The phrase the chattering classes must have been someone's coinage. Who coined it, and when and where?

I've never even heard of this. I'd like to know more . . .it reminds me of a nickname people use for me alot, after a doll that talked that was popular when I was young, "Chatty Cathy".

The March 2002 draft addition to the OED Online contains the phrase chattering classes:

quote:

* chattering classes (occas. also in sing. chattering class) freq. derogatory, members of the educated metropolitan middle class, esp. those in academic, artistic, or media circles, considered as a social group freely given to the articulate, self-assured expression of (esp. liberal) opinions about society, culture, and current events.

1985 C. JAMES Falling towards Eng. ix. 104 For the English *chattering classes, stories about Australians had begun to serve as a mild form of licensed anti-Semitism, a function they retain. 1990 R. CRICHFIELD Among British[i] vii. 457 The old Britain of Eton, Oxbridge, the land, and the Guards, allied with a chattering class of literary intellectuals, so invaluable when it came to running an empire, is deadly when it comes to bringing the country into the 1990s. 1994 [i]Daily Mail 18 July 8/2 A battle between Middle England{em}the sensible heart of the British middle classes{em}and Islington Person, the politically correct voice of the chattering classes. 1996 Nation 19 Feb. 12/2 You could, like the rest of the chattering classes, obsessively speculate on the emergence of Steve Forbes as Bob Dole's leading challenger. 2000 Sunday Times (Johannesburg) 4 June (Mag.) 6/1 For a day or two, the chattering classes were treated to speculation about government intervention.

Oxford Reference Online offers this:
the chattering classes articulate and educated people considered as a social group given to the expression of liberal opinions about society and culture. derogatory
(From The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms in English Language Reference)

quote:

MSN Encarta indicates it had a U.K. origin:
chat·ter·ing clas·ses

plural noun
U.K. articulate opinionated people: educated middle-class people, with an interest in current affairs and culture, who like to make their views known to each other (disapproving)

And I found this in a 1997 article (second sentence, penultimate paragraph):

quote:

Ellis is thus an American, like so many academics and the rest of the elite of the "chattering classes," who really despises the traditional meaning of America and has nothing but contempt for the principles and practice of government established by Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe: Three like-minded and incomparable Presidents whose 24 years in office established a tradition of government only completely eroded by a Century of the kind of constant quest for power that Jefferson understood, all too well, would be the tendency of all government.

It seems to have been coined as a derogatory and dismissive phrase for those with contrary opinions; i.e., liberal opinions. Thus conservatives can dismiss any argument by saying, "oh, he's just one of the chattering classes," without bothering to consider the merits of the argument.

I couldn't resist slipping in penultimate. I fell in love with it when I learned it a few years back, but I've never had occassion to use it. Ultimate (in this sense) refers to the last syllable of a word, penultimate is next to last, and antepenultimate is before the next to last. Actually, I don't know if I used penultimate correctly, since it specifically is used for syllables in a word and I used it for paragraphs in an article. I'll probably never use it again.

Tinman

quote:

I'll probably never use it again.

Enjoy your experience while it's still fresh, blog it, and maybe you can go back and relive it from time to time.

Maybe it'sjust a British thing but penultimate is a word I use commonly enough and it's far from rare in good UK written English

How soon can we expect to see some Double Dactyls using antepenultimate?

Well, I will have to look it up, first...but count on it.

I will always remember visiting Jerry. He invited some friends over, and then he took me aside, alerting me that one of them had a double dactyl name.

quote:

How soon can we expect to see some Double Dactyls using antepenultimate?

Your wish is fulfilled, jerry.

Jiggery-Pokery
Anthony Hollander
Two bards in one
Worked their brains in a storm


Hic, question...is it alright to have 4 syllables in L3 and 6 in L4? Is this a different DD form? I've never seen it before.

CW, regarding your Chatty Cathy comment, you brought back memories! I was surprised at the number of sites, chat rooms, and even forums about Chatty Cathy!

This may help, though WC put the line breaks differently.

Jiggery-Pokery
Anthony Hollander
Two bards in one, worked their
Brains in a storm ...

I suppose one could hunt down the original. It seems that WC's writing has at least some precedent.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
Maybe it's just a British thing but penultimate is a word I use commonly enough and it's far from rare in good UK written English

I'm glad to hear it's still used. I expected it was more common in the U.K., especially among Latin scholars. The book I read it in was "Botanical Latin," by William T. Stearn, who was an eminent botanist with British Museum (Natural History), now the Natural History Museum and former president of the Linnean Society. He died in 2001. I never mastered the book, but I did learn some fine words.

Tinman

My favourite use of the word 'penultimate' was when I was visiting my friend in Cambridge a few years ago. We'd bought - and were busy consuming - a bag of fizzy cola bottles, and I asked him if he wanted the remaining one. He said "No, I've had the penultimate one".

From many people it would sound pretentious, but such usage is natural to him (I, too, have been teased on occasion for 'talking like a novel'). I told him that that was the best use of the word ever, but sadly I've yet to be in a situation where I can emulate it. One day...

"Penultimate" is frequently uttered by teachers of Spanish language with regard to the location of stress in pronunciation.

In every word in Spanish that ends with a vowel (or with "n" or "s") the stress is on the penultimate syllable. ... unless some other syllable bears a written accent.

To describe the location of the stress in words that end with other consonants I've been toying with postpenultimate.

Sort of like "Abu Ben Adhem" -- the son of the father of Adhem.

quote:

I told him that that was the best use of the word ever, but sadly I've yet to be in a situation where I can emulate it. One day...

From Have Some Madeira, m'Dear, the classic Flanders & Swann tale of seduction:

Then there flashed though her mind what her mother had said
With her antepenultimate breath:
"Oh my child, should you look at the wine which is red
Be prepared for a fate worse than death!"

You may emulate at convenience.

quote:

Originally posted by jerry thomas:
To describe the location of the stress in words that end with other consonants I've been toying with postpenultimate.

So the accent would be on the syllable after the last one?

Tinman

quote:

So the accent would be on the syllable after the last one?

That's close, Tinman, but the true location of the accent on the postpenultimate syllable is the syllable that follows the next-to-the-last syllable.

Examples: Reloj (clock), frijol (bean), Usted (you), Mujer (woman). Plurals: relojes, frijoles, ustedes, mujeres. (The emphasized, or stressed, syllable remains the same in singular and plural.)

Yes, of course. Postpenultimate would be the same as ultimate. I was thinking of postultimate, which would be nonsense.

Tinman

quote:

Originally posted by Cat:I, too, have been teased on occasion for 'talking like a novel'

I know exactly what you mean Cat. Many of the kids at school think that I ate a dictionary for breakfast and while I appreciate that I need to use language they can understand I also think that it is important for them to experience a wider range of vocabulary. 'Penultimate' is one of the words I partcularly like using but their favourite is when I say 'Floccinaucinihilipilification'. Obviously it's difficult to use that one naturally but is fun listening to them trying to pronounce it

Oh Doad, this is too funny. I did not know that was a real word. We have a Geico car insurance commercial running here, where kids in a spelling bee are given that word to spell. It is hysterical seeing the expressions on their faces.

Good lord, where did YOU hear that word, Doad? I had to cut and paste it into onelook.com to find out how to pronounce and define it. You must get quite a kick out of that one! Now - use it in a sentence, please!

It's not the easiest word to work into a sentence but you may find this useful:

FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION (29 letters; an estimation of something as worthless) is the longest word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED2 shows a use of this word in a 1741 letter by William Shenstone (1714-1763), a British poet and essayist. It has been used by Sir Walter Scott and Senators Robert Byrd and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. It was used by Senator Jesse Helms in 1999 during the debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty [Randolph V. Cinco]. It also appeared on March 14, 1996, in "Zippy," a comic strip distributed by King Features Syndicate:

Do you think I may be too quick to find fault with things and people, Zippy?
Yeh.
Th' 'floccinaucinihilipilification' process.
Th' what?
Floccinaucinihilipilification!! It means 'the estimation of something as valueless'!
You've been randomly reading th' dictionary, haven't you?
Yes. That and my natural tendency toward antifloccinaucinihilipilification!!
Floccinaucinihilipilification was also used by Press Secretary Mike McCurry in his December 6, 1995, White House Press Briefing in discussing Congressional Budget Office estimates and assumptions: "But if you -- as a practical matter of estimating the economy, the difference is not great. There's a little bit of floccinaucinihilipilification going on here."
The 1992 Guinness Book of World Records calls floccinaucinihilipilification "the longest real word in the Oxford English Dictionary