When I come across the same interesting (and somewhat exotic) word twice in the space of an hour it is clearly time to write about that word.
Hence, my interest in ‘shibboleth’. I encountered this first this morning in a column by Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian newspaper.
She is an intelligent journalist, always worth reading, and has a large vocabulary, which is why she could write about ‘stultifying shibboleths of progressive thought.’
Then, shortly afterwards, I was cruising through Patrick Barkam’s review of a book about trees (yes, a 400-page book about the ‘genius’ of trees!) which Barkham declares to be ‘an elegantly structured, shibboleth-shaking book.’
By now you’ll be asking, ‘What is a shibboleth?’
And here I confess that before I consulted the big dictionaries, I had the idea in my head that a ‘shibboleth’ was a test—something you had to endorse in order to be accepted as part of a group.
This notion comes from an incident during a battle described in the Bible:
‘The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,” they said, “All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan.” (Judges 12:5-6).
A bit savage I suppose, but they were savage times.
The point is the ‘shibboleth’ was a Hebrew word that some neighbouring nations found hard to pronounce (they couldn’t say the ‘sh’ sound)—so the ability to pronounce it was the test that was applied to see if you were a true Hebrew or not.
In that same way there are a set of ‘shibboleths’ of the Left that you have to endorse to belong (climate panic, transgender activism etc.)
And the Oxford agrees with me.
But other major dictionaries (Cambridge, Collins, Longman) have a different stress.
The Cambridge says ‘shibboleth’ now means ‘an idea that is not now considered as important or correct as it was in the past.’
The Longman agrees: ‘an old idea, custom, or principle that you think is no longer important or suitable for modern times.’
Putting it in a slightly different way, the Collins says that if you call something a ‘shibboleth’ you mean that it is thought important by a group of people but may be old-fashioned or wrong.’
Perhaps all those elements are true. Perhaps a ‘shibboleth’ is a test belief still held by a group even though it is now out-of-date and foolish?
But I’ve now done enough wrestling with this—now it’s your turn!
Tonight, I will join John Stanley on 2GB, 4BC, 2CC and the Nine Radio Network for 'The Word Clinic' -- right after the 10pm news.
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