I was telling Shu about a ridiculous way that my daughter's friend spells his very common name, and Shu said, "How 'precious!' I did not understand his use of the word, as I have always thought of "precious" as meaning "having a high value" or being "held in high esteem." I have considered it to be a rather precious word, not with negative connotations. In fact, Shu had meant that the odd spelling of his name was "affected."

When I looked it up in the OED, Shu is right. In fact, other negative definitions include:

displaying, or using careful and fastidious delicacy or refinement in language, workmanship, etc.; often with an implication of being over-nice or over-refined. Interesting that it can be used to describe the use of language.

. colloq. a. As an intensive of something bad, worthless, or reprobated: Egregious, out-and-out, arrant; in some uses, a mere emotional intensive.

Ironically, Of little worth, worthless, good-for-nothing.

How do you use "precious?"

We sneaks up to the nassty goblinses with it and we wrings their neckss, yess we does.

I've certainly seen, and probably used, that meaning of 'precious' before, although it's not all that common.

quote:

We sneaks up to the nassty goblinses with it and we wrings their neckss, yess we does.

LOL - that's the first thing that came to my own mind, too. Nicely done, aput.

Precious is often used to describe a "cute" mannerism of a child. Such mannerisms quickly disappear with age, and mothers tend to cherish them, thus being precious to them.

I remember when I was first a Children's Librarian, and we were having an indoor beach party in the middle of winter. There was a very young child there whose name was (and probably still is) Precious. I can still hear that mother's voice in my head as the child was being quite disruptive (she was way too young for the program, really) saying "come here, Precious. Sit down, please, Precious" and so on.

To me, it is one of those names that is nice for a child, but won't grow up well.

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"To me, it is one of those names that is nice for a child, but won't grow up well."
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Names and their connotations have always fascinated me, and I agree that "Precious" is not a name that will grow up well. (And I like the way you put that, Cat.) But this brought to mind the name of an 88-year-old lady I know whose first name is "Dearly." I find her name quite charming. The words/names are very closely related, yet I like one and dislike the other, and I'd be hard-pressed to explain why.

A timelly example in the book review at the end of today's Wall Street Journal:

quote:

Keats ... suffered from the principal limitation of [Leigh] Hunt's charm and affection: his persistent triviality of mind. Hunt depressed Keats by writing arch and precious verse that uncomfortably resembled Keats's own.

arch²: ... 2. Mischievous, roguish
precious: ...4. Affectedly dainty or overrefined