plan was perfect, and the argument in its favour conclusive. It turned, however, on one point: Was the Desert Railway a possibility? With this question the General was now confronted. He appealed to expert opinion. Eminent railway engineers in England were consulted. They replied with unanimity that, having due regard to the circumstances, and remembering the conditions of war under which the work must be executed, it was impossible to construct such a line.

Here are some words that could have been replaced by older and shorter words:

imperative - very important
exclusion - keeping out
conclusive - final
possibility - likelihood
confronted - challenged
appealed - asked
eminent - renowned
unanimity - agreement
circumstances - situation
executed - carried out
construct - build

Of course Churchill didn't do this, because he was a good writer. My point is that the advice to always use the oldest words is silly.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

My point is that the advice to always use the oldest words is silly.

Sorry to beat on a dead horse, but I am not convinced that put or set is somehow "older" than place or position. Sure you can trace all four words back through to Middle English, and the first two back to Old English, but the forms have changed. For example, Middle English putte is not quite the same thing as Old English pýtan út 'to put out' which appears once in one of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. English place is even more interesting. As a noun, it goes back to Old French (via Norman), although Old English had a word plæce (which is probably not the origin of our place for phonological reasons). Both of them got it from Latin which in turn got it from Greek. The noun was only verbed in the early 17th century.

I think this is Hemingway just giving his own spin (with a hint of the shorter, four-letter, more virile, Saxon four-lettered words) on the choose the shorter word fiat seen in Strunk and White, too. Good writers choose the right word by all kinds of criteria. Trying to reduce it (ad absurdum) with a pithy oldest is utter poppycock.

[Fixed typo.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

I always send birthday cards to the oldest words.

Actually I always thinkn that new or old, short or long the best words to use are the ones your intended audience will understand.

But it is funny when the regulator does not follow his own rules. For example, Hemingway and EB White (on which/that selection). I think that most short, vituperative, usage and style guides are next to, if not within hollering distance of, useless. Save up the money you'd spend needless on these toxic tomes and save up for a good grammar, dictionary, and examples of good writing.

I think the advice to use older words is intended to suggest that writers use the (generally) pithier and shorter words derived from Old English. That way one avoids using the high-falutin' namby-pamby effete words that started to come from the Romance and other languages during the Middle English and later periods.

Nonsense, in my opinion; the great thing about writing English is the large number of synonyms available with slightly different nuances of meaning, enabling you to pitch your writing at the intended audience.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
Sorry to beat on a dead horse, but I am not convinced that put or set is somhow "older" than place or position.

That's another thing: how do you decide whether one word is older than another. I was going by citations in the OED, but that's not the only way. I guess it comes down to what you think a word is.

quote:

IBM ThamesBlue Supercomputer Discover Oldest Words in the English language

The Indo-European languages are most of those originally found across Europe, the Middle-East and the Indian subcontinent. Examples include: Celtic, Roman, Greek, Germanic, Nordic (with the exception of Finnish), Slavic, Armenian, Iranian, Afghan, Gujarati, Hindi, Bengali, Napali and Kashmiri, and of course modern-day derivations such as English and Spanish. Researchers call words that persist relatively untouched across the ages ‘cognates,’ which means that the words have a systematic sound correspondence that proves their common ancestry. For example, cognates meaning “water” exist in English (water), German (wasser), Swedish (vaten) and Gothic (wato) – read them again and you can discern the ‘aht’ sound common to all. The most resilient cognates, the numerals, have not changed significantly in their entire history.

quote:

IBM ThamesBlue Supercomputer Discover Oldest Words in the English language

perambulator, are you referring to this news story? I haven't seen the actual study, but the idea that certain words have remained relatively unchanged for 10,000 years seems incredibly improbable to me.

While I can see words like "I" and "we" not evolving a lot, cultural changes, wars, etc., in 10,000 years would absolutely create some changes, I'd think.

Some personal pronouns in English changed over the course of 1200 years: she and they are not English; ic > i{/i], [i]ðu > thou > you. The list is long. Languages change from one generation of speakers to the next.

I find some of the conclusions hard to believe myself. For example this one:

"..."50% of the words we use today would be unrecognisable to our ancestors living 2,500 years ago..."

I would have thought that the number would be far higher than that. If a Biblical character (only 2000 years ago) were to walk into one of our houses tomorrow, I doubt he or she would recognise more than 10& of the items there - maybe even fewer. And not just the new technology items - carpets and other floor coverings, mechanical clocks, radiators, clear glass windows, printed books - all would be quite unknown to such a visitor, who would often not even understand their purpose. And of course, the names for them and their associated items would be quite unknown as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
I would have thought that the number would be far higher than that. If a Biblical character (only 2000 years ago) were to walk into one of our houses tomorrow, I doubt he or she would recognise more than 10& of the items there - maybe even fewer. And not just the new technology items - carpets and other floor coverings, mechanical clocks, radiators, clear glass windows, printed books - all would be quite unknown to such a visitor, who would often not even understand their purpose. And of course, the names for them and their associated items would be quite unknown as well.

Not necessarily. English had the words clock, window and book long before the invention of electric clocks, glass windows and printed books. Words are reused for new purposes.

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Not necessarily. English had the words clock, window and book long before the invention of electric clocks, glass windows and printed books. Words are reused for new purposes.

Surely. But additionally new words are coined to describe old things and old concepts.

I was simply making the point that change over the centuries is massive - a fact that we can often overlook.